July 16, 1999: The Death of John F. Kennedy Jr.

July 16, 1999, 25 years ago: John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the 35th President of the United States, and, fairly or not, heir to so many Americans' dreams, dies in a plane crash of the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He was 38 years old. Lost along with him are his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 36; and her sister, Lauren Bessette, 34.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, in Washington, D.C., 17 days after his father was elected President. He and his sister, Caroline, 3 years older, became the first children to live in the White House since those of Theodore Roosevelt, over half a century earlier. Most Presidents are in their 50s or older, but JFK was 43, the youngest ever elected, and only TR ever took office younger; while his mother, formerly Jacqueline Bouvier, at 31, was the youngest First Lady since Frances Cleveland in the 1880s.

At one point, Jackie could be heard yelling at him, as a toddler, "John! John!" The media misunderstood this, and began calling him "John-John," a nickname that stuck with him for life, one he didn't like. As an adult, he always referred to himself as simply "John Kennedy," a common enough name without the middle initial that gave it away.

When interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 1996, he said he didn't remember the picture of himself dancing with Caroline in the Oval Office while their father clapped along, or the picture of himself playing under the desk while his father worked, both taken mere days before JFK's assassination. He also said he didn't remember the salute he gave as his father's casket passed by during the funeral procession, on his 3rd birthday, November 25, 1963. "I remember he used to call me 'Sam,'" he said, "and I didn't like that. I said, 'My name's not Sam, it's John.' And he said, 'Okay, Sam.'"

In the one and only interview she gave after the assassination, to William Manchester a few days later, Jackie mentioned something a bit off-color: Once, JFK said good night to his son, and John said, "Good night, poo-poo-head!" and ran off. And JFK, laughing, said, "Come back here! You can't call the President of the United States a poo-poo-head!" If only he could have known what every President since him has been called, by people considerably older.

Jackie took John and Caroline back to New York. After marrying Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, they divided their time between Jackie's apartment on 5th Avenue and Ari's private island, Skorpios. Jackie took them to the 1969 World Series at Shea Stadium.

He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, which was attended by both Presidents George Bush -- but not his father, who had gone to Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. Unlike his father, his grandfather and his 3 uncles, all Harvard men, he attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, which would later be attended by his uncle Ted's son, Patrick. In 1988, he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, and it was well-received enough that people began to believe a political career was in his future.

He then attended New York University School of Law, but needed 3 tries to pass the New York State bar exam. He became a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, lived in the Tribeca neighborhood, and rode a bicycle to work, even though the family fortune meant that he could have afforded a limousine.

Like his mother and his sister, he guarded his privacy intensely, and it was difficult to confirm stories about who America's most eligible bachelor was dating. Apparently, like his father and grandfather before him, he had a thing for actresses, including dating Brooke Shields, Sarah Jessica Parker, and, for 4 years, Daryl Hannah.

On September 21, 1996, a few weeks after founding George, a political magazine named after George Washington and aimed at younger readers, he married Carolyn Bessette, who worked in New York's fashion industry. This took many people by surprise: Not only was she not famous in her own right, but the general public didn't even know they were dating.

It was still believed that he would run for political office, as a stepping-stone to becoming President like his father. With the defeat of Governor Mario Cuomo -- whose son Andrew would one day be Governor, and had married Kerry Kennedy, daughter of John's uncle Robert F. Kennedy -- by Republican George Pataki in 1994, it was speculated that John would oppose Pataki in 1998. He chose not to.

When Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who had been a sub-Cabinet official under his father, announced his retirement rather than run in the 2000 election, the wide guess was that John would run for Moynihan's seat. He never publicly denied it, but there was no indication that he was making preparations to run for the seat, which ended up being won by First Lady Hillary Clinton.

But the spectre of tragedy has long hung over the Kennedy family. In addition to his father's assassination in 1963, his uncle Robert was assassinated while running for President in 1968. His uncle Ted (Edward M. Kennedy) was involved in a fatal car crash the following year. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest brother of Jack, Bobby and Ted, was killed in service in World War II in 1944. One of their sisters, Kathleen, was killed in a plane crash in 1948. Another, Rosemary was left hopelessly disabled in 1940, in a surgical attempt to cure the apparent disability she already had.

Several of Bobby's kids had gotten involved in drugs, and it killed Bobby's son David in 1984. And Bobby's son Michael had been killed in a skiing accident in 1997. At the time, John was taking flying lessons, and he remembered that his mother, who died of cancer in 1994, was worried that he might die in a plane crash. He resumed his lessons, anyway.

On July 15, 1999, I attended the New York Yankees' game against the Atlanta Braves at the old Yankee Stadium, a 6-2 defeat. Unbeknownst to me until after the weekend, when the media showed footage of it on TV, John and Carolyn Kennedy had also attended the game. Despite the family's Boston roots making most of them Boston Red Sox fans, and the Shriver wing of the family coming from Baltimore and being Baltimore Orioles fans, JFK Jr. was, apparently, a Yankee fan.

The following day, John, Carolyn, and Carolyn's sister Lauren, who worked for brokerage firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, left New York for Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey. They were headed for the family home, known as the Kennedy Compound, in Hyannis Port, on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, for the wedding of Bobby's last child, Rory Kennedy, born 6 months after her father's assassination, to Mark Bailey. They had met through their work, as both are documentary filmmakers.

Traffic out of Manhattan, understandable due to it being evening rush hour on a Friday, was bad, and it wasn't until 8:38 PM that John was able to take off in the Piper Saratoga that he had bought 3 months earlier. The plan was to land at Martha's Vineyard Airport, on the island off the coast of Massachusetts, not far from another island, Nantucket; drop Lauren off there; and then take off again with Carolyn for Barnstable Airport on the mainland.

It was later determined that the plane hit the Atlantic Ocean at 9:41 PM, and that the most likely cause was spatial disorientation: As an under-experienced pilot, John may have been lower in the air than he realized.

At 2:15 AM on July 17, the Kennedy family notified Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod that the plane had not arrived. I woke up Saturday morning to the news that the plane was missing. Knowing of the "Kennedy Curse," I was convinced he and whoever was with him on the plane were dead.

It was a weird, and very hot, weekend, which also included the perfect game pitched by David Cone of the Yankees: The plane and the bodies hadn't been found, so we didn't have confirmation that they were dead, so a small hope still lingered. The tent set up for the wedding became the focal point of the family's vigil.

But fragments of the plane were found on the 19th. Late at night on the 20th, the fuselage was found. On the afternoon of the 21st, the bodies were found, all still strapped into their seats. Autopsies proved that they died on impact. All 3 were cremated, and their ashes scattered at sea.

Even more than for his father, who had accomplished many things as President, the question of "What might have been" hangs over the memory of John F. Kennedy Jr. At the John F. Kennedy Museum in Hyannis Port, there is a statue of both of them as grown men, arms around each other. A copy is in Rapid City, South Dakota, along with statues of all the other Presidents at a public park.

The Kennedy-Bailey wedding was postponed to August 2. Rory and Mark have 2 daughters and a son. George magazine printed a memorial issue for John, and folded in 2001.

The psychotic QAnon movement believes that John will return from the dead and tell people to support Donald Trump, and save America from sin. I guess they forgot, or are too insane to consider, than John was a Democrat, and, like the rest of the Kennedy family, would oppose Trump. Indeed, given the legal pursuit of Trump, it's entirely possible that John Kennedy Jr., rather than Alvin Bragg, might be leading one of the prosecution teams against Trump.

In 2024, it is his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for President as a 3rd-party candidate.

November 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy Is Assassinated

November 22, 1963, 60 years ago: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President.

With the 1964 Presidential election coming up, and the 1960 election having been close, Kennedy wanted to be sure of as many States as he could. And, with a split in the Democratic Party in the State of Texas, a State then with 25 Electoral Votes, he knew that was a State he had to hang onto.

He visited San Antonio and Houston the day before, settled for the night in Fort Worth, and made the short flight to Dallas the next morning. He rode in an open car, a 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine, with the protective "bubble top" removed, so the crowds along the motorcade route could see him.

He was in the back seat, with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, who was wearing a pink suit, complete with a pillbox hat. In the middle seat were the Governor of Texas, John Connally, and his wife, Nellie. In the front seat were 2 Secret Service Agents: William Greer, the driver, and Clint Hill.

In the car behind them sat Vice President Johnson, his wife Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson, and Senator Ralph Yarborough. (Yarborough's wife, Opal, was not there.) Yarborough, a liberal, and Connally, more conservative on some issues, were seen as the reason behind the intra-State Party split. The other Senate seat for Texas, which Johnson had held until the 1960 election, had been won in a special election by a Republican, John Tower. He was not present.

There was concern that there might be trouble in Dallas: A month earlier, Adlai Stevenson, America's Ambassador to the United Nations, was hit with picket signs on a visit to the city. JFK told Jackie it was "real nut country."

But the reception for the Kennedys seemed to be wonderful. There was at least one Confederate flag along the route, but it was mostly American flags and signs of support, including a few for Jackie.

At 12:30 PM, Central Standard Time, as the limo went down Elm Street into Dealey Plaza, about to head under a highway and railroad underpass near Union Station, on its way to the Trade Mart where JFK was to attend a luncheon and deliver a speech, Nellie Connally turned to JFK, and said, "You can't say Dallas hasn't been kind to you today." And he said, "No, I suppose you can't."

(For the number of shots, I'm sticking to the official story, even though, like millions of Americans, I am not entirely convinced of it.)

At that moment, the kindness stopped. A shot rang out. It missed the car completely, and struck a curb, breaking off a piece of concrete that cut a bystander, James Tague, on his face. Tague was a 27-year-old car salesman, originally from Indiana, and later claimed that it was the second shot that wounded him. He published a book, claiming that Johnson was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK, so he could become President himself. He has not been the only person to suggest this, but it seems incredibly unlikely.

A second shot was fired. It hit Kennedy in the back, drilled through his body, and exited through his throat. Some witnesses said they heard him yell, "My God, I'm hit!" But the nature of his wounds calls his continued ability to speak into question. Connally, having turned around after hearing the first shot, was hit in the back by the same bullet. He yelled out, "My God, they're going to kill us all!"

This shot has been called "the magic bullet" by people who don't believe the lone-gunman theory that was later accepted by the Warren Commission. They have used "The Zapruder Film," a silent home movie recorded by Abraham Zapruder, a local clothing manufacturer, to back up their claim. But the wounds caused by that bullet can be accounted for by the varying positions, both horizontal and vertical, of the car's seats.

A third shot was fired. It struck Kennedy in the head, sending it back and to the left. This is the key for people who don't believe the lone-gunman theory: If the shot had come from behind, it would have caused Kennedy to fall forward. Therefore, it had to come from the front and to the right, probably fired from behind a white fence atop what became known as the "grassy knoll" at Dealey Plaza.

Dealey Plaza. The "grassy knoll" is roughly

in the center of the picture, with the white fence behind it.

(The Plaza was named for George Bannerman Dealey, the publisher of The Dallas Morning News from 1926 to his death in 1946.)

Greer sped off to the nearest hospital, which was Parkland Hospital. There was nothing the doctors, led by Robert N. McClelland, could do. Father Oscar Huber, a priest at the hospital, gave him the last rites. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was pronounced dead at 1:00 PM -- 2:00 Eastern. NBC was the first network to announce his death to the public, with Frank McGee saying so at 2:35. Walter Cronkite of CBS followed, 3 minutes later.

After being told of JFK's death, Johnson ordered that he be taken back to Air Force One, which was sitting on the tarmac at Love Field, Dallas' main airport at the time. Sarah T. Hughes, whom JFK had appointed a federal Judge on LBJ's recommendation, administered the Oath of Office at 2:39 (3:39 Eastern). She remains the only woman ever to swear a President into office.

Johnson insisted on having the swearing-in photographed, and that Jackie be by his side, to show the peaceful transfer of power. Cecil W. Stoughton, then the official White House photographer, would win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his picture. There is no film of it, although there is a very scratchy audio recording.

Most versions of this photo are in black & white.

This one is probably colorized.

At 1:50 (2:50), Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theatre. He had been identified as the shooter from the nearby Texas School Book Depository, and had also killed a Dallas police officer, Patrolman J.D. Tippit.

Someone once wrote up a series of "Lincoln-Kennedy Coincidences," some of them erroneous or misleading. (Kennedy did have a secretary named Evelyn Lincoln, who did warn him not to go to Dallas, but Lincoln did not have a secretary named Kennedy, and no one warned him against going to Ford's Theatre.) To me, the most interesting one is that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in a theater, and was caught in a storehouse (for tobacco on a farm); while Oswald shot Kennedy from the window of a storehouse, and was arrested in a theater.

The murder sends the world into mourning. Everything else, including sports, becomes secondary to laying the fallen President to rest, and bringing his killer to justice.

Within 48 hours of the assassination, Oswald, 24 years old -- born on October 18, 1939, the same day as Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Mike Ditka -- would be also be murdered. Those who believe he acted alone, and those who believe he couldn't have, each have evidence to back up their theory, but neither has enough information to make it conclusive. There was no trial. We may never know for sure whether he did it alone, or at all.

What we do know is that the assassination of John F. Kennedy still haunts this country. His generation, who grew up in the Great Depression and fought in World War II, never got over it. Their children, who were inspired to public service by JFK, were emotionally scarred for life as well. The fact that all of Johnson's subsequent achievements as President have been clouded by his failure in the Vietnam War makes it all worse: There is the belief that Kennedy would have handled Vietnam better, and we would have been spared the worst of that war, and spared the Presidency of Richard Nixon, and Watergate, and so many other things.

But we'll never know. The events of November 22, 1963 insured that.

Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald, died in prison in 1967. Abraham Zapruder died in 1970. President Lyndon Johnson died in 1973. Father Oscar Huber died in 1975. Agent William Greer, the driver, died in 1985. So did Judge Sarah Hughes. Governor John Connally died in 1993. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy died in 1994. Senator Ralph Yarborough died in 1996. Nellie Connally died in 2006. Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson, the new First Lady, died in 2007. Photographer Cecil Stoughton died in 2008. James Tague, the 3rd wounded man, died in 2014. Dr. Robert McClelland died in 2019. Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who kept Jackie in the car, was the last living person in the car. As of November 22, 2023, he is still alive.

The Lincoln Continental limousine is now in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, outside Detroit. So is the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was sitting in, in Ford's Theatre in Washington, when he was assassinated.

*

On that Friday, for the 1st time in their 17-year history, the NBA's New York Knicks postponed a game. They were supposed to play the Detroit Pistons at the old Madison Square Garden. Indeed, there would be no games in the NBA that night, nor in the NHL. All were postponed. And, of course, it was after the baseball season, so there were no MLB games to postpone. The Los Angeles Dodgers had completed their 4-game World Series sweep over the Yankees on October 6 at Dodger Stadium.

The Knicks-Pistons game was pushed back to the following night, and the Knicks won 108-99. Their next postponement would be on November 9, 1965, the day of the great blackout.

The 1963 Army-Navy Game had been scheduled for Saturday, November 23. It was postponed for 2 weeks, until December 7. With eventual Heisman Trophy winner, and eventual Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Roger Staubach leading them, Navy won, 21-15 at Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia. The following year, the huge 105,000-seat horseshoe in South Philadelphia was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium.

Most college games were postponed. But 1 game, scheduled for that night, went ahead as planned. As you might guess, it was in the South: North Carolina State beat Wake Forest, 42-0 at Riddick Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attendance: 15,200. The Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry, set for the 23rd, went on as scheduled at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. Nebraska won 29-20.

JFK's alma mater, Harvard, was supposed to play arch-rival Yale at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut on November 23. It was postponed until the following week, and Yale won 20-6.

You might expect the rivalry game between Texas and Texas A&M, the 2 biggest college football teams in the State where the assassination took place, to be postponed. In fact, neither team was scheduled for November 23. Each team's next game was against the other, and was already set for the 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. Texas, then ranked Number 1 in the country, held off a great upset effort by the Aggies, scoring 12 points in the 4th quarter to win 15-13. The Longhorns went on to beat Number 2 Navy in the Cotton Bowl -- in Dallas on January 1, 1964 -- and won the National Championship.

The Iron Bowl was also scheduled for November 30, not the 23rd. At Legion Field in Birmingham, Number 9 Auburn beat Number 6 Alabama 10-8.

In my home State of New Jersey, Rutgers was supposed to play Columbia University of New York City on the 23rd, at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway. It was postponed to the 28th, Thanksgiving Day, and Columbia won 35-28. Only 5,000 people came out. Not surprising: Not only was it a holiday, with pretty much anybody who wanted to see a football game that day watching their hometown high school team, but the country was still very depressed, and neither team was any good: Rutgers came in at 3-5, Columbia at 3-4-1.

The other big college team in New Jersey, Princeton, was supposed to host Dartmouth at Palmer Stadium, in a game that would decide the Ivy League title. That one was postponed to the 30th, and, before a crowd of 35,000, Dartmouth won 22-21.

Notre Dame, with no official connection to the nation's 1st Catholic President, but unofficially accepted as the nation's leading Catholic university, was supposed to visit the University of Iowa on the 23rd. The game was canceled outright, and never played.

East Brunswick High School, my alma mater, was supposed to play football on the Saturday, against neighboring Sayreville. The game was postponed, and, for the 1st time in the then-new school's 3-year football history, a game was played on Thanksgiving. E.B. won, 13-12.

When the announcement that JFK was dead reached us at 2:35 PM Eastern Time on November 22, it was a Friday afternoon, and decisions had to be made to play or postpone the following Sunday's professional football games. The AFL chose to postpone their games until the week after the close of the regular season, while the NFL chose to play. Since November 24 turned out to be another significant day, I have an entry for that day, including those games.