Tag Archive for Soviet Union

Nov 25 1963: Kennedy’s funeral, and Washington’s response firms up

November 25, 2012 Aftermath, In 1963 2 comments

On the Monday following the tragic and fast-moving events in Dallas, President Kennedy’s body was laid to rest in Arlington cemetary. A host of foreign dignitaries took part, including British Prime Minister Home, French President Charles de Gaulle, and many others.

LBJ on the phone

Meanwhile the federal government’s response to the assassination was taking shape. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent the White House a memo proposing a course of action. He went right to the point in its second paragraph:

“The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

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Top Russian at JFK funeral: U.S. ‘does not want to involve us’

November 25, 2012 Quotable No comments

“Judging from everything, the U.S. government does not want to involve us in this matter, but neither does it want to get into a fight with the extreme rightists; it clearly prefers to consign the whole business to oblivion as soon as possible.”

- Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, writing to his government after talks with U.S. officials at Kennedy’s funeral. The telegram was part of a collection of documents given by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to President Clinton in 1999.

At the funeral ceremony, Mikoyan approached Jacqueline Kennedy, who “clasped both his hands in hers and in a voice filled with deep emotion” said: “Please tell Mr. Chairman [Khrushchev] that I know he and my husband worked together for a peaceful world, and now he and you must carry on my husband’s work.” (Brothers, by David Talbot, p. 254)