TIMETHE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE Dec. 23, 1966 Vol. 88, No. 26 THE NATION scenes for months as rumors buzzed in tion. In his original version, at least, THE PRESIDENCY Washington and New York about the Manchester told how the Kennedy con- Battle of the Book book's incendiary contents, and about tingent arrived at Dallas' Love Field "I have to try, We might lose this, the problems between the Kennedys with the President's body and was "dis- but I have to try. I can't lose all that and the author and publisher. But the mayed" to find that Johnson's party had I've tried to protect for these years. FE4 book has done far more than merely moved in to Air Force One. Johnson have to do what is necessary. We have upset the Kennedys. It has set many himself was already ensconced in the to sue." New Frontiersmen against one another, President's quarters. Moreover, the ac- With those anguished words to close caused the author to become ill and count portrayed L.B.J.'s aides as shocked friends last week, Jacqueline Kennedy brought turmoil to the publishing world, and saddened but scarcely able to dis- set in motion the biggest brouhaha over guise their satisfaction at finally tak- a book that the nation has ever known. ing command. The book was no ordinary one: it was So great was the tension aboard the William Manchester's The Death of a plane during the flight back to Washing- President, which has been awaited as ton, according to Manchester, that after the authoritative account of the assas- Air Force One landed at the capital, sination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Kenny O'Donnell, one of the late Presi- The late President's family carefully dent's oldest friends, literally blocked hand-picked both the author and the the exit when Lyndon Johnson tried to publisher—neither of whom had sought leave with Jacqueline. A fork lift was the assignment—and offered them ex- rolled up to the plane to remove Ken- clusive access to information and key nedy's casket, and Jackie stepped aboard figures, hoping thereby to avoid "distor- with other members of the late Presi- tion and sensationalism" and produce a dent's party. O'Donnell prevented John- sober, low-key retelling of the events of son from riding down with the group. Nov. 22, 1963. The book was to be a What angered O'Donnell and other rara avis: a history that would be inde- members of the Kennedy group, ac- pendent but would still carry the author- cording to Manchester's account, were a ization of the Kennedys and require number of incidents aboard the plane. their approval before publication. One portrays L.B.J. as maneuvering to Exhaustive Detail. Long the subject make sure that Jackie Kennedy was in of speculation across the U.S., the photographs of his swearing in. Another 1,200-page manuscript of the book has describes how the Kennedy people dis- proved to be something of a shock to associated themselves from Johnson's just about everyone. Re-creating the party, which was in the forward part of events on and after the day of the assas- the plane. A high Kennedy aide remarked sination in exhaustive detail and in to a newsman: "Make sure you report sometimes mawkish language, it de- that we rode in the back with our Presi- scribes Jackie Kennedy's every thought dent and not up front with him"— and emotion after her husband's death meaning Johnson. with such fidelity that the Kennedys- Multiplying the Impact. The Ken- who have not read it but are familiar nedys were upset by the anti-Johnson with its contents—feel that it contains JACKIE KENNEDY & RICHARD GOODWIN bias of the book, but what really moved things far too personal to print. "That's Carborundum beneath the camellias. them to try to block its publication and all she has left—her personal life," says serialization is the almost embarrassing- a member of the family. "She wants to leaving half a dozen publishers in Eu- ly personal material on Jackie's reaction protect that." rope and the U.S. holding a manuscript to the assassination. In talking to Man- To protect it, Jackie Kennedy's at- that they are not sure they will be able chester, Jackie was totally unguarded; torneys requested and received a "show- to print. Its influence has also reached she expected him to use his own judg- cause" order from the New York State into the White House, where its preju- ment in sorting out what material should Supreme Court requiring Manchester, diced and one-dimensional treatment of and should not be used. According to Harper & Row, which was to publish Lyndon Johnson has created apprehen- the Kennedys, his judgment was bad. the book April 7, and Look magazine, sion and resentment. Some of the anecdotes that he in- which was to begin serializing it Jan. 10, Already Ensconced. The book—orig- cluded have appeared before, but Man- to explain in a hearing next week why inally titled Death of Lancer in refer- chester tells them through Jackie's eyes, they should not be barred from bring- ence to Jack Kennedy's Secret Service thus multiplying the impact. One scene ing out the book. The charge: Man- code name—paints, in fact, an almost that agitated the Kennedys was his de- chester and his publishers had violated a unrelieved portrait of Johnson as an scription of Jackie's horror-stricken re- "Memorandum of Understanding" and unfeeling and boorish man. Manchester's action as she saw her husband's skull gone ahead with the book without an hostility to Johnson comes across with shattered by Assassin Lee Harvey Os- O.K. from the Kennedy family. particular force in his description of the wald's last—and fatal—shot. Numbed The dispute has simmered behind the hours immediately after the assassina- and bewildered, she cradled her hus- spoken favorably of Manchester, whose family) and four indifferently received band's head in her lap, sought to cover novels—none of which came close to his gaping wound with her hand—as if 1962 Portrait of a President was a glowing—one reviewer called it "ador- bestsellerdom—he halted work on a by that act she could heal him. book about Germany's vast Krupp in- At Parkland Hospital, she tried to en- ing"—tribute to J.F.K. Manchester, ter her husband's room, but was blocked 44, an ex-Marine, agreed to the condi- dustrial empire, set up shop in a cubicle by a nurse until a doctor appeared and tions laid down by the Kennedys. in Washington's National Archives told the nurse to let her in. Through the On March 26, 1964, he and Bobby building. Next door was Evelyn Lincoln, day, Jackie refused to change from her Kennedy signed the eleven-point "Mem- J.F.K.'s White House secretary. blood-spattered clothes so that, as Man- orandum of Understanding." The key For as many as 15 hours a day for chester quotes her, "they can see what paragraph said that "the completed the next 21 months, Manchester gath- they've done." Another section that manuscript shall be reviewed by Mrs. ered material, accumulating 45 volumes disturbed Jackie was Manchester's ac- John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kenne- of tapes, notes and documents. From count of her feeling of emptiness and dy, and the text shall not be published Cape Cod to Dallas, he conducted despair when she went to bed at the unless and until approved by them." 1,000 interviews with 500 people. He White House on the night of the as- Another said that "the book may not spent a day in Gettysburg with Dwight sassination. In helpless, futile anguish, be published before Nov. 22, 1968," Eisenhower, 3f hours over lunch with she tore at the pillow that night. unless the family agreed. A third ruled Chief Justice Earl Warren. In Dallas, Jackie wanted at least three other that "no motion picture or TV adapta- he retraced on foot the route of Ken- things deleted from the manuscript. One tion shall ever be made based on the nedy's motorcade. A meticulous report- is an emotionally charged account of book," and gave the Kennedys the right er, be scoured hungrily for the small de- AP tails that help illuminate the larger ones: how a flock of pigeons took wing from the roof of the Texas School Book Depository when Lee Harvey Os- wald fired his first shot; how an un- dertaker, before driving Kennedy's body to Love Field, asked a reporter whom he should ask about payment. Man- chester saw the film of the actual as- sassination no fewer than 75 times. The pivotal interview was the one with Mrs. Kennedy. For more than ten hours during two days in April 1964, Manchester taped her recol- lections at her Georgetown home in Washington. In his foreword he wrote: "Mrs. Kennedy asked but one question before our first taping session. 'Are you just going to put down all the facts, who ate what for breakfast and all that, or are you going to put yourself in the book, too?' I replied that I didn't see how I could very well keep myself out of it. 'Good,' she said emphatical- ly." As a friend of Jackie's told Chi- cago Daily Newsman Peter Lisagor, she thereupon "poured out her soul to Manchester as if he were a psychia- THE SWEARING IN ON MR FORCE ONE trist." Jackie, who was then thoroughly Fact was the issue in some passages, taste was the issue in others.