he never knew what hit him," said Dr. Tom Shires, Parkland's chief of surgery. Father Huber, after administering the last rites to the president, told The New York Times that the president was already dead upon the priest's arrival at the hospital. Huber had needed to temporarily remove a sheet covering Kennedy's face so that the last rites could be performed. Governor Connally was soon taken to emergency surgery, where he underwent two operations that day. After receiving word of the president's death, acting White House press secretary Malcolm Kilduff entered the hospital room where new president Johnson and his wife were sitting. Kilduff approached them and said, "Mr. President, I have to announce the death of President Kennedy. Is it OK with you that the announcement be made now?" Johnson ordered that the announcement be made only after he left the hospital. When asking that the announcement be delayed, Johnson told Kilduff: "I think I had better get out of here.. .before you announce it. We don't know whether this is a worldwide conspiracy, whether they are after me as well as they were after President Kennedy, or whether they are after Speaker [John W.]McCormack or Senator [Carl] Hayden. We just don't know." He later recounted to Merle Miller: "I asked that the announcement be made after we had left the room...so that if it were an international conspiracy and they were out to destroy our form of government and the leaders in that government, that we would minimize the opportunity for doing so." At 1:33 p.m. CST, Kilduff entered a nurses' classroom at the hospital filled with press reporters and delivered the official announcement: Shortly after 2:00 p.m. CST, Kennedy's body was removed from Parkland Hospital and driven to Air Force One at Love Field. The removal occurred after an angry confrontation between Kennedy's special assistant Ken O'Donnell (backed by Kennedy's Secret Service agents) and doctors including medical examiner Earl Rose, along with a justice of the peace. The removal of President Kennedy's body may have been illegal according to Texas state law because it occurred before a forensic examination could be performed by the Dallas coroner. Breaking the news Locally in Dallas In Dallas, The Rex Jones Show on music station KLIF was interrupted by the first news bulletin at approximately 12:38 p.m. CST. A "bulletin alert" sounder faded in during the song "I Have a Boyfriend"