When JFK died, the CIA sent Johnson his favorite poem as a tribute (and a warning)

Every morning, presidents wake up to what is known as the President’s Daily Brief — a rundown of CIA intelligence from across the globe, detailing the current standing of geopolitical situations that the Commander in Chief should be privy to.

These first of these memos was issued under President John F. Kennedy, on June 17, 1961. On the morning of his assassination on November 22, 1963, he received intelligence detailing how a Japanese election the day before “did not change the general balance between conservatives and socialists,” and another note about a planned student trip to Cuba, to name a few items.

Later in the day, though, after Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed the President, the CIA issued a second Daily Brief.

It contained a few mere sentences:

This tribute was compiled and sent out by an unnamed CIA employee. The communication was declassified by the CIA this week, along with over 19,000 other documents from the 1960s. Kennedy was known to keep a copy of the lines in his wallet at all times.

The four lines, written by Spanish bullfighter Domingo Ortega, and translated by Robert Graves, are haunting and tangled in complexity.

Stepping into his new role as President, it would have been the first CIA briefing Lyndon B. Johnson received. A wake-up call if there ever was one.

Inside the ring, the bullfighter must focus. There, the words of critics can’t reach him. He is the center of attention, of all speculation. But he is alone.

He is always alone.