.png)
Q. I served in the military honor guard in Kennedy’s White House. I was on duty when the plane carrying Kennedy’s casket, Mrs. Kennedy, and the Johnsons landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
A. This veteran, Lee Crawford, had seen photographs of the honor guard who stood by the jet’s door as the casket was unloaded. He is in those photographs. He’d like to get a good quality copy of that image. He asked me to help find a source.
I looked online and found the same images he had seen, but I didn’t find a good source. I did discover that Cecil Stoughton was the Kennedy’s official White House photographer. Many, if not all, of Stoughton’s photographs are in the archives of the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
When I searched that library’s website, I found Stoughton’s photographs of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base. I also found the telephone number for the reference desk in their audio-visual archives. I called and spoke to Ms. Grossman. She knew just the images I wanted and sent me information on ordering reproductions.
I forwarded that email to Mr. Crawford. I also sent Mr. Crawford an image I found in the New York World-Telegram and Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection of the Library of Congress. That link also included information on ordering copies.
Books on the Kennedys continue to come out. For photographs of John and Jackie Kennedy from happier days, I recommend two books by Jacques Lowe: “Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys” and “JFK Remembered.”
Lowe was Kennedy’s official campaign photographer. After the election, he became President Kennedy’s personal photographer.
