In Memoriam

The black, somber headlines, stretching like funeral ribbons across all the front pages, had faded at last. The assassination and burial of a President, the murder of his accused killer, the accession of a new President, had all received unparalleled press coverage. And the long gallery of words and pictures would form for historians the first raw documentation of tragedy. But there was more to be said, and by last week the world's press had turned to the task of reprising that dark November.

Abbreviated Togas. In most cases, the recounting took the form of memorial issues, produced by newspapers and magazines from their own coverage of Kennedy's death and the events that followed. LIFE put on sale, at 50-c- a copy, a special 84-page issue combining text and pictures from its two previous editions, which had been sellouts. If the John F. Kennedy Memorial Edition produced a profit, announced LIFE, the money would be donated to charities of the Kennedy family's choosing. An initial press run of 1,200,000 copies sold out quickly and was followed by another press run of 1,200,000.

Other magazine memorial reprints varied widely in content. The Saturday Evening Post, trapped by irreversible press schedules, had to let two issues go by before it could produce, last week, its first account of the assassination. In 29 pages of special coverage, the Post gathered a host of significant bylines, among them Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (who wrote a eulogy), Atlanta Publisher Ralph McGill ("Hate Knows No Direction"), and former President Eisenhower ("When the Highest Office Changes Hands").

Look shook the dust from its collection of old photographs, ran off 1,000,000 copies of an edition titled Kennedy and His Family in Pictures, which sold for a dollar. In France, the weekly picture magazine Paris Match devoted itself to the widow. "Hommage a Jackie Kennedy," read the cover message; the previous issue had had a cover picture of Jackie at the funeral. Inside, the magazine recapitulated her life in pictures. In reminding French readers about Texas, it also included a full-color shot of Dallas waitresses in abbreviated togas serving drinks by a pool ("On the terrace of the cabana, Roman slave girls serve millionaire cowboys").

A number of daily newspapers put out special Kennedy supplements, the most ambitious of which was a four-color addition to the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. The New York Daily News reproduced a color portrait of the late President taken in 1960 by News Photographers Daniel Jacino and Arthur Sasse. But most papers were waiting for special book productions of the two wire services. Before year's end, announced the Associated Press, it would be out with a hardcover, 100-page book, The Torch Is Passed, with pictures by A.P. and text by a quartet of A.P. newsmen. Price: $2. United Press International joined hands with American Heritage and Simon & Schuster in the production of another book, Four Days, which will be published in January. Advance orders have reached 650,000.

At the time of Kennedy's death, at least two presidential biographies were already in bookstores. One, Victor Lasky's bestselling but hostile appraisal, J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth, was immediately withdrawn from sale. "As far as I'm concerned," said its author, "Kennedy is no longer subject to criticism on my part." But when demand persisted, the publishers decided to fill certain special orders. A friendlier volume, TIME Correspondent Hugh Sidey's John F. Kennedy, President: A Reporter's Inside Story, will be reissued in January with a new chapter on the last year of the President's life.

More to Come. To these entries, book houses will soon add several new ones. Reporter and Author Jim (The Day Lincoln Was Shot) Bishop had nearly completed a work on Kennedy when the assassination occurred. Under the title A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, Random House will issue the book next spring. The "day" of the title, however, will remain a typical presidential working day in Washington during Kennedy's lifetime, not the day on which he died. Farrar, Straus will publish a picture album of Kennedy and his family taken by Photographer Mark Shaw, who was a close friend of the late President's. For the months to come, there is the promise of many more additions to the Kennedy bibliography--as well as to that of the tall Texan whom tragedy nominated as John F. Kennedy's successor.

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