Right here in Washington, the CIA is none too happy about rumors that JFK would like to place the agency under closer presidential supervision by putting Bobby Kennedy in charge. Also, more than a few military leaders at the Pentagon do not trust Kennedy’s judgment. The president has stated aloud that he thinks the generals are capable of attempting to remove him from office.
Finally, the Mafia, to whom Kennedy was once so close that mobster Sam Giancana referred to JFK as Jack rather than Mr. President, is angry that Kennedy is repaying their years of friendship by allowing Bobby and the Justice Department to conduct an anti-Mafia witch hunt. “We broke our balls for him,” Giancana complains, “and he gets his brother to hound us to death.”
JFK is aware of his enemies. And he knows the threats will not go away, no matter how often he shuts out the world at night by dropping the needle on his hi-fi and listening to
* * *
If the Secret Service is aware of Lee Harvey Oswald, that fact is nowhere in any record.
Their ignorance is not unusual. Why would the powerful Secret Service be watching a low-level former marine living in Dallas, Texas?
Oswald and Marina are back together again. There is always a heat to their reunions, and their latest is no different. Marina Oswald is now pregnant again.
Despite their very different life circumstances, Jackie Kennedy and Marina Oswald are connected by the fact that they are two young women enjoying the life-changing early days of pregnancy. Jackie is due in September, Marina in October. And one more thing links them: like Jackie, Marina finds JFK to be quite handsome. Which makes her unstable husband more jealous than he usually is.
* * *
Lee Harvey Oswald’s life continues to be defined by a balance of passion and rage. On January 27, 1963, as crowds ten abreast line the streets of Washington to view the
Oswald has no special plans for his new pistol. Nobody has been making threats on his life, and for now he has no intention to kill anyone. He merely likes the idea of owning a gun—just in case.
* * *
January comes to an end, and with it the
January has been an amazing month for the president and Mrs. Kennedy. The glamour surrounding the
Thus, Jackie Kennedy may be right: this might just be Camelot—or at least part of it. For her there is no dark side to the story—although it definitely exists.
When Jackie thinks of
And Queen Guinevere, the heroine with whom Jackie so identifies, ends up alone.
9
MARCH 11, 1963
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
8:00 P.M.
The loneliest man in Camelot wants to be president of the United States.
Lyndon Baines Johnson stands bathed in a spotlight. His typewritten speech lies before him on the lectern, but he is not focused on the words. He’s more interested in the two tables of voters somewhere out in the audience who might just make that impossible presidential dream come true someday.
What Lyndon Johnson wants, above all else, is a return to power. He adores power. And he will endure anything to know that heady sensation once again.
Anything.
The vice president searches the room for the “Negro tables,” desperate to know if his political gamble will pay off.
* * *
Robert Francis Kennedy also wants to be president of the United States.
With five years to go before the 1968 election, an article by Gore Vidal in
Bobby Kennedy has become such a political force that even the vice president worries he is powerless to stop Bobby from winning in 1968.
It all seems so easy: JFK until 1968, then Bobby takes the White House, and then wins again in 1972, and then maybe even Teddy in 1976 and 1980. The Kennedy dynasty is poised to control the American presidency for the next twenty years. It’s almost a sure thing.
But there are no sure things in politics. And little does LBJ know that insidious forces are possibly targeting Bobby even now—plotting not only the attorney general’s downfall, but that of the entire Kennedy family political dynasty.
