November 22-50 Years Later

Is it possible that half a century has passed since John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas? I was an 18-year-old college student at the time at Santa Monica City College. I was attending a morning class. During the lecture, a student on the other side of the room had entered and I heard him remark to someone near him that the president had been shot. I thought he had said that "Presley (Elvis) was shot". A few minutes passed. and then I remember the teacher announcing to the class that Kennedy had been shot and was dead. The class (and school) was suspended, and we all went off to experience the rest of that unbelieveable weekend via our TV sets.

I was in bed in my parents' apartment when my mother rushed in to say that she had just seen Oswald shot on TV. It was all so incredible.

Of course, over the ensuing decades, we learned some things about JFK that were not so noble; his womanizing in the White House and other affairs with people like Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner, the latter of whom was at the same time the mistress of Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana.

And of course, the conspiracy theories about Cuba, the Mafia, the CIA and all the rest have preoccupied us ever since. To this day, some in the media try to place the blame on some vague right-wing element. Never mind the huge and enthusiastic crowds that welcomed him to Dallas, as clearly seen on the newsreels. Never mind that Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist, and whether you believe others were involved or not, he was clearly guilty. Oliver Stone even produced a film ("JFK") that glorified New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, one of the most irresponsible prosecutors in the history of American jurisprudence, a man who tried to prosecute innocent people for the assassination.

It is easy to say that this event robbed America of its innocence and that we have been on a downward spiral ever since. Others take issue with that assumption. I think there is some truth to it. At any rate, it is one thing we could contemplate on this day.