Nation: The Transfer of Power

Inside Air Force One, trembling with the vibration of its idling engines, Jackie joined a sad and shaken group waiting for Lyndon Johnson to take his oath of office.

The plane’s sweltering, gold-carpeted “living room” was crowded with 27 people. At Johnson’s right was his wife Lady Bird. Behind them ranged White House staff members; Larry O’Brien and Kenneth O’Donnell were in tears; the shirt cuffs of Rear Admiral George Burkley, President Kennedy’s personal physician, bore bloodstains. Federal District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a trim, tiny woman of 67 whom Kennedy had appointed to the bench in 1961, pronounced the oath in a voice barely audible over the engines. Johnson, his left hand on a small black Bible, his right held high, repeated firmly: I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.

The First Order. The President leaned forward, kissed Lady Bird on the forehead. Mrs. Johnson turned to Jackie, held her hand and said: “The whole nation mourns your husband.” Dallas Police Chief J. E. Curry stepped up and advised the widow: “God bless you, little lady, but you ought to go back and lie down.” Replied Jackie: “No thanks, I’m fine.” Minutes later Johnson gave his first order as President of the United States. “Now,” he said, “let’s get this thing airborne.”

The ceremony in Air Force One occurred at 2:38 p.m., just 98 minutes after John Kennedy was officially declared dead. Technically, Johnson had become President the moment that Kennedy died. But with that ceremony, President Johnson seemed to realize for the first time that the transfer of responsibility was real. And as the blue and white plane sped through clear skies toward Washington at 635 m.p.h., the President, as a President must, began to make decisions. Any personal meditation on the day’s events would have to wait until later.

Johnson did what he could to help Jacqueline, discovered that she wanted only one thing: to remain at the side of her husband’s bronze casket in a rear passenger compartment. There, crewmen had hurriedly removed two rows of seats to provide space. Four White House aides—Kennedy’s longtime friend Dave Powers, his Air Force Aide Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, O’Brien and O’Donnell—sat with her.

Using the aircraft’s radio telephone, Johnson called Mrs. Rose Kennedy, told her: “I wish to God that there was something I could do. I just wanted you to know that.” He handed the phone to Lady Bird. “We feel like the heart has been cut out of us,” she said. “Our love and our prayers are with you.” Johnson called Nellie Connally, wife of the wounded Texas Governor, and said hopefully: “We are praying with you, darling, and I know that everything is going to be all right, isn’t it?”

Johnson sent orders ahead that, as a first order of business, he wished to meet with congressional leaders of both parties shortly after his arrival, that he wanted to see any members of the Cabinet present in Washington “to ask all of them to remain in their posts,” that he would also convene members of the White House staff. Next, he advised Washington’s Andrews Air Force Base that he would make a brief public statement upon arrival, turned his attention to what he could say.

When the aircraft landed at Andrews at dusk, the MATS terminal was blazing with floodlights. President and Mrs. Johnson waited inside while a yellow cargo lift lumbered out to the plane’s rear door. Uniformed pallbearers struggled to shift the heavy casket from the plane to the lift. Robert Kennedy met Jackie at the door, helped her to the ground. Officials motioned Jackie toward a black Cadillac, but she insisted on staying with the casket. She got into a grey military ambulance, refused to sit in front, climbed in back near her husband’s body. Bobby joined her, and they drove off behind closed grey curtains between two lines of a white-gloved honor guard.

The First Statement. Johnson and Lady Bird emerged from the plane and were quickly engulfed by the men Johnson has known best in his quarter-century of Government service: the leaders of Congress. There was little talk. Senate Majority whip Hubert Humphrey cried openly. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield gripped Johnson’s hands.

Johnson turned slowly, strode away from the cluster of friends, walked toward a bank of microphones. It must have seemed the loneliest, longest walk of his life. Motioning Lady Bird to his side, Johnson spoke publicly for the first time as President, expressed his feelings simply.

“This is a sad time for all people,” he said. “We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.”

Moments later, Johnson took part in his first brief discussion of affairs of state. He and Lady Bird climbed into a helicopter with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Under Secretary of State George Ball. They conferred during the seven-minute flight to the White House.

The grey helicopter, its red lights blinking, swung past the floodlit Washington Monument, came down onto a steel landing pad on the south lawn of the White House, some 70 feet from Caroline and John Kennedy’s treehouse, swing and jungle-gym set. Johnson walked through the flower garden into the oval presidential office. There secretaries had cleared Jack Kennedy’s desk of personal mementos: a coconut shell on which he had carved a message of his survival after his PT boat sank in World War II, a silver calendar noting the dates of his confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev over Soviet missiles in Cuba, photos of Jackie and the children. Johnson lingered only briefly, decided to work out of his three-room vice-presidential suite in the adjacent Executive Office Building.

There Johnson received telephone calls from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman. Both assured him that they had confidence in him, would do whatever they could to help him in the transitional period. The President called FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, told Hoover to throw as many men as he needed into the search for evidence against Kennedy’s assassin. Said Johnson: “I want you to do whatever is needed to clean this up.”

At his beck, the leaders of Congress assembled in Johnson’s office. They included Mike Mansfield, Senators Dirksen, Humphrey, Tommy Kuchel, George Smathers, House Speaker McCormack, House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck, House Majority Leader Carl Albert. “The country needs unity as it has never needed it before,” Johnson told them. He said he was worried that some other nations might conclude that this “very abrupt and sudden transition” in U.S. leadership would bring drastic changes in U.S. foreign policy. That would be wrong and dangerous, Johnson said. The leaders of both parties assured him of their cooperation.

Johnson called various members of the White House staff, told them he would need to “lean on them” now. He summoned a few of his own longtime aides—George Reedy, Walter Jenkins, Bill Moyers—and set up more meetings for Saturday, then drove to his home in Washington’s Spring Valley section for the night.

Looking Ahead. At home, Johnson retreated to a private sitting room at the rear of the house. The first thing he saw there was a framed color photo of his beloved friend Sam Rayburn. The President saluted, then whispered: “Well, Mr. Speaker, I wish you were here tonight.” Joined by several close friends, Johnson asked someone to switch on a television set. It showed films of a grinning Jack Kennedy shaking hands in Dallas shortly before the shooting. Johnson ordered the channel changed. “I just don’t believe I can take that,” he said.

Johnson called Secret Service Chief Jim Rowley to the house, told him how one of his agents, Rufus Youngblood, had acted heroically at the time of the shooting. Assigned to guard Johnson, Youngblood had thrown the Vice President to the floor of his car at the first sound of the shots, then placed his own body atop Johnson, stayed there all the way to the hospital. Declared Johnson: “I want you to do whatever you can, the best thing that can be done, for that boy.”

Despite the day’s overwhelming events and despite his weariness, President Johnson was already looking ahead. He listed memos he would need for the next day’s meetings, noted people he would have to call. And he said repeatedly: “We really have a big job to do now.”