As a 26-year-old photojournalist in September 1960, Ted Spiegel watched as then-Senator John F. Kennedy prepared to deliver remarks to an awestruck crowd in Seattle’s Victory Square.
Spiegel, squinting through his viewfinder, adjusted the focus on his camera and snapped a photo of Kennedy, seated near the podium and glancing upward toward a building filled with screaming fans.
The photo would become one of the most significant images ever taken of an American political figure.
“What you see in the picture is the penetration into his person, of all these people hanging out of windows cheering him on,” Spiegel, now 90, recalled to cllct. “That was a moment when his aura was captured on film.”
Kennedy would go on to deliver his stump speech, previewing his famous line from his Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” He went on to say, “I do not run for the Presidency to emphasize what services this country will offer the American people under a new administration — I run emphasizing the service which the American people must offer their country.”
“I was learning to listen with my eyes,” Spiegel’s says of the moment he captured the photo. “The image is a moment that still speaks to people. … Though he says those words after I took the picture, he has them in mind.”
After taking the photo, it was licensed by the U.S. Information agency, which allowed the image to be reproduced all over the world. If there was a request to the American Embassy, it was that picture which would be sent out. The USPS later used the photo as a commemorative stamp honoring the centennial of Kennedy’s birth with an announced print-run of 84 million.
A couple years after taking the picture, Robert F. Kennedy saw a print while visiting the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair in the office of the Commissioner of the U.S. Science Exhibit. “Seeing my photograph on the wall, RFK exclaimed, ‘That's the best picture of my brother I've ever seen. Who took it?’” said Spiegel, who was in the room to photograph RFK’s meeting with local dignitaries. After the commissioner pointed to him, RFK asked “Can we get that for the White House?”
Ed Guthman, RFK’s Press Secretary whom Spiegel knew from his days as a photojournalist in the army, offered to have President Kennedy sign his personal copy. A few days later he contacted Spiegel to let him know the print was signed. “Bobby personally took it to him yesterday.”
Heritage is selling this original photograph, signed and inscribed by Kennedy, next month, with bidding reaching $4,000 already. Spiegel says this print, designated a Type 1 image by PSA, is the sole surviving first generation print from the original negative surviving today.
“It’s my calling to take a picture that conveys a moment like that,” Spiegel said. “It’s my duty as an American.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.