John F. Kennedy Half Dollar Turns 60

MEMORIALIZING A PRESIDENCY CUT SHORT

- JOSHUA MCMORROW-HERNANDEZ

The attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump's life at a campaign event in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, could have been more significant than it was. Trump's ear was clipped, but the 45th president survived.

The last time a sitting or former U.S. president survived an attempted assassination was in 1981, when a man obsessed with actor Jodie Foster shot the recently inaugurated President Ronald Reagan, who survived the attack. Sadly, there was no similar good fortune for President John F. Kennedy nearly 20 years earlier. One of the darkest days in American history occurred on Nov. 22, 1963, when a lone gunman drew his weapon and assassinated President Kennedy during a motorcade procession in Dallas, Texas.

The world changed forever and so did American numismatics.

Just hours after President Kennedy's murder, U.S. Mint Director Eva B. Adams called Chief Engraver Gilroy Roberts informing him that there was consideration to honor the late president on a large silver coin. JFK's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, preferred placing the president's bust on the half dollar, saying she did not want to displace the first U.S. President, George Washington, from the quarter. This meant usurping Benjamin Franklin from the half dollar, where his visage had been seen since 1948. The move necessitated legislative approval, as redesigning a coin fewer than 25 years since its previous redesign requires an act of Congress.

As legislative wheels turned, design work for the Kennedy half dollar moved ahead. Tight deadlines inspired U.S. Mint Chief Engraver Gilroy Roberts and sculptor-engraver Frank Gasparro to borrow from their respective earlier works featuring Kennedy. The obverse parlays Roberts' bust of Kennedy from a presidential series medal and the reverse resurrects Gasparro's Great Seal motif from a 1962 JFK appreciation medal.