Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, has respectfully acknowledged each U.S. president since Harry Truman. Yet, there is one handshake that stands apart over the others.
On a drizzly fall morning in Post Worth, a 14-year-old Williams and his mom were accompanied by Secret Help individuals from the assembly hall to a holding room inside the Lodging Texas. First woman Jacqueline Kennedy entered first, welcomed them and stood right close to him. Minutes after the fact, President John F. Kennedy came around the bend, enjoyed a drag from his stogie, then put it out.
Williams was shocked by Kennedy’s ruddy hair, which remained invisible on highly contrasting TV, and he needed to get a decent gander at the president’s shoes: dark cap-toe dress shoes.
The president shook his mom’s hand, then, at that point, shook Williams’ hand. Kennedy didn’t quickly give up, turned around to Williams’ mom and told her: “You have a gorgeous young fellow here.”
Around two hours after the fact, Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
The date was Nov. 22, 1963. There are no photos of his experience with the president precisely quite a while back however for Williams, presently 73, everything about that day is scratched in his memory. The six-term representative imparted a portion of those recollections to NBC News in a meeting in his office in the Legislative center.
So how did the youthful Williams come to stand eye to eye with the leader of the US?
Williams’ dad, who possessed Jack Williams Chevrolet in Post Worth, was all around associated around. He was close companions with the representative who addressed the region, Liberal Jim Wright, who after discovering that Kennedy would make a visit to their city had inquired as to whether he would supply a vehicles for the motorcade to take the president from Carswell Flying corps Base to the Inn Texas and back.
The senior Williams concurred yet had a solicitation: Might his significant other and child at some point meet the president? Totally, Wright, the future speaker of the U.S. Place of Delegates, told Williams’ dad.
“The news spread in Post Worth the president’s coming,” Williams reviewed. “Everyone was eager to such an extent that he would have been coming here, particularly to Stronghold Worth, since Post Worth had consistently played secondary lounge to Dallas.”
‘Be a pioneer’
On the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, Williams and his mom showed up at the lodging to see Kennedy’s discourse at the Stronghold Worth Office of Trade breakfast. Williams’ dad, a previous football player, had shown up hours sooner to assist with giving security in line with his dear companion, I.B. Robust, a previous FBI specialist and the head of safety at aviation organization Convair’s Post Worth manufacturing plant.
Hearing Kennedy inside the dance hall prior to shaking the president’s hand sowed a seed. All the youthful Williams thought often about in those days was baseball, however as he paid attention to the 46-year-old Kennedy, characterizing America as “the cornerstone in the curve of opportunity,” he was propelled and contemplated internally he, as well, could “be a pioneer.”
“He didn’t appear to be that a lot more established than me. Also, I pondered internally, as one individual, I can perhaps do what he’s doing,” the moderate representative said of the Vote based president. “He contacted individuals and youngsters connected with him.”
Sometime thereafter, at Arlington Levels Secondary School, the chief entered Williams’ Latin class and murmured into the ear of his educator, Mr. Henning, who put his head down right in front of him and started to sob.
“I was in a daze,” Williams said of that second he learned Kennedy had been killed. “I was attempting to process … and afterward I see Lee Harvey Oswald have chance and killed. Furthermore, it started to make the world night and day different … a complete loss of honesty.”
It turns out Oswald, the essential suspect, had momentarily gone to Arlington Levels years sooner. At the point when they carried Oswald’s body to Stronghold Worth, where his mom resided, Williams and a companion drove down to Mill operator Memorial service Home and looked in the window to check whether they could see Oswald’s coffin. They were fruitless.
“So that all occurred in a time of around 48 hours. The world changed,” Williams said.
14 presidents
Shockingly, Kennedy wasn’t the main president Williams had met. At a Kansas City A’s down in 1955, Williams said he warmly greeted previous President Harry Truman, who was close by to toss out the primary pitch. He met President Dwight Eisenhower years after the fact at a similar scene, Civil Arena.
Williams said he met individual Texan Lyndon Johnson, who filled in as Senate greater part pioneer and VP prior to becoming president, on a few events, incorporating once in his father’s office.
A star baseball player for Texas Christian College, Williams would be drafted by the Atlanta Overcomes association in 1971. At spring preparing in West Palm Ocean side, Florida, the following year, President Richard Nixon got through the clubhouse in order to get his image with Hank Aaron, who was pursuing Angel Ruth’s grand slam record. Williams met Nixon there.
“He let us know the main work he would prefer to have than being leader of the US was being magistrate of baseball,” Williams said.
Inquired as to whether he truly played baseball with Aaron, Williams answered: “That is an entire ‘nother story.”
Williams played golf with previous President Gerald Passage in Sun Valley, Idaho, at a golf competition coordinated by baseball Lobby of Famer Harmon Killebrew to fund-raise to battle leukemia. Portage “completely hit it sideways,” Williams said.
While running shirtless on the TCU grounds, Williams said he arbitrarily ran into President Jimmy Carter on the means of the school’s sanctuary and shook hands. He met Ronald Reagan during a mission stop in Post Worth during the California lead representative’s second fruitless bid for president, in 1976. Williams’ dad gave Reagan a jackalope taxidermy, which was subsequently shown at Reagan’s farm.
Through Texas political circles, Williams came to know both George H.W. Shrub and his child George W. Shrub. The Williams family invested energy with the Shrubs at their late spring compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, and he flew on Flying corps One with W.
Years subsequent to assuming control over his dad’s car showroom, Williams said he met President Bill Clinton during a private venture occasion in midtown Stronghold Worth; today, Williams is director of the House Independent venture Board.
Soon after he was chosen for Congress, Williams met President Barack Obama during a 2013 gathering with House conservatives in the cellar of the Legislative center. He’s taken various photographs with President Donald Trump, some of which are shown in his office. What’s more, he met President Joe Biden when the leftist visited the GOP burrow during the 2021 Legislative Ball game at Nationals Park.
Williams is the GOP group director. He endure one more politically roused firing, in 2017, when a shooter started shooting at conservative legislators and staff members during their morning baseball training in Alexandria, Virginia.
“I’ve respectfully acknowledged each president since Harry Truman,” Williams said, “and individuals will let you know there’s relatively few individuals out there that can say that.”