The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine & Lisa McCubbin

Author:Gerald Blaine & Lisa McCubbin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

13

Breakdown

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

—JOHN F. KENNEDY

NOVEMBER 22, 1963

There are moments in history that change the world forever. Time is suspended when an event occurs that is so shocking, so unexpected, so inexplicable that from that moment forward nothing can ever be the same. In the blink of an eye, on that dreadful day in Dallas, the hopes and dreams of the nation and the world were shattered.

At the Dallas Trade Mart, 2,600 people were seated, anxiously awaiting the arrival of President and Mrs. Kennedy. Agent Dave Grant was at the entrance with Trammell Crow and John Stemmons, the two co-owners of the Trade Mart, discussing the proper procedure for greeting the president and escorting him to the head table. The White House telephone had been installed just inside the front entrance of the Trade Mart and at 12:30, the phone rang. Grant walked inside, picked up the phone, and the switchboard operator told him the motorcade had given the five-minute signal.

“Great,” he said as he looked at his watch. They were just five minutes behind schedule. He went back outside to wait with Crow and Stemmons for the arrival of the motorcade.

A few minutes later the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance, getting louder and louder. Suddenly Dave Grant saw the motorcade racing by the Trade Mart at about eighty miles an hour.

What the hell? The president’s convertible looked empty in the backseat—and there was a person sprawled out across the trunk of the car.

Grant ran inside and called the White House switchboard.

“What’s going on with the motorcade?” he asked breathlessly.

On the other end of the line, the switchboard operator said he had heard on the base radio that the president had been “hit” and that the motorcade was heading for the nearest hospital.

The operator didn’t know which hospital, nor did he know the extent of the president’s injuries.

Grant immediately thought of the overpass just before the Stemmons Freeway. Someone must have thrown a rock or a stick or something.

Grant found ATSAIC Stewart Stout inside the Trade Mart and told him what he’d learned.

They didn’t know the extent of the injuries but decided that they and the other agents should remain at the Trade Mart in the event the president wasn’t seriously hurt and might be returning to the Trade Mart after treatment.

Soon people started arriving at the Trade Mart who had been part of the motorcade and Grant learned that there had been some shooting and the president had been wounded.

Oh my God. When he had heard the word hit from the operator, he hadn’t imagined gunshots. Suddenly securing the Trade Mart was irrelevant. As soon as they found out that the president had gone to Parkland Hospital, the agents scrambled to find available cars to take them there.

Dave Grant looked up to see Admiral George Burkley, carrying his black medical bag, rushing toward them. He had just arrived on the VIP bus moments earlier.

Breathing heavily, he asked, “What hospital is the president going to?”

“Parkland Hospital.

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