november 22, 1963

[alocispepraluger102]

this week, november 22, marks the 48th anniversary of the assassination of president kennedy. it's often said that everyone who was alive then can remember where they were and what they were doing when they got the news that JFK had been shot.

i first heard the news on that sunny shirt sleeve warm thursday november 22, listening about 130pm to weol-fm, preparing to go to work at the supermarket.

each news bulletin from cbs news dallas grew significantly more grim until walter cronkite announced the death of john fitzgerald kennedy, 35th president of the united states.

i had grown to marvel at president kennedy's remarkable wit, knowledge, perspective, and hair raising oratory. i especially loved the repartee of his press conferences.

the talk at the market that evening, was of philosophies forever changed, a realization that there is no real security in this world, and that dreams can die, too. we knew that this world, country, and i had sufered wounds to our souls that would never heal.

we have not seen his equal, his human faults nothwithstanding. this man, in his press conferences, was knowledgeable, informed, and informed. no one since has come even close to having a kennedyesque press conference.

if you were alive then, what was your reaction, and how did it change you?

high hopes

Edited November 23, 2011 by alocispepraluger102

[alocispepraluger102]

i've received 2 private notes from readers reminding me of the mishandled bay of pigs debacle and their personal losses.

that is not forgotten, i assure you.

[Leeway]

I remember I was in Catholic grammar school. When the news was received, the nuns told us to kneel down next to our desks to pray. Many of the nuns were crying, and of course many of the kids too. There seemed a tremendous level of grief in my neighborhood, which was primarily Irish-Italian Catholic. It took a long time for the shock to wear off.

[AllenLowe]

jfk did not mishandle the Bay of Pigs, FYI - as the released CIA papers have shown, they set him up - they knew the operation was doomed to failure for logistical reasons; the plan was to get him to invade; Curtis Lemay was standing by hoping to initiate a battle with the Soviets, as he (and the Joint Chiefs) felt that the USA had a first strike capability. Kennedy, to his eternal credit, was too smart for that and quite literally saved the world. You also need to read up on Operation Northwoods.

and what was the Bay of PIgs but a terrorist operation launched under the auspices of the CIA? Cuba was a sovereign government, like it or not. What would the US have done if a foreign neighbor had tried to invade one of our beaches?

Edited November 24, 2011 by AllenLowe

[alocispepraluger102]

jfk did not mishandle the Bay of Pigs, FYI - as the released CIA papers have shown, they set him up - they knew the operation was doomed to failure for logistical reasons; the plan was to get him to invade; Curtis Lemay was standing by hoping to initiate a battle with the Soviets, as he (and the Joint Chiefs) felt that the USA had a first strike capability. Kennedy, to his eternal credit, was too smart for that and quite literally saved the world. You also need to read up on Operation Northwoods.

and what was the Bay of PIgs but a terrorist operation launched under the auspices of the CIA? Cuba was a sovereign government, like it or not. What would the US have done if a foreign neighbor had tried to invade one of our beaches?

thank you, allen, for your knowledge and insight.

NORTHWOODS-----OMG!!!!!!!!! thanks

Edited November 24, 2011 by alocispepraluger102

[Chuck Nessa]

I was eating lunch in my car in Ames Iowa. I remember it well. When I returned to work my boss (Harold Kooser, a staunch Republican) said "I didn't like him, but I didn't want him to die". Thanks boss.

[JSngry]

I was in second grade in Shreveport, Louisiana, Alexander Elementary. The principal, Mrs. McCormick, was going from room to room announcing the shooting, and then a little later, the death. When the teacher (Mrs. LaGrone) left the room to confer with the principal, presumably about logistics, one boy named Dale (who lived in a tar-paper shack down by the river and ate dinner rolls all in one mouthful) made the comment that he was glad that that n****r President was dead. Everybody else just looked at him like he was an idiot, and when the teacher came back in the room crying (maybe it wasn't a talk about logistics that caused her to leave the room...), Dale shrunk down in his seat. Nice to see that whatever sense of shame he was going to have in life hadn't yet left him.

We were renting a house in a new-ish subdivision (Cherokee Park, now a drug-ghetto, or so I'm told) that didn't yet have schools, so we had to go through downtown Shreveport to get home. the rule was "quiet time" all the way through downtown, but on this day, nobody felt like talking, it was just so...weird. But the streets were swirling with activity, and newspaper boys were out with Extra editions of the Times (pretty sure it was, it might have been the Journal, the afternoon paper) for a nickle each. One boy leaned out the bus window and whistled a paper boy over, dropped a nickle, down, yanked the paper into the bus, and resumed his silence. Usually, that would be cause for immediate execution from the bus driver, but she ( I still remember her name too, Mrs. Green, a grey-haired lady who wore glasses and flannel shirts when it was cold) looked up in the mirror and said "get me one too, please". And so it went.

When I got home, my dad was already there, very unusual for him to be home that early. He was a lifelong old school "Main Street Republican", but when we got older, he admitted that that was one of the toughest days of his life. He hated Kennedy as a president, but had grown to really dig his personality, especially the press conferences (you weren't alone in that regard, Aloc...). The whole thing just seemed a waste to him, senseless. "I really came to like the guy" was how he put it, and my old man was not one say that about any politician.

I didn't really "understand" anything about it then, other than that the whole thing was weird. If you really want to get right down to it, it still was. One more of those things that just should not have happened, but did anyway.

A couple of months later, I was at the house of family friends, in the rec room with their kids watching The Beatles debut on the Sullivan show. Everybody was laughing like they were batshit crazyhappy, especially at Ringo.

That made sense, and a lot of it.

Edited November 24, 2011 by JSngry

[Neal Pomea]

Ruby shooting Oswald on Sunday. That made a big impression on me, for some reason. Immediate suspicion among my elder relatives. First up hand murder ever saw on TV.

I was very young but still remember LBJ's speech asking us to help him. Seems sincere even to this day. Most sincere presidential speech in my lifetime.

Edited November 24, 2011 by Neal Pomea

[JSngry]

Oh yeah, Oswald. We decided to go fishing on Sunday afternoon, some public lake, just fishing off a boat dock with a bunch of other people in the middle of the afternoon (in retrospect, it seems obvious that we weren't going to get even a nibble, and of course, we didn't). when a few feet over everybody starts talking about something, the only word that was clear was "Oswald". My dad steps over and asks them what's going on. Some fat guy in a straw Trilby, slacks, and suspenders (odd fishing attire, but hell, it was Shreveport) took a puff off the stub of his cigar and said in a real Ralph Kramden-ish cadence, "Lee Harvey Oswald...is no more", after which he took another puff off his stub and went back to his fishing.

We packed up and went home.

[alocispepraluger102]

Ruby shooting Oswald on Sunday. That made a big impression on me, for some reason. Immediate suspicion among my elder relatives. First up hand murder ever saw on TV.

I was very young but still remember LBJ's speech asking us to help him. Seems sincere even to this day. Most sincere presidential speech in my lifetime.

.............exactly as i remember them. thx. for the vivid recollections.

[Harold_Z]

Ruby shooting Oswald on Sunday. That made a big impression on me, for some reason. Immediate suspicion among my elder relatives. First up hand murder ever saw on TV.

I was 17 years old and watching TV with my father that Sunday when Oswald was shot. My father immediately said "He's being shut up."

I've been reading "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs recently. It discusses many of the assassination theories pro and con. Among the facts, however, is that over 50% of people interviewed who were in Dealey Plaza that day said that they heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll, among them Governor Connally, who was in the car with JFK and was wounded. Abe Zapruder, who shot the famous footage, said that the shots came fro0m behind him (The Grassy Knoll.)

[Noj]

A fascinating part of my education concerning US History is that it ended at the outset of the Vietnam War, despite the fact that I was born in 1976. I learned nothing about the historical events from the Vietnam War to the present in public school, everything I know about it I learned voluntarily.

It is not an accident. Vietnam lacks a good explanation. The assassination of JFK lacks a good explanation. Teachers lack the perspective to spin things in a good light. Current events show that the US is in a terrible state of turmoil and is reaping what it has sown during the last four decades. The foreign policies and actions of the military of my country during that time frame stand in direct contrast to the principles on which this nation was founded. The actions of our representatives stand in direct contrast to those principles. The actions of Republicans in particular stand in direct contrast to those principles. The hippies and their message of peace and love didn't win...but all the time it has been clear those people were right to challenge our government...

There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.

How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?

The fascists are in control and winning.

Edited November 24, 2011 by Noj

[brownie]

I had started a new job that week and came home in the afternoon. The radio was reporting on the events from Dallas. I was listening to the Europe 1 radio station but the report was pretty sketchy. I switched to the Voice of America. It was the next station on the longwave dial (no FM back then!). Minutes after I tuned in, the report broke with the news that JFK had died!

[Stereojack]

I was a freshman at Boston University. On that Friday morning my friend Gary and I had a couple of hours off between classes, and we got in his car and went for a drive. When we got back in time for an afternoon class, we were laughing and joking as we got out of the car. I remember that we got some strange looks from passers-by, but thought nothing of it. As we entered the student lounge, we heard the news. I remember looking around the room a saw a somber group of people. One girl who I knew as an upbeat cheerful type was sitting at the table sobbing. Classes were cancelled for the rest of that day.

I also remember seeing the Oswald shooting on TV two days later. It was all very surreal, although I didn't realize just how surreal it was at the time.

[PHILLYQ]

I remember I was in Catholic grammar school. When the news was received, the nuns told us to kneel down next to our desks to pray. Many of the nuns were crying, and of course many of the kids too. There seemed a tremendous level of grief in my neighborhood, which was primarily Irish-Italian Catholic. It took a long time for the shock to wear off.

I was also in Catholic grammar school(2nd grade). The nuns stopped classes and we prayed. Never saw them so sad. Not only was he the first Catholic president, but my neighborhood was also largely Irish-Italian, so a president of Irish heritage was particularly special.

[alocispepraluger102]

I remember I was in Catholic grammar school. When the news was received, the nuns told us to kneel down next to our desks to pray. Many of the nuns were crying, and of course many of the kids too. There seemed a tremendous level of grief in my neighborhood, which was primarily Irish-Italian Catholic. It took a long time for the shock to wear off.

I was also in Catholic grammar school(2nd grade). The nuns stopped classes and we prayed. Never saw them so sad. Not only was he the first Catholic president, but my neighborhood was also largely Irish-Italian, so a president of Irish heritage was particularly special.

second graders rarely know such grief. they, right or wrong, if possible, are shielded.

thx for sharing.

Edited November 24, 2011 by alocispepraluger102

[PHILLYQ]

Ruby shooting Oswald on Sunday. That made a big impression on me, for some reason. Immediate suspicion among my elder relatives. First up hand murder ever saw on TV.

I was very young but still remember LBJ's speech asking us to help him. Seems sincere even to this day. Most sincere presidential speech in my lifetime.

Live murder on TV in 1963- I remember seeing that- I was 7 years old and it's so distinct, even to this day.