Dallas, November 22, 1963 by Robert A. Caro

Author:Robert A. Caro [Caro, Robert A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7134-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

ENTERING THE PLANE, Johnson walked forward down a narrow aisle, past a sitting area with six first-class-type plane seats, and then past a small bedroom that contained beds for the President and his wife—“I want this kept strictly for the use of Mrs. Kennedy, Rufus,” Johnson said; “see to that”—and into the President’s stateroom, a compartment sixteen feet square with a small sofa attached to a wall; a small desk, with a high-backed armchair, for the President; and a small conference table with four chairs. A handful of crew members and White House staff, including two secretaries, were watching the television set. Back at Parkland Hospital, Kilduff had announced Kennedy’s death, and Walter Cronkite of CBS News was reporting it to the country. Youngblood was shouting to everyone to pull down the window shades; the possibility of a conspiracy, and of snipers at the airport, still seemed “very real indeed,” the agent was to say. From the secretaries came the sound of weeping.

The stateroom was already warm. Having been alerted to prepare for an immediate takeoff, Air Force One’s pilot, Colonel Jim Swindal, had disconnected the air-conditioning unit, mounted on a mobile cart, that kept the plane cool on the ground. The plane’s own air-conditioning functioned only when the plane’s engines were running. Swindal had only one running, at a low speed that provided electricity for lights in the cabins but not air-conditioning.

For a few minutes, there was a hurried conference between Johnson and the three Texas congressmen, because there were decisions to be made: when and where to take the oath of office, whether here, in Dallas, or in Washington, where there could be a formal ceremony, in an appropriate setting, with the oath administered by Chief Justice Earl Warren, as Warren had administered it to John F. Kennedy at his inauguration. Harry Truman, another Vice President brought to the presidency by the sudden death of his predecessor, had not been sworn in for two hours and twenty-five minutes after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death (and almost two hours after he had been notified of it), waiting until most of the Cabinet, congressional leaders and several other key government officials could be assembled in the Cabinet Room at the White House to watch Chief Justice Harlan Stone swear him in. Thornberry argued for Washington, Thomas and Brooks for Dallas, so that the country would immediately see that the succession had taken place: “Suppose the plane is delayed?” Thomas asked. But a few minutes was all that the discussion lasted. There were reasons for the swearing-in to take place quickly: the fact that the President had been assassinated, and that a wider conspiracy might be involved, made the need to establish a sense of continuity, of stability, more urgent; should the Russians try to take advantage of the situation, there should not be the slightest doubt about who was in command. A panic on Wall Street that was to wipe out more than ten billion dollars in stock values within slightly more than an hour was already under way.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.