Its that dreadful anniversary date again. 46 years ago John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. To this day, conspiracy theories are still abound, with some folks believing that government forces assassinated the President, rather than Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald, in turn, was gunned down while in police custody by a small time thug named Jack Ruby. Without Oswald, there was little chance of ever sorting out the truth, despite the formation of the Warren Commission that studied and reported on this American tragedy.
Anyone of the age of reason when JFK was assassinated remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they found out about President being shot. No other incident save 9-11 brings about this instant freeze in time in the minds of Americans who are old enough to remember.
Much has happened since that fateful fall day in Dallas. Out of 9 children, only one of the Kennedy clan of that generation survives, Jean Kennedy Smith. Jackie Kennedy is dead. Teddy Kennedy died this past summer. John Junior died in a plane accident in 1999. Caroline and numerous cousins live on.
What do you remember about November 22, 1963? If this date was before your time, what dates do you remember that have been frozen in time. Please share.
JFK was 46 years old when he died and he is dead 46 years today,Dead as long as he lived.I think the 22nd of november 1963 was the day America changed forever and i find it incredable his killers are still free. I was six when the dream died and now 46 yeas later still find his words inspireing. America get your country back and find your fallen heros murders
Where are the history buffs?
I was born (in Dallas) in the summer of 1964; after President Kennedy’s assassination. My father nearly witnessed the assassination – he drove down Elm Street in the exact spot of the shooting about ten minutes before it occurred, on the way to a 12:30 appointment. In hindsight, he was glad he did not witness the tragedy. So am I.
From my perspective, obviously the events of September 11, 2001 are and will always be frozen in time for me and those in my age category. Aside from that day, I can think of two other events that are somewhat similar. The first is the senseless shooting of John Lennon in 1980, when I was sixteen. The other event that really hit me hard (somewhat unexpectedly) was the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986. To this day, I can remember the names of all seven astronauts aboard that ill-fated 73 second flight, even though I’ve never been especially interested in the particulars of the space program. Scobee, Smith, Resnick, McNair, Onizuka, Jarvis, and McAuliffe. Conversely, I cannot name a single astronaut who perished when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry in 2003. There was something shocking and stirring about the Challenger event, and it goes beyond the fact that Christa McAuliffe was going to be the first “teacher in space”. Even after all these years, I’m not sure why I was so moved by the Challenger explosion…but I was.
“It was a day of such endless fitness, with so much pathos and panoply,
so much grief nobly borne that it may extinguish that unseemly hour in Dallas,
where all that was alien to him – savagery, violence, irrationality – struck down
the 35th President of the United States.”
Mary McGrory (Washington Star – writing of President Kennedy’s funeral)
“We weep because there is nothing else we can do.”
Art Buchwald
Isn’t time suppose to heal all things? Fourty-six years later and it still hurts.
It was a national horror for everyone, regardless of our differences.
It really was dreadful. Of course the first time around I remember where I was and all, but there was much I didn’t really absorb. I watched the history channel 2009 version of the assassination where the animus between Johnson and the Kennedys was discussed. I think Johnson has been maligned to some degree and Bobby K placed too much on a pedestal. After seening that program on the history channel, I concluded that Saint Bobby very much acted like the ass.
I was sitting in class when the announcement was made. School was immediately canceled. I went home a watched TV all day and saw Ruby kill Oswald. I was struck by how quiet it was through the entire event. No one in school was talking. My neighbors were pretty much silent. It seemed like the entire country was in shock. It was one of the most memorable events of my life. My mother saved the newspaper headlines for the rest of her life.
Today:
– We have another charming, articulate speaker, author, and visionary
leader helping to bring the US and, in fact, the World forward.
– He is the first of his “group” to overcome long held
prejudices and win the Presidency.
– The First Family includes a wife and two children “from cental casting”–
the media, and much of the nation, adore them.
– We live in dangerous times and the President must address huge decisions
with no easy choices available. American lives are clearly at risk no
matter what he does.
– Our President is deeply loved and admired, and, by a small group, just
as deeply loathed and hated. Not disliked – hated. Deep, mean hatred.
The “flash backs” have come more than once.
Pray for our President and our Country this Thanksgiving.
We are getting some real interesting history here. Welcome Niall and Wayne. We hope you will become regular contributers.
Wayne, were the witnesses hounded by the press for years?
Ivan, I remember the radio coming on in school and us all listening to it sort of in shock. I will never forget the radio just coming on….no announcement or anything.
Poor Richard, those are sure some pointed parallels there.
It is amazing to think that so much was made of JFK being Roman Catholic. Right now the Supreme Court has 1 protestant, 2 Jews, and 6 Catholics. How times have changed. On the other hand, we have not had another Catholic president and we have never had a Jewish President or Vice President.
I was in the school gym with my class in DC. We were practicing some songs for a holiday show. The principal came in and told our teacher, who fainted. We went back to the classroom and the school broadcast Walter Cronkite over the class loudspeaker.
School was cancelled. People were pretty much in shock and it was eerily quiet like someone said above. It seemed like no one was on Wisconsin Avenue that afternoon. I guess everyone was glued to the TV set.
I saw what Niall Hogan said above and it did change America in that we lost our innocence from the 50’s and came into reality. I can remember coming down to the White House when the President returned from a trip and they always got out on PA Ave and walked through the crowd to the White House. No more after that.
I always thought, though, that DC really changed in April to June of 1968 when first MLK died and then when Bobby K died. Even until then, DC was the biggest small town in America. But then, the pent-up animosity just mushroomed.
I had been a “Kiddie For Kennedy” a couple of years earlier and went door to door in DC handing out fliers.
The “Kiddie For Kennedy” was in 1960, not the mid 60’s, by the way.
A liitle lesson on how seemingly small things can change history. A book came out recently on the history of the U.S. Secret Service. It seems that, as the Kennedy car was about to start off on that fateful drive through the streets of Dallas, Secret Service agents were preparing to ride on the rear bumper as part of their protection package. JFK told them he didn’t want them to do that, so they got off. They would have been between JFK and Oswald when the shots were fired — if Oswald had decided to fire under such circumstances.
What were the Kiddie for Kennedys?
Wolverine, that certainly would have changed things.
Why was Jackie seen almost crawling to the back of the car? Does anyone know the answer to that?
Has that general ever been rebuked to said that Johnson was on the john crying on air force one?
Moon-howler, as I seem to recall (having been a college student in Washington at the time), that the issue of Kennedy’s Catholicism vanished rather quickly after his election. I do not remember anyone making much of an issue of it on any noticeable scale after November 1960.
I remember as if it were yesterday. I was 15 years old, sitting in class at my high school, when the Principal made the announcement. I cannot express how I felt that day. Shocked, numb, alone, frightened, and so devestated. There was no sound through out the halls, yet not a dry eye either. A day and an era I shall never forget, along with so many others.
Can you top this one? Sitting in my one-bedroom, tin-roofed shack in a small town in the African Sahel, the only resident American in a region of thousands. I wasn’t even aware that JFK had been assassinated until an African neighbor, clutching his shortwave radio, came in hours after the fact to tell me that the American President was dead. I had no idea what to say. Never saw any of it, neither the videos of the assassination nor even videos of the funeral until several years later when I finally went back home. However, I did get letters from my mother. She was a very conservative, fundamentalist Christian Protestant who had voted for Richard Nixon. She told me that, when she witnessed the funeral of television, she wept.
Moonhowler…
In response to your question about the Dallas press hounding witnesses to the assassination, I wouldn’t say that happened too much. For about the first twenty years or so, there was a good bit of local coverage every year at this time, with interviews of some of the bystanders or peripheral participants, but I wouldn’t say it was overdone. After about the 30th anniversary, the coverage has lessened considerably, probably because a lot of the people who were there are no longer with us.
On the 30th anniversary in 1993, there was a large ceremony dedicating Dealey Plaza as a national historic site. A small plaque was placed in the grass at curbside adjacent to the spot where the third and fatal shot struck President Kennedy. Governor Connally’s widow Nellie and a few other dignitaries spoke at the ceremony, and the entire 3-block plaza was full of people…completely different than it was on the day of the shooting, when the crowds were rather sparse at that point in the motorcade. That point is where the downtown section ends and the motorcade was about to get on the freeway for the remainder or their trip to the Trade Mart (about two miles away).
Anyway, after the ceremony, much of the crowd left the area, but a good number of people remained, including me. I was standing on the “grassy knoll”, fairly near the spot where Abe Zapruder was when he made his famous film. I noticed an older man in a western type hat and light blue casual suit also appear on the incline not far away. He was alone. I looked hard at him and recognized him to be Jim Leavelle. He was the detective in the light suit who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. I nodded to him but did not speak. I figured he must have been hounded enough over the years.
Shortly afterward, he was approached by a group of young men in their late teens or early twenties. Being within earshot, I heard one of them ask if he was a retired policeman or something, oblivious to his identity. He confirmed that he was a retired officer and was more than happy to talk with the young men. So I approached too and said “Jim Leavelle?” He confirmed tht that was who he was and then told the young men about his brief two-day “acquaitanceship” with Lee Oswald. They thrust their printed programmes of the earlier ceremonies at him and asked for autographs. Then they left, and Detective Leavelle and I chatted privately for a couple of minutes. He was a little shorter than I had envisioned…shorter than me (I’m 6’01”). Oswald was noticeably shorter than him, and I said “I always imagined you to be just a little taller than you are. Oswald must really have been kind of a runt huh?” He chuckled and indicated with his hand Oswald’s approximate height…about 5’08” – 5’09” tops. I then asked him to sign my programme too, if he didn’t mind. I wouldn’t have asked if he hadn’t been so willing to sign the autographs for those young guys. I still have it too. I’m not sure if he is still alive today or not. I hope he is; he’s a nice guy.
I’m not sure how interested you are in my little story, but your question about the press and the witnesses reminded me of it. Press coverage of the November 22nd anniversaries tapered off markedly after that 30th one. I’m sure the 50th in four years will be a big deal, but it will be so different than what it was before, with very few witnesses remaining and practically no journalists who were active at that time. Aside from Jim Lerher of PBS, I don’t know of any. I hope I’m still around though. I’ll probably go down to Dealey Plaza again if I am, God willing.
Kiddies For Kennedy was a group of kids around 10 and under in DC that volunteered (usually because of parents–my dad was a MA democrat) to pass out information door to door. Kids tended not to get the door slammed in their did not vote for President in DC. It wasn’t until the 23rd amendment in 1961 that they had any votes in the electoral college so they voted absentee in the home states in my dad’s case and perhaps in VA or MD, I don’t remember. There were no local elections because home rule didn’t come until later.
As I remember the scene with Jackie, she turned over and reached over the trunk to help Secret Service agents to get in the limo for the trip to the hospital.
I don’t know anything about the general.
Wow. my computer messed up big time that time. This part of paragraph—
“Kids tended not to get the door slammed in their did not vote for President in DC. It wasn’t until the 23rd amendment in 1961 that they had any votes in the electoral college so they voted absentee in the home states in my dad’s case and perhaps in VA or MD, I don’t remember. There were no local elections because home rule didn’t come until later.” should have read–
“Kids tended not to get the door slammed in their faces. You may not remember that residents did not vote for President in DC. It wasn’t until the 23rd amendment in 1961 that they had any votes in the electoral college so they voted absentee in the home states in my dad’s case and perhaps in VA or MD, I don’t remember. There were no local elections because home rule didn’t come until later.”
Sorry about that. sometimes my cursor jumps and I don’t notice it. Gotta keep my fingers away from the touchpad.
Catholicism certainly isn’t as major an issue now as when JFK ran for office,
but it was a factor in 1960.
When New York clergyman Norman Vincent Peale announced that
“American culture is at stake in the election and if a Catholic became
President, I don’t say it won’t survive, but it won’t be what it was.”
Kennedy responded: “I would like to think he is complimenting me, but
I’m not sure.”
PW Resident, I did not know that about DC not getting to vote for a president. wowow
I guess people who didn’t have home states just didn’t get to vote for a president.
Poor Richard, hard to believe someone would come right out and say that. Good response on Kennedy’s part. Quick thinking. I heard some of that same logic used on Mitt Romney because he was/is Mormon.
@Poor Richard
I also remember that it was a commonly held belief that a catholic would be a puppet for the pope and do his bidding with the country.
I must say that I was also surprised by the obvious anti-Mormon bigotry displayed against Mitt Romney last year. It surpassed even whatever anti-black bigotry might have been directed toward Barack Obama. Regardless of how one feels about the eventual outcome of the 2008 election, had it not been for the extreme anti-Mormon sentiment, it probably would have been an entirely different election, with Romney the likely GOP nominee. And with his financial acumen, when the economy began to crater last fall, the November election may well have had a different outcome. It’s sad. What is it they say? The more things change, the more they stay the same. At least JFK’s election got Catholics off the hook (hopefully).
Odd, though, that we have only had one Catholic president, especially when the Supreme Court as well as Congress has so many. Our own local BOCS is a 6-2 break with 6 Catholics and 2 protestants. (I think)
Rez, I remember hearing that feeling when I was a kid.
Wayne, that’s a very interesting question to ponder. You seem to feel that the anti-Mormon sentiments were much more wide-spread than I imagined.
Of course when John Kerry ran, being a Catholic wasn’t an issue except with
with fellow Catholics who attacked Kerry for being soft on abortion.
Hopefully sometime soon, all the old litmus test will fade away and we
can focus on the really vital issues — like college football and basketball.
Yep, that will be the day – no way I’m voting for a Pac-10er. They look odd.
(Have you seen those Oregon Duck uniforms?)
I almost missed Wayne’s story. What a wonderful experience to have been able to talk to Jim Leavelle. I wouldn’t have recognized the name or the face but I expect Dallas people are far more tuned into the people and events. Thank you for sharing that first hand account.
Woverine, what on earth were you doing in African then? Would you have to kill me if you told me?
Welcome Linda. Many of us were just frozen in time. I try to watch anything on it because I was a vapid kid when it happened. The signficance really doesn’t sink in with most kids. I never realized the sense of danger people felt. Of course I didn’t realize it with the Bay of Pigs either. Vapid kid again.
Yes M-H…I listened to a good bit of talk radio during the ’08 campaign, and was absolutely stunned by the number of callers I heard who described themselves as fundamentalist Christians who stated unequivocally that under no circumstances would they vote for Romney. Many insisted that Mormons are absolutely NOT Christians, and that they belong to a weird “cult”. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but trust me, I was. As a former Catholic, turned Protestant but not “churchy”, I was saddened by the amount and nastiness of the invective I heard, both on local shows as well as national ones. All I can say is that if these same people are now upset that Obama is in the White House, perhaps they should look in the mirror when they go to assess blame for that having happened. After what I heard last year, I would not be surprised if a Catholic running today might have almost as much trouble getting elected as Kennedy did in 1960…maybe even more. I hate to be such a pessimist, but some of the comments I heard last year disturbed me a good deal.
M-H, the feelings were like 9-11. Stunned disbelief, fear, anguish, anger,
blame, conspiracy speculation and finally slow acceptence of a national tragedy
and a burning desire to see nothing like it would ever happen again.
Note: JFK was born in 1917 and would be 92 today, if he had survived his
numerous physical ailments and Oswald’s shots. But, in the
“mind’s eye” of many, he will alway be young and robust.
And oddly enough, he was not so robust. But we never really saw that. Even now, in old films, you don’t see it. Of course the old films do not show how incapacitated FDR was either.
Wayne, I am sorry to say, I think you are right. I was going to hop on my soap box and then I remembered that at the beginning of the weekend I had made comments about not being able to vote for someone who didn’t believe in evolution, at least to some degree.
Am I the yin to their yang? Maybe it is just another version of religious intolerance on my part. To me though, going back to creationism to replace science is just backwards an unacceptable. To me it is not so much about religion but an understanding of the world around us.
M-h: Peace Corps Volunteer — one of the very first to answer JFK’s call to do something for your country. I was a teacher, coach, and athletic director in a six-classroom middle school which had cement block walls, a tin roof, no window panes, no electricity, no running water, no toilets, no library, and no food service. Only crude, handmade desks; a blackboard; and some chalk. Everyone in the school was Muslim except me. The only library available was the one furnished to me by the Peace Corps. The only real basketball for the basketball team was one that I brought from home. The basketball court was so full of rock outcroppings that you never knew here the ball would go when you dribbled it; and the backboard sometimes fell down during the games. I shared my spartan living quarters with poisonous mamba snakes, rats, mice, and scorpions, not to mention an occasional sheep, flocks of wandering chickens, with cows and donkeys sometimes grazing on the few clumps of grass in the courtyard, The upper floor of my house (the peak of the roof) was the province of the buzzards. To get anywhere, I walked, rode a bike, or used the horses of a local Muslim religious honcho. To the kids at that school I was a genuine American cowboy in the flesh. Even wore a stetson while on horseback. One day, a black mamba (5 minutes and you are dead, with the nearest anti-venom 500 miles away) decided to contest the house with me. He chased me from room to room as I fended off his leaps with an old broom. When he finally tired of the bristles stabbing his mouth, he went out the door into the darkness. I was so mad (and a bit nuts by then) that I chased after him with a flashlight and a broken table leg. One less black mamba in this world.
When JFK said to do something for your country, he wasn’t whistling Dixie. I still laugh out loud whenever I hear the NDEA complain about something.
Oops — make that last the “NEA.”
You sure are a good snake charmer, Wolverine. Wow what a story. I had to go look at what a black mamba looks like. Mean and ugly. You are lucky you won that fight!
That must have been some experience! I think it was very brave of you to go that far from home in such squalid conditions.
Moon-howler: Just a quick follow-up on Jim Leavelle. I looked him up on wikipedia, and evidently he’s still alive at age 89. He lives in Garland, Texas, the same Dallas suburb in which I reside. But it’s a BIG suburb…well over 200,000 people live here. Evidently he keeps in touch with some of the other surviving characters in the JFK/Oswald saga. Just thought you might be interested in the footnote.
Thanks Wayne. Are you planning on contacting him? He might enjoy hearing from you.
So you still live in that area now?