From the archives: Recalling that day in Dallas, quietly

This article was originally published in Newsday on Nov. 22, 1988

Although his memory is cherished by millions, national memorial services marking today's 25th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination will be few and small.

Members of Kennedy's immediate family will observe the occasion privately and will not participate in public ceremonies, according to an aide of Massashusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, JFK's surviving brother.

"The family is trying to refocus public attention from the date of his death to May 29, the date of his birth," said the aide, Melody Miller. "They certainly are aware of this date's significance, but they will observe it privately and in their own way."

Sen. Kennedy, for example, is in Ireland to recount the president's 1963 visit to that country, which aides described as one of the most joyous presidential trips he made. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was to spend the day in New York, where she is an editor, with her son John, a third-year law student at New York University, and daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who became a mother in June.

Public ceremonies began yesterday with a 24-hour vigil attended by about 500 former members of the Peace Corps, which was started by the president and became one of the projects most closely identified with him.

Gathering in the Capitol Rotunda, where Kennedy's body had lain in state, the volunteers reminisced about their service abroad and paid tribute to the man who had harnessed their youthful idealism.

"I felt a direct connection with John Kennedy," said John Coyne, who worked in Ethiopia from 1962-64. "We were part of the 'New Frontier,' responding to his call to do something for our country."

Beth Whitehead, who was 2 years old when Kennedy was killed, described her 1984-85 work in the Republic of Niger as "that rare chance to touch another across the bounds of cultures and to learn that all of= us are the same."

The Washington vigil was to end today at noon with a commemorative service in St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Cathedral, where Kennedy's funeral service was held. Among the scheduled speakers were Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps' first director and JFK's brother-in-law; TV commentator Bill Moyers, who was the organization's deputy director, and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), a former volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

Meanwhile, a private ceremony was to be held today by a group of former White House staffers who served in the Kennedy administration. They were to gather in Arlington National Cemetery at 9 a.m. to place 46 roses - representing the number of years he lived - at his gravesite.

More formal services at the gravesite were to be held jointly at 11 a.m. by members of Special Forces, which Kennedy held in particularly high regard, and crewmen of PT-109, a now-legendary naval craft that he commanded during World War II.