Ecanus Publishing
Ramsgate
Kent
United Kingdom
Published by Ecanus Publishing 2012
Robert Shows asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 9780957225688
Dedication
To my family, for their constant support and encouragement.
FOREWORD
This novel is a work of fiction. Many historical events and persons are recounted, however, the additional acts and characters surrounding these historical events and persons neither represent any actual deeds, nor denote any real individuals, male or female, alive or deceased. I have toyed with history: the who, what, when, where and how of it.
I hope you enjoy.
PREFACE
In 1978, fifteen years following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Congress of the United States (The United States House of Representatives) investigated the murder. Their conclusions:
“We believe, and the facts strongly suggest, that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as the direct result of a conspiracy. Although, the persons responsible for such an act cannot be identified.”
The House Select Committee to investigate the Kennedy and King Assassinations House Resolution 1540 September 15, 1978
INTRODUCTION
ASSASSINATION:
“The wheel of political history revolves on the axle of time. One of the many spokes of that wheel is assassination.”
Anonymous
TREASON:
“I love treason but hate a traitor.”
Julius Caesar
From Plutarch
Lives, Romulus
Sec. 17
PLOTS:
“Plots, true or false, are necessary things, to raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.”
John Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel
THE ASSASSIN:
“Who will assassinate the assassin?”
Anonymous
CONSPIRACY:
“…look about you: security gives way to conspiracy.”
Artemidorus, a soothsayer, to Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Act 2 Scene 3
William Shakespeare
NON SEMPER EA SUNT QUAE VIDENTUR:
“Things are not always what they seem.”
Phaedrus Fables, book IV, fable 2, l. 5
1st Century A.D.
HISTORY:
“A set of lies agreed upon…”
Napoleon Bonaparte
THE FOLLOWING WORK IS PURELY FICTION, ALTHOUGH THE SUCCEEDING STATEMENTS AND DESCRIPTIONS ARE REPORTED OR DOCUMENTED AS HISTORICAL RECORD AND FACT:
“There is no conclusive evidence that any elements of organized crime exist in the United States.”
J. Edgar Hoover
Director, FBI
Testimony before the Congressional Hearing on Organized Crime
July 18, 1954
“I hope somebody shoots and kills that son of a bitch.”
Clyde Tolson
Assistant Director, FBI
Comment about
United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
1962
“A dog will keep biting you if you only cut off its tail.”
Carlos Marcello
Mafia Boss of New Orleans
FBI wire tap; comment about Robert F. Kennedy
1962
“Here is a bulletin from CBS news, a flash, apparently official; President Kennedy died at 1:00 P.M. Central Standard Time, two o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.”
Walter Cronkite
CBS News
Washington, D.C.
November 22, 1963
“Have you heard? Somebody finally killed that son-of-a-bitch Kennedy. Did the country a favor.”
Jimmy Hoffa
President, Teamsters Union
FBI wire tap
November 22, 1963
“There’s been so much bitterness. I thought they (Mafia) would get one of us. But Jack, after all he’s been through, (I) never worried about it. I thought it would be me.”
Robert F. Kennedy
United States Attorney General
Comment to aide Ed Gutham
November 23, 1963
“He’s been shot! He’s been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!
Tom Pettit
NBC Reporter
Dallas Police Station basement
November 24, 1963
“Pursuant to the authority vested in me as President of the United States, I hereby appoint a Commission to ascertain, evaluate and report the facts relating to the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy and the subsequent violent death of the man charged with the assassination.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Executive Order No. 11130
November 29, 1963
“The Commission has found no evidence that anyone assisted Oswald in planning or carrying out the assassination.”
The Warren Commission Report
Conclusions
Paragraph 9a
September 24, 1964
“Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be established categorically, but if there is any evidence it has been beyond the reach of all investigative agencies and resources of the United States and has not come to the attention of this Commission.”
The Warren Commission Report
Conclusions
Paragraph 9h
September 24, 1964
“Hoffa, I wish that hot head would keep quiet. You know he’s going to get us all in trouble. Someone needs to remind him we did him a favor in Dallas.”
Carlos Marcello
Mafia Boss of New Orleans
FBI wire tap
1969
After Kennedy’s assassination, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Carlos Marcello. They came to the conclusion that Marcello was not involved in the assassination. On the other hand, they also said that (they), “…did not believe Carlos
Marcello was a significant organized crime figure and that Marcello earned his living, “…as a tomato salesman and a real estate investor.” Yet, a mere half-dozen years earlier, Carlos Marcello and Meyer Lansky were named in a FBI report as two major crime bosses absent at the infamous ‘Apalachin’ mafia meeting in rural New York State. That same meeting forced J. Edgar Hoover to admit there was an organized crime problem in the United States.
Twenty-five Year Open Documents Law
General Research: Kennedy Assassination
1988
As a result of the FBI report, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no direct link between (Jack) Ruby and Carlos Marcello. “The Commission has found no evidence that (Lee Harvey Oswald or) Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.”
The Warren Commission Report: Conclusions: Paragraph 9: page 21:
Carlos Marcello’s name was never mentioned in the final edition of The Warren Commission Report. All this despite the fact that Carlos Marcello had testified before Senator John. F. Kennedy, with his brother Robert acting as council, to the Senate’s 1958 investigation of Organized Crime; and, despite the fact when John Kennedy was elected President, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had Carlos Marcello deported to Guatemala in 1961 as an illegal alien (his falsely reported origin of birth), the real reasons being Robert Kennedy’s knowledge of Marcello’s crime connections and the Attorney General’s eagerness to strike against Marcello, even if it was only an immigration issue.
Plus, a later revelation of FBI documentation noted Jack Ruby meeting with Carlos Marcello in Florida in the late 1950s.
Twenty-five Year Open Documents Law
General Research: Kennedy Assassination
1988
During the FBI’s investigation of the Kennedy’s assassination, the Bureau failed to recognize or report two significant contacts with Carlos Marcello: Nofio Pecora and Joe Campisi, both identified as lieutenants in the Marcello Crime Family. Nofio Pecora’s closest associate, Emile Bruneau, for reason unknown to this day, was the individual who bailed Lee Harvey Oswald out of jail in New Orleans, shortly after Oswald’s arrest for handing out ‘Fair Play for Cuba’ fliers on Canal Street and engaging in a fight with an anti-Castro Cuban.
Sam Campisi, Joe Campisi’s brother, was the first person, other than law enforcement and government officials, to visit Jack Ruby in jail following his arrest for the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Twenty-five Year Open Documents Law
General Research: Kennedy Assassination
1988
“In the aftermath of the assassination, top officials were more concerned with safeguarding their own agendas than they were with disclosing all the facts relevant to the investigation. The result was a government at odds with itself, almost comically scurrying to disguise its own nefarious plots, bureaucratic miscues and personal vendettas –all the while trying to convey a brisk sense of control to the public.”
Newsweek vol. 122, issue 21,
‘The Real Cover-Up.’
Nov. 22, 1993
77% 1988: Percentage of surveyed Americans who believe Lee Harvey Oswald’s act was the result of a conspiracy. Twenty-five years following the assassination and ten years following the findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Kennedy and King Assassinations.
76 % 1998: Percentage of surveyed Americans who believe Lee Harvey Oswald’s act was the result of a conspiracy. Thirty-five years following the assassination and twenty years following the findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Kennedy and King Assassinations.
74 % 2008: Percentage of surveyed Americans who believe Lee Harvey Oswald’s act was the result of a conspiracy. Forty-five years following the assassination and thirty years following the findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Kennedy and King Assassinations.
ASSASSINATION
“The wheel of political history revolves on the axle of time. One of the many spokes of that wheel is assassination.”
Anonymous
Chapter 1
Friday, November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas
5:45 A.M.
The twenty-four-year-old soon-to-be assassin boarding the bus seemed ordinary and familiar enough to his fellow passengers; his common facial features, medium build, dark brown hair and eyes, and dress of work clothes commanded no unusual attention. His overall appearance mirrored most, if not all of the occupants of the local from Oak Cliff to downtown Dallas. Several commuters recognized him as a regular and assumed he, like them, was only making his way to work. That particular morning, had they taken the time to observe him more closely, they might have detected an air of anxiety in the way his gaze darted about the bus, never making eye contact, and the protective way he cradled his unwieldy package.
Two stations before his usual downtown stop; he exited the bus and walked along Houston Avenue, stopping at the phone booth on the corner of Jackson Street. There, in the near dawn, he waited for a call. Too nervous to stand by the booth, he prowled the sidewalk, chain smoking, intermittently eyeing his watch and never easing his grip on the package under his left arm.
The sudden, muffled ringing of the phone exacerbated his already agitated behavior, causing him to jerk his entire body toward the phone booth and stare at the receiver. For a moment he froze, and then he spastically flicked his newly lit cigarette toward the street. He rushed to and opened the door to the booth, quickly shutting the folding door behind him. He grabbed at the receiver, and his voice cracked as he answered, “Hel…Hello?”
“Hello?” the caller echoed.
The assassin cleared his throat and answered, “Yes, I’m ready.”
A graveled baritone voice stated, “The route and time are as we expected. You will be in excellent position. As soon as you complete your task, go directly to the rendezvous point and meet your contact. You know all the arrangements.”
“Okay,” was the short, breathless response.
After hanging up the phone, the assassin clutched tighter at the bundle under his left arm. He smartly stepped toward his workplace: the Texas School Book Depository.
It took fewer than ten minutes to walk the five city blocks to the seven-story warehouse, and as expected, there was no one outside. The cool, crisp November morning had driven all the early arrivers inside, especially the smokers, and the modern garrotter passed through the entrance: he, his package, and his nervousness unnoticed by the few workers milling around.
The assassin made his way to the back stairs and with a deliberate slowness climbed the five sets of single switch-back flights, pausing momentarily at each landing, carefully watching and listening at every stop for anyone in the stairwell or on the upper floors. At this hour of the morning he had never seen anyone on the upper floors, yet his heart pounded with the fear of being discovered. He briefly paused on the landing of the sixth floor, again listening for any human sounds: he heard none. Realizing no one was on the upper floor and that he had reached his destination unnoticed, he breathed a deep sigh of relief. He opened the door, eased down the hall, and slipped into the enormous storage expanse at the end of the corridor. There, he locked the door behind him and walked into his lair, a room within a room.
On the previous day, during his lunch hour, he had walked up to the sixth floor and selected this specific site for his ambuscade. No employees’ offices occupied this floor; it was storage only, with piles of boxes containing textbooks, stacked along the entire length of the room, all according to grade and subject. Now, in November, school had been in session for two months; all the receiving and shipping of old and new textbooks was complete, and there was no need for anyone to be on the floor. Utilizing the boxes in the room, he had constructed a secret chamber to hide his actions. The shrouded corner afforded the luxury of concealment; plus more importantly, it provided a commanding view of Dealey Plaza.
It was now dawn, early dawn. The assassin purposefully left the light off so no one outside could see into the room. In the left corner of his lair, he raised the window a few inches, just enough to see out and to mask any chance of anyone noticing his presence. Peering to his left, he could see the intersection of Houston and Elm streets.
Houston was the route of the motorcade; a left turn off Houston was Elm Street, directly below him, the site of his ambush. He stood, staring out the slit of an aperture and slowly began to unwrap his bulky package.
Inside was a scoped 6.5 mm bolt action Italian rifle, concealed by the brown wrapping paper he had carried home yesterday after work, paper used to wrap textbooks for shipping. He tossed the paper on the floor behind him, unbolted the rifle, took five cartridges out of his pocket and placed them one at a time into the magazine, bolted a round into the chamber, and clicked on the safety. He propped the rifle against the wall and slumped in his make-do chair of boxes. His thoughts leaped from one subject to another: his days in New Orleans, his enlistment and tour of duty in the Marines, his time in the Soviet Union, his Russian wife, the coming act. He glanced at his watch; it was only 7:00 A.M., almost five long hours before the President of the United States was to be in Dealey Plaza. He sighed and lit a cigarette.
Minutes passed like hours.
Three hours lapsed: 10:00 A.M.: the assassin cautiously peered out the cracked window and noticed a few onlookers had gathered. He eased his stirring apprehension by intermittently pacing and sitting, also trying to abate his nervousness with a chain of cigarettes, all to no avail. Almost every ten minutes, he would take his rifle; half bolt the lock, and stare at the cartridge in the chamber, just to make sure it was still there.
Another hour lapsed: 11:00 A.M.: With the toe of his shoe, the waiting sniper crushed his cigarette in the pile of butts that littered the floor, and then he rose from his seat and half opened the window. In the bright daylight no one could see into the unlit room. The assassin studied the killing field below. The crowd had grown noticeably larger, and now the assassin crouched far back from the window and practiced his upcoming act by placing the cross hairs of his scope on the individuals standing in the Plaza.
11:30 A.M.: It was fifteen minutes before the Presidential motorcade was to be in Dealey Plaza, on Elm Street. Again surveying his field of view, the assassin guessed at the speed of the motorcade and reviewed his decision on when he would fire his first shot. He made a last minute inspection of the room and his weapon; in fewer than fifteen minutes the President of the United States would be little more than a hundred feet below him. He fully opened the window to give an unobstructed view and stepped back, rifle in hand.
Noon: The motorcade was fifteen minutes overdue. To relieve the inordinate tension, the assassin three-step paced his hidden chamber, cradling his weapon in the elbow of his left arm, but he never took his eyes off Houston Street. His hands sweated, making it necessary to wipe them on his trousers; and despite the cool November morning, he perspired, occasionally wiping his brow with his sleeve.
12:15 P.M.: The President was late, thirty minutes late; the assassin stared at his watch; he sighed heavily with almost every breath. He continued to three-step pace the floor; he could not be still. Like a predator, his senses were on edge, finely tuned for any sound or sight signaling the motorcade.
Minutes later there was the far wail of sirens. The Plaza crowd could hear the muffled echoes of the coming procession and seconds later, crescendoing waves of cheers radiated from the distance; then almost as one, the crowd began to point in the direction of the approaching Presidential motorcade.
As the Presidential limousine approached the intersection of Houston and Elm streets, the wife of the Governor of Texas, accompanying her husband and the President in the vehicle, was elated with the enthusiastic reception along the route, especially on Main Street. She turned to President Kennedy and said, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”
Kennedy replied, “Yes. That is very obvious.”
The time was exactly 12:29 P.M.
“Any time now,” the Lee Harvey Oswald whispered.
Chapter 2
Sixth floor
Texas School Book Depository Building
411 Elm Street
Dallas, Texas
The assassin stood a few feet back from the open window, legs apart, the butt of the rifle firmly planted against his right shoulder, safety off, left elbow in, right elbow out, his left hand holding the barrel stock, his right hand curled around the grip, with his right index finger on the trigger. His eyes searched the field of the scope for any movement on the street. Visibly trembling, he mentally attempted to control his physical unsteadiness; his heart raced; he felt short of breath. When he spied the first flight of the Dallas police motorcycles, his shaking worsened, his heart pounded, and he consciously struggled to suppress both. The first car appeared in his scope, the pilot car, manned by officers of the Dallas Police Department. The assassin let it go and waited. Next was another row of motorcycle policemen: the assassin ignored them. In the assassin’s scope, the second car appeared, the so-called lead car, an unmarked Dallas police car, a powder blue Ford Fairlane convertible driven by the Chief of Dallas Police, Jesse Curry, and occupied by the County Sheriff, J.E. Decker, along with two Secret Service agents.
Again, the assassin let the car disappear from his scope and he kept his focus on the intersection of Houston and Elm. Oswald waited for his target. He sighed heavily and held his position; yet despite his best efforts, the assassin could not completely control his shaking.
What followed was a void in the procession: no cars–nothing. Oswald gasped, quickly disengaged the rifle from his shoulder, leaned forward, and stared at the empty intersection of Houston and Elm Streets. Unaware of the rules of the motorcade, Oswald didn’t know the normal practice of the President’s limousine following five to six car lengths behind the lead car. Finally, from Houston Street, the Presidential car appeared, a customized black Lincoln Continental convertible with three tiers of seats. As soon as the assassin saw the Presidential flags on the front of the limousine, he realized this car held the President. Behind the driver and the front seat Secret Service agent were Governor Connally and his wife, each in a jump seat; behind them, in the back seat, sat the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and his wife, Jacqueline.
Oswald snapped the weapon to his shoulder and frantically searched the field of the scope. He soon found Kennedy seated in the far back right. The President’s right elbow rested on the side of the limo with his forearm and hand elevated, waving at the crowd. Kennedy smiled at his well-wishers.
It was now!
Quickly, the assassin adjusted his sights to place his target in the center of the scope. Oswald’s quivering intensified as he held the cross-hairs, as best he could, on his intended victim’s head. The assassin jerked at the trigger. At thunderous explosion followed and the first bullet hurled away.
The assassin’s nervous trembling substantially altered the trajectory of the bullet and it veered to the right, missing its target by over a foot. The unsuspecting President heard the whistle of the bullet as it passed dangerously close, coupled with the muzzle burst of the rifle. The President turned his head slightly, toward the ominous sound.
Directly in front of the President sat the Texas Governor, John Connally. He, too, heard the menacing noise of the passing bullet and the blast of the rifle behind him. Like the President, he turned toward the danger, rotating his body to the right, trying to identify the source of the peril. The bullet harmlessly ricocheted off the pavement and sailed above the waving crowds, arcing toward the grassy knoll, its peculiar whining noise noticed by some of the onlookers.
Without removing the rifle from his shoulder, the sniper quickly bolted another shell into the chamber. This time he lowered his sights, a reflex from his military training –compensating for shooting down at his target, and he squeezed the trigger. Another shrill explosion echoed through Dealey Plaza. With the second blast, Secret Service agents and members of the crowd frantically began to search for the source of the inappropriate noise.
Oswald had over-reacted, although hitting his target, but well below his intended aim. The second bullet struck Kennedy’s back, between the right shoulder blade and the spine, high up on the torso. It penetrated the chest and struck the upper lobe of the President’s right lung. As it passed through the thorax, it glanced off the side of the spine and continued coursing through the upper body. It missed the arteries in the neck, but violated the esophagus, and just before exiting, perforated the trachea, immediately below the larynx.
The wounded President reflexively reached for his throat.
The bullet continued on its path, striking Governor Connally, entering and exiting his right chest. Because of the Governor’s awkward position, the rifled slug finally terminated its destructive and meandering course by piercing and fracturing the Governor’s right wrist and superficially lodging in his left thigh. Connally reeled, turning farther to the right, and with his left hand he reached toward his chest to investigate the sudden searing pain. The projectile, nearly intact from hitting mostly soft tissue, was expelled from Connally’s thigh wound by the movements of his leg.
Startled by the intense sounds, the crowd watched in horror as the two men reacted to their injuries. The president clutched at his neck and lurched forward, exclaiming, “My God! I’m hit!” His wife, sitting next to him, noticed the unnatural movement, heard his comment, and cast a curious glance toward her husband. Connally noticeably grimaced as the symptoms of his injuries intensified, and he yelled. “Oh! No! No! No! My God, they’re going to kill us all!”
Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman, sitting in the right front seat of the Presidential limousine, had heard the first shot. For a moment he was trying to determine if it was an extraneous noise of the motorcade–perhaps a backfire from one of the motorcycles, or if it represented real danger. The second shot made his suspicions soar.
He turned and looked at the President and saw both of Kennedy’s hands move toward his neck and saw Connally grab his chest. Kellerman turned to the driver and exclaimed, “Let’s get out of here! We are hit!”
Bolting his rifle for the third time, the sniper placed the cross hairs on the back of Kennedy’s head. This time his hand was steady and his aim true. Oswald squeezed the trigger and the missile raced to its mark, crashing into the back of Kennedy’s head, entering just to the right of the midline. It pierced the bone of the cranium and tore into the brain. With a spray of blood, shattered bone, and white and gray brain tissue, the remaining energy of the missile exploded a hole in the right side of Kennedy’s skull.
The bullet exited with the debris of the wound, hit the interior windshield of the limousine, causing the safety glass to crack. With most of its energy spent, the bullet rebounded off the windshield, bounced harmlessly from the dashboard, clearing the limousine. Still traveling at a few hundred feet per second, the fatal bullet landed unnoticed and forever hidden in the grass of Dealey Plaza.
The assassin’s victim, the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, collapsed, mortally wounded, falling into his wife’s lap. Jackie cried, “Oh my God! They have shot my husband…I love you Jack.”
Again, Kellerman looked back, this time only to see Connally slump into his wife’s arms, and hear her state. “It’s all right. Be still.” All Kellerman could see of the President was his right shoulder, and he heard Mrs. Kennedy cry, “What are they doing to you!?” Kellerman grabbed the microphone and radioed ahead to the lead car, to Dallas Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry, “We are hit! Get us to the hospital immediately!”
Chief Curry picked up his police mike and ordered the base station, “Notify Parkland Hospital. Looks like the President has been hit…gunshot wound. Have Parkland stand by.”
Lee Harvey Oswald making his getaway as the Presidential motorcade raced down Stemmons Freeway to nearby Parkland Hospital. In the President’s limousine one of the Secret Service agents performed the heroic but belated task of covering the President and the First Lady with his own body, desperately trying to protect both. In the Vice-President’s limo, a bevy of agents hovered over Lyndon Jonson and Lady Bird. An armada of Secret Service cars sped along with the two vehicles, and in each auto, every agent realized his worst nightmare was coming true.
Chapter 3
Southwest Medical Center
Parkland Hospital ER
12:32 P.M.
The ward clerk, Maria Rivera, sat behind her station in the Parkland Emergency Room, staring at a chart, struggling to decipher the handwritten diagnosis and orders, and mentally complaining about the physician’s poor script. Born in Dallas of Mexican immigrants, her English was perfect, as was her penmanship–unlike that of most of her physician counterparts. Plus, her bilingual abilities and convivial social skills made her a much needed asset to the medical staff. She was about as wide as she was tall, the doting mother of two handsome sons–both under the age of ten. Her personal and family world in south Dallas was much different from the professional world she shared at Parkland. For five years, she watched as interns and residents rotated through the ER, and Dr. Charles–as she, and only she called him–was one of her favorite.
Dr. Charles J. Carrico sat nearby, at the physician’s desk, writing his patient’s ER note. Unlike Maria, he was from a privileged family in Fort Worth. As the senior of the three surgery residents assigned to a six week rotation in the ER, he was more interested in his next month’s schedule of cardiovascular surgery than in his present duty. After four weeks, he had seen quite enough of drunks, drug heads, and destitutes–the three D’s of Dallas as he called them–along with a heavy scattering of car wrecks, stabbings, and gunshot wounds.
The blue phone rang, the one connected to the Dallas Police Department, the phone that always signaled severely injured patients, usually first seen and evaluated by the Dallas Police. Hardly a day passed that it didn’t sound its alarm, some days more frequently than others, and more on nights and weekends.
Maria reached for the phone and Dr. Carrico ceased writing his note. Carrico cast an eye toward the phone, muttered an obscenity, “shit,” and then leaned back in his chair to wait for the announcement from the ward clerk. He callously wondered what indigent, or indigents, from south Dallas were about to ruin his fairly tranquil day.
Although it was a dedicated line, Maria answered with her customary greeting, “Parkland ER.”
Carrico watched as Maria’s mouth gaped open and her eyes grew wide with dismay. “Must be pretty bad,” Carrico thought, knowing Maria was usually calm in any situation.
As Maria hung up the phone, she waved her hand at Carrico and exclaimed in her Mexican-American accent. “The President of the United States is coming in! Kennedy! Gunshot wound!”
Charles Carrico reacted with a surprise of his own: this was not the message he expected. “What!?” he asked with astonishment. “Are you sure!? The President!? Kennedy!?”
“Yes! That’s what the dispatcher said. Gunshot wound. He said Chief Curry personally told him to notify Parkland that they were on the way with the President and to prepare for a gunshot wound.”
Carrico stared at Maria and responded, “oh my God!” His mouth now gaped open and he asked, “Where!? Where is he shot?”
“Didn’t say,” she answered. “All they said was to prepare for a gunshot wound.”
Carrico wheeled, ran down the hall frantically searching for his fellow surgeons, and cursed aloud, “God Damn!” and yelled, “Pat!”
Pat Tosct, the charge nurse on the seven-to-three shift, heard Carrico’s call and met him in the hall. She listened as Carrico shouted out orders, “find Larry and Joe! Get them out here stat! Get Red, too. He’s on orthopedics. Get a gurney and round up all the orderlies and nurses you can find!” Before she had a chance to ask why, Carrico announced, “The President of the United States is coming in! Kennedy! Gunshot wound! Get lab and X-ray here too, stat, and notify the blood bank. Set up Trauma 1.”
Pat disappeared as quickly as she had appeared, and Dr. Carrico ran toward the ambulance ramp to meet his patient.
The Presidential limousine arrived at exactly 12:35. The alerted hospital staff began their orchestrated, albeit frenzied, attempt to salvage Kennedy’s life and attend the injured Governor Connally. As soon as the stricken President was extracted from the back seat, the ER personnel recognized the extent and seriousness of Kennedy’s wounds.
As the trauma team ran down the hall with their blood-soaked patient, Dr. Carrico yelled at Maria. “Page Dr. Kemp and Dr. Clark STAT to Trauma 1!”
Maria immediately summoned the Chairman of the Department of Surgery, Dr. Peter Kemp, and the Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, Dr. Paul Clark.
Once the President was wheeled into Trauma 1, Dr. Carrico quickly performed a tracheotomy, the placing of a tube in Kennedy’s windpipe, made surprisingly simple by the hole already present in his neck. One nurse attached an Ambu bag to the trach and began breathing for the President. Another nurse started an IV in the President’s left arm; another stood on the right side of the stretcher and performed CPR, compressing the President’s chest, desperately attempting to assist Kennedy’s heart and circulation. The other two surgical residents, Dr. Larry Cain and Dr. Joseph Tisch, simultaneously performed cut-downs on the veins in each of Kennedy’s ankles to have an expanded means to give their patient fluids, IV medication, and, if needed, blood. Lab and X-ray technicians were waiting in the room when the President arrived, and in less than five minutes they had completed their assignments. One of the respiratory therapists had relieved the nurse and taken over breathing for the President. The remaining nurses frantically cut off the President’s clothes, connected their patient to a heart monitor, and otherwise aided the physicians in their Herculean struggle. By the time the two department heads responded, the ER doctors and nurses had skillfully completed their primary treatment and were anxiously awaiting the staff physicians.
Hearing their patient was non-other than the President of the United States, Drs. Kemp and Clark, both sitting in their respective offices, bolted toward the ER: each ignored the elevator and ran down the stairs to the ground floor. Dr. Kemp arrived first, burst into Trauma 1 and barked out a command for a verbal report, breathlessly asking, “The President!?” Before Carrico had a chance to speak, the door of Trauma 1 flew open again and Dr. Clark, the chief of neurosurgery, darted in and stopped next to Kemp.
As both surgeons waited for Carrico’s presentation, they each began a visual assessment of the President. Kennedy lay supine on the stretcher, partially covered with a sheet, his back brace remaining as the only remnant of personal clothing. His dilated and fixed pupils stared at the ceiling. A Bennett respirator had been connected to the trach fitting, and the machine was mechanically breathing for the President. Five IVs hung above the gurney, three held a liter of fluid each; the other two were delivering O-negative blood. A small bottle of medicine, Aramine, hung with the fluids, the drug running piggyback through the IV line in a zealous effort to stimulate Kennedy’s blood pressure and heart rate. A clear plastic tube was protruding from the President’s right chest and dumped blood and air into one of the three bubbling chest tube bottles lining the floor. A naso-gastric tube, curving out of the President’s nose and emptying his stomach, also produced blood; a Foley catheter drained his bladder; the heart monitor slowly beeped out his heart rate; and last, a small, green, sterile towel discretely lay over the right side of the President’s head.
“The President has received two gunshot wounds,” Dr. Carrico began, and removed the sterile draped covering Kennedy’s cranial injury.
“Two!” both surgeons simultaneously proclaimed as they stared at the gaping hole in the right side of Kennedy’s head.
“Yes, sir,” Carrico answered. “The one you see here and the one that entered his posterior-superior right thorax, medial to the scapula –about [T-1] I would guess, and exited at the sternal notch.” Carrico pointed at Kennedy’s neck and stated, “The bullet pierced the trachea and most likely the esophagus–drainage from the NG tube is bloody.
It doesn’t appear that any major vessels were violated with that wound…sir; we couldn’t find any significant swelling in his neck. I performed an emergency tracheotomy and inserted a number 7 trach tube. The President did have a small right sided hemothorax with air in the subcutaneous tissues, and Dr. Cain inserted a chest tube.”
Carrico paused momentarily and gestured toward the grotesque injury to Kennedy’s cranium, saying to Dr. Clark, the chief of neurosurgery, “there is an entrance wound on his occiput, sir, practically midline…and…this, of course…is the exit wound.” Carrico pointed at the X-ray viewing boxes along the wall and stated, “the President’s films are over here, sir.”
The two staff surgeons walked to the X-ray viewing boxes and studied the radiographs of the President’s skull, neck, and thorax. The neck X-rays were normal, the chest X-ray showed a small hemo-pneumothorax–free air and blood present in the chest cavity, an insignificant injury, especially when compared to the obvious massive injury to Kennedy’s skull.
Maria rushed into the room and handed one of the nurses the preliminary blood work. The nurse eased toward Carrico and quietly presented him the report. After staring at the data, Carrico proclaimed, “The President’s blood studies are normal.”
Carrico handed the lab slip to Dr. Kemp.
“Vitals?” Dr. Kemp, the Chief of Surgery asked, then frowned and quickly reviewed the piece of paper Carrico gave him.
Pat stood at the foot of the stretcher. Dr. Carrico gazed at her. She recognized the cue and with a quaking voice, responded, “Last blood pressure was palpated at 50…sir; pulse, 34; and no spontaneous respirations…sir.”
“Meds?”
Carrico promptly answered, “the President has received three liters of Lactated Ringers, two units of O-negative blood, Solu-Cortef 300 milligrams, two amps of epinephrine, five milligrams of Aramine IV, four amps of Sodium Bicarbonate, and we presently have Aramine infusing.”
“Rate?”
“Maximum dose, ten CCs in a hundred MLs of normal saline, infusing at one CC a minute…sir. We also gave an amp of Coramine to stimulate the President’s respiration…sir.”
Dr. Kemp and Dr. Clark stared at each other. Then, simultaneously, the two medical professors stared at the heart monitor that ominously broadcast the electronic pattern of the President’s failing heart. Kennedy had a faint heart beat and blood pressure was being mechanically ventilated, yet the two physicians realized the head wound was fatal. Although everyone in the room, medical and government personnel alike knew the outcome, they impatiently waited for the two department chairmen to announce their findings and prognosis. The pair again stared at each other, as if both were waiting for the other to make the announcement.
Governor Connally lay in the next room, Trauma 2, with a tube in his right chest, placed there to drain the blood and re-inflate his injured lung, the lung hit by the assassin’s bullet. Dr. James ‘Red’ Duke, the surgery resident rotating on orthopedics, had treated Connally’s chest injury and was now tending the Governor’s injured right wrist and was listening to his patient curse with pain. The Governor’s wife stepped out into the hall to speak with a Secret Service Agent and she soon returned. Lady Bird Johnson stood on the opposite side of the exam table from Dr. Duke and smiled at her husband.
Connally looked at his wife, frowned with pain as Duke began manipulating his wrist, and asked, “How’s the President?”
Mrs. Connally began to cry.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was given the last rites by Father Oscar L. Huber and all resuscitation efforts were terminated. At exactly 1:00 P.M. Central Time, November 22, 1963, the 35th President of the United States was pronounced dead.
Chapter 4
Washington, D.C.
1:30 P.M. Eastern Time
(12:30 P.M. Dallas Time)
Walter Aaron Juniker sat at his office desk, expecting any moment to hear the news of the assassination. Juniker had the patience of Job, and for the past two hours he had pushed his talent of forbearance to the limit. Outwardly, he appeared quite tranquil, but he was so consumed by the anticipated report that he was unable to eat or work. And, most unusual for Walter, his office door was uncharacteristically closed.
Work was a lie. What Walter needed was silence and seclusion. Even with his knowledge of the assassination, he dared not find some handy excuse for cancelling his wife’s hosting her dinner club. The timing would be too convenient. Walter glanced at his wrist watch, and then at his desk clock; both announced 1:30. The tension of the moment was becoming unbearable.
“Nothing to do but wait,” Walter thought.
Juniker leaned back in his chair, nearly overwhelmed with worries of a foiled attempt. He feared the consequences of a mishandled operation and speculated whether he and his fellow conspirators had devised a fail-safe system to insulate them from such a debacle. He prayed they had.
Walter even thought of calling Rube or Mickey, or both, despite the fact the three had agreed not to talk during the hours before the assassination. During the expected flurry of activity and confusion following the assassination, and only then, had the trio decided to contact each other and meet briefly before they went home. Still, Walter fought the urge to call. Juniker’s eyes returned to his desk clock: 1:31. The one minute seemed like thirty.
“We should be hearing any time now,” he mumbled.
The near eternity of suspense finally ended, for suddenly and without warning, Walter’s office door flew open, and his secretary, Joan, shouted, “Have you heard!? The President has been shot!” As Joan stood in the doorway, she began to tremble.
Initially, Walter reacted with visible relief, which he hoped his secretary had not noticed. Joan stepped into the middle of the room and began to cry. Walter quickly rose from his chair, and pretending to be shocked, went to console his long-time secretary.
By the time he arrived at her side, Joan had regained most of her composure and stated, “My friend, Shelia, called me, and I turned on the radio and sure enough it’s true. Shot in Dallas.”
Joan began to sob again.
Walter placed a comforting arm around Joan’s shoulders and whispered, “Let’s go to the lounge and see if anything is on television.”
A quick elevator ride to the top floor and a walk down the hall put Walter and Joan in the massive executive lounge, now open to all. As they entered, they discovered a gathering of office workers and executives, all gleaning the television for news of the assassination. Walter’s two friends and fellow colleagues, Rube and Mickey, were there. The three men made a conscious effort not to look at each other. By ones and twos, sometimes threes, other workers darted into the room –a room usually filled with relaxation and laughter, now filled with whispers and tears. Walter and Joan stared at the special broadcast and listened.
Minutes later, everyone in the room was glued to the Washington CBS television station, WUSA, listening to Walter Cronkite as he reported the news as best as he could. Cronkite paused briefly after being handed a report and stated, “Here is a bulletin from CBS news, a flash…apparently official…President Kennedy died at 1:00 P.M. Central Standard Time,” Cronkite quickly cast a glance at the clock in the news room, fought back tears, and continued, “two o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.”
The room erupted with sobs and gasps. Juniker did his part, giving the impression that it was a ghastly event and an immeasurable loss. Seconds later, he was nearly overcome with an anesthetic emptiness.
“What next,” he thought.
Juniker quickly abandoned Joan and his co-workers, retreated to his office, and closed the door. As he stood behind his desk, he thought what Rube had once quoted him, “The wheel of political fortune revolves on the axis of time. One of the many spokes of that wheel is assassination.” Walter glanced at his calendar and whispered, “Time.” He continued his soliloquy: “Well…it’s done. This will be a day that will be long remembered by the people who were alive when it happened…and by history.”
Walter picked up the phone and dialed home. The dinner party his wife had planned for that evening was cancelled, but before Walter drove home to Silver Springs, Maryland, and his wife, he joined Rube and Mickey on Mickey’s sailboat moored at the Potomac River Marina. The three men celebrated their achievement.
Chapter 5
Franklinton, Louisiana
Franklinton High School
1:35 P.M. Central Time
Daniel Otto Cimlut sat in the back row of biology class. As a senior transfer student he was short on friends and companionship, but long on intelligence and athletic ability. Despite Dan’s stellar academic success at his new school, the ticket to his desired recognition was athletics, and his interest at the moment was directed toward next period’s basketball practice and his desire to make the starting five of the Franklinton High School ‘Demons’ basketball team. Basketball did not occupy all of Dan’s thoughts. There was another reason he was concerned about the beginning of the sixth period: that reason was Alice Winstead.
The public address system suddenly blared with the distinctive male alto voice of Franklinton High School’s Principal. Mr. Hank’s squeaked. “Attention. Attention. I have an important announcement.”
The biology instructor, Mrs. Loggan, a pleasant yet morbidly obese woman, paused in the middle of her description of the mammalian heart to listen to the bulletin. The principal calmly announced that the President of the United States had been shot in Dallas, Texas. The room erupted with scatterings of inappropriate cheers from some of the male students.
Seconds later, without comment and with a matter-of-fact manner, Mrs. Loggan returned to her lecture. Ten minutes later, moments before the end of the fifth period, the second announcement confirmed the death of the President. A second round of cheers radiated from the room and from other classes. Mrs. Loggan abruptly abandoned her station and scurried off to the teacher’s lounge to collect what information she could of the assassination. Almost immediately after Mrs. Logan’s departure, the bell rang, signaling the sixth and final period, and Dan anxiously made his way to the gym.
As Dan turned the corner, he found Alice at her usual spot by the coke machine, awaiting his arrival. Today was different; Alice’s normally radiant smile was replaced with tears and a long, sullen face.
Dan recognized her unnatural mood and immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you hear?” she answered, and then added, “Someone killed the President!”
“Oh, yes,” Dan replied. “It’s terrible.”
“Why would anyone want to do such a thing?” she demanded.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Did you hear the cheering?”
“Yes.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Cheer? Well…I…you know, almost everyone hates Kennedy in the South now… integration and all that.”
Alice’s voice trailed off as she said, “well, it’s just horrible.”
They both turned and slowly walked toward the gym. The conversation proceeded haphazardly, with choppy discussions on the assassination alternating with comments concerning school, and each coupled with periods of awkward silence. During the interludes Dan wondered if now was the most opportune time to ask Alice for a date, and he struggle to maintain his courage. Just before they entered the gym door and started for their respective locker rooms, Dan stopped Alice, and with his voice breaking, blurted out, “Alice, would you like to go to a movie Saturday night?”
Alice stared at him, not responding.
Dan thought he would surely die a thousand deaths before she answered.
“Yes, that would be nice,” she replied, smiling as much with her eyes as her mouth.
“Great! Well…then…I’ll uh…I’ll call you later. Okay?”
“Okay,” Alice echoed and unconsciously winked at Dan.
After she realized what she had done, she began to blush. Dan reciprocated.
They parted, and as Dan made his way into the locker room, he had an extra spring in his step and a grin of his face. He rushed into the dressing room and complete with body language of clenched fists and raised arms, he yelled out an elated, “All right!”
For Dan, Friday, November 22, 1963, was a banner day. Alice had accepted his invitation for a Saturday night movie, plus, he made the starting five, having been awarded the position of guard. The nation’s tragedy and mourning took a third-place seat in Dan’s life.
TREASON
“I love treason but hate a traitor.”
Julius Caesar
From Plutarch
Lives, Romulus
Sec. 17
Chapter 6
11 Months earlier.
Saturday, December 12, 1962
Washington D.C.
J. Edgar Hoover’s House
FBI Associate/Assistant Directors’ Christmas party
“I hate this,” Rube whispered into his wife’s ear.
Randall Wayne Johnston, Randy to most, (also known as ‘Rube’ to his two brothers, a few close friends and his wife, Kandy) was a study of contrasts. He had recently crossed the boundary into the fifth decade of life, but his chronological age of forty-one didn’t correlate with his biological appearance of mid-thirties. He was quite the handsome man. However, the abject poverty and the arduous labor as the son of a drunken and abusive Arkansas Delta cotton sharecropper had taken its emotional toll as a child and as an adolescent, making his psychological age much greater than his chronological one. His Spartan childhood and absence of material wealth was now a world away from his Georgetown three-story townhouse. Tonight, even his dapper appearance in his dark gray, chalk-striped three-piece suit–the uniform of upper management of the FBI–concealed a different man.
“I hate this,” Rube again whispered into his wife’s ear, thinking she had not heard his first comment.
“No, you do not,” Kandy whispered back.
Katherine Morris Wilson Hancock’s life was privileged; she was the only child of Edith and Morris Hancock, heiress to her parent’s New York fabric fortune, and heiress to her maternal grandfather’s–John Wilson–candy fortune; hence the nickname Kandy (Kandy with a ‘K’). Unlike Rube, luxury was common to Kandy.
“This is your job,” Kandy added. “This party is no more about Christmas than is the Hajj.” She motioned toward the people-filled room and said, “look, this is office politics at its best, everyone making sure their position is safe, and it gives you a chance to evaluate your peers, not to mention your own self-review. Plus, it gives the director, and of course the deputy director, time to evaluate the pack under one roof. Who is the strongest, and who is the weakest, and who is destined, according to their definition, for further advancement.”