Surrounded by Enemies Read Online Free

about the governor of Texas. And so, even as Kellerman lay across the Connallys, he looked directly past them to Kennedy. “Mr. President, are you hit?”
    The President and First Lady were covered in blood and brains that had been splattered from the shots that had nearly taken off an entire side of agent Hill’s head and broken his back into pieces. Kennedy answered honestly, “I don’t know.”
    Historians continue to debate whether four or five total shots were fired and from where. What is known with certainty is that the salvo was aimed at a fast-moving car. That it was a conspiracy seems clear to most today, even though the confessed or convicted participants — now in their eighties and nineties, with many others dead or still at large — have continued to contradict each other about their roles and obfuscate the facts time and again.
    What mattered at the instant of what would gruesomely be called the “turkey shoot,” was that bullets were fired from at least two locations. Greer’s evasive driving of the Lincoln made the car difficult to hit, no matter how many shooters were involved. Bullets were flying but most, seemingly, were fired out of desperation by would-be assassins who knew their chance at the target was nearly over.
    Even so, Hill was down, Governor Connally had been hit once, and the President’s condition was unknown. That left Jacqueline Kennedy and Idanell "Nellie" Connally still to account for.
    Two more shots appear to have hit the Kennedy vehicle in its furious escape. One shattered Agent Kellerman’s shoulder, and entered Governor Connally’s chest, causing severe internal bleeding and collapsing his right lung.
    With three confirmed victims and the status of the Kennedys uncertain, Greer zoomed the Lincoln toward Parkland Memorial at speeds approaching eighty miles per hour.
    Later asked who “they” were, in response to his statement, “They’re trying to kill us all,” President Kennedy famously told the investigators deposing him, “How much time do you have?”
    Hickory Hill
    At his suburban McLean, Virginia, Hickory Hill estate, purchased years earlier from JFK, the President’s brother, thirty-eight-year-old Attorney General Robert Kennedy, was lunching with U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who represented the southern district of New York. They ate hot clam chowder and tuna fish sandwiches.
    The younger Kennedy had just finished a swim and was still wet. He appeared to be trying to relax and not succeeding, according to Morgenthau. “He had a lot on his mind but he could only share a tiny bit with me. I could see he was frustrated.”
    The outside phone rang at about 1:45 p.m. on the other end of the pool and was picked up by Kennedy’s wife, Ethel. “You can never get away from this damn job,” said Kennedy as he took the call.
    On the other end of the line was FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, someone who never called his ostensible boss at home. Neither man had ever had the slightest positive regard for the other. Never much of a conversationalist, Hoover said simply: “I have news for you.”
    The attorney general asked the first thing to come to mind: “How is the President?” Hoover delivered a two-sentence précis of the news, and the two men hung up. In later years, each claimed to be the one to have ended the conversation.
    Kennedy asked his guest Morgenthau to excuse him, explaining only that the President’s motorcade had been attacked, adding as an afterthought that the governor of Texas and at least one Secret Service agent were wounded. Morgenthau offered his help in any way. “Call everyone you know today,” said RFK. “Let me know what they’re saying.”
    Morgenthau nodded his understanding but added his own reassurance: “They’re praying for your brother and our country.” The New Yorker was escorted to the downstairs living room in the house, where he was left to watch the news on television. “I felt a sense of great dread in those