JFK's Final Days: October 23, 1963
John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963, the victim of at least one gunshot wound. The debate will rage on as to whether or not there were multiple assassins, or whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. As the fiftieth anniversary of this event approaches in 30 days time, numerous books are being published on the subject and the event is being commemorated in numerous other media.
One of the recent books published about JFK's final days is the precisely titled JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke. It is an excellent accounting of President Kennedy's comings and goings in the last few months of his life. I found it interesting that the days of the week and the dates they fell on in 1963 match the same pattern in 2013. For example, October 23rd fell on a Wednesday then, as now. Here is an excerpt from Clarke's book (pages 248-250) which recounts how the Kennedys spent Wednesday, October 23, 1963. At the time, author Jim Bishop was working on a piece entitled "A Day in the Life of President Kennedy" and was interviewing some of the White House staff. Here is Clarke's account of how JFK spent October 23rd, fifty years ago today.
Bishop interviewed Jackie during a chaotic Wednesday morning. As they spoke, John [Jr.] dashed from the bathroom naked and one family dog bit another. He found it off that she answered his questions while staring at Kelly [Mrs. Bishop] as if he were invisible. He asked for a "word portrait" of an average evening at home with the president. With a fixed smile, she described him as bringing his "homework" upstairs to the family quarters and reading it - a response in keeping with her rule of minimum information with maximum politeness."
She informed Bishop that she planned to accompany her husband to Texas the next month. He wondered if that meant parades and all. "Parades and chicken banquets" she insisted.
On Wednesday it seemed possible that the [Bobby] Baker scandal and a coup in South Vietnam might reach a climax simultaneously.
Following a two hour executive session, the Chairman of the House Rules Committee told reporters "We'll start with Baker. Where it spreads from there we don't know," and the Washington Post pointed out that the senate resolution mandated "an investigation of any possible conflicts of interest or other improprieties."
According to a cable from the CIA station chief in Saigon, "Highly reliable source indicates coup imminent led by Lt. Col. Pham Ngoc Thao." The source however feared the "coup may fall apart en route." Kennedy received a cable from [US Ambassador Henry Cabot] Lodge the same day warning that "in the contest with Viet Cong, we are at present not doing much more than holding our own," and reporting that because of recent restrictions on U.S. aid to the regime, "experienced observers believe that our actions are creating favorable conditions for a coup... Although I as yet see no one who looks as though he means business in this regard."
Kennedy decided to send his Harvard room mate Torbert "Torby" Macdonald to Saigon to warn Diem that a coup was imminent and his life was in danger. Following Kennedy's script, Macdonald told Diem "They're going to kill you. You've got to get out of there temporarily to seek refuge in the American embassy and you must get rid of your sister-in-law (Madam Nhu) and your brother (Nhu)." After he returned, Macdonald told Kennedy "He just won't do it, he's too stubborn."
During a two hour conference with White House leaders and ranking members of the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Kennedy tried to hammer out a compromise civil rights bill satisfactory to moderate Republicans and liberals. The House Minority Leader, Charles Halleck of Indiana, was the key to any deal, and Kennedy had convened the meeting to discover what he would accept. Halleck complained to Kennedy that liberals on the Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, had loaded the bill with provisions "way beyond anything you asked, and way beyond anything we ought to do," with the result that moderate Republicans such as himself risked being targeted as "goats" for emasculating the bill.
"We're the goats," Kennedy said, reminding him that the liberals and civil rights leaders had criticized his original bill for being too cautious.
Halleck said he had been courageous to introduce the bill. He flattered Halleck in return, and within two hours they had sketched out a compromise. After the others left, Halleck told Kennedy "The colored vote in my district doesn't amount to a bottle of cold piss." He wanted to pass a civil rights bill any way because whenever he went to Warm Springs, the Georgia resort made famous by FDR, none of the restaurants would serve his negro driver. "Once in a while a guy does something because it's right," he explained.
On Wednesday evening, Kennedy invited the Bradlees [Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife] to their second dinner in a row. By the time he joined them, Jackie had put on a dress from King Hassan and was imitating the bumps and grinds of a Moroccan dancer. She complained that Bishop was "prying awfully deep," even trying to get her maid to reveal what she wore to bed and who slept where. "Never mind," he said. Bishop was writing a lead story, "and the way things are going for us right now, we can use anything we can get. Anyway, we have the right of clearance... That's a great thing - the right of clearance."
He mentioned that the Washington Post had run a photograph of Bobby Baker's house, and Bradlee said he understood that when the photographer rang the bell, two women in evening dresses had opened the door.
"Did they get their pictures?" he asked.
While walking to the White House theater to watch the new James Bond film, From Russia With Love, the discussed who he wanted to succeed him in 1968. After everyone had vetoed Johnson, Jackie asked "Well who then?"
"It was going to be Franklin [Roosevelt]," he said mischeviously, "until you and Onassis fixed that."
He seldom sat through an entire film, but he watched this one to the end. Bradlee thought he liked the cool sex and brutality. As they were leaving, he announced that he and Jackie were going to take a holiday out west the following summer. He was thinking of Montana, where he had received such a good reception, but not Wyoming, too many "cold bastards" there.
The reference to Onassis was about a cruise that Mrs. Kennedy had taken earlier in the year, for which she was criticized because many felt that she want too soon after the death of her son Patrick. I'm afraid I don't understand JFK's reference to FDR in the joke.
One of the recent books published about JFK's final days is the precisely titled JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke. It is an excellent accounting of President Kennedy's comings and goings in the last few months of his life. I found it interesting that the days of the week and the dates they fell on in 1963 match the same pattern in 2013. For example, October 23rd fell on a Wednesday then, as now. Here is an excerpt from Clarke's book (pages 248-250) which recounts how the Kennedys spent Wednesday, October 23, 1963. At the time, author Jim Bishop was working on a piece entitled "A Day in the Life of President Kennedy" and was interviewing some of the White House staff. Here is Clarke's account of how JFK spent October 23rd, fifty years ago today.
Bishop interviewed Jackie during a chaotic Wednesday morning. As they spoke, John [Jr.] dashed from the bathroom naked and one family dog bit another. He found it off that she answered his questions while staring at Kelly [Mrs. Bishop] as if he were invisible. He asked for a "word portrait" of an average evening at home with the president. With a fixed smile, she described him as bringing his "homework" upstairs to the family quarters and reading it - a response in keeping with her rule of minimum information with maximum politeness."
She informed Bishop that she planned to accompany her husband to Texas the next month. He wondered if that meant parades and all. "Parades and chicken banquets" she insisted.
On Wednesday it seemed possible that the [Bobby] Baker scandal and a coup in South Vietnam might reach a climax simultaneously.
Following a two hour executive session, the Chairman of the House Rules Committee told reporters "We'll start with Baker. Where it spreads from there we don't know," and the Washington Post pointed out that the senate resolution mandated "an investigation of any possible conflicts of interest or other improprieties."
According to a cable from the CIA station chief in Saigon, "Highly reliable source indicates coup imminent led by Lt. Col. Pham Ngoc Thao." The source however feared the "coup may fall apart en route." Kennedy received a cable from [US Ambassador Henry Cabot] Lodge the same day warning that "in the contest with Viet Cong, we are at present not doing much more than holding our own," and reporting that because of recent restrictions on U.S. aid to the regime, "experienced observers believe that our actions are creating favorable conditions for a coup... Although I as yet see no one who looks as though he means business in this regard."
Kennedy decided to send his Harvard room mate Torbert "Torby" Macdonald to Saigon to warn Diem that a coup was imminent and his life was in danger. Following Kennedy's script, Macdonald told Diem "They're going to kill you. You've got to get out of there temporarily to seek refuge in the American embassy and you must get rid of your sister-in-law (Madam Nhu) and your brother (Nhu)." After he returned, Macdonald told Kennedy "He just won't do it, he's too stubborn."
During a two hour conference with White House leaders and ranking members of the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Kennedy tried to hammer out a compromise civil rights bill satisfactory to moderate Republicans and liberals. The House Minority Leader, Charles Halleck of Indiana, was the key to any deal, and Kennedy had convened the meeting to discover what he would accept. Halleck complained to Kennedy that liberals on the Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, had loaded the bill with provisions "way beyond anything you asked, and way beyond anything we ought to do," with the result that moderate Republicans such as himself risked being targeted as "goats" for emasculating the bill.
"We're the goats," Kennedy said, reminding him that the liberals and civil rights leaders had criticized his original bill for being too cautious.
Halleck said he had been courageous to introduce the bill. He flattered Halleck in return, and within two hours they had sketched out a compromise. After the others left, Halleck told Kennedy "The colored vote in my district doesn't amount to a bottle of cold piss." He wanted to pass a civil rights bill any way because whenever he went to Warm Springs, the Georgia resort made famous by FDR, none of the restaurants would serve his negro driver. "Once in a while a guy does something because it's right," he explained.
On Wednesday evening, Kennedy invited the Bradlees [Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife] to their second dinner in a row. By the time he joined them, Jackie had put on a dress from King Hassan and was imitating the bumps and grinds of a Moroccan dancer. She complained that Bishop was "prying awfully deep," even trying to get her maid to reveal what she wore to bed and who slept where. "Never mind," he said. Bishop was writing a lead story, "and the way things are going for us right now, we can use anything we can get. Anyway, we have the right of clearance... That's a great thing - the right of clearance."
He mentioned that the Washington Post had run a photograph of Bobby Baker's house, and Bradlee said he understood that when the photographer rang the bell, two women in evening dresses had opened the door.
"Did they get their pictures?" he asked.
While walking to the White House theater to watch the new James Bond film, From Russia With Love, the discussed who he wanted to succeed him in 1968. After everyone had vetoed Johnson, Jackie asked "Well who then?"
"It was going to be Franklin [Roosevelt]," he said mischeviously, "until you and Onassis fixed that."
He seldom sat through an entire film, but he watched this one to the end. Bradlee thought he liked the cool sex and brutality. As they were leaving, he announced that he and Jackie were going to take a holiday out west the following summer. He was thinking of Montana, where he had received such a good reception, but not Wyoming, too many "cold bastards" there.
The reference to Onassis was about a cruise that Mrs. Kennedy had taken earlier in the year, for which she was criticized because many felt that she want too soon after the death of her son Patrick. I'm afraid I don't understand JFK's reference to FDR in the joke.