Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb__ A Tour of Presidential Gravesites - Brian Lamb [63]
Kennedy held that office for just over a thousand days. His administration increased the military advisors in Southeast Asia and faced off with Communist regimes in Cuba, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. At home, Kennedy began work on a legislative program addressing civil rights.
On November 21, 1963, Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson traveled to Texas on a political salvage mission. After stops in San Antonio and Houston, the party flew to Dallas, where the president was to speak at the Trade Mart. His motorcade made its way from Love Field through downtown Dallas. As it passed the Texas School Book Depository, shots rang out.
An eternal flame burns above the simple plaque bearing John F. Kennedy’s dates of birth and death
The president was struck twice: once in the neck and once in the back of the head. Texas Governor John Connally, riding in front of Kennedy, was also wounded. The car carrying the two wounded men was quickly diverted to Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Efforts to save the president were futile. John F. Kennedy, age forty-six, was pronounced dead at 2:00 p.m. Jacqueline Kennedy, her pink suit stained with her husband’s blood, placed her wedding band on his finger. In the waiting area, attention shifted to the new president, Lyndon Johnson.
A few hours later, Johnson was sworn in by Judge Sarah Hughes aboard Air Force One with John Kennedy’s coffin in the back of the plane. That afternoon, not far from the Book Depository, Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit was shot and killed when he approached a suspect near the assassination scene. The suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was captured thirty minutes later.
In Washington, the White House staff acted swiftly. They consulted history books hoping to recreate the majesty of Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 state funeral. Kennedy’s young widow directed much of the operation. The East Room was bordered in black crepe and decorated with leaves taken from Andrew Jackson’s magnolia trees on the South Lawn.
On Sunday, November 24, as Oswald was being transferred from the Dallas city prison to the county jail, Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner, shot the alleged assassin in the abdomen. NBC beamed live images of the shooting to millions of Americans. Oswald died ninety minutes later. The slain president’s family, accompanying JFK’s coffin from the White House to the Capitol, was unaware of the latest turn of events.
Waiting in a line that stretched for more than three miles, 250,000 people passed by Kennedy’s flag-draped coffin lying in state in the Capitol rotunda. A military guard stood watch over the catafalque, a red, white, and blue wreath from President Johnson resting at its base. Monday morning, nine men from the five armed services carried the casket down the Capitol steps. A military band played “Hail to the Chief,” the navy hymn, and Chopin’s funeral march as the caisson made its way to the Executive Mansion, where the family, along with hundreds of dignitaries, began a procession to the funeral.
More than a thousand invited guests were packed into St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Richard Cardinal Cushing, who had officiated at Kennedy’s wedding, performed the requiem mass. Bishop Philip Hannan read scriptural passages and portions of Kennedy’s inaugural address.
After the service, the caisson began its journey to Arlington National Cemetery, to a site selected by Mrs. Kennedy overlooking the city. “Black Jack,” a riderless horse with boots reversed in its stirrups in honor of a fallen leader, followed behind. John F. Kennedy, Jr., celebrating his third birthday that morning, saluted his father’s passing casket. At a graveside service, fifty jets, followed by Air Force One, flew overhead. The widow joined brothers-in-law Robert and Edward Kennedy in lighting the grave’s eternal flame.
Jacqueline Kennedy became the first president’s widow to receive a staff and Secret Service protection. She was buried alongside her husband