No matter how old I become, I will never forget Nov. 22, 1963.
Sixty years have passed since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but the memories are still fresh.
“You read about assassinations in history books, but you don’t expect to have one,” I recall my father saying.
Indeed, the date of Kennedy’s untimely death was to my generation what Dec. 7, 1941, had been to our parents and their parents.
When the shock came, I was in a fifth-period ninth-grade general-science class at my high school in Tennessee. In less than two hours, I could put school — which I hated except for Latin class — behind me for a weekend.
As we read silently, the principal broke in over the squawk box and announced Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. About 20 minutes later, he interrupted again to say the president was dead.
What was happening? Had the Russians killed JFK as the opening shot of World War III? The news had a subduing effect on us. This was no time for rowdiness from Friday fever.
That weekend, each of the TV networks aired nonstop coverage of the events. The coverage continued through the funeral on Monday, Nov. 25, and into the night.
The national trauma was a blend of a murder mystery and The Twilight Zone. The images became indelibly etched in our brains:
— Kennedy in a limousine waving to well-wishers lining the motorcade route
— The sudden movement of the president’s head forward, and the abrupt breakaway of the car to speed to Parkland Hospital
— The photo aboard Air Force One showing a somber Lyndon Johnson taking the oath to become president, while Jackie Kennedy, now a widow, stood beside him in a blood-stained dress
— Photos of a loser — we should say, alleged loser — named Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested and charged with the murder of JFK and a Dallas police officer, as well as the wounding of Texas Gov. John Connally
— The extra shock of the killing of Oswald — televised live! — by a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby
— Thousands filing through the U.S. Capitol rotunda to pay their respect to Kennedy, whose body lay in state
— The funeral cortege with a riderless horse moving through Washington to JFK’s final earthly resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.
Within a year, people began asking questions about Kennedy’s death. There was immense suspicion about the Warren Commission’s report, which had concluded Oswald had acted alone. To many Americans, there were too many unanswered questions and loose ends in the story.
Some felt that Ruby had killed Oswald to prevent him from revealing a wider web of evil. Others thought Johnson may have been involved, to fulfill his own presidential ambitions. Still others, including JFK’s nephew Robert Jr., postulate the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in his uncle’s murder.
People laughed at President Donald Trump when he talked about a “deep state” of bureaucrats who wield more power than the elected officials.
Fuel for the “conspiracy theories” comes from a distrust of the government that began in the Vietnam War and mounted in Watergate. The distrust persists because not all of the information about JFK’s death has been released. Many documents are still classified. Further, for each paper still shrouded in secrecy, how many others have been destroyed over the years?
We may not know until the Final Judgment the full story of Kennedy’s death.
Meanwhile, the cover-up continues.