Jeff, I thought that the best way to go over the presidential pictures and stories would be a book form. Before you go ahead, take a look at the website for my book PRESIDENTIAL PICTURE STORIES. WWW.PRESIDENTIALPICTURESTORIES.COM
I THINK THAT YOU WOULD LIKE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS THAT I MADE AND THE SIGNIFICANT PRRESIDENTIAL EVENTS RELATED TO THESE PHOTOGRAPHS. November 22, 1963, was the first in a series of the presidential events that I documented. About one hour after the Kennedy assassination I was on assignment for LIFE magazine, told to go to LaFayette Park, 7th Street, etc to photograph the reaction to the president’s death. Later the LIFE reporter found a pay phone, (no cell phones in 1963) and we were told to get to Andrews Airforce Back. There I photographed President Kennedy coffin coming off of Air Force One and Lyndon Johnson speaking to the nation for the first time as the president of the United States.
The Vietnam War and the Civil Right movement were the major stories for the next years. The Sunday before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, I photographed him speaking at the National Cathedral. Of course, I covered the riots. The morning after he was shot I photographed this meeting in the White House.
I was a Bethesda Naval Hospital when LBJ showed his scar-just for an instant.--good story
Nixon’s travels could be of interest-I was not on the China trip
Nixon’s last day and the beginning of the Ford years was a good story for my pictures. Lots of good stories about Ford and the photographers.
Jimmy Carter had no use for photographs or photographers, but on assignment for TIME, I managed to make this picture on the Truman Balcony- a good story.
Reagan was a great subject and had a staff who knew about visuals, but the best story was the Reagan Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland
Bush 41 was a good friend of photographers, but he did things that came off as a bit goofy. We made the pictures of these goofy moments, but he never held it against us. He knew that we were just doing our job.
Clinton didn’t dislike photographers, he just liked others more than us, but he had a lot to deal with. Hillary never went out of her way for photographers, except when she began to run for office.
Bush 43 was not the friend that his father was. Very little day to day contact, but when there was it came in the form of wise cracks. He had names for some of the photographers.
The Obama’s thought that they would battle the photographers about photographers making pictures of their children, but that didn’t happen--good story. The body language of the Obama-Trump meeting in the Oval Office. is a good story. What will happen to the photographers covering the White House involves questions--we just don’t know.