The hours before Dallas

Today’s post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty.

Kennedy greets a crowd at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, on the day of his assassination (ST-525-8-63)
Kennedy greets a crowd at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, hours before his assassination (JFK Presidential Library, ST-525-8-63)

In November of 1963, to seek support for New Frontier policies and with an eye on the 1964 elections, President John F. Kennedy set out on what was planned as a two-day, five-city tour of Texas.

Well before the President departed for Texas, advance men were dispatched from Washington to make on-the-scene preparations. Among them was Jeb Byrne, who had been serving as a political appointee in the General Services Administration since the Kennedy administration began in 1961.

Byrne, a ten-year veteran of wire service journalism who more recently had been press secretary to a Democratic governor of Maine, was assigned to Fort Worth. His mission was to make sure that the President’s stay in Fort Worth went off without a hitch.

In an account written for Prologue, the author relates how the President spent his time in Fort Worth. Byrne also details the challenges he faced as the Fort Worth advance man in making logistical arrangements, handling requests for access to the President, and navigating the shoal waters of the then-dominant Texas Democratic party.

Byrne draws his account in part from papers and other materials he kept from his duty in Fort Worth. He has donated those materials to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, which is opening them on publication of this article.

Kennedy’s stay in Fort Worth came off as planned. His work done, Byrne watched as the President took off in Air Force One for the thirteen-minute flight to Love Field in Dallas— and into the realms of history, legend, and speculation.

Here is an advance man’s account of JFK’s final hours.

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