JFK Jr. Childhood Photos Released

The JFK Library released a series of photos this week showing JFK Jr. as a young kid at Camp David.

According to the archive, the photos were taken during a weekend in March of 1963 by White House photographer Robert Knudsen.

Knudsen took photographs for the White House under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon between 1946 and 1974.

The JFK Library has been working to digitize photos of the former president and his family. The most recent batch of photos show JFK Jr. pretending to be a pilot in a helicopter.

The JFK Library writes on its Tumblr Page: “John F. Kennedy, Jr. sits in the pilot’s seat of the Presidential helicopter during a weekend trip to Camp David in Frederick County, Maryland.”

JFK Jr. would later become a recreational pilot and, sadly, would die in a plane crash at the age of 39. His wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her older sister, Lauren Bessette, were also on board the plane when it crashed over the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard.

Here’s the photo of JFK. Jr playing in his father’s helicopter.

The new pictures from the JFK library also show JFK Jr., his sister Caroline, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and president John F. Kennedy walking the grounds of Camp David and playing with one of the horses.

According to the Daily Mail, 5-year-old Caroline is riding a horse named Macaroni in the photo above. The horse was a gift from Kennedy’s vice president Lyndon Johnson. The horse is wearing a saddle that was gifted to the president by Morocco’s King Hassan II.

Here are some more photos from the Kennedy’s family trip to Camp David in 1963. (You can see all the photos from the JFK Library Archive here.)