Out on his ranch, Lyndon B. Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, looked out of his top-floor window. This year’s December had brought mild weather. Sitting in his armchair this evening, the president could see the full moon glowing like a white ember over the horizon. Lyndon B. Johnson held his thumb out in front of him, amusing himself at the thought of blotting out the whole moon. America would get there; of that he was certain. One of his countrymen would set foot on the surface of the moon. One day, he’d be able to admire the image of an American flag flying on that satellite. Who would be the astronaut to bring this honour to his country? Probably one of the men working on the Mercury space program in Houston. The president lowered his thumb and tried to concentrate. But forgetting was not easy. It had been a month since President Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon B Johnson remained haunted by that terrible moment, when in a fraction of a second Kennedy’s smile had been drowned in blood. His head had exploded inside the car. He, Lyndon, had seen it all. The unthinkable sight of raw cruelty. He remembered the First Lady, her pretty pink dress swathed in blood, trying desperately to get out of the open-top car. He could still see the terror and incomprehension on her face.
Lyndon B Johnson had permitted himself two weeks of rest on his ranch. He needed to cast it from his waking mind, even if the memory would alway remained with him. A president must learn from the lessons of the past, without being overcome by his emotions. He had to keep a cool head, for there was plenty else on his mind; plenty of international affairs to be addressed. The civil rights movement was still surging, cutting its rapid course, with Martin Luther King bellowing “I have a dream!” into his microphone as thousands looked on. Still, this dream could not be achieved without the help of a president. African-Americans wanted the full rights of citizenship, as provided for in the amendments to the Constitution. Lyndon B Johnson heard the sound of a gunshot. He heard a woman cry out: “John! John!” He saw a car speeding toward the hospital, as the hopes of millions of black Americans evaporated in a heartbeat. All because a man had pulled a trigger; because a man had assassinated the President of the United States.
He was the president now. The storm had passed, and he recovered his senses. The sound of horseshoes clopping on the stones as Kennedy’s coffin came out of the church; that too was past. He needed to settle the matter of Vietnam. He needed to send reinforcements to quash the communists in this war that seemed determined to drag on. Lyndon B. Johnson pointed his thumb toward the shimmering moon once more. America could not lose this war. All manner of operations were being planned against the guerrillas in the South, and air strikes were being carried out in the North. Lyndon B. Johnson had a strategy: the use of chemical weapons. He would contaminate all the agricultural land in the Communist north with napalm, this toxic agent that choked and killed all in its wake. The matter had to be concluded, otherwise the Vietnamese peninsula would be torn apart between the communist north and the democratic south. The thirty-sixth president of the United States struggled to concentrate. He saw a skull shattering to pieces, a woman crying over a corpse, and blood trickling between his fingers.
Alan Alfredo Geday