JFK PLANNED TO BE FIRST POTUS TO VISIT AUSTRALIA & NZ
Sydney (JFK+50) News Corporation Australia* reported in 2013 that President John F. Kennedy planned a visit to Australia and New Zealand for October 1963 but the dates for the trip had to be rescheduled for a later time.
JFK met with Sir Howard Beale, Australian ambassador to the U.S., and arranged for a visit by Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies in July 1963. President Kennedy's visit to Australia & New Zealand was to come later. It would be part of a Far Eastern tour which would also include Japan.
The tour never materialized because of the events in Dallas, Texas in late November 1963. President Lyndon B. Johnson, however, visited Australia and New Zealand in October 1966. Two of the Secret Service agents who had been in Dallas, Clint Hill and Rufus Youngblood, were part of LBJ's protection Down Under.
*News Corporation Australia was founded in Adelaide in 1923. Today it is headquartered in Sydney & owns 142 newspapers on the continent.
SOURCE
"President John F Kennedy planned to visit Australia prior to his death in 1963," News Corporation Australia Network, November 7, 2013, www.news.com.au/
JFK+50 NOTE
We wish a Happy Australia Day to all our visitors and relatives in Australia. My mother, Mavis Green White, was born in Sydney in 1925 & came to the U.S.in 1946 to marry my father, Roy G. White.
John & Jennifer White
Katoomba, NSW Australia
July 11, 2010
