JFK assassination

[hbelkins]

Wonder how many here were alive 50 years ago today (11/22/63) when JFK was shot?

I was not yet 2 years old so I have no memory of it, but I knew and worked with Malcolm "Mac" Kilduff, the assistant press secretary who made the announcement that JFK was dead and recorded the swearing-in of LBJ aboard Air Force One with the microphone from a Dictaphone machine.

I've been sharing recollections of Mac on Facebook.

[Henry]

I was born in 1970, but I recall all the times my father told me about that day, which he still describes as the worst one of his life, and how he saw Jack Ruby (the man who shot and killed JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald) as a hero.

[Brandon]

As far as I am concerned, it's overdone.  It was 50 years ago, people need to get over it.  It was not anywhere on-par with September 11, 2001 or Pearl Harbor.  I don't see people commemorating 50 years since Lincoln or 50 years since Garfield or McKinley.  Hell, McKinley's 100th (last assassination prior to Kennedy) came and went without so much as a peep.

[jeffandnicole]

No one is ever asked where they were when Lincoln was shot.

[agentsteel53]

I don't think even the "never forget!" hysteria of 9/11 are on par with 9/11.

[Brandon]

No one is ever asked where they were when Lincoln was shot.

Or when Nixon resigned for that matter.

[xcellntbuy]

I had just turned age 3, 16 days prior, and yes I do remember the event.

[oscar]

I was in an elementary school classroom, when the announcement was made by either the teacher, or the principal over the intercom.

As for whether the commemoration is overdone -- there's the enduring special adulation for the late President (not a universal sentiment -- I thought his less charismatic successor's accomplishments were far more consequential, for good or ill).  But the JFK assassination was also the first of a string of assassinations and attempted assassinations that took almost two decades to peter out, which along with other contributing factors like Vietnam and Watergate made for a particularly ugly period of U.S. history.  And we'll get to do this all over again in another five years, on the 50th anniversaries of the MLK and RFK assassinations. 

[hbelkins]

I remember where I was when I heard about RFK. In my dad's 1967 Chevy Impala, between town and home, listening to WHAS-AM radio break the news.

Also the Nixon resignation. I was in The Mall (now known as Mall St. Matthews) in Louisville when the news broke and it was playing on all the TVs in the window of an electronics store. Heard the resignation speech in a motel room in Louisville that night.

I think Kennedy's abbreviated term as president has been romanticized because he was assassinated. Being a martyr tends to increase public perception of your abilities.

[Brandon]

Hell, if people want to romance about abbreviated Presidential terms, there's William Henry Harrison and James Garfield.  One died of pneumonia a month after taking office, and the other was assassinated only a few months after taking office.  Kennedy at least had time to do something (1,000 days).  We'll never know what Harrison or Garfield had in mind.

Pardon me while I roll my eyes at this and the whole conspiracy theory crappola. 

[hotdogPi]

JFK is on the half dollar now, and they even allowed the half dollar to have Kennedy on the half dollar so soon after his death (normally it's not allowed). Nothing happened with the others (Lincoln didn't get his face on the penny immediately).

[roadman]

As far as I am concerned, it's overdone.  It was 50 years ago, people need to get over it.  It was not anywhere on-par with September 11, 2001 or Pearl Harbor.  I don't see people commemorating 50 years since Lincoln or 50 years since Garfield or McKinley.  Hell, McKinley's 100th (last assassination prior to Kennedy) came and went without so much as a peep.

Ditto

[Grzrd]

As far as I am concerned, it's overdone.  It was 50 years ago, people need to get over it.  It was not anywhere on-par with September 11, 2001 or Pearl Harbor.  I don't see people commemorating 50 years since Lincoln or 50 years since Garfield or McKinley.  Hell, McKinley's 100th (last assassination prior to Kennedy) came and went without so much as a peep.

Ditto

Yeah, but McKinley never brokered a deal to allow an interstate to have the same number as a US route in the same state:

[hotdogPi]

"Do not reproduce". Is this allowed?

[agentsteel53]

William Henry Harrison

well, it's common knowledge he was stabbed by Anonymous.

[hbelkins]

"Do not reproduce". Is this allowed?

Maybe it was allowed (or not allowed, if you prefer) back in 1963, but I'd think the Freedom of Information Act would certainly preclude such a prohibition now. Of course, this federal publication itself consisted of copies of copyrighted material, so you never know...

(Cue an "about the sky" type mention of an Allowed Cloud in 3, 2,...)

[Grzrd]

I've seen this sign replayed a lot today:

[briantroutman]

As for whether the commemoration is overdone...the JFK assassination was also the first of a string of assassinations ...with other contributing factors like Vietnam and Watergate made for a particularly ugly period of U.S. history.

Yes, a difficult time. Not like World War II, the Great Depression (1929-41), World War I, the Long Depression (1873-79), the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War...

This anniversary–with the special edition Time/Life keepsake magazines at the supermarket checkout and all of the attendant ceremoniousness–is the spectacle it is because, as a group, baby boomers think their generation, their experiences, and their cultural touchstones are the pivotal moments in the history of the universe.

The baby boom generation includes lots of great people (including probably many on this message board–no offense intended), but as a group, they're impossibly self-fixated. And don't even get me started on my own generation.

I don't think even the "never forget!" hysteria of 9/11 are on par with 9/11.

And for similar reasons–because New Yorkers believe that their lives, their cultural touchstones....are the most important in the entire universe.

[PHLBOS]

The assassination took place nearly 2 years before I was born. 

However, having grown up in Massachusetts and having a mother that lived in Brookline as a child; my family had a lot of JFK assassination-related literature.  It drove my father, who was from Amityville, NY, absolutely nuts. 

A hardcover book called Four Days and a 2-album set of Four Days That Shocked the World being two of them.  Plus some old newspapers (mainly the Boston Herald & the Record American) from that time period.  One page in the movie theater listing included an ad. for the movie It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

in 1998, while visiting a friend in Dallas; I paid a visit to Dealey Plaza.  Much of that area hasn't really changed all that much since Nov. 1963 (at least in 1998).  The BGS' that replaced the old FORT WORTH TURNPIKE BGS' are the exact same size and shape but contains current route information and is more MUTCD compliant.

[NE2]

I don't see people commemorating 50 years since Lincoln

http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2013/11/20/how-the-50th-anniversary-of-president-lincolns-assassination-was-observed/

[Alps]

"Do not reproduce". Is this allowed?

Until you're legal, yes.

[SidS1045]

As far as I am concerned, it's overdone.  It was 50 years ago, people need to get over it.  It was not anywhere on-par with September 11, 2001 or Pearl Harbor.  I don't see people commemorating 50 years since Lincoln or 50 years since Garfield or McKinley.  Hell, McKinley's 100th (last assassination prior to Kennedy) came and went without so much as a peep.

JFK's assassination still resonates because lots of people who were alive back then are still alive AND because the nation was able to live through it together.  Even in McKinley's time, news often took days to reach newspaper readers.  No radio, no TV, no Internet.  This time, news was virtually instantaneous and unfolded before our eyes, even without Abraham Zapruder's film, which was only made available to the general public decades after that day in Dallas.

It was also important because the American people felt as if they really knew him on an almost intimate level.  He was the first president to master the use of TV and we saw constant images of a young, vital, vigorous man with a gorgeous wife and two children who were almost as photogenic as their parents were.  He was the first president to have won a Pulitzer prize, meaning that he had an intellectual depth too many politicians lack.  But, far from being merely an academic, he was wise enough to be able to stare down the Soviet Union and keep us out of what could have been the final world war, fought with nuclear weapons.  All of this and more explains why his murder was taken personally by so many.

[SidS1045]

I was born in 1970, but I recall all the times my father told me about that day, which he still describes as the worst one of his life, and how he saw Jack Ruby (the man who shot and killed JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald) as a hero.

Jack Ruby was no hero.  His action insured that we would never know the full story, which is why so many conspiracy theories have sprung up.

[J N Winkler]

My take on the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy's assassination is that in part it is about saying goodbye to the conspiracy theories.  He was born 96 years ago and although his mother died at the age of 104, none of his siblings who died of natural causes did so beyond the age of 88, so it is likely he would be dead by now even if history had taken a different course at Dallas.  Kennedy looked youthful riding in the open car in Dealey Plaza, but in reality was already middle-aged, as were all of the people who might have even a remote interest in conspiring to kill him.  If there was in fact a conspiracy, then all or nearly all of the participants must be dead too.

As Fred Kaplan observed in Slate about a week ago, the Warren Commission was deeply compromised but its conclusions have, by and large, weathered challenge.  There will be conspiracy theorists spinning ideas about the Kennedy assassination long after we are all dead, but I believe this anniversary year will mark the last time they do so as part of the political and cultural mainstream.

[Jardine]

I was in 1st grade for JFKs assassination, so while I remember it, and where I was when I found out, it did not have the impact on me that it did my parents.

Biggest jolt in this manner of thing I have experienced was the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger.

Bad as 9/11 and Columbia and the others assassinations, Challenger was for me, by far the worst thing* I've experienced. 





*for a shared national tragedy.  I've had some personal losses of more devastating impact than Challenger.