Russell A. Rourke counselor John O. Marsh. In 1976, he became a special assistant to President Gerald R. Ford. His responsibilities included legislative liaison between the White House and Congress. After President Ford lost his bid for re-election in 1977, Rourke serve on the White House Transition Team. At the close of the Ford Administration, Rourke accepted a position as administrative assistant to Republican Congressman Harold S. Sawyer of Michigan. In May 1981, President Reagan nominated Rourke as assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the Department of Defense. In that capacity, Rourke was the principal adviser to Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger
The Death of a President the trip to Dallas, through the flight and trip to Texas, the motorcade, the assassination, the hospital, the plane trip back to Washington, and the funeral. The friction between the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson factions, the worldwide reaction, and Lee Harvey Oswald's unplanned televised execution by Jack Ruby are all discussed in painstaking detail. In early 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy commissioned Manchester to produce an account of the assassination. She and the Kennedy family wanted a definitive telling of the events to preempt other books, including Jim Bishop's forthcoming "The Day Kennedy Was Shot". Kennedy was familiar with Manchester's work