JFK

Early in September 1960, I was with my family in a Boston hotel lobby when U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Candidate for President of the United States, walked through it on his way out.  On October 30, 1963, I was in the upper level of Convention Hall in Philadelphia to hear a speech given by President John F. Kennedy to a group of local members of the Democratic Party at a fund raising dinner.  I remember all the invited guests on the lower level of the Hall wore tuxedos.  The public sat up above and had to provide their own food and drink.

A little before 2 PM on Friday, November 22, 1963 (fifty-two years ago today), I walked into my freshman English class in College Hall at the University of Pennsylvania.  Before the professor arrived to begin the class, one of my fellow students walked in with a transistor radio which was broadcasting the news.  He proclaimed that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  I remember my crazy first reaction was “What was he doing in Dallas?”  We all, now including the professor, sat glued to our seats until we heard the official notification from the radio announcer that the President was dead.  The professor then cancelled class and left.  I returned to my freshman dorm and a weekend all Americans alive at the time will never forget.

The thing I remember most about JFK, besides the Cuban Missle Crisis, was his sense of humor, which was excellent.  He was the first president to have live regularly scheduled news conferences which I occasionally got to watch on TV.  There were 64 of them during his presidency which lasted 1,037 days, an average of one every 16 days.  JFK was glib and, whenever he could, he would elicit some laughter from the assembled journalists, usually of the self-deprecating kind.   

As I did not have easy access to a TV, most of my recollections from those tragic days in November of 1963 were from radio and newspapers.  I didn’t see Lee Harvey Oswald, the arrested and accused assassin, shot to death by Jack Ruby in the Dallas police station, live on television.  We Americans, after having been punched in the stomach, were all in a sort of trance, sleepwalking from moment to moment, incredulous of what had happened to us as a nation.  How would we get past this?  Many of my colleagues didn’t know much about who was the new president (Lyndon Baines Johnson) and few had any confidence in him. 

The thing that sticks most in my mind from that weekend was going to Franklin Field on my college campus to watch the home town Eagles play a football game against the Washington NFL franchise, the two worst teams in its Eastern Conference.  Unlike every other sporting event that weekend, the NFL decided not to cancel its games that Sunday, two days after President Kennedy had been assassinated.  It was an extremely controversial decision.  As I had previously purchased a ticket and did not want to lose my investment, I along with 60,670 others entered the stadium to witness a meaningless game.  In a gesture to attempt to satisfy their critics, the NFL decided not to telecast any of its games as was normally the case.  Besides, most Americans were too busy watching the continuous news coverage of the assassination. 

While I was waiting for the game to begin, I heard some of my fellow football fans in the stadium talk about the assassination of Oswald.  Years later, I would be able to watch a vídeo of this second killing for myself.  Before the game started, someone sang the Star Spangled Banner and virtually the entire assembled mass joined in.  It was a very moving experience.  Oh, by the way, the Eagles lost the game.

Over the years, there has been a lingering doubt about who exactly killed President John F. Kennedy.  Was it really Oswald?  And if so, was he part of a conspiracy?  After extensive reading on the subject, including the Warren Commission Report (the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy), it is my opinion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one and only assassin. 

First, there is scientific evidence that Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK from the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository building.  By luck, he had found a job working in the building a few months before JFK’s plan to go to Dallas was arranged.  By mail order, Oswald purchased the gun that was found at the site.  The route of the presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas was well advertised in the local media.  It was a lucky break for Oswald.  He had his opportunity. 

Second, why did he do it?  Oswald was somebody raised in a completely disfunctional family and who had very low self-esteem.  Because of this, he was desperate to make a name for himself by doing something noteworth, such as killing somebody famous.  In April of 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin A. Walker, a controversial, right-wing public figure, but failed.  Unfortunately, his second assassination attempt was a success. 

Third, was there a conspiracy?  For there to have been a conspiracy, it would have required Oswald to engage in detailed planning with one or more others.  This would have been highly unlikely because Oswald was a loner, a person who was alienated from his family and had no apparent friends or associates.  The only person who he was close to in his life was his Russian-born wife, Marina.  The idea that he would cooperate with others in such an activity as assassinating a president was to not understand who Oswald was.  Thus, in my opinion, there was no conspiracy.

Just as we can only imagine how the course of history (Reconstruction in the South) would have been different had President Abraham Lincoln not been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, we also can only imagine how history (for example, Vietnam) would have been different had JFK not been assassinated on November 22, 1963.

That was a day that many said America lost its innocence.  It seems to me that prior to that day, America admired the hero.  After that day, we saw the world from a different perspective and started admiring the anti-hero.  As example, in the culture of the 1950s, we admired Eliot Ness, the federal government agent who fought the Mafia as portrayed by the actor, Robert Stack, on the TV series, The Untouchables.  In the culture of the 1970s, we admired Michael Corleone, head of a crime family as portrayed by the actor, Al Pacino, in the hit movie, The Godfather.  More than JFK died that day in 1963.