Books: Lost in Dallas

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THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SHOT by Jim Bishop. 713 pages. Funk & Wagnalls. $7.95.

Jim Bishop has written a 713-page anticlimax. It does not contain the massive flaw of William Manchester's The Death of a President—namely, a distaste for Lyndon Johnson's necessary assumption of power. But neither does it boast the cogency of the Manchester book, the pertinent details—nor even the drama. As for style, it simply clogs the mind. Concerning Kennedy's arrival in Dallas, for example, Bishop writes: "This multiphrenic city sitting alone on a hot prairie like an oasis spouting a fountain of silver coins gave its elixir to John F. Kennedy." In the hospital, the body of Kennedy did not just lie there. "The clay of John F. Kennedy was cooling." When L.B.J. wanted to talk to Kenny O'Donnell and Larry

O'Brien aboard Air Force One, "the Roman consuls left Caesar on his shield and sat with Johnson, listening."

The Bagman. Bishop supports the Warren Commission's findings—one unassisted assassin, three bullets. He says that the first bullet shattered on the pavement, the second wounded both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, and the third struck Kennedy in the head. He offers a couple of other, less credible ideas. He says that until Johnson received the oath of office he was powerless to act as Chief Executive. This statement adds a certain breathlessness and suspense to Bishop's narrative, but it is hardly to the point, considering Lyndon Johnson's character. Moreover, competent legal opinion holds that the full powers of the presidency are lodged with the Vice President on the instant of the President's death. As it happens, there was also a written agreement between Kennedy and Johnson providing that the Vice President would take over if the President be came disabled.

Bishop says that during the Dallas confusion, the White House "bagman"—the officer who carries the codes for nuclear attack—was at one point nowhere to be found. "As the clock hung silent, the United States of America stood, for a little time, naked." This is nonsense. Kennedy's military aide, Ted Clifton, knew where the bagman was and where Johnson was. And Bishop's statement to the contrary, Johnson had certainly been briefed at least twice on the use of the nuclear emergency system. Clifton, who established communication with the White House, was also in continuous touch with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; any military responses could have been ordered in seconds. Beyond that, the "bag," or the "football," as the suitcase with the codes is better known, was even then becoming obsolete. Had it been necessary,

Lyndon Johnson could have declared nuclear war from Parkland Hospital with a dime and a pay phone.