Lost in Dallas

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.

Peripheral Figures. Indeed, it is not the bagman who gets lost in this book, but Jack Kennedy. The reader somehow feels cheated, especially since Bishop's chronicle relies heavily on the comings and goings of policemen, rooming-house matrons, short-order cooks and busboys. In a graceless and petulant foreword, the author criticizes Jackie Kennedy for trying to shut off all the best sources to everyone except William Manchester. Bishop claims that it did not affect his writing, but it is obvious that this difficulty explains his preoccupation with peripheral figures.

Much is made of the fact that Lyndon Johnson granted Bishop an exclusive interview about his hours in Dallas. The effect is hardly discernible. Johnson's thoughts and actions as recorded here are either familiar by now or plainly dull. Bishop does show his fondness for Johnson, and he introduces a mild anti-Kennedy bias. Still smarting because he was not granted the news privileges he felt entitled to, Bishop says that "Kennedy began his administration by trying to seal the sources of news and information." In fact, Kennedy ran a more open presidency than Eisenhower or Johnson. Kennedy is described as "almost foppish." Again: "The Kennedys were effete Europeans, in manner and address; the Johnsons were earthy Americans." Bishop says that on the return to Washington, Robert Kennedy hurried through Air Force One "so that he would not have to pause and recognize the new President." It is more likely that Bobby was only hastening to the rear of the plane to be with the casket, and that President Johnson's out stretched hand simply did not register with the Senator.

Stepping In. Equally annoying is Bishop's you-are-there style, which freely attributes thoughts and notions to his characters. When the style is lean and the facts are left to themselves, the story is good, even if familiar. But Bishop always steps in to overdramatize. The moment of death: "The light had gone out with no memories, no regrets. After forty-six and a half years, he was again engulfed by the dark eternity from which he had come. For good or evil, his work, his joys, his responsibilities were complete. The heart, automatically fibrillating, pumped great gouts of blood through the severed arteries of the brain, drenching the striped shirt, blending on the petals of the flowers, puddling the rug on the car floor . . . the eyes, which had once belonged to a young Senator who had fastened them on a Georgetown society girl and never released her again, were wide open, seeing nothing, never to see anything again. The mouth, which had tenderly sealed a wedding vow in Newport, hung open."

It is this kind of prose that perhaps justifies Jackie's prejudice in favor of William Manchester.

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