Post by Admin on Nov 17, 2013 22:23:37 GMT
Martha Raddatz looks back at the legacy of the former president of the U.S.
She is the little girl riding her pony Macaroni around the White House lawn, the big sister hiding under the Oval Office desk with her little brother John. And in a heartbreaking childhood photo, she is the white-gloved daughter kneeling with her mother at the coffin of her slain father, the president.
Flash forward 50 years and here is Caroline Kennedy again: author, lawyer and mother of three, tending to the Kennedy flame as her family's sole survivor. And, finally, after decades protecting her privacy, she's stepping into a more public role as U.S. ambassador to Japan. Kennedy, 55, was five days short of her sixth birthday when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
John F. Kennedy takes a stroll with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and their daughter, Caroline, at Hyannis Port, Mass., in this 1960 photo. The Kennedy image, the "mystique" that attracts tourists and historians alike, did not begin with his presidency and is in no danger of ending 50 years after his death.
The family's nanny gently informed Caroline that her father had been shot "and they couldn't make him better." With that, Caroline's world was shaken, not for the first time or the last. Three months earlier, a little brother, Patrick, had died shortly after birth. Then Robert F. Kennedy, the uncle who stepped in to serve as a sort of surrogate father after JFK's assassination, was himself shot and killed five years later. After losing her mother to cancer in 1994, Caroline lost her brother John in a 1999 plane crash at age 38.
Through it all, level-headed Caroline soldiered on, lending her support to the causes and ideals her parents and brother had championed. She's served as president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and chaired the senior advisory committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, set up as a memorial to Kennedy.
Caroline Kennedy with her mother Jacqueline and brother John Jr at her father's funeral in 1963
She is the little girl riding her pony Macaroni around the White House lawn, the big sister hiding under the Oval Office desk with her little brother John. And in a heartbreaking childhood photo, she is the white-gloved daughter kneeling with her mother at the coffin of her slain father, the president.
Flash forward 50 years and here is Caroline Kennedy again: author, lawyer and mother of three, tending to the Kennedy flame as her family's sole survivor. And, finally, after decades protecting her privacy, she's stepping into a more public role as U.S. ambassador to Japan. Kennedy, 55, was five days short of her sixth birthday when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
John F. Kennedy takes a stroll with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and their daughter, Caroline, at Hyannis Port, Mass., in this 1960 photo. The Kennedy image, the "mystique" that attracts tourists and historians alike, did not begin with his presidency and is in no danger of ending 50 years after his death.
The family's nanny gently informed Caroline that her father had been shot "and they couldn't make him better." With that, Caroline's world was shaken, not for the first time or the last. Three months earlier, a little brother, Patrick, had died shortly after birth. Then Robert F. Kennedy, the uncle who stepped in to serve as a sort of surrogate father after JFK's assassination, was himself shot and killed five years later. After losing her mother to cancer in 1994, Caroline lost her brother John in a 1999 plane crash at age 38.
Through it all, level-headed Caroline soldiered on, lending her support to the causes and ideals her parents and brother had championed. She's served as president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and chaired the senior advisory committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, set up as a memorial to Kennedy.
Caroline Kennedy with her mother Jacqueline and brother John Jr at her father's funeral in 1963
