Free The Day Kennedy Was Shot by Jim Bishop

warm handshake, no inscribed photograph, no off-the-cuff confidence could keep the press loyal to Kennedy. Their words flogged his hide after the Cuba Bay of Pigs disaster. Their attitude after the Vienna Summit Conference was that the Russians had tweaked the young man’s nose. The current trip to Texas was assessed as a two-day whirlwind to sweep up the 25 electoral votes of Texas for the Democratic Party. To Mr. Kennedy, the smiling faces he saw everywhere represented 9.25 percent of the 270 electoral votes required for reelection.
    The intraparty fight between Senator Ralph Yarborough and Governor John Connally assumed no great importance in John Kennedy’s mind until he read the Texas press. He had been misinformed about the depth of the schism and, when he left the White House yesterday, the President had been certain that a presidential knocking of heads together would settle the dispute and align all Democrats behind him. He was pained to find that Governor Connally had arrogated to himself all arrangements for the trip, and invitations, too. The conservative side of the party, which would never support the President with enthusiasm, got all the choice seats, while Yarborough’s liberal followers, who would and did endorse Kennedy, were cast in the role of pariahs and outcasts.
    Kennedy became increasingly irritated. This morning he had read in the Dallas papers that, far from healing the Connally-Yarborough breach, he was widening it. Governor Connally, who had postponed this visit several times because, even though Kennedy had heeded the intercession of Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and appointed Connally, who was Johnson’s onetime assistant, as Secretary of the Navy, the Texas Governor was never a “Kennedy man.” As host, he was in the position of a man who could manipulate the luncheons, dinners, and cocktail parties in such a manner that his following sat in the places of honor while Yarborough’s liberal wing was either ignored or confined to the back of the hall.
    Kennedy found it impossible to bring the Governor and the Senator together for a smile and a handshake, so he settled for asking that Yarborough ride with Vice-President Johnson. In this instance, Johnson was tractable, but Yarborough declined. The President, increasingly incensed at what might become a Connally trap, stopped requesting that the Senator ride with the Vice-President and demanded it. Yarborough rode with the Vice-President and Mrs. Johnson on the final short midnight leg of the trip from Carswell Air Force Base to the Hotel Texas. Few people were in the streets to witness the demonstration of party unity.
    This morning, the Washington press corps, which had featured the President’s unexpected welcome from Texas, began to read the Fort Worth Telegram and the Dallas Herald. The sophisticated wire services had been aware of the party fight, but had not pinned their leads on it because, like Kennedy, the press assumed that Kennedy’s personal charm would bring the contentious ones together. They were changing their minds.
    That is why the President, through Kenny O’Donnell, ordered Yarborough to ride with Johnson “or walk.” In effect, he was working the easy side of the street. The proper move would have been to thrash the matter out alone with Connally and Yarborough, but Kennedy was too insecure a party leader to risk a state ultimatum. The Governor, as O’Donnell and O’Brien should have known, was not even sympathetic to the President. Connally, facing reelection in the next year, felt no desire to be seen with the President or to be his host. Connally was a handsome man with a long splash of white backing away from the temples, but he had a stubborn jaw and a thin lip. He and Nellie had come a long way, and he had no relish for sitting in the jump seat of anybody’s car.
    In Texas, the Governor was accustomed to the comfort of the big seat. He knew his people and he felt