The Kennedy Half-Century (87 page)

1963. President Kennedy’s nonchalance and fashion sense transformed him into a cultural icon. Here the commander in chief jokes with two military officers on the aircraft carrier USS
Oriskany
during a naval exercise off San Diego on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1963.

1963. An emotional high point for the president was his visit to the land of his ancestors, Ireland, in June 1963. Enormous crowds followed him everywhere, but in this intimate setting, JFK has tea with distant relatives, the Ryan family of Duganstown.

1963. President Kennedy’s motorcade was actually at a halt leaving the Quirinal Palace, home of Italy’s president in Rome. JFK would have been an easy target for any sniper in this circumstance. Two Secret Service agents are riding on the back of the limousine, in position to protect the president quickly if needed. In Dallas, no agents rode on the back of the car.

1963. President Kennedy met Pope Paul VI in Vatican City on July 2, 1963. The pope had been in office for less than two weeks, having just succeeded the late pope John XXIII. Because of continuing sensitivity about Protestant claims of excessive papal influence on the Catholic Kennedy, the president did not kiss the pope’s ring, as is customary. This did not sit well with some in the papal circle, but it was a reasonable precaution with the reelection campaign pending in 1964.

1963. President Kennedy took a gamble in pledging that Americans would beat the Russians and land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, but his space program inspired the nation—and achieved its goal. In his last week, on November 16, 1963, the president flew to Cape Canaveral, Florida (soon to be renamed Cape Kennedy), to be briefed concerning the plans to build the giant Saturn rocket that would eventually power the astronauts to the Moon.

1963. President Kennedy’s last speech, delivered outside the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963. Right to left behind JFK are Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Governor John Connally, who would be badly wounded in the presidential car. To Connally’s right is U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas), whose political feud with LBJ and Connally—and the need to calm it—was one of the motivations behind JFK’s Texas trip.

1963. This Western Union telegram, sent at 6:18 pm on November 21, 1963, sent President Kennedy’s congratulations to actor Danny Kaye for his work with UNICEF. It is one of the last written messages from JFK before he was assassinated the next day.

1963. Telegram to Danny Kaye (page 2).

1963. Lee Harvey Oswald had long been a troubled individual, perpetually dissatisfied with his lot in life but incapable of changing it. In this famous photo taken by his wife, Oswald posed with a revolver, rifle, and two left wing magazines on March 31, 1963. Over the years, some critics have charged that the photo was doctored, but a congressional committee validated its authenticity in the late 1970s.

1963. This person was photographed coming in and out of the Soviet Embassy at about the same time as Oswald’s September 1963 trip to Mexico City. Some claim he was an agent of the eventual assassins, sent to impersonate Oswald. Others say he was a KGB scientist named Yuriy Moskalev. He has never been conclusively identified.

1963. The Kennedys arrive in Dallas at Love Field, late in the morning on November 22, 1963. “You can see the president’s suntan from here,” said an on-air local TV newsman.