Nov. 9, 1963 - President Kennedy left Idlewild Airport at 1:05 p.m. today after a 19-hour visit to New York City, and by midafternoon was in his country estate at Atoka, Virginia for the weekend. (The President is pictured below at the estate with Ben Bradlee.) Looking tan and rested, the President left the Carlyle Hotel at 12:30 p.m. He waved his gray hat at barricaded crowds and at neighbors leaning from windowsills as he stepped briskly into his bubbletop limousine. The Presidential party included Attorney General and Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy, two of their children, and Mrs. Patricia Kennedy Lawford, all of whom arrived Friday night. From the time the President arrived in New York Friday afternoon until his departure today, President Kennedy was rigidly shielded from public approach during all his appearances. Even newsmen were kept at a distance. If there was any reason for the beefed-up Secret Service vigilance, it was not revealed. Informed that newsmen had been hampered in their attempts to cover the Presidential visit, New York Deputy Police Commissioner Walter Arm said: “I intend to look into the matter. It was added vigilance, but I don’t think it should have included the press.” The White House, asked to comment on the unusual Secret Service vigilance, emphatically denied that any special security precautions were ordered for New York. This afternoon, sparse crowds lined the streets along the route of the President’s motorcade, which was escorted by 35 blue-helmeted motorcycle policemen down Second Avenue, through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and along the Long Island and Van Wyck Expressways. The President halted the procession to shake hands with five nuns who had waved at him near the airport entrance.
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