Once back at Air Force One, and only after Mrs. Kennedy and President Kennedy’s body had also returned to the plane, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in by Sarah T. Hughes as the thirty-sixth President of the United States of America at 2:38 p.m. CST.
At about 6:00 p.m. EST Air Force One arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington D.C. where Kennedy’s casket was loaded into a light gray US Navy ambulance for its transport to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an autopsy and mortician’s preparations. When Jackie Kennedy stepped off the plane, her pink suit and legs were still stained with her husband’s blood. All that long afternoon and into the early morning hours of the next day, the widow objected to leaving her husband’s body, except for the swearing in of Johnson. She also refused to change out of her blood-stained suit.
Lady Bird Johnson, in her audio diary, quoted Mrs. Kennedy as saying “I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”
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