Here, she details the stunning fortitude of Jackie Kennedy as her husband died in front of her The day was hot and wild, the sun so strong. Jackie Kennedy went to put on her sunglasses, but the president said: 'No, please don't β they really came to see you. Driving along the streets of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas , she could hear the screams of her husband's supporters over the presidential motorcade. Ahead was a tunnel β a brief respite from the noise and the heat.
Then John F Kennedy, the youngest president in US history, turned to her in their backseat, his expression puzzled. He held his hand out to Jackie and then dropped it and a chunk of his head came flying off, white, not pink, and then he was slumped in her lap, his blood and brains all over her face, her legs. Her roses and white gloves were soaked through with blood.
It was so thick, almost neon. Jackie stands with bloodstains still on her clothes next to Bobby Kennedy as the coffin carrying JFK's body is placed in an ambulance. Later, she'd have no memory of leaping out of her seat and crawling onto the trunk. Their black Lincoln Continental was now going 70 or 80 miles an hour.
She would have fallen had she not been grabbed by Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who saw the terror in her eyes. The car was moving so fast that his sunglasses flew right off his face. Jackie huddled over her husband, cradling his head, frantically tamping brain matter into his skull as if this could save him. Can you hear me? My God β they've shot his head off! She never once asked if she'd been hit. She never asked if any of the blood was hers. She never flinched from the sheer carnage in that back seat.
Her only concern was Jack. At the hospital, she refused to let anyone near the president. Jackie shrunk down towards the floor of the car, pressing Jack's head tightly to her chest. If she couldn't save her husband's life, at least she could save his dignity. It was Hill who realized: She didn't want the world to see the president this way. He shook off his suit jacket and placed it over Jack's head. Reluctantly, Jackie let the Secret Service agents pull her out, but she held Hill's jacket over Jack's head as she ran beside his stretcher, clutching its side.
