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The widow's letter

Her own grief did not prevent Jacqueline Kennedy from reaching out to another family mourning a recent loss.

The following essay by then-Mayor William J. Green was published in 1983 to mark the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, whose road to the White House was aided by Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman William J. Green, the father of the former mayor and grandfather of Councilman Bill Green.

By William J. Green

Thousands of people, the sightseers and the sorrowful, mobbed the street waiting outside. They mixed, as the funeral service ended, with those leaving the packed cathedral.

President and Mrs. Johnson were being whisked away.

The coffin lay in the hearse just in front of the limousine where our family sat.

Robert Kennedy approached. All alone. His face was etched with an almost otherworldly sadness, as though a piece of his spirit was gone although his body remained. It was for a moment possible to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and think only of him. The door opened. He crouched as he entered the car and, kneeling on one knee, touched my mother's hand as he spoke. "Mrs. Green, I'm, so sorry . . ."

There was something surreal about Bobby Kennedy's sorrow for us. On sight, all of our sorrow had shifted to him. The sorrow was mutual and powerful and real.

It was Christmas Eve 1963, and we were burying my father. Bobby and a stunned and grieving nation had buried his brother only one month before. He didn't have to come. We would have understood. But he was there. It was his way and theirs to thank a friend in the way that would mean the most.

"Jackie asked me to give this to you," he said as he placed an envelope in my mother's hands. "She hopes you will understand her not being here. . . . Mary, your Bill was our friend. . . . Anything I can ever do . . ."

Clearly, the presence of the president and first lady, on Christmas Eve, and Bobby, especially Bobby, and all of these thousands of people, most anonymous, gave added measure and meaning to my father's life and his years of effort, and highlighted his and this city's place in electing the president we still mourn today.

The limousine door closed. My mother opened Mrs. Kennedy's note and read it to herself. Sometime after she finished, she passed it to me.

It was handwritten on black-bordered white stationery, the Kennedy family crest pressed into the center at the top.

My mind drifted back as I held the letter and gazed out the window at the crowd pressing in as our car cautiously inched forward.

In flashes as quick as the passing faces, I thought of the primaries, the convention, the victories, my father, the president, the moments we shared, the joy we knew. Perhaps these thoughts were subconscious efforts to avoid the pain by recalling the pleasure. I'll never know, but they raced through my mind.

The Kennedy campaign had electrified the people of Philadelphia.

I recalled the sudden silence one night at St. Joseph's College as Bobby Darin was belting out how the shark bites. NEWS FLASH:

Kennedy wins West Virginia primary!

It was like an explosion. We could hear and feel the barrier break. No analysis was necessary. There were governors, senators, and pundits still in doubt, but the wall was down. I couldn't wait to call my father.

Dateline: Los Angeles, July 7, 1960. "Green reported swinging to Kennedy," proclaimed the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin's banner headline in its report on the Democratic convention.

Dad had been quietly working for some time to line up Pennsylvania for Kennedy. Most of the state's other prominent Democrats - Gov. David Lawrence, Sen. Joseph Clark, Mayor Joseph Barr of Pittsburgh - while publicly silent, as my father had been, were leaning to Adlai Stevenson.

My father had flown to California one day early to persuade Lawrence to come along and, as governor, lead the delegation for Kennedy.

Pennsylvania, as far as the country knew, was the largest uncommitted bloc in the nation. It had more than 10 percent of all the votes needed to put Kennedy over.

In fact, the delegates were almost all for Kennedy. Lawrence joined, rather than be left behind, and from that moment on there was no question in my father's mind, or in the mind of the next president of the United States, who the Democratic nominee would be.

I also remembered Washington in August, attending a strategy dinner in the Capitol with Kennedy, my father, Gov. Lawrence, Matt McCloskey (later ambassador to Ireland), and Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, party chairman during the campaign.

Then, Bobby's stumping for Jack at the Boulevard Pools. The building enthusiasm. The final push in this area, four whirlwind days at the end of October. The crowds as he went. Jack stopping the motorcade in front of our house to greet my grandmother. She, then over 80, jumping up and down in our driveway as he pulled away.

Election Day with my father. The outpouring of votes. The record-setting win. The call from former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK's father, that night, and the president-elect the next day. Watching my father and mother in the President's Box at the Inaugural Ball. The speech earlier that day.

The trips up and down the Potomac on the Honey Fitz and the Patrick J.

The last time we were all together in Philadelphia, less than two months before.

Nov. 22. I could still hear the drums.

Our car was gaining speed.

With those images and others came the president's words:

May 25, 1961: "We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share. This is the new ocean and I believe the United States must sail on it."

June 11, 1963: "We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public - if he cannot vote for the public official who represents him - then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us, then, would be content with the counsels of patience and delay?"

June 26, 1963: "There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin."

July 26, 1963: "I speak to you tonight in a spirit of hope. . . . [Since] the advent of nuclear weapons, all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on Earth. . . . Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness. . . . This treaty is not the millennium . . . But it is an important first step - a step toward peace, a step toward reason, a step away from war. . . . This treaty is for all of us. It is particularly for our children and our grandchildren, and they have no lobby here in Washington. . . . According to the ancient Chinese proverb, 'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.' . . . Let us take that first step."

His words lodge in my memory. His memory lives in my heart.

In a moment, the crowd was gone. I turned in, looked at my mother, and then at the note in my hand.

Dear Mrs. Green:

Please know how heartbroken I am for you. What a way for this year to end - there isn't anything I can say to console you.

I don't think Jack would have been President without Billy Green.

Maybe they will find each other. I hope so, though it isn't exactly the way I picture heaven. But we who are so deprived want all the best for them.

It was so, to each at their credit, that they loved and admired each other and that they can be proud at how their wives will miss them.

I send you all my love and sympathy.

Jacqueline Kennedy