On This Date

On this day 46 years ago – Friday, November 22, 1963 – something happened in America that had not happened since the turn of the century, has only happened four times since 1776, and has never happened since. An American president was murdered at the hands of an assassin. The first time this happened was in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was killed in the days after the tumultuous Civil War. Then in 1881, James Garfield (who was president for less than one year) was shot and died some time afterward. President William McKinley was the third president to die a violent death while still in office, in 1901.
But 46 years ago today, an event shattered the nation’s sense of well-being unlike any other presidential death, with the possible exception of Lincoln’s. Not since December 7, 1941, the “day which shall live in infamy” had the United States been so suddenly shocked. And in the 46 years since then, only the terrible events of September 11, 2001, were able to leave a similarly indelible mark on our psyche as a people.
Around 12:30 in the afternoon on a sunny autumn day in Dallas, Texas, and in full view of many cheering, waving people, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy – young, charismatic, popular, and in office for not even three years – was shot and critically wounded as he rode in an open limousine at the head of a motorcade on a brief journey through downtown Dallas. Also seriously wounded by the shots that rang out was Governor John B. Connally, who sat with his wife one seat ahead of Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy in the car.
The two leaders were rushed to a nearby hospital, where only one of them survived. Only a half hour after the first reports of gunshots being fired, the world learned that President Kennedy was dead. Never before in the new Age of Television had the country witnessed such a dramatic scene. Regular television and radio shows were interrupted by suit-wearing news anchors breaking the horrible news. Early reports were sketchy and uncertain, but as the afternoon and evening wore on, the situation became tragically clear. America had, in one brief moment, lost its president. Much like those of my generation on 9-11, everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news.
Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was quickly sworn in as the new president. In Dallas, a suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was caught and questioned in connection with the murder of a police officer and later of the president himself. The 24-year-old, who worked at the Texas School Book Depository (a building along the motorcade route and believed to be the source of the shots), was soon officially accused as Kennedy’s assassin. The story became even more clouded and dramatic when, on Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald himself was shot and mortally wounded by one Jack Ruby as he was being transferred from police headquarters – thus forever silencing the only accused gunman and depriving him of what would certainly have been a dramatic and historic trial. Then, as the new week dawned, the nation mourned as it watched the late president’s state funeral in Washington, D.C.
Many people have said that America was never quite the same after that day a week before Thanksgiving in 1963, that a certain sense of innocence and calm was broken forever. I was born 21 years afterward, and yet this event has held for me a certain air of fascinating mystery ever since I first saw the “Who Shot JFK?” documentaries on television as a young boy. I can only imagine the unforgettable shock and sadness that all Americans felt on that day as they watched events unfold. Unfortunately, I can in some ways relate, because I felt some of the same emotions on September 11, 2001, when our nation was blindsided as never before by catastrophic terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
With any gigantic historical event, those who witnessed it and even those who have come afterward often try to explain it and to account for exactly why and how it could have happened the way it did. The Kennedy Assassination is without doubt one of the most written-about, read-about, and diligently-studied events in history. Several bystanders who unexpectedly became eyewitnesses to history that day made amateur film recordings of what they saw (no doubt expecting only to record for posterity a little piece of the day they got to see the President up close). Some of these films are more valuable than others, but the one made by Abraham Zapruder – grainy, soundless, and barely half a minute long – has become probably the most closely scrutinized piece of film ever made.
Those do study the event come to different conclusions. Many accept the findings of the Warren Commission, appointed by President Johnson to investigate the assassination. The Commission came to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin, was indeed the only one responsible for the death of John F. Kennedy. But probably just as many people cast serious doubts on those findings, believing that such a history-altering event could not have been the work of one “lone nut”. And it is this debate that drives – for younger people like me and for those old enough to recall – the ongoing interest in this tragic chapter in American history.
In many ways, depending upon how you look at it, the Kennedy Assassination remains one of America’s greatest “unsolved mysteries”. This may not have become the case had Oswald survived and gotten a fair trial. However, his strange death only heightens the heated disagreements that many have about what exactly happened in Dealey Plaza.
The questions in this debate are numerous and varied, but let us list a few. How many shots were fired at the motorcade – three, four, or more? How likely was it for one shooter to be able fire that many accurate shots in the specified time frame of less than 10 seconds? Did the first shot hit both Kennedy and Connally in succession, and was it even possible for it to do so? From which direction did the final shot (the one that killed the president) come? Perhaps most famously, was there anyone situated, with a gun, at the “grassy knoll” by the road? What about other locations?
Clearly, the main issue at the heart of the debate is whether the assassination was the objective of a larger plot or whether it was the crazed act of one delusional man. Some believe the communist Soviets, America’s Cold War enemy, had something to do with it; others think it was the Mafia. Still others claim that it was a far more shockingly nefarious conspiracy with the approval or even participation of groups inside the government of the United States. On the other side stand those who take at face value the chain of events that point to Oswald alone. Both sides accuse the other of ignoring, explaining away, or even covering up important facts. Neither side ever seems to get anywhere when it comes to convincing the other.
And that is the way it will probably always be. As for me, I have not researched the subject enough to have a firm, educated opinion on it; however, my current view is that it is not at all hard, at least for me, to believe that a lone gunman was responsible. Still, I acknowledge that there are just enough questions, uncertainties, and “what-if’s” to make the subject endlessly interesting and quintessentially mysterious. That, along with the sheer magnitude of the event, is why we still talk about it 46 years later.
And so, today, in the year 2009, John Kennedy, our 35th President, has been gone for exactly as long as he lived – 46 years. Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take out of the tragedy is not an answer to the question “Who did it?” It may be that the biggest lessons are that God is ultimately the One in control of human events (and the One who knows their ultimate explanation, meaning, and purpose); that none of our leaders are ever gods – immortal or indestructible; and that no human, whether great and powerful or of humble position, knows his or her time – which is why we must always be ready to stand before our Creator.