Anniversary of JFK milestone is marked

Associated Press

BOSTON

Fifty years later, Richard Donahue still remembers the bitter cold and the crowds at the U.S Capitol stamping their feet to stay warm as they waited for John F. Kennedy to deliver his inaugural address on the day the torch was passed to a new generation.

The speech would quickly warm up the partisan crowd, Donahue recalled. Neither he nor anyone there that day could have imagined how ingrained in the American consciousness JFK’s words and phrases would become and how easily they still come to mind a half-century later.

“It just gave us a sense that the future is now, you’re a part of it, and away we go,” said Donahue, now 83, a friend of the Kennedy family who earned a prized ticket to the inauguration Jan. 20, 1961, after campaigning in the primaries and general election. He had, of course, heard Jack speak countless times. But never with such conviction.

“He seemed to give everyone the confidence that we could do whatever we wanted as a country,” said Donahue, a retired Boston attorney and trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

The library has added a special exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the inauguration, including some rare and never-before-displayed artifacts such as the black top hat and brown suede gloves that Kennedy wore that day along with the ivory-colored Oleg Cassini gown that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to an Inauguration Eve gala.

As he prepared to take office, Kennedy was concerned with not only what he would say, but how he would look, said Stacey Bredhoff, the museum’s curator.

“He was very aware that this was his first appearance on the world stage as president of the United States, and he had very deliberately decided on the kind of image he wanted to project,” she said.

Other memorabilia include an invitation to the inaugural luncheon at the Capitol, autographed not only by JFK and Jackie but the rest of the head table, including Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, former President Harry Truman and Bess Truman and Edith Bolling Wilson, widow of President Woodrow Wilson.

The exhibit, “Passing the Torch — the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy,” will run through the summer.