The House of Kennedy Read online

  11 “I can’t see that it’s wrong”: “New Administration: All He Asked…” Time Magazine, February 3, 1961.

  12 “stir things up”: “Operation Mongoose,” American Experience, PBS.org.

  13 “Get rid of the Castro regime”: “Operation Mongoose.”

  14 “I thought I was in love with Jack”: Kitty Kelley, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” People, February 29, 1988.

  15 “message they’ll never forget”: Sam Giancana and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 430.

  16 “I’ve gone to great lengths”: Kelley, “The Dark Side of Camelot.”

  17 “Frank Sinatra is the main problem”: Jeff Leen, “AKA Frank Sinatra,” Washington Post Magazine, March 7, 1999.

  Chapter 17

  1 “Extra! Extra!”: Boston Globe, November 22, 1963, final evening edition.

  2 “He’s the one who made all of this possible”: Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 445.

  3 “We have told him but we don’t think he understands it”: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (New York: Little, Brown, 2003), 697.

  4 “In 1960, Lyndon was a help”: Timothy Noah, “The Day Before JFK Was Assassinated,” MSNBC.com, November 21, 2013.

  5 “My back feels better than it’s felt in years”: Noah, “The Day Before JFK Was Assassinated.”

  6 Providencia Parendes: Jennifer Schuessler, “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Notes for Dallas Are Found, Starting a Quiet Tug of War,” New York Times, July 2, 2018.

  7 “show these Texans”: Cathy Horyn, “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Smart Pink Suit, Preserved in Memory and Kept Out of View,” New York Times, November 14, 2013.

  8 Narrow size 10A: Steven Stolman, “The Under-the-Radar Shoe Designer Jackie Kennedy Adored,” Town & Country, October 4, 2017.

  9 “Make large feet look smaller”: Barbara Leaming, excerpt of Mrs. Kennedy (New York: Free Press, 2001), New York Times, November 24, 2001.

  10 “quarter-inch lift affixed to one heel”: “The Weird Thing Jackie Kennedy Did with Her Shoes,” Harper’s Bazaar, April 28, 2017.

  11 “One of the first things I did”: Janet G. Travell, recorded interview by Theodore C. Sorensen, January 20, 1966, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program, 3.

  12 “overwhelming good taste”: J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (New York: Warner Books, 2000), 24.

  13 “American Queen”: Linnea Crowther, “Oleg Cassini and the Jackie Look,” Legacy.com, 2017.

  14 “Jackie wanted to do Versailles in America”: Sally Bedell Smith, “Private Camelot,” Vanity Fair, May 2004.

  15 “Just send me an account”: Bedell Smith, “Private Camelot.”

  16 Presidential blue metallic: Christopher Wynn, “Would a Bubble-Top Have Saved Kennedy? More Answers from the Strange Story of JFK’s Lincoln Limo,” Dallas News, November 19, 2018 (originally May 5, 2013).

  17 “expensive, fancy limousine”: Wynn, “Would a Bubble-Top Have Saved Kennedy?”

  18 Convertible in the rain: Freya Drohan, “How JFK’s Love for Open-Top Convertible Cars Led to His Assassination,” Irish Central (UK), February 12, 2018.

  19 “don’t want the bubbletop”: Edward Klein, The Kennedy Curse: Why America’s First Family Has Been Haunted by Tragedy for 150 Years (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 161.

  20 “lose your anonymity at thirty-one”: Donald Spoto, Jacqueline Kennedy Bouvier Onassis: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 146.

  21 “last thing I expected”: Bedell Smith, “Private Camelot.”

  22 “no way in God’s Earth”: Thurston Clarke, “A Death in the First Family,” Vanity Fair, July 1, 2013.

  23 Patrick Bouvier Kennedy vital statistics: Steven Levingston, “For John and Jackie Kennedy, the Death of a Son May Have Brought Them Closer,” Washington Post, October 24, 2013.

  24 “He’s a Kennedy—he’ll make it”: Levingston, “For John and Jackie Kennedy.”

  25 “lovable little monkey”: Alvin Spivak, “Doctors Hopeful for New JFK Son,” United Press International, August 7, 1963.

  26 “Nothing must happen to Patrick”: Clarke, “A Death in the First Family.”

  27 “The First Lady never once”: Bedell Smith, “Private Camelot.”

  28 “Overwhelmed with grief”: Bedell Smith.

  29 “genuinely cut to the bone”: Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan, 194.

  30 “distinctly close relationship”: Levingston, “For John and Jackie Kennedy.”

  31 “different than I had seen them before”: Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (New York: Little, Brown, 1997), 439.

  32 “aggrieved sense of responsibility”: Clarke, “A Death in the First Family.”

  33 “very, very, very close to each other”: Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan, 178.

  Chapter 18

  1 “Mrs. Kennedy is organizing”: Monica Hesse, “Four Shattering Days,” Washington Post, November 13, 2015.

  2 American-made: Cathy Horyn, “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Smart Pink Suit Preserved in Memory and Kept out of View,” New York Times, November 15, 2013.

  3 “smashing”: Randi Kaye, “Fifty Years Later, Jackie Kennedy’s Pink Suit Locked Away from View,” CNN, November 21, 2013.

  4 “too foreign, too spendy”: Leah Chernikoff, “Karl Lagerfeld Says Oleg Cassini Knocked Off That Pink ‘Chanel’ Suit Jackie Kennedy Wore The Day JFK Was Assassinated,” Fashionista.com, April 10, 2014.

  5 “Some Texans”: “A Last Thing Signed: John F. Kennedy Autographs a Dallas Newspaper on the Morning of His Murder There,” Shapell Manuscript Foundation, Shapell.org.

  6 Black-and-white Chanel: Bonnie Wertheim, “Jackie Kennedy’s Packing List for Texas, Chic and Poignant,” New York Times, July 3, 2018.

  7 “last hour of serenity”: Philip Nobile, “JFK, Jackie, Joined Mile-High Club Day Before His Death,” New York Post, November 17, 2013.

  8 “super patriot”: Alan Peppard, “Before Gunning for JFK, Oswald Targeted ex-Gen. Edwin A. Walker—and Missed,” Dallas News, November 19, 2018.

  9 “paranoid mental disorders”: Peppard, “Before Gunning for JFK.”

  10 “Imagine that son”: Peppard.

  11 “Walker for President 64”: Peppard.

  12 “intellectual training experience”: Bill Rockwood, “Twenty-Four Years: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” Frontline, November 19, 2013.

  13 “target practice”: Rockwood, “Twenty-Four Years.”

  14 “shot for a Marine”: Rockwood.

  15 “he couldn’t see”: Peppard.

  16 “I shot Walker”: Rockwood.

  17 “Betraying the Constitution”: “Photos: Kennedy Hatred in 1960s Dallas Looks a Lot Like Obama Hatred Today,” The New Republic, November 18, 2013.

  18 Oswald takes off his wedding ring: Robert Wilonsky, “Jack Ruby’s Handwritten Version of What Happened on November 22, 1963, Goes to Auction,” Dallas News, November 2017.

  19 “surprised to see”: Michael S. Rosenwald, “Oswald’s Chilling Final Hours Before Killing Kennedy: Speaking Russian, Playing with His Daughter, Sleeping In,” Washington Post, October 26, 2017.

  20 “My, he’s in a mean mood”: Rosenwald, “Oswald’s Chilling Final Hours.”

  21 “Curtain rods”: “The Assassin,” chapter 4 of the JFK Assassination Records, Warren Commission Report, National Archives.

  Chapter 19

  1 “began so beautifully”: Lady Bird Johnson, transcript of audio diary, National Archives, November 22, 1963, p. 1.

  2 “everything in Texas”: “Howdy, Mr. President!”: A Fort Worth Perspective of JFK, University of Texas Arlington Libraries, Special Collections.

  3 “American Fact-Finding Committee”: Dan Evon, “Did John F. Kennedy Predict His Own Assassination?” Snopes.com, November 25, 2016.

  4 “profound perhaps disturbing”: Donald Spoto, Jacquel
ine Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 75.

  5 “nut country”: Edward Klein, The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America’s First Family for 150 Years (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 175.

  6 Maps and routes: “The Assassin,” chapter 4 of the JFK Assassination Records, Warren Commission Report, National Archives.

  7 “close the elevator”: “The Assassin.”

  8 “happy foursome”: Mimi Swartz, “The Witness,” Texas Monthly, November 2003.

  9 “so perfect”: Swartz, “The Witness.”

  10 “can’t say Dallas”: James Wolcott, “Well, Mr. President, You Can’t Say Dallas Doesn’t Love You!” Vanity Fair, March 11, 2011.

  11 “hot, wild”: Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings. (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 452.

  12 “sharp loud report”: Johnson, transcript of audio diary, p. 1.

  13 “the last faces”: Mary E. Woodward, “Witness from the News Describes Assassination,” Dallas Morning News, November 23, 1963.

  14 “every conspiracy theorist”: Joe Simnacher, “Mary Pillsworth, ex-DMN Editor Who Witnessed Kennedy Assassination, Dies at 77,” Dallas News, April 17, 2017.

  15 “What are they doing to you?”: John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection, Key Persons Files, Statements of Agents and Law Enforcement Officers in Presidential Motorcade on November 22, 1963, in Dallas: Roy H. Kellerman, National Archives.

  16 “color movies”: Michael E. Ruane, “As He Filmed, Abraham Zapruder Knew Instantly That President Kennedy Was Dead,” Washington Post, November 21, 2013.

  17 “killed him!”: Ruane, “As He Filmed.”

  18 “nothing but heartbreak”: Steve Hendricks, “Zapruder Captured JFK’s Assassination in Riveting Detail, Fueling Decades of Conspiracy Theories,” Washington Post, October 26, 2017.

  19 “Step on it!”: John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection, Key Persons Files, Statements of Agents and Law Enforcement Officers in Presidential Motorcade on November 22, 1963, in Dallas: Roy H. Kellerman, National Archives.

  20 “yellow roses”: “Nellie Connally Dies; Rode with JFK on Fateful Day,” National Public Radio, September 2, 2006.

  21 “drift of blossoms”: Johnson, transcript of audio diary, page 1.

  Chapter 20

  1 “My reporter instinct kicked in”: Hugh Aynesworth, “The Assassination of JFK: An Eyewitness Account,” BBC History Extra, HistoryExtra.com.

  2 “sitting up there”: Howard Leslie Brennan, Records of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection: Key Persons Files, National Archives.

  3 “saw this man”: Brennan, Records of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection.

  4 “THREE SHOTS FIRED”: Bill Sanderson, “Merriman Smith’s Account of JFK’s Assassination,” Pulitzer Prizes Archives, Pulitzer.org.

  5 “a babble of anxious, tense voices”: Merriman Smith, “Merriman Smith’s Account of JFK’s Assassination,” November 23, 1963, United Press International Archives.

  6 “killed my husband”: Monica Hesse, “Four Shattering Days,” Washington Post, November 13, 2015.

  7 “she had been cradling”: Beverly DeVoy, “Dallas Doctor Recalls Day He Tried to Save Dying JFK,” Deseret News, October 28, 1993.

  8 “90 to 95 percent certain”: George Lardner Jr., “Archive Photos Not of JFK’s Brain, Concludes Aide to Review Board,” Washington Post, November 10, 1998.

  9 “stolen the locker”: Gary Busio, “RFK May Have Swiped JFK’s Missing Brain,” New York Post, October 20, 2013.

  10 “He was dying”: DeVoy, “Dallas Doctor Recalls.”

  11 “fifteen feet away”: Aynesworth, “The Assassination of JFK.”

  12 “all over now”: Associated Press, “Officer Who Arrested Oswald Dies at 76,” NBC News, January 27, 2005.

  13 “made a fist”: Associated Press, “Officer Who Arrested.”

  14 “bracing myself”: Associated Press.

  15 “protest this police brutality”: Gary Mack, “An End to Conspiracy? Rare Photo of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Arrest Suggests Why He’s Guilty,” Time, November 21, 2013.

  16 “My whole face”: James Swanson, “Inventing Camelot: How Jackie Kennedy Shaped Her Husband’s Legacy,” New York Post, November 10, 2013.

  17 “poignant sights”: Lady Bird Johnson, “Selections from Lady Bird Johnson’s Diary of the Assassination,” November 22, 1963, PBS.org.

  18 “I want them to see”: Johnson, “Selections from Lady Bird Johnson’s Diary.”

  19 “I’m here”: Chris Jones, “The Flight from Dallas,” Esquire, September 16, 2013.

  Chapter 21

  1 Lafayette Hotel: Stanley Meisler, When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 62–64.

  2 “world peace and friendship”: “Peace Corps Established, (March 1, 1961),” This Day in History, History.com, July 21, 2010.

  3 “so many crises”: Robert McCrum, “Eunice Kennedy and the Death of the Great American Dream,” Guardian (UK), August 15, 2009.

  4 Eunice and Jack shared a house: Evan Thomas, “The Fierce Rebellion and Compassion of Eunice Shriver.” Washington Post, April 13, 2018.

  5 “keep him going”: White House Historical Association, “Thanksgiving: President Kennedy Pardons a Turkey,” November 19, 1963.

  6 “request ‘Over the Rainbow’”: Liz McNeil, “Guess Which Song JFK Asked Judy Garland to Sing to Him over the Telephone,” People, January 31, 2017.

  7 “go to bed”: J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012), 227.

  8 “old but warm coat”: Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Times to Remember (New York: Doubleday, 1974), 379.

  9 “go on living”: Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 455.

  10 “how fortunate”: Fitzgerald Kennedy, Times to Remember, 380.

  11 “I WILL KILL”: James Reston Jr., “Lee Harvey Oswald’s Little Green Book Shows JFK Wasn’t the Real Target,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2016.

  12 “steps out”: Jeremy P. Meyer, “Bob Jackson’s Iconic Photo of Ruby Shooting Oswald Still Resonates,” Denver Post, November 22, 2013.

  13 “right hand was contracting”: “WITNESS ASCRIBES MALICE TO RUBY; Quotes Him as Saying He Hopes Oswald Would Die,” New York Times, March 5, 1964.

  14 “do something spectacular”: Jim Boyle, “JFK Series: Dallas Detective Still Answering Questions About JFK Assassination,” Elk River Star News, November 10, 2013.

  Chapter 22

  1 “I want you to make sure”: Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 446.

  2 “Jack really looks, acts”: Barbara Perry, Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch (New York: Norton, 2013), 243.

  3 “clipped a few locks”: Clint Hill, “Jackie Kennedy’s Secret Service Agent Remembers President Kennedy’s Funeral,” Town & Country, November 22, 2016.

  4 JFK’s valet, George E. Thomas: Barbara A. Perry and Alfred Reaves IV, “Inside the Unsung Life of the Man Who Was John F. Kennedy’s Most Personal Assistant,” Time, November 20, 2018.

  5 “a child’s last happiness”: Monica Hesse, “Four Shattering Days,” Washington Post, November 13, 2015.

  6 “children tumbling”: Associated Press, “Jackie O’s Antiquated Views Horrified Grandkids,” September 14, 2011.

  7 “letter to Daddy”: J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan, (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012), 232.

  8 “a good man”: Jimmy Breslin, “Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor,” New York Herald Tribune, November 1963 (republished in Newsday, November 22, 2013).

  9 “still as statues”: Hesse, “Four Shattering Days.”

  10 “salute Daddy now”: James Swanson, “Inventing Camelot: How Jackie Kennedy Shaped Her Husband's Legacy,” New York Post, November 10, 2013.

  11 “son’s funeral”: Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethe
l, Joan, 239.

  12 “prayed alone”: Rita Dallas, The Kennedy Case (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973), 249.

  13 Fifty military fighters: B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals, 1921–1969 (Washington: Department of the Army, 1972), 188–214.

  14 “My President”: Richard Goldstein, “James Swindal, 88, Pilot of Kennedy’s Presidential Plane, Dies,” New York Times, May 1, 2006.

  15 “Those drumbeats”: Peter Rowe, “Carrying the Weight of JFK’s Casket,” San Diego Union Tribune, November 16, 2013.

  16 “feel any emotion”: Dwaun Sellers, “How SC man became pallbearer at JFK Funeral,” State (South Carolina), October 27, 2017.

  17 “locked the TV”: David Bianculli, “How Live TV Helped America Mourn the Loss of JFK,” Fresh Air, National Public Radio, November 22, 2013.

  18 “ungodly assassin”: Michael Whittaker, “Police Officer J. D. Tippit Buried,” United Press International, November 26, 1963.

  19 “This great tragedy”: Dave Lieber, “JFK’s Assassin Shot Her Husband; All She Wants Is to Be Buried Next to Him,” Dallas News, November 19, 2018.

  20 “visit our friend”: Larry McShane, “The Day America Watched a Son’s Final Salute to Slain Father, JFK, as Nation Buried a Beloved Leader,” New York Daily News, November 17, 2013.

  21 “four endless days”: “Death of a First Lady; Eulogies; Because of Her, We Could Grieve and Then Go On,” New York Times, May 24, 1994.

  22 “Jack was not forgotten”: Swanson, “Inventing Camelot”

  23 “It pleases me”: Eric Pace, “Theodore White, Chronicler of U.S. Politics, Is Dead at 71,” New York Times, May 16, 1986.

  24 “Life magazine to say”: Swanson, “Inventing Camelot.”

  25 “passed unanimously”: Tom Hintgen, “JFK’s Humor Broke the Ice,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, MN), November 29, 2010.

  26 “a storyteller of elections”: Pace, “Theodore White.”