Empathy. Pt. 3 (An Account of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy)

(See Pt. 1&2)

Jackie’s Secret Service agent was all too aware that it was all for naught, for as he jumped up onto the fender of the limo, he noted the right hemisphere of JFK’s cranium, and the empty space which had only seconds before encapsulated a pound and a half of gray matter.

Having only just managed to mount the trunk of the automobile, without falling to the pavement, and possibly being run over by the limousine, Agent Hill covered the couple as best he could. The Lincoln reached speeds upwards of 80 mph in its eight minute quest of Parkland Hospital. The closest our republic ever came to royalty lay dying in the back seat of car named after the first American president taken by an assassin’s bullet.

Dr. Robert McClelland, (a man whose autograph I have in my collection) recounts the scene in the trauma room:

"I was horrified to see him like that. With his head covered in blood, with that light shining down on it."

NBC asked McClelland how large the hole was in the back of Kennedy's head, he made a circle with his hands about the size of an orange.

"It was a hole about like this size. As I said, the whole back half, the right side of his brain was gone.”

Even today's medical advances couldn't have saved the president. Within 10 minutes, a priest came to deliver the last rites.

Most of the doctors cleared the room. But McClelland found himself trapped behind a gurney pressed against the wall and couldn't get out before the priest arrived.

"It was a private moment, and I'm a bit embarrassed that I was there. But I didn't want to have to walk across the room past the priest," McClelland said.

NBC asked McClelland to remember what the priest, Father Oscar L. Huber, said during the ritual.

"Before he said anything he made the sign of the cross on the president's forehead, anointed his forehead. And then he leaned over and said, 'if thou livest,' in a loud, audible voice. Then he completed the rest of the ceremony in a softer voice and I couldn't hear him."

Jackie Kennedy then walked into Trauma Room One, her pink suit covered in her husband's blood. The first lady spent a few, final moments with her husband.

"She stood there for a minute over him. And then she exchanged a ring from her finger to the president's finger," McClelland remembers.

"And she stood there another moment or two, and then walked slowly to the end of the gurney, where the president's right bare foot was protruding out from underneath the sheet that was covering him. She stood by his foot for a moment, leaned over and kissed his foot, and walked out of the room. And that was the last I saw of the first lady."

(Jeff Smith, NBCdfw.com)

I admit it. I am rather 'taken up' with the events of that era; especially the Kennedy Assassination and mankind's first lunar landing; outside of the two World Wars, the premier events of the 20th century. And, without doubt, I could continue to elaborate on the murder of our 35th president and its aftermath.

But it is in the following account we pursue the purpose of this story, and reveal the logic of its title.

After President Kennedy’s body was laid in the casket, and literally taken by force by his security team, (as Texas authorities had demanded an autopsy be performed in Dallas) his remains were manhandled up the stairs to Air Force One, and loaded into the cargo hold; prior to the presidential swearing in of Vice President Johnson.

And as Jackie sat next to her husband’s casket, still covered in JFK’s blood, Agent Hill stepped up to her, and took a nearby seat. 

“Mrs. Kennedy, my profound regrets. I hardly know what to say. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Jackie was the pampered daughter of socialites, and as America’s First Lady spent untold amounts of money on custom-made French creations. Jack grew up in a wealthy Catholic family, and his father was America’s Ambassador to Great Britain; a father who set the standard for the sort of philandering John Kennedy later emulated.  In spite of their excesses, America’s ‘royal couple’ were loved and respected, and the unfulfilled potential of JFK’s administration is still debated.

As Agent Hill and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy sat alone together in the cargo hold of Air Force One, she seemed almost oblivious to her body guard’s earlier question, and answered his question with a question.

“Oh, Mr. Hill. Whatever is to become of you?”

As I type these words, tears spring to my eyes.

Sheer Empathy

Absolute nobility

In the midst of her abject despair, and when Mrs. Kennedy might have deservedly exercised the ‘quality’ of selfishness, she expressed concern for a person whom any reasonable person would have branded her inferior.

Agent Clint Hill went on to serve Mrs. Kennedy for another year, and faithfully performed his duties in five presidential administrations.

Reflecting on a previous phrase and resulting occurrence in our story, I find it 'personally prophetic' that Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis) passed away on May 19, 1994; my own 45th birthday.

But I think for all the myriad details of all the myriad accounts of the Kennedy Assassination, and it’s aftermath to which I have been exposed, for all of their fascination and innuendo, my favorite, the most poignant detail of them all can be none other than the conversation to which I just alluded.


 By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 40. Copyright pending

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