At its best

Do I spy Robert McNamara in the background?

Young Senator Kennedy in color.

Taken in 1954, a year after her wedding to Senator John F. Kennedy. She’s pictured here before going to class at Georgetown University for a LIFE Magazine article updating America on the newlyweds domestic life.

explosiveconscience:

John F. Kennedy

Commuters reading of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The body of President Kennedy was returned to the White House at nearly 4:30 a.m., Saturday, November 23. The motorcade bearing the remains was met at the White House gate by a Marine honor guard, which escorted it to the North Portico, where it was borne to the East Room. After being placed in the East Room, Jacqueline Kennedy ordered the casket open to inspect the embalmer’s work, and after seeing the embalmed image, she declared that the casket would be kept closed for the duration of the viewing and funeral. Mrs. Kennedy, still wearing the blood-stained raspberry-colored suit she wore in Dallas, had to that point refused to leave the side of her husband’s body since his death, the only exceptions being during his autopsy and the swearing-in of President Johnson. Only after the casket was placed in the East Room, now decorated with black crepe, did she retire to her private quarters. She requested that two Catholic priests remain with the body until the official funeral. A call was made to the Catholic University of America and Msgr. Robert Paul Mohan and Fr. Gilbert Hartke, two prominent Washington, D.C. priests were immediately dispatched for the task.

A private Mass was said in the East Room at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 23. After that, other family members, friends, and other government officials came at specified times to pay their respects, including former U.S. Presidents Eisenhower and Truman (The other surviving former U.S. president at the time, Herbert Hoover, was too ill to attend; Hoover died 11 months afterward).

Kennedy’s casket remained in the East Room for 24 hours, as he lay in repose; (then, the term “lying in repose” meant private, as opposed to a public lying in state). Kennedy lay where, nearly one hundred years earlier, Lincoln was lain in the White House after his own assassination. Jacqueline, being well educated in American history as she was, had done this on purpose. An honor guard stood vigil over his remains. The catafalque upon which the remains rested was the same one used in 1958 during the funerals of the Unknown Soldiers from the Korean War and World War II at Arlington

kennedys:

Leaving Parkland Hospital after the death of the President, Attorney General and brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy right behind her. Several times Jackie was offered a washcloth and a change of clothes, but she said, “No. Let them see what they’ve done to Jack.”

John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963)

kennedys:

An equally disturbed Attorney General and brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy escorts Mrs. Kennedy off of the plane and into history - the remnanets of the dream-like post-war era of Camelot halts to an end.

November 22nd, 1963.

Robert Croft took this up-close picture of the President and First Lady after the limousine had made its fatal turn onto Elm Street. Jackie Kennedy, probably to the photographer’s immense delight, happened to be looking directly at Mr. Croft when he clicked the shutter on his camera.

This photo was snapped by Croft at the equivalent of approximately Frame #161 of Abraham Zapruder’s home movie, which was almost exactly the same time that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the first of his three gunshots from the Texas School Book Depository Building (the first of which missed the car and its occupants completely).