"Be at Peace, Dear Jack . . ."

Nearly 40 months after the assassination, the body of John F. Kennedy last week was moved to its final resting place--a gentle hillside in Arlington National Cemetery about 20 feet from his original grave. Alongside him lay two of his children, Patrick Bouvier, who lived for only two days after his birth in 1963, and a little girl who was stillborn in 1956 and whose grave was marked simply DAUGHTER.

Workmen shifted the three caskets in the evening gloom, laboring under harsh spotlights. Among the few spectators were Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Boston's Richard Cardi nal Gushing. After a crane lifted the caskets to their new site, Gushing intoned a brief prayer, then wept. So did the Kennedy brothers.

At 7 the following morning, ten members of the family assembled at the site for a formal, unannounced ceremony. Jacqueline Kennedy arrived clutching a bouquet of lilies of the valley. Lyndon Johnson, invited by Bobby and Jacqueline Kennedy, shared his outsized umbrella with Bobby in the chill, driving rain. Once again, Cushing's unforgettable nasal, New England accent broke the stillness at Arlington Cemetery: "Be at peace, dear Jack, with your tiny infants by your side, until we all meet again above this hill and beyond the stars."

The new tomb, bordered by boxwood, magnolia and cherry trees, commands a sweeping view of Washington. As before, the eternal flame, set in the center of a round, light brown stone five feet in diameter, can be seen at night from the capital below. Rough-hewn granite stones, originally cut from a quarry near Kennedy's Cape Cod summer home more than 150 years ago and recently collected from farmyard walls and abandoned foundations in that area, pave the site. On a low semicircular wall are inscribed seven quotations, all from the inaugural address. The black marble slab marking the President's grave bears only a simple inscription:

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY, 1917-1963.

After the ceremony, five bouquets were placed on the slab, including Jackie's lilies of the valley.

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