Kennedy family representatives and officials at Arlington National Cemetery made preparations Sunday to bury Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis next to her first husband, President John F. Kennedy.
Members of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's staff huddled with cemetery, military and police officials under a magnolia tree less than 20 yards from where Mrs. Onassis will be buried Monday afternoon.As they talked over what is to be a small, private burial service, thousands of visitors filed by the gravesite on a sunny, cloudless day.
Military police on Saturday had blocked all paths leading to the site as a cemetery crew dug a grave for Mrs. Onassis.
She will be buried to the right of Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, and to the left of their unnamed daughter, who was stillborn in 1956. Another of their four children, Patrick, who died three days after his birth in 1963, is buried on Kennedy's other side.
On Sunday, visitors were allowed within a few feet of the hillside gravesite. It is located just beneath a mansion that was Robert E. Lee's home and overlooks the Lincoln Memorial across the Potomac River.
"I'm a little surprised that it is as open as it is," said Stephen Mullany, a retired government worker from Chapel Hill, N.C.Like many who stopped briefly at the site, Mullany had not planned to visit Arlington Cemetery during his weekend trip to the nation's capital. But he changed his mind after Mrs. Onassis' death Thursday night from cancer at age 64.
"I was here when President Kennedy was buried," said Mullany, who worked in the State and Commerce departments during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Mullany recalled attending a Nov. 11, 1963 service when President Kennedy spoke at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. When Kennedy was slain in Dallas 11 days later, Mullany said he felt a need to return to the cemetery the next evening.
"Secretary McNamara was here, looking over this site, and I figured that this was where they were going to bury him," Mullany recalled, referring to Kennedy's secretary of defense, Robert McNamara.
About two dozen bouquets of lilies, freesia, tulips, roses and other flowers sent to the office of Sen. Kennedy, D-Mass., were delivered to the cemetery about noon Sunday and placed on the green felt carpet covering what will be Mrs. Onassis' grave.
Earlier, mourners had pitched a slightly wilted yellow rose and a pair of pink carnations from behind ropes onto the granite steps leading to the gravesite. Laid diagonally across the steps was a copy of "USA Today" reporting Mrs. Onassis' death.
Military guards removed them when the flowers from Kennedy's office arrived.
Kennedy's grave is the most visited shrine in the 612-acre cemetery, attracting nearly 4 million people annually. Cemetery historian Tom Sherlock said the number stopping there Sunday was "perhaps a little bit higher than normal."
Hillary Rodham Clinton planned to attend Mrs. Onassis' funeral Monday morning in New York. President Clinton, who will not attend the New York services, planned to make remarks at the burial services Monday afternoon, said White House spokesman Arthur Jones.
Mrs. Clinton will return to Washington with members of Mrs. Onassis' family and others on the chartered plane that will carry the former first lady's remains, the White House said.
White House spokeswoman Ginny Terzano said Saturday that both Clintons were invited to the funeral services, but Clinton decided against going, believing his attendance could conflict with "the wishes of the family to keep it private."