in "the President's back", in Swindal's mind, who is the "President?" JFK or Johnson? Swindal had gathered that there was an emergency of some sort, but he could only speculate. Remembering the Adlai Stevenson incident, he had guessed there had been a riot. After McHugh called from Parkland and told him their next leg would take them to Andrews Field he had hazarded that the strain of the trip had been too much for the President's back, that they were going to take him back to Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital for treatment. Because of the Charlie blackout, and because the Signalmen who could operate the more complex equipment were all in the terminal restaurant (no one aboard remembered the UPI and AP teletype machines), Swindal had turned to the stateroom television set.