Photograph
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-KN-C28561
President John F. Kennedy (center) delivers remarks prior to presenting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) to astronaut Major L. Gordon Cooper (left). Also pictured: Senator Everett L. Dirksen (Illinois); Senator Margaret Chase Smith (Maine); Director of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Dr. Floyd L. Thompson; Hattie Cooper, mother of Major Cooper; Air Force Aide to the President, Brigadier General Godfrey T. McHugh; Secretary of the Air Force, Eugene M. Zuckert; Jewell D. Truscott and James J. Truscott, aunt and uncle of Major Cooper; astronaut Major Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom; astronaut Major Donald K. “Deke” Slayton; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; astronaut Commander Walter Schirra; astronaut Lieutenant Commander M. Scott Carpenter; Senator Clinton P. Anderson (New Mexico), chairman of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee; Representative Carl Albert (Oklahoma). Rose Garden, White House, Washington, D.C.