The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
Winston Lawson remembers the shots as clearly as if it was yesterday.
"I heard bang... bang-bang," he said, slapping his knee for emphasis.
Lawson was riding in the front seat of an unmarked Dallas police car traveling just in front of a dark blue Lincoln convertible carrying President John F. Kennedy, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the governor of Texas and his wife. It was 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963.
An assassin's bullets mortally wounded President Kennedy and severely injured Gov. John Connally.
It was a national tragedy so shocking that many Americans can remember exactly where they were when they heard of Kennedy's death. For Lawson, it was more personal. He was the Secret Service agent who had planned security for the Dallas trip.
Lawson, now 81 and living in Virginia Beach, is going back to Dallas this week for a reunion with Secret Service colleagues.
An Army intelligence specialist, he joined the Secret Service in 1959, working in its Syracuse, N.Y., office until being transferred to Washington in March 1961, two months after Kennedy was sworn in as president.
As part of a 34-man White House detail that handled security, he often worked long hours, accompanying JFK on his many weekends at the family's compound in Cape Cod and other trips.
By the fall of 1963, Lawson was experienced at planning presidential security, having organized trips both in the United States and abroad. He handled security for JFK's 1963 trip to Germany where the president told citizens of West Berlin - then surrounded by Communist-controlled East Germany - that "all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' "
On Nov. 4, Lawson was told that he would be responsible for the Dallas stopover during Kennedy's trip to Texas. Kennedy wanted to boost his political standing in the state, home of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Dallas visit was to include a slow-moving 45-minute motorcade through suburbia and part of downtown, followed by a luncheon speech and a four-minute trip back to the airport.
Ten days before Kennedy arrived, Lawson and other agents were in Dallas arranging security and evaluating potential hazards.
Early on Nov. 22, the Dallas weather was drizzly, and as agents awaited the president's plane, they considered placing a clear plastic cover, or bubble, over the limousine. A Kennedy aide told the Secret Service to leave it off - the White House staff wanted as many people as possible to see the president without obstruction.
As the motorcade eased its way through Dallas, crowds lined the route. Lawson, with another agent and the Dallas police chief and sheriff, were a few car lengths ahead of the presidential limousine.
He kept looking back at the limo and the crowd, then glancing ahead to overpasses, railroads and other hazards, trading advice with the police chief as they went.
The job of scanning buildings fell to agents in a car behind the limo and to local law enforcement officers.
Agent Roy Kellerman, riding in the front seat of Kennedy's car, later said he looked at the Texas School Book Depository Building but saw nothing suspicious. Lawson was commenting to his colleague that it was a long trip when he heard the three bangs. He knew immediately what they were.
"The president was hit. Go to the hospital," a voice on his radio ordered.
They raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital just ahead of the limousine. Lawson retrieved a gurney, and after Connally was removed from the car, he helped other agents take out Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy had been cradling her husband on her lap.
The president's skin was gray, and he didn't move as they placed him on the gurney. Lawson saw a huge hole in the back of the president's head.
"He didn't look like he was going to make it," Lawson said.
As the president was wheeled into the emergency room, Lawson followed. The agent stood at the president's head as emergency personnel tried to save him. But the damage was so severe, they didn't work for long.
At 1 p.m., the president was declared dead.
As the world outside the ER exploded with the news and, within two hours, the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, Lawson stayed with Kennedy.
He and other agents transported the president's body back to the airport and loaded the casket onto Air Force One for the return to Washington. On board was the new president, Lyndon Johnson, and Mrs. Kennedy.
Lawson returned home the next day to his family in Falls Church. The day after, he watched on live TV as Oswald was shot to death outside the Dallas jail by Jack Ruby.
And the day after that, he stood guard down a slope from Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery, part of the detail that provided security for the burial.
In the weeks that followed, he wrote detailed memos and spent hours testifying before the Warren Commission. He also returned to work.
He continued to do presidential advance work, handling security arrangements for President Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and, in the Nixon administration, Vice President Spiro Agnew.
The personal support he received from other agents helped him deal with the aftermath of the assassination, he said. "Just their attitude and the way they talked to me."
He grimaces when asked how much credence he gives conspiracy theories that the Kennedy assassination involved multiple shooters.
"None," he said. "There's no shots from in front, kitty corner or from the side or anything like that."
He has rethought his work in Dallas many times.
"The biggest 'what ifs' were, 'What if the rain hadn't stopped and the bubble had been on the car?' " he said. "Because everybody thought it was bulletproof, maybe he wouldn't have tried it."
Although the bubble wasn't bulletproof, it might have distorted the shooter's view or the metal frame might have deflected a shot, he said.
After the assassination and investigation, significant changes were made to the Secret Service. The Warren Commission said the agency was understaffed and did not have adequate sources of information and assistance from other law enforcement agencies in reviewing threats against the president.
The number of agents has grown vastly. In 1963, the 34 agents were assigned to guard the president 24 hours a day, with several hundred others on staff. Today, there are thousands.
On Friday, Lawson will travel with his wife back to the Book Depository building - now a museum - where he and a handful of other agents will tell their stories. The event will be taped as part of a Discovery Channel show to air in November. At the same time, a book, "The Kennedy Detail," will be released that tells the story of the agents assigned to JFK.
It's an important and strenuous trip for him. He has been living at Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital since February 2008 after suffering a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body.
Lawson said he's made peace with what happened in Dallas. In the end, he ascribes to a feeling, shared by many agents and the Warren Commission, that there's no way to completely protect someone.
"I thought about it, but I was pretty confident that I had done everything I could do," he said.
Jeff Parris, who worked with Lawson in later years, said he is an iconic figure within the Secret Service. His actions in Dallas and afterward are studied at their training academy, Parris said.
"Even though it was a bad situation, he did the job the way it was supposed to be done."
Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com
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Kennedy Assassination
Well now,as I remember, I was just coming back down Rodman Ave in Portsmouth at 1:30 PM, and caught the light at Rodman and Portsmouth Blvd.
I heard it on the radio that he had died. I was numb all over, and I remember thinking This is America,this can't be happening, but it did.
When I arrive back at the store where I worked,everyone was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. That one shot changed the course of America and history forever,and our innocence was gone. That was one of the few times I can remember this country pulling together as one,regardless of race, color,background, rich or poor,Democrat or Republican. We all felt the sense of loss. It was sad that it took something like that to pull this country together. Sept 11,2001 did the same thing. It's tragic that we can't pull together all the time, and it takes a major event for us to think as one nation. I guess that is a sign of the times we live in.
Kudos to Bill Bartel
I wanted to add congrats to Bill Bartel for an excellent article on a subject that has had probably hundreds of thousands-if not millions-of articles plus books written on it. I never knew that anyone with such a key role in those awful events lived in the area.
I did meet Jean Hill in Dallas while on business there a few years ago. She was signing her book that told about being an eye witness standing right beside the JFK limo when he was shot. (And her boyfriend was a Dallas motorcycle officer riding just behind the limo).
Thanks again, Bill Bartel.
I was in 2nd grade
We were living in Nashville, TN while my mother went to graduate school. I don't remember being told about it at school, although I'm sure we were because later on my teacher was an over-the-top Goldwater fan, making sure we all knew it!
I do remember sitting in front of our tiny B&W TV with my grandfather watching the news.
8th grade Norview Junior
8th grade Norview Junior High - 2nd floor Main Building – the start of afterschool detention with Principal Cooper (???) in Main office… I was dismissed early and remember walking toward home through 5-Points area down Swells Point Rd feeling very sad
I had just turned 5 years old....
And although I'm sure I have everyday memories from prior to that fateful day, the JFK assassination is the first "world event" I can remember. I recall my mother, a devote Irish-Catholic from Boston, lighting candles and saying novenas, and my not being fully aware of the historical significance of the tragic event.
I was in
the 6th grade at Shea Terrace Elementary School. The principal came over the intercom and said that the president had been shot and killed. We were all in shock and Ms. Sanderson started crying. School closed early that day.
On the street
Walking on a city street in Florida, saw the 'cast in a store window. Took a while to realize it was actually happening. First reaction was numbness, then disbelief, anger, and finally sadnss and the feeling of helplessness.
I was a junior high student in Portsmouth
We were in gym when the news came. The most appalling memory to me other than the assassination itself was when several of the kids actually cheered that the president was shot. That was too much. On the day of the president's funeral, I was completing a merit badge for Scouts. The whole three days were like a blur, and it unquestionably changed this country.
I hope that Warren Commission was correct but if not, I would hope that the truth would come out. Contrary to what I hear a lot of people say, it IS important that Americans know the truth about something like that.
Years later I was working in Raleigh when a co-worker's son-in-law was the Secret Service agent that deflected the gun that either Sara Moore or Squeaky Fromme was using to try to assassinate Gerald Ford.
Where was I when JFK was killed
I was a freshman in college at Georgia Wesleyan. I read the rules, which said that students could miss up to three classes and still pass. So I went shopping with one of my friends. I was in a ten cent store looking at a table filled with wallets when my friend told me that the president had been killed. I was horrified and joined a group of people standing around a nearby radio to hear details (That was before every store had tons of TV sets). No one was yet saying that JFK was dead. I said a prayer for him and departed with my friend for lunch and to return to college. On the way I saw a public phone and tried to call the school to tell them. The phone wasn't working. I thoguht it was broken and went on with the rest of our trek anyway. It wasn't until years later that I read William Manchester's book on the events in Dallas and found out that the government had taken the security precaution of cutting out all phone service between Dallas and Washington, D. C. That was so that they could receive all messages and be sure that some coup was not in the making.
I Remember
I was in my 8th grade science class at Truitt Jr. High School. The teacher was called out to the hallway and when she came in said "the President has been assassinated". The entire school gathered in the auditorium that afternoon.