The Resting Place Of John F. Kennedy

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30302, 30 November 1963, Page 20

The Resting Place Of John F. Kennedy

[Specially Written For "The Press")

WASHINGTON.

On the grassy slope of a knoll on the Virginia banks of the Potomac river overlooking Washington, in Arlington National Cemetery, the wartime naval officer, who became commander-in-chief of all the American armed forces, rests with the dead of all America’s wars.

Less than three weeks ago —on November 11, nationally observed as Veterans’ Day— President Kennedy journeyed to Arlington Cemetery to lay a large wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns who laid down their lives in world wars and in the Korean War. More than 121.000 of the nation’s honoured dead are interred in the gently-rolling terrain of the cemetery’s 420 acres. Among them are heroes of other nations who died while on liaison missions with American forces. Any member of the armed services or any former member who served honourably is entitled to be buried there or in the 10 other national cemeteries. The headstones in Arlington bear the names of Americans who fell at such places as "Heartbreak Ridge" in Korea, at Iwo Jima and Salerno, at Chateau Thierry, • during the Battle of Santiago, and at Antietam and Bull Run. There are a few, too. who fought under George Washington in the American Revolutionary war. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is the second President to be buried in Arlington. The first was William Howard Taft, chief executive from 1909 to 1913 and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He died in 1930. Other illustrious Americans interred in the Arlington Cemetery include General George Marshall, World War II military leader and Secretary of State; John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Eisenhower; General John Pershing, who commanded American troops

in Europe during World War I; Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer; and Admiral Robert Perry, the explorer who reached the North Pole in 1909. Also interred in Arlington are Ignace Jan Paderewski, the noted Polish pianist, composer and statesman, who died in New' York in 1941. The cemetery also has an equestrian monument in honour of Sir John Greer Dill, the British field-marshal, a leading figure in World War 11, who was the British Government's chief military adviser and head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington. He died in Washington in 1944. The Kennedy grave site is a broad lawn which sweeps up to the Custis-Lee mansion, whose columned portico is the most prominent feature of the cemetery when viewed from a distance. The mansion, said to be modelled after the temple of Theseus in Athens, was built in 1802 on the estate of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington. The estate was the nucleus of the cemetery. The mansion became the home of Robert E. Lee, the commander-in-chief of Confederate armies during the Civil War. The first soldier was buried in the cemetery on May 13, 1864. Perhaps best known to foreign dignitaries and visitors is the Tomb of the Unknowns, a memorial to unidentified war dead. The tomb is continuously attended by an honour guard. President Kennedy’s grave will be marked by an eternal flame burning at its head.