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THE FATAL FEUD

It all came down to this: a guy who would not sit in the same car with another guy. They were squabbling, and he simply refused to ride together in the same limo. “No way am I riding with HIM.” And in essence that right there was the root cause of the John F. Kennedy trip to Dallas, Texas . . . and the assassination which happened 35 years ago this Sunday.

In his powerhouse book, The Death of a President, William Manchester goes back a bit and digs into Texas politics. Why in the world would the President, already hugely popular, have to make a political foray into the heart of Texas . . . when his own VP, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was a Texan? Wouldn’t those 25 electoral votes already be locked up?

Well, historians know the answer. Two men from the Lone Star State were at each other’s throats. In fact, Manchester puts it this way on the very first page of his 891-page masterpiece.

“The state’s Democratic party was riven by factionalism.” Now listen to this: “Governor John Connally and Senator Ralph Yarborough were stalking one another with shivs.”

A shiv, of course, is a knife that you stick in someone’s throat. I mean, these two politicians were almost literally out for blood. In a feud that went back prior to the 1930s even, and a right-wing rebellion against FDR, a liberal wing of the party emerged called the D.O.T. — Democrats of Texas. Senator Ralph Yarborough was their very progressive hero, the only liberal Democrat to have a statewide office. And, since JFK was a fairly progressive President, he and Yarborough got along all right. But Kennedy’s Vice President, Johnson, was seen by most as being much more conservative, so he and Yarborough didn’t mesh well. To complicate matters, the governor of Texas, John Connally, was a millionaire oilman, Big Business all the way. He was conservative too, the polar opposite of Yarborough.

Well, Connally vs. Yarborough was a more rough-and-tumble political reality than a wrestling match on pay-per-view. Their disagreements were public and loud, and threatened to rip Texas in two less than a year before the 1964 election. And so this was the real reason for the Kennedy trip to Dallas: to get all these factions up on the same platform, smiles on their faces, a show of unity, in a five-city tour: San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin.

The bottom-line symbol, though, was this: in the presidential motorcade, they somehow had to get Yarborough, the liberal, and Vice President Johnson, the conservative, riding in the same limo, looking happy. Just one photo op like that would take care of things. In fact, Kennedy himself told his wife: “I’m trying to start by getting two people in the same car. If they start hating, nobody will ride with anybody.”

Well, in San Antonio, Yarborough was told to ride with LBJ. He didn’t, causing the Vice President to lose face. All the reporters were cracking up. In Houston, the same thing, with Yarborough claiming that he had to ride with his wife in another car. Finally, as the entourage headed for Fort Worth, the President laid down the law. Either Yarborough rode with LBJ that time, or he walked. Period. Even then, when assistant Ken O’Donnell approached the problem Senator, Yarborough still had objections. “I’ll issue a press statement showing my support,” he said. “I’ll do this; I’ll do that.” And finally Larry O’Brien, another aide, told him, through gritted teeth: “You can issue a statement of ten thousand words, but nothing will be as effective as you getting in that car.”

Ironically, riding with LBJ might have saved Yarborough’s life, when just a few hours later, JFK was killed, and Governor Connally was the second victim who was seriously wounded by the assassin’s bullet.

But friend, is there a lesson here for us 35 years later? People lament about the apparent randomness of an assassination like this. There seems no motive except for the arbitrariness of a crazed, lonely 24-year-old ex-Marine. But consider here how a rivalry, a stubborn holding on to a grudge, literally changed the course of human history on November 22, 1963.

There are four words found in the Bible that, if fully considered, might have averted the killing there on Elm Street. Proverbs 10:12:

“Hatred stirs up dissension.”

The full verse reads this way:
“Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.” In the Living Bible paraphrase: “Hatred stirs old quarrels, but love overlooks insults.”

Now friend, I don’t pretend that there isn’t politics in this world. Liberals versus conservatives. Democrats and Republicans and Labor versus the Tories. Sinn Fein and all the rest. But in November of 1963, it’s a fact of history that Dallas, Texas was a city ripped apart by hatred. Notice this very tangible commentary by Manchester:

“There was something else in the city, something unrelated to conventional politics — a stridency, a disease of the spirit, a shrill, hysterical note suggestive of a deeply troubled society. In Dallas this was particularly dismaying because for some time the city’s cherished image had been blemished by a dark streak of violence. The harlots and the grafters had gone, but the killers were multiplying. Texas led the United States in homicide and Big D, [Dallas], led Texas. There were more murders in Dallas each month than in all of England, and none of them could be traced to the underworld or to outsiders; they were the work of Dallas citizens.”

I mentioned yesterday the out-of-state visitor from Manhattan, Abe Zapruder, who took the now-famous movie footage of the assassination. Just after the presidential visit to Texas was announced, a Dallas man with a huge chip on his shoulder said ominously to Zapruder: “God made big people” — referring to Kennedy. Then he pointed to himself: “And God made little people.” And then in his thickest Dallas drawl, he added these chilling words of hate: “But Colt made the .45 to even things out.”

And this kind of talk went on all the time. “Kennedy, go home.” It was in the respected newspapers of the state: big full-page ads charging the President with treason. Dallas was known as the “Southwest hate capital of Dixie.” In 1960, when LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson stumped the state to get elected — and remember, this was Johnson’s home state — they endured a shower of saliva from . . . get this: Dallas HOUSEWIVES.

After the news bulletins about the assassination hit the AP wires, students in some Dallas schools broke out in cheers. Reporters uncovered 11 separate acts of disrespect. In Oklahoma City, a doctor smiled when he heard the news, and, incredibly, said to a patient who was weeping: “Good! I hope they got Jackie too.” In Amarillo, some high school kids burst into a restaurant whooping it up: “Hey, great! JFK’s croaked!” And many of the patrons nodded approvingly

Well, friend, that was 40 years ago this coming Saturday. But on November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas became the state where “they” killed John F. Kennedy. Getting off Air Force One later that night at Andrews Air Force Base, Jackie Kennedy refused to take off the bloodstained pink dress. “Let them see what ‘they’ have done,” she said sadly. But here in 2003, we can’t keep talking about a bad city, or a wicked state, or even sinful people. Because we’re all sinners. Still, whenever we feel an ache over what seems to be the lottery aspect of tragedies, the random nature of an assassination or a murder or a divorce, let’s not forget these sad stories of hate. A president died, not just because Lee Harvey Oswald was bitter, but because politicians fanned their feud. Because a city fostered rage and volatile language. Because newspaper editors allowed inflammatory rhetoric. Because people in bars and housewives permitted themselves to speak in racist tones, and call their own President four-letter words. The following Sunday, in a ceremony in the Capitol Building Rotunda, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered a strong eulogy where he spoke out against hate. Later an aide commented:

“He said the one thing that needed to be said; namely, that while few will advocate assassination, many will contribute to the climate which causes men to contemplate it.”

And herein lies a lesson for the man or woman of God. To speak with kindness about adversaries and to adversaries. To turn the other cheek. To win someone over with love instead of protest posters. To pray for a nation’s leaders, including its flawed ones. To follow the example of Jesus Christ, who even prayed and blessed the enemies who fired upon Him with thorns and whips and the nails and a splintered cross.

“Love your enemies,” He told us, “and pray for those who persecute you.”

And maybe this week as we think about the events from Dallas three-and-a-half decades ago, we can learn this lesson.

On that horrible following Sunday in Washington, D.C., Kennedy’s body was lying in state there in the Rotunda. And the line to get in stretched out to 17 blocks long, then 28, then 40. Five abreast, three miles of freezing mourners. And this was a cold midnight. Finally around 5:45 in the morning, the guards told the last of them, “Look, we’re closing the doors at 8:30 a.m. Only 85,000 more can get in; you may as well go home.” But no one left; they simply wanted to be there, to show love instead of hate, unity instead of division.

But Manchester tells about one black lady who did get into the Rotunda. She was crying, sobbing out loud, almost making a disturbance, with the sound echoing off the silence of the cold marble. And a white woman in front of her looked back with a sharp glance of reproof. Maybe a bit of racial resentment, as in, “Why can’t you shut up, lady?” Well, a moment later the white visitor herself got to the casket, and all of a sudden, she burst into tears too. It was just too much. And without a word being said, the white woman and the black woman put their arms around each other and walked out into the snow.

Maybe we CAN learn from each other after all. Maybe it’s NOT too late.