Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation by Bill O’Reilly Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bill O’Reilly
embassy, but only because it is required for Soviet citizens such as Marina to inform the embassy of their location on a regular basis. When pressed about whether this involved discussions with Soviet intelligence officials, Oswald doesn’t answer directly, but wonders aloud why anyone would want to discuss spying with a guy like him. “He didn’t feel like he was of any importance” to the Russians, Fain will later testify.
Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald with their daughter, June Lee, in 1962. [© Corbis]
At 6:45 P.M. , Oswald is released from the car and goes inside his home.
But Lee Harvey Oswald and the FBI will soon meet again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
OCTOBER 16, 1962
The White House 8:45 A.M.
T HE PRESIDENT OF THE U NITED S TATES is rolling around on the bedroom floor with his children. The fitness expert Jack LaLanne is on the television telling JFK, Caroline, and John to touch their toes.
John Jr. visits his father on the porch outside the Oval Office. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
The president will soon get dressed. The kids will stick around and watch cartoons. Jackie might sit with him as he wraps his back brace into place before putting on his shirt. Sometimes during the day, John and Caroline walk into the Oval Office and play on the floor or even beneath the presidential desk. Jackie fiercely protects the children from the public eye. But the president takes a larger view, realizing that America is enthralled by such a young first family and wants to hear about their daily life. Caroline and John have become celebrities in their own right, although they don’t know it. Photographers, writers, news magazines, and daily newspapers chronicling their young lives are just a fact of life.
The president’s children often visited the Oval Office. In this photograph, Caroline is four years old and John Jr. is 23 months old. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
John, almost two years old, likes to stop at his father’s secretary’s typewriter on his way in to the Oval Office and pretend to type a letter. Caroline, who is nearly five years old, often brings one or more of the family’s dogs when she pays a visit to her father. In fact, the Kennedy children have turned the White House into a menagerie, with dogs, hamsters, a cat, parakeets, and even a pony named Macaroni. JFK is allergic to dog hair, but he never lets on.
Caroline on her pony, Macaroni, a gift to her from Vice President Johnson. Macaroni received fan mail from people around the country. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
Kennedy, like every president since John Adams became the White House’s first resident in 1800, has learned that life inside the White House is complicated. Mornings are the only time the president can be carefree, unrehearsed, and, best of all, unwatched by a curious public.
Caroline inspects a snowman built for her outside the White House. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
But on this Tuesday morning in October, a knock on the president’s bedroom door intrudes on his private time with the children.
National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy steps through the door.
Bundy has very bad news to deliver. He learned of it last night but intentionally waited until now to tell the president. John Kennedy was in New York to deliver a speech and didn’t return to the White House until very late. The national security adviser wanted to make sure Kennedy had a full night of sleep before he received the news. Bundy knows that from now until the moment this problem is solved, the president will be lucky to get any rest. For what McGeorge Bundy is about to tell JFK could change the course of history.
“Mr. President,” the 43-year-old Bundy calmly informs Kennedy, “there is now hard photographic evidence, which you will see later, that the Russians have offensive missiles in Cuba.”
United States U-2 spy planes flying over Cuba have confirmed that six Soviet medium-range ballistic missile sites and 21
Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald with their daughter, June Lee, in 1962. [© Corbis]
At 6:45 P.M. , Oswald is released from the car and goes inside his home.
But Lee Harvey Oswald and the FBI will soon meet again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
OCTOBER 16, 1962
The White House 8:45 A.M.
T HE PRESIDENT OF THE U NITED S TATES is rolling around on the bedroom floor with his children. The fitness expert Jack LaLanne is on the television telling JFK, Caroline, and John to touch their toes.
John Jr. visits his father on the porch outside the Oval Office. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
The president will soon get dressed. The kids will stick around and watch cartoons. Jackie might sit with him as he wraps his back brace into place before putting on his shirt. Sometimes during the day, John and Caroline walk into the Oval Office and play on the floor or even beneath the presidential desk. Jackie fiercely protects the children from the public eye. But the president takes a larger view, realizing that America is enthralled by such a young first family and wants to hear about their daily life. Caroline and John have become celebrities in their own right, although they don’t know it. Photographers, writers, news magazines, and daily newspapers chronicling their young lives are just a fact of life.
The president’s children often visited the Oval Office. In this photograph, Caroline is four years old and John Jr. is 23 months old. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
John, almost two years old, likes to stop at his father’s secretary’s typewriter on his way in to the Oval Office and pretend to type a letter. Caroline, who is nearly five years old, often brings one or more of the family’s dogs when she pays a visit to her father. In fact, the Kennedy children have turned the White House into a menagerie, with dogs, hamsters, a cat, parakeets, and even a pony named Macaroni. JFK is allergic to dog hair, but he never lets on.
Caroline on her pony, Macaroni, a gift to her from Vice President Johnson. Macaroni received fan mail from people around the country. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
Kennedy, like every president since John Adams became the White House’s first resident in 1800, has learned that life inside the White House is complicated. Mornings are the only time the president can be carefree, unrehearsed, and, best of all, unwatched by a curious public.
Caroline inspects a snowman built for her outside the White House. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
But on this Tuesday morning in October, a knock on the president’s bedroom door intrudes on his private time with the children.
National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy steps through the door.
Bundy has very bad news to deliver. He learned of it last night but intentionally waited until now to tell the president. John Kennedy was in New York to deliver a speech and didn’t return to the White House until very late. The national security adviser wanted to make sure Kennedy had a full night of sleep before he received the news. Bundy knows that from now until the moment this problem is solved, the president will be lucky to get any rest. For what McGeorge Bundy is about to tell JFK could change the course of history.
“Mr. President,” the 43-year-old Bundy calmly informs Kennedy, “there is now hard photographic evidence, which you will see later, that the Russians have offensive missiles in Cuba.”
United States U-2 spy planes flying over Cuba have confirmed that six Soviet medium-range ballistic missile sites and 21
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