At 3:38 p.m. Dallas time on Friday 22 November 1963 Lyndon Baines Johnson stood in the humid cabin of Air Force One and took the oath of office as President of the United States. He faced many challenges, including a crisis in his country's international image. Like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson understood that image played an important part in politics at home and abroad. Unfortunately, he clearly lacked Kennedy's natural assets as a focus for such image-making. The existing image problems of the Cold War, Vietnam, and civil rights were suddenly and brutally compounded by the shock of the Kennedy assassination. Johnson needed to reassure the world that the United States would remain both a sound ally to friends and a formidable opponent to enemies. He needed to counter the impression of lawlessness left by the killing in Dallas. He also wanted to prove to the world that the assassination had been the act of a lone gunman and not a conspiracy involving either, as he feared, the Soviet Union or the homegrown extreme right. Either of these perpetrators would present major political problems and hinder getting back to the business of government.