When President John F. Kennedy arrived at Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium on Sept. 27, 1963, a 14-year-old named John waited with his camera ready.
The ninth-grader gained admittance to the roped-off press area by volunteering to take pictures for his Jason Lee Junior High School newspaper.
Also there, sitting in the front row usually reserved for the hard-boiled White House press corps, an enthusiastic 21-year-old University of Puget Sound senior named Bill held his notepad ready as he awaited the president’s entrance.
As Kennedy stepped to the dais on the baseball infield and surveyed his audience, he quickly became aware of the large number of students in the crowd. He tossed aside his prepared script about conservation and seized the opportunity to speak directly to the nation’s youths, urging them to be ready for the “burden of leadership” that would soon be upon them, according to accounts of the speech published in The News Tribune.
At least two of them were listening.
John, the junior high photographer, grew up to become Pierce County executive: John Ladenburg.
Bill, the college newspaper reporter, grew up to become Tacoma’s mayor: Bill Baarsma.
“I’m not sure they ever used any of my photos,” Ladenburg said last week. “But I absolutely wanted to be inside the ropes, the closest I could get to Kennedy.”
Receiving a chance to sit with the White House press corps, “that was heady stuff,” Baarsma recalled last week.
“It was an extraordinary speech,” Baarsma said. “The president did a remarkable thing. He put aside his 3-by-5 cards. And of course there were no teleprompters. Most of it, if not all, was extemporaneous. The guy was incredibly charismatic. He could connect like you wouldn’t believe.”
“We’ve had other presidents visit, but nothing quite like that,” the mayor continued. “It was one of our city’s truly extraordinary events.”
With clouds moving in to the bright blue September sky, Kennedy spoke of today’s students being the leaders of tomorrow, The News Tribune reported.
“I ask particularly that those of you who are now in school must prepare yourselves to bear the burden of leadership over the next 40 years here in the United States and make sure that the United States – which I believe almost alone has maintained watch and ward for freedom – that the United States meet its responsibility,” Kennedy said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
“That is a wonderful challenge for us as a people.”
THE PRESIDENT ARRIVES
At 5:30 that morning, according to newspaper accounts, three 18-year-old women from Port Orchard were the first to arrive at the stadium, even though the gates wouldn’t open until 9 and the president wasn’t due until noon.
“Girls, you’ll have to move your car,” they were told. “You have it parked exactly where the president’s helicopter is going to land.”
Tacoma’s public schools excused students to attend the convocation, sponsored jointly by the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University. A crowd estimated at 25,000 filled the grandstands and stood shoulder to shoulder in the outfield. About two-thirds of Tacoma’s junior and senior high students would watch or hear the president that day, an official estimated at the time.
Police officers stood at the top of the grandstands and even climbed the light towers to provide security. Years later, Tacoma Police Chief Charles Zittel admitted to Baarsma that it was all for show: Had it been necessary to defend the president, the towers were swaying too much for the officers to get off an accurate shot.
Secret Service agents barred spectators from a grassy knoll known as “Tightwad Hill,” a vantage point beyond the outfield wall, The News Tribune reported.
The thump-thump-thump of a green Marine Corps helicopter signaled the arrival of Kennedy in the south parking lot of Cheney Stadium. A few minutes before noon, Kennedy made his way from the landing area into the stadium.
Those on stage included U.S. Sens. Warren Magnuson and Henry “Scoop” Jackson; PLU President Robert Mortvedt and UPS President R. Franklin Thompson; Gov. Albert Rosellini; Tacoma Mayor Harold Tollefson; and Pierce County Commissioner Harry Sprinker, the newspaper reported.
Kennedy opened his speech with a joke, saying Tacoma’s politically active Tollefson brothers – Harold was mayor, Thor was a congressman and Erling was a Superior Court judge – made the Kennedy brothers feel a little better.
Laughs aside, Kennedy got down to the thrust of his speech.
“So the assignment, it seems to me, in the 1960s, is to produce all of the educated talent that we have, not merely to help them along, not merely to produce outstanding businessmen, though we need them, and lawyers, though we need them, and doctors, though we need them, but also to produce men and women with a sense of the public responsibility, the public duty,” Kennedy said, according to the transcripts.
“I want to see in 1963, and in 1970, and 1980, the best brains we have meeting the most difficult problems that this country has ever faced.”
A LINGERING GETAWAY
When the speech ended, UPS President Thompson was instructed by Secret Service agents to take Kennedy by the arm and quickly usher him off the stage to the helicopter, according to newspaper accounts.
Thompson grabbed Kennedy’s arm and whispered, “It’s my job to get you off the stage. The Secret Service told me to take you to the helicopter.”
“To hell with the Secret Service,” Kennedy said.
The agents appeared frustrated as the president took time to shake hands and chat with the swarming crowd in the infield, newspaper reports said.
The last person to shake Kennedy’s hand was Police Chief Zittel. Kennedy thanked him for the security preparations.
“He kind of apologized for all the work we had to do,” Zittel recalled a year later.
At 12:40 p.m., Kennedy climbed to the door of the helicopter.
“Then, with crowds pressing as close as the fence allowed, he hesitated at the door, turned toward the spectators, showed a set of dazzling white teeth, waved vigorously and disappeared into the copter,” The News Tribune reported. “Within a minute, he was up and away.”
As the crowd began to disperse, Baarsma recalled last week, he noticed Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, standing by himself.
“So is the president coming out again at some point?” Baarsma said he asked Salinger. “Will we have a chance to see him again?”
“Yes, we’ve got a couple of trips planned this fall,” Salinger said. “One in the Southwest. We’re going to Dallas in November.”
Less than two months later, on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
That same day, UPS Dean of Students Richard Smith, who helped organize Kennedy’s visit to Tacoma, received a manila envelope with a return address of the White House. Smith opened it to discover a picture of Kennedy and a handwritten note:
“I want to thank you for the great work you did in Tacoma. This was one of the terrific experiences of my presidency. – John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
Cole Cosgrove: 253-597-8267
