- We set sail on this new sea because there is new
knowledge to be gained. And it ought to be possible for American citizens
of any color to register and to vote in a free election. I realize the pursuit of
peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war. - This is not a video about the assassination of
president John F. Kennedy, at least not in the traditional sense, dissecting the minute
seconds in microseconds before and after the shooting itself. Instead, it's a video about
the days that would follow the assassination, the
reconstruction of his body, conflict with various funeral homes, and the unprecedented
change that was taking place in the American funeral industry. But before we do that, we do have to acknowledge
where it all started right here behind me at
the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book
Depository building, where Lee Harvey Oswald concealed himself and built a sniper's nest from boxes. From this window, Oswald
looked down on Elm Street and waited patiently for the president's motorcade to arrive. - Air Force Number One,
ladies and gentlemen, carrying the president
of the United States. Beautiful site, beautiful site! - On November 22nd, 1963, president John F. Kennedy
landed at Dallas's Love Field. He was in Dallas as
part of a campaign tour for his re-election to the presidency. Although reelection wouldn't be a problem if the Republicans nominated
Barry Goldwater, (chuckles) that's a Barry Goldwater joke. I think, I don't know that
much about Barry Goldwater. - Extremism in the defense
of liberty is no vice. - It was the president along
with his security detail, some close friends, and
aids dubbed the Irish Mafia, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, the governor of Texas John
Connally and his wife, Nellie, and the president's wife, Jacqueline or Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. They were all part of a motorcade that would take them through
the streets of Dallas. The route had been
published the day before and people were lining the streets, although not all were
Kennedy fans, mind you. There were those who thought
Kennedy was a communist, a traitor, a sign read,
"Yankee go home" courtesy of the Dallas Indignant
White Citizens Council, but they decided to move
forward with the appearance and President Kennedy and Jackie greeted the public at Love Field. At around 11:45 am they
boarded a convertible limousine along with the Governor
and Nellie Connally, that would take them to downtown Dallas. At 12:30 pm, the motorcade
was on Houston Street and made a hairpin turn onto
Elm Street at Dealey Plaza. That turn took the
president's open limousine directly in front of the
Texas School Book Depository People crowded the streets
and near by grassy knoll waving and straining for a glimpse of the handsome young president
and his beautiful wife who was perfectly outfitted
in an iconic pink Chanel suit and pillbox hat. At that moment, shots rang out. (gunfire popping) (radio call chatter)
(gunfire popping) Two bullets hit President
Kennedy, the first in the throat, which passed through Kennedy
and also hit governor Connally, and the second in the back of his head. Chaos ensued. Was it a car back firing? What was that? The car that held President
Kennedy, Jackie and the governor filled with blood. The president's limousine sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital, four miles away arriving at 12:36 pm. Parkland had not been properly notified. Stretchers were not
waiting for the president. Attendance were there. When Kennedy arrived at Parkland, he was still shockingly
if only technically alive, his eyes were fixed and dilated, but his heart continued to beat. And his lungs thought to breathe. Though doctors knew that the president was most certainly going to die, they continued to administer
lifesaving measures, but we know how this part ends. We know that the president would die. This is really where Jackie
Kennedy covered in blood, but still very much alive becomes the main character of our story. Jackie would not leave her husband's side, exhibiting an obstinate protectiveness that would continue a
over the days to follow. She had cradled him as they
tried to take him from the car saying, "You know, he's
dead. Let me alone." She wouldn't even leave him as he was being raced
into the trauma room. Jackie ran beside him,
her hand on the stretcher. As doctors worked desperately, Jackie made a decision, "I'm
going in there." she said. Nurse Doris Nelson, determined
to uphold hospital policy stood in her way, but
Jackie would not be stopped. "I'm going to get into that
room." she informed Nelson. Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy's
loyal personal physician came to Jackie's side
and offered a sedative, which she refused telling the doctor, "I want to be in there when he dies." Burkley turned to Nurse Nelson and said, "It's her right, it's her
right. It's her prerogative." and led Jackie into the trauma room. The trauma room somehow had
even more blood tissues, tubes, and machines connected to Kennedy, medical personnel running around, trying in vain to save the dead president. Chief neurosurgeon, William
Kemp Clark said to Jackie, "Your husband has
sustained a fatal wound." And she mouthed the words, "I know." At 1:00 pm central standard
time in Dallas, Texas President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy was declared dead. A Catholic priest father, Oscar Huber made his way through the throng and administered the last rights to the 35th president
of the United States. - From Dallas, Texas the
flash apparently official President Kennedy died at
1:00 pm central standard time. - Jackie retreated to a folding chair outside the trauma room, sitting silently, politely thanking people
for their condolences. Lee Harvey Oswald, a
book depository worker who had also and killed a Dallas
police officer in the chaos after the assassination would
emerge as a prime suspect. But Kennedy's people
believed there may be others who were coming after the
president and those close to him and urged everyone back to Washington. "I'm not going to leave here
without Jack." Jackie said. So the most important order of business became getting the president's
remains out of Dallas. In order to do this, they needed a casket. Vernon O'Neal of O'Neal's Funeral Home, located two and a half miles away got a confidential call
from the Secret Service. "This is Clint Hill of the Secret Service. I want you to bring a
casket out here to Parkland. I want you immediately." O'Neal responded, "Hold on, hold on. We've got merchandise at all prices." "Bring the best one you
have, any questions" O'Neal selected the
Elgin Casket Company's, Handley Brittania casket,
his most expensive. It was over 400 pounds of double walled, hermetically-sealed solid bronze, which perhaps a spoiler here,
is absolutely the worst choice for swift and easy cross country transport of one of the most important
dead bodies of all time. But O'Neal had his orders
from the federal government, the best one he had. So he, along with three
others from his staff horridly loaded the casket into his brand new 1964,
white Cadillac hearse and sped to Parkland with an
ambulance sign in the window. Jackie went to her husband's side and took off her wedding band. At her father's funeral
she had placed an item he had given her into his casket. Now she picked up Jack's hand and with the help of an orderly, she put the ring on his finger. She turned to Ken O'Donnell a
devoted advisor of Kennedy's and asked, "The ring, did
I do the right thing?" His response was, "You
leave it right where it is." When O'Neal arrived with a casket, people leap up to shield
and distract Jackie from the site of it. But again, she resisted. When Dr. Clark, the neurosurgeon, told her she couldn't go into the room as they casketed her husband. She said, "Do you think seeing a coffin can upset me, doctor? I've seen my husband die, shot in my arms. His blood is all over me. How can I see anything
worse than I've seen?" O'Neal, the funeral director, I imagine was probably
absolutely crapping his pants. I don't care how much of a
funeral professional you are. You were just eating
donuts in the break room. And 20 minutes later, you're smack in the middle of an event of world-historic proportions. What's more, it was becoming apparent that the president could
not be placed directly into the casket. Kennedy's wounds were so
severe that both O'Neal and Kennedy's people were afraid that the president's
remains would leak fluid all over the inside of
the satin-lined casket, as it was transported, opening the casket on the east
coast to reveal such carnage would be unacceptable. So over the next 20 minutes, staff lay plastic inside
every inch of the casket with layers of rubber bags around Kennedy's massive head wound. The casket was closed and
Jackie Kennedy was eager to get to Love Field, but
a new problem had arisen, Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas
county medical examiner. Dr. Rose was all law and all procedure. And in his mind there had
been a homicide on his turf and Kennedy's body was his to autopsy. These federal government people were flouting Texas statutes and ignoring his duties
as medical examiner. When special agent Kellerman stopped him from entering trauma room one, telling him this is the body of the president of the United it States. And we are going to take
it back to Washington. Rose literally wagged his
finger at them and said, "When there's a homicide,
we must have an autopsy." The thing is Dr. Rose was right. No one else gets to be shot in Dallas and then whisked away on
a plane with no medical and legal investigation. And in 1963, there was
no overriding federal law concerning the assassination
of a president. There was only state law. And as far as Rose was
concerned, he was state law. But this thought horrified
Jackie and Kennedy's people. And they refused to allow Dr.
Rose access to the president. An autopsy would most definitely
be performed in Washington, they told him and even said
that Rose could come along on the plane as the
president was transported, but Rose refused. It had to be Dallas County. A death certificate must be filed before the body could be transported. And he was there to uphold that law. A justice of the peace who
Kennedy's people were sure would give them permission
to leave with the body. Instead, told them it's
just another homicide case, as far as I'm concerned
permission or no permission, they were going with dozens
assembled in the hospital halls. Special agent Kellerman
began wheeling the casket out of the hospital. Jackie followed behind, resting
her hand on it protectively. Dr. Rose stood at the door, backed by Dallas police officers, ready to draw their weapons
intent on the stopping them. It was a literal standoff over
President Kennedy's remains Secret Service and the
Irish Mafia were prepared to physically restrain Dr.
Rose or even come to blows, but Rose stood down and all the presidents men managed to push and pull the
casket out of the hospital to O'Neal's waiting hearse. One of the judges on the
scene, Judge Theron Ward hastily drew up a kind of ad
hoc burial transit permit, and the neurosurgeon signed
a blank death certificate. It wasn't the correct paperwork, but it would get Kennedy out of Dallas. Years later, Dr. Rose's son
would say it wasn't fair. How Rose was depicted as an unreasonable, petty,
state bureaucrat with a gripe and an argument can and has been made that the ensuing conspiracy theories about the assassination
might have been less extreme if Rose had been able to keep
a tight chain of evidence and Kennedy as soon as possible, as he did when autopsying both JD Tippit, the officer shot by Lee Harvey Oswald just 45 minutes after Kennedy. And autopsying Oswald
himself two days later. At 2:08 pm the door to
the hearse was closed, and President Kennedy was
finally on the way to Love Field. Funeral director Vernon
O'Neal had also thought he would be acting as
loyal funeral director at his funeral home or in Washington. In fact, not only would he
not be going with Kennedy, he wouldn't even be going
with his own hearse. Kennedy's people drove off without him, and O'Neal was told he
could pick up his vehicle at the airport later. He wondered out loud how
he'd be paid for all this. It's not, it's not really. It's not really the time
for that question, Vernon, just give him the hearse. You get to write loving home of final care for president Kennedy on your brochures for the rest of your life. Funeral directors love that stuff. The Hearst arrived at 8:28 at Love Field. The airport were just a few hours earlier. President Kennedy had
arrived to jubilant crowds. Do you all remember the casket? The one that's over 400
pounds of double walled, hermetically sealed solid bronze? Kennedy's men insisted
on taking the casket out of the hearse and loading it onto Air
Force One themselves via the narrow stairs at
the tail of the plane, where seats had been removed
to accommodate the president. A 400-pound casket, now with a 180 body of
an adult male in it. And none of Kennedy's people
had ever transported a casket. First, they didn't understand that they couldn't just pull
the casket out of the hearse. The casket was locked into
the floor of the vehicle, a measure that stopped
it from jostling around while on the move. To be fair, they could have
just brought O'Neal along for this part to be like, guys, guys, it's a little switch right there. But with emotions running high and a near frantic desire
to get out of Dallas, Kennedy's men used their
might to yank the casket free. The biographer Manchester
describes two brittle cracks as the men pulled on the casket. Finally it broke free, but not before cracking one of the hinges and leaving one of the handles
at the head of the casket nearly broken off. undaunted Kennedy's people
managed to load the casket into the tail portion of
Air Force One at 2:20 pm. The mood on the plane was
distant, sorrow-filled, awkward, all the things you would imagine. Everyone was navigating the shock alongside this liminal space between the former and future president. Kennedy's people insisted
they take off immediately, but Vice President Johnson and his staff maintained they had to stay for him to be sworn in as
president before leaving. At 2:28 pm, Judge Sarah T. Hughes arrived and climbed aboard the plane. Kennedy's people who were
very quickly learning they no longer held any authority, tried to protect Jackie
from Johnson's request that she be present for the occasion, but she appeared and
quietly with head bowed, took her place next to him. In the iconic photo, the blood stains are not visible, but Jackie is central head
tipped toward the judge. Her eyes fixed a portrait
of grace, grief, and pain. The flight to Andrews Air Force
Base in Maryland was somber. Jackie sat by Kennedy's casket with Kennedy's people cramming themselves into the tail of the plane to be close by. People came over to
offer Jackie condolences and she met them with
a level of compassion that many would remember with awe. In particular, she
insisted that an ambulance drive Kennedy's remains
to Bethesda Naval Hospital rather than a hearse. And more importantly, she asked Agent William Greer to drive. Greer had been the one driving the car when President Kennedy was shot, he was overwhelmed by guilt
over having not swerved or found a way to save the president. Jackie's trusting him to drive President Kennedy one more time, touched the man's soul. By 6:00 pm local time Air
Force One arrived at Andrews upon arriving Robert Kennedy, JFK's younger brother and attorney general bounded onto the plane,
ignoring Lyndon B. Johnson. A point that the new
president remained silent on, but noticed he went
straight to Jackie and said, "Hi, Jackie I'm here." It was astonishing how
much like his brother John he was in that moment, but something was still to go very wrong. I'll save you the
suspense. It's the casket. It's the casket, again. The lift that was sent to Air Force One to lower Kennedy's casket down
to the tarmac was too short. Kennedy's people, and Jackie had asked that they handled the casket
instead of the military had to carefully manhandle
casket onto the platform so it could be lowered. At this point, it was abundantly clear that the casket was damaged and all this jostling
would break it further. The casket was finagled onto the platform and lowered only to
find out that it stopped five feet from the ground. Now the military did have to step in to help Kennedy's men lower
the heavy, broken casket to the ground. The whole situation was
clumsy and embarrassing. A reporter called it grotesque. When the president's casket
was finally off the lift, it was loaded into an ambulance. Jackie scurried into the
back of the ambulance to be with Jack and Robert
Kennedy climbed up front. In the 40 minutes it took
to get to the hospital after landing, Jackie said to
the special agent Kellerman and Robert Kennedy. "I don't want any undertakers. I want everything done by the Navy." Jackie didn't want any undertakers. If you remember Vernon O'Neal had believed that he would be caring for
Kennedy's remains in Dallas until he was abruptly informed otherwise. There are funeral directors
who will watch this and absolutely cringe at all the places things would have gone
better and been smoothed over if they had only put trust
in a funeral director. And this is one of those
cases, as I think I agree, there is a certain type
of funeral director who is equipped to create
the absolute pageantry and flawless execution that is expected of a
presidential funeral. I, for one, admit, I would
be completely unqualified. I'd be like Vernon O'Neal in there like, oh my God, why am I casketing a president who is assassinated like an hour before? Oh, look, they stole my
hearse, what is going on. But here is a crucial
piece of information. Jackie Kennedy and Robert Kennedy did not want a funeral
director involved at any point in Kennedy's death care and funeral. This was 1963 after all and
they knew their Mitford. (triumphant music) A few months before Kennedy's
assassination in 1963, Jessica Mitford's "The
American Way of Death" was published to huge fanfare. It was a runaway New
York Times best seller taking aim at the funeral industry, calling it a huge, macabre,
and expensive practical joke on the American public. - Now these are lead coated
steels, medium price range. - Mitford argued that the
funeral industry in America sanitized death while the same time codifying its most gruesome practices, including the lavish
casket, embalming, makeup, morning memorabilia, and burial vault. - The silent night special and very special it is
too, if I may say so. - Her descriptions of the
embalming process were so graphic that her first publisher
broke their contract with her. When the American way
of death was published, the average funeral came
to the exorbitant cost of between 700 and a $1,000. To put this in perspective, the median annual income was only $5,600. Milford's righteous indignation
at the high funeral costs and lavish funerary products tapped into the zeitgeist of the time. Americans felt deeply taken advantage of by the funeral industry and were ready for a scathing take down. - This offers maximum protection for our unit in the middle price range. - As an alternative Mitford argued for the simplest funeral possible, with the simplest casket
possible, followed by a cremation. There was no need for the
dead person to be sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled,
dressed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged, and neatly dressed, transformed from a common corpse into a beautiful memory picture. - Not merely waterproof nor moisture proof, Mr.
Barlow, but dampness proof. - The funeral industry,
as you can imagine, could not have hated this woman more. Not only was she British,
she was a former communist, the red sheep of her
aristocratic English family. To this day, funeral directors
are angry about Mitford and they could really hold a grudge. You're just gonna need
to trust me on that one. This is one part of what makes 1963, one of the most fascinating
years in American death, alongside the publication of
the "American Way of Death" and the Kennedy assassination. There was the Pope stepping
into the cremation debate and lifting the ban on
cremation for Catholics. Catholics, like the Kennedy family, when Mitford's book was published, only about 3% of Americans
were cremated 3%. Now acceptance of bodily dispositions moves extremely slowly,
but numbers began to rise with the "American Way
of Death's" publication growing to almost 60% of Americans now. I would argue a lot of
those percentage points are as a result of the
theoretical groundwork laid by Jessica Mitford and
those who agreed with her. Which is not to say the
legacy is not complicated. My colleague, Dr. Kami
Fletcher argues convincingly that Mitford was so worried
about the cost of funerals, that she wouldn't allow her
argument to be complicated by race, ethnicity,
immigration, or even gender. And while I agree with
Mitford's overall critique of the funeral industrial complex and the financial pressures on the family. - I can give you our eternal flame and either the perpetual
eternal or standard eternal. - I devoted a whole
chapter in my first book to why telling families
to cut out all ceremony and get the least expensive
cremation you can find is not always the answer. It's the realistic interaction
with death and rituals around the dead body that
people were being cheated out of by the funeral industry, not just money. But most important for our purposes is that by the time of
Kennedy's assassination, Mitford's book had infiltrated
the Kennedy's circle. Robert, his brother, had read it as had Jack and Jackie's
close friend, William Walton, his brother-in-law Sargent
Shriver and possibly, but not proven, even Jack
and Jackie themselves. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Jackie, the involvement of a funeral home had already been discussed in
Washington earlier that day. Not only did they need a
new casket and (chuckles) boy howdy, did they need a new casket? But despite Robert and Jackie's wishes that the military hospital
and only the hospital handled the of president's
remains, it was not possible. While the hospital could
do the embalming quote, the military isn't equipped
to prepare the remains, that is they weren't
restorative embalmers. They couldn't do the work to make Kennedy look like Kennedy again. He needed major
reconstruction and for that, he had to go to his
specialized funeral home, enter Joseph Gawler's Sons,
a prestige funeral home that had been handling
high profile state deaths in Washington, DC since 1850. Gawler's had handled the
remains of President Taft and president Franklin Roosevelt. Their viewing hours were even
a tourist attraction in DC, but first they had to perform the autopsy. After accidentally leaving
Kennedy in his casket behind with his makeshift pallbearers, for five minutes outside
Bethesda, the error was realized and Kennedy's casket was
brought to the morgue. Only once they were there,
they realized that the stairway leading to the morgue doors was too narrow for the casket to fit. There was more man-handling
and more banging up of the already broken casket. Could we just put him on
a gurney or something? We just, we can't do this anymore. It's simultaneously the best argument for having funeral
directors to handle the body and the best argument
against funeral directors. Since they're the reason this monstrosity of an overpriced
hermetically sealed casket even existed in the first place. - All our units are waterproof. - When the casket finally
made it into the morgue, the Handley Brittania casket was opened and no the plastic and rubber had not protected the
interior of the casket from the carnage. Kennedy's remains were
moved to an autopsy table by the Navy team that
would perform the autopsy. Kennedy lay naked on the table. Aside from his head wound, he
was remarkably unblemished. For hours, doctors performed
an autopsy of the president taking photos, extracting
bullet fragments, examining the body for
entry and exit wounds. A fragment of the president's skull had been found on Elm Street
and had been sent to Bethesda, said Lieutenant Richard Lipsey, who was president for the autopsy. There was no question in their minds that the bullets all came
from the same direction. What if this suddenly
became a second shooter on the grassy knoll video? It's not going to, but
wouldn't that be a twist any conspiracy people in the audience? And I know there are conspiracy
people in the audience. I just wanna talk about
rising cremation rates through American history. Don't come for me. Was the CIA involved,
was Russian involved? Who knows, you know who was involved? Jessica Mitford. By midnight, the autopsy
was finally finished. All during this time, Jackie,
Robert, and Kennedy's people had been discussing the funeral as well as who would handle the cosmetic reconstruction
of the president. Should there be a viewing, which
was absolutely in question. Jackie remained in her stained suit, still exhibiting enormous compassion to those who had loved her husband. Though the autopsy was finished, the president still needed a new casket. So Ken O'Donnell and Larry
O'Brien another Kennedy advisor. And Irish Mafia member went
to Gawler's to get a casket. There's some confusion as to
what happened at Gawler's. In the spirit of Mitford O'Brien requested the plainest one you have
in the middle price range. And he was shown choices by Gawler's. Robert Kennedy thought
he spoke to Gawler's about a moderately priced $1,400 casket, a point Gawler's does not recall, but a $2,000 casket was selected. And with it, the most expensive
vault in the establishment, the total came to $3,160, which was not what Robert had asked for. Gawler's brought the casket to Bethesda where their embalming
and reconstruction team supervised by Joe Gawler's
Chief Assistant Joe Hagen went to work, attempting to fill and rebuild the president's
missing skull and exposed brain with cotton and plaster. They worried the whole time
about potential leakage from the skull, a very relatable
funeral director concern. They worked until approximately
4:00 am to set his face, return his parlor and
try to bring him back to the Jack Kennedy, his
wife and brother mourned. Journalist, Jim Bishop reported that the morticians were in a
manner of speaking, magicians. - Oh, he's beautiful. - They repaired the
president's shattered skull layer by layer quote, whispering
incantations to each other until Kennedy was whole again. They dressed him, put
a rosary in his hands and placed him into the new casket made of gleaming African mahogany. As this was happening,
tensions continued to rise around the question of the viewing. Jackie did not want an open
casket, but Robert Kennedy and secretary of defense, Robert McNamara believed that a president
belonged to people and his casket must be open. "I want the coffin closed so badly. You can't have it open."
Jackie insisted to McNamara in the kitchen at Bethesda. "It can't be done, Jackie. Everybody wants to see the head of state." "I don't care." she said, and
she said of his embalmed body. "It's the most awful, morbid thing, they have to remember Jack alive." Said McNamara later, "The
tension in that kitchen was unimaginable." In the small hours of the morning, President Kennedy returned
home to the White House. The path to the North
Portico lit by small flames, the light in the East Room glowed, military pallbearers carried
the president's casket to the East Room and placed
it upon a catafalque. A priest said a prayer as did Jackie. She then turned and went upstairs, leaving Robert to keep his promise to her that he settled the question
of an open or closed casket. Robert asked the military death watch, a group of men who would stay vigilant at the dead president's side to leave and approached his brother's casket. The lid already opened for him. He looked down at his
brother for the first time and realized there was no way his brother could be seen
by the public this way. He exited the East Room and
asked some other close friends to go look at the embalmed
and reconstructed body letting them know Jackie wants it covered. They would echo both him and
Jackie saying things like, "It's appalling. It's
too waxing, too made up." The Kennedy's dear friend,
William Walton said, "You mustn't keep it open. It has no resemblance to the president. It's a wax dummy. "It," He said, "not him." Robert agreed and said,
"Close it." and so it was. At Jackie's request the casket was opened
one final time on Sunday before President Kennedy
went to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state. Jackie wanted Robert and her to have some last moments of with Jack. She asked special agent Hill
to get her some scissors and she cut a lock of Jack's hair. As of 12:46 pm, on Sunday,
November 24th, 1963, President Kennedy's casket
would never open again. Seeing him again, she was
pleased with the decision to leave the casket closed. It isn't Jack, she thought, it isn't Jack. A quarter of a million people came to pay their final
respects to President Kennedy. The casket remained shut. While Jackie and Robert did
not fully get their wish that a funeral home would not be involved. They kept a tight grip on what
this state funeral would be. No five foot tall cross
and silver candlesticks that Gawler's brought in,
only flowers and simplicity. Well, simplicity for a state funeral of a sitting president, anyway. And this is really the question. How much did Kennedy belong to the people and how much did he belong
to Jackie and his family? Even I am torn on this. In many ways, I think
Jackie did an elegant job of the balance. There is no doubt that Jackie indulged in public presidential pageantry for the benefit of a country in mourning. The same caisson that carried Lincoln also carried Kennedy to
St. Matthew's Cathedral for the funeral mass, and then to Arlington National Cemetery, the cemetery Jackie chose as
opposed to a Catholic cemetery, precisely because Jackie did believe he belonged to the nation. She chose to walk behind the caisson. Jackie remained in
control for this funeral, from the music to ask in her son, John, to salute his father's casket, which appears in this
well known photograph. At President Kennedy's grave, she was behind the placement
of the eternal flame, but when it came to the body of JFK, Jackie didn't want that kind
of funeral for her husband. She wanted something real
and raw and connected. She had already sat a full day covered in her husband's blood. She wasn't interested in
turning that visceral grief and destruction into pageantry and the reconstructed
waxing image of his face. Something that is often forgotten is that just three months
before Kennedy was assassinated, Jackie Kennedy had given
birth to her son, Patrick. Patrick lived just two days before dying of infant
respiratory distress. Jackie would still have been
in deep grief for her son. When her husband was also taken from her. Maybe she no longer felt it was her job to do everything for the public and her trauma required
something different. What Jackie seemed to want was just access to her husband's body as it truly was chaotic,
though, it was time for rituals like giving him her ring
and cutting locks of hair and dropping in letters
from their children. She obviously was uncomfortable
with funeral directors, but to be fair, she didn't
want anyone around her husband other than their close family and friends. When Jackie herself died more
than 30 years later in 1994, you saw these same tensions reflected. She made choices for privacy and intimacy. Her body was embalmed in her own bathroom and waked right in her living room. Yet she also understood her public duty and would be buried in Arlington Cemetery next to her husband in the same model of
mahogany casket as John. Her son, Patrick, is buried there as well. And as you are probably wondering, you may not be wondering what happened to O'Neal's original casket? Two months after President
Kennedy was buried, Vernon O'Neal requested
the federal government pay him $3,995 for the casket. That's the equivalent of
$37,000 in today's money. When the government balked, he
dropped the price to $3,495. This public attempt to run
collections on Jack Kennedy caused the large drop off in his business. O'Neal really would've preferred the original casket back instead, given that he had gotten offers of a hundred thousand
dollars for the casket from collectors. The Kennedy family insisted the government to pay for the casket and O'Neal services, a final settlement of $3,160, and the casket was taken into
the government's possession. In late 1965, a bill was passed to preserve anything associated with Kennedy's assassination, but because the casket was
discarded and considered surplus, except those morbidly curious, it was decided it should be destroyed. On February 18th, 1966, the casket was flown 100
miles east of Washington to a spot in John F. Kennedy's
beloved Atlantic ocean. At 10:00 am, the casket drilled with holes and weighted with sandbags
was pushed into the ocean from an aircraft where it quickly sank. Apparently Kennedy had
spoken about a desire to be buried at sea. And as if evidence of how
much the funeral industry had changed since the
Kennedy assassination and Jessica Mitford, in 1999, after John F. Kennedy Jr's
tragic death in a plane crash, his recovered remains were cremated, taken out to the Atlantic
some hundred or so miles from his father's first doomed casket and committed to the sea. Thank you as always to our patrons who give us the space for
this level of research and the opportunity to travel
and film in places like Dallas and The Sixth Floor
Museum at Dealey Plaza, which appears in this video. (gentle somber music)
This is a really good YT channel, highly recommend. This video was great, too.
Ah, good. I was gonna post this if someone else didn't.
Ask a mortician is one of my favorites! Caitlyn is so very informative while being respectful! And she talks about lots of subjects! 🖤🖤🖤