Letters to Jackie (3 page)

No historian should construct a biography from condolence letters.
As Jacqueline Kennedy herself noted shortly after his death, Kennedy was a complex man who would, she predicted, always elude complete understanding. His strengths and weaknesses as a President and as a person will likely remain a subject of study and debate for many years to come. But part of what draws people to that debate is the faith and hope so many Americans of such diverse backgrounds placed in the man, and the loss they felt with his terrible, untimely death. In truth, the condolence letters to Jacqueline Kennedy are less about her husband than they are about those whose hearts he captured and their dreams for their country. As one young man wrote to his sister after the assassination: “His death is disquieting to me beyond reason, perhaps, but the death of an ideal is profoundly worse…. I am incapable of forgetting his words: ‘We must do this not because our laws require it, but BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT.’”

Despite the painstaking care taken to preserve the letters written to Mrs. Kennedy, no academic historian heretofore has systematically read through the entire collection of condolence mail, making it a central focus of sustained study. (The foreign mail constitutes a vast canvas for another historian.) Yet to read this material is to grasp viscerally the enormous impact of Kennedy’s assassination on many Americans. In this book, readers will find roughly 250 letters, most of them written by “ordinary” Americans, all of them selected because they help illuminate how some thoughtful citizens, who took the time to record their thoughts, responded to President Kennedy’s death. These messages, by their very nature, often begin and end similarly with the writer’s wish to offer his or her regret and sympathy.

But through the prism of everyday citizens, the letters included here recount in a very direct and moving way what President Kennedy and his death meant to writers as diverse as the nation. Coal miners, dairy farmers, suburban Republicans, urban blue-collar Democratic Party loyalists, housewives, inmates, schoolchildren, Catholics and Jews, World War II veterans and concentration camp survivors, whites and blacks with powerful responses to Kennedy’s civil rights’ initiatives, were among the letter writers. Their messages constitute a remarkable record, full of personal anguish and revelation as well as profound meditations on grief, loss, and the human
condition. They likewise reveal political passions, prejudices, and perspectives on the nation and the Presidency that predate the chaos and disillusionment ushered in by the Vietnam era and Watergate.

The way in which the correspondence reflects the nation’s racial history is alone noteworthy. The early 1960s still belonged to the age of segregation, and there are many letters from African Americans as well as white Southerners that reveal the weight of, as well as the struggle to confront, racial inequality. “We loved your husband because he thought negroes was Gods love and made us like white people and did not make us as dogs,” an African American North Carolinian wrote. “I am colored and poor but clean,” another woman reassured Mrs. Kennedy in extending an invitation to the former First Lady to visit her at her home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Most of all, the letters tell the story of Americans united across all their many differences in their shock and abhorrence at an event they could scarcely comprehend. “I am a Florida Dairy Farmer who has been a lifelong Republican. I am Protestant and have been anti-Kennedy since 1960,” one man wrote. “However, I feel a desperate urge to extend my deepest sympathy to your children and to you. As an American I am deeply ashamed at the manner in which the President met his end.” Many believed they had lived through an event that would alter history’s trajectory. Noting that “in two seconds history’s course was changed,” a young man observed: “The irrationality of life will never be more clearly set down for us. I grieve for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

My own personal recollection of the Kennedy assassination echoes these sentiments. In the fall of 1963, when I was eleven years old, President Kennedy came to my hometown to dedicate the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College. As every local schoolchild knew, Frost had once lived in Amherst, and it was easy to imagine that he had our small town in mind when he wrote about the New England landscape. One such poem was “The Gift Outright,” which Frost had read at President Kennedy’s inauguration. “This land was ours before we were the land’s,” the eighty-six-year-
old Frost recited from memory on that bitterly cold January morning that began the administration of the forty-three-year-old President.

John F. Kennedy at Amherst College, October 26, 1963
John F. Kennedy at Amherst College, photograph by Dick Fish, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, by permission of the Trustees of Amherst College and Dick Fish.

Frost died in January of 1963, and Kennedy’s visit to the groundbreaking ceremony was meant to honor the poet and repay a favor. I vividly recall waking up with a jolt of anticipation on that sunny October day. As I walked the short distance from our home to the college with my best friend, the smell of wood smoke hung in the air. Before long we heard the President’s helicopter whirring overhead. After it made a slow landing on Memorial Field, a motorcade formed, and a pale yellow Lincoln Continental took the President along streets that wound back to the center of the Amherst campus. Kennedy delivered a formal speech inside the “cage,” the
college’s outsize athletic building with its dirt floor and hanging nets, but that event required tickets and was reserved for Amherst alumni, dignitaries, and adults—a group I had not a prayer of joining.

Following the formal ceremonies in the cage, Kennedy was to deliver brief remarks outdoors to the large crowd of town residents who thronged the Amherst campus. The college had planned for a turnout of 5,000 but over 10,000 citizens swarmed the grassy hillside. We pushed our way as close to the front as we could, and then saw a shock of his chestnut hair, heard his distinctive voice, and glimpsed the American President.

Less than one month later, Kennedy was dead. Our sixth-grade class was being given a tour of the school library on November 22 when I heard some staff members saying that there had been a shooting in Dallas and that the President had been wounded. Just that morning my parents had discussed over the newspapers the climate of right-wing extremism that was expected to greet Kennedy during his visit to Texas. I didn’t understand the issues, of course, but grasped enough that when I heard the President had been shot, I instantly believed it. I came home after an early dismissal to find my parents staring at the television set as they would until late Monday evening.

My father, especially, was deeply distraught. Born, like Kennedy, in 1917, an Irish Catholic native of Massachusetts, and a naval officer during the Second World War who had served in both the European and Pacific theaters, he much admired Kennedy. On November 22, he told my mother that he felt as if he had lost his own brother. Certainly, the expression of gravity, worry, even devastation on my father’s face was one I had never before seen. I understood that something of tremendous moment had occurred. And with this rapid convergence of events—the Presidential visit, the assassination, and my father’s evident distress—came for me an acute understanding of how quickly a lived present could recede into the past. These events, without question, shaped my decision to become a historian.

What follows, then, provides an illuminating snapshot of the United States as it existed in 1963 and a rare opportunity to discern how some Ameri
cans made sense of a cataclysmic historical event that lingers in our national memory. The political conflict and social ferment that many writers address mirrors persistent tensions in contemporary American society. There was, to be sure, nothing ordinary about the events that inspired Americans to take stock of their own life experience, the fate of their country, and the tragic death of their “beloved President” in November of 1963. “The coffin was very small,” as one sixteen-year-old girl observed, “to contain so much of so many Americans.” In reflecting on their sense of loss, their fears, and their striving, the authors of these letters wrote an American elegy as poignant and compelling as their shattered and cherished dreams.

N
OVEMBER
22, 1963

John F. Kennedy greeting crowds outside his hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, on the morning of November 22, 1963
Fort Worth Rally, November 22, 1963, photograph by Cecil Stoughton, John. F. Kennedy Library.

N
ovember 22, 1963, began as any other day in the life of most Americans. Adults went off to work, children to school, the majority inattentive to or completely unaware of the Presidential trip to Dallas. Weddings were being planned, birthday cakes baked, laundry sorted, the weekend and upcoming Thanksgiving holiday anticipated. In hospitals around the country, babies were born, the sick and dying attended to. For some Texans, of course, the day had a different aspect, with thousands planning to catch a glimpse of the President. The Kennedys’ visit to Texas was designed to launch the ’64 Presidential campaign and smooth over divisions among warring conservative and liberal factions in the state Democratic Party. Kennedy barely carried Texas in the 1960 election, despite Lyndon Johnson’s presence on the ticket. He believed his civil rights stance as President might further erode the already wavering loyalties of conservative Southern Democrats. The prospect of a contest with Republican Barry Goldwater made it seem even more essential to shore up declining support in Texas.

The trip began auspiciously. Warm and friendly crowds met the Kennedys upon their arrival on November 21 in San Antonio and later that day in Houston. They stopped to shake hands with crowds at each city’s airport, rode in open motorcades through streets lined with well-wishers, and made their way through a busy schedule of events. At every point along the way, eager individuals sought to detain them for a moment. A woman who waited four hours in the lobby of the Rice Hotel later wrote
to Mrs. Kennedy, “when you came in President Kennedy shook hands with me.” “I’m Mrs. McCockey,” she recalled saying. “He looked at me and formed my name with his lips & bowed to me…Then I shook hands with you, you probably don’t remember but I said Mrs. Kennedy I’m Mrs. McCockey, and you said, how are you Mrs. McCockey.” Although the Kennedys arrived at Fort Worth late Thursday night, even then crowds gathered at the airport, along the motorcade route, and at the Hotel Texas where they stayed overnight.

Friday’s schedule included a breakfast hosted by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce before the short plane ride to Dallas. President Kennedy emerged from his hotel at 8:45 a.m., excited and energized by the thousands who had gathered outside in a parking lot. He apologized for Mrs. Kennedy’s absence, noting that she was “organizing herself. It takes her a little longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it.” After offering brief remarks, he waded into the crowd to shake hands and then returned to the Hotel Texas, where he spoke at the breakfast. Some 2,000 people jammed the ballroom and listened as Kennedy extolled Fort Worth’s contribution to maintaining national security through its role in military defense construction. Attendees were rewarded with the appearance of Jacqueline Kennedy, beautifully dressed in a pink wool suit and matching pillbox hat. And then they were off for the short plane ride to Love Field in Dallas.

The Dallas leg of Kennedy’s trip inspired some anxiety among the President’s advisers. Less than a month before, right-wing demonstrators in Dallas had roughed up Adlai Stevenson, disrupting his speech celebrating United Nations Day with boos and jeers and subjecting the UN ambassador to physical violence (as Stevenson left the Memorial Auditorium, two men spat in his face and a woman smacked his head with a picket sign). Leaflets circulating in Dallas the day before Kennedy’s visit depicted him as a criminal wanted for treason. Disseminating familiar criticism leveled by the John Birch Society, the handbill accused Kennedy of “turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations,” offering “support and encouragement to the Commu
nist inspired racial riots” and “consistently” appointing “Anti-Christians to Federal office: Upholds the Supreme Court in its Anti-Christian rulings.” It included an old smear alleging Kennedy had a previous marriage and divorce and was lying to the public about it.

On Friday a full-page, black-bordered ad in the
Dallas Morning News
echoed the condemnation. Under a bold face headline reading welcome to dallas the broadside accused the President of ignoring the Constitution and promoting aid and comfort to the nation’s Communist enemies. After being shown the ad on the morning of November 22, Kennedy turned to his wife and commented, “We’re heading into nut country today.” He went on to reflect, “last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a President…. There was the rain, and the night, and we were all getting jostled. Suppose a man had a pistol in a briefcase.” He demonstrated how easy it would have been for an assassin to have fired, “dropped the gun and the briefcase and melted away in the crowd.”

Such worries seemed to evaporate as quickly as Fort Worth’s early morning clouds and rainy mist. The flight to Dallas from Fort Worth’s Carswell Air Force Base lasted just thirteen minutes. By the time the Presidential party arrived at Love Field, brilliant sunshine and temperatures rising into the 80s promised a spectacular day. A Dallas elementary schoolteacher recalled looking up at the sky with her students for the President’s plane. “I told the children how wonderful it was that the clouds had lifted, the
sun had come out, and you and your husband would have a lovely day after all,” she later wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy. “We all thrilled at being so near you—eleven miles—but I felt nearer, for we saw your plane circle in a wide swing before it landed.”

Shortly after Air Force One touched down at 11:38 (CST) in Dallas, the Kennedys, who were accompanied by Vice President Johnson and Lady Bird, as well as by Governor John Connally and his wife, disembarked and greeted various local officials selected as a reception committee. Mrs. Kennedy later recollected that she had been given yellow roses at every other stop in Texas, but in Dallas she received a huge bouquet of long stemmed red roses. A few hostile placards were visible at the airport, including one that read
YANKEE GO HOME AND TAKE YOUR EQUALS WITH YOU
, and another with the blunt, if misspelled message, your
A TRAITER
. But the overall celebratory mood seemed infectious. A high school student observed that “even though Dallas was mainly a Republican city,” the crowds at Love Field were “happy and excited.” Within minutes of their arrival, the President and Mrs. Kennedy made their way to the fence line, moving along shaking hands with boisterous and enthusiastic spectators—momentary encounters that would soon be engraved forever in the memories of those they met.

The motorcade left Love Field just before noon. Vantage points for seeing the President were not hard to determine; several Dallas newspapers outlined the motorcade’s route prior to the President’s visit, and on November 22 the
Dallas Morning News
noted that the motorcade would move slowly so that crowds could “get a good view of President Kennedy and his wife.” At the first turn out of the airport, a small group of office workers caught sight of the President. “Just as your car turned from the Love Field entrance onto Mockingbird Lane,” one man remembered in a subsequent note to the former First Lady, “Mr. Kennedy was trying to wave to everyone. One girl in our group yelled out ‘Welcome to Dallas, Mr. President,’ and the President heard her and waved at her. I remarked on the way back to work over and over again that he, Mr. Kennedy, looked beautiful. I know a man isn’t usually referred to in this way but this word best described him that day.” To this observer, Mrs. Kennedy seemed distant. “You looked as lovely
as I had imagined you would,” he noted, “but just as you passed by us you seemed to be deep in thought and I felt sorry for you as you seemed to be a little weary. I imagined you were tired from the trip.”

The motorcade in Dallas, November 22, 1963
Photograph of motorcade, November 22, 1963, courtesy of the Boston Herald, John F. Kennedy Library.

The motorcade route from Love Field to the Trade Mart, the site of a lunch where the President would give a formal address, covered about ten miles. Once beyond the immediate environs of Love Field, the crowd thinned out for a few miles. Still, when Jacqueline Kennedy put on her sunglasses, the President asked her to take them off, noting that the public would want to see her face. At the President’s request, the limousine stopped twice—once in response to a gaggle of schoolchildren holding a sign that said
MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE STOP AND SHAKE OUR HANDS
, then to greet some Catholic nuns.

As the motorcade approached downtown Dallas, the crowds swelled, excitement built, and cheers rang out in places where spectators stood as many as twelve deep on the sidewalks. Flags fluttered, office workers leaned out of windows in tall buildings, and some intrepid people stood on the awnings and roofs to get a better look. Dallas policemen struggled in places to hold back the surging crowd. As he waved, the President murmured,
“Thank you, thank you” again and again. Traveling at a speed estimated between seven and eleven miles per hour, the President’s car allowed some spectators memorable impressions of the Kennedys. One Catholic nun reported to her parents, “We were so close to them that if I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched the car.” “He looked so darling and he had a real wide smile and his eyes were real bright,” she remembered. Mrs. Kennedy offered a “big smile and her graceful wave” and then the President himself “caught sight of us and turned toward us and waved and said ‘Oh the Sisters.’ Then it was over all too soon.” Down the twelve blocks of Main Street the latter sentiment arose again and again. The Kennedys were there for a moment—smiling, vibrant, alive—and “then they were gone.”

The rapidity with which events next unfolded remains one of the more stunning facets of the Kennedy assassination. The motorcade came under fire at 12:30 p.m., just after it had zigzagged from Main Street to Houston and then around the corner to Elm where the Texas Book Depository stood. The crowds thinned past the Depository. Jacqueline Kennedy waved and looked to her left, avoiding having to gaze directly into the sun. As the heat of the day beat down, she anticipated the relief that would come when they reached the cool underpass ahead. Many bystanders heard the crack of the rifle as the first shot rang out. Another followed in rapid succession. Mrs. Kennedy at first imagined the sound was a motorcycle backfiring until Governor Connally, sitting in the jumpseat ahead, cried out. She saw Connally grimacing and hitting his fist against his chest, and then turned toward her husband. He had a “quizzical” expression on his face, she recalled, as he raised his hand as if to smooth back a lock of his hair. She leaned toward him, now only six inches away, when another crack of the rifle pierced the air. The third shot delivered a lethal wound to the President’s head, showering Mrs. Kennedy, a motorcyclist nearby, and the limousine with gore. Kennedy slumped toward his wife, the backseat now “full of blood and red roses,” she would later recall. Two blossoms, lodged inside the President’s shirt, would be given back to her later that night when his body was returned to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington.