For those of us of a certain age, there will always be a feeling of lost innocence and melancholy on each anniversary of President Kennedy's
assassination 60 years ago today. It was almost impossible to
comprehend at the time: a youthful, smart, witty, handsome member of
the greatest generation suddenly dead from an assassin's bullets.
There are those "where were you when..." moments in life, and
this was certainly the one for our generation. We were sophomores in
high school when the news broke over the radio after 2 p.m. Eastern
time. Gym class for one, chorus for the other. Everyone was overcome
with shock and grief as we sat in silent class rooms later listening to
the radio over the public address system. "This can't be happening,"
must have been what most were thinking and feeling.
It was about a year before Vietnam heated up and about a year after the
Cuban missile crisis had ended. It was a time of growing awareness of
the civil rights cause, and of urgency in the race to the moon.
We'll never know how this country would have changed had President
Kennedy lived and served two full terms. The Vietnam War? We may have
pulled out before committing thousands of ground troops. Cynicism about
Government and institutions? A different course of events in Vietnam
and with the civil rights movement might have affected that. We do know
that Kennedy's agenda on civil rights and space exploration was
strengthened and implemented (to his often-forgotten credit) by
President Lyndon B. Johnson. But we're still left with questions about
what might have been, what we might have been as a country. The
assassin's bullet took all that away, too.
(2013 Hackwhacker piece updated and reposted by W. Hackwhacker)
(Photo: Associated Press)
