The Presidency: Battle of the Book

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Already Ensconced. The book—originally titled Death of Lancer in reference to Jack Kennedy's Secret Service code name—paints, in fact, an almost unrelieved portrait of Johnson as an unfeeling and boorish man. Manchester's hostility to Johnson comes across with particular force in his description of the hours immediately after the assassination. In his original version, at least, Manchester told how the Kennedy contingent arrived at Dallas' Love Field with the President's body and was "dismayed" to find that Johnson's party had moved in to Air Force One. Johnson himself was already ensconced in the President's quarters. Moreover, the account portrayed L.B.J.'s aides as shocked and saddened but scarcely able to disguise their satisfaction at finally taking command.

So great was the tension aboard the plane during the flight back to Washington, according to Manchester, that after Air Force One landed at the capital, Kenny O'Donnell, one of the late President's oldest friends, literally blocked the exit when Lyndon Johnson tried to leave with Jacqueline. A fork lift was rolled up to the plane to remove Kennedy's casket, and Jackie stepped aboard with other members of the late President's party. O'Donnell prevented Johnson from riding down with the group.

What angered O'Donnell and other members of the Kennedy group, according to Manchester's account, were a number of incidents aboard the plane. One portrays L.B.J. as maneuvering to make sure that Jackie Kennedy was in photographs of his swearing in. Another describes how the Kennedy people disassociated themselves from Johnson's party, which was in the forward part of the plane. A high Kennedy aide remarked to a newsman: "Make sure you report that we rode in the back with our President and not up front with him"—meaning Johnson.

Multiplying the Impact. The Kennedys were upset by the anti-Johnson bias of the book, but what really moved them to try to block its publication and serialization is the almost embarrassingly personal material on Jackie's reaction to the assassination. In talking to Manchester, Jackie was totally unguarded; she expected him to use his own judgment in sorting out what material should and should not be used. According to the Kennedys, his judgment was bad.

Some of the anecdotes that he included have appeared before, but Manchester tells them through Jackie's eyes, thus multiplying the impact. One scene that agitated the Kennedys was his description of Jackie's horror-stricken reaction as she saw her husband's skull shattered by Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's last—and fatal—shot. Numbed and bewildered, she cradled her husband's head in her lap, sought to cover his gaping wound with her hand—as if by that act she could heal him.