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On August 2, 1962, ten Alaska Natives visited the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The men were just a week away from graduating an eighteen-month pilot training program in electronics at the RCA Institute in New York. The program was sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
For the occasion, President Kennedy greeted the trainees in the Rose Garden, speaking to them about their time in the program, “I’m sure you found life in New York as difficult and dangerous as people have found their lives in the remotest regions of Alaska.”
In this photograph, President Kennedy stands aside to allow Alaska Senator Ernest Gruening to address the gathered trainees. When journalists asked the young men about their time in Washington, D.C., and New York, they stated that Washington was “pretty warm” and New York was “really different.” Percy Spalook of Kotzebue, Alaska, was asked about the most significant part of the program and he replied, “The most important thing is getting back home.”
Upon completion of the program, graduates returned to Alaska to work on the White Alice missile-warning system in the remote corners of the state. The program was considered valuable because it intended to fill jobs with the people that had close ties to the state. Previously, technicians were regularly brought into Alaska to man communications systems and they did not stay long. Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Philleo Nash explained that filling positions with indigenous Alaskans would help solve the turnover problems while providing jobs with good pay.
Credit: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum / NARA
