In 1963, H. Warner King was a jewelry wholesaler in Dallas. Though he traveled frequently, he arranged to be home on Nov. 22, when President Kennedy was coming to town, because he was a fan. Of course he brought his trusty Leica to record the celebrations; he had been an amateur photographer in New Zealand during World War II and knew just where to stake out a good position to photograph the President and Jackie in their motorcade. “In one photo,” marvels his daughter Sonia, “they’re smiling right at him!” Minutes later, he was watching the motorcade race toward Parkland Hospital.
King retired to New Zealand in 1975, taking his Kodachrome slides with him across the Pacific. When he died in 2005, Sonia went through his possessions. “I didn’t want all his old slides at first,” she recalls. But she came across a long red box labeled NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1963 KENNEDY. The images had never been published until Sonia picked up the phone and called TIME. “My dad always said he’d like to see it in Time magazine (his favorite news publication),” she wrote in a letter. “Only family and a few close friends have ever seen it.” King’s pictures are featured on this week’s cover and inside the magazine as well as in a new LIFE book, The Day Kennedy Died.
“The enduring grip of the Kennedy assassination on the American mind is not only a function of the horror in Dealey Plaza,” says TIME editor-at-large David Von Drehle, who explores the lingering allure of doubt about what really happened that day as part of our cover package. “It’s about how suddenly that violence interrupted the sunlit promise suggested by these photographs.” Historians can debate where Kennedy should rank among U.S. Presidents and whether martyrdom exalted a middling record. But there is little doubt that his death and its circumstances set loose the darker instincts of the American psyche.
Nancy Gibbs, MANAGING EDITOR
CONVERSATION
The dearth of female chefs in our Nov. 18 “Gods of Food” special, which intended to highlight the people who are changing what and how we eat, was hotly debated.
‘”The Gods of Food” represents an Old World point of view. Let’s make it the last vestige. And let’s use the conversation it started as an opportunity for change.’
ANITA LO, owner and executive chef of Annisa, new york city, in the New York Times
‘LUCKILY, [TIME’S] BIASED PRESENTATION OF THE CULINARY WORLD HAS SPARKED A DEBATE THAT WILL HOPEFULLY PRECLUDE THIS TYPE OF EXCLUSION IN THE FUTURE. AND IF NOT, WATCH YOUR BACK, EDITORS: THESE LADIES PACK SHARP KNIVES.’
NELL CASEY, GOTHAMIST
‘I wonder if there are male chefs who themselves feel debased and embarrassed by an industry that doesn’t acknowledge sufficiently the women they work with, appear at events with, exchange business savvy and woe with, drink drinks and talk cooking with late at night after work?’
GABRIELLE HAMILTON, CHEF-OWNER OF PRUNE, NEW YORK CITY, IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
Amid the reaction to “Gods of Food,” Time’s Belinda Luscombe interviewed many prominent female restaurateurs about sexism in haute cuisine. Read her piece at TIME.COM/CHEFTALK.
‘The way the people of New Jersey look at this is that their governor has been on the cover of TIME magazine twice in one year. We must be doing something right.’
CHRIS CHRISTIE, New Jersey governor, responding to TIME’s much discussed Nov. 18 cover, which referred to him as “the elephant in the room”
NOW ON SHELVES
TIME’s David Von Drehle takes the measure of Kennedy’s presidency in JFK: His Enduring Legacy. It’s available wherever books are sold or online at time.com/jfk50
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