When Jackie Kennedy, her daughter Caroline, son John F. Kennedy Jr, and brother-in-law Robert Kennedy were pictured with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1965 in Runnymede, Surrey, the mood was sombre.
They were not visiting the UK for an official engagement or summit. Instead, their trip to Britain was spawned out of tragedy; a year-and-a-half earlier, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
The Kennedy visiting party arrived in Britain with the late Queen poised to make a landmark gesture in recognition of the values the murdered president stood for.
The gesture was not only the opening of a memorial to President Kennedy, but also the gifting of the acre piece of land around it to the United States of America.
To this day, all those who visit the site step from British to American soil. Speaking at the opening of the memorial, the monarch said: “The unprecedented intensity of that wave of grief, mixed with something akin to despair, which swept over our people at the news of President Kennedy’s assassination was a measure of the extent to which we recognised what he had already accomplished.
“And of the high hopes that rode with him in a future that was not to be.”
She continued: “Here at Runnymede, 750 years ago, Magna Carta was signed. This is a part of the heritage which the people of the United States of America share with us.”
Her Majesty added: “Therefore, it is altogether fitting that this should be the site of Britain’s Memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.”
The memorial itself carries the words from President Kennedy’s inaugural address on 20 January 1961.
It reads: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
