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Witness History

'I took the famous photo of JFK and his son'

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On 2 October 1963, American photographer Stanley Tretick took the best picture of his life – a photo of President John F Kennedy working at the Resolute Desk in the White House, with his two-year-old son ‘John-John’ peeking out a secret door underneath.

The photo was published in Look magazine a month later, days after the President was assassinated.

Rachel Naylor uses the transcript of an interview with Stanley, provided by the John F Kennedy Library and Museum, to tell the story of how he captured his most famous shot.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: The photo Stanley Tretick took of JFK and his son. Credit: Alamy)

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:05.6

Your time starts now.

0:07.2

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.

0:09.4

Absolutely right.

0:11.5

So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts.

0:15.6

Really?

0:16.4

Wow.

0:17.2

Many of them are very funny.

0:19.1

Which I think means...

0:20.1

A hatful of ha-hars. And energy. Even if we do very funny. Which I think means... A hatful of ha haas.

0:21.7

And energy.

0:40.1

Even if we do say so ourselves. I agree 100% to that. Find them all on BBC Sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Hi, this is the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Nela.

0:44.6

We're the podcast that takes you back to a key moment in history and we bring it all to life through incredible archive and the amazing memories of a key witness.

0:51.9

Episodes are just nine minutes long and come out every weekday.

0:54.9

If that sounds like something you'd like, make sure you subscribe wherever you get your BBC

0:58.6

podcasts and turn your push notifications on so you never miss an episode.

1:03.4

For the great story I've got for you today, we're going back to when a famous photo was

1:07.2

taken of an American president working at his desk in the White House, with his

1:11.3

cheeky young son underneath.

1:16.8

It's the 2nd of October, 1963, and photographer Stanley Trettock has just taken his best picture.

1:23.7

It's of President John F. Kennedy, in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C.

1:28.0

But this photo is not like previous presidential portraits.

...

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