Just a week and a half ago marked the fiftieth anniversary of an event most of us would just as soon forget about.
I was not alive on Friday, November 22, 1963, when teletype bells rang wildly at radio and television stations and newspapers worldwide.
After forty-six-and-a-half years on this planet, John Fitzgerald Kennedy's life ended as a bullet entered his skull in a motorcade along Elm Street near Stemmons Freeway in Dallas, Texas. It is still vividly remembered today by those who were around back then when the tragedy occurred, and the circumstances surrounding it are still being hotly debated.
Was President Kennedy one of the greatest presidents of all time? Or has history made him larger than life because of his death at a young age and at the hands of an assassin's bullet?
Depends.
Without a doubt, he was the most popular president among the baby boomers. To them, he represented their generation, hungry for change and demanding an end to the American lives lost in the Vietnam War.
His then nouveau-riche family, today lauded as a political dynasty, afforded him many opportunities other Americans could only dream of. Nonetheless, he was touched by the poverty in Appalachia that he witnessed firsthand as he was campaigning for the highest elected office in the United States.
He felt that communism had to be brought under control, and to be done without any further casualities in Vietnam or elsewhere overseas. He urged America's space program to commit itself to a successful manned lunar mission by the end of the 1960's. He felt that federal intervention was necessary if racially-motivated violence in the American South was ever to end. He and his wife brought a contemporary flair to the Oval Office, often keeping company with the likes of Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Vince Lombardi, Barbra Streisand, Oleg Cassini and countless others.
While many of his goals were ultimately realized, albeit posthumously, his administration had its share of challenges.
A failed invasion of Cuba intended to topple Fidel Castro's regime. A showdown with Russia over atomic weapons that brought the world the closest it's ever been to a nuclear holocaust. Managing poor health while trying to appear at the same time strong to the rest of the world. Whispered marital infidelities that the press largely turned a blind eye to. Accusations of nepotism over the choice of his brother as Attorney General. The death of his infant son. Overzealous organized crime investigations that historians believe led to his murder.
His successor, Lyndon Johnson, a man with whom there was no love lost, tried his best to move the country past the tragedy with The Warren Commission investigation. The finds were for the most part, laughable, at best, and were all but discredited following committee hearings in 1976 and again in 1992. To this day, no true and definitive answer surrounding Kennedy's death has ever come, nor does it appear to ever will in this writer's lifetime.
I have researched John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family since the age of ten, when I first learned of the tragedy in fifth grade Catholic school. It had a profound effect on me, and I made the most of every opportunity to read everything I could on the subject.
After thirty-four years, I too am no closer to an answer.
Until the day comes when we have a definitive answer, I say this:
"Thank you, Mr. President."
NEXT WEEK: Thanks...???
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