2003-11-22 - 11:20 a.m.

Forty Years Ago

It has been forty years � less than half the population can even remember President Kennedy. When you talk about the sudden loss of innocence, the assassination of John F. Kennedy epitomized it as nothing had before; not until 9/11 did a catastrophe hit us all so hard.

I don�t know whether I can explain how my friends and colleagues felt about politics in general and Kennedy in particular. Most of us weren�t interested because we were too young to vote. (You had to be twenty-one; the voting age didn�t change for another eight years.) I can�t remember any real interest in the procedure, though we studied it in sixth grade. Most of the kids liked Ike, but that wasn�t politics. That was just a nice man who liked to be liked.

Kennedy came upon the scene like a whole new beginning. He was young, his wife was not only young but stylish, and he welcomed young people with an enthusiasm I hadn�t seen before. We listened to what he had to say, and most of us agreed. The most important thing about John Kennedy was that, whether you loved him or hated him, you couldn�t ignore him. And he had the kind of face that photographed well. Instead of posting pictures of movie stars, we were suddenly putting up the cover photos from Time.

So we supported him in any way we could. We swallowed our disappointment at not being able to vote for him and did whatever work we could to help him get elected.

The years of his presidency � mixed as any administration � were more good than bad. After the Bay of Pigs, Jackie Kennedy spoke to the surviving families � in Spanish. We were charmed. With the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were full of pride. When the Kennedy�s entered the diplomatic arena, either here or abroad, they did us proud. At their parties, they served the right foods and provided the best entertainment. There was never a faux pas caused by those �barbaric Americans.� �Ich bin ein Berliner� may not have been good German, but it touched the hearts of the people who heard it.

[For those of you who haven�t studied the history in depth, it wasn�t the Kennedy administration that got us into southeast Asia. It was the Eisenhower administration, and no one was more worried about our being in Cambodia � Viet Nam wasn�t mentioned yet � than John Kennedy.]

And he was funny. I�m sure some of the press corps fed him lines, just so he could exercise his sense of humor. Even when he couldn�t talk. Once, when he had laryngitis, Teddy read his speech for him. Teddy got so carried away with his own rhetoric that Jack whispered into the mike, �Teddy has forgotten he has to be thirty-five before he can run for president.�

On that November day, I was working in the catalogue department of the public library. My specialty was to catalogue non-English books (when we had them), and I had just been given a box of French books about classical composers and artists. I think I was working on the one about Liszt when the first phone call came. With the second call, the one where we knew he was dead, the place just closed up.

I started to walk toward the bus stop, but I couldn�t bear to talk to anyone. So I turned around and walked home, with tears streaming all the way. We had been robbed and we were never going to have the chance to vote for him.

My brother was program manager and DJ for a college radio station. He picked up the Vaughn Meader album, �First Family,� and broke it on the air. It wasn�t funny any more. I remembered that as I listened to the radio Friday morning. Someone said, I wonder what it was like being on the radio that day. Brother knows.

On the radio they were playing news clips from all three networks, not to mention Walter Cronkite on television. (You�ve probably seen that one.) I hadn�t heard most of these before � �we interrupt this broadcast�� � because by the time I got home, the news was still progressing. We kept the radio on all weekend.

I was listening to the radio when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. I ran downstairs and told my parents Oswald had been shot, and they turned on the television. And we saw it. I think that was the first time the general public realized the power of videotape.

For many of you, this is ancient history. For those who turned twenty-one between 1960 and 1964, it was a huge turning point in our lives. Most of us voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964; that was a gut reaction. Barry Goldwater showed enormous courage to run against Johnson, knowing he�d get beaten �badly. I read more history because of John Kennedy. He shaped a lot of my political thinking, even if I don�t agree with everything he did.

Above all, I don�t think we�ve trusted anyone completely since those days.

Current Reading: Founding Brothers - Ellis
Good Diary Today:
From the Old Folks' Radio: "Straighten Up and Fly Right" - Nat Cole

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