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Dr. Ronald Jones Recalls Live-Saving Attempts on Shot JFK; JFK Honor 50 Years after Assassination; JFK Trolley Tour Recounts History.

Aired November 20, 2013 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Ronald Jones was the chief surgical resident at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas when that awful call came in, the president of the United States had been shot.

Dr. Jones joining us once again.

You remember his condition when he actually arrived, what you were trying to doing to save him, Dr. Jones?

DR. RONALD JONES, BAYLOR UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER & FORMER CHIEF SURGICAL RESIDENT, PARKLAND MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: When I first saw him, I walked into Trauma Room One and Mrs. Kennedy was on the left and he was on a stretcher, had just arrived. And I saw a small wound about a quarter of an inch in the midline anterior neck. He was emotionless. His eyes were open. And I did not see any evidence of life, although one of the second-year residents, Dr. James Caricold (ph) had thought he had seen some attempts at respiration, and so he was attempting to insert an endotracheal tube or an airway into the windpipe, and that triggered the resuscitation that we started.

BLITZER: Obviously, that was not successful. Were you there when those two priests came into the room?

JONES: I had left before the priests came in. I had started and performed a venus section, or a cut down, to start an I.V. in his left upper arm and had inserted chest tubes in his right and left chest. And then eventually we had an electrocardiogram, or EKG, or heart machine hooked up. When I looked at it is, it was just a straight line. There was no evidence of heart activity.

BLITZER: So was he basically dead when he arrived at the hospital? Is that what you're suggesting, Doctor?

JONES: Yes, I think he was. The first thing you do with a trauma patient is get an airway and I.V. going and then you do the neurologic exam. We knew he had the small wound in the front of the neck and a significant wound in the back of his head. And my initial impression was that he had been shot from the front and this was an exit wound in the back of the head. And it didn't take us but just a few minutes after we got the resuscitation started to realize that this was a lethal wound. And there was a few bits of skull and some brain and a massive amount of blood on the cart dripping onto the floor.

BLITZER: Did you have an exchange with the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, during those all of all of minutes?

JONES: I did not speak with her. And I don't believe anyone at the stretcher table working on the president did. She was there intermittently and she would leave and come back. But she had a very stoic face. She will -- my impression was that she knew this could happen. It had happened and she accepted it. But she was very composed. She was not hysterical and she was not crying. She was truly a first lady.

BLITZER: Dr. Jones, thanks for trying to -- you and the other physicians and nurses at the hospital. Obviously, life would have been totally different had he survived.

Dr. Jones, don't go away.

Gloria Borger is joining us in this conversation, as well.

Gloria, 50 years ago then. Now it's a very different scene here. Excuse me. Here in Washington, D.C, right now. It seems like almost two political worlds.

And I want Maureen and Eleanor to weigh in, as well.

It was a very different Washington then.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a very different Washington then. It was bipartisan for one thing. And I think that life with the Obamas in many ways -- there was this young couple in the White House with young children, a sense of anticipation. Two presidents who saw themselves in different ways as transformational. President -- one, the first Catholic, one the first African-American. But this president is so young. He doesn't have any real memory of JFK. And in a way, though, he has affected his presidency, of course, because the civil rights movement during Kennedy. But also Ted Kennedy was such a mentor to President Obama, particularly as he embarked upon his signature legislative achievement, which, as we all know, is in some trouble now, but Ted Kennedy was his guide through health care reform until he died without seeing it to its finish.

MAUREEN ORTH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: I remember being in American University when Caroline Kennedy and ted Kennedy enforced Barack Obama. That was an amazing moment that I think was probably one of the happiest moments of Barack Obama's entire political career.

BORGER: When Caroline said that the enthusiasm for candidate Obama reminded her of what people said the enthusiasm was for her father. And Ted Kennedy endorsing Obama was, of course, a huge moment. And now you see the Clintons with Obama having fought that very, very long fight, how having reconciled. Of course, Hillary having served with him. So these things kind of come full circle. I think there are a few more steps along the road now as we go into the next political arena.

BLITZER: And the fact that JFK now is bringing the Clintons the Obamas together.

Eleanor, hold that thought for a moment.

(LAUGHTER)

I want to take another quick break.

We're going to continue our analysis, the former president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. That's the gravesite. We'll be right back.

(MUSIC)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Only moments ago, the president of the United States and the first lady paid their respects. They laid a wreath over at the gravesite of President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. Some Kennedy family members were there. The former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, they were there, as well.

Douglas Brinkley, how unusual -- and we've been pointing this out -- is that a current president, a former president, and maybe a future president, Hillary Clinton, that they've gathered together to recall the death of JFK?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, it is unusual. I mean, presidents do gather when a death of other presidents. I remember when Richard Nixon died, it was almost an extraordinary photo to see so many ex-presidents and active president, Bill Clinton, there and waiting out in Yorba Linda, California.

But remember, the president that we haven't mentioned on our program is Lyndon Johnson. We lost John F. Kennedy 50 years ago and we got Lyndon Johnson. He actually, I think, did an extraordinary job of healing the country, Johnson. He did every courtesy he could to the Kennedy family. He made sure the world knew that he was in charge in a right and appropriate way. And to Jackie Kennedy herself, he was just beyond gracious. And it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. It wasn't easy for Johnson to replace this is charismatic John F. Kennedy and he had to come in.

And he used the legacy of Kennedy to push through the extraordinary Great Society programs -- Medicaid and Medicare, and the war on poverty and, you know, scenic rivers, environmental protection and school food programs at school and urban housing and on and on. In many ways, a lot of Johnson -- probably deserves more credit than historians have gotten him because he continued the work of the Kennedy's New Frontier.

BLITZER: Let's not forget civil rights either.

BRINKLEY: Yes.

BLITZER: But there was another issue that obviously -- and maybe I'll have Gerald Posner pick up on this -- the Vietnam War and LBJ, JFK, eventually Nixon. A lot of us remember those years. If JFK, hypothetically, Gerald Posner, had lived, would the U.S. still have gotten involved in Vietnam the way it did?

GERALD POSNER, AUTHOR: Wolf, that's the $66,000 question. That's why we are so sort of immersed as a society in this assassination, is not just the death of a president but because it is a Kennedy, because it is John Kennedy. And he was so early in his presidency, just two and a half years in. He becomes a war shock test for what people think he would have done. So people that would like to think Vietnam would not have been the unmitigated disaster it was, they say Kennedy would have got us out. People who wanted the CIA controlled, he would have done that differently. If he had been killed in the sixth or seventh year of his second term, we knew what his successes and failures were, there wouldn't have been all the lost hope there was on this young president.

If Barack Obama had been assassinated in the second year of his presidency, he would be considered today one of the great presidents because everybody would have said, he would have gone on to such great things. That's what we do with Jack Kennedy. We think, no matter where we stand in the political spectrum, Democrats or Republicans, that this man would have achieved the goals we wanted individually.

BLITZER: Gloria, I know you want to weigh in.

BORGER: I know that in deciding what to do about Afghanistan, the president paid an awful lot of attention to Lyndon Johnson and Jack Kennedy and their relationships with the generals, and was very concerned about his own relationships with the generals and whether, in fact, you can get overtaken by the military industrial complex if you're the president of the United States, and whether things would have turned out differently if Jack Kennedy had been alive for the rest of Vietnam, and the question of whether LBJ listened to his generals just a little bit too much. So I know this is something that he thought about in making decisions about the use of force, particularly extending the war in Afghanistan, decisions about whether or not to have the surge, for example.

BLITZER: Do you want to --

(CROSSTALK)

ORTH: I think it's interesting because Jack Kennedy was a World War II hero and he had served. And neither President Clinton nor President Bush nor Barack Obama have served. And I really think psychologically, that must weigh on them in some way. I think, in a way, they accede to the military perhaps more.

BLITZER: Well, President Bush did serve, President George W. Bush --

ORTH: I'm talking about Bush 2.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: He served in the National Guard.

ORTH: He didn't see combat. I think that that makes a psychological difference when you're negotiating with generals, and even if you know how to salute properly. I think all those psychological things weigh.

BLITZER: All right.

ORTH: Kennedy defied all the generals' advice and --

(CROSSTALK)

ORTH -- didn't seek a military response in the --

BLITZER: Cuban --

ORTH: -- Cuban Missile Crisis. And so that was very important.

But, you know, I think President Obama does -- he did bow to the generals with the surge in Afghanistan. I think he may admit that that was a mistake because, as soon as he put the surge in it, he pulled it back out.

BLITZER: Guess what, they're about to extend the --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- in Afghanistan for another 10 years.

(CROSSTALK)

ORTH: Maybe he needs to reread that.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Hold on a minute. We're going to continue our special coverage.

There you see a live picture from Arlington National Cemetery. They laid a wreath, the president and first lady, the former president, Hillary Clinton, as well.

We'll continue our coverage in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- buried their beloved leader. May his family find comfort in knowing they walked with greatness. And may the soul of John Fitzgerald Kennedy rest in peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Friday, the nation marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. There you see live pictures from his gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. There are ceremonies planned at Dealey Plaza in Dallas where the president was shot.

My next guest will be there offering visitors a unique look back at that will very tragic day. Scott Aston operates the JFK Trolley Tour, which takes visitors along the same routes taken by President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Scott is joining us now.

What do people learn on this tour that they may not necessarily have known about the assassination?

MICHAEL "SCOTT" ASTON, OPERATOR, JFK TROLLEY TOUR: They learn a great deal, Wolf. Most people we get, you know, come here from America or internationally, they know President Kennedy was shot and killed, but they don't know what it was like to be in Dallas as these days unfolded. That's what we do on the JFK Trolley Tour. We take them on a minute-my-minute timeline through November 22nd and days after.

BLITZER: People come not only from the United States but, as you point out, from around the world. They want to come to Dallas. If they come to Dallas, they want to see if JFK was shot. Is that right?

ASTON: Absolutely. President Kennedy was loved by Americans. He was also loved around the world. Europeans tell me daily that President John F. Kennedy was the savior of the western hemisphere. And they're very curious about this. And JFK, the assassination is the most- talked about, written about murder in the history of the world. And there's still a lot of mystery about it from the conspiracies written, and they want to see first hand for themself.

BLITZER: Well, I can speak first hand. A couple years ago, when I was in Dallas for the NBA all-star game, a couple guys we didn't go out to lunch. We went over there to the Texas School Book Depository and walked around Dealey Plaza. We wanted to see what was going on. As much as I lived through the era, knew a lot about it, I can attest that I learned from being there, seeing that awful scene, see that awful situation.

I'm sure people give you that same impression whenever they see you, Scott.

ASTON: You know, they do in a lot of ways. But I got to add this. When people get off our tour, we have such a potpourri of people, a lot of people who came on it voted for Jack Kennedy. They're very moved by this. Very personal for them. 9/11 was also moving for Americans, but this is a real personal thing because it was an individual, a man who shared their idea, liked the way the country was moving in his direction. So we get a lot of people who cry. We get youngsters on board that never knew who Lee Harvey Oswald was until the end of the tour.

BLITZER: Scott, thanks very much.

Scott Aston has the JFK Trolley Tour in Dallas.

Appreciate it very much.

We'll take another quick break. More special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: A special week, a special day. Let's get a final thought.

Eleanor Clift, what do you think?

ELEANOR CLIFT, AUTHOR: Nice to have this pause to reflect on what was and might have been, but back to reality pretty soon.

BLITZER: Yeah.

Maureen?

ORTH: I'm personally very, very happy that President Kennedy inspired me to join the Peace Corps, because he gave us the legacy that those who served for peace also serve. It's not always just about the military.

BLITZER: Gloria?

BORGER: Today, we have seen a generation kind of pass before our eyes, which reminds us of the resiliency of this country, whether it's in the Medal of Freedom that was awarded to this astonishing array of people, and then moving on to the 50th anniversary of JFK tells us an awful lot about our ability to change and adjust and overcome tragedy.

BLITZER: The historian, Douglas Brinkley, thought?

BRINKLEY: The internal flame represents John F. Kennedy's can-do spirit. That's what the American people are hungering for now. He said we could put a man on the moon at the end of the decade. That's why people loved John Kennedy. He appealed to our optimism and our sense of public service.

We had a tremendous loss of faith in the government after Jack Kennedy was killed. And I hope the American people remember that, to the extent that sometimes people play a board game of who killed Kennedy. It's a tremendous disservice to the Kennedy family. They deserve better. We all lost somebody, but they lost a key member to their family, and we do a disservice to them when we go back and play these conspiracy games.

BLITZER: That's it.

That's all the time we have.

Thanks to all of you for remembering, reflecting. If we don't learn from history, unfortunately, we could repeat history. Let's learn from those awful days.

I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

A special NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin continues right after this.

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