“I thought it might have been in the diocese,” he said.
The bust used to be displayed in front of Mt. Carmel Cathedral, where the statue of Virgin Mary can now be seen, but it was removed when the diocese renovated the church.
Herbert Del Rosario, a retired archivist, recalled that the bust was made in honor of Kennedy’s inauguration as the nation’s first Roman Catholic president.
It was removed from the church in the 1980s before the CNMI museum was established. At that time, the Saipan mayor’s office was made in charge of the JFK bust.
Saipan Mayor Donald G. Flores said he is planning to transfer it to the museum.
“I think the museum is the best place for this,” he told Variety, while examining the bust which he planned to restore to its original color.
Flores said he saw it when the bust was displayed for the first time in front of the church.
But like Hunter, he didn’t know who commissioned and created it.
Hunter said the museum may conduct some research and look for some photos taken during the ceremony marking the installation of the Kennedy bust.
“It has serious historical importance,” he said.
During his recent visit at the mayor’s office, U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan was also excited to see the JFK bust.
Sablan told the mayor about the book of the late local author Juan Aguon Sanchez, who wrote a poem for Kennedy shortly after the president’s assassination in Nov. 1963.
He said he gave a copy of the book to former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, JFK’s nephew, and told him about the bust of the president on Saipan.
A letter dated March 8, 1966 from Herman Kahn, assistant archivist for presidential libraries to Ruth G. Van Cleve, director for the then-Office of Territories, U.S. Department of the Interior, stated that the Boston office of the John F. Kennedy Library had forwarded Cleve’s letter with a copy of Sanchez’s poem in honor of JFK.
“Materials accepted for the collections of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library are being stored in the National Archives Building until the Library has been completed. The poem written by Mr. Sanchez will be placed with those materials,” the letter stated.
Among the displays at the CNMI Museum is the bust of the late U.S. Congressman Phillip Burton.
Below the bust is the following inscription: “On March 24, 1976, President Gerald Ford officially approved the Covenant holiday in the Northern Marianas. Eight months earlier, Rep. Phil Burton managed to extract a unanimous decision from the House to approve the president’s draft resolution in support of the Covenant. The commonwealth has never had a more instrumental stateside advocate.”
Northern Marianas College instructor Sam McPhetres said Burton played an important role in Micronesia during the Trust Territory administration.
As a reporter back then, McPhetres recalled that High Commissioner Adrian P. Winkel, who held office on Capital Hill, asked all the TT districts to bring their best handicrafts to Saipan.
Winkel wanted to present the best of the best to Burton.
