The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [483]
Bobby had incalculable burdens to bear, and one of them, Jackie, was walking beside him. He would be responsible for his brother’s widow and her two children. The president’s life had justified so much of all that the Kennedys had suffered. Joe Jr. had died a hero’s death in a ball of flame, and the president had carried on with his brother’s bold dreams. Bobby’s father had taught him that he was supposed to pick up the burden, but how could any man lift what was set out before Bobby this day?
Teddy had decked himself out in his brothers’ lives, and now as he marched forward to the funeral dirge, he wore the pants that the president had worn for his inauguration and a pair of his gloves. Teddy’s rental suit of a morning coat and striped trousers had arrived incomplete, and Kennedy’s valet had let out the president’s pants and pressed a pair of the president’s gloves into Teddy’s oversized hands. There had been no hat to fit his large head, and so he wore none, and neither did Bobby. And when the kings and prime ministers and others heads of states and world and American leaders walked on that gray day, they too marched hatless in the thirty-degree weather, their heads slightly bowed as if in prayer.
As the pallbearers carried the body into the church, there was silence across the land. Joe sat watching on his television. In Times Square traffic stopped, and New Yorkers stood, heads bowed, while high from the marquee of the Astor Hotel “Taps” echoed across the stilled and empty square.
Jackie thought of her husband as being Greek in that “the Greeks fought the gods” and had a “desperate defiance of fate.” Americans had never been imbued with a Greek sense of tragedy, but they had it now as they buried their martyred president with the most profound dignity and reverence.
Bishop Philip Hannon read passages from the Bible that Jackie had chosen. “Your old men shall dream dreams,” he said. “Your young men shall see visions. And where there is no vision the people perish.”
Then the bishop read what he called “the final expression of his ideals and aspirations, his inaugural address.” The phrases that the prelate spoke did not sound like mere political perorations. In its power and depth, the passage had a biblical resonance. “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” Hannon intoned words that a little less than three years before a young president had spoken in a strong voice, standing coatless on a frigid day, looking out with anticipation at the challenges of a dangerous time. “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” That was the most famous sentence Kennedy had ever spoken. Whatever Kennedy’s faults, he believed that Americans must reach out beyond their narrow self-interest to each other and to the world. “With a good conscience our own sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
As the coffin was brought out after the low pontifical mass and placed back on the caisson, Jackie whispered to her son: “John, you can salute Daddy now and say good-bye to him.” Her son raised his right hand in a salute to his father. As he held his hand up, the picture that tens of millions watched on television shimmied slightly.
The gun carriage carrying the coffin set out to Arlington National Cemetery, its way announced by the sound of muffled drums, followed by the dignitaries in a series of limousines. The procession moved slowly past the spire of the Washington