1960. John Kennedy almost certainly would not have defeated Richard Nixon without his superior performance in the four televised presidential debates in the fall of 1960. Here, moderator Howard K. Smith is looking up at a wan Vice President Nixon, who had been ill, while a tanned, rested Senator Kennedy takes notes during the first debate on September 26. The debates were a first of their kind.

1960. Senator Kennedy protests as a policeman hauls away an unidentified admirer who wanted to shake hands with him in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 14, 1960. (At Kennedy's insistence, the woman was later allowed to meet him.) The throng surrounding Kennedy's car was a security nightmare.

1961. Despite bitter cold and heavy snow the previous evening, Kennedy's inauguration drew large crowds. They were rewarded with one of the most inspiring inaugural addresses in the nation's history, after the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Earl Warren, 1961.

1961. The spread of Communism in Southeast Asia was an unavoidable focus for the Kennedy Administration. Here, at a news conference on March 23, 1961, President Kennedy points to a map showing the progress of the Communists into Laos, Vietnam's neighbor.

1961. Kennedy's infidelities put great strain on his marriage, but nonetheless he and Jackie appeared to have a deep reservoir of affection for one another. Here, President Kennedy fixes Jackie's wind-blown hair as they ride in a convertible between Blair House and the White House in May 1961.

1961. On May 31, 1961, President de Gaulle of France welcomed First Lady Jackie Kennedy to the Elysee Palace. Madame de Gaulle and President Kennedy stand to the side. The French were taken with Mrs. Kennedy's beauty, style, and impeccable French. The President commented to a press lunch in Paris that he had become "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris."

1962. President Kennedy looks on as Jackie speaks in Spanish to the soldiers of the Bay of Pigs Brigade from an open car. Miami, Florida, December 29, 1962.

1962. The Kennedy family captivated much of America and was a source of comedic inspiration for some. This popular long-playing album, The First Family, was distributed widely in 1962 and starred Vaughn Meader as the voice of President Kennedy. His career as a JFK imitator ended on the day the president was shot.

1963. Only in his last months in office did President Kennedy move decisively to secure fundamental liberties for African Americans via legislation. On New Year's Day 1963, JFK met with various civil rights and labor leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was being wiretapped by the FBI with the knowledge of Attorney General Robert Kennedy).

1963. President Kennedy's nonchalance and fashion sense transformed him into a cultural icon. Here the commander in chief jokes with two military officers on the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany during a naval exercise off San Diego on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1963.

1963. An emotional high point for the president was his visit to the land of his ancestors, Ireland, in June 1963. Enormous crowds followed him everywhere, but in this intimate setting, JFK has tea with distant relatives, the Ryan family of Duganstown.

1963. President Kennedy's motorcade was actually at a halt leaving the Quirinal Palace, home of Italy's president in Rome. JFK would have been an easy target for any sniper in this circumstance. Two Secret Service agents are riding on the back of the limousine, in position to protect the president quickly if needed. In Dallas, no agents rode on the back of the car.

1963. President Kennedy met Pope Paul VI in Vatican City on July 2, 1963. The pope had been in office for less than two weeks, having just succeeded the late pope John XXIII. Because of continuing sensitivity about Protestant claims of excessive papal influence on the Catholic Kennedy, the president did not kiss the pope's ring, as is customary. This did not sit well with some in the papal circle, but it was a reasonable precaution with the reelection campaign pending in 1964.

1963. President Kennedy took a gamble in pledging that Americans would beat the Russians and land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, but his space program inspired the nation-and achieved its goal. In his last week, on November 16, 1963, the president flew to Cape Canaveral, Florida (soon to be renamed Cape Kennedy), to be briefed concerning the plans to build the giant Saturn rocket that would eventually power the astronauts to the Moon.

1963. President Kennedy's last speech, delivered outside the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963. Right to left behind JFK are Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Governor John Connally, who would be badly wounded in the presidential car. To Connally's right is U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas), whose political feud with LBJ and Connally-and the need to calm it-was one of the motivations behind JFK's Texas trip.

1963. This Western Union telegram, sent at 6:18 pm on November 21, 1963, sent President Kennedy's congratulations to actor Danny Kaye for his work with UNICEF. It is one of the last written messages from JFK before he was assassinated the next day.

1963. Telegram to Danny Kaye (page 2).

1963. Lee Harvey Oswald had long been a troubled individual, perpetually dissatisfied with his lot in life but incapable of changing it. In this famous photo taken by his wife, Oswald posed with a revolver, rifle, and two left wing magazines on March 31, 1963. Over the years, some critics have charged that the photo was doctored, but a congressional committee validated its authenticity in the late 1970s.

1963. This person was photographed coming in and out of the Soviet Embassy at about the same time as Oswald's September 1963 trip to Mexico City. Some claim he was an agent of the eventual assassins, sent to impersonate Oswald. Others say he was a KGB scientist named Yuriy Moskalev. He has never been conclusively identified.

1963. The Kennedys arrive in Dallas at Love Field, late in the morning on November 22, 1963. "You can see the president's suntan from here," said an on-air local TV newsman.

1963. Not everyone at Dallas's Love Field was friendly to the Kennedys. Among those waiting for the presidential couple on November 22 were sign-carrying protestors, including one urging people to VOTE WHITE.

1963. The casual security in Dallas on November 22 is demonstrated by this photo of the presidential car, slowed to a crawl by traffic and crowds. President Kennedy waves to people riding in a sidelined bus on Main Street, just blocks from Dealey Plaza.

1963. This revealing, little-seen photograph shows the Kennedys and the Connallys riding in the presidential car through Dallas. President Kennedy is squeezed in the back seat; Governor Connally is sitting on the jump seat about a half foot lower and slightly to the left of JFK. This positioning is critical in understanding the eventual bullet trajectories.

1963. In another infrequently seen photograph, the president is a minute or less away from disaster. Kennedy adjusts his hair in the region of the head where the bullet will hit as his limousine turns right onto Houston Street. Looming in the background is the Texas School Book Depository. Note the open window on the sixth floor where boxes are visible. This is the sniper's nest.

This is the famous Polaroid picture of JFK's final moment, taken by Mary Moorman. President Kennedy has already been shot through the back and neck, and in an instant, the fatal bullet will strike his skull. This photo also captures the grassy knoll area. Some claim that behind the picket fence, shaded by trees, is a shooter called "Badge Man," because, in blow-ups, the outline of a man with a badge can be discerned. On the right-hand side, standing on the concrete ledge, is Abraham Zapruder and his assistant. Zapruder is taking the only filmed sequence of the actual assassination.

1963. Seconds after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, Secret Service agent Clint Hill gets his footing on the presidential limousine. He will soon push Mrs. Kennedy back into her seat and cover her and the mortally wounded president for the short ride to Parkland Hospital. Mrs. Kennedy was apparently attempting to retrieve a portion of her husband's skull or brain that had fallen on the trunk after the fatal bullet struck JFK's head.

1963. A Dallas photojournalist captured two African American men, Bonnie Ray Williams and Harold Norman, peering out of a fifth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository moments after the assassination. The boxes from the sniper's nest are visible in the sixth-floor window above their heads. Norman reported hearing the sound of shells hitting the floor above his head.

1963. Some three hours after the assassination, photographer Jerry Cabluck of the Fort Worth Star Telegram took this shot of Dealey Plaza from a rented helicopter. Police cars and officers are on and near the grassy knoll, just below and to the right of the Depository.

1963. At Parkland Hospital, with the president having been taken to Trauma Room One, police and federal agents surround the presidential limousine. Almost unbelievably, two agents appear to be wiping down the blood in the car, which is a crime scene. (Note the bucket on the ground near the motorcycle policeman's left foot.) Blood splatter patterns were used even in the 1960s to help determine bullet trajectories.

2012. Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the physicians who tended to President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963, holding his shirt from that day, still stained with President Kennedy's blood.

1963. Back at Love Field in Dallas, President Kennedy's staff struggles to load his coffin onto Air Force One. Some seats were removed in the back of the plane to accommodate the fallen leader and his grieving widow and close aides. Mrs. Kennedy is accompanied by Larry O'Brien, a future Democratic National Committee chairman (whose office bugging triggered the Watergate scandal that eventually resulted in President Nixon's resignation). In a simple tribute, a policeman places his cap over his heart in the background.

1963. The famous photo of President Johnson's swearing in aboard Air Force One at 2:40 P.M. LBJ personally arranged his wife Lady Bird on one side and Jackie Kennedy on the other as he was sworn in by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, personally requested by LBJ for the task. Hughes was the first woman to swear in a president.

1963. President Kennedy's casket is placed inside a hearse after Air Force One's landing at Andrews Air Force Base just before 6 p.m. EST on November 22, 1963. Mrs. Kennedy, still dressed in the same pink outfit and accompanied by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, prepares to accompany the body to the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

2012. The Dallas jail cell that housed Lee Harvey Oswald for the final two days of his life. This facility is now abandoned.

1963. Bob Jackson received a Pulitzer Prize for this historic photo of Jack Ruby firing a single, deadly shot into Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. This was the first live televised murder in American history. Ruby was later sentenced to death, though he died of cancer before the execution could be carried out. The Dallas police officer attempting to pull Oswald away from Ruby's gun is Jim Leavelle, who was also stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

1963. In perhaps the most memorable moment of the weekend, John F. Kennedy, Jr. salutes his father's coffin. The small boy's moving gesture brought millions to tears and reminded Americans of the very personal tragedy for a young family.

1963. Catholic nuns gather to pray at the grassy knoll in Dallas's Dealey Plaza during President Kennedy's funeral on Monday, November 25, 1963.

1964. President Johnson solemnly bows before JFK's final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery on the day before Kennedy would have turned forty-seven years old, May 29, 1964.

1965. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his family kneel before JFK's Eternal Flame, June 1965.

1967. This photograph, taken May 27, 1967, captures the moment of christening the USS John F. Kennedy at Newport News, Virginia, as nine-year-old Caroline Kennedy smashes a bottle on the ship's bow while her younger brother observes under Jackie's watchful gaze and that of President Johnson.

1968. JFK's bust was present for most Cabinet meetings during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. The White House was presented with Kennedy's likeness on November 19, 1964. In early 1963, sculptor Felix de Weldon was chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to produce the bust that was to be a featured item in JFK's eventual presidential library. President Kennedy posed for the work in the White House, but it was unfinished at the time of his death.

1968. Pallbearers carry Senator Robert F. Kennedy's body to its final resting place near President Kennedy's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, June 1968. RFK's murder rekindled painful memories of his brother's assassination and caused many people to wonder if the gunman, Sirhan B. Sirhan, had been part of a conspiracy.

1969. President Nixon hands Senator Edward Kennedy a pen while approving amendments to the Older Americans Act, September 1969. Despite Kennedy's Chappaquiddick scandal in July that year, Nixon and his aides were still worried that JFK's potent legacy might help his youngest brother win the White House in 1972.

1997. President Gerald R. Ford had served on the Warren Commission while a member of the U.S. House, and he was the longest surviving member of the commission. He emphatically supported the Warren Report's conclusions for the rest of his life, as this signed letter from 1997 indicates.

2001. In 2001 President Ford received the John F. Kennedy Foundation's "Profiles in Courage" award for his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon, which may have cost Ford a full White House term of his own. Senator Edward Kennedy, one of Ford's harshest critics at the time of the pardon, and JFK's daughter Caroline were on hand to present the award.

1979. President Carter shakes hands with Senator Edward Kennedy as Kennedy's wife Joan looks on during the dedication of the John F. Kennedy Library, October 20, 1979. Kennedy's attempt to oust Carter the following year helped Ronald Reagan win the White House and created lasting animosity between Carter and the Kennedys.

1981. Despite deep differences in philosophy, the Kennedys and the Reagans shared a mutual respect for one another and maintained a cordial relationship during Reagan's eight years in office. Here Rose Kennedy and son Ted pay a friendly visit to the Oval Office on November 12, 1981.

1985. President Reagan delivers a glowing tribute to JFK during a June 24, 1985, fundraiser for the John F. Kennedy Library at Ted Kennedy's home in McLean, Virginia. Reagan's genuine admiration for President Kennedy helped bridge the political divide between the two families.

1985. Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Reagan were both traumatized by the shootings of their husbands, but according to Mrs. Reagan, they never shared their experiences with one another. The two First Ladies are shown here at the June 1985 reception for the JFK Library.

1958. As two of the most famous and enduring families in American politics, the Kennedys and the Bushes have often interacted. In this photograph from June 26, 1958, Senator Kennedy (right), who founded the New England Conference of Senators, meets with the group's members in the office of Senator Prescott Bush (center, seated), the father of future president George H.W. Bush and the grandfather of future president George W. Bush.

1963. "The Torch Is Passed." Bill Clinton, a seventeen year-old Boys Nation delegate from Arkansas and the future forty-second president, shakes hands with the thirty-fifth president in the White House's Rose Garden on July 24, 1963. This was a much-seen photograph during Clinton's 1992 campaign. Clinton's mother, Virginia, would later describe the moment this way: "When he came home from Boys Nation with this picture of John Kennedy and himself shaking hands, I've never seen such an expression on a man's face in my life. He just had such pride. And I knew then that government in some form would be his goal."

1993. President-elect Clinton receives a tour of JFK's gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery from JFK, Jr. and Senator Ted Kennedy on inauguration eve, January 19, 1993.

1993. President Clinton speaks at the John F. Kennedy Library in October 1993 during the dedication of the new Kennedy museum.

2004. President George W. Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy talk during the December 3, 2004, signing of a bill increasing educational opportunities for those with disabilities. Despite many political differences, Bush and Kennedy made common cause in educational policy.

2008. Caroline Kennedy joined her uncle Ted on January 28, 2008, at American University in giving the Kennedy blessing to Senator Barack Obama. They compared Obama with their father and brother, saying both JFK and Obama had inspired a younger generation to get involved. Given the closeness of the Obama-Clinton contest, the Kennedy imprimatur may well have made the difference.

Notes.

INTRODUCTION: THE BIRTH OF A LEGACY.

1. "Etymology: Medieval Latin legatio, from Latin legare to bequeath," Dictionary.com,

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/legacy

[accessed July 13, 2011].

2. See Eyal J. Naveh, Crown of Thorns: Political Martyrdom in America from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: New York University Press, 1990), 1.

3. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon are both excellent examples. But JFK's martyrdom has minimized the impact of revelations about his private life, while Nixon's resignation in the midst of scandal has given his image no protection.

4. Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation and University of Virginia, 1998), xiii.

5. Few presidents have ever had as devoted a group of aides determined to shape his image long after his death as has John Kennedy. See John Hellmann, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

6. Hart Research Associates, "Internet Survey of 2,009 Adults Nationally," June 713, 2012,

http://survey-na.researchnow.com/wix/p337243575.aspx

[accessed September 12, 2012] and "Focus Group Interviews in Richmond, Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California: Men and Women, 55 and Older, 4054, 3039, and 2029," July 1118, 2012. Commissioned by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, all rights reserved.

1. "PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED AT 1 P.M. CENTRAL STANDARD TIME"

1. Kenneth P. O'Donnell, David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye": Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 26.

2. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 191763 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 693; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 1023. Jackie's chief secret service agent, Clint Hill, says that the Roosevelts tried to talk her out of making the trip to Dallas. See Clint Hill, Mrs. Kennedy and Me (New York: Gallery Books, 2012), 26667. Hill does not specify which Roosevelts, but he is probably referring to FDR son James Roosevelt and his wife. Gerald Blaine, one of the other agents assigned to the Texas detail, told me that the "trip to Dallas was like any other trip the president took. There were no special concerns and the president loved his reception." E-mail from Gerald Blaine, January 9, 2013. The split was between the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party (led by Senator Ralph Yarborough) and the conservative wing (led by Governor John Connally). According to the PBS journalist Bill Moyers, this infighting weighed heavily on JFK's mind in the weeks leading up to the Dallas trip, and he ordered Moyers to fly to Texas ahead of time to calm the waters. When Moyers resisted, citing his responsibilities at the Peace Corps, Kennedy said, "Well, Bill, I'll tell you what: You go to Texas and think about politics and I'll be here in Washington thinking about the Peace Corps. Okay?" Needless to say, Moyers went to Texas. Bill Moyers, letter to Jeb Byrne, April 13, 2010, forwarded by Harold Pachios via e-mail, December 6, 2011.

3. Connally's use of the word "murdered" presaged what the governor would cry out just after having been shot on 11/22/63: "My God, they're going to kill us all!"

4. "Phone Call Between President Kennedy and John Connally, November 7, 1962," YouTube,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYZBePl4Lk&feature=channel&list=UL

[accessed September 4, 2012].