The Full Record

Cecil Stoughton was sweating profusely. Scrunched against the bulkhead of Air Force One, the stocky Army captain was trying to take pictures of Lyndon Johnson as he recited the presidential oath of office at Dallas' Love Field. When he had first used the flash attachment a few minutes before, it had not worked, but after a bit of jiggling with the connection, all seemed well. The pictures were taken, and then Stoughton remembered his custom of shooting from different angles to show as many of the people present as possible. He had always done it, then sent out prints to the people involved as a record of the occasion. So he kept shooting.

A Draped Arm. By last week, Cecil Stoughton's photographs were the center of a small but heated controversy. Just who was present during L.B.J.'s inaugural oath? Asked about it on Meet the Press, Author William Manchester reiterated what he had reported in a Look installment of The Death of a President: every male Kennedy aide, except Dr. George Burkley, had insultingly ducked the swearing-in. Stoughton's pictures show that Manchester is wrong.

All of the photographer's take -- the full existing photographic record of what happened that day on Air Force One -- are printed on the following two pages. Most of the pictures have never been published before. The full set shows that while Larry O'Brien may well have withdrawn, Ken O'Donnell, Dave Powers and Assistant Press Secretary Mac Kilduff were certainly present.

The pictures, of course, demonstrate the presence of still another Kennedy aide--Stoughton himself--who Manchester knew was there but whom he forgot to count. Stoughton was J.F.K.'s official photographer from the start of his presidency. But he is used to being anonymous. Though his pictures have run in virtually every newspaper and magazine in the world, he is rarely credited and never paid royalties. Because of his military status (he is now a major), all his output is Government property. Much of it is superb. Jackie's favorite was taken only a week before the assassination. The family was watching Scottish Black Watch bagpipers from a balcony, and Stoughton shot the scene from behind, catching the spread-out panoply of the marchers as well as Caroline's small arm draped around her father's shoulders.

Abrupt Transfer. In Dallas, Stoughton was too overcome to take pictures of the weeping aides in the corridors of Parkland Hospital, but when Johnson went by in a bustle of security men, Stoughton asked where they were going. "The President is going to Washington," came the answer. The title stunned Stoughton, but he quickly decided he should be with "the President." In a commandeered car, he raced to the plane. Afterward, he stayed on as a White House photographer, and then 18 months later, when the Kennedy family was going to England for the dedication of the Runnymede monument, he asked Johnson for permission to go. It would mean much to him, he explained, since he had been so close to the family.

A week after he returned, Stoughton got orders transferring him out of the White House. He is now stationed in an obscure Pentagon office, and will soon retire. How does he feel about all the anonymous pictures he has taken? "The President knows I took them," he says. "I know I took them. My wife knows I took them. I guess that's enough credit."

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