11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

[Old Pio]

I'm not interested in starting arguments about the various conspiracy theories. Most people's minds are already made up. I just think it's important for those of us who were around that day to recall it and how it made us feel. I doubt I'm alone in saying the death of President Kennedy affected me more than 9/11. It was a different time.

Like everyone, I can recall many details of that day. As I moved around the campus the story developed: shots fired in Dealey Plaza. . .the president taken to Parkland. . .we think he may have been hit in the head. . .Father Huber has administered the last rites. . .the president is dead. . .a suspect has been arrested. . .a Dallas cop has been killed. . .the presumed murder weapon has been found in the book depository.

It's all flooding back as I write this. Terrible, shocking, sickening, frightening.

I was a freshman at Illinois and we were all jacked up about the game to decide who goes to the Rose Bowl--against MSU in East Lansing, tomorrow. Game is postponed to Thanksgiving day.

Couple of days later ROTC students (as a land grant school, in those days, ROTC was mandatory for underclassmen) assembled outside Assembly Hall, full dress uniforms, no coats, no gloves, all wearing black armbands. Thousands of us. We marched into the building to muffled drums. President David Dodd Henry broke down and wept. As I am now.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Thank you for your memories of the day.

I was 9 months old but I still know exactly where I was because my mother remembers it all clearly. We were at the foot of our driveway getting the mail and our neighbor ran across the street and told her the president has been shot (not killed, that came much later). Both my parents are reserved Depression Era people, but they still speak stirringly and emotionally about those next few days. It's the historical moment they'd change with their time machine if they could, you can tell that -- not Pearl, not 9/11. They really see it as the moment of America's loss of innocence.

 

[Puck Swami]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I was also 9 months old and living in New York City at the time, probably concentrating on my toys, the family dog and food. No personal memories of course, but I think the 'loss of innocence' is the way my parents describe it as well. My Dad came home from work that Friday and stayed pretty much glued to the TV for the next four days. They were inspired by Kennedy's youth, intellect and energy, and as a young family with their first child (me) I think the sense of devastation they felt was quite acute. My father told me that Kennedy's assasination affected him far more than the death of his own mother earlier that same month at the age of 52. Today, the Eisenhower era is seen in films mostly in black and white, while the Kennedy era is seen in more color. I get the sense that that Black and White to Color change encapsualates, in many ways, that loss of of innocence. As our world today moves into HD, the edges of things get harder and harder....

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Thank you for your memories of the day.

I was 9 months old but I still know exactly where I was because my mother remembers it all clearly. We were at the foot of our driveway getting the mail and our neighbor ran across the street and told her the president has been shot (not killed, that came much later). Both my parents are reserved Depression Era people, but they still speak stirringly and emotionally about those next few days. It's the historical moment they'd change with their time machine if they could, you can tell that -- not Pearl, not 9/11. They really see it as the moment of America's loss of innocence.

I was not a supporter of JFK (now there's a profound revelation) but our politics hadn't yet devolved into a swamp, and I didn't hate him. There was a lot to like about Jack Kennedy, not the least of which was his resolute leadership in the cold war. My old man used to say: "The trouble with those Kennedys is that they're not Republicans," a point well taken, but I believe would have ultimately been amended to exclude Teddy.

He was not perfect, wasn't a saint and treated his wife horribly. If today's standards of conduct and reportage applied then, he might not have survived in office. Think of the scandal of a POTUS possibly having an affair with an East German spy! The general public wasn't privy to any of that. Then as now the media were in love with the president. It's not hard to understand why. Apart from politics, he was a handsome, charming, witty guy with an astonishingly beautiful wife and two uber cute kids. We've all heard the stories about JFK calling the media to take pictures of the kids as soon as Jackie went wheels up on a trip somewhere.

And the Kennedys were masters of controlling their image. William Manchester (a particular favorite) wrote the first major book about the assassination, "Death of a President." He was given all sorts of access, but had to agree to prior censorship to get it. An example: on the day of the assasination, JFK suggested to Jackie that she wear that pink outfit "to show up those cheap Texas broads." That remark was removed by the Kennedys (probably Bobby) but to me it accurately reflects how a tough, cigar smoking Boston Irishman with a gorgeous wife would talk (especially about cheap Texas broads).

It was also Manchester who put his finger on the problem with investigating the assassination (I'm paraphrasing). "With the Holocaust you have a rough balance--greatest crime, greatest criminals. But in the assassination of JFK it doesn't seem to balance. On the one hand, you have this wretched waif Oswald, on the other, the young, handsome POTUS. Something is needed to give the death of the president more weight, more importance. A conspiracy would do nicely."

The lasting image of those terrible days was John John saluting his father's casket (the impact diminished only slightly when you realize his mother told him to do it, as the films clearly reveal). To me, an even more haunting event was the birthday party they held for the little boy in the WH that weekend. Little boys don't understand canceling birthday parties. Try to put yourself where the rest of his family was as they tried their best to give the boy a moment of happiness in the midst of such sorrow.

Doubtless the reporting of this event, especially TV, brought it home to the public in a way no prior tragedy ever had been. And that significantly ramped up the emotional reactiion to the killing. You look back and realize how comically inept and unsophisticated the reporting actually was. There's an NBC interview with Abraham Zapruder where the reporter was simply unable to pronounce the guy's name right, calling him "Zah-poo'-dah" over and over. You just want to reach into the screen and slap the guy. Yet, the killing of Oswald occurred on live TV. The majesty of the funeral was on live TV. All these years later I remember the name of the riderless horse was Blackjack. We had had radio coverage of FDR's funeral, with Arthur Godfrey asking God to help him get through it. But the immediacy and intimacy of TV, plus the circumstances, put JFK's funeral in a whole new place.

My reaction to 9/11 was rage (as it surely would have been with Pearl Harbor) and a white hot desire to kill every one of the bastids responsible. With JFK it was different. Sadness, sure. Anger, of course. But something more. An emptiness. A void. A realization that even the President of the United States could be victimized in the most cruel fashion. It felt terrible then. And recalling it decades later, it still feels terrible.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I was also 9 months old and living in New York City at the time, probably concentrating on my toys, the family dog and food. No personal memories of course, but I think the 'loss of innocence' is the way my parents describe it as well. My Dad came home from work that Friday and stayed pretty much glued to the TV for the next four days. They were inspired by Kennedy's youth, intellect and energy, and as a young family with their first child (me) I think the sense of devastation they felt was quite acute. My father told me that Kennedy's assasination affected him far more than the death of his own mother earlier that same month at the age of 52. Today, the Eisenhower era is seen in films mostly in black and white, while the Kennedy era is seen in more color. I get the sense that that Black and White to Color change encapsualates, in many ways, that loss of of innocence. As our world today moves into HD, the edges of things get harder and harder....

I get some of the same reaction viewing color film (not colorized) from the Third Reich. It's as if we assume the sky wasn't blue and the grass green in those days. Somehow those color images seem to soften the reality of what was going on.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I get some of the same reaction viewing color film (not colorized) from the Third Reich. It's as if we assume the sky wasn't blue and the grass green in those days. Somehow those color images seem to soften the reality of what was going on.

I get the sentiment (this reply is far, far from an indictment - I admit I might fully be missing the beat here), but for me they never will nor can. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I get the sentiment (this reply is far, far from an indictment - I admit I might fully be missing the beat here), but for me they never will nor can. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/

I'll readily admit it'd take a heap of softening to change significantly the perception of what happened in those days. Maybe "soften" is the wrong word. Seeing those few original color images just feels different to me. I'm the guy who occasionally has to do a tutorial for the youngsters who glibly compare what happened to native Americans with the Holocaust. As bad as the former was, there was no Wannsee Conference to work out details of "the final solution" to the Indian "problem."

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

My reaction to 9/11 was rage (as it surely would have been with Pearl Harbor) and a white hot desire to kill every one of the bastids responsible. With JFK it was different. Sadness, sure. Anger, of course. But something more. An emptiness. A void. A realization that even the President of the United States could be victimized in the most cruel fashion. It felt terrible then. And recalling it decades later, it still feels terrible.

I felt something like this when Reagan was shot, although I can also remember a feeling that for lack of a better word I would call "offense." Here was probably the personification of the opposite of everything I believe politically and the moment before he was shot he was -- well, all the string of unprintable adjectives Obama is now to his opponents. But the moment after he was shot *my* president had been attacked. Here was a guy who to the end of time I'd vote against, but he had won a free and fair election in my country and attacking him was attacking my values and, really, my extended family. I remember being incredibly relieved as he recovered and even enjoying his joking later with his doctors, carefully scripted though it likely was and even at the time I probably realized.

It wasn't just the tragedy and imminence of death. Part of it I'm sure was shock but a great part of it was the crossing of a line that cannot be crossed if we are to remain men rather than beasts, and the crossing of which puts the perpetrator outside the circle of, and the enemy of, all mankind. There is of course that element to any murder, but that works intimately -- as if you are putting yourself in the shoes of the murdered and seeing the devastation on your loved ones. But this was a feeling that the Rule of Fundamental Law -- not statute but what theists must think of as divine order -- was violated. "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right."

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I get some of the same reaction viewing color film (not colorized) from the Third Reich. It's as if we assume the sky wasn't blue and the grass green in those days. Somehow those color images seem to soften the reality of what was going on.

Those color films are devastating. It's as if we think of black and white as "past" and color as "present." Watching a documentary separated from us by wide gulfs of time is like watching a Greek tragedy where you know events will play out with terrifying inevitability. Watching in color makes me want to reach into the scene, shake people, warn them, tell them to flee, or better yet to turn and fight now before it's too late.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Those color films are devastating. It's as if we think of black and white as "past" and color as "present." Watching a documentary separated from us by wide gulfs of time is like watching a Greek tragedy where you know events will play out with terrifying inevitability. Watching in color makes me want to reach into the scene, shake people, warn them, tell them to flee, or better yet to turn and fight now before it's too late.

Seeing Eva's home movies at the Berghof, you realize they could be scenes of any American president relaxing at Camp David with his inner circle. Boring and banal. Only the reality of who they were and what they were up to makes them so chilling.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

A passage from the Encyclopedia of Philosophy about what Arendt meant by "the banality of evil."

Published in the same year as On Revolution, Arendt’s book about the Eichmann trial presents both a continuity with her previous works, but also a change in emphasis that would continue to the end of her life. This work marks a shift in her concerns from the nature of political action, to a concern with the faculties that underpin it – the interrelated activities of thinking and judging.

She controversially uses the phrase “the banality of evil” to characterize Eichmann’s actions as a member of the Nazi regime, in particular his role as chief architect and executioner of Hitler’s genocidal “final solution” (Endlosung) for the “Jewish problem.” Her characterization of these actions, so obscene in their nature and consequences, as “banal” is not meant to position them as workaday. Rather it is meant to contest the prevalent depictions of the Nazi’s inexplicable atrocities as having emanated from a malevolent will to do evil, a delight in murder. As far as Arendt could discern, Eichmann came to his willing involvement with the program of genocide through a failure or absence of the faculties of sound thinking and judgement. From Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem (where he had been brought after Israeli agents found him in hiding in Argentina), Arendt concluded that far from exhibiting a malevolent hatred of Jews which could have accounted psychologically for his participation in the Holocaust, Eichmann was an utterly innocuous individual. He operated unthinkingly, following orders, efficiently carrying them out, with no consideration of their effects upon those he targeted. The human dimension of these activities were not entertained, so the extermination of the Jews became indistinguishable from any other bureaucratically assigned and discharged responsibility for Eichmann and his cohorts.

Arendt concluded that Eichmann was constitutively incapable of exercising the kind of judgement that would have made his victims’ suffering real or apparent for him. It was not the presence of hatred that enabled Eichmann to perpetrate the genocide, but the absence of the imaginative capacities that would have made the human and moral dimensions of his activities tangible for him. Eichmann failed to exercise his capacity of thinking, of having an internal dialogue with himself, which would have permitted self-awareness of the evil nature of his deeds. This amounted to a failure to use self-reflection as a basis for judgement, the faculty that would have required Eichmann to exercise his imagination so as to contemplate the nature of his deeds from the experiential standpoint of his victims. This connection between the complicity with political evil and the failure of thinking and judgement inspired the last phase of Arendt’s work, which sought to explicate the nature of these faculties and their constitutive role for politically and morally responsible choices.

This is the classic problem with ideologues of all stripes in all ages. They decouple the "logic" of their propositions from the consequences to human beings. Continuing:

Arendt’s concern with political judgement, and its crisis in the modern era, is a recurrent theme in her work. As noted earlier, Arendt bemoans the “world alienation” that characterizes the modern era, the destruction of a stable institutional and experiential world that could provide a stable context in which humans could organize their collective existence. Moreover, it will be recalled that in human action Arendt recognizes (for good or ill) the capacity to bring the new, unexpected, and unanticipated into the world. This quality of action means that it constantly threatens to defy or exceed our existing categories of understanding or judgement; precedents and rules cannot help us judge properly what is unprecedented and new. So for Arendt, our categories and standards of thought are always beset by their potential inadequacy with respect to that which they are called upon to judge. However, this aporia of judgement reaches a crisis point in the 20th century under the repeated impact of its monstrous and unprecedented events. The mass destruction of two World Wars, the development of technologies which threaten global annihilation, the rise of totalitarianism, and the murder of millions in the Nazi death camps and Stalin’s purges have effectively exploded our existing standards for moral and political judgement. Tradition lies in shattered fragments around us and “the very framework within which understanding and judging could arise is gone.” The shared bases of understanding, handed down to us in our tradition, seem irretrievably lost. Arendt confronts the question: on what basis can one judge the unprecedented, the incredible, the monstrous which defies our established understandings and experiences? If we are to judge at all, it must now be “without preconceived categories and…without the set of customary rules which is morality;” it must be “thinking without a banister.” In order to secure the possibility of such judgement Arendt must establish that there in fact exists “an independent human faculty, unsupported by law and public opinion, that judges anew in full spontaneity every deed and intent whenever the occasion arises.” This for Arendt comes to represent “one of the central moral questions of all time, namely…the nature and function of human judgement.” It is with this goal and this question in mind that the work of Arendt’s final years converges on the “unwritten political philosophy” of Kant’s Critique of Judgement.

Arendt eschews “determinate judgement,” judgement that subsumes particulars under a universal or rule that already exists. Instead, she turns to Kant’s account of “reflective judgement,” the judgement of a particular for which no rule or precedent exists, but for which some judgement must nevertheless be arrived at. What Arendt finds so valuable in Kant’s account is that reflective judgement proceeds from the particular with which it is confronted, yet nevertheless has a universalizing moment – it proceeds from the operation of a capacity that is shared by all beings possessed of the faculties of reason and understanding. Kant requires us to judge from this common standpoint, on the basis of what we share with all others, by setting aside our own egocentric and private concerns or interests. The faculty of reflective judgement requires us to set aside considerations which are purely private (matters of personal liking and private interest) and instead judge from the perspective of what we share in common with others (i.e. must be disinterested). Arendt places great weight upon this notion of a faculty of judgement that “thinks from the standpoint of everyone else.” This “broadened way of thinking” or “enlarged mentality” enables us to “compare our judgement not so much with the actual as rather with the merely possible judgement of others, and [thus] put ourselves in the position of everybody else…” For Arendt, this “representative thinking” is made possible by the exercise of the imagination – as Arendt beautifully puts it, “To think with an enlarged mentality means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting.” “Going visiting” in this way enables us to make individual, particular acts of judgement which can nevertheless claim a public validity.

In a word: empathy.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I felt something like this when Reagan was shot, although I can also remember a feeling that for lack of a better word I would call "offense." Here was probably the personification of the opposite of everything I believe politically and the moment before he was shot he was -- well, all the string of unprintable adjectives Obama is now to his opponents. But the moment after he was shot *my* president had been attacked. Here was a guy who to the end of time I'd vote against, but he had won a free and fair election in my country and attacking him was attacking my values and, really, my extended family. I remember being incredibly relieved as he recovered and even enjoying his joking later with his doctors, carefully scripted though it likely was and even at the time I probably realized.

It wasn't just the tragedy and imminence of death. Part of it I'm sure was shock but a great part of it was the crossing of a line that cannot be crossed if we are to remain men rather than beasts, and the crossing of which puts the perpetrator outside the circle of, and the enemy of, all mankind. There is of course that element to any murder, but that works intimately -- as if you are putting yourself in the shoes of the murdered and seeing the devastation on your loved ones. But this was a feeling that the Rule of Fundamental Law -- not statute but what theists must think of as divine order -- was violated. "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right."

Of course, because we don't settle political disagreements with bullets. Although, typically, American style assassins aren't making political statements. Booth and Ray may be the exceptions. I was watching the coverage of the California democratic primary and recall vividly as THAT story developed: reporter doing a stand up in the foreground, something, not sure what it is, happening in the background. Can it be possible? Senator Kennedy's been shot. Audio recording: (to Rosie Grier) "get the gun, get the gun, break his thumb if you have to, Rosie, we don't want another Oswald." Senator Kennedy lying on floor in pool of his blood, eyes not focused. Woman in the polka dot dress. Then, hours later, Mankiewitz announcing RFK was dead.

In those days, networks and local stations didn't stay on 24/7 and there were no cable news stations. Watching in the fraternity house, I wound up switching from channel to channel as the networks shut down. Last to go was ABC with Howard K. Smith IIRC. Got some sleep. Came back in time to see the Mankewitz announcement that Bobby hadn't made it.

GD it, these things aren't supposed to happen here.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Nice thread. The fact this affected you more than 9/11 blows my mind of just how far reaching the event was.

Just thinking about it now...the swamp of politics is probably the most significant national downfall of our overall generation.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

GD it, these things aren't supposed to happen here.

Hopefully they will never happen again. (Of course, "never" is too long a time frame for anything.)


I think Booth stands alone in US history in being an assassination that was both political and which had the support of anyone beyond an insane fringe, a testament to how categorically different the time of the Civil War is to any other time in US history. Nothing has approached the Civil War's feeling of "political fundamentalism," where people on both sides thought literally any measure appropriate. There was nothing like that during the Nullification Crisis, nor during the insanities of the Anarchist Scare or the Red Scare. There may have been something like it with the lynchings of Loyalists during the Revolution, but aside from some rabble who took Sam Adams a little too seriously, I doubt there was even wide support for that.

And of course there is nothing like it now. Anybody comparing (any US politician here) to Hitler should bear that in mind, since, if they are really serious, there is literally nothing they should stop short of; you can't countenance Hitler.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Enjoyed reading through this thread. One of the many where the subject could have easily deteriorated into the typical banal political sniping and yet imho stayed true to an honest exchange of opinions.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Enjoyed reading through this thread. One of the many where the subject could have easily deteriorated into the typical banal political sniping and yet imho stayed true to an honest exchange of opinions.

It seemed important to remember what those days were like. This is a limiting foremat, and someone more articulate than me doubtless would have done a better job, but I think I got some points in. As those horrible events fade into memory, the death of JFK becomes just a few paragraphs in a history book or perhaps a screening of "JFK." Apart from the extravagently flawed natured of the film, that's not enough.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

It's strange that such a significant American historical and cultural event has never had its defining literary or film treatment. The Civil War has Gone with the Wind. The Jazz Age has The Great Gatzby. The Great Depression has The Grapes of Wrath. WW2 has a half dozen great novels and films. But there is really nothing like that for the period of turmoil that runs roughly from Brown v Board to the pardon of Nixon. Odder still since that period is the obsession of the most narcissistic generation in American history. The closest we have is To Kill a Mockingbird, but that's a very specific treatment of one issue and one place.

 

[joecct]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

It's strange that such a significant American historical and cultural event has never had its defining literary or film treatment. The Civil War has Gone with the Wind. The Jazz Age has The Great Gatzby. The Great Depression has The Grapes of Wrath. WW2 has a half dozen great novels and films. But there is really nothing like that for the period of turmoil that runs roughly from Brown v Board to the pardon of Nixon. Odder still since that period is the obsession of the most narcissistic generation in American history. The closest we have is To Kill a Mockingbird, but that's a very specific treatment of one issue and one place.

Dunno

There were a lot more classic films in that period that are on the AFI list. A few that come to mind are The Manchurian Candidate, Fail Safe, and Dr. Strangelove. The commies were the bad guys, we wore the white hats and all was well. Then a slow leak in the American Ideal occurred and it has finally reached the swamping point.

I would target 11/22/63 as the Day the Dream Died. After that, this country has never been the same.

I still wonder what the '64 election between JFK and Goldwater would have been like and how much history would have changed had he served two terms.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

Dunno

There were a lot more classic films in that period that are on the AFI list. A few that come to mind are The Manchurian Candidate, Fail Safe, and Dr. Strangelove. The commies were the bad guys, we wore the white hats and all was well. Then a slow leak in the American Ideal occurred and it has finally reached the swamping point.

I would target 11/22/63 as the Day the Dream Died. After that, this country has never been the same.

I still wonder what the '64 election between JFK and Goldwater would have been like and how much history would have changed had he served two terms.

7 Days in May? Inherit the Wind? Judgement at Nuremburg? "JFK" might have been THE film: budget, director, star, etc. But it was so laughably flawed, so deeply into demented conspiracies, so at variance with known facts, that it failed miserably. Unless the goal was to pollute the minds of people too young to remember the events--at which it was, sadly, a huge success. But cataloging "JFK's" flaws wasn't why I started this thread. It was to recall how those of us who lived through the assassination felt at the time and how it affects us still.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: 11/22/63: A Dark Day in American History

I thought Thirteen Days was wonderfully done fwiw.