Snow swirling from high winds and 12 degrees of frost, the worst inaugural weather in 52 years, did not ruffle the smooth succession of John Fitzgerald Kennedy to the presidency today or prevent the American people thousands of miles from Washington, millions of them in snow-bound homes in the East, from seeing a presidential inauguration more intimately than all the dignitaries present.
Most of the Washington press corps were also either compelled by the overnight storm or persuaded by their memories of television╒s earlier conquests to stay in their homes and share the privilege of the ordinary American householder to switch a knob and hop around as a fly on the wall of history.
Fire down below
From the moment in mid-morning when we saw some of the rumply 35 White House staff members who had been marooned in the White House overnight join President Eisenhower at a coffee break in the Navy mess, the cameras of three networks kept up an unbroken scrutiny of every move of the Eisenhowers, the Nixons, the Lyndon-Johnsons, the Kennedys, the ride to the White House, the ride from the White House, the demeanour of the Diplomatic Corps exchanging compliments on each other╒s hats, the close-up of a saturnine Justice Frankfurter and an expansive Douglas, the lifted eyebrows of Eisenhower and Mrs Kennedy as a Rabbi burst into a Jewish prayer, the restrained alarm of the Marines and Senator Sparkman (the inauguration host) when the smoking breath of the principals grew denser and was seen to be a separate cloud issuing from a fire that had broken out in a heater under the lectern.
This momentary fright, and a mix-up in the seating of bigwigs (which has Senate pages hustling chairs to the back of the reviewing stand and tossing livid little insults over their shoulders) delayed the taking of the oath for a full half hour. But Kennedy was sitting on the left hand of Eisenhower, and Eisenhower is a famous talker, and Ike regaled the new man with anecdotes and reflections and busy gestures for 20 minutes or more while we went through the traditional rituals of patriotic selections played, as always since 1801, by the band of the Marine Corps; and while various rattled officials sniffed at the fire and argued with it.
The people could share, in fully amplified sound, the boredom of the famous as they listened to long prayers being intoned by a Catholic Cardinal, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Protestant clergyman, and a Rabbi.
Victors and others
While the invocations and beseechings barked or droned on the winter air, the cameras put together a portrait gallery of the victors and the fallen in action: Adlai Stevenson, the only member of the Executive branch in a felt hat instead of a topper, chewing the cud of his two defeats and talking to no one; Harry Truman, in unbelievable Christian fettle chatting affably with the enemy Nixon; the features, trenched with age, of a little old lady nestled close to the peach bloom fuzz of Mrs Kennedy╒s pretty face; Chief Justice Warren, sitting at the alert immediately behind Kennedy and preserving at all times the impassivity of a grapefruit; and all the time Kennedy inclining over to the voluble Ike listening without a fidget, his fine hands lightly clasped in the attitude of a Hindu god.
At last, old Tom Rayburn rose to administer the vice-presidential oath to his fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson, whom he had laboured so to instal in the President╒s throne. Then there was a prayer, handsomely praising the earthly capacities of Mr Johnson, by a Texan clergyman.
Then old Robert Frost was summoned to read a poem composed specially for this day. The sun flashed wounding reflections on his failing eyes and he stumbled through an introduction, threw in a despairing aside (╥I╒m not in a good light╔ I can╒t get through this thing╙), abandoned his text, and spoke the poem loud and strong, but with his fingers kneading his palm in a secret fury and his white hair lapping in waves against his forehead. Kennedy was the first to tap his shoulder and reassure him with a grasp of the hand.
At the end, when the cheers rose from the shivering crowd, Eisenhower gave two claps, tweaked his nose, shook Kennedy╒s hand. And Kennedy walked out as cool, but alive to small courtesies and distant nods, as an admiral being piped aboard. The cameras roamed over a huge square packed with thousands of ordered dots. Beyond these frozen eye-witnesses was Constitution Plaza and the Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue ╤ a continuous ribbon of bare highway.
Beyond that were the houses slumped in snowbanks and a frozen landscape housing the warm, remote population that had seen Robert Frost╒s moment of misery, and Mrs Kennedy╒s smooth throat twitch for a second as the ╥unbearable office╙ passed from the oldest President to the youngest.
