The Kennedys Hit London

May 13, 1965 - London was a livelier city today because of bright sunshine and two small American visitors who, like everyone else, felt like kicking up their heels.

They were 7-year-old Caroline Kennedy and her 4-year-old brother, John Jr., who arrived with their mother, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, last night. They held a brief race in Green Park this morning. Caroline let her brother win.

Mrs. Kennedy and her children arrived in London with President Kennedy’s two brothers, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and his wife Joan.

They are there to attend the opening tomorrow of the John F. Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede in Surrey, an area of woodland and meadow near the scene of the signing of the Magna Carta 750 years ago.

Two of President Kennedy’s sisters, Mrs. Patricia Lawford and Mrs. Jean Smith, have also arrived for the ceremony.

The memorial is a seven-ton block of stone with a simple inscription. Queen Elizabeth II, who will unveil it, has invited Mrs. Kennedy and her children to tea after the ceremony, which ends at 3:40 in the afternoon.

The stone records that this plot of English ground has been given to the U.S., and under the Kennedy Memorial Trust, scholarships are being established for young men and women from Britain to study in America. 

Mrs. Kennedy said today that it was the children’s first trip to London and that she wanted them to see everything.

The first thing that John Jr. wanted to do was watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Since Mrs. Kennedy and the children were staying at the house of her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, who lives in Buckingham Palace, it was only a short stroll over there.

It was an unofficial visit, but they were seen by the Queen, who instructed an equerry to let them watch the ceremony on the steps of the Privy Purse door inside the courtyard.

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