Jacqueline Kennedy stands next to Lyndon Johnson

Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Cecil Stoughton took this photograph on Air Force One as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.  Stoughton was a captain in the Army when he was assigned to photograph the life of the President full time, making him the first ever White House photographer.  He shot over 12,000 negatives during his time documenting the Kennedy family and the last photograph he took in service of the Kennedy presidency may be his most famous.  Stoughton was the only photographer on the plane at the time, making him the only one to capture this historic moment on film.  This photo would run in newspapers giving the American people some closure to the Kennedy presidency.

What you see in this photo is not a grotesque image, like many of those that Sontag describes in her article, but you do see an audience still in shock, a devastated wife, and a man stepping up to a role he did not imagine he would play so soon.  When you look closely at this photograph you can see the blood of her husband stained on Jacqueline Kennedy's dress (much of the blood on her dress was on the right side, which cannot be seen in this image).  Kennedy insisted on wearing the dress in the photograph, telling Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack".

Stoughton didn't catch anything shocking with this photograph, but to a nation trying to come to grips with a tragedy this made an event that must have seemed unreal a reality, John F. Kennedy was dead and the nation had a new president.  This supports the idea that Sontag raises that seeing photographs make an event more "real" (p.16).  For the American people seeing this photograph was likely what made the events of that day more real than anything.

In this image you see not the kind of suffering that soldiers or civilians encounter during war that Sontag writes about in her essay, "Looking at War", but this photograph captures the suffering of a nation over the loss of a man through whom many held a collective hope for the future of a nation.  Though Johnson would later sign into law many bills that supported JFK's legacy, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for many of the American people November 22, 1963 is still cited as the day a dream died.  If you ask those who were alive that day some will still lament what could have been if Kennedy had completed his term (or terms) in the White House.