Remembering the death of President Kennedy
Forget Generation X and the millennials for a minute. Only the Silent Generation (those born from 1925-1942) and baby boomers (born from 1946-1964) can relive Nov. 22, 1963, in America and worldwide.
Those of us in those generations recall where we were and what we were doing when tragedy unfolded on that date. I was 11 years old, and remember it like it was yesterday, even though it happened 55 years ago.
We were at school, at home, at work, driving down the highway with the radio blasting, or watching TV when suddenly the world seemed to stop spinning. News anchor Walter Cronkite broke the news to television viewers on CBS at 12:40 p.m., interrupting As The World Turns. ABC and NBC followed suit. Within minutes the news was broadcast worldwide by radio.
The 35th president of the United States was struck down while riding in a motorcade in Dallas at approximately 12:31 p.m. Chaos erupted within seconds, as the open Lincoln Continental Kennedy was seated in speeded toward Parkland Hospital.
The foundation of America was rocked by the news. Who would do such a terrible thing? For what reason or purpose? Americans were in disbelief when the news reached them.
In the early fall of 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gearing up for his next presidential campaign. At that time, he had not announced his bid for re-election, but he was clearly running. He’d visited nine states in less than a week by late September. His message was to make people aware of conservation and natural resource issues, along with his quest for world peace and education.
On Nov. 12, Kennedy and his advisers held a strategy meeting on how to woo voters in Texas and Florida, the two main states where he was lagging in popularity. He knew he had to carry Texas if he were to be re-elected.
On Thursday, Nov. 21, he arrived in San Antonio for a brief rally, continued to Houston for another, then on to Fort Worth, where the following day he would be whisked away to the east side of the metroplex that is Dallas.
The plan was for a short motorcade visit through downtown, then on to the Dallas Market Center for a luncheon with business and civic leaders. The luncheon never happened. At 12:31, gunfire rained down on Kennedy’s motorcade in Dealey Plaza, striking the president and Texas Gov. John Connally, who was seated in the front of the limousine. Other dignitaries, such as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, and Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell and his wife, were in the follow-up limousines with a host of congressmen and other state officials in tow.
Shortly afterward, a suspect was named: Lee Harvey Oswald. He had the opportunity. The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald published the Kennedy motorcade route the day before, which followed the very street where Oswald was a warehouse worker in the Texas School Book Depository.
His motive to assassinate Kennedy is unclear, but theorists envision many possible scenarios including a “conspiracy theory.” Investigations into Oswald’s childhood stand out, as he was described by classmates as a loner with a quick temper and prone to drift from job to job in early adulthood.
It’s been said he had a lust for fame. Here was his one and only chance to make history, at any cost.
Oswald enlisted into the Marine Corps in 1956, six days after his 17th birthday. After serving his country, he defected to the Soviet Union, a country that fascinated him. He endeavored to learn the Russian language and wanted to become a Soviet national.
This was not to be. He left the country when his visa expired. Limping home like a kicked dog, Oswald found himself, with his Russian wife Marina in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In the summer of 1962 he drifted from job to job, desperately looking for some stability to provide for his bride, who was expecting a child.
On April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to take the life of retired U.S. Army Major General Edwin Walker, who by that time was a outspoken anti-communist, pro-John Birch Society member and segregationist. The bullet Oswald fired from his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle failed to hit its mark. When realizing he missed, he scurried home.
Later that night when the local news reported an attempt on Walker’s life, Oswald confessed to his wife that he was the culprit and regretted he missed.
Oswald was arrested for the assassination of Kennedy in the afternoon on Nov. 22. Two days later, during a transfer from the Dallas Police Headquarters to a county jail, Oswald himself was gunned down.
President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order seven days after the assassination to investigate President Kennedy’s death. It was named the Warren Commission after Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was charged to lead the investigation.
The Warren report concluded that Oswald acted alone. People were astonished. No one thought he could pull this off by himself. And so came the birth of conspiracy theories, which turned out to be quite a cottage industry for the conspiracy-minded. Many theories were floated, some downright preposterous.
In 1976, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed to re-investigate the JFK assassination along with that of Martin Luther King Jr. HSCA concluded the probability of a conspiracy on the Kennedy death was possible. Two years after HSCA ended in 1978, the Department of Justice issued a memo to the House Judiciary Committee that it had reviewed the report and basically said “no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in … the assassination of President Kennedy.”
A lot of people still didn’t believe that no conspiracy existed.
In 1991, Oliver Stone’s bombshell of a film, JFK, was released. It revived conspiracy theories to a feverish pitch. More theories, books, lectures and attention-seekers began to expound on their take of what happened. Among them: President Johnson was behind it, or the Mafia, or the Russians, or Senator Ted Cruz’s father.
I have studied this assassination for over 50 years. In my opinion, it was Oswald, and Oswald alone.