Some 30 minutes after leaving Dallas, Texas, the site of President John F. “Jack” Kennedy’s assassination hours earlier, President and Lady Bird Johnson placed a telephone call to the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The Johnsons offered their condolences to Rose F. Kennedy, mother of the late president. Sergeant Joseph Ayres, the steward aboard Air Force One who initially talked with Mrs. Kennedy, would later tell biographer William Manchester that he had to check himself from saying “President” Johnson in this call. But Rose Kennedy used the appellation without hesitation.