SIR WINSTON'S BIRTHDAY

November 30, 2013

SIR WINSTON BORN 149 YEARS AGO

Oxfordshire, England (JFK+50)  Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Prime Minster of Britain during WWII, was born at Blenheim Palace here in Oxfordshire 139 years ago today, November 30, 1874.

Blenheim Palace

User: Pcb21 (2004)

wikipedia.com

Winston was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the American socialite, Jennie Jerome.   Winston's grand father, John Strange Spencer-Churchill, was the 7th Duke of Marlborough.

Winston Churchill, first educated by a governess in Dublin, Ireland,  later     graduated from Royal Military College.In 1904, he married Clementine Hozier.

After a short service in the military, WC was elected to Parliament in 1900 and became the 1st Lord of the Admiralty in 1911.  He served in that capacity again in 1939.

In May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister, serving in that position from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951-1955.

Sir Winston was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.   Known for his great oratory, Mr. Churchill said he wrote every word of his speeches and often spent an hour working on one minute of a speech.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy, whose own hero was Winston Churchill, said:

"In the dark days...when England stood alone...he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."

One of the most quoted Churchillian lines is:

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say "This was their finest hour.'"

Prime Minister Churchill

"V" for Victory Sign

June 5, 1943

Imperial War Museum Photo

THE WARREN COMMISSION

November 29, 2013

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON JFK ASSASSINATION SET UP 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) The President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy was established 50 years ago today, November 29, 1963 just one week after the death of the 35th president.

The commission, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, included the following members...

Chief Justice Earl Warren
Richard Russell, Jr. 
John Sherman Cooper 
Hale Boggs 
Gerald R. Ford
Allen Dulles 
John J. McCloy

The final report included 469 pages with 410 pages of appendices.  It was presented to LBJ on September 24, 1964 and made public 3 days later.

Earl Warren Gives Report to LBJ
                September 24, 1964
       Photo by Cecil Stoughton
             LBJ Library Image

The Warren Report was also accompanied by 26 volumes of supplementary documents.

552 witnesses were called to testify before the Commission.  All were given the opportunity to be interviewed in open session but only one chose to do so.

Witnesses were free to share their testimony with anyone outside the Commission hearings.

The Warren Commission determined that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald and added...

"On the basis of the evidence before the Commission, it is concluded  that Oswald acted alone."

While more than 60% of American's surveyed do not agree with the basic conclusion of the Commission, Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center For Politics at the University of Virginia, says...

"Despite everything, a large part of the Commission's basic conclusion turns out to be true."

Sabato, however, does agree that...

"The investigation...was inadequate, rushed and manipulated..."

More than 98% of the Commission's records have been released and on October 26, 2017 the remainder will be made public. 

As Larry Sabato writes...

"The right time came long ago for complete disclosure.  Transparency cannot bring President Kennedy back but at long last it can help bring America to terms fully with November 22, 1963."


SOURCE

"Is there more to JFK's assassination?," by Larry J. Sabato, November 21, 2013, CNN Opinion, www.cnn.com/

150TH ANNIVERSARY OF BATTLE OF FORT SANDERS

Knoxville (JFK+50) 150 years ago today, November 29, 1863, the Battle of Fort Sanders was fought between Confederate and Union forces here in Knoxville, Tennessee.

This East Tennessee city, a part of the Confederacy, had come into Union control on the 1st day of September.  General Ambrose Burnside had made his headquarters downtown on Gay Street.

In November, CSA General Braxton Bragg had dispatched a force under General James Longstreet to march to north to Knoxville from Chattanooga and attempt to recapture the city.

The main Union defense would be Fort Sanders, namesake of General William Sanders who was killed in the early fighting.

November 29th would actually be the 12th day of the Rebel siege.  Longstreet made the decision that he would launch an assault on the Yankee fort.

Yanks, which included the 79th New York Highlanders and the 36th Massachusetts Volunteers, held their fire until they sighted Rebs at 50 yards.

As the Confederates who survived the gunfire and shelling approached the sides of the fort, they found themselves going down into a ditch 7 feet wide and 7 feet deep "lined with mud, ice and standing water."

To add to their misery, they were at the bottom of a steep wall of dirt that rose as high as 20 feet.

Longstreet, who misjudged the depth of the ditch, had no choice but to call retreat.  After only about 20 minutes of fighting, the Battle of Fort Sanders was over as was the Confederate hope of retaking the city of Knoxville.

SOURCE

"The Battle of Fort Sanders," by Matt Lakin, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, November 24, 2013.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2013

November 27, 28, 2013

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 
                         FROM JFK+50

CAROLINE KENNEDY CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY

Tokyo, Japan (JFK+50) United States Ambassador to Japan and daughter of the 35th President of the United States, Caroline Kennedy, celebrates her birthday today.

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born on November 27, 1957.  She turned 6 years old just 5 days after JFK's death in November 1963.

Caroline was born at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City at 8:15 a.m. and weighed in at 7 pounds 2 ounces.

Caroline graduated from Radcliffe College in 1980 and earned her J.D. degree at Columbia Law School.

Caroline Kennedy married Edwin Scholossberg on July 19, 1986 but she chose not to change her name at marriage.  

The couple have 3 children:  Rose, born 1988,  Tatiana, born 1990, and John. born 1993.

Caroline was appointed Ambassador to Japan on July 24, 2013.  She appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 19 where she said that her focus in the position would be military ties, trade and student exchange.

Ambassador Kennedy was confirmed by the Senate on October 16 and sworn in by Secretary of State John Kerry as the 1st woman to hold the office of United States Ambassador to Japan on November 12, 2013.

Less than 2 weeks after becoming ambassador, Mrs. Kennedy, in her 1st official speech in that position, warned China for undermining security in the East China Sea.  

Caroline and JFK 

August 25, 1963

Photo by Cecil Stoughton

JFK Library Photo

Neil Diamond's hit song, "Sweet Caroline," was inspired by a news photograph of Caroline Kennedy with her pony Macaroni.

"Where it began
I can't begin to knowing
But then I know
it's growing strong.

Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who'd have believed
you'd come along.

Hands, touching hands
Reaching out
Touching me
touching you.

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would...."

Caroline Kennedy

George Washington University

September 26, 2011

Photo by John White

                     

LBJ SIGNS NSAM #273

November 26, 2013

LBJ SIGNED "NSAM #273" 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 50 years ago today, November 26, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed National Security Action Memo #273 at the White House.

The declassified document available on the JFK and LBJ Library websites. includes the following statements...

"It remains the central objective of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and government to win (the war)...

"The objectives of the United States...remains as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963."

The second statement above refers to JFK's NSAM #263 which came as a result of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's and  General Maxwell Taylor's mission and report on the situation in Vietnam.  It was signed on October 2, 1963.

NSAM #263 included this statement...

"The... program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1000 US military personnel assigned to South Vietnam can be withdrawn."

On October 31, 1963, JFK was asked at a news conference if there was "any speedup in the withdrawal...?"

The President responded...

"I think the 1st unit...would be 250 men who are not involved...in...front-line operations.  It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans there by 1000, as the training intensifies and is carried on in South Vietnam."

Since JFK used the phrase "it would be our hope," it can be argued that he may or may not have actually carried through with the reduction in US forces in Vietnam.

In television interviews with Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley in the weeks before he went to Dallas, President Kennedy made it clear that, in his opinion, it would be "a mistake" to withdraw from Vietnam.

Michael Morrissey, however, in his essay 'The Second Biggest Lie,' argues...

"Despite the massive efforts to obscure it, the fact remains...that (LBJ) reversed the withdrawal policy."

Morrissey is of the opinion that this "fact" is rarely seen in historical writings. 

He cites the "rare exception" being Richard Goodwin who he quotes as follows...

"In later years (LBJ) and others in his administration would assert that they were merely fulfilling the commitment (in Vietnam) of previous...presidents.

The claim was untrue.

During the 1st half of 1965 I attended meetings...where the issues of escalation were discussed.  Not once did any participant claim that we had to...send combat troops because of 'previous commitments.'

The claim of continuity was reserved for public justification; intended to conceal the fact that a major policy change was being made."^

^Mr. Morrissey's source is 'Remembering America,' New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

Figures available on the internet indicate that when JFK became president in January 1961 there were 900 American military advisers in South Vietnam and 16,000 when he died in November 1963.

Those figures also show that LBJ had sent 5000 more advisers by July 1964 bringing the total to 21,000.  

On August 2, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred and by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Congress gave LBJ authority to conduct military operations in SE Asia without benefit of a war declaration.

According to the History Channel, the 1st American combat troops were sent to South Vietnam on February 9, 1965 and by the end of the year, there were 184,000 US troops in Vietnam.

As the year 1966 came to a close, that number was up to 385,000.

The buildup continued until by 1968, there were 536,000 Americans in South Vietnam.

               JFK and Bob McNamara
                         June 19, 1962
              Photo by Cecil Stoughton
                    JFK Library Image

SOURCE

"The Second Biggest Lie," by Michael Morrissey, www.govt.eserver.org/


LBJ MET WITH FOREIGN LEADERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 50 years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with foreign leaders at the White House here in the Nation's Capitol.

These leaders had remained in Washington after coming to attend the previous day's funeral services for President John F. Kennedy.

The LBJ Library provides the following list of foreign leaders with whom President Johnson met:

Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
Alec Douglas-Home of Great Britain
Prince Philip of Great Britain
Diosdado Macapaqal of the Philippines
Ismet Inodu of Turkey
Eamon de Valera of Ireland
Anastas Mikoyan of the Soviet Union
Ludwig Erhard of Germany
Heinrich Lubke of Germany

The new president also met with the Latin American delegations.

White House Daily Diary

November 26, 1963

LBJ Library/NARA Document

JFK BURIED AT ARLINGTON

November 25, 2013

JFK BURIED 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 50 years ago today, November 25, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

At 10 a.m., JFK's remains were removed from the Capitol Rotunda by a military honor guard, placed on a horse drawn caisson, and borne to the White House.

The caisson was followed by a sailor bearing the flag of the President of the United States and by a riderless horse* with boots turned backward in the stirrups symbolizing the loss of the Nation's leader.

  "Black Jack" at the Capitol

    November 25, 1963

  Photo by David S. Schwartz

    JFK Library Photo

*The parade horse, named 'Black Jack,' was a 16 year old Army horse who was kept at Ft. Myer, Virginia.  His handler was Pfc. Arthur Carlson of Robertsdale, Alabama.  The horse was named in honor of General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing of WWI fame.

The tradition of the riderless horse dates back to the days of Genghis Khan.

Black Jack was not the only horse in the procession.  The other horses were white and pulled the caisson on which JFK's flag-draped casket was placed.


The procession marched slowly to the beat of muffled drums.

From the White House, the procession made its way to Saint Matthew's Cathedral on Rhode Island Avenue.

Historian Robert Dallek writes...

"A procession from the White House to...St. Matthew's...eight blocks away, consisted of Jackie, Bobby, Ted, President and Mrs. Johnson, principal Kennedy associates, and representatives from ninety-two nations including (Charles) de Gaulle (France) and Anastas Mikoyan (USSR)."

At Noon, a Low Mass was celebrated for the 1st Roman Catholic president of the United States, by the Archbishop of Boston and close Kennedy family friend, Richard Cardinal Cushing.

St. Matthews Cathedral

Washington, D.C.

Photo by John White (2011)

St. Matthews Cathedral

Washington, D.C.

Photo by John White (2011)

           
As the President's flag-draped casket was carried by the honor guard out of the cathedral and put back on the caisson, John F. Kennedy, Jr., dressed in blue, raised his right hand in a soldier's salute in honor of his dad.

"John John," as he was called, was not only witnessing his father's funeral, he was celebrating his own 3rd birthday.

St. Matthews Cathedral

Washington, D.C.

Photo by John White (2011)

The procession continued past the Lincoln Memorial and then crossed the bridge to Arlington.

There, on the hill just below the Custis-Lee Mansion, the body of the 35th President of the United States reached it's final resting place.

Robert Dallek writes...

"Although some members of the (Kennedy) family wished to bury the president in Brookline, Massachusetts, JFK's birthplace, Jackie insisted on Arlington."

Ten thousand mourners had gathered on the hillsides of Arlington awaiting the beginning of the graveside ceremony.

Thomas Maier writes...

"The Irish Guards and...U.S. Marines...performed a military salute, and...Air Force One flew overhead.  Bagpipes wailed...'The Mist Covered the Mountain,' and...a bugler played taps.

The stars and stripes draped over Kennedy's coffin was lifted, tightly folded into a triangle and presented to his widow."

Graveside Service

  November 25, 1963

   Photo by Abbie Rowe

   US Army, NPS Photo

At the conclusion of the solemn graveside service, Jacqueline Kennedy, Bobby and Teddy each took turns in lighting the Eternal Flame which would forever mark the grave.

                The Eternal Flame
        John F. Kennedy Gravesite
      Arlington National Cemetery
             Photo by WKnight94

Scripps-Howard staff writer, Dickson Preston, wrote...

"People lingered in the vicinity of John F. Kennedy's grave...as though they were reluctant to admit the finality of what had happened.  As though, somehow, he would not quite be alone as long as they stayed."

And as millions of people watched the coverage on television, a commentator repeated what was said upon the passing of Abraham Lincoln almost a century before...

"And now he belongs to the ages."

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, poet laureate Archibald McLeish wrote...

"Whatever the assessment of Kennedy in the ultimate historical record, we know now what we have lost.  We have lost not only a young and gallant President, but the new, young voice of our oldest and most dearly won belief:  the belief in the American Proposition, the American Cause, the cause to which all our greatest men have been committed.

In the aching silence Kennedy has left behind him, it is for the hearts and convictions of the young to speak the meaning he made clear at so great a cost."

SOURCES

"An Unfinished Life, John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963," by Robert Dallek, Little Brown and Company, New York, 2003.

"Parade Horse Was 'Black Jack," UPI, Knoxville News-Sentinel, November 26, 1963.

"Some Linger Awhile...Sadly at Graveside," by Dickson Preston, Knoxville News-Sentinel, November 26, 1963.

"The Kennedys:  America's Emerald Kings," by Thomas Maier, Basic Books, New York, 2003.

"The Man's Measure...," by Archibald McLeish, The Daily Pennsylvanian, "Good Night, Brave Spirit, John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963," The Boston Globe, 1964.

"HE'S BEEN SHOT! HE'S BEEN SHOT! LEE OSWALD HAS BEEN SHOT!"

November 24, 2013

ACCUSED ASSASSIN SHOT ON LIVE TV 50 YEARS AGO 

Dallas, Texas (JFK+50) 50 years ago this morning, November 24, 1963, Americans were glued to their television sets watching coverage of the transport of the remains of President John F. Kennedy from the East Room of the White House to the Rotunda of the United States Capitol.

Suddenly, however, coverage switched to Dallas where the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald*, was being transferred by local police from one jail to another.

*Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) was born in New Orleans and served in the Marine Corps from 1956 to 1959.  After his discharge, Oswald traveled to the USSR where he attempted to renounce his US citizenship, married a Russian girl, then returned to the US in 1962.

In New Orleans, Oswald was chairman of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He moved to Dallas in Oct 1963 where he was employed at the Texas School Book Depository.

At 11:21 a.m. local time, stunned television viewers saw Oswald being led out into the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters sandwiched between two detectives, Jim Leavelle and Charles Brown, when suddenly a man stepped out from the crowd and fired one shot at point blank range.

Lee Oswald cried out in agony: "Ohhhhhhhhhhh......" and fell to the floor still handcuffed to detective Jim Leavelle**.

**Jim Leavelle, born in 1920 in Red River, Texas, served in the US Navy in WWII.  He was at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941.  Jim retired from the DPD in 1975.

    The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald
                   November 24, 1963
               Photo by Jack Beers, Jr.
                 Dallas Morning News

Dallas reporter Bob Huffaker shouted into his microphone...

"He's been shot!  He's been shot!  Lee Harold Oswald has been shot!"***

***Huffaker had checked with one of the police authorities earlier who had told him the name of the accused assassin was Lee Harold Oswald.  Bob asked where he got that information, the man said from the arrest record.  So Bob used that incorrect middle name.

The shooter, identified as Jack Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby****, was subdued and Oswald was carried back inside the police station.

Jack Ruby

****Jack Ruby (1911-1967) was born in Chicago.  He served in the US Army Air Force in WWII and in 1947 moved to Dallas where he managed several nightclubs.  Ruby was found guilty of the murder of LHO but was granted a new trial upon appeal.  He died at Parkland Hospital of complications of lung cancer before the 2nd trial could be held.

Some of the policemen immediately recognized Ruby as he was the owner of a local club called "The Carousel".  

Robert Groden writes...

"Ruby grew up around some of the most infamous mob figures in history."

Groden's list includes Al Capone, Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik.  

Groden contends that Jack's connection with the Mob did not end when he moved from Chicago to Dallas in 1947. 

He also says that Jack Ruby was "personally  acquainted" with many people in the Dallas Police Department.^

^Source:  "The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald," by Robert J. Groden, Penguin Studio Books, New York, 1995.

Oswald was quickly placed on a stretcher, put into the back of an ambulance and rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was taken to emergency surgery in critical condition.

The alleged assassin, who arrived at Parkland, according to Dr. Charles Crenshaw, with "no blood pressure (and) no pulse," was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. (CST).

Unlike the murder of President Kennedy, there is no doubt whatsoever that Jack Ruby was the lone assassin of Lee Oswald, but the question asked at the time and 50 years later is why?

The answer supplied by Tom Howard, one of Ruby's attorneys, was that he did not want Jacqueline Kennedy to have to return to Dallas for Oswald's trial.

Many in 1963 did not "buy" that answer as many do not "buy" it today.

In a Knoxville News-Sentinel editorial dated November 25, 1963, it was written...

"The case (of Lee Harvey Oswald) is not closed to the satisfaction of American public opinion, nor of world opinion.  And now, perhaps, it can never be closed."

Being such a devoted fan of JFK, I certainly don't buy the description of Ruby as having also been a fan of JFK who was distraught over the death of his hero.  

Jack Ruby said he was placing an advertisement at the Dallas Morning News as the President's motorcade was outside traveling down Main Street.

I can assure you any true fan of JFK who had any chance to see the President in the flesh would never have passed up that opportunity.

THE WORLD MOURNS THE LOSS OF JFK

November 23, 2013

THE NATION AND THE WORLD MOURNS THE LOSS OF JFK

London, England (JFK+50) Fifty years ago today, November 23, 1963, the shock of the news of the death of President John F. Kennedy had spread across the world.

Thurston Clarke writes that an Englishman told his American friend...

"There has never been anything like it here since...the news of Nelson's death reached London, and men cried in the streets."

Big Ben tolled every sixty seconds for sixty minutes.  British teenagers, just as those in America and in other nations, were "crying in the street."

Meanwhile in Berlin, where JFK had said "Ich Bien Ein Berliner" earlier in June, a torchlight procession moved slowly toward the square where he had spoken.

In Paris, where JFK and Jackie made a triumphal state visit in 1961, an official said...

"Never, perhaps, has the death of a foreign chief of state so profoundly moved every Frenchman and every Parisian."

Back at the White House, while an honor guard stood watch in the East Room, "every guest bedroom," according to James Swanson, "was occupied by Kennedy family members or close friends."

Swanson tells us that one of those guests,  Charles Bartlett, wrote the following words on White House stationery...

"We had a hero for a friend--and we mourn his loss.  Anyone...who knew him...felt that a bright and quickening impulse had come into his life.  He had uncommon courage, unfailing humor, a penetrating, ever curious intelligence, and over all a matchless grace.

He was our best.  He will not be replaced, nor will he be forgotten...

"He will be remembered...as the years pass and the story is retold, with a little wonder."

In 1986 when we visited with Dave Powers at the JFK Library in Boston, he gave us a beautiful color illustration of President Kennedy.  The caption read...

"We all felt we knew him..."

Dave, the long time curator at the library, once said...

"The museum's goal is to capture the President's spirit and his grace.  You just wonder how different the world might be if he were here."

"Grace" is a term that many who knew JFK well used to describe him.  Newsman and close friend Benjamin Bradlee wrote in the days after the assassination...

"History will best judge John F. Kennedy in calmer days...and surely, history will judge him well--for his wisdom, and his compassion and his grace."

On the 10th anniversary of JFK's death, Robert James Maddox wrote...

"Some politicians get elected by playing upon a society's fears and prejudices, others by appealing to its strengths and hopes.

Kennedy called upon the best the United States had to offer.

As a former aide put it...

'people will remember (that) he stood for excellence in an era of indifference--for hope in an era of doubt--for public service ahead of private interests--(and) for reconciliation.  He had confidence in man and gave men confidence in the future.'"

On the 25th anniversary of JFK's death, The Disney Channel Magazine described President Kennedy this way...

"Witty, ebullient, energetic, he personified a new generation...that envisioned American ideals and American energy not only revitalizing the nation, but transforming the world."

Perhaps that is why a half century after his assassination, his loss is still felt so deeply in the United States and around the world.

As President Kennedy said in a State of the Union address...

"The hopes of all mankind rest upon us--not simply upon those of us in this chamber, but upon the peasant in Laos, the fisherman in Nigeria, the exile from Cuba, the spirit that moves every man and nation who share our hopes for freedom and the future."


SOURCES

"End of Days:  The Assassination of John F. Kennedy," by James Swanson, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2013.

"He Had That Special Grace," by Benjamin Bradlee, Newsweek Magazine, December 2, 1963.

"JFK:  How Good a President Was He?," by Lance Morrow, Time Magazine, November 14, 1983.

"JFK's Last Hundred Days:  The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President," by Thurston Clarke, Penguin Books, New York, 2013.

"Kennedy as President:  A 10-Year Perspective," by Robert James Maddox, American History Illustrated, November 1973.

"The Legacy of John F. Kennedy,"  The Disney Channel Magazine, October-November, 1988.


PRESIDENT KENNEDY RETURNS TO WHITE HOUSE FOR THE LAST TIME

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty years ago this morning, November 23, 1963, the body of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, arrived at the White House. 

The flag-draped coffin, borne by an honor guard representing the major branches of the military, was placed in the East Room where President Abraham Lincoln's coffin rested almost a century before.

Following the First Lady's request, the East Room was decorated in black crepe and her husband's coffin was put on the same catafalque used for Lincoln in 1865.

At 10 o'clock Washington time, a private mass was held for the President's family and close friends at the White House.

JFK's remains were scheduled to lie in state at the White House all through the day and night and transferred by caisson to the United States Capitol on Sunday morning, November 24 to lie in state in the Rotunda.

The day of burial was set for Monday, November 25 which President Lyndon B. Johnson declared to be a day of national mourning.

Source: www.fiftiesweb.com

                          JFK's Casket 
                     The White House
                          East Room
          Photo by Cecil Stoughton
                       Nov 23, 1963