An Imposing, Oversize Signed Photograph of President John F. Kennedy and His Cabinet, With Fine Signatures of Both John and Robert Kennedy

This one was owned by Fred Dutton, President Kennedy’s Special Assistant

Early in his brief administration, likely right at the very start, President John F. Kennedy and his original Cabinet met around the Cabinet Room conference table in the White House. A photographer from U.S. News & World Report, a very popular weekly news magazine at the time, was there to record the momentous event. Pictured in the photograph were (left to right): Postmaster General J. Edward Day, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai E. Stevenson, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Abraham A. Ribicoff, Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, President Kennedy himself, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

A handful of copies of the photograph were made, and these were signed by all those pictured, and then distributed to the participants or the President’s senior staffers. Robert McNamara and Arthur Goldberg are known to have each received one. The only other one that has surfaced is this, given to Fred Dutton, President Kennedy’s Special Assistant to the President, who went on to manage Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968. Whether other examples have survived is unknown.

A 16 by 20 inch black-and-white silver gelatin print photograph of Kennedy and his Cabinet, likely circa January-February 1961, signed by all. Kennedy has placed his signature near the lower right corner, just under the image, and each other man has signed near his likeness. A few of the signatures are faded to varying degrees, with most legible; but the darkest ones fortuitously include President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. In addition to being an extremely rare signed photograph of President Kennedy and his Cabinet, this is the only signed photograph of both John and Robert Kennedy that we have ever had. As for dating the photograph, Ribicoff resigned to run for the U.S. Senate on July 13, 1962, so if it is not at the start of the Kennedy administration, the photograph cannot be any later than that.

Dutton, with a letter dated March 17, 1966, gifted this photograph to Philip Gibson, who during the Kennedy years was Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Dutton’s letter is included with the photograph.