You can’t see her face. The angle from which the photograph is taken is unconventional, and almost vertiginous. The hair, when considered dispassionately, looks absolutely weird.
But Bill Ray’s celebrated picture of Marilyn Monroe onstage at the old Madison Square Garden, singing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy during a May 1962 birthday gala in his honor, remains one of the all-time great celebrity portraits. It has drama (a lone figure, spotlit, on a dark stage). It has sex (a skintight, sequined dress that conceals very, very little). And, of course, in retrospect, it also feels absolutely charged with pathos: Marilyn, after all, would be dead within months of the picture being made, while JFK’s assassination in November 1963 was less than a year and half away.
But like all pictures that assume a stature and a celebrity of their own, far beyond what the photographer could possibly have hoped for or even imagined at the time he or she made the shot, Ray’s photograph is more than a mere portrait. In its stark, almost severe black-and-white simplicity a female figure, a few sheets of paper, a rather battered old wooden lectern, all surrounded by an impenetrable black void the image of Marilyn Monroe seems to capture not only a celebration, but the 35-year-old movie star’s loneliness; her desperate need for affection and affirmation; and the isolating, withering effects of fame on those souls unprepared for its unblinking gaze.
How many times must we live through these throat-paralyzing sequences of days of gun play, grief and muffled drums?
That question, posed by LIFE magazine in its June 14, 1968, issue, is freighted with all of the emotions—sorrow, frustration, a bewildered dread—unleashed by the events that unsettled the country in the first half of that schizoid year. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the Tet Offensive, the My Lai massacre and the other horrors of the war in Vietnam; and, in early June, the murder of Robert Kennedy by a Jerusalem-born Palestinian Christian, Sirhan Sirhan, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Here, remembering RFK’s assassination—a murder that came just as Kennedy was finding his true voice as the leader of a vast, disaffected cross-section of the American public—LIFE.com presents a series of photos by the great Bill Eppridge. Many of these photos never ran in LIFE.
The very first picture in the gallery is not only the most recognized and most frequently reproduced picture from the night of the assassination, but one of the most chilling, signature images of the 1960s. As a historical document, it’s indispensable. As a photograph, it’s astonishing: made in an instant, Eppridge’s picture possesses the immediacy of great photojournalism, while conveying a totemic sense in its interplay of light and dark. It’s reminiscent of a tone sometimes encountered in portraits by the Old Masters.
Wrote LIFE in that issue after RFK’s murder:
The nation in less than six years has watched the violent deaths of two Kennedys and a King. If Robert Kennedy, a complex man, ambitious and fatalistic, did not inspire so universal an admiration as his brother, he had shown himself capable of growing and deepening. He died too young; the Kennedy family has paid dearly for its ardor for public service.
Almost instinctive in the recoil at his murder was the sense that it was a part of a climate of violence. Arthur Schlesinger [JFK’s “court historian”] may have been speaking more in the moment than as a historian when he said last week “we are today the most frightening people on this planet.” Even if he is a Pasadena resident, a Jordanian Arab [RFK’s assassin, Sirhan] who kills out of a hatred for his ancient enemy, the Jews, may be a better example of classic Middle Eastern methods than of the callous kook our mixed-media society is accused of turning on and turning loose.
President Johnson was right when he said, “Two hundred million Americans did not strike down Robert Kennedy. . . .” But it is surely a good thing to ask ourselves whether the compulsion to violence was born entirely within a killer or whether we and our society are somehow accomplices. . . . The Vietnam war has been our most vivid daily exposure to violence — and the nation’s eagerness to stop it comes less from any political reappraisal of the ends than a moral revulsion at the means: we don’t love violence all that much.
In the decades since LIFE expressed those sentiments, millions of words have been written about the Kennedys and, specifically, about the abiding intensity with which Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy despised one another. The two men had essentially been enemies since Johnson accepted JFK’s invitation to be his running mate, a decision Bobby Kennedy vocally fought until, and beyond, the 1960 Democratic convention. But in early June 1968, it was still possible for most Americans to believe that President Johnson might, in fact, genuinely mourn the loss of the dynamic if chimerical and often arrogant Robert Kennedy.
The photographs that Bill Eppridge made before, during and after RFK’s assassination don’t require that we forget all we’ve learned about the dank underside of American politics in order to appreciate the fear, rage and anguish sparked by Kennedy’s death. On the contrary, the pictures in this gallery suggest that despite how ambitious and even cruel he could sometimes be, Bobby Kennedy obviously inspired, in countless people, the better angels of their nature.
(One person whose better angels were clearly not stirred was Sirhan Sirhan, who said he murdered Bobby Kennedy because Kennedy supported Israel; or maybe because he, Sirhan, was drunk and murderously furious on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Six-Day War in the Middle East; or perhaps, as he later claimed, because he was brainwashed . . . take your pick. Sirhan’s stated reasons for pumping three bullets into Bobby Kennedy and injuring several other people that night have varied wildly through the years.)
Would Robert Kennedy have won the Democratic nomination if Sirhan had not gunned him down in that hotel kitchen? Would he have gone on to beat Richard Nixon in the general election if he had won the nomination? The measure of the man must be taken not by what he might have done, but by what he said and did during his lifetime.
“A complex man, ambitious and fatalistic,” LIFE wrote of Kennedy, who had “shown himself capable of growing and deepening.” We’ll never know how much he might have grown, how much further he might have deepened, had Sirhan’s bullets not silenced him.That’s where much of the tragedy of the tale lies: in the ruined promise of the man’s potential.
Rigid, semiconscious, his face an ashen mask, Senator Kennedy lay in a pool of his own blood on the concrete floor, a bullet deep in his brain and another in his neck. Juan Romero, a busboy whose hand Kennedy had shaken before the shots, tried to comfort him.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy, June, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sen. Robert Kennedy campaigned, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Supporters of presidential candidate Robert Kennedy watched him on TV.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sen. Robert Kennedy conferred with an aide during his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Headed for his victory speech in the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, Robert Kennedy stopped in the kitchen to shake hands. A few minutes later the gunman was waiting for him in the corridor just outside the kitchen.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy stopped in the kitchen to shake hands.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy greeted supporters not long before his assassination, June 5, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A less-famous image of Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ambassador Hotel employee Juan Romero moments after RFK was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A mortally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
In the hot, jammed corridor where her husband lay behind her, Ethel Kennedy implored the crowd of shocked onlookers to move back and give him some air.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A wounded Paul Schrade, a regional director of the United Auto Workers Union, labor chair of Robert Kennedy’s campaign and one of five other people shot by Sirhan Sirhan, lay on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A mortally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy assassination, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded a mortally wounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ethel Kennedy, who had been walking beside him, crouched over her dying husband, whispering to him as he lay on the floor. Beside Ethel, waiting for the ambulance attendants to arrive, knelt her sister-in-law, Mrs. Stephen Smith and Dr. Ross Miller.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Robert Kennedy supporter registered disbelief after his shooting.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert F. Kennedy assassination, June 5, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A young Robert Kennedy supporter showed disbelief after Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The football great, and RFK bodyguard, Rosey Grier arrived at the hospital. Grier had tackled Sirhan at the scene after Sirhan shot RFK; George Plimpton walked behind Grier.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
At the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy, Frank Mankiewicz (center, in suit and tie), prepared to address the media gathered outside the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, Los Angeles, June 5, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Edward Kennedy’s wife Joan Bennett Kennedy (left), Jackie Kennedy (center) and Sargent Shriver (right), husband of Eunice Kennedy and brother-in-law to John, Robert and Edward Kennedy, after the assassination of RFK, Los Angeles, June 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy’s body was loaded into a transport after his death and autopsy, prior to being shipped from Los Angeles to New York, June 6, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Kennedy’s body was loaded into a transport after his death and autopsy, prior to being shipped from Los Angeles to New York, June 6, 1968.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Following a funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, RFK’s body traveled by train to Washington, DC, where he was buried near his older brother John. In this photo, people paid respects to the slain senator as the train carrying his body passed by, June 1968.
The United States Supreme Court landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 that declared “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” setting the stage for the desegregation of all of America’s public schools. But integration didn’t happen overnight. In fact, in many places around the country, it took years.
The most often cited and arguably the most memorable integration battle took place in 1957, in Arkansas, when the Little Rock Nine entered high school—after President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and, incredibly, sent in troops from the storied 101st Airborne to ensure the teens’ safety. But the drama and tension so evident in Little Rock also played out—albeit with less firepower on hand—in schools around the country for years after Brown v. Board of Education.
Here, LIFE.com remembers one of those post-Little Rock battles: the integration of high schools in Virginia five long years after the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling. In February 1959, the state’s governor, J. Lindsay Almond, reluctantly abandoned his carefully choreographed “massive resistance” to integration—including the closing of schools and keeping thousands of kids out of class in an attempt to forestall desegregation. Shortly thereafter, 21 African-American students began attending classes in Norfolk and Arlington. LIFE photographers Paul Schutzer and Ed Clark were there, in Norfolk, when 17 of those students made history.
LIFE’s coverage of the integration of the Norfolk schools painted a relatively rosy picture of what the magazine called the “calm and hopeful integration start” in Virginia.
“The peaceful transition,” LIFE wrote in its Feb. 16, 1959, issue, “went a long way to restore the climate of inevitability of integration in the South, which had been badly disturbed a year and half ago by violence and diehard defiance in Little Rock.” (That same issue of LIFE, unfortunately, also repeatedly misidentified one of the Norfolk students, 15-year-old Louis Cousins, as “Lewis” Cousins.)
Despite LIFE’s optimistic characterization of the “peaceful transition,” it’s worth noting that many of the students later recalled their experiences as hurtful, isolating and confusing, even if they kept up a brave front for the cameras — and, perhaps more importantly, for their white peers.
All these years later, their courage still astounds.
Seventeen of the African American students who were ordered admitted to white schools in Norfolk, Va., posed for a photo at a church where they had been getting private schooling, 1959. Upper row: Andrew Heidelberg, Louis Cousins, Patricia Godbolt, Carol Wellington, Reginald Young, Freddy Gonsouland, Edward Jordan, Olivia Driver; lower row: Betty Jean Reed, Johnnie Rouse, Delores Johnson, LaVera Forbes, James Turner Jr., Lolita Portis, Patricia Turner, Claudia Wellington, Geraldine Talley.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Jean Reed was the only black student at Granby High School in Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Jean Reed, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Alone in line, Betty Jean Reed tensely waited for lunch at Granby High cafeteria as other students ignored her.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Jean Reed, Granby High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Jean Reed talked on the phone with a friend during her first week as the only African American student at Granby High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Jean Reed studied at home, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Granby High School student Betty Jean Reed and her mother, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Six of the “Norfolk 17” students who integrated Virginia schools in 1959: Lower row: LaVera Forbes, Freddy Gonsouland, Johnnie Rouse; upper row: Lolita Portis, James Turner Jr., Claudia Wellington.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Journalists covered the desegregation of Norfolk schools, 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Desegregation of Norfolk, Va., public school, 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Desegregation of Norfolk, Va., public school, 1959. Students: Olivia Driver, Freddy Gonsouland.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Three of the “Norfolk 17” students who integrated Virginia schools in 1959: (left to right) Delores Johnson, Reginald Young, Carol Wellington.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Patricia Godbolt ate lunch alone, Norview High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Journalists covered the desegregation of Norfolk schools, 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Desegregation of Norfolk, Va., public school, 1959. Students: Freddy Gonsouland, Patricia Godbolt.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Six of the “Norfolk 17” students who integrated Virginia schools in 1959: Lower row: Patricia Godbolt, Andrew Heidelberg, Olivia Driver; upper row: Geraldine Talley, Edward Jordan, Patricia Turner.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fifteen-year-old Louis Cousins, the only black student to attend Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fifteen-year-old Louis Cousins, the only black student to attend Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fifteen-year-old Louis Cousins, Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Louis Cousins ordered lunch in cafeteria at newly desegregated Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A white student stopped to speak with Louis Cousins at newly desegregated Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fifteen-year-old Louis Cousins, the only black student to attend Maury High School, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Alveraze “Freddy” Gonsouland (hand on cheek) at home with his half-brother and mother, Norfolk, Va., 1959.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
At home, integrated pupils Alveraze Gonsouland and half-brother tossed a ball.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Freddy Gonsouland, reading his Spanish lesson, said he was “studying like never before.”
In June 1969, LIFE magazine published a feature that remains as moving and, in some quarters, as controversial as it was when it intensified a nation’s soul-searching 45 years ago. On the cover was the image of a young man and 11 stark words: “The Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll.” Inside, across 10 funereal pages, LIFE published picture after picture and name after name of 242 young men killed in seven days halfway around the world “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.”
To no one’s surprise, the public’s response was immediate, and visceral. Some readers expressed amazement, in light of the thousands of American deaths suffered in a war with no end in sight, that it took so long for LIFE to produce something as dramatic and pointed as “One Week’s Toll.” Others were outraged that the magazine was, as one reader saw it, “supporting the antiwar demonstrators who are traitors to this country.” Still others perhaps the vast majority were quietly and disconsolately devastated.
Here, LIFE.com republishes every picture and every name that originally appeared in that extraordinary 1969 feature. Below is the text, in full, that not only accompanied portraits of those killed, but also explained why LIFE chose to publish “One Week’s Dead” when it did and in the manner that it did.
From the June 27, 1969, issue of LIFE:
The faces shown on the next pages are the faces of American men killed, in the words of the official announcement of their deaths, “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.” The names, 242 of them, were released on May 28 through June 3 [1969], a span of no special significance except that it includes Memorial Day. The numbers of the dead are average for any seven-day period during this stage of the war.
It is not the intention of this article to speak for the dead. We cannot tell with any precision what they thought of the political currents which drew them across the world. From the letters of some, it is possible to tell they felt strongly that they should be in Vietnam, that they had great sympathy for the Vietnamese people and were appalled at their enormous suffering. Some had voluntarily extended their tours of combat duty; some were desperate to come home. Their families provided most of these photographs, and many expressed their own feelings that their sons and husbands died in a necessary cause. Yet in a time when the numbers of Americans killed in this war—36,000—though far less than the Vietnamese losses, have exceeded the dead in the Korean War, when the nation continues week after week to be numbed by a three-digit statistic which is translated to direct anguish in hundreds of homes all over the country, we must pause to look into the faces. More than we must know how many, we must know who. The faces of one week’s dead, unknown but to families and friends, are suddenly recognized by all in this gallery of young American eyes.
Here are some of the reactions from readers, published in the August 18, 1969, issue of LIFE an issue in which the entire Letters section of the magazine was given over to responses to “One Week’s Dead”:
“Your story was the most eloquent and meaningful statement on the wastefulness and stupidity of war I have ever read.” From a reader in California
“Certainly these tragic young men were far superior to the foreign policy they were called upon to defend.” From a U.S. Marine Corps Captain (resigned)
“I feel you are supporting the antiwar demonstrators who are traitors to this country. You are helping them and therefore belong to this group.” From a reader in Texas
“I cried for those Southern black soldiers. What did they die for? Tar paper shacks, malnutrition, unemployment and degradation?” From a reader in Ohio
“While looking at the photographs I was shocked to see the smiling face of someone I used to know. He was only 19 years old. I guess I never realized that 19-year-olds have to die.” From a reader in Georgia
“I felt I was staring into the eyes of the 11 troopers from my platoon who were killed while fighting for a cause they couldn’t understand.” From a Marine second lieutenant in New Jersey who commanded a rifle platoon in Vietnam
LIFE magazine, June 27, 1969, featuring a portrait of U.S. Army specialist William C. Gearing, Jr., one of 242 American servicemen killed in a single week of fighting during the Vietnam War.
Joseph L. Rhodes, 22, Marines, L. Cpl., Memphis, Tenn.
Life Pictures
Michael C. Volheim, 20, Army, SP4, Hayward, Calif.
Life Pictures
Craig E. Yates, 18, Army, Pfc., Sparta, Mich.
Life Pictures
Ramon L. Vazquez Nieves, 21, Army, Pfc., Puetro Nuevo, P.R.
Life Pictures
Robert E. Layman, 20, Army, WO1, Poquonock, Conn.
Life Pictures
Calvin R. Patrick, 18, Army, Pfc., Houston, Texas
Life Pictures
Valentine Dwornik, 20, Army, SP4, Detroit, Mich.
Life Pictures
Bruce Saunders, 21, Army, 2nd Lt., Queens, N.Y.
Life Pictures
Robert J. Rosenow, 20, Army, Pfc., La Farge, Wis.
Life Pictures
John C. Pape, 25, Army, Capt., Amityville, N.Y.
Life Pictures
William L. Alexander, 19, Army, SP4, Flint, Mich.
Life Pictures
Jose M. Galarza-Quinones, 21, Army, Pfc., Hato Rey, P.R.
Life Pictures
Roy E. Clark, Army, Pfc., Culloden, W. Va.
Life Pictures
James P. Hickey, 19, Marines, Pfc., West Quincy, Mass.
Life Pictures
John L. Rosemond, 21, Army, Pfc., Dallas, Texas
Life Pictures
Mario Lamelza, 21, Army, Pfc., Philadelphia, Pa.
Life Pictures
David Tessmer, 20, Army, Pfc., Wausau, Wis.
Life Pictures
Johnnie L. Brigman, 23, Army, Pvt., North, S.C.
Life Pictures
Gary A. Wallace, 19, Army, Pfc., Louisville, Ky.
Life Pictures
Cleveland Browning, 22, Army, Pfc., Miami, Fla.
Life Pictures
Charles C. Fleek, 21, Army, Sgt., Petersburg, Ky.
Life Pictures
James Patrick Francis, 22, Army, S/Sgt., Napa, Calif.
Life Pictures
Joe E. Bragg, 20, Army, SP4, Versailles, Ky.
Life Pictures
William C. Gearing Jr., 20, Army, SP5, Rochester, N.Y.
Life Pictures
Gary D. Carter, 19, Marines, Cpl., Tyler, Texas
Life Pictures
Matthew T. Lozano Jr., 21, Army, Pfc., San Antonio, Texas
Life Pictures
Winston O. Smith, 24, Army, Pfc., Madisonville, Tenn.
Life Pictures
Robert B. Read, 24, Army, Pfc., Hamden, Conn.
Life Pictures
Mark J. Haverland Jr., 21, Army, Sgt., Poca, W. Va.
Life Pictures
Ralph J. Mears Jr., 19, Army, SP4, Norfolk, Va.
Life Pictures
Philip W. Strout, 21, Army, SP4, So. Portland, Maine
Life Pictures
John A. Gillen, 25, Army, SP4, Broadville, Ill.
Life Pictures
Edward O’Donovan, 19, Marine, Pfc., Chicago, Ill.
Life Pictures
Michael D. Melton, 20, Army, SP4, Little Rock, Ark.
Life Pictures
Melvin Green Jr., 31, Army, S/Sgt., Manhattan, Kan.
Life Pictures
Gary C. Fassel, 20, Army, Pfc., Buffalo, N.Y.
Life Pictures
John W. Kirchner, 19, Marines, Pfc., La Crosse, Wis.
Life Pictures
Keith B. Janke, 26, Army, Sgt., Poplar, Wis.
Life Pictures
William L. Anderson, 18, Army, Sgt., Templeton, Pa.
Life Pictures
David L. Mills, 22, Army, SP4, Decatur, Ill.
Life Pictures
Carl R. Martin, 26, Army, SP5, Rapid City, S. Dak.
Life Pictures
Daniel L. Pucci, 22, Marines, Cpl., Berea, Ohio
Life Pictures
Howe K. Clark Jr., 22, Army, S/Sgt., Rockdale, Texas
Life Pictures
Thomas P. Jackson Jr., 23, Army, Pfc., Westbury, N.Y.
In the early 1960s, LIFE magazine’s photographers chronicled the construction of the Berlin Wall and, once it was built, its effect on residents living in the newly divided city. The Soviets and East Germans built the Wall, in part, to stop the flight of Eastern Bloc citizens who frequently used Berlin as the point from which they tried to escape to the West. (By the time the Wall was built, an estimated 20 percent of the East German population had fled.)
In its September 8, 1961 issue, LIFE wrote that the newly constructed wall, “up to 20 feet high and tipped with cruel glass splinters, is now an all but permanent barrier between the hapless people in both sectors [of divided Berlin] . . . Communist inhumanity has seldom showed itself more baldly or more brutally than in its Berlin wall and the anguish and indignity it is now working upon the people of Berlin, young and old, East and West.”
With the crude bulwark in place, the ideological divide between Eastern and Western superpowers grew sharper, more frightening and (seemingly) more intractable. Here, LIFE.com offers powerful pictures of the construction and earliest days of the Wall photos that offer a glimpse into an era that today feels at once profoundly alien, and disturbingly familiar.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
A hand reached above the broken glass-covered top of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A West German man boosted up his son to give him a view of the other side of the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A woman, in the foreground, who had escaped to West Berlin, spoke to her mother, who was still in West Berlin.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A West German woman looked out her window onto the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
U.S. and East German forces faced each other across the newly built Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A crowd of West Berlin residents watched as an East German policeman patrolled the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A couple enjoyed a West Berlin bar with a view of the Berlin Wall outside.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German mason built up a fresh portion of the Berlin Wall in August, 1961.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A crowd of jeering West Berlin youths protested the newly constructed wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Sunlight shone on the barbed wire and blocks of the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German policeman used sunlight reflected off a mirror in an attempt to stop photographers from taking pictures.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A West Berlin child struggled with a sealed door that had become a part of the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
West Berlin children built a pretend Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Three West Berlin police officers jumped off a truck, ready to start their shifts on guard duty at the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German teen hid in tall grass, awaiting a chance to jump over the Berlin Wall. “Crouching in a tangle of grass in East Berlin,” wrote LIFE when this escape sequence originally ran in he magazine, “and hidden except for his face [barely visible on the left side of the pic], a boy waits to make a break over the wall he must surmount to reach the West. Nearby is a patrol of East German Vopos who will shoot to kill if they see him.”
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German teen made his way to the West, climbing over the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German teen escaped over the Berlin Wall to the West.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
West German police looked out over the Berlin Wall for potential escapees to the West.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Lebanese businessman, Edmond Khayat, carried an 85-pound wooden cross to protest the Berlin Wall in October 1961.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Birds rested on barbed wire atop the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A divided Berlin, seen through barbed wire and rubble in January 1962.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Children chased a ball beside the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A girl played with a ball at the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German guard threw a ball back to a child on the West German side of the Berlin Wall in 1962.
Paul Schutzer/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
An East German policeman walked near Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Berlin in October 1962.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A girl looked through a frosty window at the Berlin Wall.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The Berlin Wall bore the shadowy silhouettes of West Berliners waving to their relatives on the unseen, Eastern side of the Wall in December 1962.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A divided Berlin was seen through a tangle of barbed wire.
Millions of words have been written about Arlington National Cemetery through the years, but none can ever do justice to the singular atmosphere of the place itself. From its founding in 1866, just a year after the cataclysmic Civil War ended, the 600 acres situated across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial have constituted sacred ground for generations of Americans.
Here, LIFE.com offers a series of photographs made at Arlington by George Silk. Never published in LIFE magazine, Silk’s pictures are appropriately quiet, reflective portraits of a small corner of the country that occupies a special, prominent place in the national consciousness.
A bugler played “Taps” at Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Horses pulled a caisson through Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Groundskeepers, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Digging a grave, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The original, temporary John F. Kennedy “Eternal Flame,” 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Horses pulled a caisson through Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Funeral, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Funeral, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Tending a grave, Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A man rested in the shade at Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A resident squirrel perched on a headstone at Arlington National Cemetery, 1965.
