When Jackie Kennedy wept at the White House, she still was wearing that pink suit | Opinion

By a twist of fate, Miami native David Pearson — then a Peace Corps press officer, later the operator of a South Florida public relations firm — was called to help at the White House on the evening of Nov. 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was shot. His observations, first published in 1983, is being shared again, in abridged form, on the 58th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

She is standing there in that funny posture of hers. Feet slightly apart, arms out from her sides, body tilted forward. Eyes so wide that she looks like one of those Keane paintings, hollow brown eyes fixed on the casket. Unseeing.

She still wears the nubby rose suit, chocolate-colored stains on her skirt where his head has lain.

Right now, in a mixture of dawn and candlelight, this woman I see is not regal or stoic or even in control. She is a grieving young widow bereft of her young husband, and as human as any deeply loving wife.

Minutes later she will be sobbing bitterly, slumped in the arms of her brother-in-law Bobby.

The world doesn’t think of Mrs. John Fitzgerald Kennedy this way. Her collapse by the coffin that night of the murder is but part of the story of what really went on inside the White House in those tense, strange hours after sunset on Nov. 22, 1963.

I was there. I tacked black crepe. I fetched sandwiches. I wrote press releases. I emptied ash trays. I ran errands. I also watched and I listened. And I remember what has now become history and legend.

Who was I ... and why was I there? I was a second-level Peace Corps press officer working for Sargent Shriver [a major behind the creation of the Peace Corps], and because the White House press staffers were all out of town — Pierre Salinger was flying over the Pacific with some Cabinet members, Mac Kilduff had gone with President Kennedy to Dallas and Andy Hatcher was out of reach — I was tapped to be inside the White House all through that remarkable night. It is 3 p.m. that windy, fateful day. I am frozen at my desk, still stunned with the awful news of John Kennedy’s murder in Dallas.

My phone rings. “Shriver wants you and Lloyd Wright to go to [Kennedy aide] Ralph Dungan’s office at the White House to help.” Running all the way, we are across Lafayette Square and there in four minutes.

When I get to the front gates, I realize I don’t have my wallet with my ID card. Lloyd pulls his ID card out and vouches for me. Shriver has phoned ahead, so they let us through. I am surprised because the Secret Service men are running around like squirrels under the trees, and it occurs to me that they are jumpy for nothing. Their president has already been shot.

We slip into Dungan’s big office. Seated around the large desk are Shriver, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Angier Biddle Duke, Capt. Tazewell Shepard (the naval aide), Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton (the military aide) and an Army protocol colonel. Also present are John Bailey, the national Democratic chairman; Ted Sorensen and Lee White. Each will play an important role tonight.

The mountains of news accounts of those dark days will tell the world that Jacqueline Kennedy, who “has borne herself with the valor of a queen in a Greek tragedy, “ as The Washington Star’s Mary McGrory would write, made virtually all the arrangements, and that the widow “overwhelmed White House aides with her meticulous attention to the melancholy arrangements that have had to be made.” Life magazine, in banner headline fashion, would report that, “Mrs. Kennedy’s decisions shaped all the solemn pageantry” and would go on to tell its readers that the widow arrived back at the White House at the crack of dawn to personally supervise the arrangements.

But it is not a true picture. What my eyes and ears take in tonight is a combined effort by a group of men — men who don’t always appreciate each other’s offerings, but men who get things done.

It is entirely true that Mrs. Kennedy would impart a number of thoughts and wishes, relayed from Bobby Kennedy to Shriver through continual telephone calls. But it would become clear to us on this sleepless night that the careful details are being accomplished by Shriver and certain other key men who translate her wishes into substance, form and effective action.

I look at these other men, these famous men who knew Kennedy intimately. I am distressed that I keep noticing Schlesinger’s crooked bow tie that proves he tied it himself, his baggy suit, the striped shirt. He looks just like an active historian. And the brilliant McGeorge Bundy. He is the White House civilian who must make sure no wrong military word gets out to all those Polaris submarines with the nuclear weapons pointed up.

When the president’s jet arrives at 5:58 p.m., Shriver has a long phone conversation with Bobby. Then he turns and says to us, “I’d like you all to know, in a general way, what Mrs. Kennedy’s and the family’s wishes are. Mrs. Kennedy feels that, above all, those arrangements should be made to provide great dignity for the president. He should be buried as a president and a former naval officer rather than as a Kennedy.”

The man is kind and informal but thoroughly decisive. The Catholic hierarchy at this point want a solemn high requiem Mass. Shriver explains respectfully that Kennedy didn’t like pomp. He presses for a pontifical requiem Mass — a “low” Mass with restraint, yet one given considerable dignity because it is the Pope’s Mass. Like most men in important positions, Shriver frequently turns to trusted aides for information or opinions, even when qualified specialists might be at hand.

Now Shriver speaks to a young psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph English, a close friend who is also a knowledgeable Catholic layman. English’s gentle humor is a tonic: “Let’s take the low road, Sarge, “ he says softly.

Shriver decides. “Look, if he made it a point to attend a low Mass himself every Sunday, why should we force a high Mass on him now?” It is a question that calls for no answer. There is none. It will be a low Mass.

Once the overall schedule is worked out, it now becomes necessary to tackle the task everyone dreads. Who will be invited? Who are the most honored men in our nation? And who are the president’s real friends?

While reading the draft of a press release, Shriver suddenly looks up. “Good Lord, we have forgotten Ike, Hoover and Truman.” Shriver quickly jots their names down on the release and turns to Averill Harriman, who is slumped down next to me on a couch. I look at Harriman, at the deep, sad lines in his face. He is surprisingly tall, but thin and somewhat stooped.

“Mr. Ambassador, aren’t you a good friend of President Truman’s?”

Harriman nods. “Yes.”

“Would you please contact President Truman, President Eisenhower and President Hoover and invite them to come tomorrow morning?”

Harriman goes off to send the telegrams and returns two hours later to report that Truman and Eisenhower will be there, but Hoover’s health will prevent him from attending.

Shriver is, without question, the dominant figure here. Yet when a national magazine is later to publish a detailed account of his life, there will be not even a hint of what should go down as one of the most superb contributions of his career.

Everett McKinley Dirksen flows in, greeting the workers with mellow words: “I still can’t believe it has happened; I am stunned, shaken. But thank God there are those like you who are carrying the burden at this terrible time. Is there anything at all I can do to help?” Somehow everyone feels a little better for Dirksen’s words.

Shriver remembers that he has called Bill Walton, an artist and close friend of the Kennedys, and asked him to come over. Walton, along with the presidential arts advisor, Dick Goodwin, is preparing the East Room. Shriver asks me to go over and get Walton to see if he knows of any Kennedy friends who might have been left out. I have never been through the inner rooms of the White House, but somehow — I guess it must be from seeing the White House on TV and in pictures — I walk through the many corridors directly to the East Room.

Walton, natty and urbane, is quietly giving instructions to a furniture upholsterer who is up on a 20-foot ladder, hanging black window curtains. At about 1 a.m., Shriver heads to the East Room for the first time, followed by Lloyd Wright and me.

On the way through the hollow corridors, we pass an open room with a TV set turned on. No one is in the room. The network is running tapes of old Kennedy speeches. Shriver walks into the room, impulsively sits down before the TV set, looks at the screen.

It is JFK’s moving Berlin speech. Kennedy says, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” The German crowds roar. Shriver gets up, walks out, heading again for the East Room. After a few stops, he comes to the president’s office, where an armed Marine guard stands by the open door. There is a chain across the opening to the darkened room.

Shriver stops at the chain and looks in. The Marine guard flicks on the light. Shriver stares at the president’s empty chair a full minute, then turns and starts to say something to us. All that comes out is a hoarse croak. It is the first time I have seen any visible sign of the deep distress that must be tearing at him.

He quickly turns on his heel and marches down the corridor to the East Room, clearing his throat, squaring his shoulders and staying several paces ahead of us.

Now, in the blackest part of the night, just before dawn, headlights begin to cut through the gloom in front of the White House. Most of us, embarrassed and feeling out of place, retreat to a corner of the East Room. Shriver remains at the door to greet the widow and direct the pallbearers.

No one has had any experience. What do you do when you bring a dead president into the East Room of the White House at 4:30 in the morning?

The priest walks to the head of the casket, carrying holy water in a tiny 1-ounce bottle. He says a couple of prayers in Latin and in English and sprinkles a few drops on the bier.

Jackie stands right in the doorway, with Robert McNamara on her right and Bobby Kennedy on her left. I didn’t know McNamara was that close a friend. What a fierce black eagle in a dark suit, his mouth a straight line above the flexing jaw. And still he is tender and solicitous of the widow.

The little altar boy with a candle lighter goes up to ignite the four large candles at the corners of the casket. The wick at the first candle is down under the metal shield; it seems to take him an excruciatingly long time to light the candles. I should run and pull the wick up. I know Bobby Kennedy, another ex-altar boy, has the same thought. But who could go up and ruin the scene? So we wait.

Now I look over at Jacqueline Kennedy, and it seems to me that she appeared out of nowhere, an apparition standing in that characteristic pose of hers that would become so well-known to the world in the ensuing days.

Feet apart, the slight lean forward. Stiff and awe-struck. Her lips are parted slightly. Her eyes are as if she had just been surprised, only they stay that way. A wrinkle of disbelief on her brow.

I look at her suit and am surprised that she hasn’t changed clothes. The dark stains are all over her skirt and her stockings. The candles don’t smoke. Very expensive beeswax. The priest moves back. He nods to Mrs. Kennedy. She takes the five steps to the casket and quickly kneels down, almost falling, on the edge of the catafalque. Her hands hang loosely at her sides. She lays her forehead against the side of the casket.

She kneels there like that for what seems a long time, but it must span no more than two or three minutes. There is dead silence. I am almost afraid to breathe.

Slowly, she starts to rise. Then, without any warning, Mrs. Kennedy begins crying. Her slender frame is rocked by sobs, and she slumps back down. Her knees give way. Bobby Kennedy moves up quickly, puts one arm around her waist. He stands there with her a moment and just lets her cry.

Through the coming days many people would actually wonder whether she could have loved him very much because she didn’t seem to mourn the way people mourn who love deeply.

But those of us in the East Room tonight know she did.

Bobby moves her away from the casket. She is led upstairs.

They have brought John Kennedy home.

David Pearson is a Miami-based author and publicist. He is the author of “JFK and Bobby, Arnie and Jack … and David!”