It was Senator Robert Kennedy who decided that the coffin used to transport the body of his assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, from Dallas to Washington on November 22nd, 1963, should be dumped at sea just over two years later.
Documents released yesterday by the National Archives in Washington show that Robert Kennedy told a US government official in February 1966 that he would like his brother's bronze coffin to be sunk at sea.
Despite concerns that the coffin was the property of the US government, Robert Kennedy told the official, Mr Lawson Knott, that he believed it belonged to the family and "we can get rid of it any way we want to".
Robert Kennedy's decision was supported by the then Attorney-General, Mr Nicholas Katzenbach.
In a letter to the General Services Administration, Kennedy wrote: "I am unable to conceive of any manner in which the casket could have any evidentiary value, nor can I conceive of any reason why the national interest would require its preservation."
He continued: "It is obvious that it could never be used for burial purposes and its public display would be extremely offensive and contrary to public policy."
On February 18th, 1966, the coffin, loaded with three 80 lb bags of sand and drilled with numerous holes, was collected from the National Archives and loaded on an air force transport plane and flown over the Atlantic off the Maryland-Delaware coast.
The coffin was rigged with parachutes to break the impact of hitting the water from 500 ft. The drop point was away from air and shipping routes and at a depth of 9,000 ft, the coffin was unlikely to be disturbed by fishing trawlers.
A Department of Defence official who witnessed the drop wrote later in a memo that "the parachutes opened shortly before impact, and the entire rigged load remained intact and sank sharply, clearly and immediately after the soft impact."
President Kennedy was buried in Arlington Cemetery in a mahogany coffin.