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Slowly the platform filled with the great figures of Washington and the nation: the Justices of the Supreme Court, the members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the diplomatic corps, the new Cabinet officers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff—and, of course, the Kennedy family. "Is that Father Joe over there?" asked Arkansas' Senator John McClellan. "I do believe it is." It was. Joe Kennedy, beaming and laughing, was telling his friends that "this is what I've been looking forward to for a long time. It's a great day."
Inevitably, the ceremony ran behind schedule. Jack Kennedy, waiting in a small chamber near the rotunda, whistled softly to himself. At last he got the word that everything was ready, walked out onto the windswept platform, sat down next to Ike, and the two passed a few minutes in an animated discussion of Cornelius Ryan's book on DDay, The Longest Day, which Kennedy had been reading. It was 12:13 o'clock—and even though he had not yet taken his oath of office, Kennedy, under the U.S. Constitution, had been President of the U.S. since the stroke of noon. The Marine Band struck up America the Beautiful. Contralto Marian Anderson sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Then, as Boston's Richard Cardinal Cushing delivered his long invocation, smoke began wafting from the lectern. On and on the cardinal prayed—upward and upward poured the smoke. When Cardinal Cushing finished, Dick Nixon and several other volunteer firemen rushed to the lectern. The fire was located in a short-circuited electric motor that powered the lectern; the plug was pulled and the smoke drifted away.
Dedication. The ceremony moved on: Lyndon Baines Johnson rose, raised his right hand and took the oath, administered, at his request, by his friend, mentor and fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn. Poet Robert Frost, his white hair fluttering in the wind, tried to read a newly written dedication to his famed poem, "The Gift Outright." But the bright sun blinded the old (86) New Englander, the wind whipped the paper in his hands, and he faltered. In the front row, Jackie Kennedy snapped up her head in concern. Lyndon Johnson leaped to shade Frost's paper with his hat, but it did no good. At length Robert Frost, proud of the fact that Jack Kennedy had invited him and 155 other writers, artists and scientists to the inaugural, turned boldly to the microphones and said, "This was supposed to be a preface to a poem that I can say to you without seeing it. The poem goes this way . . ." The crowd left off its embarrassed titters over the old man's bobble and listened quietly as Frost recited from memory his finely chiseled lines:
. . . Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she will become.
Raised Hands. At last came the event that Jack Kennedy had awaited so long and worked so tirelessly to bring into reality. To the ring of fanfares he arose, removed his black topcoat, stepped forward with Chief Justice Earl Warren and, over a closed, family Douay Bible, repeated his oath in a clear, crisp voice. Whatever lay ahead of him. this would always remain the high moment of John Kennedy's life.