“Kennedy’s Assassination” by Eric Sevareid
John F. Kennedy was shot to death by an assassin on November 22, 1963, as he rode through the streets
of Dallas, Texas. His death continued the unhappy coincidence that, since William H. Harrison, every
American president elected in a year ending in “0” had died while in office. These presidents and the
years of election were Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James A. Garfield (1880), William
McKinley (1900), Warren G. Harding (1920), and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940). Only one president
elected in a year ending in “0” has not died in office. That president was Ronald Reagan, who was
elected in 1980. Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson, the first Southerner to become president
since Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.
The new president. Television and radio flashed the news of the shooting to a shocked world. Vice
President Johnson raced to the hospital and remained until Kennedy died. Then, he went to the airport
where the presidential plane waited. Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin holding her husband’s body arrived
later. At 2:39 P.M., U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of office to Johnson, who
became the 36th president of the United States. As Johnson took the oath in the airplane, he was flanked
by his wife and by Mrs. Kennedy.
Then the plane carrying the new chief executive and his wife, the body of the president, and the
late president’s widow returned to Washington. When the plane arrived, Johnson told the nation: “This is
a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed….”
The world mourns. The sudden death of the young and vigorous American president shocked
the world. Kennedy’s body was brought back to the White House and placed in the East room for 24
hours. On the Sunday after the assassination, the president’s flagdraped coffin was carried to the Capitol
Rotunda to lie in state. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands of people filed past the
guarded casket. Representatives from over 90 countries attended the funeral on November 25.
Kennedy was buried with full military honors at the Arlington National Cemetery across the
Potomac River from Washington D.C. At the close of the funeral service, Mrs. Kennedy lighted an
“eternal flame” to burn over the president’s grave. In one of his first acts, President Johnson named the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration installation in Florida the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
Other public buildings and geographical sites throughout the world were named for President
Kennedy. Congress voted funds for the John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts in Washington
D.C. Great Britain made one acre of ground permanent United States territory as part of a Kennedy
memorial at Runnymeade. In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Library opened in Boston.
- From “John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” The World Book Encyclopedia (2001)