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Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot (Bill O'Reilly's Killing Series) Hardcover – October 16, 2012
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A riveting historical narrative of the shocking events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the follow-up to mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln.
More than a million readers have thrilled to Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln, the page-turning work of nonfiction about the shocking assassination that changed the course of American history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor; recounts in gripping detail the brutal murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy--and how a sequence of gunshots on a Dallas afternoon not only killed a beloved president but also sent the nation into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath.
In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Alan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, powerful elements of organized crime have begun to talk about targeting the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody.
The events leading up to the most notorious crime of the twentieth century are almost as shocking as the assassination itself. Killing Kennedy chronicles both the heroism and deceit of Camelot, bringing history to life in ways that will profoundly move the reader. This may well be the most talked about book of the year.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHenry Holt and Co.
- Publication dateOctober 16, 2012
- Dimensions6.2 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
- ISBN-100805096663
- ISBN-13978-0805096668
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Immersively written . . . Mr. O'Reilly and Mr. Dugard succeed in investing a familiar national tragedy with fresh anguish. . . A powerful historical précis.” ―Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“All the suspense and drama of a popular thriller.” ―Husna Haq, The Christian Science Monitor
About the Author
MARTIN DUGARD is the New York Times bestselling author of several books of history, among them the Killing series, Into Africa, and Taking Paris. He and his wife live in Southern California.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Killing Kennedy
The End of CamelotBy Bill O'ReillyHenry Holt and Co.
Copyright © 2012 Bill O'ReillyAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780805096668
Chapter 24
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY, DALLAS
9:45 A.M.
Crowds of eager Dallas residents stand on the curb in front of the Texas School Book Depository. The president won’t pass by for three hours, but they’ve come early to get a good spot. Best of all, it looks like the sun might come out. Maybe they’ll get a glimpse of John F. Kennedy and Jackie after all.
Lee Harvey Oswald peers out a first-floor window of the depository building, assessing the president’s route by where the crowds stand. He can clearly see the corner of Elm and Houston, where John Kennedy’s limousine will make a slow left turn. This is important to Oswald. He’s selected a spot on the depository’s sixth floor as his sniper’s roost. The floor is dimly lit by bare 60-watt lightbulbs and is currently under renovation, and thus empty. Stacks of book boxes near the window overlooking Elm and Houston will form a natural hiding place, allowing Oswald to poke his rifle outside and sight the motorcade as it makes that deliberate turn. The marksman in Lee Harvey Oswald knows that he’ll have time for two shots, maybe even three if he works the bolt quickly enough.
But one should be all he needs.
¦ ¦ ¦Air Force One crabs into the wind as Colonel Jim Swindal eases her down onto the runway at Dallas’s Love Field. John Kennedy is ecstatic. Peering out the windows of his airplane, he sees that the weather has turned sunny and warm and that yet another large Texas crowd is waiting to greet him. “This trip is turning out to be terrific,” he happily confides to Kenny O’Donnell. “Here we are in Dallas and it looks like everything in Texas will turn out to be fine for us!”
Police cars circle the field, and officers are even stationed on rooftops. But these are the only ominous sights at the airport. For the estimated welcoming party of two thousand are overjoyed to see Air Force One touch down, marking the first time a president has visited Dallas since 1948. Grown men stand on their tiptoes to see over the throngs in front of them. Airport personnel leave their desks inside the terminal and jostle into position near the chain-link fence separating the runway from the parking lot. The U.S. Air Force C-130 carrying the president’s armored limousine lands and opens its cargo ramp. The bubble top remains on board the plane. The convertible top is completely down. A local television newsman, who is covering the spectacle live on air, enthusiastically reports that the bubble top is nowhere in evidence and that people will be able to see the president and First Lady “in the flesh.” The reporter also reminds his audience that the president will be returning to Love Field between “2:15 and 2:30” to depart for Austin.
Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, await the president on the tarmac, as they have on every leg of the Texas trip. The vice president’s job is to stand at the bottom of the ramp and greet the president. Johnson is not happy about this assignment, but he puts on a good face as Jackie emerges from the rear door of the plane, radiant in the pink Chanel suit with the matching pillbox hat. Two steps behind, and seen in person for the first time by the people of Dallas, comes John Kennedy.
“I can see his suntan from here!” the local TV reporter gushes.
The official plan is for JFK to head straight for his limousine to join the motorcade, but instead he breaks off and heads into the crowd. Not content with merely shaking a few hands, the president pushes deep into the throng, dragging Jackie along with him. The two of them remain surrounded by this wall of people for more than a full minute, much to the crowd’s delight. Then the president and First Lady reemerge, only to wade deep into another section of crowd.
“Boy, this is something,” enthuses the local reporter. “This is a bonus for the people who have waited here!”
The president and First Lady shake hands for what seems like an eternity to their very nervous Secret Service detail. “Kennedy is showing he is not afraid,” Ronnie Dugger of the Texas Observer writes in his notebook.
Finally, John and Jackie Kennedy make their way to the presidential limousine. Awaiting them are Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie. There are three rows of seats in the vehicle. Up front is the driver, fifty-four-year-old Bill Greer. To his right sits Roy Kellerman, like Greer, a longtime Secret Service agent. Special Agent Kellerman has served on the White House detail since the early days of World War II and has protected presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and now Kennedy.
JFK sits in the backseat, on the right-hand side, patting his hair into place after his foray into the crowd. Jackie sits to his left. The First Lady was handed a bouquet of red roses upon landing in Dallas, and these now rest on the seat between her and the president.
Governor Connally sits directly in front of the president, in the middle row, known as jump seats. Connally takes off his ten-gallon hat so that the crowds can see him. Nellie sits in front of Jackie and right behind the driver, Special Agent Greer.
As the motorcade leaves Love Field at 11:55 a.m., the presidential limousine—Secret Service code name SS-100-X—is the second car in line, flanked on either side by four motorcycle escorts.
Up front is an advance car filled with local police and Secret Service, among them Dallas police chief Jesse Curry and Secret Service special agent Winston Lawson.
Behind John Kennedy’s vehicle is a follow-up convertible code-named Halfback. Kennedy’s two main members of the Irish Mafia, Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell, sit here, surrounded by Secret Service agents heavily armed with handguns and automatic weapons. Clint Hill, head of the First Lady’s Secret Service detail, stands on the left running board of Halfback. Special agents Bill McIntyre, John Ready, and Paul Landis also man the running boards.
Car four is a convertible limousine that has been rented locally for the vice president. Even as the vehicles pull away from Love Field, it is obvious that LBJ is angry and pouting. While every other politician in the motorcade is waving to the crowds, he stares straight forward, unsmiling.
Bringing up the rear is car five, code-named Varsity and filled with a Texas state policeman and four Secret Service agents.
Way up at the front of the motorcade, driving several car lengths in front of SS-100-X, Dallas police chief Jesse Curry is committed to making the president’s visit as incident-free as possible. The fifty-year-old chief is a lifetime law enforcement officer. In addition to working his way up through the ranks of the Dallas police, he has augmented his knowledge by attending the FBI Academy. Curry has been involved in almost every aspect of the planning for John Kennedy’s visit and is dedicating 350 men—a full third of his force—to lining the motorcade route, handling security for the president’s airport arrival, and policing the crowd at the Trade Mart speech.
However, Curry has chosen not to position any men in the vicinity of Dealey Plaza, thinking that the main crowd-control issues will take place prior to that destination. Once the motorcade turns from Houston Street and onto Elm, it goes under an overpass, turns right onto Stemmons Freeway, and through a relatively uncrowded area to the Trade Mart. Better to focus his officers on the busiest thoroughfares along the route, rather than waste them in a place where few people will be standing.
Curry has also ordered his men to face toward the street, rather than toward the crowd, thinking it wouldn’t hurt for them to see the man they’re protecting as a reward for the many long hours they will be on their feet. This ignores the example of New York City, where policemen stand facing away from the street, so they can better help the Secret Service protect the president by scanning the city’s many windows for signs of a sniper’s rifle.
But it doesn’t matter during the motorcade’s first easy miles. There is so little to do and so few people to see that a bored Jackie puts on her sunglasses and begins waving at billboards for fun. The white-collar workers along Lemmon Avenue are few in number and unexcited. They’d rather enjoy their lunch break from the IBM factory.
¦ ¦ ¦At the exact same moment, it’s also lunchtime at the Texas School Book Depository. Most of Lee Harvey Oswald’s coworkers have left the building, hoping to get a glimpse of the president.
Just down the block, FBI special agent James Hosty has forgotten all about investigating Lee Harvey Oswald and is just trying to make sure he gets a look at his hero, President Kennedy.
Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t bring a lunch to work today. And he doesn’t plan on eating. Instead, he moves a pile of boxes into position on the grimy sixth floor of the depository building, fashioning a well-concealed shooting nest.
At 12:24 p.m., nearly thirty minutes into the motorcade, the president’s car passes Special Agent James Hosty on the corner of Main Street and Field. The G-man gets his wish and sees Kennedy in the flesh, before spinning back around and walking into the Alamo Grill for lunch.
At 12:28 the motorcade enters a seedy downtown neighborhood. Straight ahead, the beautiful green grass of Dealey Plaza is clearly visible. The Secret Service agents are stunned by the reception the president is now receiving, with people everywhere cheering and applauding.
At 12:29 the motorcade makes the crucial sharp right-hand turn onto Houston Street. From high above, in his sixth-floor sniper’s lair, Lee Harvey Oswald sees John F. Kennedy in person for the first time. He quickly sights the Mannlicher-Carcano, taking aim through his scope as the motorcade skirts the edge of Dealey Plaza.
The crowds here are still large and enthusiastic, despite Chief Curry’s prediction that they would have thinned by this point. The people shout for Jackie and the president to look their way. As per agreement, JFK waves at the people standing in front of buildings on the right side of the road, while Jackie waves at those standing along grassy Dealey Plaza, to their left. This ensures that no voter goes without a wave.
The motorcade is just five minutes away from the Trade Mart, where Kennedy will make his speech. Almost there.
Inside the presidential limousine, Nellie Connally stops waving long enough to look over her right shoulder and smile at John Kennedy. “You sure can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you, Mr. President.”
Ironically, at that very moment, if JFK had looked up to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, he would have seen a rifle barrel sticking out of an open window, pointed directly at his head.
But Kennedy doesn’t look up.
Nor does the Secret Service.
It is 12:30 p.m. The time has come for Special Agent Bill Greer to steer SS-100-X through the sweeping 120-degree left turn from Houston and onto Elm.
¦ ¦ ¦Most people live their lives as if the end were always years away. They measure their days in love, laughter, accomplishment, and loss. There are moments of sunshine and storm. There are schedules, phone calls, careers, anxieties, joys, exotic trips, favorite foods, romance, shame, and hunger. A person can be defined by clothing, the smell of his breath, the way she combs her hair, the shape of his torso, or even the company she keeps.
All over the world, children love their parents and yearn for love in return. They revel in the touch of parental hands on their faces. And even on the worst of days, each person has dreams about the future—dreams that sometimes come true.
Such is life.
Yet life can end in less time than it takes to draw one breath.
Copyright © 2012 by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
Continues...
Excerpted from Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly Copyright © 2012 by Bill O'Reilly. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition (October 16, 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0805096663
- ISBN-13 : 978-0805096668
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.2 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #28,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #110 in US Presidents
- #158 in Murder & Mayhem True Accounts
- #622 in United States History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Bill O'Reilly is a trailblazing TV journalist who has experienced unprecedented success on cable news and in writing fifteen national number-one bestselling nonfiction books. There are currently more than 17 million books in the Killing series in print. He currently hosts the ‘No Spin News’ on BillOReilly.com. He lives on Long Island.
Martin Dugard is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Taking Series — including Taking Berlin (2022) and Taking Paris (2021).
He is also the co-author of the mega-million selling Killing series: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, Killing Reagan, Killing England, Killing the Rising Sun, Killing the SS, Killing Crazy Horse, and Killing the Mob.
Other works include the New York Times bestseller The Murder of King Tut (with James Patterson; Little, Brown, 2009); The Last Voyage of Columbus (Little, Brown, 2005); Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone (Doubleday, 2003), Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook (Pocket Books, 2001), Knockdown (Pocket Books, 1999), and Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth (McGraw-Hill, 1998). In addition, Martin lived on the island of Pulau Tiga during the filming of Survivor's inaugural season to write the bestselling Survivor with mega-producer Mark Burnett.
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First, (some personal thoughts and recollections) that day....
November 22, 1963. It was one of those rare days that (unfortunately) get imprinted onto our cogitative memory like 9-11-2001, or myriad other things that for one reason or another we always remember. I have never forgotten that day, nor that moment, (having just returned from lunch with my high school sophomore classmates to Miss Curtis' homeroom and waiting to go to the first afternoon's class) when our principal, John Abbott, came over the intercom with the news from Dallas. I do not believe that any of us actually thought what we were hearing was true. We were young, untouched by any kind of tragedy in our lives, and thus, it had some kind of unreality; difficult for us to absorb. I was left simply not knowing how to act, or react, to this news, and still remember that all I could muster was a smile (to my horror), but truthfully, I did not know how to act or react, nor what I really was feeling at that moment, trying to process something unimaginable to my young self. Much later I would learn that usually response to this sort of thing is either tears or a smile (or something like it) is quite normal. This was the United States, this just couldn't happen here. We were dismissed and I remember the walk home from school, through town, seeing people everywhere, all asking or declaring what had happened, or how, in Texas, so many, many, miles away, just an hour ago. And, then, of course, the uninterrupted broadcasts of never-ending coverage from the saddest possible news and images to scenes of unbelievably and outrage that were still playing out there in Dallas, Texas, throughout that sad weekend.
Time, of course moves on, and with that time, things settle out, become sifted to their proper level of importance or memory to the times. It takes this time for history to sort itself out.
***
"Killing Kennedy" review:
Last year I bought "Killing Lincoln" as I have had a life-long interest in both the man and the Civil War and it's times. Of course, with a lifetime of prior readings and studies, I knew the story inside out (I thought). Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard certainly had to have done their homework very well and have produced one of the finest books I have ever had the pleasure to read about Lincoln and his times. It is a magnificent achievement, and if you have not read it, I heartily recommend it to you for your enlightenment. It moves in real-time and is so clearly written and articulated that you literally feel that you are "there"....which I have never experienced before. That book can be found by clicking this link: Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever
As I was finishing up "Killing Lincoln", I saw the announcement for "Killing Kennedy", and thus since it was relevant to my or "our" time, I pre-ordered it here and awaited its publication and release. Other life obligations prevented my reading it until about two weeks ago, but I must say it, also, is one of the finest-told (presented), in "real-time" again, "endings of Camelot" that I have read, and as with Lincoln/Civil War, I have read many about Kennedy, Cuban Invasion, Missile Crisis, Cold War, etc.
Again, O'Reilly and Dugard have done incredible homework and worked diligently to piece together this riveting account, hour-by-hour, of the assassination there at Dealey Plaza that "last" sunny autumn day of the Kennedy presidency, and the shattering destruction of "Camelot" as we were just coming to know it. The back story is clear and concise, seemingly not too long, but neither short-ended with its presentation of relevant facts, etc. I was quite fascinated by revelations of JFK and Jackie's "private life" in the White House vs. their "public life" that we of course always knew about.
Of course, we all know the story, (again, it seems), intimately from the "over-and-over" of all the intervening years and the countless "theories" that have come about. I greatly admired O'Reilly's avoidance of these theories, directly, in this presentation of this sad and tragic piece of American history. Mention of all those who have been accused over the years of having had a hand in this brutal killing, but O'Reilly leaves that information "just there", which I was pleased and impressed by.
Details, yes, there are myriad details concerning many things that have not been exactly presented in the "full light of day" so to speak, and they speak much here in this fascinating account of Jack, Jackie, Bobby, even the rise of Teddy, and more; --revealing and personal insights into their lives, personal and public, shining new light onto and into their situation during JFK's "reign" as this country's chief executive.
You will get insights into the introductory chapter(s) of the Viet Nam Conflict, the Mafia, Marilyn Monroe, the Lawford's, Onassis (and how he first came into the picture), Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Adlai Stevenson, Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA, the Secret Service, and the police force there in Dallas that day. And, of course, the last character in this story, the strip-joint operator, Jack Ruby. There also are wonderful "afterwards" to all concerned characters here in this "Saddest of Stories".
This, of course, has always been one of the biggest and so-called best stories of the past century, and O'Reilly and Dugard have magnificently re-told it here, enhanced greatly by details and information that we have not previously been exposed to before. Because of the news-coverage and the immediacy of the electronic age that was just coming into being, the notoriety and instantaneous presentation of events, both tragic, horrifying, and ceaselessly amazing to us, the people who either were there that day in person or were there because of television, it will long remain in the memory of the history of the citizens of the `60s and too, the history of this country and of it's leaders and the movement just out of sight of us as ordinary citizens.
This surely is a "must read" book for every person in this country who lived during those days or who is interested in this country's history, both in and of itself, and also of it's leadership over the years. I cannot recommend Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard's magnificent presentation to us of "The End of Camelot" (as we knew it) highly enough. You are SURE to love this book!
~operabruin
And like its predecessor outlining Lincoln's assassination, by penning such an approachable, easily-read history of the early years of the 1960s - that seminal decade that, when understood, explains so much about America today, O'Reilly touches a much broader audience than the combined reach of weightier tomes, exposing the important chapter of world history in a time when reading has taken an unfortunate back seat to YouTube and video games in a culture all but ignorant of our heritage. So while this is story of Kennedy's death, it cannot be told out of context, which O'Reilly efficiently sets in the events of the day, from the young president's disastrous and ham-fisted "Bay of Pigs" invasion to the other end of the spectrum, where a steely-eyed JFK stares down Soviet tyrant Nikita Khrushchev in a game nuclear holocaust brinkmanship in the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is a period of explosive Civil Rights marches and demonstrations, the early days of the Viet Nam War and the all but forgotten South Vietnamese president-thug Ngo Dinh Diem, of self-emolliating monks, and J. Edgar Hoover honing his now legendary skills of extortion. While O'Reilly's portrait of Kennedy is respectful, giving all due credit for JFK's heroism in WWII, and his bipartisanship and leadership as president, it is hardly fawning adoration. JFK's many dalliances - Marilyn Monroe only one conquest of a myriad - his connections with mobsters, mistrust of VP Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, and various missteps add balance to a man all too easily martyred. If O'Reilly was smitten by any of the players, it is certainly Jackie, who emerges as a doting mother with a steel spine; a steadfast and loving companion hurt by her husband's infidelity, but willing to look the other way.
The profile of the infamous Lee Harvey Oswald is worth mentioning. Much has been written about Oswald's connections with shadowy figures like George de Mohrenschildt, and Oswald's failed attempted murder of right-winger Ted Walker, which get only a passing mention here. But since O'Reilly essentially dismisses five decades of conspiracy theory speculation - one can assume that O'Reilly's dismissive treatment of Oswald is wholly intentional - a conscious ploy to insure this miscreant is never given credit for being anything other than a misguided and deranged murderer. Unlike the well organized conspiracy crafted by John Wilkes Booth nearly a century earlier, O'Reilly is firmly in the camp, as am I, that JFK was the victim of the lucky shot of a single madman acting alone.
In short, a vigorous and wholly engaging read - a great example of history the way it ought to be told. Even if you think you already know this story, you'll do yourself a disservice by not hearing O'Reilly's take on this remarkable man in a fascinating slice of Americana. Bravo Zulu!