THE arrangements for President George W Bush's State visit to London this week have created a fuss. After landing in Air Force One, he will be whisked along secret routes accompanied by his own security staff on roads free of protesters, we are told. So much for meeting the people.

But this of all weeks should remind us why the most powerful man in the world is also the most protected. Forty years ago this Saturday, Mr Bush's predecessor, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was driven slowly in an open topped car through a Dallas street crowded with people. It was the last such journey an American president would make.

"Rifle shots rang out from a fifth-floor window as President Kennedy rode in bright sunshine through cheering crowds in the main business section of Dallas," reported the Evening Press on November 23, 1963.

"The President collapsed face down in the car. Pandemonium followed.

"Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy (34) threw herself over her stricken husband, crying 'Oh, no'. She cradled his bloody head in her arms as the driver sped to Parkland Hospital.

"Oxygen and blood transfusions were used in a desperate bid to save the President. But at 1pm (7pm GMT) he died without regaining consciousness."

This factual account of the president's assassination cannot convey the shock and disbelief it caused. It was perhaps the first global newsflash, the original moment frozen in time. Everyone remembers where and how they heard.

At the time, it was a human story as much as a political one, as a poignant story in the same night's Evening Press demonstrated. "Grief-stricken Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy faces the ordeal today of breaking the news to her two children. Both children have birthdays next week - Caroline will be six on Wednesday, her brother John three on Monday...

"The children played in the White House yesterday long after their father died. No one told them the news."

The Evening Press leader comment said public sympathy for the family would be deep and sincere. It described Kennedy as "a man of vision, the upholder of liberal tendencies, dedicated to the preservation of world peace".

Deep in the Cold War, the newspaper wondered what now for that peace. "One immediate danger may lie in the identity of the assassin," the leader column continued.

"It is surely inconceivable that this atrocious murder was a Russian-inspired crime, but the fact that the man who fired the fatal shot is a Communist sympathiser may so inflame American public opinion as to make it difficult for the country's new leaders to behave with that far-seeing statesmanship that is now more than ever necessary."

York paid many tributes to the president. A two minute silence was held at the York Civic Ball. Afterwards, the York MP Charles Longbottom described how he had attended President Kennedy's inauguration ceremony in Washington just under three years earlier.

"I can think of no greater tribute to any man than that he believed in the human dignity and standing of a person, irrespective of whatever position he held."

Alderman Archibald Kirk was Lord Mayor at the time. "Speaking on behalf of all of the citizens of York, this can only be considered as a real tragedy: one cannot really understand the reason for it."

More than 500 people playing bingo at Clifton Cinema "sprang to their feet and stood in silence for a minute when the assassination of President Kennedy was announced". The owner, John X Prendergast, was amazed by the reaction. Before the screening of the film Tom Jones, the manager of the Odeon, Mr CK Simpson, told a packed house the news.

Over at RAF Fylingdales, a senior officer with the United States Air Force received a call that the president had been shot at 6.45pm.

"He was still alive then, and I just waited by the phone," said Col GW Hunt. "When the word came that he had died I just couldn't believe it. I switched on the radio and television and listened to all the reports. I was completely shocked."

On the Sunday, prayers were said for the president and his family at all York Minster services,

A silence was observed before the next sitting of York Magistrates Court.

And Evening Press reader AW Whitehead, of Kingsway West, closed a terrible week with his thoughts in a short letter. "In Mr Kennedy we had a man who thought not of himself but for the entire world. His example was and will be an inspiration to young and old alike to go forward with a new purpose in life - namely to live for other people."

Where we were

Richard Stansfield, Evening Press cartoonist:

I was 12 years old and it was just after tea-time. We were watching People And Places on Granada TV.

Bill Grundy had just introduced a pop group, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes when the screen went dark and a voice said: "We interrupt this programme to tell you that an attempt has been made on the life of President Kennedy. Initial reports indicate that although the President has been wounded it is not thought that he has been seriously injured."

My father immediately got up and switched over to the BBC (as he thought them "more reliable"). Within a few minutes, the screen went dark again and the BBC's revolving world appeared.

A voice-over simply said: "We regret to announce that President Kennedy was assassinated this afternoon in Dallas, Texas.

"There will be a full report on our news at nine o'clock. We now return you to our normal programmes" and with that a popular comedy programme of the time, about a forgetful, bumbling pensioner called Harry Worth, came on.

I don't think that the BBC have, even now, lived that moment down.

Liz Edge, former York councillor:

I was pushing my daughter in her pram. A friend stopped me and said, "isn't it terrible about President Kennedy?" I said, "why, what's happened?"

I can remember feeling absolute shock. I went home and watched the news reports in utter disbelief.

He seemed a refreshing change. He came over as a very natural man.

Kennedy was different from the normal type of politician: you felt you knew him.

Updated: 09:00 Monday, November 17, 2003