Happy 100th birthday, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy would be 100 years old on Monday, were he still alive. The 35th president of the United States was killed in 1963, midway through his term in office, but he is revered today as one of the most towering figures in modern American politics.
Before he was a giant of history, though, Kennedy was a young man in a hurry. In 1953, seven years before he sought the presidency, he was a newly-elected Massachusetts senator and a newly-married man. Just one month after their marriage, Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, were interviewed remotely from their Boston apartment by CBS News journalist Edward R. Murrow as part of the network's "Person to Person" conversation series.
Murrow, cigarette dangling from his fingers in his studio, asked Mrs. Kennedy how they'd met.
"We met at the house of a friend about two years ago," she replied.
Murrow noted her background as a reporter -- she'd worked for a short time for the now-defunct Washington Times-Herald -- and asked whether she first met the senator when she interviewed him.
"I interviewed him shortly after I met him," Mrs. Kennedy explained.
Which was more difficult, Murrow wondered -- interviewing a senator, or being married to one?
Mrs. Kennedy laughed politely before her husband stepped in to save her. "Being married to one, I'd guess," he quipped.
Murrow asked the senator to show viewers around the apartment. Kennedy directed the journalist to a photo of himself with all eight of his siblings, taken in 1939 when their father was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
"Almost the last time we were all taken together," Kennedy noted. "Brings back happy memories."
Kennedy's oldest brother, Joe Kennedy, was killed in 1944 fighting in World War II.
Watch the video above for more of Murrow's 1953 chat with the Kennedys. And tune into Face the Nation this Sunday for the latest political news and analysis.
