The state funeral of U.S. president John F. Kennedy took place in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, during the three days that followed his assassination on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
Kennedy's body was brought back to Washington after his assassination. Early on November 23, six military pallbearers carried the flag-draped coffin into the East Room of the White House, where he lay in repose for 24 hours. Then, his flag-draped coffin was carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol to lie in state. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands lined up to view the guarded casket, with a quarter million passing through the rotunda during the 18 hours of lying in state.
Kennedy's funeral service was held on November 25 at St. Matthew's Cathedral. The Requiem Mass was led by Cardinal Richard Cushing. About 1,200 guests, including representatives from over 90 countries, attended. After the service, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Preparations for the state funeral
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, his body was flown back to Washington, and taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. At the same time, military authorities began making arrangements for a state funeral. Army Major General Philip C. Wehle, the commanding general of the Military District of Washington (MDW) (CG MDW), and retired Army Colonel Paul C. Miller, chief of ceremonies and special events at the MDW, planned the funeral.
They headed to the White House and worked with the president's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, also director of the Peace Corps, and Ralph Dungan, an aide to the president. Because President Kennedy had no funeral plan in place, much of the planning rested with the CG MDW. House speaker John W. McCormack said that the president's body would be brought back to the White House to lie in the East Room the following day and then taken to the Capitol to lie in state in the rotunda all day Sunday.
Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy worked with chief usher J.B. West to incorporate details from the funeral of President Abraham Lincoln, who was also assassinated in office, and asked that the East Room look like when Lincoln lay there.
The day after the assassination, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, issued Presidential Proclamation 3561, declaring Monday to be a national day of mourning, and only essential emergency workers to be at their posts. He read the proclamation over a nationwide radio and television broadcast at 4:45 p.m. from the Fish Room of the White House.
Several elements of the state funeral paid tribute to President Kennedy's service in the Navy during World War II. They included a member of the Navy bearing the presidential flag, the playing of the Navy Hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," and the Naval Academy Glee Club performing at the White House.
White House repose
After the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, President Kennedy's body was prepared for burial by embalmers from Gawler's Funeral Home in Washington, who performed the embalming and cosmetic restoration procedures at Bethesda. He was dressed in a bluish-gray pinstriped suit with a white shirt, black shoes, and blue tie with dots while a Catholic rosary was placed in his hands. Afterwards, he was put in a new mahogany casket in place of the bronze casket used to transport the body from Dallas, which had been damaged in transit.
President Kennedy's body was returned to the White House at about 4:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, November 23. The motorcade bearing the remains was met at the White House gate by a U.S. Marine Corps honor guard, which escorted it to the North Portico. The pallbearers bore the casket to the East Room and placed it on Lincoln's catafalque, also previously used for the funerals of the Unknown Soldiers from the Korean War and World War II at Arlington. Jacqueline Kennedy declared that the casket would be kept closed for the viewing and funeral. The shot to President Kennedy's head left a gaping wound, and religious leaders said a closed casket minimized morbid concentration on the body.
Mrs. Kennedy, still wearing the blood-stained suit she wore in Dallas, had not left the side of her husband's body since he was shot. Only after the casket was placed in the East Room, draped with black crêpe, did she retire to her private quarters.
President Kennedy's body lay in repose in the East Room for 24 hours, attended by an honor guard including troops from the 3rd Infantry and from the Army's Special Forces (Green Berets). The Special Forces troops had been brought hurriedly from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, at the request of U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, who was aware of his brother's particular interest in them.
Mrs. Kennedy requested two Catholic priests to remain with the body until the official funeral. A call was made to the Catholic University of America, and Msgr. Robert Paul Mohan and Fr. Gilbert Hartke, two prominent Washington, D.C., priests, were immediately dispatched for the task.
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara visited Arlington National Cemetery to inspect a possible gravesite for Kennedy at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 23. A solemn Mass was celebrated for family in the East Room at 10:30 a.m. Fr. M. Frank Ruppert of St. Matthew's Cathedral Parish would celebrate another Mass in the East Room the following day. After the Mass, other family members, friends, and other government officials came at specified times to pay their respects to President Kennedy. This included former U.S. presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The other surviving former U.S. president at the time, Herbert Hoover, was too ill to attend the state funeral, and was represented by his sons, Herbert Jr. and Allan.
In addition, family members and friends accompanied McNamara back to Arlington. Jackie later decided to have her husband join William Howard Taft as the only presidents to be buried at Arlington, and that he be buried on a slope leading up to the Robert E. Lee Mansion, directly in line with the Lincoln Memorial.
In Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, crowds stood in the rain, keeping the vigil they began the day before and would continue through the funeral. It rained all day in Washington, befitting the mood of the nation.
Lying in state
On Sunday afternoon, about 300,000 people watched a horse-drawn caisson, which had borne the body of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Unknown Soldier, carry President Kennedy's flag-covered casket down the White House drive, past parallel rows of soldiers bearing the flags of the 50 states of the Union, then along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state. The only sounds on Pennsylvania Avenue as the cortège made its way to the Capitol were the sounds of the muffled drums and the clacking of horses' hooves, including the riderless (caparisoned) horse Black Jack. The journalists marched and were last in the cortège as it made its way to the Capitol.
The widow, holding her two children by the hand, led the public mourning for the country. In the rotunda, Mrs. Kennedy and her daughter Caroline knelt beside the casket, which rested on the Lincoln catafalque. Three-year-old John Jr. was briefly taken out of the rotunda so as not to disrupt the service. Mrs. Kennedy maintained her composure as her husband was taken to the Capitol to lie in state, as well as during the memorial service.
Brief eulogies were delivered inside the rotunda by Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Speaker McCormack.
President Kennedy was the first president in more than 30 years to lie in state in the rotunda, the last being Taft in 1930, and the first Democrat to lie in state at the Capitol. Mrs. Kennedy's decision to have her husband buried at Arlington meant the two most recent presidents to lie in state in the Capitol would be buried at Arlington.
Public viewing
In the only public viewing, thousands lined up in near-freezing temperatures to view the casket. Over the span of 18 hours, 250,000 people, some waiting for as long as 10 hours in a line up to 10 wide that stretched 40 blocks, personally paid their respects as President Kennedy's body lay in state. United States Capitol Police officers politely reminded mourners to keep moving along in two lines that passed on either side of the casket and exited the building on the west side facing the National Mall. More than half the mourners came to the rotunda after 2:45 am, by which time 115,000 had already visited. Military officials doubled the lines, first to two abreast, then to four abreast.
The original plan was for the rotunda to close at 9:00 p.m. and reopen for an hour at 9:00 the next morning. Because of long lines police and military authorities decided to keep the doors open. At 9:00 pm, when the rotunda was supposed to close, both Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy returned to the rotunda again.
While anchoring the Today show from an NBC Washington studio the next day, Hugh Downs said that the numbers made it "the greatest and most solemn wake in history." Mudd said of the numbers: "This outpouring of affection and sympathy for the late president is probably the most majestic and stately ceremony the American people can perform." Jersey Joe Walcott, a former heavyweight boxing champion, passed by the bier at 2:30 a.m. and agreed with Mudd, saying of President Kennedy, "He was a great man."
Funeral
As people were viewing the casket, military authorities held meetings at the White House, at MDW headquarters, and at Arlington National Cemetery to plan Monday's events. First, they decided that the public viewing should end at 9:00 am. EST and that the ceremonies would begin at 10:30 am. EST.
Unlike Sunday's procession, which was led by only the muffled drum corps, Monday's was expanded to include other military units. Military officials also agreed to requests from Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy. They agreed that the Marine Band should lead the funeral procession, which would include two foreign military units—10 pipers from the Scottish Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) marching from the White House to St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Cathedral, a group of 30 Irish Defence Forces cadets—at the request of Mrs. Kennedy—performing silent drill at the grave site, and placement of an eternal flame at the grave. The cadets came from the Curragh Camp, County Kildare, Ireland. The cadets traveled with Irish President Éamon de Valera, and together they paid tribute to Kennedy's Irish ancestry. This is the only state funeral in the United States to feature foreign military forces.
Approximately one million people lined the route of the funeral procession, from the Capitol back to the White House, then to St. Matthew's Cathedral, and finally to Arlington National Cemetery.
The day's events began at 8:25 a.m., when the MPDC cut off the line of mourners waiting to get into the rotunda, because a large group tried to break into the line and the MPDC were not able to sort out those who had already been in line, many of whom had waited for five hours. Thirty-five minutes, later, the doors closed, ending the lying in state; the last visitors passed through at 9:05 am. When the doors closed, 50,000 more were waiting outside.
Both houses of Congress met to pass resolutions expressing sorrow. In the Senate, Maine Republican senator Margaret Chase Smith laid a single rose on the desk that Kennedy had occupied when in the Senate.
Procession to cathedral
After Jacqueline Kennedy and her brothers-in-law, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Massachusetts Democratic senator Ted Kennedy, visited the rotunda, the coffin was carried out onto the caisson. At 10:50, the caisson left the Capitol. Ten minutes later, the procession began, making its way back to the White House. As the procession reached the White House, all the military units except for the Marine company turned right off Pennsylvania Avenue and onto 17th Street. A platoon of the Marine company turned in the northeast gate and led the cortege into the North Portico.
At the White House, the procession resumed on foot for roughly 0.9 miles (1.4 km) to St. Matthew's Cathedral, led by Jacqueline Kennedy and the late president's brothers, Robert and Edward (Ted) Kennedy. They walked the same route that John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy often used when going to Mass at the cathedral. This also marked the first time that a first lady walked in her husband's funeral procession. The two Kennedy children rode in a limousine behind their mother and uncles. The rest of the Kennedy family, apart from the president's father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., who was ill, waited at the cathedral. The elder Kennedy mourned alone in Hyannis Port.