John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame - Original Gravesite

Original Gravesite

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963.

Initial press reports indicated that President Kennedy would be buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (who had died on August 9, 1963, two days after his premature birth) was buried.

But the site for the President's grave was quickly changed to the hillside just below Arlington House. The site was chosen because the President and his friend, architect John Carl Warnecke, happened to visit the site in March 1963 and the President had admired the peaceful atmosphere of the location. The initial suggestion to bury President Kennedy at Arlington appears to have been made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy agreed to the change. Although Kennedy's sisters and many of his long-time associates from Massachusetts were opposed to burial at Arlington, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy visited the site with McNamara on Saturday, November 23, and concluded that Mrs. Kennedy's wishes should be honored.

On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy requested an eternal flame for her husband's grave. According to several published accounts, she drew inspiration from a number of sources. One was the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which she and her husband had seen during a visit to France in 1961. She also took inspiration from the novel The Candle in the Wind (the fourth book from the collection The Once and Future King by T. H. White), which was part of the inspiration for the 1960 stage musical Camelot (the cast recording was a favorite of the Kennedys). Her brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, counseled against an eternal flame, worried that it might appear ostentatious or that it would compete with other such memorials at Arlington National Cemetery. But Mrs. Kennedy was adamant.

The President's funeral was set for Monday, November 25. This left very little time to manufacture and install an eternal flame. Overnight, Colonel Clayton B. Lyle and a United States Army Corps of Engineers team built the eternal flame: A propane gas-fueled tiki torch was procured from the Washington Gas and Light Company, tested, and slightly modified for emplacement. The Corps also installed a gas line to a propane tank 200 yards (180 m) away to feed the torch. A mound of evergreens was placed around the base of the flame to cover the tubing and torch mechanism, and the head of the grave dug in front of the flame.

The grave was set in a plot of grass roughly 5 yards (4.6 m) on each side. The site was about halfway up the hill on which Arlington House stands. The grave was placed so that it had a view of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, and was aligned with them. Jacqueline Kennedy lit a taper from a candle held by a nearby soldier, and then brought the eternal flame to life at the end of the burial service. The late president's brothers, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, symbolically lit the flame after her.

On the evening of November 26, the site was surrounded by a white picket fence. The fencing covered an expanded area 30 feet (9.1 m) long by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. The enlarged site was due to the wish of Mrs. Kennedy to inter her two deceased children next to their father. (In addition to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy had given birth to an unnamed stillborn daughter in 1956.) She had read that President Abraham Lincoln had been buried next to his deceased son, Willie Lincoln, and she recalled her husband's desire to be buried with his family. Mrs. Kennedy's mother, Janet Auchincloss, oversaw the disinterment of the daughter in Newport, Rhode Island, while Cardinal Richard Cushing (a long-time friend of the family) supervised the disinterment of Patrick Kennedy in Massachusetts. The two caskets were flown to Washington, D.C., accompanied by Mrs. Auchincloss, and the children buried next to their father on December 5, 1963. A small white cross was placed at the head of the daughter's grave, and a small white headstone placed at the head of Patrick Kennedy's grave.

During the funeral, flowers were laid on the hillside above the grave. After the erection of the fence, flowers were placed inside the enclosure, leaning against the uphill side of the fence. A canvas-covered circular wooden walkway was built from Sheridan Drive to the grave site to give members of the public access to the grave.