Where Were You?: America Remembers the JFK Assassination (24 page)

Kathy Fay and Paul Fay III

Kathy Fay and Paul Fay III are the children of Paul “Red” Fay Jr., one of President Kennedy’s longest and closest friends, who served as undersecretary and secretary of the Navy during his administration. As a family, they spent many joyful days with the Kennedys in a variety of settings, and JFK served as their sister Sally’s godfather. Teenagers at the time of the president’s death, their father, who died in 2009, told them that he knew as early as 1943 that his friend would become president one day.

P
AUL FAY: My father met JFK when they were in training for PT boats in Rhode Island. They went out and played a touch football game, and out walked this skinny kid, as my father referred to him, who had a sweatshirt that was inside out with an “H” on the inside—not showing obviously. All he remembered of the skinny kid who happened to be John Kennedy was that he was all elbows and was running into him the whole time. He was a very difficult guy to cover. That was the first encounter. The second encounter was in the Solomon Islands. My father wanted to change from one PT boat to another when they were doing maneuvers—practice, if you will. He decided to use the flag sign language they had in the Navy, but the message he gave to Kennedy’s boat made no sense.

KATHY FAY: I first met President Kennedy in 1959, before my twelfth birthday, at our house in San Francisco. He came in with my father. I don’t know the reason, but we were in the living room, and Dad said go sit next to the future possible president of the United States.

President Kennedy autographing photos for Kathy and Paul III

PAUL: Kathy and I were kids at the time we knew President Kennedy, in our teens. He had a special quality about him. There was
something about President Kennedy that when he was talking to you, there was no one else in the world he was paying attention to. He was focused on you. He was interested in what you had to say in a way that was very personal, and I have yet to meet someone else who had that same quality to that extent. Jackie was a very special lady. She was very good to me, and what people don’t realize is what a great sense of humor Jackie Kennedy had. Jackie was a very bright woman, very well read, with a great sense of humor. All I know is that we knew him and the way he treated us, the way we saw him operate with other people and the warmth and the kindness he showed. I never, ever sensed a brute in that man. He was never that way. He was always considerate, always thoughtful.

KATHY: We saw intimate moments with him and Jackie. I mean, I saw them with their chaise lounges pushed together, holding hands by the pool, and I just felt a warmth.

PAUL: It was also a different time, and the press then was made up of all males. There were very few females in the press corps at that time. There was a club that certain things weren’t spoken about. I don’t think it just happened in the White House. I think all over Washington, DC, from senators to congressmen—this was part of the reason you got into office. But the man we knew, he was a remarkable, wonderful man.

KATHY: I was in Seattle with Mom and Dad and my little sister, Sally, who is President Kennedy’s goddaughter. Dad was giving a speech to the midshipmen, and while he was giving the speech his aide suggested
that we should go shopping. We went to this big department store, and my mother wanted to look at the antiques. I said, “I’ll take Sally up to the toy department,” because I wasn’t interested in antiques. “I’ll meet you back here, Mom.” On the escalator up to the toy level, I saw one floor where all the televisions were sold. Everybody was gathered around the TV. I thought,
I want to know what’s going on over there,
so I said, “Sally, just come with me.” People were gathering and gathering; I squeezed into the middle and looked up at the TV, and it said something like “the president has been shot.”

It was such a foreign thing that I thought,
the president of Seattle or the president of a bank?
But I was thinking,
Why is it getting so much attention?
Then I listened some more, and they said it was the president of the United States. I thought,
Oh, he’s been nicked
.
That’s kind of news.
So I said, “Come on, Sally. We have to go find Mom.” I went racing down to the antiques department and found my mother, and I said, “Mom, you’re not going to believe this, but the president was shot,” and she went, “What?”

I tell her, “Mom, he’s just nicked,” and this woman comes over and says, “No, my dear, it’s serious; it’s very serious.” My mother just came sort of unglued, dropped to her knees, and started to say a prayer, and this other woman dropped to her knees. I’m going, “Mom, I just don’t believe this.” I mean, it was just—everybody was really upset, and I was holding on to Sally.

I was still not focusing. This is just not happening. This is too weird. So we get back into the car to go back to where we were going to meet Dad, and on the radio it says, “The president, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, has died.” My little sister looks up and says to me, “Kathy, does that mean I don’t have a godfather anymore?” I didn’t even want to acknowledge that.

My mother was crying, and I still was just not believing this. We get back to the headquarters, waiting around for Dad to walk in, and my father, who’s so expressive and always had an expression in his face—anger or humor, warmth, love, or something—when he walked through the door and I took one look at him, it was like there was nothing there. He had lost his soul. That’s when I knew the president had gone, and it was horrible, just devastating to us.

PAUL: I was in boarding school in New Hampshire, and that was the weekend we bought our skis, ski hats, et cetera. They were in the auditorium selling us these different items, and somebody ran in and said, “The president’s been shot.” We went into the one TV room, and that’s when I heard about it. It was devastating.

KATHY: We attended the funeral. We also attended the very private funeral, where we all stood in line to greet Jackie. I was there with Mom and Dad. This was just private, where dignitaries and personal family friends got the opportunity to say a few words to Jackie. We were standing in line, and I could see the tears running down my father’s face. But he said to me, “Kathy, whatever you do when you see Jackie, do not cry.” That just increased the odds for the flow of tears. It was so upsetting. When I had my moment with Jackie, I just lost it. I hugged her and said, “I am so sorry,” and she hugged me for maybe ten seconds, which is a long time. She whimpered and just held me. It was an incredible moment. It was like she was allowed just to release with someone. I was crying, and she was whimpering, and it was just an incredible moment, really close, that I felt very privileged to have experienced.

Not long after I wrote her a letter.

Dear Jackie,

I will never forget when I first met the president. I was sitting on his lap in San Francisco, and he was telling me about when he would become president. He invited me over to the White House. Even at that early date, I knew it would come true. It certainly came true, but it all went too quickly. I still to this day don’t wholly believe what happened. The president to me has always been my dream man. Every time I saw him, I thought my heart would never calm down. When
Daddy told me to kiss him goodnight at Camp David, I shied away with embarrassment. Now I wish I could have kissed and hugged him a million times. I loved the president very much and always will, but I know I could never love him as much as you do. I hope that if a crisis ever hit our house I could carry on as majestically and beautiful as you did. What I have just said is not nearly as much as I feel. I only know that you and the president will always be in my mind, the greatest first lady and president the world has ever known. I will pray for you.

Sincerely yours,

Katherine Fay

PAUL: For me, President Kennedy was somebody who was inclusive as opposed to divisive. What we have today is: Everybody has very strong beliefs. President Kennedy obviously had very strong beliefs, but he was someone who was open to hear everybody. My father would tell me stories where somebody extremely conservative and very Republican would come in and meet with President Kennedy. They would walk away maybe not agreeing with President Kennedy but knowing that they had a fair hearing and that it was an enjoyable experience. To me, that’s his legacy of a time when things weren’t so polarized. For instance, my father campaigned for Dwight Eisenhower. My father, who was one of Kennedy’s best friends, campaigned for Ike! President Kennedy understood it because he understood my father and understood his background. He had an understanding of people. That doesn’t mean he would have changed his beliefs for that, but it shows he was a big man and a great intellect in my opinion. I think that was the legacy he left me: “Try not to be small, but try to be big.”

KATHY: He wasn’t judgmental at all. I think he was open to everyone, and you could feel it when you met him. He just paid attention. He was interested in everyone and felt everyone should have a fair shake at life. He was a great man.

PAUL: I had conversations with my father about the Warren Commission. I said, “Dad, don’t you feel that maybe the Warren Commission was not spot-on correct, because there seems to be all this other evidence of possible outside influences?” My father said of course he had heard of
that and read about it, but he said he thought the Warren Commission was correct. That is the most I ever got out of my father on that subject. My father and the majority of President Kennedy’s best friends—and I would even say Bobby—accepted the Warren Commission and wanted to move on. They didn’t want to dwell on it. That was his attitude, and [it was] the same with most of his and President Kennedy’s other friends, like Chuck Spalding. His son, Dick Spalding, is a good friend of mine. None of them really wanted to focus on possible other conspiracies. They all wanted to close that chapter of the book. It hurt them all so much. They just wanted to close the chapter.

KATHY: The same with me from Dad. He said, “Kathy, if any of this could bring him back, fine, but this Warren Commission—nothing can bring the president back, so I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s done.” It wasn’t his favorite subject at all.

PAUL: My father firmly believed that if President Kennedy had remained president, if he’d lived, we wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam. My father was either on the
Sequoia
or the
Honey Fitz
with the president, and a call came in. It was one of the commanders. The president said, “Red, I want you to come with me to listen to this.” We had sent some troops over there as advisors to Vietnam, and one of the commanders wanted to have the advisors get engaged in a firefight on the ground in Vietnam at that time. President Kennedy told the general for every man that he heard was engaged in that fight he would bring two soldiers back. He did not want us to get engaged in a ground war in Vietnam, and my father, if he were alive today, would have said categorically that President Kennedy would have done everything he could not to have gone into a war in Vietnam.

Bill Daley

Son of legendary Chicago mayor Richard Daley, Bill Daley was fifteen years old in 1963. He went on to become an attorney, bank executive, secretary of commerce under President Clinton, and White House chief of staff in President Obama’s first administration.

T
here was that Irish Catholic connection between the families. We had different types of politics, different upbringings, but my dad saw in the president an opportunity for America to move forward and for Irish Catholics to get recognized by someone who was the best of the representatives at the time. There were lots of Irish politicians at local levels throughout America, but the idea of someone with John Kennedy’s background having the chance to be president of the United States, along with the personal connection my dad had with him, was an opportunity that my dad saw that was unique. That added to the enthusiasm for the president when he ran.

My father may have had reservations early on, but I know he always talked of the convention in ’56 when then-senator Kennedy made a run for the vice presidency and how close he came, and how excited my dad was to be part of trying to do that. My dad had been around for a while and knew most of the national political players, so I don’t think he ever thought Jack Kennedy took second place to any of the national people, including Adlai Stevenson, who was a strong Illinois person and a very close friend of my dad. But by the time ’60 came around, my dad was of the opinion that Adlai’s time had passed and this truly was a chance to energize the nation and the party and give the Irish Catholics of America something to be proud of forever.

A young Bill Daley (far left) with his father, Chicago mayor Richard Daley, President Kennedy, his mother, and five of his six siblings

My father thought he [Joe Kennedy] was a tough guy. They made a major investment in Chicago years before with the Merchandise Mart.
My dad knew him well. Up until or even after the stroke, he used to come out to Chicago. He came out to Chicago once or twice to get the reports on what was going on with that investment, so my dad stayed in touch with them. He thought he was an extremely bright businessman and used to say that Theodore White’s book
Making of the President, 1960
could’ve been a one-word book, and that word was “father.” He believed JFK’s father was the one who made him the president.

My father and John Kennedy were close. The first time met him I was something like twelve, and all of us were in a room with him. He had a great ability to engage even the young kids like us. He would ask us questions, and everyone was nervous as heck! He asked one of my sisters, “Do you teach in a Catholic school?” and she said, “Yes.” About five seconds later she said, “No, I teach in a Catholic school.” She was fumbling all over herself, and my dad was like, “What’s going on here?”

But he engaged us as young people, and he was always very friendly. I remember once he called during the summer of the convention, before the convention in ’60, and my parents were at a summer house we rented up in Michigan. I picked up the phone, and he said, “Is the mayor there?” I said, “No, he’s not here,” and he said, “This is Jack Kennedy. Would you tell him I called?” I said, “Do you want me to go get him?” He said, “No, just tell him I called.” I jumped on my bike and rode down to where my mom and dad were and told him. Dad came back and called him, and it was all in anticipation of the ’60 convention.

He came to Chicago quite a bit during that election. He came for the first debate, which was in Chicago. He helicoptered, which was new, from Indiana into Meigs Field, which at the time was a small runway right on the lakefront of Chicago. There must’ve been ten or fifteen thousand people out there waiting for him to arrive. Shortly before the helicopter landed, the crowds pushed the fence down, and these people all came running out toward the helicopter. It was kind of like you saw with the Beatles a few years later. It was that sort of hysteria. The police had to put sort of a circle around everyone. Kennedy got in a car and rode down Lakeshore Drive. It was absolute mania going on. Then on the Friday before the election, he came for what used to be called a torchlight parade, which ran from State and Madison downtown out to the old Chicago Stadium on Madison Avenue. There were a million people between State and Madison—and that’s probably only two or three miles long at most.

It was unbelievable to see. He was obviously a very good looking guy. It was a whole new generation. He represented it more than anyone. He was a war hero. He had it all going on. This was as good a political operation in the beginning of the new media world that had ever been seen. But you started with somebody who, again, was incredibly good looking, articulate. He had a certain style about him that maybe Cary Grant had; there weren’t many politicians out there who had that sort of style. Most were short, heavyset sort of politicians or Southern senators who walked around with Panama hats on, smoking cigars. Kennedy just had a whole different way that was very representative of that new generation, and it was amazing to see the hysteria in people.

The Kennedys went to the best schools in America. It was their wealth and the style, and the lifestyle that gave them was something no one had seen publicly, especially in the political world. He had his own airplane. There were lots of people who honored that and weren’t so cynical about it as we would be today. They wanted to have it, but there were also people in our neighborhood when we grew up who were proud that somebody had that who was Irish Catholic, knowing that most didn’t get that chance. It wasn’t held against them—it was celebrated; it was great that one of us was able to do that and get there.

There’s a famous picture we have of Kennedy in an open car coming down Madison; it’s bedlam. Everyone in the picture has a stressful look on their face, from the press to his sisters in the car to my dad. There’s great anxiety. Kennedy’s got the biggest smile on his face, enjoying himself. It’s a great picture, and it kind of summarized how much he enjoyed that. It was a great rally. I remember sitting there, listening to his speech; we were all out there, our whole family, and it was four days later that he was elected.

I remember election night. It was a long night: My dad came home around four or five o’clock in the morning, showered, changed clothes, and then went back downtown. It probably wasn’t until about ten in the morning, I think, before they actually called it. The untold story is that when there were allegations about vote fraud—and this is fifty years ago—my father offered to pay for half of a statewide recount if the Republican Party would pay for the other half. They refused.

We were the first family on the day after the inauguration that Kennedy had breakfast with. Truman, and then us. You know that picture we have in our house? We were the first guests, and he took us for a tour. We all went to the inauguration, six of the seven of us. My brother Rich was a freshman and at a Catholic college, and they wouldn’t
let him out because he had a final exam, so the six of us went. It was great excitement, and my brother John and I—and I was twelve or thirteen—we had white ties and tails and top hats we had rented. Top hats! It was crazy. That evening after the Inaugural Ball, we were going back to the hotel. My dad said, “How’d you like to go to the White House tomorrow?” and I said, “Great.” He said, “We’re all going over early.” So about 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, we’re there. I think the president had had breakfast with Harry Truman, and then Truman and the president came walking in from the residence, and we were all sitting in the Cabinet Room. My dad was close to Harry Truman also over the years, so we all said hello. Then Truman left, President Kennedy took us into the Oval Office, and we had pictures taken. He wrote a note to each of us, a handwritten note. When he came to me, he asked, “What’s your name?” and I said, “Bill.” My dad said, “
William
,” so the note is to William.

Then he said, “Come on; I just moved in here yesterday. Let’s go for a tour.” So Kennedy took us for a tour of the White House, and he showed us the swimming pool. Then we went into the main building, the residence. We went upstairs, and they were having public tours on the main floor. The staff and the security people started to put curtains up, like bamboo curtains, to separate, and he said, “No, no, no; don’t put those up.” So the tours were going on in one part of the aisle, and we were walking down the other. Then somebody would say, “There’s the Blue Room, there’s the Red Room,” and Kennedy said, “We can’t go upstairs” because Mrs. Kennedy was upstairs resting; as you know, she had just had a baby shortly before the inauguration. So Kennedy took us for a tour, and then we went back to the Oval Office to say good-bye to him. My brother Rich came down to Washington with my dad six months later. Kennedy said to him, “You weren’t here for the inauguration,” and Rich said, “No.” Kennedy said, “Come on, I’ll give you the tour I gave them.” So he took Rich for a tour of the place. It was great. We have a terrific picture of the six of us, my mom and dad, and the president on January 21 in the Oval Office.

When I left the White House under President Obama, he gave me a picture of my dad in the Oval Office with Kennedy and a picture of him and me in the Oval Office with a handwritten note to me, which was very kind.

My father thought Kennedy was doing great all the time. He was extremely proud, and he was supporting him from morning till night on whatever he wanted to do. He believed Kennedy was getting the country moving. He was focusing on urban America; he was going to try to get things done. He obviously had a very difficult Congress at the time, with Southern Democrats and Republicans, different than today.

I’m sure they talked about civil rights. I’m not sure which of the tapes relate to that, but the civil rights [movement], the whole change that was going on in America and in urban cities and the migration into the big cities, like Chicago, and the difficulties that were going on, was one of the reasons my dad wanted Kennedy to win. But it was a tumultuous time, even those three brief years, for America: on race and obviously on Vietnam.

We all went out to the airport when the president came to dedicate O’Hare. We did the whole thing with him, and then he did a couple of major Cook County Democratic Party fundraisers. He spoke at at least one or two of those. One time he was riding out to McCormick Place, and a new development had been built, a mixed-race development on the South Side, not far from McCormick Place, called Prairie Shores. My dad was in the car—this is the old days—and they diverted the motorcade because he wanted to show Kennedy the development. They were good friends and had a lot of exchanges. In early November ’63 Kennedy was supposed to come out to the Air Force–Army game at Soldier Field in Chicago. It was the weekend that the assassination of the president of Vietnam took place, so he called that morning to say he couldn’t come out for the game, which was rather disappointing—about three weeks later he was assassinated.