45 years ago today

[StJohnsWood]

As someone who was not born yet (in my mother's tummy), I have a question for everyone who was around.

I study history and all indications point to the fact that JFK barely won the 1960 election (thank you Chicago and the dead voting) and was not tearing it up in the polls for 1964. One of the main reasons he was in Texas was because he feared losing the state in the next election.

My question is was everyone in love with JFK or was it just shock because of what happened (like 9/11) hence all the crying.

I've read several books were the JFK reelection of 1964 was no sure thing. Just curious on the mood of the upcoming election and who were the anti JFKers that could cause the polls to be that way. Hate to ask this but was all the love for him real or just revisionist history??

My son and I watched a show on the 22nd that PBS had about the actual news accounts including CBS breaking into the news reports. It was a very good show and my 8 year old actually started to cry when we saw JFK jr and Caroline at the funeral (hit a little to close to home I think).

Since most were fairly young, do you remember your parents feelings toward the President prior to the Dallas trip?

 

[kyounge1956]

As someone who was not born yet (in my mother's tummy), I have a question for everyone who was around.
(snip)

My question is was everyone in love with JFK or was it just shock because of what happened (like 9/11) hence all the crying.

I've read several books were the JFK reelection of 1964 was no sure thing. Just curious on the mood of the upcoming election and who were the anti JFKers that could cause the polls to be that way. Hate to ask this but was all the love for him real or just revisionist history??

IMO, a large amount of it was shock. The last president to be assassinated prior to JFK's death was McKinley in 1901, and I imagine most people who were around in 1963 hadn't been born yet when that happened. Murder of the president hadn't ever occurred in our lives or in many of our parents' lives; I have to go back to my grandparents for an ancestor who would have remembered President McKinley's death. My maternal grandmother (the only one of the four who was still living in 1963) was only about as old in 1901 as I was when JFK was killled, and likely didn't remember any more about the McKinley shooting than I do about JFK's. I wonder if my parents ever asked her about her memories (if any) of 1901 and the death of Pres. McKinley.

I think that the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald also contributes to the continuing interest in the JFK assassination. With McKinley, the assassin fired at point blank range in view of a large number of people, and was apprehended on the spot by bystanders. There was never any doubt that I know of, about who had killed the president. The president was shot, the murderer was caught, tried and executed, end of story. Contrast this to the unanswered questions and conspiracy theories surrounding the death of JFK, and is there any wonder that 45 years afterwards, some people are still wondering what really happened?

Since most were fairly young, do you remember your parents feelings toward the President prior to the Dallas trip?

That's an interesting question. I don't remember what my parents' feelings were then. They are pretty liberal now, so I would guess them to have been positive at the time. I wonder if their attitude would have changed had JFK, rather than LBJ, been in the White House from 1964 to 1968 as opinion shifted against the Vietnam war. I wonder too, whether we would have put a man on the moon in ten years if JFK had not been shot.

 

[kumquat]

I remember about 20 years ago I was out for lunch with some co-w*rkers when someone on the radio in the place we were eating said 'this is the anniversary of JFK's shooting, everyone one remembers what they were doing when they heard the news'. I did, was at school. I turned to the lady beside me and asked 'what were you doing Jane?'. Her response made me feel REALLY OLD when she said 'I was waiting to be conceived'.

 

[W2R]

My question is was everyone in love with JFK or was it just shock because of what happened (like 9/11) hence all the crying.

Shock and disbelief. It was a very similar feeling to those we felt on 9/11. It wasn't the fact that John F. Kennedy was assassinated - - it was the fact that the President of the U.S. had been assassinated, if you know what I mean. The office, not the man.

Hate to ask this but was all the love for him real or just revisionist history??

Most of my fellow students were Republicans, and that is why we thought our fellow student was joking when he told us JFK had been assassinated. We had no love for JFK. Neither did my family. Obviously many people did, because he was elected.

My son and I watched a show on the 22nd that PBS had about the actual news accounts including CBS breaking into the news reports. It was a very good show and my 8 year old actually started to cry when we saw JFK jr and Caroline at the funeral (hit a little to close to home I think).

Since most were fairly young, do you remember your parents feelings toward the President prior to the Dallas trip?

My father thought JFK had been elected because he was handsome and got the female vote. I had not yet reached the age at which my political opinions were not just reflections of those of my parents. So, I thought he was an idiot. I still cried!! Maybe it's stretching it, but as an analogy - - even if you thought those people jumping from the WTC were mostly corporate or Wall Street slime, you might have still cried while watching the footage on 9/11.

JFK's assassination changed the world, IMO. My perception is that before that time, America was focused on the space race and we had great hopes and dreams and I believe more trust in our government than we have today. The perception (correct or not) that the Warren Commission did not fully explore the events surrounding the assassination had a great effect on some of us.

 

[Coach]

StJohnsWood, my parents were both Republicans so we weren't a household of Kennedy fans. I suspect he did win some points with my folks for the way he handled the Cuban missile crisis. I think it was shock, compounded by his youth, and that they were a really attractive family with young children.

Coach

 

[ijuba]

1st grade.....

Announcement on P.A. at school.....Released from school ("Cool")....remember walking home from bus stop and seeing a 6th grade guy who certainly was a "man" to me - crying. Certainly not something I thought he was capable of. I knew it was serious at that point.

Went home to see my dad putting our flag up at half mast....another indicator that the sh*t had hit the fan.

No cartoons on Saturday - major indicator that the world was on the skids. Then Sunday, mom screaming that they'd shot Oswald while watching the TV.....

Funeral: John, John and Caroline - "hey they're my people - this is serious".

Fascinated with the conspiracy theory all my adult life. Visited Dealy Plaza/Texas B.D. One thing that really struck me, looking out the 6th floor window - Dealy Plaza is quaint and much smaller than I imagined looking at Zapruder Film. The shot from that window was MUCH closer than I ever imagined and....came away struck that, a conspiracy might not have, in fact, existed. Very well done museum.

Also recent technical analysis points to no conspiracy.

 

[Htown Harry]

I was three, living in Dallas. My mom still has the picture I made that weekend.

She tells me that while the adults we're watching the coverage on TV, I was in the corner filling up a sheet of paper with angry dark crayon scribbles. There's almost no paper visible, and the paper is stiff with the weight of the wax.

My memories are hazy, but I remember watching the funeral, especially John Jr.'s salute and the riderless horse pulling the caisson. (Why are the boots backwards, Mommy?)