(drum music)
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- [J F. Kennedy] We choose to go to the moon,
and do the other things,
Not because they're easy,
but because they're hard.
I am the greatest.
- [Announcer] Waiting to see if Maris can hit number 61
Here's the wind up.
(crowd cheering) Fastball hit deep to left field, This is going to be it! way back there, HOLY COW
Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles.
(crowd cheering)
- I was hired as a photographer for LIFE magazine in 1959.
It was the fulfillment of a dream I had since I was a kid.
My first assignments,
were Khrushchev football games,
Lyndon Johnson, Adenauer,
Ben-Gurion, Henry Cabot Lodge,
Caroline Kennedy's birth,
Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Lewis,
Roger Maris, as he broke Babe Ruth's record,
John F. Kennedy, Nehru, Adlai Stevenson,
Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Cuban missile crisis,
Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon,
and of course the JFK funeral.
(upbeat music)
I was already by the time LIFE
ordered me to cover the Cassius fight,
an experienced magazine photographer.
I arrived at the famous 5th Street Gym in Miami
several days before the fight.
With a request from LIFE magazine to do a cover
of Cassius as if he had beaten Liston,
who was at that point a seven to one favorite.
Life took no chances.
They wanted a cover, plated and ready
to print on Saturday night,
to be distributed to newsstands
by Monday in such an eventuality.
So after one of his daily workouts,
and when he was perspiring freely,
I got him alone and asked him to show me
various facial expressions as to how he might feel
if an upset victory was his.
The result was on the newsstands all over the world
a little more than 24 hours after the fight.
At the weigh in,
Clay with so obstreperous that he was fined $2,500
for taunting and bad contact.
The camera I was using for the fight, was rather unique.
It was called a Hulcher,
and it was developed for the military air force
during the war,
so as to be able to make
ground destruction pictures after a bombing.
And it had the unique capacity
of shooting at 50 frames per second, on 70 millimeter film,
which was carried on hundred foot rolls.
And at that point we did not have motorized cameras
available to us in any other form.
So, at the end of the sixth round,
Liston had dislocated his shoulder, came out of the socket.
The fight is over, absolute bedlam prevails.
Clay is screaming,
"I am the greatest, I am the greatest!"
Over and over again.
I climb up on the ring ropes and straddle myself
to get a position of view point above them all.
So, after the fight I went with Cassius and his group
to the Hampton House Motel in Brownsville,
since that was the only place he was...
He was not allowed to spend the night in Miami
due to the Jim Crow segregation laws.
I was the only member of the press present,
and certainly the only white man in the crowd.
Cassius had donned a tuxedo,
and Malcolm X, the Muslim leader,
he was behind the counter with a camera
to take Ali's picture.
I climbed up on top of the counter
to record this historic moment.
Clay then proceeds to entertain the crowd
with his keen sense of humor,
and he's taken rhyming to a new level.
Clay and Malcolm pose together.
Clay later disavowed Malcolm,
and in favor of his new religion
and Malcolm was ostracized,
and very shortly thereafter,
assassinated by the Muslim leader.
Later in his life,
Ali regretted that decision
to part friendship with Malcolm.
And he asked me for a little wallet size print
of that particular picture,
which he carried with him for the rest of his life.
So, they are going to fight again.
I traveled to Sonny Liston's home in Philadelphia,
and he comes down the stairs and I thought
he was the scariest man in the world.
But after we got to talking a bit, he warmed up.
And by the time I took his portrait
he looked much more friendly, I thought.
The rematch is scheduled in Lewiston, Maine.
I bring my family with two young sons aboard,
and we're staying at Jack Parr's hotel.
Ali's brother Ramon,
offers to sterilize the baby milk bottles
for our youngest son who was then
no more than about six months old.
Corey, not quite three
climbs up on Ali's lap for a family portrait.
- And Muhammad Ali has come to Houston, Texas
to the George R. Brown convention center
for an autograph show.
So, we head backstage and I'm there with my daughter.
And at this point in time in Ali's life,
he's got Parkinson's, he's sitting alone in a chair.
And when I come through the curtains
with the photograph, he lightens up.
He springs up from his chair,
comes on over to me, takes a look at the photograph.
We head back behind the curtains
to the table where he's gonna sign that for me.
And what happens is
he puts the photograph down and he sits down opposite me,
and looks at the photograph, looks at me,
and points down and points at me and says,
"You still ugly."
And I said to him,
Well, you know, that's gonna cost you now,
and I'm gonna put my daughter on your lap
and we're gonna try to recreate this photograph.
It didn't come out so well, not like that other photograph.
Here she looks a little bit like
a scared little girl, on a big scary man's lap.
- Ali invites me into his bedroom
to demonstrate how he's preparing for this fight.
Not just physically, but mentally as well.
He stares at a blowup of Sonny Liston's picture,
and jokes, "Man, you don't scare me at all."
Sometime before the fight at a press conference
I make this portrait of Ali.
I've come to realize
that all that braggadocio was just
beating a drum for the box office.
Incidentally, Ali told me his inspiration.
It was none other than gorgeous George
with his wavy blonde hair
and his ostentatious manner in the ring.
So, here we are into the fight itself
and Liston falls down before the first round is over,
and everybody screams fraud.
He took a dive,
he threw the fight.
Nobody saw the punch, I captured it on film.
You can clearly see my picture,
which was published in Sports Illustrated of Ali
connecting with a hard right to Liston's head.
Shooting ahead to 1969,
LIFE magazine asks him to cover the Broadway show,
"The Great White Hope" which is about
a black heavyweight champion in 1901 called Jack Johnson.
And Ali was very interested in this show
at the conclusion of which he says to me,
"You know, except for the sex part,
that could very well be me."
So, we are walking back to the hotel on 42nd Street
and Ali had an affinity for magic.
We walk into a magic store and remember, this is 1969.
There's no such thing as cell phones.
So he buys a phone with a coil cord,
and a receiver, and a bell,
and puts it on his person.
And we go back to the Taft Hotel where he was staying,
and we get in the elevator with about 15 other people.
Elevator operator closing gate and Ali,
the elevator starts up and Ali rings the phone
and pulls the receiver out of his pocket,
and pretends to have a quick, brief animated conversation.
When we get off at the first express store,
the gate closes, the elevator goes up farther.
We fell on the floor laughing,
'cause we both knew exactly what those people
in the elevator who of course recognized him were thinking.
So I took him over to the LIFE studio
which was a few blocks away,
and projected some pictures of the show
onto the screen and photographed Ali
in front of these things so I can flush out the story.
At the conclusion of our shoot,
the assistant took a picture of Ali and I
facing off against each other.
In 1960, Cassius Clay came to Miami
determined to be the heavyweight champion in the world.
In end, he became something even more, a legend!
(drum music)
Everybody remembers who was alive
at the time back in the fifties,
when Eisenhower picked Nixon to be
his candidate for Vice President.
And then there were some expose' in the press
about Nixon's financial doings.
And so he was under pressure,
and Nixon decided to take to television
which was a relatively new medium.
And he gave a speech to the American public.
And he said, basically one of the lines was
"My wife, Pat has a plain cloth coat."
Indicating they didn't have any money coming to them.
But he said,
a gentleman from Texas sent them a Cocker spaniel
and my daughter fell in love with it,
and she named it Checkers and we're not giving him back.
Well, the public was impressed.
Eisenhower applauded the speech and said,
"You're gonna stay on the ticket."
And that's how Checkers became the name of that speech.
It's now called the Checkers Speech.
And now I wanna jump ahead to a relationship that
Richard Nixon had with Hedda Hopper.
Who was Hedda Hopper?
Well, at one point
she was the most famous columnist in the country.
She was basically somebody who knew and dealt
with all the movie stars and celebrities,
and her newspaper column was nationally syndicated.
She was also
known for her very funny, crazy hats that she wore.
She was quite a celebrity in her own day.
And then Nixon,
who was part of that Hollywood crowd knew Hedda
and went ahead and published a book.
I was there doing a story on Hedda Hopper
and Nixon came in and posed with Hedda for the picture.
Getting assigned to do a cover for LIFE magazine
for any photographer, especially myself was a big deal.
When my boss, Roy Rowan came to me and said,
Bob, you're gonna get a crack at a cover.
We want you to shoot a picture of Richard Nixon,
because he's gonna be running president.
And I got so excited.
And a couple of days later,
Roy called me into his office and said,
"Bob, we're having a little problem.
Nixon does not wanna pose now.
He feels it wouldn't be propitious
throwing his hat in the ring this early."
So Roy Rowan said,
well, we're not gonna take no for an answer.
We're going to ask our boss, Henry Luce,
who was a big Republican donor to intercede in our behalf.
We want Nixon on the cover.
And I felt pretty good about that.
But then days later I found out that Nixon was adamant.
He was not going to do this.
So I said to Roy Rowan, my boss, I said,
"Roy do you mind if I try on my own?"
And he laughed at me after what had happened,
but I had an ace up my sleeve.
I was with Hedda Hopper months ago doing a story on her,
and she told me about her relationship with Dick Nixon.
And it was as follows.
When Eisenhower and Nixon in 52 and in 1956
were touring the Midwest by train is how they used to do it.
They were not drawing the crowds.
The farmers were not that interested,
and they were worried stiff.
So, Nixon who knew Hedda Hopper called her
and said, "Hedda you got to come out and help us."
And she flew out and the farmer's wives heard she was coming
and she got on the train and the crowds came to see
Eisenhower and Nixon and Hedda Hopper with her kookie hats,
and truth be told,
Hedda Hopper was responsible for not only
winning the Midwest for Eisenhower, but the presidency.
So I knew that story.
And I decided to call Hedda Hopper.
She used to call me, "Dear boy."
Cause she was about 30 years older than I was.
And she understood what I needed and she said,
"Dear boy, what's your phone number?"
And I gave her the phone number.
She said, "Stay by your phone a few minutes."
In few minutes the phone rings,
and the lady says to me,
"My name is Rosemary Woods.
I don't know who you are,
but where do you want him, and when?"
Well, okay, who is Rosemary Woods?
She was Nixon's personal secretary.
So at any rate,
now I have Nixon over at the LIFE studio
with a camera that was a four by five Gowlandflex
like a giant twin lens reflex.
And we do some testing and you see a picture behind me
when I stood in for Nixon to see that the lights were right
and everything looked good and Nixon comes along,
and we made one more test and it looked good.
So we proceeded to photograph him in that fashion.
At the conclusion of which he wasn't in a hurry to run out.
And the assistant took a picture of myself
with Nixon at the studio and he leaves
and I've run over to the LIFE lab,
and it took about three hours to process the film.
And when it comes out of the tank, it's a disaster.
About five of the six lights that we had,
didn't go off.
And of course,
well I was shooting I couldn't know that
because it was just a blinding flash of light,
but I had no cover.
After all the trouble I went through, I had no cover.
So I took the train home and I told my wife,
you know, I think my career is over.
I really blew a big one.
And she said, well, I don't understand.
Why don't you just call up and get him back?
I said, you don't understand. It doesn't go that way.
I had my chance, I blew it.
Well, she was after me throughout the rest of the night.
So by the time the next morning came along,
I decided I'd make the phone call and see what happens.
So I called this Rosemary Woods again and she says,
"Oh, I was just gonna call you."
I said really, what for?
She said well,
I wonder if we could get some prints of what you did.
I said, Oh yeah, I'll be happy to do that.
But quite frankly, Rosemary,
there was a problem with the picture.
She said, "What problem?"
I said, well your boss showed up in a black suit
and a solid black tie,
and it looked very funereal.
And she says, "Oh my God, what can we do?"
I said, I'll go buy some ties to freshen up the picture
If you get him back.
She said, "I'd be happy to do that.
Let's do it."
So what you see on the screen now
is the final picture, corrected picture
of Nixon with all lights working.
(calm music)
Airplane controllers were unhappy with the amount of pay
they received for the hard work they were doing,
but they were prohibited by law from striking.
So, they did the next best thing.
They decided really enforce the laws
and airports all over the country were causing huge delays,
as these controllers were exercising
their prerogatives under the law.
And that created pileups of airplanes
waiting on the tarmac 20, 30 minutes at a time.
And the public was very well aware of the condition
and it put pressure on the government
to do something about it.
But in the meantime,
LIFE asked me to do some kind of coverage of this situation,
and I went out there and I watched it.
Now, even though the pilots were
caused to wait 20 minutes, 30 minutes,
they were still spread apart
on this giant situation on the runways,
and it didn't make a very good picture.
So that first evening,
I asked the chief of the controller,
if he would come to dinner with me.
And we dined and I explained what I needed for a picture,
which was 20 or 30 planes in a row like soldiers.
And I guess after a few beers, he thought,
why not, he'll do it.
And so the next day I was in a helicopter
and my new friend arranged that the planes be lined up
like soldiers on one runway.
And I made the picture that became the LIFE cover.
So, it wasn't a falsehood
because that was a real situation,
but I had to make it visual and vertical
so that we could use it.
For the Winter Olympics of that year,
I was assigned to do the U.S. Bobsled team
up at Lake Placid, New York, Mt. Van Hoevenberg,
where they had a bobsled track
going down the side of the mountain.
But I knew I wanted something different.
And so we got a bobsled over to a garage shop
and we welded a mount for a camera
on the front cowl of the bobsled,
and ran a wire.
Bobsled was a four seater
and ran a wire in the bobsled to see position three,
where I was going to be firing the camera
as we rode down at approximately 103 miles an hour.
What I did not know,
was what shutter speed to select.
I didn't wanna freeze the action completely.
It'd make it look still and frozen.
I wanted enough sense of motion
to appreciate 103 miles an hour,
but I also wanted detail in Bob Said,
who was the captain of the U.S. team
and in the steering position to be recognizable.
So, it required three separate runs
at three different shutter speeds.
And I had the film processed
and one of the runs was just perfect.
And that's how I got that cover of the U.S. Bobsled team.
But I'll tell you,
it was the scariest thing I think I have ever done
in terms of riding that bobsled
bouncing all over the ice at that great speed.
It was quite an experience I'll never forget.
Next I wanna talk about this picture
in black and white of Little League hockey.
When it first started, I was asked to do a story on it.
And I went out to New Jersey somewhere,
and I stayed with the hockey league there
and photograph kids playing hockey.
And it was just great,
except that none of my pictures, action pictures
of the actual competition really said
what I knew was happening,
and that was they're enjoying the heck out of hockey.
So I had an idea how to make this work in a photograph.
I lined up two teams on the opposite end of the arena.
And I took a $5 bill and I put a puck over it,
and I got up on a little three foot ladder
and I blew a whistle and they came charging
to see who could get that $5 bill.
And what resulted
was a pile up of kids laughing and having a ball.
And that was the opening double page spread
in LIFE magazine.
It said, "Kids are having a great time
at ice hockey Little League."
In 1965,
there was a blackout of the entire Eastern seaboard
from Ottawa to Florida.
And it went on for many, many hours.
And I didn't have an assignment from anybody
'cause phones were out,
but I decided it seemed significant enough
after several hours that I better get somewhere
and record this as best I could.
So I drove into New York,
ended up somewhere in the Brooklyn Navy yard,
looking at lower Manhattan
as nobody had ever seen it before.
It was totally dark except by the light of a full moon,
which was over my shoulder.
So I set my camera up on a tripod
and I made some time exposures
of lower Manhattan in that moonlight.
And then I got an idea.
It seemed to me that we were all existing basically
by the light of a full moon that night.
And that, that should be part of my picture and story.
So taking a clue from a great colleague of mine,
the famous black photographer, Gordon Parks,
who had done multiple exposures
of which I thought were very significant.
So, what I did was rewound my film, I exposed film,
turned the camera 180 degrees, put on a telephoto lens,
and exposed pictures of the full moon
in the upper right hand quadrant
where I knew the skyline had nothing else exposed.
And shot another whole roll doing that.
And then the big question at LIFE the next day
was well,
I told them, I explained exactly how that picture was made.
And my justification for doing that
in that fashion was that,
in fact it was not so bad
because had I been on the New Jersey side
looking at the lower Manhattan,
I would have seen that moon.
So I justified what I did on that basis.
There was a huge argument,
went on for hours about in the context of a news picture,
knowing what I had done
they could go with that in good conscience.
And they decided to do exactly that.
And it ran as a big double page opening spread
for the story of that great blackout.
And what was interesting to me
considering the ethics involved
was that all the major magazines
in the world picked up on it.
There was Der Stern, there were Paris Match.
They all grabbed it and ran with it,
and felt it was okay,
even in terms of how I had made it.
(calm music)
What you're looking at on the screen
is a picture of myself with Nikon's first
and only underwater or waterproof camera called a Nikonos.
And on top of my head,
you just see a giant studio strobe attached to a pipe
with some electric cords going to the surface of the pool.
I am doing a story on the 1964,
U.S. Women's Olympic Swim Team.
And we're in California during practice,
and I decided that the best way to see these ladies
and their perfection is to look at it underwater.
And what is now coming on the screen
is a picture of a 16 year old Kathy Ellis,
who is swimming the butterfly as observed by me
from under the water.
She went on to win three gold medals,
I believe and a few others.
Quite a superstar!
That particular picture was
one of the best I have ever made.
And I continued, did a big picture story
on the Women's Olympic team.
It ran for eight or 10 pages in LIFE,
and on the cover it featured another
Olympic swimming champion named Donna de Varona.
And I thought to myself,
how can I flush out this story
apart from all the practices going on?
And I asked Donna,
what else she does that might be of some interest?
And she said, well, she's a pretty good surfer.
I said, no kidding.
Let's go to the beach and catch you doing some surfing.
It'll be a great contrast to all this practice in the pool.
So she was very accommodating.
She gets out there in the surf and after a ride or two,
she has a terrible accident.
She flies off the surfboard and injures herself.
She comes crawling out of the ocean and I'm thinking,
Oh my gosh,
I've wrecked her career right before
the summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Well, I was very nervous about that,
but fortunately Donna de Varona
recovered sufficiently to make the team.
And then by the time they got to Tokyo,
she was in top form and did very well.
(upbeat music)
- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
the Beatles.
Bring them on now.
(crowd cheering)
(Beatle's music)
- By the time the Beatles first arrived in America,
they were already well known.
Their song, "She Loves You",
was a big hit among teenagers.
They appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show,
in February of 1964.
The second night of
the democratic presidential debate
in Miami this past June 2019,
drew 18 million viewers,
but 73 million people were watching
the Beatles back in 1964.
On February 13th,
they flew down to Miami for another appearance
on Sullivan at the Deauville hotel.
A radio show host announced in advance
their arrival time at the airport.
7,000 screaming fans were there to greet them.
(crowd screaming)
They broke 23 windows and a plate glass door.
(crowd screaming)
Reporter, Gail Cameron and I covering for LIFE
got driven in limos to the hotel,
adoring crowds waving as we passed.
Arriving at the hotel,
we're invaded by a mob of teenagers.
At least one girl passes out.
LIFE's original idea,
was to get the Beatles together
for a photo session in a pool.
It was obviously impossible to do this
at the Deauville facility.
Gail, arranges access at a private residence on Miami beach,
but the Beatles say no, claiming they're tired.
Paul McCartney finally agrees to the LIFE request.
Now getting the Beatles out of the hotel
with thousands of screaming fans
required strategic planning
usually reserved for military landings.
With five cops to protect the four Beatles,
we finally snuck them out a back way.
After changing into bathing suits,
four pale skinny guys entered the pool.
They seemed uncertain how to react.
They wanted to be told what to do.
I told them just to have fun.
Ringo started a splash fight.
John did a few cannonballs off the diving board.
McCartney takes a plunge underwater,
he comes up screaming, "It's cold!"
Lenin tries it too.
Finally exhausted,
they exit the pool and wrap themselves in towels.
It's time for a nap and some rest.
My best known photograph
is of the four lads in lounge chairs.
The Beatles told me they had never been anywhere
where there were palm trees.
They were so accustomed to the miserable British winters.
Florida was a paradise.
McCartney falls asleep.
Harrison grabs a French fry.
Lennon grabs the smoke.
McCartney wakes and takes some pictures with his Pentax.
Harrison grabs another snack.
The next day, we whisked them away to North Miami beach,
where we hoped they wouldn't be recognized.
Wrong.
After a brief run,
the lads jumped into the ocean and splashed away.
A few girls spotted them and joined them in the water.
One of them, a girl named Ruth Blythe
impulsively gave McCartney a kiss.
Ringo and the others were also hugged and kissed
until police got them safely away to our vehicles.
The next day was the rehearsal,
and the lads renewed their acquaintance with Ed Sullivan.
For the actual performance,
CBS, gave out 3,500 tickets for the 600 available seats,
and there was a near riot as a result.
The fans were delirious with excitement.
Surprisingly enough, LIFE never ran the story.
In 2005 Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon
invited me to contribute a chapter of my memories
along with Joan Baez, Bono Ray Charles, Mick Jagger,
Elton John, Norman Mailer, Carlos Santana and Carly Simon.
I was very honored to be included with such august company.
The first time some of my Beatle photographs were published
was in August of 2015 in Closer Magazine, 51 years later.
CBS saw it and came over for an interview.
I showed them a picture of McCartney and Ruth Blythe
kissing on Miami beach.
The show appeared nationally and the Blythe's family
now living on the West coast, watched it on their TV.
They were astonished,
because when their daughter Ruth came home that day in 1964
claiming she had met and kissed a Beatle,
they didn't believe her.
Now, more than 50 years had passed,
and they realized she was telling the truth.
Sadly, Ruth Blythe had passed away some years before
and never got the vindication she deserved.
My prints of that occasion
now hang proudly in their home.
And more recently also in the rooms
of the elegant five-star Post Oak Hotel in Houston,
courtesy of Tilman Fertitta.
(calm music)
The title of the NBC show in 1961 was
"Car 54, Where are you?"
It was story about two policemen
out of a fictitious precinct
in the Bronx, the 53rd precinct,
and their misadventures on various assignments.
Well, it was popular show.
They did about 60, 30 shows per year.
They did a total of 60 shows and it was very well received.
And LIFE asked me to cover the shooting
of the program, and I did.
And on a particular day I was out there,
we were in the Bronx and I don't remember
what the script was calling for,
but we were suddenly faced with a rainstorm,
a deluge of water,
and everybody broke and ran from the street
where they were doing pictures.
And I ended up in a candy store
with the two principal cops just by accident.
Where I was hoping for a break in the weather
and it wasn't coming and we're there 20, 30 minutes.
And I noticed outside the candy store
was a garbage can with a broken umbrella in it.
So I got the idea and I asked
the two principal actors in their uniforms,
if they would please honor me and go out
in the middle of the intersection heavy traffic
with this broken umbrella and huddle underneath it.
And they were happy to do that.
And indeed, that was the picture that opened the story
even though it had nothing to do with any other episode.
It was very funny to see these two guys
huddle out there in traffic.
(calm music)
(camera clicks)
- And so my fellow Americans
ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country.
(crowd cheering)
- LIFE first assigned me to cover
a presidential campaign of John Kennedy in 1960.
My first assignment was covering his mother, Rose Kennedy,
who was doing campaigning for him.
She had told me that Jack was one of nine children she had.
At three years old she related,
Jack was very sick, whooping cough, measles,
chicken pox, Scarlet fever,
and a family joke about great risk.
A mosquito took in biting him
who with some of his blood the mosquito,
was almost sure to die.
Jack was a student at a boys school in Connecticut
and had a daily subscription to the New York Times
like I do to this very day.
When he won the election,
I was assigned to cover him at his home in Georgetown.
The press were camped out in front ...
as potential cabinet appointees pulled up in limousines,
and walk the three steps to the door.
His daughter, Caroline,
occasionally peered out the window to watch us.
The president elect would take her
for brief walks down the street.
On a Saturday morning, Pierre Salinger,
the president's press secretary told we assembled press
that there were no appointments that day,
and we could go home.
All the world's news organization got permission
from their offices to do just that,
except Jim Atherton, an AP photographer and myself.
LIFE magazine went to press Saturday night
and they wouldn't take any chances
that something newsworthy might happen.
So Jim and I stood outside on that cold November afternoon
until the president opened his windows,
and invited us in to watch
the Army Navy football game with him.
We were ushered into the den
where three TV trays were set up,
and we were served steak and baked potato.
After days outside in the freezing Washington November,
the warm house environment got the better of me
and I fell asleep.
Atherton finally shook be awake.
He said the game was over
and that the president had left the room.
We returned to our position in the street.
After that,
whenever the president would see me
covering one of his events,
he would point at me with a big knowing smile
and I would turn beet red in embarrassment
In preparation for his presidency,
John Kennedy had a personal tailor custom make his clothes.
His name was Sam Harris,
and the procedure intrigued enough
to seek out a custom tailor for myself, named Morty Sills,
who was well known among celebrity circles.
Now, more than 57 years later,
I'm still wearing the clothes Morty made for me
in the sixties and seventies.
I did not cover the inauguration ceremony,
but will always remember Kennedy's immortal challenge.
"Ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country."
My first assignments covering now, president Kennedy
began when he addressed the United Nations general assembly
in September of 1961.
He began by paying homage to the recent death
of UN secretary general, Dag Hammarskjold, 56,
who died under somewhat mysterious circumstances
when his plane crashed while on route
to ceasefire negotiations during the Congo crisis.
Next came prime minister of India, Nehru,
with his wife to visit in November for three days
of talks, walks, parties.
It was an occasion for me to also attend a reception
for Nehru at the Indian embassy that
I was sufficiently attracted to the families I met
to create a desire to one day visit their country,
which I have in recent years done three times now.
In May, 1962,
JFK spoke to the United auto workers
in Atlantic city, New Jersey.
JFK, and the press Corps,
charisma, what better way to describe it.
Charm, aura, personality, magnetism, drawing power,
attractiveness, appeal, mystique, glamor,
a type of leadership seen as extraordinary.
Kennedy visits Independent Hall
in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1962.
He talks about the Declaration of Independence
as being a revolutionary document.
The short life of Patrick Kennedy born 20 years to the day
JFK was rescued from an island in the Pacific.
We flew on air force one to Otis Airbase, Massachusetts.
Five and a half weeks,
that is to say Patrick was five and a half weeks premature.
The baby had breathing difficulties within minutes.
JFK saw his son in distress, called for a chaplain,
and had him baptized.
Patrick lived for only 39 hours.
My photo of Kennedy in the elevator of the hospital
looks grave and appearing tired.
Next time I was assigned to cover the president
it was because of the Cuban missile crisis,
in October of 1962.
Our U2 spy plane discovers
Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.
We traveled to Fort Stewart, Georgia
to inspect our readiness to go to war.
Then on to the Naval Air Station in Key West
preparing fighter planes and bombers.
Fortunately, Khrushchev backs off.
In 2017, Caroline Kennedy invites me to a celebration
at the Smithsonian in Washington to commemorate
the hundredth anniversary of her dad's birth
with rare photos of the sixties, including mine.
Among the speakers, Senator John McCain
tells of being on an aircraft carrier
as a Navy fighter pilot on his way to Cuba
when Kennedy called off the attack and how grateful he was.
I shared with him that memory
as I was also assigned to that carrier.
Russia is making big strides in space exploration
and John Kennedy commits to win the race.
I accompany him on a tour
of the U.S. facilities from Florida to Texas.
Along with Vice President Johnson and several astronauts,
we tour Huntsville, Alabama, Cape Canaveral, Florida,
Houston, Texas, and the main space center
at the McDonald plant in st. Louis to see
the Mercury and Gemini space capsules.
He meets with Wernher Von Braun, Schirra, Wally Schirra,
John Glenn among others.
We also visit the army missile command research
and development center.
Then we motorcade through downtown Houston,
Foley's department store with flags around the right.
We arrive at the Rice University Stadium.
I am behind him to the right, camera's at the ready.
University officials escort the president to the podium.
He begins what turns out to be
one of the most historic speeches of all times.
A pledge to go to the moon quote,
"Not because they're easy, but because they're hard."
My best picture of this trip was never published.
It was overlooked in the exigencies
of the weekly magazine business,
and I recently discovered it a few years ago of Kennedy
coming out of a mockup prototype of a Saturn five rocket
that would one day launch Apollo eight around the moon.
Another day that will live infamy
November 22nd, 1963,
the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
I go to Washington and went immediately to the White House,
about 4:30 AM, Saturday, November 23rd.
The bronze casket used to transport the body from Dallas
was damaged and a new mahogany casket replaced it.
It was kept closed because Jackie felt
the gaping head wound was unbearable to view.
The next day, Kennedy is brought to the Capitol rotunda.
Jackie asked the honor guard to face inward.
There's the playing of the Navy Hymn.
I take a back stairway and walk upstairs to a high balcony.
Jackie and Caroline kneel in prayer.
Then a most remarkable thing happens.
I later name it, divine intervention.
The sun bursts through upper skylight windows,
and sends a few beams of light onto the coffin.
I make the picture.
The beams disappear, divine intervention.
After 18 hours of public viewing,
250,000 people waiting in freezing temperatures
the casket is loaded onto the caisson.
The riderless horse, named Black Jack
escorts the body back to the White House.
I get this shot from the outside balcony of the Capitol.
Next, I rushed to the Mayflower Hotel
where I'm able to view the procession,
leaving the white house on foot to St. Matthew's church.
Then quickly to a vantage point at the church
where Cardinal Cushing kisses the casket.
Jackie with children arrive as do Bobby Kennedy, Teddy,
and the rest of the family.
We were not credentialed for the Arlington burial,
so the reporter and I take a chance
and hire a black limousine like the dignitaries are using,
and fall into line behind them.
Fortunately, when we arrive at the checkpoint
it's the reporters old college professor,
now a secret service officer who recognizes her
and waves us through.
I am able to capture the military marching
across the bridge, the honor guard,
and the family's arrival at graveside.
Another bit of perspicacity shrewdness on my part,
I secure a vantage point among the VIP's
where no press is allowed to make this historic photograph
of Charles de Gaulle and Haile Selassie saluting
while 220 foreign dignitaries, 19 heads of state,
and members of royal families
from 92 countries stand witness.
Kennedy was buried at Arlington
exactly two weeks to the day he last visited there
for Veteran's Day observations.
I'm often asked about my ability to divorce myself
from any emotional reaction to the events
that were happening to a president who knew me by name.
The overriding consideration during those days
was to make photographs that will forever explain
the momentousness of the occasion,
and the viewers like you will never forget.
50 years later,
when LIFE published the book,
"The Day Kennedy Died"
I had my emotional reaction.
Tears came to my eyes.
(somber music)
You remember I talked about,
how I felt the lighting at the John Kennedy funeral
was divine intervention.
There was something else that happened that day, in 1963.
I looked up to the ceiling,
some 200 feet above me and thought
if I ever get another opportunity to shoot in this hall,
I'm gonna figure out how to get a camera
up there in the ceiling.
Well, in 1969,
General Eisenhower dies and he is going
to have a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.
And I knew what I had to do.
I picked up the phone and called a secret service agent that
I knew from the Kennedy administration who was a friend,
and told him what I had in mind.
He said, "Don't tell anybody,
but get down here with your help right away,
and I'll work with you."
The reason for the secrecy was,
because there were three jurisdictions that had control
over what happens for the Eisenhower funerals.
One was, of course the Congress, it was their house.
And the second was the Department of the Army,
and the third of course was the secret service.
Had the other two jurisdictions
heard about my plan,
they never would have allowed it
because was a fear that my camera might fall from above
and injure some of the many dignitaries who were below.
So we worked in the wee hours of the morning
around a huge balcony at the very top,
and we ran steel cables all the way around
to the opposite side and then pulled the cables
over the top and had them tied very tauntly,
so that there were two lines going across
the center of the rotunda ceiling.
And I put a plexiglass sheet attached
to those two lines with a hole in the middle,
and attached to camera facing down on that sheet.
And then a wire back to fire that camera.
And we pullied the camera out over the center,
and I had to run some tests,
because I could not know what the camera was seeing
that far away from where I was on the balcony.
And I was not sure of what focal length lens,
how wide a lens I could use there,
which kept emphasis on the American flag
covering Eisenhower's casket,
at the same time wanting to see the walls of the rotunda.
So I tried back and forth with three different lenses
and we ran strobe lights,
big powerful studio strobe lights
around the entire arena and synced that with the camera,
because 200 feet of walls were not lit.
The press and television was lighting down below
where the ceremonies were taking place,
but I needed to light the entire wall area.
Okay, so we found a lab.
We opened the lab in the middle of the night
and it took three hours to process color film,
but I got it back about 5:00 AM
and was able to pick the lens that worked the best.
And now, the only task left
was to string a zip cord wire down 500 feet of stairwell
to a foot switch where I was gonna be assigned
with the rest of the press down on the floor
to cover the goings on.
Well, the big fear I had
those Ascor strobe units at the time
when notorious for going off by themselves.
And had they done that on this occasion,
I'm afraid that they would have been called off
and I would not have been able to complete this picture,
but fortunately the Ascor lights
did not fire off by themselves.
And during the ceremony,
I took two or three frames with my foot and nobody noticed.
And so, that's how that cover was made.
By the way,
after it came out the rest of the world claimed
that it should be a pool photograph.
And LIFE told them, "No way".
But interesting enough,
years later National Geographic
was doing a story on the Capitol,
and they wanted to do something similar
from the dome of the rotunda.
And they went before the Congress
and they showed him my cover of LIFE as precedent,
and they got permission to do it.
When General Douglas MacArthur passed,
the procession he was held
at the 51st Street Armory on Park Avenue,
and there was a procession of visitors
who passed by the casket.
And I was curious about what level
since the casket was open,
I could photograph this scene
where it would still not be offensive
to some people in the general circulation.
I didn't want it to be ghoulish in other words.
But he did have a famous Patrician nose.
And I thought from the side,
I could show that and that might be acceptable.
So I waited until about 2:00 AM in the morning
when the crowds had dissipated,
and there were just two honor guard soldiers and myself.
And without asking,
I picked up one of the American flags
and I moved it to a position that would be
directly behind the General's profile,
and to give it some other meaning
besides just his contenance.
And so I went home and got back very early the next morning,
because the procession was to leave the armory,
go to Grand Central Station, and then onto Washington.
And I was driving a 1960 Corvair at the time.
And it had a unique trunk situation,
which was in the front where engines normally go.
And I had my cameras in there,
but I couldn't open the lock that morning.
And it was pouring down rain,
and there were some policemen and they tried to help me.
We took a crowbar and tried to pry open the damn thing.
And that didn't work.
Some garbage men came by.
Now, it's eight o'clock sharp.
And I'm standing on the steps of the armory
and here comes General MacArthur.
And all I could do,
I thought I'll salute at least in respect.
But it was now after eight o'clock,
and I could reach a locksmith.
So, I called a locksmith.
They came over and they were able
to open it one, two, three, and I thought to myself,
what can I do at this point?
And it occurred to me to drive to LaGuardia airport
and take a plane to Washington,
and I could catch up with the entourage.
And that's exactly what I did.
But at this point,
from the episode with the car and the pouring rain,
I was drenched.
And when I got to Washington,
it was raining down there heavily.
And the other LIFE photographers who were assigned
were working with reporters at certain fixed positions,
under umbrellas they were standing there.
But I was so wet at that point,
and I thought the only thing I can do
is follow along side the procession.
And I did,
and I made a wonderful picture of the procession
reflected doubly in the wet pavement below it,
and that ran as a big double page picture.
And then I had a picture of the General's wife
coming into the funeral.
All of which was possible,
because I was no longer trying to hide from getting wet.
I was wet enough already.
(melancholic music)
This picture of this little girl
with tears in her eyes behind this rope line,
is my favorite picture of all time.
It was shot early in my career, somewhere early 1960s.
And I've shot thousands of images since,
but this remains my favorite.
It was a situation where a United States submarine,
the first atomic powered submarine,
in fact called the USS Triton
circumnavigated the globe underwater.
And they we're coming home to New London,
and this little girl's father was one of the sailors.
And when I saw her,
tears were coming down her face from both eyes
just a single tear.
And I thought, Oh my gosh!
And I captured that,
and it forever remains my best emotional picture.
You could feel what she was thinking
the excitement to see her father again and whatnot.
But I have to tell you a funny story.
When the picture ran as a full page in the LIFE,
one of my associates, Stan Wayman,
another very fine photographer
was kidding me one day and he said,
Bob, what kind of eyedropper do you use
for those liquid tears in that picture?
And I haven't forgotten his remark, his joking remark.
But to this day,
if I had to put up one picture that represents
the best I ever did, the Triton homecoming,
the little girl with tears, would be it.
(calm music)