This rarely-seen color film shows a portion of the State Funeral of President John F. Kennedy on November 25, 1963, starting with the departure from St. Matthew’s Cathedral (:21). At (:52), John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his sister Caroline Kennedy are seen with their mother, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. (The famous moment where John Jr. saluted the casket is not seen in the film.) At 1:50 the caisson moves towards Arlington Cemetery while the Marine Band plays “Onward Christian Soldiers”. At (3:31) the flag at Arlington is at half staff, and shots are seen of the area surrounding the Lee Mansion where the burial will take place. At (5:21), a bagpipe corps from the Irish Defense Forces serenades the crowd while members of the armed services stand at rigid attention. At (7:45) jets streak over the assembled throng. At 8:20, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy are visible taking position. At (8:54) Air Force One makes a flyby as a flag is removed from the casket. At (9:36), the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, the Most Reverend Philip M. Hannan, solemnly blesses the grave of the martyred President. At 10:23 a cannon is fired while French President Charles de Gaulle and other dignitaries salute the fallen leader. At (12:05) a bugler performs the traditional “taps”. At (13:20) ordinary citizens in the crowd express their grief. At (14:19) Jacqueline Kennedy lights the eternal flame which continues to burn at Arlington.
The state funeral of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, took place in Washington, D.C., during the three days that followed his assassination on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. The body of President Kennedy was brought back to Washington soon after his death and was placed in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours.On the Sunday after the assassination, his flag-draped casket was carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the U.S. Capitol to lie in state. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands lined up to view the guarded casket.
Representatives from over 90 countries attended the state funeral on Monday, November 25. After the Requiem Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the late president was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
As this film shows, the casket was borne by caisson on the final leg to Arlington National Cemetery for burial. Moments after the casket was carried down the front steps of the cathedral, Jacqueline Kennedy whispered to her son, after which he saluted his father’s coffin; the image, taken by photographer Stan Stearns, became an iconic representation of the 1960s. (The children were deemed to be too young to attend the final burial service, so this was the point where the children said goodbye to their father.)
Virtually everyone else followed the caisson in a long line of black limousines. Many of the military units did not participate in the burial service and left just after crossing the Potomac. Because the line of cars taking the foreign dignitaries was long, the last cars carrying the dignitaries left St. Matthew’s as the procession entered the cemetery. The burial services had already begun when the last car arrived.
A detachment of 30 cadets from the Irish Defense Forces, performed, at the request of Jackie Kennedy, a silent solemn graveside drill known as the Queen Anne Drill. This is the first, and only, time that a foreign army has been invited to deliver honors at the graveside of a US President.
The burial services ended at 3:15 p.m. EST, when the widow lit an eternal flame to burn continuously over his grave. At 3:34 p.m. EST, the casket containing his remains was lowered into the earth, as “Kennedy slipped out of mortal sight—out of sight but not out of heart and mind.” Kennedy thus became only the second president to be buried at Arlington, after Taft, which meant that, at that time, the two most recent presidents to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda were buried at Arlington. Kennedy was buried at Arlington exactly two weeks to the day he last visited there, when he came for Veterans Day observances.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
