It was a sparkling autumn morning in Maine in 1963, and something momentous was about to happen: the University of Maine campus in Orono was to be visited by a sitting U.S. president for the first time — and thus far, the only time in the college’s 158-year history.
It wasn’t just any president. It was John F. Kennedy, the young leader who inspired a generation of Americans to take action in both politics and society, and whose life was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet, a little over a month after his Oct. 19 speech in Orono.
Former Bangor city councilor Gerry Palmer was 15 years old at the time, and had gotten up at the crack of dawn that morning to drive with his father and two sisters to the Queen City from his family’s home in Andover, Massachusetts, to buy a new car. On the radio, an announcer said that Kennedy would be giving a speech at 11 a.m. in Orono.
“My family were rock-ribbed Republicans, but my dad decided on the spot that we were going to change plans and go see the president,” Palmer said. “My dad was always very curious and interested in lots of things. And he knew it was an opportunity he wanted us to experience.”
Kennedy’s visit was first announced on Oct. 11, with plans for the president to arrive via Air Force One at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor, accompanied by Maine’s entire congressional delegation, including senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund Muskie.
At Dow, Kennedy would give a brief speech to the crowd gathered to greet him, before boarding a helicopter to head to UMaine.
UMaine rolled out the red carpet for the president. Not only was it homecoming weekend — it was the first time a sitting president had ever visited campus. The college was to confer Kennedy with an honorary doctorate of laws after his speech. Crews worked every day for the week leading up to the event to prepare the football field for up to 15,000 spectators, who would sit in the 9,000 grandstand and endzone seats, with another 6,000 available for standing-room only. People began lining up before the sun had risen.
Bangor historian Richard Shaw was 11 years old at the time, and stood in the crowd with his mother. Kennedy made a dramatic entrance, with his helicopter landing directly on the field, rustling the hair of spectators as UMaine’s marching band played “Hail to the Chief.”
“He was as close to royalty as we have ever gotten in a president. The way he dressed, the way he spoke, the way he combed his hair — I felt that he was speaking directly to me,” Shaw said. “I had seen Sen. Kennedy campaign as a candidate in 1960 at Bass Park, so to have seen him twice, at the beginning and end of his presidential career, was a thrill beyond words.”
In his speech, Kennedy first remarked on the value of a college education, before focusing more broadly on the struggles of the Cold War era. He also touched on his hopes for a nuclear test ban, and on the race to send people to the moon, then in its very earliest days. And he reiterated his hope for a peaceful future for all of humanity.
“Putting it in context, it was a major foreign policy speech, which at the time made national news,” said Paul Davis of Brewer, who for years helped organize UMaine’s JFK awards dinner, a biennial event commemorating Kennedy’s visit. “It was a big deal, not just for UMaine but in the context of his presidency.”
After the speech, Kennedy flew back to Bangor, and again boarded Air Force One. The plane then flew to the Eastport area, where Kennedy would give an “aerial inspection” of Passamaquoddy Bay. The Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project was started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s in order to build dams on the bay to generate hydroelectric power, but was canceled in 1937 after the city of Eastport went bankrupt. There had been multiple attempts to revive it, including during the Kennedy era, though the project has never successfully been resumed.
Kennedy was back in Boston by mid-afternoon. Over the next 34 days, he’d give a handful more speeches and remarks at events both public and private, large and small. On Nov. 21, he and his wife departed Washington, D.C., for Texas, for a series of meetings and speeches across the state. He would never return.
Next month, it will be the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
“After they gave [Kennedy] his doctorate at UMaine, they told him that now he would be obligated to stand every time he heard ‘The Maine Stein Song,’” said Palmer, referring to UMaine’s official song. “That never had the opportunity to happen. It was hard to imagine only a month earlier we were watching him speak.”
“I heard that he had been assassinated, wearing, as it turned out, the same favorite Christian Dior black silk necktie that he wore in Orono,” Shaw said. “Both those days were days I’ll never forget.”
