Jacqueline Kennedy's visit to Lahore

File photo

Fifty-five years ago, Jacqueline Kennedy's visit to Lahore marked the first-ever visit by a US first lady to Pakistan.

This series of images from the trip captures the memorable moments from the trip.

(Photos courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

1. Crowds line the streets and throw flower petals at the car carrying Jacqueline Kennedy as she arrives in Lahore. The day, March 21, 1962, was declared a national holiday in Pakistan.

2. The view from the crowd as the motorcade passes. In addition to flower petals, Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent in charge of security, recalls that occasionally a "whole damn bouquet" would come flying at the car. "I'd have to rise out of my seat to fend it off so it didn't knock her in the head."
3. Jacqueline Kennedy with Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan at a dinner in the United States one year before the first lady's historic visit to his country. The carefully cultivated relationship between Washington and Islamabad was partly about the battle for influence between the United States and the U.S.S.R.
4. Before visiting Pakistan, Jacqueline Kennedy also made a tour of India, where this baby elephant was paraded in front of her. Clint Hill says that when the first lady reached out to touch the elephant, the animal "reacted as if it were being tickled, wrapping its stubble-covered trunk around her hand."
5. The first lady, in white coat and hat, watches the parade at a horse and cattle fair in Lahore on her first full day in Pakistan.
6. Jacqueline Kennedy and President Mohammad Ayub Khan watch the parade. The first lady later complimented Khan on his traditional fur hat, and the president gifted it to her.
7. At the end of the ceremonies at the cattle fair, President Khan gifted Mrs. Kennedy this horse, named Sardar. The horse was later transported back to the United States -- skipping quarantine procedures after the first lady asked her husband to intervene on its behalf.
8. Jacqueline Kennedy listens to a performance of bagpipers at the Khyber Rifles officers’ mess in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in northwestern Pakistan.
9. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her sister, Lee Radziwill, meet camel driver Bashir Ahmad. Ahmad had formed a friendship with U.S. Vice President Lyndon Johnson the year before after Johnson stopped to shake the camel driver's hand on his own trip to Pakistan. After Johnson casually invited Bashir to "come see me sometime," Bashir accepted the invitation. He became a media spectacle after he travelled
10. Kennedy (right) and Radziwill ride Ahmad's camel. 
11. Allah Rakkhi, the wife of Bashir Ahmad, sits in a chair on the grounds of President Khan’s residence in Karachi, where the camel ride took place.
12. Crowds line a street in Peshawar to welcome the American first lady.
13. A welcome sign in Peshawar, apparently sponsored by the Czechoslovak footwear company Bata.
14. The first lady visits the Khyber Pass, near the Pakistan-Afghan border. During this outing, Clint Hill says tribesmen intended to "sacrifice" a lamb in front of the animal-loving first lady as a sign of respect. Hill intervened and ordered a colleague to "guard that lamb with your life" until Kennedy had left.
15. Jacqueline Kennedy in the Khyber Pass wearing a traditional karakul hat that President Khan had given to her. The trip was labeled a great success and was said to have marked some of the happiest days Kennedy spent as first lady. A year later her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was shot dead as she rode with him in a motorcade in Dallas.