12:31 P.M.
Inside the presidential limousine, there is chaos.
“Oh, no, no, no. Oh, my God. They have shot my husband. I love you, Jack,” Jackie Kennedy cries.
The First Lady will not remember what she does in the seconds after her husband is shot. She is in shock. In the future, she will watch videos of herself and feel as if she is watching some other woman. Her children will protect her by tearing the assassination images out of books before she can see them.
“They’ve killed my husband,” Jackie says to no one and everyone. Up front, driver Bill Greer and Special Agent Roy Kellerman are radioing that the president has been hit. Governor Connally is still conscious, but fading fast. His wife, Nellie, has thrown her body over his. This leaves Jackie alone in the backseat, the president’s lifeless body leaning against hers.
“I have his brains in my hand,” she yells.
And then Jackie is up and out of the seat. She’s on a mission.
Secret Service special agent Clint Hill knows precisely what the First Lady is doing. Rather than sitting with her husband’s body, she is crawling onto the trunk of the moving presidential limousine in order to collect pieces of skull and brain that cover the dark blue metal. Some fragments are flesh colored, with the skin still attached. Behind her, the president’s body is still upright, though tilted to the left. Blood pours out of his head wound in great torrents, drenching her roses and his clothing and spilling onto the floor of the vehicle.
“Good God, she’s going to fly off the back of the car,” Hill thinks as he jumps onto the small platform attached to the back of the Lincoln. To Special Agent Hill, the shot that killed the president sounded like “a melon shattering onto cement.” Splatter from the president’s head covers Hill’s face and clothes as he and the fatal bullet reached the kill zone simultaneously.
Terror fills the First Lady’s eyes. Her face is covered in blood and gray matter. This is a stark change for a woman so often consumed by appearing nothing less than elegant. But Jackie could not care less. “My God, they have shot his head off,” she screams.
Hill is just inches away from Jackie Kennedy as Bill Greer accelerates toward Parkland Hospital. SS-100-X is a behemoth of a vehicle, specially modified for use by the president. In addition to those mid-vehicle jump seats— which stretch the car from the 133-inch wheelbase of a factory Lincoln to 156 inches—the car weighs almost four tons. The 350-horsepower engine is its weak link, making it unable to accelerate quickly. But once the vehicle is up to speed, it hurtles down the freeway like an unstoppable force.
Which is precisely what it’s doing now. Scattering the police motorcycle escort, Bill Greer is pressing the accelerator all the way to the floor. Clint Hill, struggling to keep Jackie Kennedy from falling off the vehicle, almost flies off the back bumper himself. His hand clings to a grip on the trunk that has been placed there specifically for the Secret Service to hold on to. Now he grips for dear life with just that one hand, the other reaching for Jackie as the limo rockets down Elm Street. Hill grabs Jackie’s elbow, which allows him finally to get stabilized on the trunk of the presidential limousine.
Hill’s first job is to protect Jackie Kennedy. Even as he presses his body flat against the trunk and holds on tight, he shoves her hard back into the backseat. The president’s body falls over and onto her lap. She holds his head in her white-gloved hands, cradling him as if he has simply fallen asleep. “Jack, Jack. What have they done to you?”
Up front, driver Bill Greer is depending upon Chief Curry to lead the president’s limousine to Parkland Hospital, which is four miles away.
Still clinging to the trunk, Clint Hill turns and looks at Halfback, where Secret Service agents ride on the running boards. He makes eye contact with Special Agent Paul Landis, then shakes his head and holds out his hand in a thumbs-down signal.
Special Agent Emory Roberts sees Hill’s gesture and immediately radios to the agents protecting Lyndon Johnson. With one downturned thumb, Clint Hill has confirmed that Lyndon Baines Johnson is now the acting president of the United States. Protecting his life becomes the Secret Service’s number one priority.
In the backseat of the Lincoln, Jackie Kennedy holds her husband’s head and quietly sobs. “He’s dead. They’ve killed him. Oh Jack, oh Jack. I love you.”
Lee Harvey Oswald is doing everything right. He’s walking east up Elm Street to catch a bus. The panic and chaos that now define Dealey Plaza recede behind him. No one has stopped Oswald. At this point, no one even suspects him.
Meanwhile, his escape plan is coming together slowly. For now, the assassin is on his way to his rooming house to pick up his pistol—just in case.
The radio call of “Code 3” means an emergency of the highest importance to Dallas-area hospitals. The term is almost never used. So when Parkland dispatcher Anne Ferguson requests more details, she is simply told, “The president has been shot.”
The time is 12:33 P.M.
Three minutes later, the presidential limousine roars into Parkland, blowing past the sign reading “Emergency Cases Only.” Bill Greer parks in the middle of the three ambulance bays.
But there is no stretcher waiting, no emergency team rushing to help the president. Incredibly, a breakdown in communications has stymied the hospital’s emergency response. The trauma team has barely been notified.
So those inside the presidential limo simply wait.
Nellie Connally lies atop her husband, even as a moaning Jackie Kennedy holds John Kennedy’s head.
Halfback pulls up, right behind SS-100-X. Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell, men who have been in the political trenches with JFK since the 1946 congressional campaign, rush to the Lincoln, hoping for the best. The president still has a faint pulse—which continues to push pint after pint of blood out through his head wound.
“Get up,” Secret Service special agent Emory Roberts commands Jackie Kennedy.
She doesn’t move. She has positioned her arms and jacket so that no one can see JFK’s face or head. The First Lady does not want her husband remembered this way.
Roberts delicately lifts Jackie’s arm so he can see for himself if the president is dead. One look is all he needs. Roberts backs off.
Dave Powers sees the fixed pupils gazing sightlessly into the distance and breaks into tears. O’Donnell, who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, reverts to his soldier days and snaps to attention as a sign of numb respect.
Even if Jackie were to try to move right now, she would have nowhere to go. The slumped body of John Connally blocks the car’s door, meaning that the governor of Texas must be moved before the president of the United States can be lifted from the Lincoln.
It is Dave Powers, not hospital personnel, who finally sets aside his tears and lifts Connally out by the legs and onto a gurney. The governor is conscious, though just barely. His wounds are life threatening, and the emergency physicians at Parkland will be very busy today trying to save Connally’s life. (They will succeed—a rare bit of good news on a brutal day.)
Though Connally has been wheeled inside to Trauma Room Two and no longer obstructs the car door, Jackie Kennedy still refuses to let go of her husband. When she lets go, she knows he’s gone forever. This will be the last time she holds him. The First Lady curls her body forward so that the president’s blood-soaked face and her breasts come together. She weeps quietly, pushing her body closer and closer to her husband’s.
“Mrs. Kennedy,” Special Agent Clint Hill says, “please let us help the president.”
Jackie doesn’t respond. But she knows that voice. It is the soft command of a man who has protected her from danger night and day.
The voice of Clint Hill is the only voice Jackie responds to in her moment of shocked grief.
Hill softly places his hand on her shoulder. The First Lady trembles, in mourning.
The quiet crowd of Secret Service agents and Kennedy staffers around the Lincoln do not speak. The seconds tick past.
“Please, Mrs. Kennedy. Please let us get him into the hospital,” Hill implores.
“I’m not going to let him go, Mr. Hill,” Jackie says.
“We’ve got to take him in, Mrs. Kennedy.”
