posted 11-11-2011 06:56 PM               

On page 401, Matthews writes about the "two monuments" that Jacqueline Kennedy wanted for her husband: an eternal flame at Arlington National Cemetery and...

The other commemoration she requested was quite different. She'd clearly given it careful thought. NASA's Apollo 5 mission was set to takeoff in January 1964. The president had mentioned the launch in recent speeches. She asked that her husband's initials be placed on a tiny corner of the great Saturn rocket where no one would even see them.

posted 11-11-2011 09:35 PM               

EDIT: JFK specifically referred to this mission to a speech in Texas the day before he was assassinated:

And in December, while I do not regard our mastery of space as anywhere near complete, while I recognize that there are still areas where we are behind — at least in one area, the size of the booster — this year I hope the United States will be ahead.

posted 11-11-2011 10:52 PM               

NASA's Monographs of Aerospace History No. 37 (SP-2005-4537) titled, "Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions" by NASA Deputy Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr. describes the interview and includes the relevant passage:

Teddy White was a well-known historian and author of the book series "The Making of the President." Life magazine requested the interview, and Mrs. Kennedy agreed, provided that Teddy White was the interviewer. He was contacted late in the afternoon in Cambridge and was rushed to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. Life was holding the presses for the article, and so directly after the interview, Teddy dictated the article in Mrs. Kennedy's presence. The article featured her vision of her husband's administration as Camelot and omitted her rather extensive discussion of the space program.

Here are excerpts from the transcript, which appeared first in the [Boston] Globe on 28 May 1995:

McNamara changed the name at the Cape [Canaveral]. Jack was so interested in the Saturn Booster. All I wanted was Jack's name signed on the side of the nose of the booster somehow where no one would even notice. McNamara said that wasn't dignified. But then he changed the name of the Cape itself so that everything that goes to the sky, goes from there.

But I can't see changing the name of something like Sixth Avenue [in New York City]. I don't want to go out on a Kennedy Driveway to a Kennedy Airport to visit a Kennedy School. And besides, I've got everything I want; I have that flame in Arlington National Cemetery and I have the Cape. I don't care what people say. I want that flame, and I wanted his name on just that one booster, the one that would put us ahead of the Russians... that's all I wanted.

I'm going to bring up my son. I want him to grow up to be a good boy. I have no better dream for him. I want John-John to be a fine young man. He's so interested in planes; maybe he'll be an astronaut or just plain John Kennedy fixing planes on the ground.

Those responsible for launching the Saturn SA-5, which he had observed and commented on during his inspection in November, wanted some way to express their gratitude for his interest and their grief for his loss. Rumors were rampant that special markings would be placed on the Saturn, which led to the implementation of special security provisions.

posted 11-13-2011 06:04 AM               

In honor of the late President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated six days earlier, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that LOC and Station No. 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range would be designated the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), "...to honor his memory, and the future of the works he started..." Johnson said. On the following day, he signed an executive order making this change official. With the concurrence of Florida Governor Farris Bryant, he also changed the name of Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy.

posted 11-13-2011 07:54 AM               

As for the President's memorial, at first she remembered that, in every speech in their last days in Texas, he had spoken of how in December this nation would loft the largest rocket booster yet into the sky, making us first in space. So she had wanted something of his there when it went up - perhaps only his initials painted on a tiny corner of the great Saturn, where no one need even notice it. But now Americans will seek the moon from Cape Kennedy. The new name, born of her frail hope, came as a surprise.