PALM BEACH — In December, 1960, John F. Kennedy, the president-elect, was in his family's compound on North Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, working on his cabinet appointments and what would be his landmark “New Frontier” inauguration speech. Around 10am on December 11 Kennedy and his wife Jackie left the compound to go to Mass at a nearby church.
As the Kennedy limousine turned into North Ocean Boulevard it passed a parked 1950 Buick. At that moment Kennedy came within a hair's breadth of assassination. The Buick was a car bomb. In the driver's seat was 73-year-old Richard Paul Pavlick, a retired postal worker. Pavlick had seven sticks of dynamite in the car wired up to a detonator in his lap. His idea was to ram the Kennedy limousine and blow himself and the president-elect into oblivion.
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