To 22 1963: He was there By Scott Payton and Tom Carter Kirighl-fififffrr Fetes Service BEATTYVILLE, Ky. — "What would John Kennedy have done, if he'd lived? A lot of us have done a lot of wondering about that. "The only thing Kennedy ever mentioned that he'd like to do after he left the White House was to teach political science at Harvard Law S Talking with Malcolm Kilduff is .• eavesdropping on history. And that's understandable: Kil- duff, .50, and now of Beattyville in eastern Kentucky, has spent his life in and around power centers of American politics, most notably as assistant press secretary — and personal friend — to Presidents Ken- nedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, it was Kilduff who had "the unfortunate duty or distinction or whatever you want to call it" of announcing to a roomful of stunned reporters in Dallas that John F. Kennedy had died by an assassin's hand. The scene is a classroom in Park- land Hospital, Dallas. The day: Nov.. 22, 1963. The room is swelled with reporters and photographers, many of them covering the biggest story of their lives — the attempted assassination Associated Press of President Kennedy. They stand 007m,,,r around bewildered, stunned, as they wait for someone to tell them some- thing about the President, something about Jackie, something . Then Kilduff, who was acting press secretary that day because Pierre Salinger was out of town, enters the ran m. Tcne recorders go on and cameras roil recording the scene of Kilduff trying to make a statement.. Kilduff.:...."CuuId I have your , La- • •feritibn? President John F. Kennedy.: .(the statement preface is slightly. muffled) died at approximately 1:31 • p.m. Central Standard Time. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details of the assas- sination of the President." Questions come pouring out of the crowd, Kilduff seems to be answer- ing the most serious queries: Q: "What about Jackie?" A: "Mrs. Kennedy was not hit." Q: "What about Gov. Connally?" Johnson takes oath (Kilduff is bottom left) A: "Gov. Connally was hit." (Several muffled questions come at once). single phone in Kilduff's car) he saw A: "Vice President Johnson was what had happened. not hit." Update "His head was just a mass of Q: "Can we see the President?" blood," Kilduff says. "It looked like A: "He is lifeless. I'm sorry." hamburger meat. The moment I saw hirri I thought he was already dead, Nearly 14 years since that terrible tragic • memories are of Kennedy, day, it might seem strange to find but then the orderlies came out and whom he describes as "a very, very took his pulse. So I figured, well, it's Malcolm Kilduff — his wife calls hiM human being ... a compassionate 'Mac' — in this mountain town, man- just a mess, it's not that .bad . The man, an understanding man, who horrible reality that the President of aging a Radio Shack franchise had a great, great sense of humor." worlds away from the volatile, rough- the United States has been killed is On the fateful trip to Dallas, Kil- not in your mind; it takes a while to and tumble life of the political arena.' - duff was riding in the third car of the get there." You imagine him suffering a bad presidential motorcase as it passed case of the psychic bends from the Meanwhile, as acting press secre- beneath the Texas Book Depository. tary Kilduff had a job to do: find abrupt depressurization. He recalls the moment the shots were i phones and set up a press room for That's not the case. fired: "I loYe it here. I've never been so the dozens of clamoring reporters. comfortable in my life. "The shots came over my right And it was he who finally told them "It's so nice compared to Washing- shoulder. There's absolutely no ques- the President had died. tion they came from the Depository. I ton," he chuckles. "Nobody has an Looking back, he says he was prob- the right front seat - ax to grind." was riding in ably in a state of shock at that point: Kilduff moved here last January that put the Depository directly over "I left out the 'F' in Kennedy's shortly after marrying his present my right shoulder. name when I "made that announce- wife Rosemary, herself a Washington "My first thought was that some- ment; I don't know why. And they career person. Beattyville is Rose- one had thrown a firecracker. We im- say I kept twirling a cigaret in my mary's hometown and, Kilduff says, niediately sped off. We couldn't tell hand. I don't remember that. After "She's always talked about coming the announcement, I had a question- home." what was happening. I think the last and-answer session with the report- They're renovating the 100-year-old thing in the world anybody thought of ers, and I drew a diagram on the house she grew up in and living a was that the President had been board. But it took a viewing of the comparatively quiet life. shot." • BBC film of the press conference to But Kilduff remembers more tur- bulent times — and is happy to rattle After the race to Parkland Hospital bring that memory back to me." off stories about them. (during which two reporters for the Considering his closeness to the Some of his fondest — and most AP and UPI fought furiously over the scene of the assassination, what does tion in 1965 to go into public relations work in Washington. Later, he went to Las Vegas to take a job as a news director of a TV station there._,The . • Crip nest proved in de a TrifslaRt.t: tip he think of the Warren Report'S con- became an alcoholic. Harvey troversial conclusion that Lee "In a 24-hour town like Vegas, a Oswald, acting alone, fired three guy like me can't help but get in Texas nook Deposi- shots from the trouble," he says.',• • • - • tory and killed the president? Determined to I was straighten himself "Weil, it's strange, because out, he dried out at the Veterans' Ad- • ,--the never called to testify before ministration Hospital in Washington Warren Commission and I can't un- (he's been sober for three years now, derstand why," he says. "But my and highly recommends the VA pro- feeling on the ultimate conclusion of gram) and took a "therapeutic" job the Warren Report is, that it is cor- as a night manager of a drugstore. rect. So far as where the. shots came But even in those years of personal from, the direction in which they chaos he couldn't resist the lure of came, and the number of shots, there politics. He worked in several cam- is no question in my mind. paigns, including both of Hubert "And as far as a conspiracy gods, I Humphrey's presidential bids — and, totally discount it. Oswald just went surprisingly, did some advance work quietly .about his business, and got for President Gerald RI. Ford's cam- off two of the luckiest shots in his- paign last fall. Why Ford? "Well, I don't like Car.' ' "If you talk to the Secret Service, ter . and I think Ford is a good ' they'll tell you one of the. things man, knowledgeable in government. they've always feared and still fear But I hasten to add that I'm still a is the &termination of a single rrian registered Democrat, and still think: who sets out on a single purpose 4..7; to of myself as a strong supporter of kill the President of the United the party." States.' A man like that can do it any While he says his life in Beattyvilie day of the week he wants to." - is pleasant and rewarding (he, does ' After the assassination, Kilduff re-. volunteer counseling work with alco- turned to Washington with Lyndon holics one night a week,' a traCe.of Johnson in Air Force One — and, in wistfulness creeps into his voice fact, you may see him in the corner when he talks about the campaigns • of the famous photograph showing the he's worked on. And you get the feel- new president taking the oath of of- ing he wouldn't mind a fling in the fice, He is holding•the handset of a national political arena every now ; dictaphone — the only recording Ile- and then. vice on, the plane at that time j tap- "Yea, I'm an old firehorse," he ing Johnson's words. laughs. "Just ring the bell. Politics "I suddenly realized that herb's is fascinating. It's like a cobra to me. history being made that we have no I'm terrible — a campaign-aholic. I record of," he says. "So I grabbed- a can turn away from booze, but show dictaphone and held it up there." me a campaign and I start smacking Kilduff left the Johnson administra- my lips." He concedes that his attitude .to- ward politics is not widely shared in this post-Watergate era of disillusion- meat; and he says it's a "damn . shame" that "the brightest young people this nation has ever seen" are turned off to politics, Then he quotes John F. Kennedy with the fervor of a true believer:: "Kennedy said that politics should be a profession of the highest calling. And I firmly believe that. It sho,iticl be." .