Monday, January 24, 2011

JFK'S BODY ARRIVES AT THE WHITE HOUSE

November 23, 1963


4:30 a.m. EST
The White House

The ambulance bearing the body of the 35th President enters the NW Gate.  A squad of Marines moves ahead in slow cadence.




                         The White House
                            North Portico
                          Washington, D.C.
             Photo by John White (2003)

The casket is removed from the rear of the ambulance & carried inside the walls of the mansion where JFK has lived for the past 1039 days.

The flag-draped casket is carried across the marble entrance hall to the East Room where it is placed on a catafalque.

Mrs. Kennedy, on advice from others & her own intuition, will decide that the casket should remain closed to the public.  

Later she will say:

"It wasn't Jack.  It was like something you would see at Madame Tussaud's."*

*From The Death of a President, William Manchester (1967).


 


 

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