I flipped through the pages quickly. Kennedy assassination? Sold! For one dollar, I figured it would be neat to have, even if the book wasn't good.
What awaited me inside its pages, though, was mesmerizing. With this book, William Manchester presented a factually-accurate recounting of five straight days - November 20th to the 25th, 1963. What could have been compacted into a chapter was, instead, filled out to six hundred and forty-seven pages - not counting the appendices.
This book doesn't tell the Kennedy assassination in the usual, worn-out way - that's what makes it a useful, and ultimately great, book. Usually, you get this: "President Kennedy lands at Love Field." (Insert stock footage of JFK and Jackie at Love Field). "The motorcade makes its way to downtown Dallas, and makes a sharp turn from Main Street to Elm Street. Continuing down Elm Street, President Kennedy is shot in the head. That Secret Service guy runs and jumps onto the back of the Lincoln. Mrs. Kennedy tries to collect shards of her husband's skull. They drive away. Isn't that fucked up?"
No, there's more story to it than that. People always forget the funeral, the magnificent national funeral that was held on the coming Monday. Why do they forget it? Because it's not bloody enough - or rather, people can't carve out conspiracy theories about a dead President's funeral. But I'll talk about that a little later.
The first time I read The Death of a President, I was so drawn into it. I think you would get it if you read it, as well. The part where the President is assassinated is the first in many climaxes in the text, and Manchester stops and, in italics, writes a truly heart-breaking account of that exact moment: Governor Connally screaming in agony, "gobs" of blood flying all over the car, bits of bone suspended in the air, the oppressive heat, and Jackie, springing to the back of the car, shouting to the sidewalk that her husband has been killed, collapses on the trunk of the car in defeat.
I read that part while I was at King Corona and I was in tears. My body was shaking as I, a student of the Kennedy assassination for a number of years, finally realized how momentous the assassination really was.
Share with me, for a moment, the assassination itself. What makes me sick are people who find it proper to scheme about the assassination of President Kennedy. I fucking hate the term "Grassy Knoll", I can't stand when people talk about the movie JFK like it's the gospel, and whenever someone has the gall to say that Oswald was a "patsy" because he stated so, it makes my skin crawl.
I've never seen JFK (and probably never will), but if I hear the term "back..... and to the left" one more time, I'm going to flip. Sure, I've never seen JFK, but here's another film that people love to pick apart, too.
If you've seen this, you don't have to see it again - you can rely on your memory. If you haven't, I reccommend that you watch it. It's gory. It's disturbing. We get to see a President killed in it. Most of all, though, it will make you realize one very important thing:
A man died out there.
Forget all that talk of second shooters, the Dal-Tex building, overpasses, and grassy knolls. Think about that sentence.
A man died out there.
A man with hopes, a man with aspirations. He had a family and a wife. He ran our country. He was elected to be our President. And he lived - he breathed. He had a temper and frustrations like the rest of us.
But wait.... did driver Bill Greer have a gun in his hand? I saw puffs of smoke above the fence on the Grassy Knoll. "Back, and to the left." There HAD to be a second shooter! Roof of the Dal-Tex building, maybe? Oswald was a hired hand. Jack Ruby was injected with cancer cells to make him die.
Fuck all that.
A man died out there.
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That sentiment also makes The Death of a President a great book. It largely concentrates on the people that the assassination affected, not the man who caused it. Oswald is given a few pages of background and, after that, mentioned only when he needs to be mentioned. This isn't a book that makes a huge deal about who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, killed President Kennedy. Manchester openly states that Oswald did it, and then moves on with the book. In this kind of narrative, it doesn't matter who killed the President.
In this book, however, you feel the grief and razor sadness of every person that admired Kennedy (and I mean everyone - there's so many names in here, you lose track eventually) and often in great detail. Some might call it depressing. I don't think so. Their stories are rarely heard, and it's a good thing that they were collected in one place, and woven into an all-encompassing narrative, before the memories were lost and all we heard, for the rest of time, was the click-click-click-buzzzzzzz of conspiracy theorists.
Read it.
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One more note: Cecil Stoughton died only a few weeks ago. As official White House photographer, he went on the Dallas trip and ended up taking the famous pictures of LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One.
He was JFK's official photographer and was also the official photographer for half of Johnson's term. A huge collection of Kennedy photos, mostly taken by him, can be found here:
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK_Library_Photos
I have nothing but respect for Cecil Stoughton, for his capabilities as a photographer and a recordist of history. Rest in peace, buddy.
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RIP
John F. Kennedy
1917-1963
