#13: "I Could Stay Here Forever"

This week we talk about the most visited site at Arlington National Cemetery, President John F. Kennedy's grave - after his burial, everything changed.

This week’s Ghost of Arlington are:

1. President John F. Kennedy (Section 45, Grave S-45)
2. Jacquelin Kennedy Onassis (Section 45, Grave S-45)
3.  Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Section 45, Grave S-45-A)
4. Arabella Kennedy (Section 45, Grave S-45)
5. Patrick Kennedy (Section 45, Grave S-45)

Also, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the podcast on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MountainUpCapCompany Climb to Glory!

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Transcript

Episode 13: “I Could Stay Here Forever”

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Ghosts of Arlington, Episode 13: “I Could Stay Here Forever” <PLAY INTRO> Last week, we saw the end of the Korean War and the inclusion of Unknowns from both WWII and Korea at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the mid-1950s. The United States also established a national policy that it would no longer leave fallen service members in US-maintained foreign cemeteries – from here on out, all those killed in action would be repatriated. In the book that has greatly shaped the first several episodes of this podcast, On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery, Robert Poole divides the history of the cemetery into three eras: disunion, reunion, and the nation’s cemetery. Today we begin the final phase of Arlington’s evolution.

On March 3, 1963, just after 4:30 in the afternoon as the day’s crowd began to drift away from the cemetery, a young National Park Service Ranger named Paul Fuqua stepped out of the Lee Mansion and nearly ran into the most recognizable face in America. “Mind if we look around?” asked President John F. Kennedy – and thus began Kennedy’s first and only tour of the Lee Mansion. Fuqua later recalled that the president, a history buff himself, was already familiar with many aspects of the mansion and Montgomery Meigs and was quite conversant about it all. When they stepped out the front door and peered down at the Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial beyond it, the park ranger, the president, and his entourage stood there in silence, taking in the view. Later, Fuqua recalled that Kennedy broke the silence with a prophetic utterance, “I could stay here forever.” Of course, no one knew how prophetic it was at the time. Soon thereafter, a limousine pulled up, the president gave his thanks and drove away. 

Eight months later, on Friday, November 22, 1963, JFK was dead, killed by an assassin in Dallas, Texas. The untimely death of the young, healthy, and energetic president left the White House reeling and scrambling to arrange a state funeral. Initially, it was assumed that Kennedy would return to Boston – in fact, he had said as much during the tour of the Lee Mansion when the conversation naturally turned to the topic. There was a minority option within Kennedy’s inner circle that thought Arlington would be a better choice. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara gets the credit for voicing that opinion first, but after he did, all members of the inner circle without ties to Boston latched onto it. The next day, Saturday, November 23, fully expecting the family to go the Boston route, John Metzler, the cemetery superintendent still did his due diligence and scouted potential burial sites at the cemetery. Metzler landed on what he thought was the perfect spot but also selected two others so the family would have options if they did choose Arlington. The first two spots had navy ties to honor JFK’s WWII service, one on the southern edge of the cemetery near the grave of Admiral Robert E. Peary, the arctic explorer, and the other west of the amphitheater near the USS Maine Memorial. The final spot – the perfect spot – was just down the hill from the Lee Mansion, with a view of the Memorial Bridge and all of Washington, the same view Kennedy had not wanted to leave just a few months before. Superintendent Metzler’s due diligence paid off as less than an hour later he received a phone call saying the late president’s brother Bobby was en route to the cemetery with his sisters Eunice Shriver and Patricia Lawford, Secretary McNamara, and a contingent of aides. The superintendent drove the group to the three sites in a downpour. After seeing all three, they backtracked to the base of the hill for a second look at that site, walked around in the rain, took in the view, and left without a word.

Back at the White House, Bobby, Eunice, and Patricia gave their grieving sister-in-law Jackie, a positive report about the Arlington site. The former First Lady, whose sense of the historic moment was stronger than any tribal ties to Boston felt inclined toward a burial at Arlington so that her husband would <QUOTE> “belong to the nation.” But she wanted to see the site herself. The group and their retinue returned to the cemetery later that afternoon. Mrs. Kennedy was driven to the spot below the Lee Mansion, separated from the group, stood in silent reflection for 15 minutes, and without a word, nodded her head in assent. A family friend in the group with a good eye for proportions climbed the soggy hill, looked down on the site, and pointed to the exact spot where the grave should go. The family watched as Metzler put a stake in the designated location and the family left, telling him to prepare for a Monday funeral.

I can only imagine the absolute panic that went through Metzler’s mind at that time – here it is, almost 4 pm on Saturday and you have maybe 36 hours to prepare for a funeral the entire world will be watching. He made plans to call in workers at first light the next day. A thick layer of fallen leaves had to be cleared from the site, security cordons laid out, mats spread over the wet earth, a press stand erected, and a presidential grave dug. As the cemetery employees got to work the next morning, McNamara returned with a crew of engineers to officially survey the 600 square foot plot. It turned out that the stake Metzler put in the ground the day before was only 6 inches off from the axis running from the Lee Mansion to the Lincoln Memorial. The stake was adjusted, and 12 granite posts were set to establish the grave’s boundaries. 

While the burial site was being prepared, the other funeral details fell into place. Since returning from Dallas, the president’s remains had laid in the White House. The plan was to move him to the Capitol building on Sunday where he would lay in state until the next day. On Monday, he would return to the White House for a brief ceremony before traveling to St. Matthew’s Cathedral for a requiem mass.  Then would come the traditional journey through the streets of Washington, DC, past the Lincoln Memorial, across the Memorial Bridge, and up the hill to Arlington.

For each step of his journey, President Kennedy would be moved by one of the vintage WWI caissons preserved for full honors ceremonies at Arlington. Stationed at Ft Myer, the US Army 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as the Old Guard [the same unit that provides the sentinels for the Tomb of the Unknowns], operates the caissons and maintains stables for some 40 horses used [for] funeral duty.”

The Saturday before the funeral, Mrs. Kennedy decided to use gray horses instead of black ones during the ceremony. That decision set Sergeant Tom Setterberg and the rest of the Old Guard caisson platoon into action, frantically preparing for Monday. The soldiers pressed their dress uniforms, cleaned tack, polished brass, picked hooves, and prepared to lead their command-in-chief on one final ride. Setterberg, the designated leader of the caisson detail for the funeral, would ride Big Boy, a massive gray gelding who would walk unattached in front of the caisson and guide the other six horses from the comfortable grounds of Arlington, into the unfamiliar capital, where gathering crowds, snapping flags, and flashing cameras threatened to spook the animals. The caisson would be followed by Black Jack, a spirited black gelding, designated as the riderless horse. Named for the famed WWI general, he was outfitted with a saddle outfitted with reversed boots in the stirrups, a traditional symbol for a departed warrior facing no more battles. Black Jack, who could be as stubborn as his namesake, gained his own degree of fame during the funeral, dancing across millions of television screens, at times barely under control.

Mrs. Kennedy had requested as plain a funeral as possible for someone of her husband’s rank, but it soon took on a life of its own as VIPs from all over the world came to pay their respects. Seating charts had to be reworked and fresh elements were cranked into the ceremonies. Prince Phillip came from Great Brittan, representing his wife Queen Elizabeth II; Emperor Haile Selassie flew in from Ethiopia; General Charles da Gaulle from France; President Eamon de Valera from Ireland; King Baudouin from Belgium; as well as scores of other leaders, each expecting a suitable place in the proceedings. Former presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower wanted to attend and Bobby Kennedy, remembering his brother’s fondness for Green Berets, brought up a group from Ft. Bragg to march alongside the caisson. A fife and drum corps was added as were several bagpipers – some civilian, some military.

When all was said and done, the funeral was anything but simple. This made-for-TV event had thousands of participants and hundreds of behind-the-scenes planners. Knowing that the world would be watching, no group strove harder for perfection than the Old Guard. They practiced precision rifle volleys, folded flags until they could do it in their sleep, and marched until they moved as a single entity. The Old Guard not only provided the caisson and horses for Kennedy’s funeral but also an honor guard to watch over the president’s casket 24-hours a day until the burial, helped form security cordons during the funeral procession, and assigned one of its most promising young officers to oversee the joint services casket detail, 1LT Samuel Bird.

On Sunday, arriving for rituals on Capitol Hill, some members of Lieutenant Bird’s detail faced the long flight of stairs to the Rotunda with foreboding. 36 shallow steps led from the Capitol Plaza to the Rotunda entrance. A stand of television cameras sat atop the stairs and the Kennedy family filed in at the bottom, with Bird’s casket team in between. The whole world would be watching the nine men assigned to carry a mahogany casket that weighed 1,300 pounds. One member of the team made up of three soldiers, two marines, two sailors, one airman, and one coastguardsman, Army Specialist Douglas Mayfield later recalled: “I remember looking at the steep incline and thinking it looked more like a wall than steps.” With Lieutenant Bird hovering behind, the team eased Kennedy from the caisson and slowly began the ascent. As the casket detail did so, Bird sensed they were having trouble balancing the load. He slipped in behind the team and lifted the casket from the back corner to relieve the strain which gave the pallbearers a boost up the stairs. They struggled to keep the casket level and they struggled to make it look like they were not struggling. Those on the lower end had to hoist the casket high at shoulder level while those in front tried to maintain a grip at waist level. With Bird close behind watching for any sign of slippage, the casket bearers inched up the stairs followed by Mrs. Kennedy and her two children, Caroline and John Jr. Down on the plaza, just as the Coast Guard band played the final strain of the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” the casket detail reached the top, moved into the Rotunda, and placed Kennedy on President Lincoln’s catafalque. Mrs. Kennedy, dressed in black with a long veil, knelt before the casket, stretched out one hand, and touched the box. She leaned in to kiss the flag, rose to her feet, and left.

Across the river at Arlington, soldiers and civilians prepared for the next day’s interment. Superintendent Metzler summoned Clifton Pollard, his best grave digger, to work that day. He apologized for bringing him in on a Sunday, but Pollard said it was his honor to be there. Shortly after Metzler became superintendent, he moved Arlington into the automated age, replacing gravedigging shovels that had been used since the time of James Parks, with machines. It took a digger with a shovel most of a day to prepare a proper gravesite. It took Pollard 15 minutes with a backhoe. 

The grave was easy, but the next feature at the site was not. Mrs. Kennedy had requested an eternal flame installed at her husband’s grave like the one she had seen at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris when she and JFK had visited France’s Unknown Soldier two years earlier. This request – that wasn’t really a request – was delivered at 3 pm on Sunday. Metzler had less than 24 hours to figure out how to design, construct, install, and test the device so Mrs. Kennedy could light it at the funeral. Worried that the flame would fail to light, or even worse, explode, he informed the White House this task was beyond his ability. Their response was yes, we completely understand… do it anyway. 

His next phone call was to Ft Myer’s chief engineer who thought he could build it, and then he called every gas supply company in Virginia and Maryland to try to get the needed materials, but unsurprisingly, none of those companies were answering their phones on a late-Sunday afternoon. Finally, a company in Rockville, Maryland answered the call and soon everything that was needed for a simple, temporary flame was on its way to the cemetery. Until something permanent – and more aesthetically pleasing – could be built, the engineers were able to design a temporary flame consisting of one tank of gas, copper tubing, a Hawaiian luau torch, and a makeshift metal basket to keep the flame 18-inches off the ground. Workers at Arlington dug a trench for the gas line, while engineers welded the metal basket and joined it with the torch. The gas tank, hidden in a thicket of bamboo near the Lee Mansion, would be operated by an Army sergeant, ready to open the valve on a signal from the gravesite. With everything in place, the flame was ready for a test run. The sergeant turned the tap. Gas hissed from the valve by the president’s grave. A burst of light flared on the dark hillside. The eternal flame was up and running by midnight.

As the gravesite was prepared, The Old Guard continued to work. After dinner, the joint service casket team was summoned by Lieutenant Bird and practice folding flags, the traditional slow movements that transformed the American flag into a blue triangle with white stars, for hours. One member of the team later said they spent so much time on such a seemingly simple task because “if just one member falters or the team’s timing is off, the flag could be dropped, red and white stripes could be other than straight, and red could be showing the triangular fold where only blue with white stars should be. We knew that we would be scrutinized by millions of viewers and we wanted to give the impression that operating in unison was second nature to us [even though we had just met].” At midnight, they moved to the Memorial Amphitheater to practice carrying a casket up and down those long shallow stairs. Bird wanted to simulate what would be the team’s most daunting task the next day: bringing President Kennedy out of the Rotunda and down the Capitol steps without slipping.

Back in Washington, crowds filled the Rotunda late into Sunday night wanting to pay their respects to the fallen young president. Neil Staebler, a US representative from Michigan arrived at 8 pm and was surprised to find mourners patiently waiting to get in line four abreast stretching for 10 blocks. When he returned several hours later, he expected the cold November evening to have thinned out the line, but it was even longer, now twelve abreast for 15 blocks. The multitude was still there Monday morning when the Rotunda doors were closed at 9 am, leaving 12,000 mourners outside, still waiting for a glimpse of Kennedy. An estimated 250,000 people passed through the Rotunda in 24 hours. The crowd outside remained so large that it blocked traffic and when Bird and the bleary-eyed casket team came to carry out their solemn duty, their bus got stuck and they had to cover the last quarter-mile on foot. They arrived in time and as they huddled in the Rotunda shadows, waiting for their next time in the spotlight, LT Bird prayed aloud: “Dear God, give us the strength to do this last thing for the President.” He opened his eyes, checked his watch, and it was time. The team collected Kennedy’s casket and moved to the formidable Capitol stairs. As the Coast Guard Band struck up the hymn “O God of Loveliness” they began to descend. Unlike he had the previous day when ascending the stairs, Bird could not help with the descent but the team made it down to the plaza without a hint of trouble, keeping the casket level and making it look effortless. One of them later said it had seemed like a magic carpet ride.

For the first time ever, the entire county watched a presidential funeral live, with the flag-draped casket slowly moving through the streets towards St. Matthew’s for the requiem mass. The entire world saw Mrs. Kennedy, standing tall and perfectly composed, mourning her husband with stoic grace. As the mass let out, all eyes turned to three-year-old John-John who snapped off the famous salute to his father. As the funeral cortege inched towards Arlington, taking 45 minutes to travel the three miles from the cathedral, nervous secret service agents swept the gravesite for bombs. One agent climbed into the open grave and had to be pulled out, others examining each and every floral arrangement for booby-traps, and all eyed the eternal flame with suspicion, only allowing it after the Army drenched the pine boughs around the basket with two buckets of water. Army Sergeant William Malcolm, the Non-Commissioned Officer in charge of the seven-man rifle team that would give Kennedy his 21-gun salute watched from the hillside as the mass of people approach the cemetery. He said, “I was shaking with fright, the way I shook when I came for my first funeral here… I have attended some four thousand funerals since. I had not been frightened since my first funeral, but I was with this one.” Another soldier feeling stage fright was Army Sergeant Keith Clark, the bugler who would be playing Taps. He had been standing near the gravesite for nearly three hours, just waiting, and feeling the cold seep into his bones. 

At precisely 2:42 pm the caisson rolled to a halt in the cemetery. Lieutenant Bird and his casket team moved the president to the gave site as squadrons of F-105 fighter jets streaked overhead in missing man formation followed by a low-flying Air Force One which dipped its wings in a final salute. The firing party, stiffened by SGT Malcolm’s command, raised their rifles in one fluid movement and snapped off a perfect three-round volley. Next, SGT Clark stood at attention, pointed his bugle toward Kennedy’s grave, and began to sound Taps. The song rang true until the sixth note, which broke horribly. Some thought the broken note had been intentional, to emphasize the distress the nation felt, but it was not. Clark later said the pressure got to him and he missed the note, partly because his lips were numb, and partly because he had been deafened by the firing party which had been uncharacteristically – and unwisely – placed directly behind him instead of off to the side to give TV cameras a better view. Despite the cracked note, Clark finished strong, with the final haunting notes lingering over the ceremony. 

After a long moment of silence, the Marine Band struck up the Navy Hymn, the signal for Bird’s crew to fold the flag. Without a wrinkle, the flag smoothly transformed into a blue triangle and was handed to Superintendent Metzler, who held it as Cardinal Cushing blessed the eternal flame. Following the blessing, Mrs. Kennedy stepped forward to accept the flag from Metzler, who offered it, saying: “Mrs. Kennedy, this flag is presented to you in the name of a most mournful nation.” He felt a catch in his throat but managed to finish with “please accept it.” She took the ensign, her eyes filling with tears behind a black veil. “She did not speak,” Metzler said. “I do not believe that she could at that moment.”

Army Major Stanley Converse stepped forward with a lighted taper, which he handed to Mrs. Kennedy, admitting “this is the saddest moment of my life.” She touched the taper to the torch and ignited the eternal flame. Just like that, there was nothing left to do. Metzler led Mrs. Kennedy and the rest of the family to their cars which departed in the late afternoon light. Other dignitaries milled around the cemetery, reluctant to leave. One Special Forces First Sergeant stood quietly at the grave, removed his green beret, and placed it on the frame of the eternal flame. After that, others followed suit, spontaneously leaving hats and medals by the grave.

In the fading sunlight after the crowds had finally left, Metzler watched his groundcrew lower the president into the earth, seal his vault, and cover it with the good earth of Arlington. The men erected a white picket fence around the plot to keep visitors from trampling it, heaped the ground with piles of flowers from well-wishers, tidied up the area, latched the gate, and called it a day. “Our task of burying the President was finished,” said Metzler, who retired to his home in the cemetery that night with no idea of the profound change the President’s death was about to visit upon Arlington.

Before Kennedy’s funeral, Arlington averaged two million visitors a year. In the year following the funeral, that number jumped to seven million. In 1964, three thousand people an hour came to pay their respects, queueing in lines that stretched all the way to the Lee Mansion. On the weekends, the crowds swelled to fifty thousand a day. One visitor, hoping to sprinkle some holy water on the eternal flame watched in horror as the cap flew off her container and the water extinguished the fire. A soldier from the Old Guard standing nearby whipped out a zippo lighter, re-lit the torch reassured the distraught visitor. “There, ma’am,” he said. “And I won’t tell if you won’t tell.” 

JFK helped put Arlington on the map once again, transforming the place as other events of the past had – like Robert E. Lee’s departure in 1861, the establishment of the Freedman’s Village in 1863, the creation of the national cemetery in 1864, the first Decoration Day in 1868, the return of the dead from the Spanish-American war in 1899, and the entombment of Unknown Soldiers in 1921 and 1958. After President Kennedy joined the ranks there, nothing would be the same.

Needing a better way to organize the increased foot traffic, the Kennedy family and the Cemetery began working on a new gravesite soon after the funeral. A new parcel was designed just down the hill from the original plot. The new site maintained the view the president had so admired and incorporated a terrace carved from the hillside with curving walkways and ample room for visitors. Experts from Kennedy’s speeches were carved into low walls around the gave which also featured an improved eternal flame, one feed by a permanent natural gas line and equipped with a constantly renewed electrical spark to keep the fire burning through wind and rain. Work on the new site began in 1965 and was finished in 1967. The president was quietly exhumed after cemetery hours and installed in his new resting place and was joined there by the two infant children he and Jackie had lost. His brother Robert, assassinated in 1968, would also come to rest on the terrace, his plot marked by a simple white cross. 

Just like the burials of Montgomery Meigs and other prominent Civil War generals had turned Arlington into a prestigious final resting place in the previous century, President Kennedy had renewed interest in the cemetery and the requests for burials increased from 4,000 a year, to 7,000. This sudden increase meant that Arlington would be full by 1988, with no new space for burials unless the cemetery tightened burial restrictions. So, after 1966, new internments were limited to those who died on active duty, those who retired with a disability, those who retired with 20 years or more of service or received high military honors – rules that still apply today. A columbarium was also built to hold cremated remains and preserve space for traditional in-ground burials.  

The funeral of John F. Kennedy not only had a profound impact on the cemetery but also on many of those who participated in it. For Army Captain Michael Groves, the popular 27-year-old commander of Ft Myer’s Honor Guard Company, the stress of planning and staffing the funeral was too great a burden. Ten days after the funeral Groves, who had no signs of ill-health, collapsed at his dinner table and died of a heart attack. The Old Guard, already saddened by the loss of a president were shocked by the sudden loss of Captain Groves. “We’d lost a popular president,” said PFC William Morris. “But Mike was one of us, a great leader, and a friend to many in the company. With other members of the Old Guard, Morris pressed his best uniform, shined his medals, and solemnly carried his young captain to an early grave on a cold December day in Section 30 Grave 897-LH. My favorite picture I have taken at Arlington is of Groves’ grave and I will put it up on the website. I was also able to lay a wreath at his headstone in December 2018 as part of the Wreaths Across America program. From that spot you can see President Kennedy’s memorial.

John Metzler, Jr. was 16 years old when he watched his father bury Kennedy as superintendent of Arlington. He says that moment reinforced his decision to join the Army and serve in Vietnam. When he returned from overseas, he took a job with the Veterans Administration and ultimately replaced his father superintendent in 1991. In 1994, he oversaw the burial of Jacqueline Kennedy beside her husband. “Never in a thousand years did I imagine that I would come back to finish what my father started in 1963,” he said.

Finally, 1LT Sam Bird, who so ably headed the casket detail, was promoted to captain and sent to Vietnam where he led a company through fierce fighting in 1967. While in a helicopter that came under heavy fire, Bird was shot several times and had part of his skull shot away. He miraculously survived the wound and lived another 17 years. He was greatly diminished but remained proud of the way his men had performed for President Kennedy.

Next week, we will talk about the Unknown Soldier from the Vietnam War, who joined his honored comrades in 1984.

If you need more Ghosts of Arlington content in your life, there are photographs and additional information about every episode on the show’s website: www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com. Ghosts of Arlington is also on Facebook and Twitter, and links to those sites are in the show notes. As always, I encourage you to leave the show a review and five-star rating on iTunes or wherever you stream from, this helps other people find the show. If you really want to make my day, you can refer the podcast to a friend. And remember, fear not death, for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal. <PLAY TAPS>