Cecil Stoughton, the chief photographer for the Kennedy White House, who documented its glittering public moments and its intimate private ones, and who captured its sudden end in one of the signal images of the 20th century?Lyndon B. Johnson?s swearing-in as president aboard Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 ? died Monday.
Stoughton, who died at his home on Merritt Island, Fla., was 88.
Stoughton?s picture is the only photographic record of the Johnson administration?s abrupt, official beginning. At a precarious moment in the country?s history, it gave the public at least a semblance of continuity: one president sworn in as the widow of another looked numbly on.
A retired officer with the Army Signal Corps, Stoughton was the first official White House photographer. Photographers had taken pictures of presidents for more than a century before him, of course, but only with the advent of the Kennedy administration in January 1961 was a position created for a photographer attached to the White House.
From his West Wing office, Stoughton sat poised each day for the sound of a buzzer, which meant President John F. Kennedy was ready for his services.
Over 35 months, Stoughton shot state dinners, receiving lines and visitors of all kinds, from foreign leaders to ?50 singing nuns,? as he later said.
But when the visitors left, Stoughton had the chance to capture the first family in far more personal settings ? in their White House quarters, at their vacation homes and on their many travels.
In November 1962, he photographed the family at Thanksgiving, their last together.
The photograph Stoughton loved best, he often said, was a candid shot he took of the Kennedy children, Caroline and John Jr., dancing around their father?s desk as the president clapped and sang with unbridled joy.
Stoughton was traveling in the Kennedy motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. After shots were fired, Stoughton?s driver raced to Parkland Hospital.
As Stoughton waited outside the operating room, he saw Vice President Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, being escorted from the hospital. He asked an official where they were going.
?The president is going to Washington,? he was told.
?So am I,? Stoughton replied.
He made it to Love Field before Air Force One took off and climbed into the plane, the only photographer on board.
He took about 20 shots of the ceremony. He was so close to Jacqueline Kennedy that her bloodstained skirt did not appear in the finished photo. Continuing to shoot, he captured a wrenching image of the Johnsons consoling her, her eyes downcast, dark hair obscuring half her face.
Stoughton stayed on with the Johnson administration until 1965.
?New York Times
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