Sunday Morning Coffee — November 23, 2025 — Once In A Lifetime Is Enough

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV.

If Sunday Morning Coffee has been a part of your reading portfolio for a while then you know what’s coming today. Depending on how the calendar falls, the third or fourth Sunday of November produces a memory, a haunt, a recollection of the most traumatic weekend of my then 11-year-old life. I’m certain it’s no different for any of the Silent Generation that proceeded us Boomers.

Sixty-two years ago yesterday. November 22, 1963. It wasn’t the day the world stood still because everything moved too fast. However, it was the day that put all of us in a grief stricken tizzy. The unimaginable happened. President John F. Kennedy was killed.

To recollect that day, and in many ways to still be impacted by it, you have to be 70-plus. It’s still all so real to me. In the sixth grade at Meadowbrook Elementary School in East Meadow, New York. It was a Friday afternoon. Mr. Tyler, the stodgy, intimidating principal getting on the school-wide public address telling us President Kennedy had been shot. A half-hour later, 2 pm Eastern, telling us the president was dead. Teachers crying. School dismissed. Getting home and watching the harrowing chase throughout Dallas to capture the suspect but not before Lee Harvey Oswald murdered police officer J.D. Tippit. Watching Walter Cronkite, in tears, give us blow by blow on CBS. Same for Huntley and Brinkley on NBC. Oswald finally in custody captured in a movie theater. Mom was too shaken to cook so we called Chicken Delight to deliver. After all, their slogan was ‘Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight.’ My bowling league canceled. Dad trying to make sense out of all this. Two days later, Sunday November 24, what turned out to be our first look at reality television watching live as Oswald was gunned down by strip club owner and big shot wannabe Jack Ruby who felt he was doing a public service. Or maybe he was part of a larger conspiracy to quiet Oswald. We’ll never know. Everyone’s dead. School canceled on Monday for the national day of mourning declared by new President Lyndon Johnson. JFK Jr. saluting his dad’s casket. To this day, the memory of all of it still looms so telling, so large and so real. I’m certain I’m not the only one.

Younger generations will no doubt say that September 11, 2001, was the most traumatic national tragedy for them. Not to minimize nor disrespect, but it’s not the case for those who remember November 22, 1963. JFK’s administration was dubbed Camelot. As an 11-year-old on Long Island our whole life was Camelot. We didn’t think something of this magnitude could happen. Never thought about it. We survived the Cuban Missile Crisis a couple of years prior and thought that was as dark as it could get in our idyllic youth. Thirty-eight years later, in 2001, the unimaginable of the 1960’s was sadly imaginable in the next century. 9/11 was stunning and shocking. This time the world did stand still but we were hardened by national events since JFK.

For those who remember November 22, 1963, excuse the phrase, nothing will trump it. I became a student of the assassination, not so much a single shooter or conspiracy type of student, but the details of that day always obsessed me. Still does. I can’t read enough about it. When I finally visited Dealy Plaza in Dallas ten years ago, the site of the fatal Oswald rifle shots, my mind’s eye became reality and the whole landscape looked more like a movie studio lot than home to paralyzing history.

Through the years one aspect of the assassination weekend I knew little about was the Secret Service and their role in JFK’s doomed Dallas visit. Could they have prevented it or was it fate? For me that changed when Cody Kondo, with whom I share a granddaughter, recommended I might enjoy Carol Leonnig’s 2021 book Zero Fail. You are probably thinking Cody could have bought the book for me as an early Hanukkah gift, not merely suggest it, and you are right. A conversation is forthcoming.

Ms. Leonnig is a national investigative reporter for The Washington Post. She has been writing about the Secret Service for the better part of the last dozen years bringing to light the secrets, scandals and shortcomings that have plagued the Agency. Zero Fail, a 500-page read, does a deep dive into the Secret Service for every modern day presidential administration from Kennedy through Trump.

Ironically the Secret Service was originally authorized by President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the very day Lincoln and the Mrs. went to see Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. Good seats too—they had a private box which was perfect for John Wilkes Booth to come calling. A few months later, on July 5, 1865, the Secret Service was officially formed under the auspices of the Department of the Treasury. Their original charge was not to protect the president of the United States but instead to combat counterfeit monies. That changed on September 26, 1901 when President William McKinley, on the fairgrounds in Buffalo, New York, was killed. Following that tragedy, which was the third presidential assassination in 36 years (Lincoln; Garfield in 1881; McKinley) the Secret Service had the added responsibility of protecting the president of the United States. JFK was and still is the only sitting president to be killed in office since.

According to Zero Fail, Kennedy’s killing “shocked (the Secret Service) into reform by its failure to protect the president on that fateful day in Dallas.” The Texas trip was sadly an illustration of how the Agency was not equipped for modern presidential protection missions. They lacked in planning, resources, risk assessment and procedural discipline. Ms. Leonnig writes “Because of the embarrassment and exposure of failure in the Kennedy case, the Secret Service underwent radical transformation into an elite, highly trained unit.”

When JFK assumed office in 1961, the Agency was small. There were only 300 agents spread across field offices in 50 states. Thirty-four of those agents were on presidential detail. President Kennedy was not an easy mission for the Secret Service. Though his popularity grew, threats against him were voluminous mainly because of his Catholicism. The president liked breaking protective ranks to greet and handshake with the public whenever he could. JFK also enjoyed playing a hide and seek game with the agents trying to slip away for some personal time with adult friends who were not necessarily on a favored presidential guest list. By that summer of 1963 agents were worn out trying to keep up with the 46-year-old president’s very ambitious travel and visitation schedule. Plus, any time they might have had at home with the family was seriously compromised by the young, engaging president who was always on the go. Earlier, in the spring of 1963, Secret Service head James Rowley requested a budget allocation to hire 35 additional agents. Congress denied the request. In fact, JFK may have been the driver of that denial as he wanted less agents and more room to mingle and roam. He felt he was being cramped. JFK would sneak away from the White House at night in an unmarked vehicle. The Bureau had no idea where he was for hours. Though the president was likable to the Secret Service his recklessness became a great liability among those hired to protect him.

Even JFK’s own staff was concerned by the president choosing to wander off the reservation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. According to Zero Fail JFK’s response was, “If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it,” Kennedy said and added, “All he must do is be prepared to give his life for the president’s.” Foreboding.

The fall of 1963 was when Kennedy’s 1964 reelection campaign got started in earnest. While the South was not friendly to the Democratic president his staff saw winning Florida and Texas as the key to reelection. The Republicans probably had nobody capable of beating him. Nonetheless JFK wanted to get on the road prior to the end of the year, shake hands and eat rubber chicken at fundraisers.

On November 18, 1963, the Secret Service was on high alert when the president visited Miami. Kennedy and his integration platform was not a favorite of segregationists. An increased Service presence accompanied JFK that day due to rumors the Ku Klux Klan had intended to kill him. Joseph Milteer was a wealthy organizer of white supremacy groups in Miami. When Milteer was told about increased protection for the president his flip response to an unbeknownst undercover agent was, “The more bodyguards he has, the easier it will be to get him.” When questioned Milteer allegedly said, “(We’ll get him) from an office building with a high powered rifle.” The Service didn’t have the manpower to check every potential location for an assassin. Fortunately, nothing happened that day. Five days later was a much different story.

While Texas wasn’t friendly to the administration they were eased somewhat by former Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson serving as VP. However, Dallas was another story. While by and large the city did not like JFK it didn’t stop his supporters from planning an overwhelming reception on November 22. Strategically, Jackie Kennedy accompanied her husband and wowed everyone.

On November 21, the day before, the Secret Service presidential entourage flew from Washington to San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth for campaign appearances and banquets. Finally at 11:45 pm the day ended at a hotel in Fort Worth preparing for a busy day in neighboring Dallas on Friday.

The ambitious November travel schedule resulted in a very junior Secret Service crew in Texas. Eleven veteran agents were not on the trip. One that went had just finished his first week on the presidential detail; some were out of regular strategic positioning and were covering for more senior experienced agents who stayed behind. Only two of the agents had been traveling with the president for more than a year. Fingers were crossed everywhere.

The agents were exhausted at day’s end in Fort Worth. They hadn’t eaten in over 12 hours and by the time JFK was finished shaking hands outside the hotel it was well past midnight. Some agents had been on-duty for 23 hours. Others never made it to their rooms until daylight. They got word the Fort Worth Press Club was serving snacks and drinks to the traveling press. Nine of them decided to go upon a reporter’s suggestion. By the time they got to the Press Club the sandwiches were gone but the liquor wasn’t. Sometime after 1 am the Press Club closed and the entourage went to a place called the Cellar which author Leonnig called “a legendary and slightly scandalous nightspot.” All nine agents at the Press Club went along and were accompanied by some journalists, most notably Bob Schieffer, who was a rookie with CBS. Four of the nine agents were scheduled for JFK detail the next day. Night turned into morning quickly. Some of the agents headed back to the hotel just before 3 am. One in particular enjoyed the conversation of a new lady friend until 5 am. Interestingly, according to Ms. Leonnig, Secret Service regulations prohibited White House detail agents from drinking intoxicating liquor of any kind on the road. Nobody paid any attention to it.

Short on sleep, the agents did make it to the lobby and their posts at eight am. After a breakfast reception in Fort Worth the entire Kennedy entourage then made the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. It was only 35 miles but they flew instead of driving scripting it to be a great photo op of the large and adoring crowd awaiting the Kennedy’s airplane arrival at Dallas’ Love Field.

JFK wanted his Dallas car unencumbered by Secret Service agents. He became a sitting target.

Morning Fort Worth rain turned into 70 degree afternoon sunshine in Dallas. For the motorcade trip from the airport to downtown Dallas where JFK was scheduled to speak at a luncheon, the president wanted the roof of the presidential limousine to be open and also requested the two agents who normally post on the limo, one on the running board next to the president and one on the rear closest to the First Lady, to not assume those posts for this drive through town. The president wanted the crowds to be able to see him and Jackie without any obstruction. When the Service reluctantly agreed, nobody thought this would also give a clear shot to a potential assailant on the sixth floor of an office building.

When the first shot was fired the limo driver, Secret Service agent Bill Greer, thought perhaps a motorcycle had backfired. Instead of speeding up, reflexively he took his foot off the pedal, slowing the car resulting in Oswald having a much clearer target for the second and third fatal rifle shots. It can be argued those shots could have been deflected from the president had the agents been stationed on the car as protocol.

Less than thirty minutes after the first shot, President Kennedy was declared dead at Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital. Author Leonnig writes that two weeks afterwards, “Mrs. Kennedy complained to her personal secretary that some agents that day seemed ill prepared for precisely the kind of danger they should have been trained to tackle.”

A week after JFK died, and the initial shock to the country had tempered a bit, fingers started to be pointed at the Secret Service. It was common knowledge to insiders how short staffed the department had been. On November 30, 1963, a stir was caused when well-known Washington DC syndicated columnist Drew Pearson got a tip that JFK’s Secret Service agents had been out drinking the night before the assassination.

Pearson wrote in his Merry-Go-Round column, “Some Secret Service men charged with protecting the President were in the Fort Worth Press Club in the early morning of the day Kennedy was shot. Some of them remaining until 3 am. They were drinking. When they (finally) departed, three were reportedly en route to an all-night beatnik rendezvous called The Cellar.” (Beatnik? Haven’t heard that descriptor since the Maynard G. Krebs days.)

The nation had a black eye. The city of Dallas had a pall over it that lasted for decades. And now the Secret Service whose one job on this trip was to protect the president was rightfully taken to task. Nobody will ever know if more agents on the ground in Dallas or a senior team on assignment or an early bedtime would have ultimately made a difference saving the president’s life.

Finally, two years later in 1965 despite President Lyndon Johnson’s opposition, the Secret Service Agency Chief James Rowley led a fierce and successful lobbying campaign with the House Appropriations Committee to fund 200 additional agents and a training facility. Johnson had opposed any additional budget monies as he ran on a platform to shrink government spending. Fortunately he couldn’t overcome common sense and practicality.

Larry Newman, who served on JFK’s Secret Service detail, said after appropriations passed the spending bill, “We got a new training center, we got new agents. Unfortunately we had to lose a president for Congress to wake up and give us what we needed to protect him.”

Kennedy’s assassination was the first, and fortunately, still the only time a president of the United States was killed under Secret Service protection established in 1901 after the aforementioned President McKinley was killed. Sometimes you have to pay a price to get it right. The Service has been lauded for the way it reacted to the attack on President Reagan in 1981, saving his life.

For me, every year at this time the memory and real life pictures of what happened sixty-two years ago returns. Sadly, in the mainstream media of today the history of November 22 is hardly even worth a mention anymore; sometimes you might find it as a news footnote or as a stray Facebook post. Sometimes. But I dare to say anyone who experienced it will never forget it. Carol Leonnig’s marvelous book chapter brought it back to life once again.

Miraculously, JFK’s assassination is the only one senior Americans have experienced. The bulk of our populace never has lived through this kind of national tragedy. That is a very good thing.

Once in a lifetime is more than enough.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger