The Man Who Dug JFK's Grave
Jimmy Breslin
November 15, 2003, 7:55 PM EST
Newsday's Jimmy Breslin wrote the following article for the New York Herald Tribune in November 1963.
Washington -- Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m.,
in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast.
His wife, Hettie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone
call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National
Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. "Polly, could you please be here by eleven o'clock this
morning?" Kawalchik asked. "I guess you know what it's for." Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast,
and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
When Pollard got to the row of yellow wooden garages where the cemetery equipment is stored, Kawalchik and John Metzler, the cemetery
superintendent, were waiting for him. "Sorry to pull you out like this on a Sunday," Metzler said. "Oh, don't say that," Pollard said. "Why, it's an
honor for me to be here." Pollard got behind the wheel of a machine called a reverse hoe. Gravedigging is not done with men and shovels at
Arlington. The reverse hoe is a green machine with a yellow bucket that scoops the earth toward the operator, not away from it as a crane does. At
the bottom of the hill in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Pollard started the digging.
Leaves covered the grass. When the yellow teeth of the reverse hoe first bit into the ground, the leaves made a threshing sound which could be
heard above the motor of the machine. When the bucket came up with its first scoop of dirt, Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, walked over and
looked at it. "That's nice soil," Metzler said. "I'd like to save a little of it," Pollard said. "The machine made some tracks in the grass over here and
I'd like to sort of fill them in and get some good grass growing there, I'd like to have everything, you know, nice."
James Winners, another gravedigger, nodded. He said he would fill a couple of carts with this extra-good soil and take it back to the garage and
grow good turf on it. "He was a good man," Pollard said. "Yes, he was," Metzler said. "Now they're going to come and put him right here in this
grave I'm making up," Pollard said. "You know, it's an honor just for me to do this."
Pollard is 42. He is a slim man with a mustache who was born in Pittsburgh and served as a private in the 352nd Engineers battalion in Burma in
World War II. He is an equipment operator, grade 10, which means he gets $3.01 an hour. One of the last to serve John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who
was the thirty-fifth President of this country, was a working man who earns $3.01 an hour and said it was an honor to dig the grave.
Yesterday morning, at 11:15, Jacqueline Kennedy started toward the grave. She came out from under the north portico of the White House and
slowly followed the body of her husband, which was in a flag-covered coffin that was strapped with two black leather belts to a black caisson that
had polished brass axles. She walked straight and her head was high. She walked down the bluestone and blacktop driveway and through shadows
thrown by the branches of seven leafless oak trees. She walked slowly past the sailors who held up flags of the states of this country. She walked
past silent people who strained to see her and then, seeing her, dropped their heads and put their hands over their eyes. She walked out the
northwest gate and into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. She walked with tight steps and her head was high and she followed the body of her
murdered husband through the streets of Washington.
Everybody watched her while she walked. She is the mother of two fatherless children and she was walking into the history of this country because
she was showing everybody who felt old and helpless and without hope that she had this terrible strength that everybody needed so badly. Even
though they had killed her husband and his blood ran onto her lap while he died, she could walk through the streets and to his grave and help us all
while she walked.
There was mass, and then the procession to Arlington. When she came up to the grave at the cemetery, the casket already was in place. It was set
between brass railings and it was ready to be lowered into the ground. This must be the worst time of all, when a woman sees the coffin with her
husband inside and it is in place to be buried under the earth. Now she knows that it is forever. Now there is nothing. There is no casket to kiss or
hold with your hands. Nothing material to cling to. But she walked up to the burial area and stood in front of a row of six green-covered chairs and
she started to sit down, but then she got up quickly and stood straight because she was not going to sit down until the man directing the funeral told
her what seat he wanted her to take.
The ceremonies began, with jet planes roaring overhead and leaves falling from the sky. On this hill behind the coffin, people prayed aloud. They
were cameramen and writers and soldiers and Secret Service men and they were saying prayers out loud and choking. In front of the grave,
Lyndon Johnson kept his head turned to his right. He is president and he had to remain composed. It was better that he did not look at the casket
and grave of John Fitzgerald Kennedy too often. Then it was over and black limousines rushed under the cemetery trees and out onto the boulevard
toward the White House. "What time is it?" a man standing on the hill was asked. He looked at his watch. "Twenty minutes past three," he said.
Clifton Pollard wasn't at the funeral. He was over behind the hill, digging graves for $3.01 an hour in another section of the cemetery. He didn't
know who the graves were for. He was just digging them and then covering them with boards. "They'll be used," he said. "We just don't know
when. I tried to go over to see the grave," he said. "But it was so crowded a soldier told me I couldn't get through. So I just stayed here and
worked, sir. But I'll get over there later a little bit. Just sort of look around and see how it is, you know. Like I told you, it's an honor."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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