November 22 marks the 60th anniversary of the assassinaton of United States president John F Kennedy. His funeral was held on November 25, where, after the Mass at St Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, his infant son, John F Kennedy Jr, said goodbye for the last time. “John John” had been born two weeks after his father was elected president in 1960. The White House was the first home he had known. The funeral took place on his third birthday. Theimage of his salute, while surrounded by sister Caroline, his mother Jackie and uncles Edward and Robert Kennedy, became the defining image of America’s mourning.
The photo was to return in 1999 with coverage of JFK Jr’s death when the plane he was piloting crashed, also killing wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. Said Edward Kennedy at his nephew’s funeral: “Like his father, he had every gift but length of years.”
