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Italy was locked in a political crisis when the news came. Premier Aldo Moro promptly adjourned his attempts to form a Cabinet with left-wing Socialist Leader Pietro Nenni. Emerging from the meeting, 72-year-old Nenni, with tears in his eyes, said: "These are little affairs of ours, in the face of this tragedy for the whole world." At the Vatican Pope Paul went to his private chapel to pray for the wounded President and, after the news of his death, said Mass.
To Ireland, John Kennedy was the apotheosis of the country's hopes and history—the great-grandson of a poor emigrant who had stormed the ramparts of the New World and won its highest honor. He was looked upon, said the Irish Times, "as a younger brother and with great affection."
Reichstag Fire. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev and two aides drove to the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Dressed in black and looking noticeably depressed, Khrushchev spoke for 19 minutes with U.S. Ambassador Foy Kohler, reminiscing about the slain President. Khrushchev's wife Nina cabled Jacqueline Kennedy. The genuine dismay in Russia was soon modified by politics, when it turned out that the prime suspect was a self-declared Marxist who had lived in Russia. Said one Soviet journalist suspiciously: "Is this affair being whipped up in the press? Is the situation grim?" Said another Russian taking up what sounded like an emerging propaganda line: "Remember that they found a Communist who started the Reichstag fire."
In the Middle East, one Iraqi was amazed: "We are used to this kind of thing in Arab countries. But in America?" In the Congo, East Katanga's President Edouard Bulundwe and his entire Cabinet, together with their seldom seen wives, trooped into the home of the U.S. consul. "This is how we be have in Africa when a great chief dies," explained Bulundwe as they sat stiffly in the drawing room. "President Kennedy will be mourned in even the smallest village of our country as a man who cared for and worked for the blacks."
It was the same in Asia. In Thailand, authorities sent sound trucks into the villages to spread the mournful news that Prathanathibodi (President) Kennedy was dead. In Saigon, people were more shocked by Kennedy's death than they had been by that of President Diem; and Buddhists held special memorial services and prayers. In Japan, technicians were up before dawn to receive the historic first trans-Pacific TV broadcast from the U.S., which was to have included a personal message from the President. Instead, the voice of a Japanese newsman in Manhattan reported the news of Kennedy's death.
In all of Asia, Red China was almost alone in its determined lack of sympathy. Peking radio carried the Kennedy story without comment. The Hong Kong Communist New Evening Post sneered that Kennedy had "used a two-faced policy to promote an imperialist war course."