Here’s video of John Glenn waterskiing on the Cape with Jackie Kennedy in 1962
It’s hard to overstate how interesting a life John Glenn lived.
The former pilot, astronaut, and senator died Thursday afternoon at the age of 95.
Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, was universally considered a national treasure—particularly so by President John F. Kennedy, who at one point, Glenn had said, secretly banned him from returning to space, fearing the loss of one of the nation’s heroes.
In 1962, Glenn and his wife joined President Kennedy and his family during one of their Cape vacations in Hyannis Port. One video, per a since-closed British newsreel company, captured Glenn on a tandem waterskiing ride with first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
According to the newscaster, Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Robert F. Kennedy, was steering the boat at the time.
“The distinguished athletes show top form, as you would expect from the first lady of the land and one of the first gentleman of outer space,” the newscaster narrates.
Glenn, who went on to launch his own political career, maintained a close relationship with the Kennedy family. After returning from his historic orbit earlier in 1962, he met President Kennedy and received a ticker-tape parade in New York. In fact, the Kennedys were reportedly the ones to urge Glenn to run for public office. Glenn was also at the campaign event at which RFK was assassinated.
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss tweeted a series of photos of Glenn with the Kennedys, shortly after the astronaut’s death Thursday.
John Glenn shows JFK his Friendship 7 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral 1962: #JFKL pic.twitter.com/Uv5xJNr4fw
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 8, 2016
John Glenn waterskiing with Jackie Kennedy near Hyannis Port, July 1962: #AP pic.twitter.com/jb2AZAWLnW
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 8, 2016
https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/806964749187645440
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