I continue to be boggled by the riches in the HMRC. Still working through the Houston Post photo archives I’ve reached 1962, which was quite an eventful year. This morning I found the Post photographs from President Kennedy’s famous moon speech at Rice. There are a lot of them and it’s hard not to just gorge myself on these images. Many of them, of course, are exactly what you would expect: JFK at the podium. But many others are completely unexpected, even weird, as the Post photographers were taking lots of pictures at a fairly rapid clip. I’ll leave you with one short sequence. I apologize for the bad scans but I was in a pretty big hurry. We’ll make better ones later. (All these images can be found in the Houston Post Collection RDG-0006N-1962-6106).

First, why is Kennedy looking up? He really seems to be focused on something.

Whatever it is, it’s moving. In the next shot everyone’s attention has shifted from right to left:

And here’s the answer–a plane carrying a banner: “Enforce the Monroe Doctrine.” We tend to forget that less than a week before this speech JFK had publicly warned the Soviets against installing offensive weapons in Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis would begin unfolding soon after.

Bonus: I had to laugh at Holmes Richter ’26 ’27 ’29, just above Kennedy’s head a couple of rows back with a cigar stuck in his mouth. Classic.