Impressive original matte-finish 19 x 15.5 photo taken by award-winning photojournalist James Atherton on June 26, 1963, showing President Kennedy standing on the platform at Checkpoint Charlie as he surveys the dilapidated landscape across the Berlin Wall, his entourage standing below. Affixed to a slightly larger 20 x 16 mount, signed vertically along the left edge in black ink, “James K. W. Atherton.” Some dings, creases, and chipping to mount corners, otherwise fine condition.
This iconic photograph was printed with the caption, ‘A view over the Wall,’ in the June 27, 1963, edition of the New York Times. Following Kennedy’s visit to Checkpoint Charlie, he delivered the speech now seen as a turning point in the Cold War, a speech that boosted the morale of the West Germans and gave a strong defiant message to the Soviet Union, ‘All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’’
