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).
