On this day, a jubilant crowd had gathered to welcome the first couple to Dallas. The streets of the city were packed with proud Americans, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the nation’s youngest-ever president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and especially his distinguished wife Jackie, parading in their dark blue limousine. Still, Dallas was a deeply divided city and had not voted Democrat in the last election. Day and night, fliers were handed out in public places lambasting John F. Kennedy’s tenure as president, bearing the message: “Wanted for treason.” They rebuked his mishandling of the Bay of Pigs, his inability to curb anti-segregationist laws, and his backing down to the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet the residents who’d filled the streets of Dallas were thrilled at the prospect of laying eyes on the president and the first lady. Their plane had not yet touched down at Dallas airport, but already they were preparing for the big moment. For today’s motorcade, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had ordered that the car’s retractable sidesteps for the Secret Service agents be removed, and that the Plexiglas roof be taken off so he could feel the emotion of the Americans who had come to cheer him on.
First Lady Jackie Kennedy had spent a long time deliberating over her outfit, hesitating between her leopard-print coat or a pink Chanel suit which she often wore during official appearances. It wasn’t a real Chanel suit, but an imitation made in the USA – a way of moderating her spending and remaining faithful to her own country. Jackie Kennedy’s press secretary hoped that her hairdo wouldn’t suffer too much from the car ride, and that her legendary pillbox hat would remain in place. As they waited, Jackie Kennedy was serene; she had long been kept at a distance, but her husband wanted her to play a more prominent role, even going as far as to say: “I’m the guy who follows Jackie Kennedy around.”
A bouquet of red roses sat between the president and his wife as the limousine rolled up the avenue thronged with three thousand adoring voters. Many of them could be heard crying out, “We love you, Jackie!” The First Lady was blinded by the sunlight, and went to put on her shades, but her husband held her back, saying: “If you’re going to wear shades for a parade like this, you might as well stay home!” Jackie squinted to admire the crowd, and finally spotted a tunnel that would shelter them from the sun.
The motorcade was making its way slowly toward Dealer Plaza when three shots rang out around Dallas; three shots whose echo still resounds today. The thirty-fifth president of the USA had been slain before the very eyes of the American public.
In the hospital, Jackie was at her husband’s side as he passed. The pink suit she had worn for this infamous occasion would be left on for the rest of the day to showcase the barbarity of the southerners, the bloodletting of the Communists, the cruelty of the mafia or the madness of some lone gunman. “I want everyone to see what they did to my husband,” she answered when someone suggested she change her outfit. Jackie Kennedy understood the power of symbols, as she had proven many times during diplomatic receptions at the White House. She wanted them to see, and see they would: six months after the assassination, a mysterious package arrived at the National Archives. Inside, the archivists found the suit, the handbag, the shoes and even the stockings the former first Lady had been wearing on that fateful day in Dallas. The traces of the crime must be preserved intact; never should the American people be allowed to forget.
Alan Alfredo Geday