Witnesses reflect on the joy the Kennedys felt during the Texas tour before tragedy struck. Photo / AP
Witnesses reflect on the joy the Kennedys felt during the Texas tour before tragedy struck. Photo / AP
National Geographic’s latest docuseries JFK: One Day in America marks 60 years since President John F. Kennedy’s assassination by bringing the stories of the last surviving witnesses to the screen to reflect on the whirlwind few days surrounding the tragedy on November 22, 1963.
The series - which premiered on Sunday on Disney+ and Hulu - was released in three parts. Starting with the late President Kennedy arriving in Texas with his wife Jackie to campaign for reelection, the series takes its viewers on a journey through the days that followed, in which both Kennedy and his killer were shot and killed, reports People magazine.
Here are the most harrowing details that emerged in JFK: One Day in America about the Kennedys’ final, joyful hours before tragedy abruptly struck.
JFK and Jackie arrive at Love Field during a campaign tour, on the day of his assassination. Photo / Getty Images
Secret Service was warned that Texas was the ‘City of Hate’
In the 1960 election, President Kennedy won Texas by only 2 per cent. So, with the looming re-election, the powerful state would be a vital for the President to secure another term in office. This is why, in November 1963, White House officials were determined to make a good impression.
“They wanted to get out in front early,” former Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was assigned to Jackie Kennedy’s detail, says in the docuseries. The then-First Lady, who generally didn’t join her husband on campaign trips, agreed to help assist in impressing Texas voters. “She wanted to do everything she could to help President Kennedy get elected in 1964,” Hill revealed.
Sid Davis, the White House correspondent for Westinghouse Broadcasting Company at the time, revealed the press pool felt “trepidation” about what kind of reception Kennedy would receive, saying, “We knew that Texas was not a Kennedy state.”
The Kennedys arrived in Texas on Thursday afternoon, November 21, spending half the day in San Antonio and and half the day in Houston before ending the night in Fort Worth. “We were all in a good mood and felt there was no sign of animosity, anything like that,” former Secret Service agent Paul Landis recalled, reflecting on the large crowds.
However, there was a certain concern surrounding the Dallas leg of the visit on the second day, Landis remembers. “The day we left, we had a briefing and everyone was given their assignments of what they would be doing. And this was the first I learned that Dallas had a moniker, the ‘City of Hate’,” he says. “I knew nothing about it being a bad political environment.”
Prior to JFK’s visit, the Dallas police chief warned residents to behave and show respect to the President. The Dallas mayor told reporters that while he expected there to be a few protesters, “we anticipate no trouble”.
Despite the Kennedys being greeted with many loving fans upon arrival, Lee Harvey Oswald would soon prove the Secret Service’s worst fears true.
“We knew there was a group in Dallas that did not like or did not agree with President Kennedy’s position on many things,” Hill adds. “How far they were willing to go for that, I did not know. We did not know.”
When Jackie made the decision to return to the public eye in a bold way, the world was keen to get a glimpse of the First Lady. Photo / Getty Images
The Texas campaign was Jackie’s big return to the public eye
Jackie gave birth to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963. Patrick was the first baby born to a sitting President and First Lady since the 19th century. However, two days later, he passed away of infantile respiratory distress syndrome, which saw Jackie retreat from public view while she grieved the loss of her son.
When Jackie made the decision to return to the public eye in a bold way — joining JFK on the Texas campaign trail three months later — the world was keen to get a glimpse of the First Lady.
“She was getting over [Patrick’s death],” Davis reveals in the documentary. “This was her first visit out of the White House, in the public, and so it was an uplifting thing for people to see her out and smiling.”
He adds: “President Kennedy really wanted Jackie to be seen by everybody in Texas. Texas was such an important state. He felt that with Jackie along, he would do better.”
On the morning of the assassination, JFK attended a breakfast event in Fort Worth without Jackie. The crowd seemed disappointed over her absence, witnesses recall. The disappointment grew so much that the President’s team requested Jackie be brought down from her room.
“When she walked into the room, the crowd just got out of its chairs and started cheering,” Davis remembers, confirming the idea that Jackie was John’s superpower. “I’d never seen her happier than she was that morning.”
The President and First Lady in the car, moments before JFK was assassinated.
JFK insisted on riding through Dallas in a convertible
When White House officials were planning the motorcade in Dallas, President Kennedy was the one who insisted that he wanted the top of his vehicle to be off while driving through the town.
“The president insisted on having an open car, because he wanted to feel as close to the people as possible,” Hill reveals in JFK: One Day in America. “He wanted the people to feel there was never any barrier between them and him.”
While it rained a little bit that morning in Dallas, it stopped shortly before the Kennedys were due to embark on the celebratory procession through the town.
“By the time we were ready to leave,” Hill says, “the word was, ‘The top is to be off’.” As crowds excitedly flooded the streets and climbed structures around town to get a glimpse, it seemed a wise decision to remove the physical and metaphorical barrier separating Kennedy from potential voters. However, it inevitably created big challenges for the security team.
Lee Harvey Oswald's behaviour wasn't questioned by his co-worker. Photos / Getty Images
Lee Harvey Oswald told his co-worker he was carrying ‘curtain rods’ when he arrived to work with a package
Buell Frazier, a co-worker of JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, confessed to National Geographic that he didn’t question Oswald’s behaviour on the morning of November 22, 1963.
“That Friday felt like any other Friday morning,” Frazier remembers. “I drove Lee Harvey Oswald to work because Lee did not own a car. We listened to the radio.” Frazier then explains Oswald was generally a quiet person who wouldn’t typically start conversation. “The thing he would talk most about was his child.”
As they were driving, Frazier noticed a package sitting on the back seat of his car, but didn’t look at it closely. “I said, ‘What’s in the package, Lee?’” Frazier recalls “And he says, ‘Curtain rods’.”
Frazier reveals when they parked, Oswald got out, took the package and walked off on his own. “We always walked together, but not this morning,” Frazier says. “It ain’t ever dawned on me that anything was different.”
In the moments after JFK was shot: Jackie climbing on to the back of the car and a Secret Service agent climbing on to it. Photo / News Limited
Jackie wouldn’t let go of JFK’s body when they arrived at the hospital
When JFK and Texas governor Conally were shot, chaos quickly spiralled and the motorcade sped off in the direction of Parkland Memorial Hospital. “Mrs. Kennedy was screaming, ‘They shot his head off! I love you Jack’,” Hill says. “[She] was in shock, with the President’s head in her lap.”
Hill goes on, explaining that when they arrived at the emergency room, Jackie was still in shock and would not let go of the President’s body.
“I pleaded with her, I said, ‘Please Mrs. Kennedy, let us help the President’. I got no response at all,” Hill remembers. “I realised she wasn’t going to let go, so I took my suit coat off and covered up the back of his head, shoulders and upper back, and when I did that, she let go.”
Landis, who was relatively young at the time, recalls feeling faint in the trauma room as doctors rushed to help JFK.
“I heard a doctor say, ‘Let me through, let me through’, and they’re asking everybody to evacuate the room,” Landis reveals. “And it was about that time that somebody came out and asked if anyone knew the President’s blood type, and Mrs. Kennedy kind of stood up and said, ‘Do you mean he’s alive?’ And there was just utter silence.”
From the moment President Kennedy fell into Jackie’s lap in the car, Hill says, “I’m sure she knew that the President could not have survived and was in fact dead.”
