Lyndon B. Johnson photo

White House Announcement of Plans for the Funeral Rites for President Kennedy

November 22, 1963

The body of President John F. Kennedy will lie in repose in the East Room of the White House from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Saturday, November 23, and will lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol on Sunday and Monday.

The President's immediate family will be present Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m.

President Lyndon B. Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives John W. McCormack, and Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren are scheduled to arrive from 11 to 2 p.m. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower will be present at this time. Former President Herbert Hoover expressed his regrets that he will be unable to attend, and former President Harry S. Truman is planning to arrive in Washington Sunday.

Members of the President's Cabinet, members of the executive branch holding Presidential appointments, and close personal friends of the President are also scheduled to arrive from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Associate Justices of the Supreme Court will arrive from 2 to 2:30 p.m. as will members of the Federal judiciary.

From 2:30 to 5 p.m., members of the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Governors of the 50 States and Territories are scheduled to arrive. Members of the diplomatic corps will follow between 5 and 6 p.m.

The President's body will be moved from the White House in an official cortege to the Rotunda of the Capitol at 1 p.m. Sunday, where it will lie in state for one day.

Members of the President's family, Cabinet and Government leaders and members of the Supreme Court, members of the Congress and diplomatic representatives of foreign nations will be present at the ceremonies placing the President's body in state mourning.

The public will be permitted to file past the bier in the Rotunda shortly after its arrival and until 9 p.m. Sunday, and from 9 to 10 a.m. Monday.

The body will be moved Monday at 11 a.m. to St. Matthews Cathedral, Rhode Island Avenue, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets NW., for a pontifical requiem Mass at 12 noon. The mass will be celebrated by His Eminence Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston.

Seating arrangements for the mass will be assigned by the White House.

Lyndon B. Johnson, White House Announcement of Plans for the Funeral Rites for President Kennedy Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239802

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