Here sat the O’Malleys on a Sunday morning. My little sister, Annie, was sick with tonsillitis, Mom was mad at Dad—whose name was also Dan—for making inappropriate employment choices, and I was running late for a conscripted appearance in the Pope Pious X boys choir at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, as directed by the very eccentric Sister Marion.

“Dan, Danny’s going to be late for Mass and here you sit, all hung over and no job,” Mom said very sternly to Dad, who liked drinking. “At least you could have the decency to get out of that chair and take the boy to church. It wouldn’t hurt for you to go inside the church either.”

Dad looked at me with a painful squint in his eye, and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Son, why don’t you go to Mass yourself today?”

An eruption of Mount St. Hannah—Mom’s name—quickly occurred.

“Take the boy to church, and you go to Mass, too, and I want to know what the sermon was about—now go!” Mom screamed at the top of her lungs.

Dad never said a word, cross or otherwise, on the way to Mass. Usually, he stood in the back of the church and went outside when the priest gave his sermon. This time I saw him sitting halfway toward the front listening intently as Father Connelly implored the congregation to give more money.

The inviting aroma of Mrs. O’Malley’s usual Sunday dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes greeted us upon arriving home from church.

“I said five rosaries while you two were gone. Annie’s temperature is down to 99, Dorothy (Mom’s sister) called, and Jack got a promotion, dinner’s almost ready, Danny, you go change your clothes, and Dan “Mr. I Want To Raise Money for the Governor,” you can help me set the table if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Mom said in her special way.

Sunday dinners were usually pleasant in our house. This one wasn’t. Between passing the peas, mashed potatoes, and serving delicious homemade apple pie, Mom verbally threw everything but the kitchen sink at Dad. His work habits, drinking habits, personal hygiene, and things I didn’t understand were tossed across the table. Dad, to his credit, kept his steely World War II veteran cool and casually defended himself. I just kept eating through the Hannah and Dan bickering show.

US Marshall Dan O'Malley with his son on Christmas morning. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

Since my little sister was sick in bed, I helped Mom with the dishes. She mumbled to herself the whole time. Even at the age of 9 I could tell her mental wheels were spinning rapidly.

Dad had his face buried in the Sunday paper as Mom regally entered the living room.

“Dan, you’re going to get a job, and you’re going to get one today,” she said officially.

Dad looked at her over the top of his paper as if he heard something, but wasn’t quite sure of what he heard.

“I’m calling the White House,” she announced.

Our family had a distant connection with the Kennedy administration. My grandmother was a grammar school classmate of President Kennedy’s mother Rose. My grandfather was the local ward boss during the Kennedy for Congress campaign. My father served in World War II with JFK’s family bodyguard, John J. “Mugsy” O’Leary. My mother, along with 150 other women in our neighborhood, had lunch one day with Jackie Kennedy. That’s what I knew about our family Kennedy relationship.

My dad dropped the paper on the floor.

“You’re what?” he said as if he wasn’t hearing properly.

Before he had a chance to utter another word, Mom was on the phone. This was back in the days before direct dial long distance.

“Operator, I’d like you to connect me to the White House in Washington D.C., please,” she said in the sweetest honey coated voice I had ever heard.

My dad had an “I really can’t believe you are doing this to me” look on his face as Mom sat there and smiled a Jack Nicholson “Shining” smile at him while the call was going through.

Hannah O'Malley was a caseworker. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

Dad’s eyes were rolling back in his head. His face was flushed. He was embarrassed beyond belief. Men’s wives don’t usually call the White House to beg favors from old Army buddies or the President of the United States on a Sunday afternoon.

We all sat silent. Mom was on hold with the White House. Cool; I thought. The operator must have told Mom she was going to put her through to someone because she said a very sincere, “thank you, honey”.

“Hello? Well, hello, Mugsy. Yes, this is Hannah. How have you been? We’ve been reading about you. Oh Dan? Dan’s fine, except he’s temporarily out of work. He had applied for a Federal Marshal’s job, but it looks like someone else is going to get it. They told him Friday he was out of the running. They? I guess it was the head Federal Marshal. I don’t know. Here I’ll let Dan tell you all about it”.

Mom thrust the phone at Dad with an all-powerful glance of “don’t screw this up,” as she handed it to him.

“Mugsy!” Dad said with confidence in his embarrassment. “Mugs, we’re doing fine; just a little setback. Well of course I wanted the job, but it’s too late now. They’re going to announce the guy’s appointment tomorrow. Sure; I’ve got time.”

I sat in wonder watching my Dad talk to some guy named Mugsy who worked at the White House for President Kennedy who Mom called after Sunday dinner because she was mad because Dad hadn’t gotten a new job yet.

Dad suddenly looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He sat bolt upright in his chair.

“What?” he exclaimed “Yes, yes, hello to you, Mr. President.”

We all sat straight up. Now my mom looked as if she too had received an electric shock.

“Yes, Mr. President, my mother was Annie O’Malley. Yes, I’m John E’s son. Yes, Jack O’Malley of B.C.’s my older brother. Yes, I was in France and England with Mugsy.

“With all due respect, sir, don’t believe everything Mugsy says about me. Well, Mr. President, basically I applied for the Southern District Federal Marshal’s position and was informed that I’m no longer a candidate. Oh, yes sir, I certainly feel I was the best man for the job. Thank you very much, Mr. President. (pause) Mugsy! What’d you do that to me for? For gawd sakes; the President didn’t need to hear my troubles. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We’ll hold tight.

“Me too. Thanks.”

With a blank look, Dad got up, walked around Mom, and gently put the phone back on the hook.

We were all silent. Mom was the first to speak.

“Honey, what did they say?” she asked.

“You heard it, I was telling Mugsy about not getting the Marshal’s job. He happened to be in the same room as the president. Mugsy put me on hold and told Mr. Kennedy who I was and where I was from. Next thing I know I’m talking with the man. He remembered Mother going to school with his mom. He said my mom was a childhood friend of hers. He said he also remembered Daddy from his congressional campaign and knew brother Jack from following B.C. football. What a memory! He told me Mugsy often talks about me from our days overseas. Then he asked me what happened and if I thought I was the best man for the job. Then he said, “We think you’re the best man for the job, too.” Mugsy gets back on the phone and then tells me to sit tight and wait for a phone call. Hannah, if this thing comes through, oh baby,” Dad said out of breath.

I jumped up to run out and tell all the kids in the neighborhood that my dad just talked to President Kennedy. Mom had other ideas.

“We’re all going to sit here and pray until someone calls us back,” she said piously.

Dad picked up the paper and buried his face in it. Mom got out the rosary beads. We prayed while Dad read the sports pages.
Several hours later the phone rang. Mom answered it.

“Hello, this is the O’Malley residence. Yes, this is Mrs. O’Malley. Yes, Mr. O’Malley is right here. I’ll get him for you. It was nice talking with you, too,” she said.
Mom handed the phone with a smile on her face to my father. It was the head United States Federal Marshal.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Howard. Fine, sir. I’d be honored to have the position. Yes, sir. I’ll be in your office at 8:30 sharp. Thank you, sir,” Dad said in the most serious and professional manner.

The phone rang again several minutes later. It was Dad’s friend from the White House, Mugsy. He called to ask if Dad was offered the Marshals job and if he accepted it.

The future US Marshal Daniel O'Malley, his wife Hannah and son, Dan Jr. in 1961. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

“Mugsy, how can I thank you for what you did for me?” Dad asked.

“You can’t. You can thank your wife. She’s the one who made the phone call,” he said.

The next day, my dad’s picture appeared on page two of the local paper with the small headline, “Local Man Chosen for U.S. Marshal.” The article went on to mention how Marshal Fred Howard was proud to have found such a champion of justice and war hero to fill the void in that tough territory known as Southern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

Marshal Howard was fortunate to have found exactly everything they were looking for in a candidate.

On Sunday, Dad’s broke with no job. On Monday, his picture is in the paper; he’s the new Marshal—all because Mom decided to call the White House. Behind every successful man is often a woman like my mother.

—“Both my parents passed away in 2005, just a few months shy of being wed 57 years,” says author Dan O’Malley, now a successful businessman. “This is my tribute to what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary.”

The Day Mom Called the White House The Saturday Evening Post

President Johnson requested a President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy within weeks of the shooting. Months later, the Commission presented its report which confirmed the official version offered by the Justice Department: A lone, crazed gunman, acting alone, killed the president.

America wasn’t buying it. Even before the Commission met for the first time, the majority of Americans no longer believed a lone shooter was responsible. A 1963 poll showed 52 percent of Americans believed a conspiracy was behind the assassination. Over the years, America’s faith in the Commission’s findings has fallen so low that a 1998 survey showed 90 percent of Americans believed a conspiracy was involved.

How wrong could the Commission be to earn such disregard? Was it incompetent, corrupt, or both?

In the Post article “The Kennedy Assassination” published in 1967, Richard J. Whalen addressed some of the reasons why the Report was so widely discounted.

First were the commissioners themselves: stolid, deliberate people—three senators, a congressman (Gerald Ford), a former head of the CIA, a former head of the World Bank, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. It was a group unlikely to favor fantastic premises, or indulge their imaginations. According to Whalen, “The Chief Justice was understandably reluctant to assume the task forced on him by the President, for he was miscast. In a unique situation, demanding a supple and pragmatic, yet unswerving, truthseeker, he was a figure of granitic rectitude and decorum.”

Next was the questionable evidence. Medical records from the hospital disappeared, reappeared, then disappeared again. Some witnesses were ignored, others questioned at great length. Witnesses contradicted each other, and appeared inconsistent with what could be seen in the Zapruder film.

"The Kennedy Assassination"
by Richard J. Whalen
January 14, 1967

Then the Commission began to divide over the “single-bullet” theory, which asserted that a single bullet caused multiple wounds to Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally.

“The arguing within the commission over the single-bullet theory continued until the Report was in its final drafts. Sen. Russell, Sen. John Sherman Cooper and Congressman Hale Boggs remained unpersuaded, and were at most willing to call the evidence ‘credible.’ Dulles, John J. McCloy, and Congressman Gerald R. Ford believed the theory offered the most reasonable explanation: Ford, for one, wanted to describe the evidence as ‘compelling.’ The views of the Chief Justice are unknown. [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter, Norman Redlich and other members of the commission staff unsuccessfully opposed the attempt to straddle this crucial question. They realized only too well, being closer to the evidence and the dilemma it posed, that it was indeed essential for the commission to find that a single bullet had struck both victims if the single assassin conclusion was to be convincing. Finally McCloy suggested a compromise [in wording]—“very persuasive —and this fundamental difference of opinion was fuzzed up in the final language of the Report… The shaky evidence beneath the commission’s findings goes deeper than the hedged and flatly contradictory expert testimony on the single-bullet theory. The very foundation of the commission’s account is built on disputed ground, the autopsy performed on the President, the actual number and location of his wounds.”

Whalen’s conclusion echoes the frustration many Americans felt with the report.

“The mysteries left unresolved in the Warren Report are chiefly the result of the failure to ask obvious questions during the investigation. The single-bullet theory was left in limbo, never completely accepted or rejected, because the commission declined to confront the disturbing possibility that the strong case against Oswald might not be the only explanation. “The critics who allege a cover-up of the ‘true facts’ by the Warren Commission can as easily argue their case on the basis of the appearance of concealment as they can on the ground of actual conspiracy. The commission, all too often, permitted such an appearance to exist unnecessarily. “The autopsy documentation—or the lack of it—can be used to raise suspicions of a gigantic cover-up.

“The evidence against Oswald remains as ‘hard’ as it was when Ruby’s bullet killed him. Every piece of ‘soft’ evidence … tends to support the possibility of a second assassin. Why not, then, face in that direction and weigh every shred of evidence, old or new? The appropriate forum for such an airing of dissenting views might be a special joint committee of Congress, or perhaps a ‘citizens’ panel’ of independent investigators, with unlimited access to official records, to be appointed by the President without concern over how long it sat and when it issued a Report. The alternative is to remain imprisoned by the Warren Report, which was an interim account intended to meet an immediate need.”

It seems a modest, reasonable request. America only wants the truth. Give us the facts. But the facts in this case never seem to come together. Instead of yielding answers, questions only produced more questions. The cliché “Time will tell” doesn’t seem to work in this case. Time isn’t telling. In fact, time is saying less and trying to retract some of its earlier statements.

In 1979 the United House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted a new investigation of Kennedy’s death. It concluded a conspiracy might have existed, but said no more on the matter. Congress began releasing this Committee’s internal files to the public in 1992. Yet no revelations have appeared. We have uncovered new possibilities, but no further certainties.

The explanation the Warren Commission offered is fantastic: A lone gunmen seizes an opportunity to shoot the president, and succeeds, is arrested, but is killed by another lone gunman while in police custody. It hardly inspires faith. Yet the alternative explanations are even more fantastic.

Given the country’s emotional state at the time, the Warren Commission probably could not have succeeded. It was trying to answer the question “Who shot the president?” when the country wanted to know “How could this happen?”

The stubborn denial of the report and the endless spinning of new theories can be attributed to a nagging doubt: How could a government that was incapable of protecting its chief executive from murder at the hands of a solitary maniac ever hope to gather all the important evidence of his death into an explanation the country would believe?

Click here to read “The Kennedy Assassination” by Richard J. Whalen, January 14, 1967 (PDF).

The Unanswerable Question The Saturday Evening Post