The friendship between the 35th U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, and Kirk LeMoyne Billings, also known as Lem, has fascinated writers, filmmakers and people online for years.
However, archivists at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum told Snopes that while the photo is genuine -- that is, not digitally modified or created using artificial intelligence -- and shows Kennedy, the man with him is likely not Billings. Therefore, we rate this image as miscaptioned.
The photo can be found in a scrapbook covering Kennedy's time at Choate Rosemary Hall, a private boarding school, where he graduated in the Class of 1935. An archivist at the presidential library also said the photo appeared in "Rose Kennedy's Family Album," a 2013 book consisting of 300 photos from the library's collection.
(Copyright John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Kennedy Family Collection. Scrapbooks and albums: Choate School, John F. Kennedy, others, 1933-1935. KFC-053-001. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
The photograph appears in "Rose Kennedy's Family Album" with the caption "Jack and a classmate goof for the camera as they dance on the Choate school grounds, circa 1933-1934," according to the library.
Looking at other imagery from the library showing Billings in 1936, roughly three years after the photo in question was taken, it is clear that he is not the man pictured with Kennedy.
(Photographer unknown. Copyright John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Kennedy Family Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
In these images, as well as in Billings' yearbook photo from Choate in 1935, both his right eyebrow and ear are visible and do not resemble those of the person seen in the photo with Kennedy. His ear appears smaller and rounder than that seen in the 1933-34 photo, and his eyebrow appears bolder.
It remains unclear who accompanies Kennedy in the 1933-34 photo. A scan of Kennedy's fellow 1935 graduates did not yield any immediate matches. Any visual matching was difficult due to the age of the photo and the sideways profile of the person in question.
There is no doubt, however, that Kennedy and Billings were longtime friends, as a podcast episode published by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum detailed. The pair met at Choate Rosemary Hall in 1933, and after graduating traveled to Europe together in 1937, and briefly adopted a dog. Searching for Billings' name in the library's archive brings up both oral interviews and photographs from the 1930s to 1963, the year of Kennedy's assassination.
Snopes has previously reported on claims that Kennedy wrote in a letter that "Palestine Was Hardly Britain's to Give Away" and rumors that the former president predicted his own death.