I was at work when this Kennedy Assassination happened. I lived in California at the time, and the news broke over my lunch hour. It was an unbelievable time.
I woke up this morning thinking about this. It is now the year 2021. This was back in November 22, 1963; 57 years ago, For me at age 85, memories pop up all the time for no reason. However, frequently, names and dates elude me. However, this is one thing that is still very vivid in my memory.
I will never forget the image of the open convertible going down a street in Dallas and seeing our President slump down when he was shot in the head. Since I was at work when this happened, this is a re-run by the networks that was played over and over. But after that afternoon, I was glued to the TV for days and days, watching the happenings as they occured, and the re-runs.
The image of a blood-stained Jacquelin Kenney standing next to Lyndon B. Johnson on Air Force One as he was sworn in as the next President., is another image fixed in my memory. And the subsequent images of the funeral procession with the young John-John saluting his Dad.
The Country Mourned
The whole country was in mourning. There was no political divide. Kennedy’s election had been as contentious as all Presidental elections are. This one was because of religion. Kennedy was our first Catholic candidate. The country was divided over the fear of the Catholic Church and the Pope having control over our country if a Catholic was elected.
As I mentioned above, at my age names sometimes elude me. I had to look up the first name of Lyndon Johnson, but the names Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby are firmly fixed in my memory.
Oswald was identified and arrested as the assassin. Jack Ruby subsequently shot and killed Oswald at the police station when he was brought in.
I won’t try to recount all of the events during that time. They are firmly recorded in history. There was even a lengthy investigation – the Warren Report – that attempted to define the reason behind Oswald’s action. This report was sealed for many years and I have to admit that since it was released, I have not read it.
The Investigation
I just Googled The Warren Report and this is the headline that came up – “The Warren Report assured Americans that their president was killed by a single deranged lunatic and not targeted by a foreign government or organization. It also reassured many that their own government was able to conduct a thorough investigation and provide them with the answers that they were looking for.”
That paragraph is interesting to me. There is still controversy about the Report itself.
What happened to Ruby? That pretty much faded away. He did stand trial and was sentenced to death in a Texas courtroom. Then in January 1967, Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died of cancer in a Dallas hospital.
This is the end of my story, but I can’t help thinking of our nation now as opposed to back then. We are all still so divided over a popular/unpopular President, who is now out of office. The framework of our Democracy is still intact, with free elections, but there is still so much contention over this past election. People refusing to accept the results. Audits of the ballots occurred here in Arizona, with other states talking of also conducting their own audits. The country has changed over these years. But for better or worse, the USA must go on.