Mike Howard (’60), foreground, leaving a hotel in Fort Worth with President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and other government officials.
Courtesy of Mike Howard
reporting on the events for the media. Even younger alumni who were not alive then are preserving the legacy of that day as owners of the historic Texas Theatre, which now hosts movies and events, and as museum staff for The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, housed in the former Texas School Book Depository building. The Secret Service agent For Howard, the interrogation of the young suspect was just the beginning of what would be a long weekend. Howard had been recruited to join the Secret Service on the recommendation of his North Texas government professor Sam B. McAlister. After the Kennedys visited Fort Worth, they flew to Dallas.
Howard and two other agents remained to check their hotel room for national security risks. But they rushed to Dallas when they saw TV reports that shots were fired. After Howard and other agents checked out possible suspects, Lyndon B. Johnson, who had just been sworn in as president, ordered the Secret Service to look out for Oswald’s family and appointed Howard to find and put them into protective custody. Howard and another agent found the family — Oswald’s wife, Marina, their two small children and his mother, Marguerite — at a hotel near Dallas Love Field and moved them to an Arlington hotel for their safety. On the drive, they heard a police radio report concerning Oswald. Marina, who couldn’t speak English well, asked if
Howard could tell her what was going on. “Yes, ma’am. Your husband has been shot,” he told her. For the next seven days, Howard, his colleagues and a Russian interpreter were holed up in that hotel to interview Marina. “She never shed a tear,” Howard says. “She never showed any emotion.” They also had to arrange for Oswald’s funeral and keep their bosses updated three times a day. Meanwhile, some assistants picked up clean clothes from Howard’s wife, Martha, at their home in Saginaw. “When you’re in the Secret Service, you go through all this training,” he says. “We didn’t think about anything else. We were there to do a job.” He and his Secret Service team released their tapes to the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy’s death. Howard then was assigned to protect the new first daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson, in Austin. He protected President Johnson’s family until 1974, when he retired from the Secret Service and went to work in private security. He still keeps in touch with the family, and five White House Christmas cards hang on his living room wall. Howard, a government and history
“When you’re in the Secret Service, you go through all this training. We didn’t think about anything else. We were there to do a job.” — Mike Howard (’60), retired Secret Service agent