Visiting bookshops to browse through shelves of new or second-hand titles has long been a favourite pastime.
During trips away with more time to spare, it’s a particular pleasure, on the look-out for that next ‘holiday read.’
During a recent visit to Prince Edward Island on Canada’s east coast, my eye was caught by a book featuring a familiar image.
The ‘Final Photo’ referred to in the title was taken on 22nd November 1963.
Captured only hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it features Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as JFK’s successor.
What I didn’t know was the name of the man behind the camera.
From the book, I learned it was Cecil W. Stoughton (1920-2008), the first official White House photographer.
In that capacity, he was present aboard Air Force One to record the moment when LBJ became the 36th President of the United States.
Right-hand raised amidst still visibly-shocked witnesses, Johnson was flanked by his wife Lady Bird and JFK’s widow Jackie, her outfit still spotted with blood from events earlier that day.
Final Photo explores Stoughton’s career and how a working relationship with the Kennedys offered him unprecedented photographic access to America’s First Family.
Credit: Photographer unknown.
Reading the author’s Foreword, the 70-page book is clearly a passion project, privately published in 2024 and dedicated ‘For the Stoughton Family.’
The reason I came across it in Prince Edward Island, in the ‘Local Interest’ section of the bookshop I was browsing in, was that the author lives there.
As the photographer’s ‘authorized biographer,’ Harvey Sawler recounts how he (and his then non-fiction literary agent) pitched a project to publishers to mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.
In a story that might strike a chord with writers and creatives everywhere, the idea did see the light of day, but not in the form originally envisaged.
Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House (Abrams, New York) is a sumptuous 350-page hard-cover, coffee-table book published in 2010.
To my surprise, I was able to snap up a second-hand copy complete with dvd for just a few pounds on my return to the UK from holiday.
Portrait of Camelot showcases a selection of the 8,000 colour and black-and-white pictures taken by Stoughton during the Kennedy presidency plus a dvd of ‘Never-Before-Seen Kennedy Film Footage’ set to well-chosen jazz and dance band music.
© Author’s collection.
However, as the book’s front cover reveals, it was Richard Reeves, a ‘noted author and presidential historian’ assigned to the project by the publisher, who was credited as the author.
Harvey Sawler was credited as secondary author.
Reflecting that billing, Sawler’s contribution to Portrait of Camelot, a short essay titled ‘Cecil W. Stoughton: The President’s Photographer,’ was relegated to two pages illustrated by a single photo towards the back.
In Final Photo, he reflects how the resulting book “re-celebrated Stoughton’s mass of work, but unfortunately and sadly, left Stoughton’s story sitting on my desktop.”
©️ Author’s collection
Now that fascinating story has finally reached the public domain and it is one I can highly recommend searching out.
** Final Photo (ISBN 978-1-73826-590-9) is available priced CAD 19.95.
Pressphotoman 
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