The Assassination and the Kennedy Legacy

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder!

-SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET Hundreds of books and studies have been written about the Kennedy assassination. Alert readers have noticed that their authors often use the words "alleged," "claimed," and "supposedly"-just as I have done in this book. The debate over the Kennedy assassination is one of the longest-running sagas in American history, involving hundreds of subplots. Facts and quasifacts have dribbled out over five decades. Quite a few of these "facts" are unverifiable or only partially verifiable-which does not necessarily mean they are incorrect. Stories are told by respectable and dubious witnesses alike that are based on murky memories of long-ago events. Some legitimate evidence is contradictory. The cast of characters in this historical enterprise, many of them colorful and quirky, could fill a bookshelf of Shakespearean plays. The search for the truth of JFK's assassination is like the quest for El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that tantalized European explorers in the sixteenth century. Inspired by vague clues and Amerindian legends, these explorers spent years in the wilderness hoping to strike it rich, but often died of disease and starvation instead.

This book is a synthesis of what we know after fifty years, not a misguided attempt to solve the insoluble. Too many cases are called "the murder of the century," but other than the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which sparked the death of millions in the Great War, the slaying of John Kennedy may well qualify for the twentieth century's slot. Few would question that it is one of the most tangled, tortuous, and intimidating political executions of all time.

In these pages I have tried to do justice to the accumulated evidence, and I have attempted to weigh it fairly in evaluating the major theories about November 22 that have been proposed. This has been a difficult undertaking for two reasons. First, Americans did not get all the facts at the time when the assassination might have been solved to most people's satisfaction. Many powerful forces were determined to keep the public from learning the full story, and they handicapped the initial investigation lest it uncover the entire embarrassing truth. Everyone can now see that obscuring the government's efforts to kill Fidel Castro (and perhaps other foreign dictators) was part of the motivation, but there was more. Whether these powerful figures simply wanted to avoid blame for having missed obvious signals about Oswald's potential as an assassin, or were trying to obscure their outright culpability in a more direct sense, will be argued for years to come. Second, a comprehensive appraisal of November 22 is impossible because many government documents are still classified. The public has not been trusted with the entire record about the murder of the thirty-fifth president, when the forty-fourth is sitting in the White House. Many of these documents are finally scheduled to be released in 2017.1 Americans may or may not learn anything new at that time. One doubts that intentionally incriminating paperwork will be found intact at this late date. The true outrage is that it will have taken more than a half century for the people's government to reveal these taxpayer-produced documents about a long-ago seminal event.2 Advances in technology may eventually permit researchers to do more with the physical evidence that remains, such as the Zapruder film and the existing still photographs of the crucial moments.

One vital piece of evidence, the police Dictabelt recording that was thought to have preserved the sounds of the shots in Dealey Plaza, was my choice for advanced analysis. I briefly mentioned the Dictabelt earlier in the book. For a long time, the evidence appeared to suggest that, by accident (via a stuck microphone on a policeman's motorcycle in the motorcade), the sounds of the assassination were recorded back at Dallas police headquarters on a Dictabelt-a recording device of the era that was primitive but fairly reliable.3 The Dictabelt was preserved by the Dallas police because it recorded various instructions given by its officials during the motorcade. In 1976 a radio program director, Gary Mack, who was interested in the Kennedy assassination and had recently moved to Dallas, learned of the Dictabelt's existence.4 An audio specialist, Mack asked a question no one had thought to pose earlier: In addition to routine police commands, could this Dictabelt have also recorded the shots fired at JFK? If so, could the Dictabelt be the long-sought Rosetta stone that could at least reveal how many bullets had been fired and from what direction(s)?

During its investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was informed of the Dictabelt's existence and potential. James Barger, a well-known acoustics expert with a Harvard doctorate in applied physics, was hired to analyze the Dictabelt.5 Barger organized and executed an elaborate plan to have police sharpshooters target sandbags every few yards on Elm Street in Dealey Plaza.6 The street was closed on a Sunday in August 1978 and sensitive microphones were placed around the plaza to record the echo patterns from a shot into each sandbag from various locations, such as the Depository's sixth floor window as well as the grassy knoll/picket fence area. Barger knew the motorcade's speed and thought he had some idea of the placement of the motorcycle in the motorcade. The sound patterns on the Dictabelt seemed to match up well with some of the simulated shots. Barger concluded there was a 99.5 percent probability of gunfire on the Dictabelt. Further, Barger saw four gunshots in the echo patterns that matched the Dictabelt's sounds, three of them coming from the Book Depository and one from the grassy knoll. When Barger first interpreted what the Dictabelt showed, "It horrified me," he said. He instantly realized its implications.7 Barger was cautious in his statistical interpretation of the sound patterns, and he would only say that there was a 50 percent probability that all four shots were real and not an artifact of a fifteen-year-old Dictabelt. The House Committee then engaged two academics, Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy of the City University of New York, who further refined Barger's research, concluding that the probability of four shots, with one from the grassy knoll, was 95 percent or better. The House Committee was stunned. It had been preparing to endorse the basic finding of the Warren Commission Report, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, but reversed course and declared JFK's murder the result of an undefined conspiracy.8 Naturally, no conclusion this spectacularly revisionist was going to stand unchallenged for long. Even during the House hearings, police motorcyclist H. B. McLain-the cop who was identified as having the stuck microphone-insisted he was not where Barger's analysis said he should be. As Robert Blakey admitted, "If it could be proved that no motorcycle was in the predicted location at the time of the shots, then serious doubt would be raised about the reliability of the acoustics project."9 While one analyst later concluded that McLain was correct-he was not in position to record the gunfire in the prescribed location-others have disagreed, and this has been an unresolved matter.10 In addition, various researchers have claimed that the Dictabelt had odd voice-overs out of sync with the timing needed for the assassination sequence; that the Dictabelt had deteriorated to the point where it was not reliable; and even that the Dictabelt used for Barger's analysis was not the original but a duplicate that had been tampered with.11 In 1982 the National Academy of Sciences commissioned a panel of experts to review the work of the House Committee's consultants. Headed by Professor Norman Ramsey of Harvard, the panel concluded that the committee's work was "seriously flawed," and wrote there "was no acoustic basis" for the claim of a grassy-knoll shooter.12 Yet, in direct contradiction to the NAS report, the House Committee's work has been endorsed by a recent peer-reviewed study in Science & Justice.13 The House Committee's Robert Blakey summarized the newest study this way: "This is an honest, careful scientific examination of everything we did, with all the appropriate statistical checks. It shows that we made mistakes, too, but minor mistakes ... The degree of confidence that the shot from the grassy knoll was real [was increased from] 95% ... to 96.3%. Either way, that's beyond a reasonable doubt."14 This is no airy academic dispute. Either the House Select Committee on Assassinations was correct when they asserted that there were too many shots (four) to have been fired just by Oswald with his bolt-action rifle in the shooting sequence on the Zapruder film. Or the HSCA was wrong when it claimed the Dictabelt was the long-sought proof of a conspiracy, with the evidentiary key to more than one marksman and the shooters' positions in Dealey Plaza.15 The mystery that has surrounded the Dictabelt for decades can now be solved, and its real value to the puzzle of November 22, 1963 will be revealed here for the first time.

New technologically advanced audio research conducted for this book on all the Dallas police recordings of the Kennedy assassination conclusively proves that the Dallas police motorcycle with the stuck microphone was not traveling as part of the presidential motorcade at the time the shots were fired at President Kennedy. Thus, the 1979 conclusion by the House Select Committee on Assassinations is wrong. Not only does the Dictabelt not prove the Committee's assertion about a shot from the grassy knoll, we can find no evidence of gunfire at all, and thus it cannot be used to prove either that Oswald was the lone gunman or that there was more than one shooter in Dealey Plaza.s Previous scientific studies of the Dictabelt have either been fundamentally flawed because of a belief that the motorcycle was an integral part of the presidential motorcade, traveling close to President Kennedy's limousine, or because of their incorrect or nonexistent identification of the officer with the stuck microphone.16 Our research demonstrates that the police officer with the open microphone was traveling at a high rate of speed at the time the slow-moving presidential motorcade progressed through the streets of downtown Dallas. The officer was well past the Dealey Plaza site and in the vicinity of the Trade Mart, over two miles from Dealey Plaza, at the time of the assassination. Furthermore, following the shooting, the presidential limousine carrying the dying president approached and then rushed by this officer and motorcycle on its way to Parkland Hospital. At this moment, the motorcycle was parked and idling. The sounds of the presidential entourage gunning toward Parkland are unmistakable, and they passed the stationary motorcycle within sight of the officer. There were no other siren-equipped emergency vehicles of any type operating in Dallas at this critical time.t In addition, we believe we have been able to identify the officer with the stuck microphone. He is Willie Price, who had joined the Dallas police department seventeen years earlier and was much liked and respected within the force. Earlier on November 22, Price had been assigned to monitor the corner of McKinney and Harwood Streets, about three-quarters of a mile from downtown Dallas. After Kennedy passed there without incident, his instructions were to go to the Trade Mart, which he did. Our analysis strongly suggests it is his motorcycle engine that is heard on the Dictabelt running at high speed. Once at the Trade Mart, Price was located in the parking lot, awaiting the president's arrival.u Why is the officer with the stuck microphone very likely to be Price? Every piece of available evidence points in his direction. Our audio analysis demonstrates that the officer with the stuck mic is well ahead of the motorcade at the time of the assassination, where Price is indisputably positioned. The sounds of the limousine carrying JFK screaming by Price's stationary post at the Trade Mart are heard precisely where they should be, a few minutes past 12:30 P.M., and the mic becomes "unstuck" just in time for Price to talk to police headquarters once at Parkland. More important, on that very morning, Price had been given a substitute motorcycle to use on November 22 that had demonstrated prior problems with a stuck microphone. Finally, Price himself was convinced that his cycle was the source of the difficulty, as was the police dispatcher on duty, Jim Bowles. This was not a long-delayed revelation. Price drew this conclusion within hours of the assassination, and he indicated as much to other Dallas officers at Parkland and also to Bowles, who agreed with his assessment.

As just indicated, instead of turning into the Trade Mart, the president's limousine and accompanying police vehicles whizzed by Price's vantage point on its way to Parkland, just over a half mile further down the highway. Price and the other officers were ordered to leave the Trade Mart and go to Parkland; as it happened, Price intercepted and accompanied the car carrying Lyndon Johnson on its journey to the hospital. LBJ's car lagged behind the presidential limo. Price was also among the officers at Parkland who assisted in moving Kennedy's body into Trauma Room One, and then guarded the room from the outside to prevent unauthorized entry.17 Now that we know the location of the stuck microphone, something else is obvious. Given the distance of Price's open microphone from Dealey Plaza-nearly two and a quarter miles at the time of the assassination-it is unlikely in the extreme that gunshots will ever be detected on the Dictabelt recording, no matter how sophisticated sound analysis becomes in the future. Keep in mind that the motorcycle's microphone quality was primitive, on par with a telephone receiver, and that a blunt stylus was simply recording sound impressions on a waxed plastic belt back at police headquarters.

While gunshots in the immediate vicinity of the microphone would have been loud enough to be recorded on the Dictabelt, shots more than two miles away were unheard and unrecorded. Had H. B. McLain in Dealey Plaza been the motorcycle officer with the stuck mic, as the HSCA insisted, the Dictabelt could have answered the basic question of the number and location of shooter(s). Willie Price's motorcycle at this substantial distance from the assassination could not.

Therefore, the long-hoped-for Rosetta Stone of the Kennedy assassination is nothing of the sort. And the much-publicized conclusion of proven conspiracy by the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations was deeply flawed and demonstrably wrong. What many believed was the best remaining opportunity to solve the Kennedy murder definitively by means of hard evidence has turned into yet another dry well in a half-century quest to illuminate fully what happened on November 22, 1963.

Despite incontrovertible evidence that the open microphone was not in a location where it could have recorded the sound of gunfire, a puzzling question remains: What is one to make of the "impulses" identified as gunshots by the HSCA?

Our acoustics experts found that some of the impulses attributed to gunfire are very similar to other clusters of impulses found in neighboring regions of the Dictabelt's audio file and even within the span of the alleged gunshot impulse sequences on the Dictabelt.

These observations suggest that at least some of the impulses attributed to gunfire are not unique, nor are they discernible from other impulses contained on the recording. In fact, there are no less than twelve similar impulses in a period spanning just over a three-minute segment of the open microphone audio. Three of these impulses were said to represent gunfire by the HSCA, but the other nine were not. The sounds are so similar that there are no characteristics that reliably distinguish any of the impulses from the rest.

Sonalysts found it likely that all these impulses have the same or similar origin, and they are probably of a mechanical origin associated with the motorcycle (for example, a vibrating metal part or perhaps the result of the policeman handling some equipment attached to the motorcycle). Regardless of the source, what is clear is that the HSCA's analysis mistook individual features of unrelated sounds generated by vibrating, resonant objects for gunfire impulses.

We found the third of four "shots" identified by the HSCA, the one which the committee concluded came from the grassy knoll, to be no different than other "ordinary and common features of the audio recording." It is "nearly identical" to no less than three other impulses occurring around the same time. The HSCA appears to have selected this particular impulse simply because it matched their timing of the Dealey Plaza gunshots.

With the assistance of cutting-edge audio technology, we discovered that when the motorcycle engine noise is filtered out, many of the peaks selected by the HSCA as gunshot impulses disappeared almost entirely. A closer examination of the test methodology used by the HSCA's experts revealed an over-reliance on timing estimates and an under-reliance on amplitude information; this flaw produced "gunfire" matches that under more rigorous testing would have been seen as very unlikely.

While the Dictabelt is not the time tunnel to ultimate truth about the source of the Dealey Plaza shots that it was once heralded as being, the recording is invaluable nonetheless. What we call the Dictabelt is actually a collection of belts that recorded all police communications on two channels from 9:44 am until 3:57 pm on November 22.v Our transcript of the day's chatter (akin to listening to a modern police scanner) is more complete than any ever compiled due to the sound techniques we employed. It totals more than thirty thousand words and includes comments by dozens of police personnel and officers stationed at key locations around Dallas.

These Dictabelt recordings are dramatic living history, a kind of "black box" for the crash that occurred on November 22, 1963. They not only give us new insights into a day that changed America but collectively they serve as a police sound track that can supplement, though not precisely match, the silent films taken on the motorcade route.

In the morning, there are standard police communications about a presidential visit, from the arrival of Air Force One at Love Field to the difficulties of holding back enthusiastic crowds pressing to get a better view of the Kennedys. Occasionally, due to transmitting over the same lines, non-police conversations from telephone calls bleed over into the police channels: a man profanely curses his favorite but losing football teams, a man and woman alternate between romance and argument, and someone asks a friend for money-and the friend begs off.

Suddenly, routine conversation ends, and police work turns chaotic. Sheriff Decker issues an order to investigate the area behind the grassy knoll: "Have my office move all men available ... into the railroad yard in an effort to determine what happened in there and hold everything secure until Homicide and other investigators should get there." There is discussion about "victims" remaining in Dealey Plaza, the possible shooting of a Secret Service agent (which did not happen), and an early description of "a suspect." Officers report the contradictory claims of witnesses about the sources of the gunshots: Some said the shots originated at the grassy knoll, others at the Dallas courts building, and still others at the book depository.

The Dictabelt captures the chilling moments of absolute panic as President Kennedy was taken to Parkland for a futile attempt at resuscitation. Officer Price, after he arrives at Parkland and views the extent of President Kennedy's wounds, calls in a report to the dispatcher: "I believe the president's head was practically blown off." Price immediately regretted his comment and declined to repeat it when asked, noting, "It's not for me to say, I can't say." Jim Bowles, the Dallas dispatcher who provided an original, partial transcript of the Dictabelt in 1964, assisted his fellow officer by labeling Price's remark "inaudible-something Bowles admitted to me that he did purposely to protect Price from embarrassment.18 Officers at the Trade Mart ask what they can tell the hundreds of people assembled for a speech President Kennedy would never deliver. The dispatcher asks Officer One [Dallas chief Jesse Curry], who is at Parkland with the presidential entourage and is well aware of the fatal nature of the wounds, "[Is] the president going to appear at the Trade Mart?" The sad, sparse answer from Chief Curry: "It's very doubtful ... I feel reasonably sure that he will not." There are also Dictabelt references to a series of post-assassination events, from the shooting of Officer Tippit to the arrest of Oswald to the police transporting of LBJ, Jackie Kennedy, and JFK's body back to Air Force One. At the end of a horrible day, there is also the bizarre, jarring reintroduction of everyday life as the police dispatcher tells an officer to "go over to Wholesome Bakery and pick up eight packs of hamburger buns" and deliver them to the Deluxe Diner. "Tell 'em down there at the bakery to charge 'em to the Deluxe Diner."

Yet no out-of-place note of normality can expunge the earth-shattering words heard in Dallas on November 22. From tiny sound impressions made on crude recording devices on that long-ago day, the shock and horror comes to life again, and a listener cannot help but to be mesmerized.

While we now have a firm resolution of the truths both contained in and absent from the Dictabelt, by no means do we have all the available facts needed for an airtight finding about the assassination-certainly not one that will satisfy the warring theorists. Perhaps as-yet unreleased documents will help, though it is doubtful that any eureka revelations will emerge from fifty-year-old bureaucratic paperwork. The missed opportunities for full resolution of John Kennedy's death occurred early. The assassination tragedy continued unabated thanks to a sloppy initial investigation whose purpose was to nail Oswald rather than inquire about the murder more comprehensively. The death of most principals and the mists of time have permanently obscured the full truth. Therefore, we have to accept a somewhat unsatisfying ending, the inability of a balanced analyst-much like the Dictabelt-to reveal with absolute certainty what really happened.

Recognizing these limitations, the following two conclusions seem reasonable. First, the chance of a conspiracy of some sort-either a second gunman in the grassy knoll-picket fence area or a plot involving more than a single shooter who fired the bullets in Dealey Plaza-cannot be dismissed out of hand. The conspiratorial scenario includes the possibility that a lone gunman was supported or encouraged by others. At the same time, the known and incontrovertible hard proof simply does not permit a definitive declaration of conspiracy. The advocates of this point of view have offered several plausible theories but have never been able to produce powerful evidence that would stand up in a court of law-evidence sufficient to warrant a clear confirmation of a conspiracy.

The second conclusion is based on the undisputed evidence we have today. There is no reasonable doubt that at least one of John F. Kennedy's assassins was Lee Harvey Oswald. It may well be that Oswald was the only killer in Dealey Plaza on November 22, and that he alone concocted the plan to murder the president, but that is less certain than Oswald's manifest individual guilt.

Those who insist Oswald was "a patsy"-an innocent front man, set up to take the blame for a murder he did not commit-ignore far too much. As I have reviewed, and as others have devoted lengthy books to confirming, there is a mountain of evidence establishing his culpability. For example, despite all of the Warren Commission's inadequacies, I believe the facts support the commission's assertions about the origin point of the bullets that struck President Kennedy (that is, the sixth floor of the Book Depository) and the paths that they took (back-to-front, with the first successful shot-the so-called magic bullet-striking both President Kennedy and Governor Connally). There are multiple, believable eyewitness reports of a man with a rifle in the sixth floor window of the Depository. Unfortunately, since no photographs or positive identifications of Lee Oswald (or anyone else) in the window were made, there will always be room to suggest that someone else fired the gun in the Depository and that Oswald was framed in an elaborate plot. Yet the weight of evidence is overwhelming that Oswald was there in the window and fired the bullets. He is the only logical suspect from the Depository, the place where he worked and from which he fled. The murder weapon was Oswald's rifle, his palm print was on the gun, and (despite the dispute over the size of Oswald's "curtain rods" package) he likely brought it to work with him the morning of the assassination.

Moreover, anyone attempting to exonerate Oswald must ignore the ballistic evidence found at the scene of Officer J. D. Tippit's murder.19 Three bystanders-Domingo Benavides, Barbara Jeanette Davis, and Virginia Davis-found four spent cartridge casings in the bushes that were traced to Oswald's .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. Four bullets were retrieved from Tip-pit's body, one of which matched Oswald's revolver "to the exclusion of all others." The analysis on the other three bullets suggested they very likely came from Oswald's gun, too.20 Slaying a policeman who has stopped you for questioning is not the act of an innocent man.w Oswald's life was a virtual template for a potential assassin. He was an acutely unhappy, troubled young man who had long been an angry loner, perpetually dissatisfied with his personal circumstances but hopelessly incapable of changing them. He had led a life marked by wild fluctuations, alienation, deceit, lack of sustainable love, and violent tendencies. At the time of the assassination, Oswald was at the end of his rope; he had exhausted his options for escape from a dead-end existence. Oswald may have disagreed with Kennedy politically on certain subjects such as Cuba, but in a disturbed and agitated mind, was politics really the paramount motivator? This most political of murders may not have been terribly ideological from Oswald's perspective. If ideology entered into it, it may have been more of a secondary justification for an intense emotional impulse. Kennedy was the ultimate symbol of a society Oswald hated because it had left him, with his considerable help, at the very bottom, with little money or food, a deeply unsatisfying marriage, and no real prospects for a brighter future. Kennedy was the pinnacle of success in a world where Oswald had failed utterly at everything. By chance and fate, Lee Oswald ended up close enough to the motorcade and he had a serviceable weapon that he had almost certainly used before in the assassination attempt on General Walker. Oswald saw an opportunity to fulfill the delusions of grandeur he had always nursed. An explosion of suppressed rage and a sick determination to destroy his human opposite helped Oswald get even with the world for his miserable existence, and in spectacular fashion. The instant the bullets hit Kennedy, Oswald, a nobody, became a historic somebody. This momentous "accomplishment" delivered unto Oswald a triumph for the ages. It is no wonder that in his few public moments after the assassination, luxuriating in worldwide attention, he looked so self-satisfied, the famished cat who had gobbled up the prize canary.

Does this mean all the other theories about November 22 hold no water? Much of the conjecture is groundless, no matter how enticing it may be for those inclined to believe. As distasteful a man as Lyndon Johnson could often be, LBJ did not kill JFK. The Secret Service agents didn't pull guns and accidentally shoot the president, as some absurdly charge, nor did the agents conspire with others to leave the president undefended.21 The military establishment and the leadership of the FBI and CIA did not join in a massive conspiracy to kill Kennedy in a banana-republic-style coup d'etat. Castro and the Russians had no rational motive to do the deed, and the risks would have been enormous for them. There wasn't a UFO involved, either.

But the chance of some sort of conspiracy involving Oswald is not insubstantial. For all the attempts to close the case as "just Oswald," fair-minded observers continue to be troubled by many aspects of eyewitness testimony and paper trails. There remains the live possibility of a second gunman in the grassy knoll area. It is not just the number of Dealey Plaza spectators who believe one or more shots came from that locale. Who were the individuals representing themselves as Secret Service agents, with credentials good enough to fool Dallas policemen familiar with official identification? Who were the armed men and suspicious individuals seen in the vicinity of Dealey Plaza before, during, and after the assassination? What exactly has the CIA been trying to hide about Oswald all these years? Maybe these questions, and others that we have posed, have innocent explanations, but they have eluded honest investigators to this point.

The odds of conspiracy include a second possibility: There was no second gunman, but private assistance or encouragement was given to Oswald in achieving his murderous hit. The most likely suspects, based on the available evidence, would be the Mafia, the anti-Castro Cubans (who had an undisclosed cell operating in Dallas at the time of the assassination), or a small unsupervised cabal within the CIA.22 All three potential suspects had the means, motive, and opportunity to reach out to Oswald either as a lone assassin or in partnership with someone behind the picket fence. I have already laid out what rationale exists in all three categories. If Oswald was a lone gunman but people from one of these groups encouraged him, the silencing of Oswald by Jack Ruby, even if uninitiated by the co-conspirators, makes it improbable we will ever find out. A smoking gun for conspiracy has never emerged-though, again, technological advances applied to surviving physical evidence such as film and photos might one day prove that somebody participated in the shooting with Oswald in Dealey Plaza. If that person existed on November 22, he would have been a person with substantial backing, not because the murder required elaborate planning (it was all too easy) or special equipment (tens of millions of weapons qualified for the job), but because the clean getaway was complicated to arrange and sustain. To disappear without a trace for fifty years, to have no credible deathbed confessions, to have no accomplices disclose the plot in exchange for a great deal of media money-well, all this is possible but adds to one's doubts about conspiracy.

We should also not forget about another intriguing twist that may prove true with time. As I stressed earlier, no one has offered a convincing explanation for the CIA's special treatment of Oswald's paperwork in the weeks leading up to the assassination. It is beyond question that the CIA lied to the Warren Commission in 1964 and then again to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s. What were they hiding? What was so important that the CIA risked intense public condemnation had their dissembling been discovered at those sensitive times? This was especially true in the atmosphere of the 1970s, when the CIA had become widely unpopular. Some politicians and activists were calling for the CIA's dismantling after exposure of its foreign assassination plots, the CIA's role in the bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel, and the agency's extensive spying on U.S. citizens domestically.23 Given its long history of double-talk and dishonesty regarding the Kennedy assassination, and the agency's undeniable misleading of two separate government inquests, the CIA has little credibility left on the subject. Journalist Jefferson Morley believes that, at the very least, CIA agents and directors who withheld information on Oswald "should be stripped of any medals or commendations they received for their job performance in 1963."24 That is reasonable, but punishing long-departed CIA officials will not end the debate over who killed JFK.

And why does this debate matter so much? It is because the assassination is critical both to understanding America's past and future paths and to the lasting legacy of John Kennedy that is the subject of this book. Concerning the first, a quiet civil war has been raging for a half century. This war has not been fought with bullets, and it has not been a battle of economic ideologies like the chilly one that marked the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, American culture has been engulfed in a war of words between those who have embraced the fundamental conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, and those who insist that a broader conspiracy lies behind the assassination.

This is no minor dispute. The commission's backers accuse the conspiracy supporters of stirring feelings of deep cynicism in the American people and encouraging a lack of faith in those who run government with their wild accusations of complicity in Kennedy's murder by senior political figures and civil servants. Further, say the lone gunman theory's advocates, the widespread accusations that senior political, governmental, and military figures participated in the planning, execution, or cover-up of the assassination of President Kennedy have damaged the image of the United States around the globe, fueling anti-American sentiments by undermining the very basis of our democratic system.

The most adamant supporters of the lone gunman theory say that it is irresponsible to question the "carefully considered" conclusions of the Warren Commission report. That is certainly the establishment view, even today, in the halls of government and many media organizations, perhaps reinforced by the reaction to Oliver Stone's everybody-did-it movie. Yet if the Warren Commission's conclusion was so compelling and convincing, why did the man who created the commission and all but mandated the lone-gunman finding, Lyndon Johnson, himself believe until his dying day that Kennedy had been killed by a conspiracy? And why did the two people closest to Kennedy in his presidency, Robert F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, privately judge their brother and husband's death to have been the result of a larger plot?25 During a January 2013 interview in Dallas with the television commentator Charlie Rose, RFK Jr. said that his father "believed the Warren Report was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship" and gave orders for officials at the Justice Department to conduct a secret investigation of possible ties between Oswald and the CIA and Mafia. "He publicly supported the Warren Commission report," the younger Kennedy confessed, "but privately he was dismissive of it. He was a very meticulous attorney. He had gone over reports himself. He was an expert at examining issues and searching for the truth." Of course, the late attorney general's private doubts about the Warren Commission report have been long documented and discussed in assassination circles for years.26 Not to be outdone, those who suspect a broader plot in the assassination see the Warren Commission itself as the cynicism maker. Among other sins, they cite a rushed inquiry pushed along by naked political motives, the failure to pursue legitimate lines of inquiry or even to interview many key witnesses, and the desire of some members with CIA ties to hide the whole truth from the commission on subjects such as U.S. attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Many of these critics, at great personal cost and sacrifice, have devoted large chunks of their lives to uncovering the commission's inadequacies. They see themselves as David facing Goliath rather than Don Quixote tilting at windmills, and they have been determined to uncover the truth that has been buried by the alleged hidden perpetrators of this monstrous crime. From their perspective, the pro-commission establishment is more interested in protecting its charter members than in seeking justice for the murder of a president.

The echoes of this war are with us daily. Americans far too young to have any memory of November 22 instantly react to terms that entered the lexicon because of disputes about the assassination: grassy knoll, magic bullet, single bullet theory, conspiracy buff, and many more. More important, younger and older Americans have made their choice between the warring camps. Overwhelmingly-and consistently since the time of the assassination-people believe that Oswald did not act alone. (New polling, discussed later in the book, underlines and expands upon the public's choice of conspiracy.) Perhaps, as I suggested earlier, it is mainly this: The enormity of the act of negating the decision of 69 million voters does not square with the insignificance of Lee Harvey Oswald. In addition, the silencing of Oswald so soon after the president's murder would cause suspicion even among the most nave. Maybe most of all, though, it was the sixth sense of many Americans that they were being sold a bill of goods they did not want to buy from the usual group of elite suspects. The United States government has so often covered up the truth and politicians have so frequently lied to the citizenry that there is every reason to imagine the Kennedy story is much bigger than the official line suggests. The moral mendacity in prosecuting the Vietnam War, the sordid tale of Watergate crimes, and the thousand other scandals and schemes since 1963 have only confirmed the widespread public belief in a conspiracy to kill JFK.

Public support does not mean the conspiracy theorists are correct. Nor does the supposed superior knowledge of establishment leaders give them a monopoly on truth about the assassination. Both sides are blinded by contempt for one another and sure that the other group's motives are impure. In fact, impartial observers can find some legitimacy in the viewpoints of both camps, as we have tried to show in this chapter. Whether one embraces a conspiracy theory or prefers the lone gunman explanation, there is simply no question that-at the very least-negligence and deception among some officials contributed to the death of a president and the incomplete public explanation of his demise that followed. This is no minor matter, but some have treated it like a typographical error, to be overlooked without full accountability.

The never-ending controversy about who shot JFK, and why, is central to the thesis of this book. November 22 has kept John F. Kennedy on the front pages and on television and movie screens for fifty years. Every anniversary has been marked by TV specials, magazine spreads, and remembrances of various kinds. The assassination has become iconic, from the Zapruder film and Jackie's pink suit to the sixth floor window and Dealey Plaza. The continuing mystery surrounding the event, and the otherworldly cast of characters connected to it, has transfixed generations not alive at the time. It is a puzzle palace, and no James Bond novel ever had so many twists, turns, and subplots. There is also no epilogue that neatly ties all the strands together. The experts, the investigators, and the witnesses disagree with one another about critical details and fundamental conclusions. The enduring mystery of the assassination is irresistible for historians, journalists, Hollywood producers, and average citizens alike.27 Just as we are reading books and watching television specials questioning vital aspects of the Lincoln assassination almost 150 years after the event, so, too, are Americans likely to relive the Kennedy assassination centuries from now.28 But this is no mere murder mystery for the millions still alive who personally and vividly recall four dreadful days in November 1963 as though they occurred last week. The essential connection between the long-ago tragedy and the fifty years of Kennedy dominance of American culture is simple: profound human emotion. The World War II generation came of age with television and a made-for-TV family named the Kennedys. It makes perfect sense that most Americans told pollsters in the wake of November 22 that they were grieving as though they had lost a member of their own family. In practical effect, they were. We grew up with make-believe television families such as the Cleavers, the Reeds, the Nelsons, the Ricardos, and the Taylors, and the Kennedys appeared to be the real-world match.29 We felt that we knew this atypical young family of four, and we spoke easily of them as though they were cousins-Jack, Jackie, Caroline, and John-John. No other White House occupants had ever before been in the living rooms of most households on a daily basis, and not since Teddy Roosevelt had any First Family been so photogenic.

Then, horribly, abruptly, with no warnings and no good-byes, the Kennedy presidency and its TV show were canceled, never to return except in permanent, hard-to-watch reruns. The camera-friendly youth and vigor-the picture of what a vibrant postwar United States wished to project to the world-vanished in an instant, replaced by a politically able but dowdy old-style couple who were a throwback to an era that seemed obsolete. Few were able to quickly dispel the deep sadness that shook them to their foundations as they witnessed the youngest elected president become the youngest to die; the elegant First Lady-the Princess Diana or Kate of her day-have her husband gruesomely killed while sitting inches away; the White House children they found delightful but who would now grow up without a father; the little boy who, with one salute of his daddy's casket, caused the whole of America to dissolve into tears. Even now, the scenes conjure up great pain for some and recur in nightmares for others. I was struck by the number of interviewees for this book who openly cried or had to pause to collect themselves as they recalled these long-ago dark days.30 Not long after the assassination, Dan Fenn, who later became the first director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, heard one of Jackie's assistants say, "We'll never laugh again." Fenn corrected her, "We'll laugh again, but we'll never be young again." (This quotation was mistakenly attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later a U.S. senator from New York.)31 Most Americans felt much older, and more morose, after November 22, 1963. A half century ago, the nation barely recognized depression as a serious mental disorder, and had few effective treatments for it. If we had been more advanced, though, there would have been an unprecedented number of Prozac and Xanax prescriptions written. For the first time ever, because television news was finally able to offer continuous coverage, virtually the whole nation, and much of the world, did little but watch TV, in dazed shock, day after day-the kind of communal mourning that set a precedent for the reaction to the trauma of September 11, thirty-eight years later.

Yet another emotion, that of guilt, played a part in the public's postassassination reaction. In an election divided by religion as much as by party, millions of voters had cast their ballots against Kennedy on account of his Catholicism. Three years later, it was obvious even to the most extreme Kennedy critics that the United States had not been governed from the Vatican, as they had forebodingly projected. Others who had resented the Kennedy clan for its celebrity saw their grievances melt away as they said good-bye to a fallen leader. Almost everyone believed that a terrible injustice had been done to the presidential family, and their own families. Many citizens, even some of Kennedy's political enemies, resolved to right the scales by remembering the man and his legacy, and forgetting about, or outright denying, their past opposition to JFK. The resulting mental gymnastics were a wonder to behold. By 1964 an academic survey found that 64 percent of Americans claimed to have voted for John Kennedy in 1960, when he actually received 49.7 percent of the vote.32 Whatever the cynics may think, in a democracy, when the people clearly want something, they usually get it. Politicians and policymakers from the White House to the local school board rushed to respond. Hundreds of schools and sites would be named for Kennedy around the world in the wake of the assassination-not to mention an aircraft carrier. There seem to be few places abroad without a Kennedy plaza or street, and almost no states or major cities have failed to dedicate some monument, avenue, or educational facility to JFK. These daily reminders of a brief presidency, a direct result of November 22, have kept the Kennedy image alive. Most other modern presidents have far fewer concrete testimonials; only Ronald Reagan comes close.33 The assassination created a wistful tale of what might have been, at least as we imagine it, and we refuse to let go. Many Americans look back to the Kennedy moment as the country's high-water mark of world influence and domestic tranquillity. In part, this is reconstructed fantasy. The United States was more powerful right at the end of World War II than it had ever been before, or is likely to be again, and given the cauldron of racism that was steaming to a boil during the Kennedy years, it is difficult to call the domestic reality of 1961 to 1963 tranquil. Nonetheless, America was unquestionably the dominant Western nation in November 1963. After the scare of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the hopeful step represented by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the two great powers appeared to be moving toward more tolerant coexistence. Whether it would have happened or not, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev seemed to be approaching a kind of detente a decade before it finally arrived under Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev.

Moreover, nostalgia for Kennedy's one thousand days in office was created by the savage developments that unfolded later in the 1960s and 1970s-widespread race riots, the draining Vietnam defeat, Nixon's megascandals, disturbing revelations about the hidden activities of the FBI and CIA, gasoline lines, high inflation, stubborn unemployment, skyrocketing interest rates, multiple recessions, and international humiliations such as the Iran hostage crisis. We will never know how JFK would have dealt with the tests that came America's way from 1964 to 1969, but retrospectively, to most of his countrymen, his record looked sterling by comparison to the performances of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Perhaps simplistically, Americans tend to classify public officials as "good guys" and "bad guys." Kennedy received one of the permanent good-guy berths, a designation impervious to revelations about JFK's private life shenanigans, while the four subsequent chief executives went out of office far less popular than they entered it.34 Maybe all this is unfair to Kennedy's successors. Andrew Johnson also struggled in the White House in part because he was not Abraham Lincoln. It is impossible to compete with a political martyr, and both Johnsons learned this to their dismay.35 But as JFK famously said in one of his press conferences, "Life isn't fair." Presidents always discover that politics is one of the least fair parts of life.

As we move on from the shock and sorrow of the Kennedy assassination, and the long-term effects of its flawed investigation, we will explore how LBJ and eight other White House occupants interpreted, capitalized upon, and lived with the semi-saintly ghost of John F. Kennedy.

sThe highly technical study commissioned for this book, and conducted by the internationally recognized firm of Sonalysts, is voluminous. It will be published separately in a Kindle version and will be presented on this book's website, TheKennedyHalfCentury.com. The Dictabelt sounds, and a complete transcript that we have compiled, will accompany the Sonalysts report.

tTelephone interview with police dispatcher James C. Bowles, May 23, 2013. Bowles had direct knowledge of all emergency vehicles operating in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He stressed to me that: "All emergency vehicles operated through the Dallas Police dispatcher's office. I've checked our transcript on emergency runs. We logged no fire calls, no analyst calls, no Dallas Power and Light Company power line calls, no Lone Star Gas leak calls, and we had nothing else that was running."

uHis exact location was about halfway down Industrial Boulevard (today called Market Center Boulevard) between Stemmons Freeway and Harry Hines Boulevard.

vTechnically, the Dictabelt was used only to record channel one. Channel two was recorded using a separate machine called a Gray Audograph. This device recorded onto a plastic disk resembling a phonograph record.

wOne of Tippit's fellow officers, Paul McCaghren, told me about a September 1956 incident that he thinks may have caused Tippit to hesitate when Oswald drew his pistol. "It was about three o'clock in the morning," McCaghren recalled. "I was [at police headquarters] with my partner, working on an accident report, and Tippit and his partner were down at the other end of the hall ... Tippit was sitting there not saying anything, and I got his partner over to one side and I said, 'What's going on?' And he said, 'Tippit just had to shoot a guy.' The guy [had] tried to draw on him at a bar. [After Parkland Hospital called to say the suspect had expired], "I told Tippit, 'your suspect died.' Well, Tippit almost collapsed. He put his head in his hands-it really shook him up. [During the November 22, 1963, altercation with Oswald], "I think it crossed Tippit's mind that here's the same situation [that happened] years ago. And I just think that Tippit was thinking about that, and not protecting himself." Telephone interview with Paul McCaghren, February 26, 2013. See also Dale K. Myers, "J. D. Tippit, Biography: 1952-1963," J. D. Tippit Official Home Page,

http://jdtippit.com/

[accessed February 27, 2013].

13.

"Let Us Continue": Lyndon Johnson-Pretender to the Throne

Lyndon Johnson had wanted to be president for a long time. As majority leader of the Senate in the 1950s, he saw the job up close and felt certain he could handle it. At his first real opportunity to chase the presidency, Johnson ran, albeit at the last moment, against Kennedy in 1960, and very probably would have run again in 1968 to succeed JFK, possibly against brother Bobby in the Democratic primaries. In November 1963 Johnson got his White House wish, but in the worst way. For over five years he would be haunted by the memory of the man whose death had delivered unto him the Oval Office.

Kennedy's murder did more for Johnson than put him in the White House. On the very day Kennedy was gunned down, a Maryland insurance broker, Don Reynolds, told a Senate investigative committee that he had bribed LBJ in return for business favors and knew about illegal contributions made to Johnson's campaign fund. Reynolds was able to produce invoices and canceled checks that partially backed up his claims. At the same time, the editors of Life magazine were deciding what to do with a muckraking story by one of their staff writers on Johnson's business operations in Texas, which had the odor of corruption about them. Either bad headline could have taken Johnson off the 1964 ticket, ending his hopes of being president. Both the Reynolds scandal and the Life magazine story disappeared on account of November 22. The new president was given a clean slate, his old sins wiped away by the tears from an assassination. In practical terms, the Senate committee dropped the investigation and Life's editors spiked the story.1 Partly because of all Johnson had gained-and avoided-as a result of the events in Dallas, unfair suspicions about his involvement in his predecessor's murder dogged him from the start, but they were mainly whispered privately in the immediate wake of the assassination. By all firsthand accounts, Johnson was personally shocked as the events of November 22 unfolded, and genuinely concerned about Mrs. Kennedy and her children. Johnson understood the powerful symbolism of having Jackie Kennedy at his side for the swearing-in on Air Force One, and he could not help but be moved by the sight of the former First Lady in her bloodstained outfit.2 One of his first calls on the flight back to Washington was to JFK's mother, Rose; Lady Bird also participated in the call. At 7:20 P.M., shortly after arriving back in his vice presidential office, he penned affectionate notes to Caroline and John Jr., as well as to their mother.3 The new president put every foot right in the tear-drenched hours and days after the assassination. His statement upon landing at Andrews Air Force Base was affecting and appropriately brief. Johnson met with congressional leaders, reached out to the living former presidents and key heads of state around the world, and reassured the country that he was in charge without overstepping delicate boundaries during a period of intense mourning. Disregarding (perhaps unwisely) the urgent advice of the Secret Service, he walked openly in Kennedy's funeral procession. Jackie wrote Johnson the day after the funeral, "Thank you for walking yesterday-behind Jack. You did not have to do that-I am sure many people [forbade] you to take such a risk but you did it anyway."4 The new president was also solicitous of the feelings of President Kennedy's appointees and understood that he was viewed by many of them as an interloper and usurper. Whatever his personal attitude toward some JFK associates, Johnson did not push them out of office, as was his right. He asked them to stay and help, for he needed them "more than John Kennedy ever did."5 Of course, Johnson also understood that the Kennedy staffers and cabinet officers were part of his link to JFK's legacy and a key to his legitimacy as Kennedy's successor. Better to keep them in the tent than have them undermine him from outside. And instinctively, Johnson knew some of them would transfer their allegiance to him quickly. Sure enough, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz, in particular, became close to LBJ over time. It did not hurt that Rusk and Bobby Kennedy were not close.6 At least at first, the wishes of all the Kennedy family members, not just Jackie, were granted almost without question. When JFK press secretary Pierre Salinger advised Johnson to let Ethel Kennedy and other Kennedy associates fly on Air Force One with him to a deceased congressman's funeral, LBJ answered, "Damn sure is better to ride with me than a separate plane ... Wherever I go, [they] go and anybody else named Kennedy-or anybody that's ever smelled the Kennedys."7 But the other side of Lyndon Johnson was in motion from the start, out of public sight. The striving politician was delighted to be president and determined from his first hours in office to make his mark. No vice president is without ambition for the top job, whatever he may pretend in public. Johnson was no average vice president. He was big, Texas big, and he realized sometime in the afternoon or evening of November 22: Potentially and constitutionally, he could serve longer as president than anyone except his hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt.8 Late that night, in the bedroom of his home, The Elms, on Fifty-second Street NW in D.C.,9 an exhausted Lady Bird Johnson attempted to go to sleep while her husband was already discussing with aides his plans for what would become the Great Society. "At least this is only for nine months," until the Democratic National Convention would presumably select someone else to carry on, Lady Bird commented. An LBJ aide quickly corrected her: "It is more likely to be nine years." "I'm afraid [he's] right," added LBJ. "At least it's for five years," he said.10 Mrs. Johnson groaned, pushed earplugs into her ears, put on black shades to block out the light, and pulled the bedcovers up.

Just two days after John Kennedy's burial, on the eve of the nation's shell-shocked Thanksgiving, President Johnson went before a joint session of Congress that was televised to the nation. He knew precisely what he wanted to do, and he expected the Democratic Congress to act quickly. Reminding his audience of JFK's inaugural address mandate, "Let us begin," Johnson declared, "Let us continue ... Let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live-or die-in vain." LBJ outlined the breathtaking scope he intended for his new administration, calling for the urgent passage of bills concerning civil rights, education, tax cuts, youth employment, medical care for the elderly, foreign aid, and more. Having served in the House and Senate, Johnson knew that legislative emotions could dissipate quickly. Despite the danger of overloading Congress, he was determined to press hard for everything, labeling it all a memorial to JFK. This was the same Congress, dominated by a conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and some right-leaning Republicans, that had thwarted most of Kennedy's agenda. Johnson knew he could combine his legislative skills with overwhelming public grief to break the logjam and produce a cornucopia's plenty from Capitol Hill. LBJ revealingly couched Kennedy's unfulfilled goals as "dreams." Johnson knew he could never match the late president's eloquence, so his legacy would be achievement, the translation of JFK's lofty objectives into concrete action. "And now the ideas and the ideals which [Kennedy] so nobly represented must and will be translated into effective action," Johnson told Congress.11 All this Johnson had shrewdly processed and gamed out barely a hundred hours after taking the oath of office.

Quietly, Johnson and his staff went to work almost immediately to orchestrate what would become one of the most productive congressional legislative sessions in history. This was all the more remarkable because the session was the 88th Congress's second, held in the presidential and congressional election year of 1964. Throughout American history, election year sessions have often been little more than empty shells, marking time until November, with legislators avoiding controversial topics lest they alienate voters just before ballots are cast. Prodded by LBJ and public opinion, this unusual Congress would throw caution to the wind in the rush to memorialize JFK and to please the insistent White House occupant.

The press and public did not directly see much of this work in the remaining days of 1963, a period of mourning that was devoted to finding ways to etch John Kennedy's name everywhere. President Johnson kicked off the efforts on Thanksgiving Day. In a special proclamation, Johnson renamed the NASA Launch Operation Center in Florida the John F. Kennedy Space Center, which had been requested by Mrs. Kennedy.12 In a companion move not sought by Mrs. Kennedy, LBJ struck the centuries-old geographic name Cape Canaveral from the surrounding area, substituting Cape Kennedy.13 Locals were furious and protested loudly; Cape Canaveral was finally restored to the map in 1973 after a decade of dissent in the Sunshine State. The Kennedy family released a letter saying they "understood" why JFK's name was removed. It is a small but telling example of LBJ's "Texas big" philosophy from the earliest days of his presidency; he would do even Jackie Kennedy one better. Johnson also offered the ambassadorship to Mexico to the Spanish-fluent Jackie. She declined. "Hell, I'd make her pope if I could," Johnson said, as reported by JFK aide Kenneth O'Donnell.14 President Johnson also wasted no time in adopting another, more private part of the Kennedy legacy. During a trip to Austin on the final day of 1963, Johnson announced to top members of the White House press corps, "One more thing, boys. You may see me coming in and out of a few women's bedrooms while I am in the White House, but just remember, that is none of your business." Given the rules of the day about coverage of a politician's personal life, and the precedent set by JFK and others, Johnson had little to worry about. LBJ did his best to continue the sexually predatory practices of his predecessor, and he had a number of affairs while living in the White House.15 Meanwhile, suggestions for Kennedy memorials flooded in from across America and the world. JFK was proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize by Peru's Chamber of Deputies, though the Nobel Institute demurred.16 Domestically, there was little or no resistance to most such efforts. Some required federal action, while others were taken by state and local authorities. The Benjamin Franklin half dollar was replaced by the Kennedy fifty-cent piece, and a five-cent stamp with JFK's likeness was authorized.17 LBJ named President Kennedy a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and also ensured that the forthcoming 1964 World's Fair in New York City would have a suitable memorial to him.18 The planned Washington, D.C., cultural institute was rechristened the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with a federal appropriation of $30 million in matching funds for private gifts.19 New York City's Idlewild Airport became John F. Kennedy International a month after the assassination.20 Schools and hospitals and highways from every corner of the country were renamed for the late president. Bay City, Alaska, near Anchorage, became John Fitzgerald Kennedy City. The "city" had thirty-five residents, and the mayor believed the new name would make it a mecca; today it is still on the map but a ghost town with a population of zero.21 Popular tunes, solemn marches, and cantatas were composed as musical tributes by well-known artists and anonymous amateurs.22 Thousands of letters were written to the White House and the Kennedys offering condolences.23 Tens of thousands of people requested photographs of the late president and his family.24 They were not available from the government, but private companies quickly offered lithographs as well as long-playing albums of JFK's speeches and even toy replicas of his famous Oval Office rocking chair, which Kennedy used to ease the soreness in his back.25 Dozens of memorial magazines and newspapers appeared on the stands and were snapped up as keepsakes as soon as they arrived. A blizzard of instant books rained down in the next year, and JFK's own Profiles in Courage returned to the bestseller list.26 On December 10, nineteen days after the assassination, Walter Cronkite decided that a depressed country needed a break from the constant barrage of assassination-related reports, and on his evening news program he ran a feel-good story about a new musical group from England called the Beatles. Fellow CBS journalist Mike Wallace had run a five-minute morning segment on the Beatles' rising popularity on the day their new album was released (November 22), and it had been scheduled to rerun that evening, before Kennedy's murder canceled all scheduled items. But Cronkite had seen Wallace's piece and liked it. Cronkite's judgment was proven correct, and Americans welcomed the opportunity to focus on a foreign diversion. This was the televised start of the phenomenon called Beatlemania that swept the United States in early 1964. The death of one cultural icon thus gave way to a new one.27 The Beatles sensation was a mere respite from, not a substitute for, the spotlight on John Kennedy. Citizens of all stripes were determined that their fallen leader would be remembered by future generations. The memorial with the most impact on JFK's legacy was not made of paper, or of brick and mortar. It was an idea hatched by Jackie Kennedy a week after the assassination. Over the years, the image most associated with the short Kennedy term has been Camelot, inspired by the Broadway play and song about King Arthur's reign. Never during JFK's life was Camelot linked to him. Mrs. Kennedy invented it with a simple anecdote she shared with presidential election chronicler Theodore White, whom she had summoned to Hyannis Port on the day after Thanksgiving. White was writing for Life magazine, and Jackie trusted him to convey her message intact. She also verified the trust by dictating and editing the article herself-and resisting attempts by Life's editors to tone down the repeated allusions to Camelot. The widely read and discussed article, published December 6, 1963, contained this paragraph: "When Jack quoted something, it was usually classical," she said, "but I'm so ashamed of myself-all I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy. At night, before we'd go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record. The lines he loved to hear were: Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot."28 The mythic dimensions of the Kennedy presidency were now set. His widow had decreed that JFK had been King Arthur, his aides and cabinet the Round Table, and the time of John Kennedy would never be forgot. At that moment, after the strength she had shown and the sadness she had borne, Jackie Kennedy had more power to influence America than President Johnson, Congress, and the Supreme Court put together. Her word was cultural law, and the code of Camelot remains dominant fifty years later in the minds of those who lived then.29 The month of national mourning for John F. Kennedy had been a rare respite from partisan politics. Johnson himself had ordered all administration officials to cease "partisan political speeches of any sort," a ban that occurs only during extraordinary moments of national shock and grief.30 The bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrorist attacks of September 11 have been the only other modern examples of a complete, lengthy cease-fire in party warfare.

Replacing the partisan angst was a gnawing sense that the nation had lost its way, that it was becoming a "sick society"-a widespread feeling that would only grow throughout the troubled sixties and beyond. Religious and secular leaders suggested that materialism, the decline of national unity that had defined the years of World War II, and a degradation of timeless American values in the postwar years had culminated in the Kennedy assassination. The conservative Reader's Digest, one of the most widely read publications at the time, expressed this sentiment in a statement from the editors: What is happening to this beloved country of ours? Have we carried the violent spirit of war over into our peacetime lives? Have we become so complacent in our enjoyment of our material blessings that we have forsaken those nobler things of the spirit? Have we forgotten the ancient truths spoken by the prophets? Does the compassion of Christ no longer mean anything to large numbers of our people? Have Abraham Lincoln's immortal words "... this nation, under God" ceased to lift the heart and fortify the conscience?31 In retrospect, the tendency to blame all of American society for the actions of one or a few assassins appears ridiculously overblown, but it was a reaction to the enormity of the crime. There had to be greater meaning to such a horrific act with untold consequences. The blaming of established institutions and values accelerated with each new assassination in the 1960s, just as it does in contemporary society in the wake of repeated mass shootings. While he obviously disagreed with the assertions, President Johnson had to account for this as he sought to reassure a nation suffering from profound shock and jangled nerves.

The official national mourning period expired on December 22, 1963, but no single month could begin to contain the long-term impact of the events in Dallas. Not long after the assassination, a despondent Robert Kennedy commented privately that public memory was short and Americans would quickly move on. In this prediction, he could not have been more wrong, as he himself would discover in time.

Naturally, the ambitious new president hoped to move out from under John Kennedy's shadow in the new year. This aspiration was encouraged by his staff. Aide Jack Valenti, who had been with LBJ on Air Force One in Dallas, wrote Johnson in early January 1964, "Up to this point, you have been carrying on Kennedy's programs-now, it's your show."32 But even Johnson understood he had no real chance to become his own man until he won a term in his own right. The affection for his predecessor had grown exponentially since his death, and LBJ the consummate politician knew that JFK's murder had created enormous banked capital in an account marked Kennedy. Better to acknowledge this golden reserve and use it to build a joint record than to pretend it was not still the Kennedy-Johnson administration.

President Johnson sensed and heard the deep suspicions about him and his intentions in Democratic circles. There had been not a day's respite from the doubts since November 22. In fact, on the front page of the November 23 New York Times, just below the dark headline KENNEDY IS KILLED BY SNIPER, was a news analysis entitled "Republican Prospects Rise-Johnson Faces Possible Fight Against Liberals": President Kennedy's assassination ... elevated into the Presidency ... an older, more conservative man still emerging from his Southern heritage. It increased immeasurably, for the leaders of the Republican party, prospects of electing a President next November.33 As preposterous as this projection seems now, the dispatch captured the immediate conventional wisdom about Johnson's allegedly precarious position. The truth was quite different. American voters were never likely to give the country three presidents in one year, much less a Republican one.34 Yet Johnson had learned from his disputed 1948 Senate squeaker not to take anything for granted in politics.35 He had to hold the Kennedys close personally; be more Kennedy than Kennedy on policy; and accomplish as much as possible in the short window he had before the onset of the 1964 campaign. It was a tall task, but Johnson wasted not an hour.

By the time President Johnson delivered his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964, the plan was set. LBJ would secure passage of key parts of the unfulfilled Kennedy agenda while laying the groundwork for his own legacy. "Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy-not because of our sorrow and sympathy, but because they are right," Johnson intoned before Congress and the nation. But the new man would get to refine, redefine, and extend JFK's "plans and programs."36 The first major Kennedy bill to become law was the Revenue Act of 1964, passed on February 26. In a move that today sounds more Republican than Democratic, JFK had called for an $11.5 billion tax cut for individuals and corporations in order to "remove the brakes" of high federal tax rates and stimulate the economy-the largest tax reduction to that point in American history.37 The proposal was a year old, although it had already made some legislative progress. Johnson wanted it immediately so that it would have the maximum time to work its wonders before November. Two thirds of what amounted to a substantial 19 percent slashing of taxes went into effect retroactive to January 1, 1964.38 Many economists now believe this fiscal move had its intended effect, and just as important, it enabled Johnson to set forth a credible claim that his actions had produced the prosperity that was evident in the fall.39 While the Revenue Act received considerable attention at the time, no one then understood how influential it would be in characterizing Kennedy's legacy for future generations. The tax cut enabled Republican candidates and officeholders to seize part of JFK's image and legacy for themselves, making Kennedy much more bipartisan in memory than he was in life.

The tax cut bill paled by comparison with Johnson's premier goal in 1964, the passage of the Civil Rights Act.40 Even Lyndon Johnson's fiercest critics would admit that he was masterful in his maneuvering to secure this landmark legislation, long sought by African Americans and their allies. Johnson understood that such a massive change in the nation's culture would have to be backed by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, not just to ensure enactment but to achieve compliance, however grudging, especially in the South. This was an era when both Democrats and Republicans had large liberal and conservative wings. It was possible for a skilled president to assemble a coalition that bridged partisanship and calmed party fervor. Knowing all members of the Senate and many members of the House-their strengths as well as their flaws-Johnson went to work to stitch together what is arguably his greatest achievement.

At every stage, LBJ made the bill a memorial to John Kennedy. In public and in private he cajoled and pleaded for his bill, insisting that JFK had been a victim of hatred and violence, much as civil rights workers had been. Ironically, if LBJ's FBI and Warren Commission were to be believed, Kennedy had been killed by a leftist who was sympathetic to civil rights for African Americans.41 But no one was going to argue this point with Johnson, not for the great cause of equal rights, not when JFK's family and supporters were calling the Civil Rights Act a fitting monument to the late president. Even some conservative Southern Democrats realized the gathering momentum was probably irresistible.

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans of moderate and liberal stripes saw the Civil Rights Act as an opportunity to inoculate themselves in advance of a building Democratic tide in the November election. Politically astute GOP legislators realized early that public sentiment about JFK combined with LBJ's formidable personage would likely deliver victory to the Democrats. Voting for the Civil Rights Act would be one way to avoid being at the top of the Democrats' list of targets. The impending presidential nomination of conservative U.S. senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), who opposed the Civil Rights Act, underlined the electoral concerns of northern GOP members of Congress. Voting for civil rights was one way to separate themselves in the public's mind from Goldwater.

In the end, Johnson's legislative victory was as complete as it was historic. In Congress as a whole, 63 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act.42 (It is surprising but true: Republican legislators were more liberal on civil rights than the Democrats in Congress.) This time, conservatives in the Senate found the filibuster was not sufficient to thwart the popular bill. Impressively, Johnson had also been able to keep the act strong and intact. At every step LBJ refused easy compromises to water down the bill in exchange for the backing of this or that senior legislator, as he had seen done with earlier civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960.43 While public opinion had begun to turn in favor of civil rights before LBJ took office, and JFK had proposed a bill in June 1963 that had been approved by the House Judiciary Committee the month before the assassination, there was no question that President Johnson secured a law with far broader reach than one that might have passed had Kennedy lived.

Signing the bill just before Independence Day, a proud LBJ saluted its original author, "our late and beloved President John F. Kennedy," but he knew history would record the moment as among his own finest. "Let us close the springs of racial poison," Johnson said. "Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole."44 A few days after the signing, Johnson noted in a letter, "No doubt President Kennedy's death provided a dramatic and important catalyst for consideration of the legislation, but I believe he would have been able to pass the legislation had he lived."45 That was for the public record. No political observer then or historian now would assert that JFK could have wrangled as strong a civil rights bill from a Congress that frustrated so many of his objectives.46 Had Kennedy been reelected handily, though, he might have secured passage of a muscular bill in his second term.

With the revenue act and the civil rights bill, President Johnson had gone a long way toward discharging his obligations to the man who chose him for the vice presidency. But Johnson saw an opening to reach farther, to use the Kennedy imprimatur to create the beginnings of his own program. LBJ was the first in a long line of presidents to realize John Kennedy's name and image, properly applied, could speed along acceptance of a new proposal. In Johnson's case, it was his "war on poverty."

On November 19, 1963, just before President Kennedy left for Texas, he met with Walter Heller, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Almost a year earlier, Kennedy had asked Heller to look into the poverty problem in America, which JFK had seen up close during his campaigning for the West Virginia primary in May 1960.47 Heller hoped for a major assault on poverty, but Kennedy seemed inclined toward a pilot program, applying to perhaps a handful of cities, to be included in his 1964 legislative package sent to Congress. It was an election year and Kennedy feared that the large, heavy-voting middle class would interpret a larger program as redistribution of income, another welfare subsidy.48 (The echoes of this debate are still with us every time new ideas from health care to immigration reform are proposed.) The day after the assassination, Heller went to see the new president to tell him about the program and his conversation with JFK the week before.49 Johnson stunned Heller by seizing the idea. Johnson reportedly replied, "That's my kind of program. It's a people's program ... Go ahead. Give it the highest priority. Push ahead full tilt."50 Unlike Kennedy, Johnson was not born to wealth, and he had personally seen extreme poverty as he grew up in Texas. Johnson emotionally identified with the have-nots because he saw himself as one of them, a hardscrabble graduate of Southwest Texas State Teachers College rather than Harvard.

Soon President Johnson was fashioning an "unconditional war on poverty" as though it had been John F. Kennedy's final wish, a key proviso in the late president's last will and testament, with LBJ as the official executor.51 Those familiar with Kennedy's cautious approach to most domestic matters were supportive but amused; they knew Kennedy had intended no such thing. Yet this extension of the Kennedy legacy could be quite useful, both to JFK's historical image and LBJ's own presidency. A marriage of conviction and convenience ensued.

Thus was conceived the Economic Opportunity Act. The idea was carefully nurtured by Johnson until its legislative birth in near-record time for a major, novel bill, with a signing on August 20, 1964, and a billion-dollar budget. The alphabet soup of agencies spawned by its administrative Office of Economic Opportunity rivals the New Deal's productivity in some ways: the Job Corps, training disadvantaged youth in employment skills; Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a domestic form of the Peace Corps; the Model Cities Program to encourage urban redevelopment; Upward Bound, providing educational tutoring to impoverished high school students so that they could compete and gain admission to college; Head Start, organizing preschool training for the disadvantaged; and more besides. Additional billions added throughout the Johnson years generated the traditional left-right split on government expenditures. Democrats hailed LBJ's initiatives to make society fairer, and cited a significant drop in poverty during the Johnson years as proof they had worked.52 Republicans argued that government was spending too much, overstepping its bounds, and continuing down the road to socialism.53 (Little has changed in partisan terms over fifty years.) Unsurprisingly, later Republican administrations sharply reduced the scope and then the funding of the antipoverty programs, though many of them survive in some form today.

The antipoverty efforts comprised much of the heart of Johnson's "Great Society," which he had announced with fanfare, though without much specificity, in a May 22 graduation speech at the University of Michigan.54 Kennedy's New Frontier had inspired with style more than substance. In Johnson's view, the New Frontier was a mere appetizer to the Great Society's ample menu of entrees that would comprise the most transformative era for government since Franklin Roosevelt. In a way, the behind-the-scenes theme song of Johnson's nascent administration was, "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better,"55 though in the fourteen presidential months he had inherited from JFK, Johnson never forgot his mandate of continuity. His choice to head the new Office of Economic Opportunity underlined this. John Kennedy's brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, was plucked from the directorship of JFK's Peace Corps to take command of the OEO. Kennedy's "final wish" was reality, and headed by a member of his family.

The real Lyndon Johnson was emerging from the embers of his predecessor's consumed presidency. The reminders of John Kennedy were constant-extensive memorial services for what would have been his forty-seventh birthday on May 29, 1964,56 endless books and magazines and dedication ceremonies, photos from time to time of Kennedy family members or dignitaries visiting the Arlington gravesite, Senator Ted Kennedy's near-fatal plane crash in June 1964 that revived the chatter about a "Kennedy curse."57 But the work of government and the theater of politics had set schedules, and prompted people to look to the future.

The Democratic National Convention, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from August 24 through 27, was a critical turning point for the new president. From the first hours after JFK's assassination, the sizable political lobe of Lyndon Johnson's brain had been focused like a laser on securing his own nomination and election. Johnson had reassured liberals with his successful efforts to achieve civil rights and an antipoverty program. Almost as important, conservatives were pleased with his reaction to the Gulf of Tonkin incidents that may (or may not) have taken place in early August off the coast of Vietnam. On August 2, the crew of the USS Maddox, engaged in an intelligence mission, reported that North Vietnamese gunboats had fired on them, and two days later the Maddox and the USS Turner Joy claimed further military provocations had taken place. It is likely that no second attack occurred, and even the first one, though probably real, is disputed. Some senior U.S. officials at the time were skeptical.58 But perhaps recalling the weakness John Kennedy had projected at the Bay of Pigs, Vienna, and Berlin, LBJ saw an opportunity to stake out an early, hawkish position to the Communist world in this, his first major international test.

With little debate and a nearly unanimous vote in Congress, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed on August 7. It gave carte blanche to Johnson to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia and, as interpreted by Johnson, became essentially a declaration of war that produced the massive troop buildup in Vietnam during LBJ's tenure. This saber rattling assisted Johnson's short-term political needs as he faced a virulently anticommunist Republican challenger, but it led to long-term political disaster.

The other preconvention business was even more directly related to John F. Kennedy. It was Lyndon Johnson's turn to pick a running mate. In these pre-Twenty-fifth Amendment days, Johnson had no vice president. This selection would define him and his judgment as much or more than anything else he had done since succeeding JFK. There was no question which candidate Democrats preferred.59 They wanted a return to a ticket of Kennedy and Johnson, except in reverse order and with a Kennedy named Robert. As attorney general and his brother's closest adviser, RFK had supported Jackie Kennedy throughout those four solemn days in November. His grief was palpable and, much as Mrs. Kennedy did, he had the nation's sympathy and support.

Letters poured into the Johnson White House urging the selection of RFK for VP, starting within weeks of Kennedy's death. Catherine Emrick of Oakland, California, wrote to President Johnson in January: "Isn't it possible to have Robert Kennedy as your Vice President? His loyalty and dignity during his late brother's tragedy won the hearts of all who saw him ..."60 In March, Mary Emily's letter not only pushed RFK but warned LBJ off another choice: "I certainly feel Robert Kennedy-with his three years experience with his wonderful brother at the White House-is qualified to be Vice President ... Senator Hubert Humphrey does not seem to have the world-wide appeal of Robert Kennedy."61 By July the correspondence was even more insistent. A Jesuit priest, Father Joseph F. X. Erhart, fairly begged the president to choose Kennedy: Mr. President, if you announced Bobby as your choice, a surge of joy would go around the world. I have been back in the United States for six weeks after spending a year in Europe. I talked with hundreds of Europeans, with Africans, Arabs, Indians, Poles, Russians, South Americans; from this sample I judge that President Kennedy had transformed the image of the U.S. around the world. People identified with him personally. Their hope for peace and a better world was placed in him personally. I don't want to make John Kennedy greater than he was; but the attitude of these people is a fact-a fact to be reckoned with. People need heroes; John Kennedy was an authentic world hero. But they don't know you well, Mr. President; they are uncertain about you; your image is incomplete. By selecting Bobby as your running mate, you would identify yourself emphatically with the Kennedy tradition. I suggest that paradoxically, only thus can you establish your own international political identity.62 President Johnson was well aware of the groundswell, but he made it clear privately to his team that he would never put Robert Kennedy on his ticket. The animosity between the two had been intense from the start. Bobby did not want his brother to put LBJ on the ticket in 1960. He and his friends had been especially dismissive of Johnson during his term as vice president, and his combined fury and grief on November 22 led him to rush right past Johnson on Air Force One without so much as a nod to the new president-a slight that Johnson never forgot.63 In an extraordinary postpresidency confession to the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, LBJ unloaded on Robert Kennedy: Somehow it just didn't seem fair. I'd given three years of loyal service to Jack Kennedy. During all that time I'd willingly stayed in the background; I knew that it was his Presidency, not mine. If I disagreed with him, I did it in private, not in public. And then Kennedy was killed and I became the custodian of his will. I became the President. But none of this seemed to register with Bobby Kennedy, who acted like he was the custodian of the Kennedy dream, some kind of rightful heir to the throne ... I'd waited for my turn. Bobby should've waited for his. But he and the Kennedy people wanted it now. A tidal wave of letters and memos about how great a Vice President Bobby would be swept over me. But no matter what, I simply couldn't let it happen. With Bobby on the ticket, I'd never know if I could be elected on my own ... If they tr[ied] to push Bobby Kennedy down my throat for Vice President, I'[d] tell them to nominate him for the Presidency and leave me out of it.64 Johnson was not about to let such a thing happen. As frank as he was with his loyalists, he had teased Bobby Kennedy (and many others) with the prospect of being chosen for the ticket's second spot. But when he met with Kennedy at the White House on July 29, 1964, it was obvious even to RFK that he was not going to get the prize. Johnson issued a statement saying he had ruled out all members of his cabinet, so valuable were they in their current posts.65 No one was fooled; no cabinet member but Robert Kennedy was considered a serious possibility for vice president.

This was the moment that marked the informal end of the Kennedy administration. Johnson had fully declared his independence. Bobby Kennedy would go his own way, running for and winning a U.S. Senate seat in New York, though assisted greatly by LBJ's long presidential coattails in November 1964.66 By no means did all Democrats acquiesce easily in Kennedy's being shown the door. The White House mailbox was stuffed with angry missives as soon as the news spread. Mrs. Walter Curry of Nashville sent a fiery telegram to Lady Bird Johnson, asking for her intercession: "In striking at Robert Kennedy your husband has struck at the hearts of millions of American citizens. He has struck at the memory of John Kennedy. Please try to make him understand what he has done."67 Rose and Harold Kogan wrote President Johnson, "We were shocked at your dropping [of RFK] ... We feel this move is an insult to our adored and beloved President Kennedy. Because we are ardent Democrats, we feel we must convey to you our deep feeling of personal hurt."68 And Mrs. Mary Perry of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, had a prediction for LBJ: "Just heard the news over the radio ... that you eliminated [RFK]. I am sure you also eliminated the state of Pennsylvania ... Mark my words, you will lose Pennsylvania."69x As for his real choice, Johnson kept the country, and the contenders, guessing. Three U.S. senators had reason to believe they were destined for the ticket, based on hints dropped by LBJ: Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut, Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, and Hubert H. Humphrey, also of Minnesota.70 Johnson let the speculation build an audience for his unopposed convention renomination, announcing the news of Humphrey's elevation during the Democratic conclave itself.71 LBJ had almost certainly leaned to Humphrey all along. He was the link to liberals and the North that Johnson required, and his legislative talents were unquestioned. Like Johnson, Humphrey had felt the Kennedy family sting. During the 1960 Democratic primaries, Humphrey was not just defeated but humiliated.72 The Kennedys left no stone unturned nor insult undelivered in the key primary of West Virginia, where Humphrey was all but accused of cowardice for not serving in World War II. (He had repeatedly tried to enlist but was turned down for various reasons.)73 Like Johnson and unlike John Kennedy, Humphrey was a serious, well-respected senator-but the amateur had won in 1960. Four years later, it was time for the professionals' revenge. Humphrey understood this potential alliance as early as the previous November 22. After Johnson returned from Dallas, he held a late-night meeting with congressional leaders in his Old Executive Office Building suite. All the assembled Senate and House luminaries pledged their fealty to Johnson, but Humphrey lingered after the meeting, stressing how much he wanted to help LBJ in his new duties.74 The formal business of the Democratic National Convention was nominating Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. The highlight, though, was memorializing John F. Kennedy, and this was not an entirely welcome prospect for LBJ. For weeks memos had streamed back and forth about how to handle the Kennedys in Atlantic City. In LBJ's view, this was his convention, his opportunity to emerge fully from John Kennedy's shadow. But to the Kennedys, and a large portion of Democrats and the public, it was impossible to forget that this would have been JFK's moment of triumph, where he would have been launched toward a second term.

A twenty-minute film was commissioned to salute JFK. It was, in the words of presidential assistant Douglass Cater, a "tearjerker," utilizing Mrs. Kennedy's allusion to Camelot as its theme. "Camelot was a highly schmaltzy musical about a semi-mythical kingdom," wrote Cater to LBJ press secretary Bill Moyers. "I have quite mixed feelings about its propriety at a convention," he huffed.75 Cater's real concern became quickly apparent: Certainly, the delegates will be left weeping. It would be less dramatic but probably less risky to show that film sequence without the music. I have vague unrest about engaging in such an emotional bender just before the Johnson acceptance speech.

At first the film had been scheduled for showing on the convention's first night. But Johnson and some of his aides worried that it could stampede the delegates into nominating Bobby Kennedy for vice president, regardless of Johnson's preference. This was never a very likely prospect, but such was the wariness about RFK and the Kennedy family's intentions. LBJ's solution was shrewd: the film would be delayed until the final evening when the ticket was already set.76 The Johnson entourage was right about one thing. The emotional impact of this film, and its introduction by Robert Kennedy, was overwhelming. When RFK appeared, the delegates launched a spontaneous, twenty-two-minute standing ovation, and they simply refused to let him start speaking. They wanted the moment to last; they wanted him to know how they felt. RFK's short oration finished with a passage from Romeo and Juliet that some read, perhaps overread, as a contrast between JFK (the heavenly night stars) and LBJ (the garish sun): ... when he shall die

Take him and cut him out in little stars

And he will make the face of heav'n so fine