It all started with an Aug. 14 New York Times obituary by Douglas Martin for photographer Joe O’Donnell. Martin praised his exceptional work and took special notice of a picture made during President Kennedy’s funeral cortege: “And the O’Donnell photograph of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s coffin became the most reproduced version of that memorable scene.” Martin goes on to note that, because he was on the government payroll, Mr. O’Donnell got no personal credit for those photos, although he signed and sold copies of them after his retirement from the White House in 1968.

When Gary Haynes saw the reproduction of the John-John salute alarm bells went off. Haynes, a retired UPI photographer and author of “Picture This!” (Bulfinch Press, 2006), a compilation of great UPI photographs, got in touch with The New York Times. “I’m the one who told The Times, on Aug. 15, the morning after the obit ran, that the photo they had credited to ‘O’Donnell’ was, I was 99% certain, the famous UPI photo shot by Stan Stearns…. There’s no question that the photos are identical. It is impossible for two photographers, even if they are gaffer-taped together, to come up with identical photos.

“I not only relayed this to The Times, but also the Downhold group [a listserv for ex-UPI personnel], and trust me, if you want something checked out by a couple of dozen of the world’s best journalists – only some of them retired – this is your group.

“Before long, guys who were THERE or who knew people who were there they could check with, were poking holes in the obit itself … to have taken some of the photos he claimed, O’Donnell would have had to have taken them as a teenager!”

The Times obit also ran in The Boston Globe and many other newspapers. The Tennessean in Nashville ran a glowing account of O’Donnell’s life. Television news also picked up the story and image. The “O’Donnell” image was used (as of 9/2) on the State of the Art blog site from editors of American Photo. It says in part: “Joe O’Donnell was a White House photographer during the Kennedy years, and he snapped the enduring images of John Kennedy Junior saluting as his father’s casket passed during the emotional state funeral in 1963. The photo was widely though anonymously distributed.”

Editor’s note: to see the original story, go to The Digital Journalist