From the Vault of Art Shay: If I Only Had A Heart

By Art Shay in News on Mar 28, 2012 7:00PM

1960. JFK eschewing—or out-running—his security drones found himself surrounded by clownish types, any of whom could have terminated him without a book depository.

JFK\'s specialty was the impromptu address; he gloried in it. That Bell & Howell movie camera within five feet of his head could have sequestered a bomb or gun easily.

JFK specialized in getting close to his voters.

So did Richard Nixon, here in Fargo, ND.

And Bobby Kennedy, shown here in 1968 on the University of Nebraska campus, trying to decide a bright future that exploded in an LA hotel kitchen.

The head of the Park Department gave me permission on the phone to have three of his men help me carry my un-inspected camera cases into the basement of the Washington Monument.

In the Memphis boarding house from which James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, an acquaintance of Ray\'s points out the bathroom with the view of King\'s balcony.

1968: Martin Luther King intimate Hosea Williams goes over King\'s briefcase and coffee the morning after King\'s assassination.

1968. Killer\'s eye-view through binocular gunsight.

Handprint of James Earl Ray the FBI dusted atop bathtop which he straddled for his fatal shot. I came running to the Lorraine Motel \<em\>Life\<\/em\> office with my precious roll of film. An editor asked how I had talked the FBI into letting me shoot the handprint&mdash;and a Black Star agency photographer raced across the street and wheedled his way in too. But he had the presence of mind to race to the airport with his film and ship it before mine arrived in the \<em\>Life\<\/em\> packet. So Black Star scooped me on my own picture.

I had the privilege of working with one of the greatest reporters of our time, writer Garry Wills on the Memphis aftermath. He later wrote the forward to my book, \<em\>Album for an Age\<\/em\>.

The usual suspects, rounded up in Memphis the night of the murder of Dr. King.

As late as 1969 government security was lax on letting President Nixon, center, sat amongst his admirers at the Arkansas-Texas game in Fayetteville, Ark.

(Legendary Chicago-based photographer Art Shay has taken photos of kings, queens, celebrities and the common man in a 60-year career. In this week's look at his archives, Dick Cheney's heart transplant has Art thinking of a more freewheeling era.)

This piece, in my mind at least, is about how the government's security blanket fell into my life. But first a word about health care, as the Supreme Court said this week.

For moments during his government-sponsored heart surgery, the heartless Dick of Dicks, Dick Cheney, was at last demonstrably heartless. Remembering my own course in heart surgery in the 60s at the Cleveland Clinic, I remember the drama in the operating room: the blood of one heartless human was coming to the soon-to-die patient in inadequate spurts of a machine, but to no avail. The first three patients I was covering for Life, the doubly disappointed PR man mumbled, had, alas, died on the table.

(Half a century later, government skills had prevailed and somewhere the heart's donor, like it or not, had saved a controversial life. The flawed heart that had powered this patient's answer to a reporter's question of did he understand his new law would displease many citizens. Answer: "So?" A good heart to trade in. One that had helped involuntarily shoot a hunting buddy. A cold Washington heart that opted not to announce it for hours and hours.

I am sure, given Dick's lifelong orientation, he considered then failed to reimburse Obamacare for giving him his new low mileage organ. For his sake, I hope it was the suddenly available healthy heart of a motorcycle man, mama or even that of a female bicyclist coming home from volleyball practice, exultant that she had spiked three crucial points and would make the front page of her school's sports section. Even as the victim of a hit and run drunk. All interesting lacunae, naturally occurring in high level events. Conjecture for the columnariat.)

But wait! Suddenly, months later, I found myself in Cleveland again chasing the peripatetic JFK across the airport as he met his beloved public and began convincing them he meant to become President.

There, to my horror, I noticed kookie chunks of that unpredictable swarm, including a clown made up to look like Bozo. This clown was cavorting within the airport crowd—mingling with JFK's Secret Service detail, his FBI gards, secret service types and other gun-toters. Nobody in my sightline gave the clown more than a fleeting look as he ambled into position next to JFK, who was intent on shaking hands and being a Good Fella, as was his way. The clown was closer than any of his security guards. The obvious obviously occurred to me.

A few weeks later I had a commercial assignment in Washington: shooting part of an annual report for the Trane Air Conditioning company of Wisconsin. My assignment—show their air conditioners cooling off the interior of the Washington Monument. The trouble was it was a Friday afternoon and the Trane liaison had neglected to inform the Parks Department that this Chicago fotog would be arriving with 500 pounds of lighting equipment, tripods, etc. All in big black cases.

Not to worry. I reached the Parks Department honcho at home, mentioned my Time, Life and Fortune credentials and, over the phone, for the last time, I or (I imagine) any other pro photographer, would be able to wheedle permission for such a project on the telephone.

How am I so sure? A week or so later poor JFK was murdered in Dallas. And the security blanket fell with the sound of thudding metal on metal.The days of bullshitting the authorities were over. Subsequent assignments in St. Paul on a murder trial, in New Orleans chasing the Mafia, in Vegas looking for Howard Hughes—all, all changed. It was I and my reporter Sandy Smith who outed two of the Mormon guards whom Hughes had bribed with $2 million up front and another two to come for chores like saving his Mandarin finger nails.

Other fotogs had and still have other tales of woe describing the sea change not to say pall that descended on us after Kennedy's death precipitated the fall of the security blanket. I don't doubt that one of us who went through the changeover will one day write the book on this.

If you can't wait until this time every Wednesday to get your Art Shay fix, please check out the photographer's blog, which is updated regularly. Art Shay's book, Nelson Algren's Chicago, is also available at Amazon.