Killing Kennedy

Sources

This book required both primary and secondary source research. Much of the primary material came from interviews and reporting that Bill O’Reilly has done over the years. In fact, he won a Dallas Press Club Award for his reporting on the JFK assassination while at WFAA-TV. Extensive new information was gleaned from a variety of law enforcement agents, in particular Richard Wiehl, the FBI agent assigned to investigate and debrief Marina Oswald after the shooting. We are grateful to Mr. Wiehl, who has never spoken before on the record about his findings.

The life and death of John Kennedy needs no embellishment. It stands alone as a riveting period in history. But since many of the events recounted in this book are so fantastic and also so horrific, and because so many of the details are rather intimate, it’s important to remind the reader that Killing Kennedy is completely a work of nonfiction. It’s all true. The actions of each individual and the events that took place really happened. The quotations are words people actually spoke. Those details are made possible in large part because JFK is a contemporary historical figure whose entire presidency was thoroughly documented by all manner of media.

This sheer volume of material available on the life and death of John F. Kennedy allowed for unexpected research delights when compiling the manuscript. Not only were there a number of first-person manuscripts that provided specific details about meetings, conversations, and events, but there is also extensive Internet video of JFK’s speeches and television appearances, which brought his words and voice to life during each writing day. For readers, taking the time to find and watch these will add immeasurably to learning more about John Kennedy. The reader is directed, specifically, toward the 1963 Galway speech as an example of the president’s wit, warmth, and presence.

To hear about life inside the Kennedy White House from Jackie herself, listen to Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, a series of recordings she made not long after the assassination. It is remarkable to hear the candor with which the former First Lady speaks, particularly when she opens up about so many of the most famous and powerful figures in the world at that time. Like her husband, her wit, warmth, and sheer presence are palpable.

The authors owe a special debt to the team of Laurie Austin and Stacey Chandler at the Kennedy Library. No research request was too big or too small, and suffice it to say that it was quite a historical rush to receive, for instance, copies of John Kennedy’s actual daily schedule, showing his precise location, the names of different people at various meetings, and the time each afternoon he slipped off to the pool or to “the Mansion.” To read these schedules was to see the president’s day come alive and gave a vivid feel of what life was like in the White House. When in Boston, a visit to the Kennedy Library is a must.

Special recognition must also go to William Manchester’s Death of a President, which was written shortly after the assassination and built around first-person interviews with almost everyone who was with JFK in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Manchester’s work was written with the complete cooperation of Jackie and the Kennedy family. The level of detail is fantastic for that very fact and proved invaluable as the ultimate answer to many questions when other resources conflicted with one another.

The backbone of this book are books, magazine articles, videos, the much-maligned but always fascinating Warren Commission Report, and visits to places such as Dallas, Washington, Galway, and the Texas Hill Country. The authors owe a debt of gratitude to the many brilliant researchers who have immersed themselves in the life and times of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. What follows is a detailed reference to sources. This list, however, is not exhaustive and includes only those works used for the heavy lifting of writing history.

Prologue: Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, Karen Price Hossell’s John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Speech, and Thurston Clarke’s Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America. Todd S. Purdum’s February 2011 Vanity Fair piece on the inauguration was also very helpful, as were the National Archives database and the Warren Commission Report.

Chapter 1: John Hersey’s 1944 New Yorker story about PT-109 provided the best account of the ordeal. Lance Morrow’s The Best Years of Their Lives, which is a quick and fascinating read, nicely counterbalances Hersey’s sometimes fawning version of events. Details about the Gold Star Mothers speech and the birth of the Irish Mafia can be found in William Manchester’s One Brief Shining Moment.

Chapter 2: The White House Museum website offers a fine map of the entire building, along with its history in words and pictures. Also, Robert Dallek’s writing on JFK’s myriad medical woes was very helpful in our getting a handle on the many medications the president was required to take. The Kennedy Library’s website is a great source of detail on life in the White House. Information on Jackie comes courtesy of Sally Bedell Smith’s Grace and Power.

Chapter 3: William R. Fails’s Marines and Helicopters details the evolution of presidential transportation, while Dallek’s An Unfinished Life and Humberto Fontova’s Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant lend detail to the Castro atrocities. The weather comes courtesy of the Farmers’ Almanac, while Manchester’s Brief Shining Moment adds behind-the-scenes comments on the president’s thoughts on the Bay of Pigs. Other notable resources: Dean Rusk’s As I Saw It, Edward R. Drachman and Alan Shank’s Presidents and Foreign Policy, Michael O’Brien’s John F. Kennedy: A Biography, Thomas G. Paterson’s Kennedy’s Quest for Victory, Jim Rasenberger’s The Brilliant Disaster, James Hilty’s Robert Kennedy, Richard Mahoney’s Sons and Brothers, and Richard Goodwin’s excellent Remembering America.

Chapter 4: The reader is directed to go online and watch Jackie’s excellent White House tour, particularly the body language between the president and First Lady at the end. Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot was only too happy to spill the secrets of White House infidelities, while Sally Bedell Smith’s Grace and Power, Christopher Andersen’s Jack and Jackie, Laurence Leamer’s The Kennedy Women, and C. David Heymann’s A Woman Named Jackie seem more intent on understanding the reasons why.

Chapter 5: The JFK Library and Jackie’s own words in Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy speak to the topic of Camelot, as does Sally Bedell Smith’s May 2004 Vanity Fair piece, “Private Camelot.” Randy J. Taraborrelli’s The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe; The Sinatra Files, by Tom and Phil Kuntz; and the FBI’s dossier on Sinatra add compelling detail to the goings-on in Palm Springs. Evan Thomas’s Robert Kennedy provides insight into RFK. Hersh’s Dark Side of Camelot was also invaluable. JFK’s comments about the chase came from the U.S. News and World Report (May 9, 2004) interview with Sally Bedell Smith. The Gallup Poll’s website offered information on approval ratings, while Sam and Chuck Giancana’s Double Cross provided background on the various potential Mafia plots against Marilyn and the Kennedy brothers.

Chapter 6: The Kennedy Library’s website has a feature that allows you to browse the New York Times by date. This provides much of the background information on the travels of the president, the atrocities in East Berlin, and the world’s interest in matters such as Soviet cosmonauts and the revolutionary radio telephone. Robert Caro’s Passage of Power was a treasure trove of information about the habits of Lyndon Johnson, particularly his travails as vice president. Details about life in the Deep South come from FBI reports documenting that period, while the story of Emmett Till came directly from his killers’ Look magazine article, along with other sources that add more dimension, and from the Ebony magazine photograph showing his battered and flattened head. Dave Garrow’s Atlantic Monthly piece of July/August 2002 documents the FBI’s fascination with Martin Luther King Jr. FBI special agent Fain’s recollection of Lee Harvey Oswald comes from Fain’s Warren Commission testimony.

Chapter 7: Photographs of JFK’s bedroom can be seen at www.whitehousemuseum.org, and further detail can be found in Manchester’s Brief Shining Moment. More White House history can be found at www.whitehouse.gov; Jackie Kennedy speaks a great deal about their life there in Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. Specific conversations during the Cuban missile crisis can be found in The Kennedy Tapes, by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, and in Ted Kennedy’s True Compass. Also of note: Stern’s The Week the World Stood Still; the archive file of Dean Rusk’s meeting with Soviet foreign minister Gromyko; Charles Tustin Kamps’s The Cuban Missile Crisis; Jackie, Ethel, and Joan, by Randy J. Taraborrelli; The Mind of Oswald, by Diane Holloway; Khrushchev, by William Taubman; and The Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, by the late Soviet dictator. Robert Dallek’s Atlantic story about Kennedy’s medical woes (December 2002) was also very helpful.

Chapter 8: Believe it or not, the Mona Lisa’s unveiling can be found on YouTube. Fascinating stuff. Mona Lisa in Camelot, by Margaret Leslie Davis, sheds light on this improbable chapter in our nation’s history. The glossary of Manchester’s Death of a President provides the Secret Service code names, while the Warren Commission Report includes a solid summary on the history of presidential assassination and the need for a Secret Service. The Secret Service’s own website shows this, too. Much of the behind-the-scenes information about the various agents and their details can be found in Clint Hill’s Mrs. Kennedy and Me, and in Gerald Blaine’s The Kennedy Detail. Edward Klein’s All Too Human was also very helpful.

Chapter 9: Caro provides more great detail on LBJ in Passage to Power. The Giancanas’ Double Cross goes further into the Mafia conspiracies. These conspiracies are not presented as facts in this book, but as theories—and Double Cross lays out these possibilities very nicely. Also of note in this chapter: Evan Thomas’s Bobby Kennedy, Burton Hersh’s Bobby and J. Edgar, Edward Klein’s All Too Human, Jim Marrs’s Crossfire, and the LBJ Library’s website.

Chapter 10: The Winston Churchill website has a fine overview of this special day, while Rethinking Camelot, by Noam Chomsky, deals with the early days of Vietnam in graphic detail.

Chapter 11: Many details about the marchers came from Washington Post coverage the following day. Glenn Eskew’s But for Birmingham and Diane McWhorter’s Carry Me Home provide additional awesome detail. Shelley Tougas’s Birmingham 1963 speaks of how a single photograph changed so many minds. Seth Jacobs’s Cold War Mandarin provides gruesome detail on the burning of monks and the Diem regime. And once again, Manchester provides great behind-the-scenes glimpses of the Kennedy White House.

Chapter 12: Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters; Jessica McElrath’s Everything Martin Luther King, Jr. Book; Marshall Frady’s Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Life; Jackie Kennedy’s Conversations; and Newsweek’s infamous January 19, 1998, issue were all valuable resources, as were Evan Thomas’s Robert Kennedy, Robert Caro’s Passage to Power, and Dianne Holloway’s The Mind of Oswald. Clint Hill’s Mrs. Kennedy and Me is a priceless peek into their relationship, and most helpful.

Chapter 13: Manchester, once again. And Hill. Klein’s All Too Human and Leamer’s The Kennedy Men provided insight as well.

Chapter 14: Dallek, Unfinished Life, and Thomas, Robert Kennedy. King’s entire speech can be heard online at www.americanrhetoric.com.

Chapter 15: This interview between Cronkite and JFK is another Web gem, and worth the watch to see Kennedy’s smooth knowledge about the many topics Cronkite throws at him and the way the two men relax so visibly when the formal filming is completed.

Chapter 16: Information from the JFK Library, Death of a President, Passage of Power, and the Warren Commission Report form the nucleus of this chapter. David Kaiser’s The Road to Dallas was thoughtful and informative, and the FBI files on Aristotle Onassis provide fascinating background information.

Chapter 17: There are a number of websites devoted to Camp David. These are all well worth a look for a glimpse into such a private and exclusive compound. The information about Oswald comes from the Warren Commission, while Heymann’s A Woman Named Jackie and the White House Museum website add great detail on the family residence dining room. Ben Bradlee’s Conversations with Kennedy documents this special dinner. Donald Spoto’s JBKO details the date of her last campaign appearance; Manchester provided details about her punctuation; and Heymann and Leamer document the letter from the yacht Christina.

Chapter 18: The bulk of this chapter comes from newspaper accounts and from Manchester. Bradlee’s Conversations provides the “No profiles” quote.

Chapter 19: Special Agent Hosty’s Warren Commission testimony provides the details about his visit to Ruth Paine. The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony, provides the quotes about Arlington. It’s interesting to note that Sergeant Clark also played taps at JFK’s funeral.

Chapter 20: Barry Paris’s Garbo and David Pitts’s Jack and Lem speak well of this forgotten night in White House history. Thank you to Camille Reisfield of Ross, California, for writing to ask if the episode would be in the book, making the authors aware of this last-ever dinner party in Camelot.

Chapter 21: The Warren Commission and Kaiser’s Road to Dallas provide unique insight into the days leading up to the assassination. There is still some question as to whether Oswald was actually the shooter whom Sterling Wood witnessed, as the owner of the shooting range swore he saw Oswald there on a completely different date. The fact that a lone man was seen firing a unique Italian rifle, however, is not in doubt.

Chapter 22: Hill, Manchester, Warren Commission testimony, and the White House Museum website.

Chapters 23 through 26: A wide range of websites and books were used to sift through the vast number of facts surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The timing, crowd descriptions, arrival scene, and all other aspects of the shooting and drive to Parkland Hospital are standard facts. However, the primary sources for specific conversations, private moments, and otherwise particular details are Death of a President, the Warren Commission, Clint Hill’s fascinating Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, Dallek’s writings on JFK’s medical woes and on the assassination itself, and, of course, the Zapruder film. We watched it time after time after time to understand the sequence of events, and it never got less horrific—nor did the outcome ever change.

Chapter 27: Jackie’s filmed newsreel can be found online, and her grief is still startlingly painful to watch. Any number of her biographers have briefly mentioned this taping. But it was hardly inconsequential. As with the night with Garbo, or that with the Mona Lisa, this event was unique and remarkable, and all too easily overlooked.