USA/FILE: The legacy of JFK and the era of Camelot is forever changed as the Zupruder film documents the assassination of America's 35th president

Record ID: 838345

  • Title: USA/FILE: The legacy of JFK and the era of Camelot is forever changed as the Zupruder film documents the assassination of America's 35th president
  • Date: 17th November 2013
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C. UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) NEWSEUM EXHIBIT TITLED "CREATING CAMELOT" PHOTO OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND WIFE JACQUELINE KENNEDY IN THE EXHIBIT PEOPLE LOOKING AT PHOTOS IN EXHIBIT PHOTO OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY IN THE EXHIBIT WOMAN LOOKING AT PHOTO EXHIBIT PHOTO OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY LOOKING DOWN AT WATER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PATTY RHULE, SENIOR MANAGER OF EXHIBIT DEVELOPMENT AT THE NEWSEUM, SAYING: "In some ways, you know, she has outlived him. She outlived him in life and her message, her memory, has lived beyond him a bit. You also have the young Kennedys. It wasn't that long ago that John Kennedy Jr. was killed. So people knew about him. He was covered in the media. A sense of personal fascination. Caroline Kennedy, of course, is now the ambassador to Japan. So it's almost like America's royal family."
  • Embargoed: 2nd December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
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  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,History
  • Reuters ID: LVADDLKAKH8NOKZUXDGDWEQC79DK
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  • Story Text: It's been nearly fifty years since an assassin's bullet killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, yet watching the indelible moment captured on Abraham Zapruder's home video camera is as jarring as ever. America's 35th president shot dead. His beautiful wife sitting alongside him.
    JFK's death gripped the world and sparked numerous conspiracy theories, ranging from a Mafia hit to a CIA plot. Yet for the American public, the moment the news broke on November 22, 1963 was so shocking that the confusion is still ingrained in people's memories.
    Nancy Applegate was a senior in a North Carolina high school at the time.

    "I was in world history class, I think, and some kids were just coming throughout the building with radios saying 'The president has been shot. The president's been shot.' And we were all struck dumb."
    Brad Smith was on a farm in Kansas spending time with his family when CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite made the announcement on national television.

    "We couldn't believe it. It was a terrible event and unbelievable. Not as unbelievable as 9-11, but almost."
    Jimmie Lou Debakey was in the sixth grade at Reagan Junior High School in Palestine, Texas when the principal came in and told her teacher, Mrs. Peterson, the news.

    "When she told us the president had been shot, we weren't really quite sure. 'The president, the president, let's see, the president of what?' in some ways. And then when she said 'John F. Kennedy' we all were just frozen. It's a day that you never forget as long as you live."
    Dan Castelli was in the seventh grade at a Catholic school in Connecticut when he heard the news. "The Mother Superior came in and told us that John Kennedy had been shot. We all went in to the church and they said a special mass of emergency for the president and then they sent us home."
    The news of Kennedy's death didn't just shake Americans, the echoes of its impact were felt around the globe.
    Dubliner Una Cray wondered how such a thing could have happened to a man that the world held in high regard.

    "I was at home in the family house, sitting looking at the tele and a man by the name of Charles Mitchell came on ... and very solemnly said President John F. Kennedy has been shot. And you must remember that the year he was shot about six months previous to that he had visited Ireland. I was only a teenager and we all went down to the main highway to see him. I remember he was so handsome."
    English actor Ben Kingsley was performing in an amateur theater company in the UK when the news broke.

    "I was onstage doing a little play, and we announced it to the audience and the audience gasped, and it was very difficult to carry on with the play after that very tragic loss," he said.
    As America reflects on the legacy that the 35th president left behind, it is evident that John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline's allure extends far beyond political achievements.
    Thomas Putnam, the director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, says the Kennedys struck a chord deep in the American conscience because they signified what most Americans strive for -- the American dream -- is truly possible.
    Kennedy's family emigrated to the U.S. in 1848 from Ireland. His father Joe Kennedy had a successful career in finance and went on to become the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain.

    "Part of the allure of the story is this immigrant past, this man who was given every opportunity who then had a very successful career and became president of the United States. But then used his power, I believe, to help both the needy in this country and African Americans who were discriminated against in this country ... but also cared deeply about poverty and disease in the third world and launched a number of programs, the Peace Corps and more foreign aid to help those lands."

    "So there is something very hopeful about that story and I think that's what really helps to capture America's imagination."
    Putnam says that JFK understood how powerful images were and often allowed snapshots of the children to be taken when his wife was absent. For many Americans seeing candid portraits of a young family was inspiring.
    The intimate images also helped inject an air of glamour into the White House. JFK was youthful-looking and handsome and Jacqueline's sense of style was admired around the world. Her interest in the arts and a White House makeover were all matter of social interest.
    Former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, JFK's nephew, said that despite having had one of the shortest tenures in the Oval Office, the 35th president had a significant impact on U.S. history.

    "The thing that is so compelling about the John F. Kennedy legacy is that he asked people to give of themselves to make the world a better place. He asked Americans in his famous inaugural 'Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.' He asked the world through the Peace Corps, through the nuclear test ban treaty, how can we together make the world a safer place?"
    JFK's political legacy is also highlighted by his activities in civil rights, committing the country to sending people to the moon within the decade and his charismatic support for West Berlin where he told people "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
    These moments are forever etched in history, yet for younger generations that haven't lived through them, this part of the Kennedy legacy is more abstract, explains Patty Rhule, a curator at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
    To mark the 50th anniversary of JFK's death, the Newseum debuted an exhibit entitled, "Creating Camelot" - a term synonymous with the Kennedy era after Jacqueline Kennedy gave an interview to Life magazine in which she quoted a song that she said JFK was especially fond of that was featured in the Broadway musical, Camelot. According to the interview, published shortly after the assassination, Mrs. Kennedy said the couple listened to the song before going to bed at night. The words in the last line were: "Don't ever let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was Camelot."
    Rhule says that younger people identify more with Jacqueline Kennedy because of their familiarity with her sense of style and her children.

    "In some ways you know she has outlived him. She outlived him in life and her message, her memory, has lived beyond him a bit. You also have the young Kennedys. It wasn't that long ago that John Kennedy Jr. was killed. So people knew about him. He was covered in the media. A sense of personal fascination. Caroline Kennedy of course is now the ambassador to Japan. So it's almost like America's royal family," Rhule said.
    Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, 55, is the first female U.S. ambassador to Japan and the only surviving child of President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Her brother John F. Kennedy, Jr, died in a 1999 plane crash with his wife, Caroline Bessette-Kennedy while an older sister was stillborn and another brother died within days of his premature birth while Kennedy was president.
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