Late last month, when I suggested to the Et Cetera’s editor, Liz Foster, about having the newspaper do an editorial and campus question on the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination for the 11/26 issue, she immediately got excited.
The JFK assassination was a topic right up her alley, Foster said, telling me how she had books on the subject and at one point, even authored a twenty-page paper about the “great crime of the century.”
“I still cry every time I watch the funeral,” she told me.
I could understand where that fiery interest was coming from because I used to be interested in all things JFK and all things Kennedy years ago.
I owned hundreds of books on the subject that not only covered the assassination and biographies on JFK but numerous others about America’s First Family both hard and soft cover.
It wasn’t just books. Anything that had to do with Camelot I added to my growing library. If it were a recent newspaper article in The Dallas Morning News, I’d cut it out. If I saw any old issues of Life magazine at Half Price Books located on Northwest Highway in Dallas that featured the youthful president or his family on the front cover I’d buy it, no matter what the price was. It wasn’t just books or magazines.
I had a shelf reserved for movies like Oliver Stone’s conspiratorial 1991 opus “JFK”, “Ruby” (1992), and Executive Action (1973) with Burt Lancaster to documentaries to such made-for-tv movies as “Missiles of October” (1974) and the 1983 mini-series, “Kennedy”, with Martin Sheen.
Is it any coincidence that Sheen plays a democratic president on NBC’s “West Wing?”
It got to the point that every time Tom Kelley, friend of mine not to mention a die-hard Republican came over he would get upset and utter the same question he had said to me so many times before.
“What is your damn fascination with the Kennedys,” he’d ask.
I could never offer up a justifiable answer to his question.
Looking back now, I can produce about a handful of answers. One I have always been fascinated with the Mafia and gangster movies. When it comes to the JFK assassination, there is no way anyone is going to convince me the events that happened in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963 didn’t have the mob’s name written all over it.
It was a classic mafia hit. Pure and simple.
Another reason is because, like most of our parents, my dad told me about living through that tragic day, where he was and what he was doing and watching the funeral. For him, as for most people still alive today who remember 11/22/63, it was their generation’s rendition of Sept. 11, 2001. Nothing would ever be the same after Nov. 22. Just as nothing has ever been the same for our generation since Sept. 11.
One of the reasons I was interested in the Kennedy mystique was like all major icons of the 20th century, whether they’re presidents or entertainers whose star faded too soon, there is always going to be the lingering question of what if? JFK’s death is forever frozen in time.
Would he have followed through on his supposed campaign promise in ’64 to pull troops out of Vietnam as has been suggested by historians or conspiracy theorists over the years? There is no doubt that had he won in ’64, JFK would have likely paved the way for brother Robert to enter the White House, possibly followed by younger brother Teddy. Perhaps Vietnam would have never escalated like it did under Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency and Richard Nixon would have never been president. Perhaps the only thing we would have known about Watergate was that it was a hotel.
Perhaps JFK would not have lived through a second term anyway given the recent information about his medical condition that up until recently was never fully publicized.
Here we are now forty years later. Chances are that most, if not all the potential suspects who might have had something to do with the events in Dallas are likely dead. Jackie and JFK Jr. have passed on. The only one left to carry the family torch is daughter Caroline.
What hasn’t extinguished it seems is the public’s fascination.
Hundreds of people visit the Sixth Floor Museum formerly known as the Texas Schoolbook Depository, more so around November than during other months. It’s a place as popular as the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and the sites where the World Trade Center and the Murrah Federal Buildings once stood in New York’s Manhattan district and Oklahoma City. Many of the spectators who come are those who remember the horrible events of that day. Others bring their children while many more who weren’t even born at the time or old enough to remember visit the site.
What has faded, however, is my personal interest in Camelot. Years ago, I would have gladly shelled out $30 or $40 dollars for such newly published books as “Remembering Jack” which boasts never published photos by Kennedy photographer, Jacques Lowe. And “President Kennedy Has Been Shot” that features eyewitness broadcasts and interviews with journalists who covered the events in Dallas. The case has been talked to death (no pun intended).
Other than when the government finally releases the files on the JFK assassination in the next few years, what new information could possibly be dug up on Camelot that we haven’t heard or read about already?
The only book I might possibly get would be the compilation of news stories The New York Times wrote back then. But is their coverage any different from the republished issues I have of The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald that covered those days?
The library I had is gone now. Practically all the books have been sold off. All I have left on the shelf is “The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis” (2002) that recounts the conversations JFK, and his advisers had during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale: An American Tale” (1996), which I will read one of these days. The Life magazines I had all sit in a plastic bin at a storage facility. Gone are the video documentaries while some of the VHS movies have been replaced by DVDs. The only reason the custom framed “JFK” movie poster still hangs on my wall is because I haven’t found anything else to put up in its place. I am not sure though as to where those silver dollars are.
For many, interest in “the great crime of the century” continues but for this columnist, I have moved on. So has Mr. Kelley but should he ever come around one of these days, of all the questions he may have for me, the one thing he won’t be asking is anything having to do with President John F. Kennedy.
©11/26/03
The JFK assassination was a topic right up her alley, Foster said, telling me how she had books on the subject and at one point, even authored a twenty-page paper about the “great crime of the century.”
“I still cry every time I watch the funeral,” she told me.
I could understand where that fiery interest was coming from because I used to be interested in all things JFK and all things Kennedy years ago.
I owned hundreds of books on the subject that not only covered the assassination and biographies on JFK but numerous others about America’s First Family both hard and soft cover.
It wasn’t just books. Anything that had to do with Camelot I added to my growing library. If it were a recent newspaper article in The Dallas Morning News, I’d cut it out. If I saw any old issues of Life magazine at Half Price Books located on Northwest Highway in Dallas that featured the youthful president or his family on the front cover I’d buy it, no matter what the price was. It wasn’t just books or magazines.
I had a shelf reserved for movies like Oliver Stone’s conspiratorial 1991 opus “JFK”, “Ruby” (1992), and Executive Action (1973) with Burt Lancaster to documentaries to such made-for-tv movies as “Missiles of October” (1974) and the 1983 mini-series, “Kennedy”, with Martin Sheen.
Is it any coincidence that Sheen plays a democratic president on NBC’s “West Wing?”
It got to the point that every time Tom Kelley, friend of mine not to mention a die-hard Republican came over he would get upset and utter the same question he had said to me so many times before.
“What is your damn fascination with the Kennedys,” he’d ask.
I could never offer up a justifiable answer to his question.
Reasons
Looking back now, I can produce about a handful of answers. One I have always been fascinated with the Mafia and gangster movies. When it comes to the JFK assassination, there is no way anyone is going to convince me the events that happened in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963 didn’t have the mob’s name written all over it.
It was a classic mafia hit. Pure and simple.
Another reason is because, like most of our parents, my dad told me about living through that tragic day, where he was and what he was doing and watching the funeral. For him, as for most people still alive today who remember 11/22/63, it was their generation’s rendition of Sept. 11, 2001. Nothing would ever be the same after Nov. 22. Just as nothing has ever been the same for our generation since Sept. 11.
One of the reasons I was interested in the Kennedy mystique was like all major icons of the 20th century, whether they’re presidents or entertainers whose star faded too soon, there is always going to be the lingering question of what if? JFK’s death is forever frozen in time.
Would he have followed through on his supposed campaign promise in ’64 to pull troops out of Vietnam as has been suggested by historians or conspiracy theorists over the years? There is no doubt that had he won in ’64, JFK would have likely paved the way for brother Robert to enter the White House, possibly followed by younger brother Teddy. Perhaps Vietnam would have never escalated like it did under Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency and Richard Nixon would have never been president. Perhaps the only thing we would have known about Watergate was that it was a hotel.
Perhaps JFK would not have lived through a second term anyway given the recent information about his medical condition that up until recently was never fully publicized.
Here we are now forty years later. Chances are that most, if not all the potential suspects who might have had something to do with the events in Dallas are likely dead. Jackie and JFK Jr. have passed on. The only one left to carry the family torch is daughter Caroline.
What hasn’t extinguished it seems is the public’s fascination.
Today
Hundreds of people visit the Sixth Floor Museum formerly known as the Texas Schoolbook Depository, more so around November than during other months. It’s a place as popular as the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and the sites where the World Trade Center and the Murrah Federal Buildings once stood in New York’s Manhattan district and Oklahoma City. Many of the spectators who come are those who remember the horrible events of that day. Others bring their children while many more who weren’t even born at the time or old enough to remember visit the site.
What has faded, however, is my personal interest in Camelot. Years ago, I would have gladly shelled out $30 or $40 dollars for such newly published books as “Remembering Jack” which boasts never published photos by Kennedy photographer, Jacques Lowe. And “President Kennedy Has Been Shot” that features eyewitness broadcasts and interviews with journalists who covered the events in Dallas. The case has been talked to death (no pun intended).
Other than when the government finally releases the files on the JFK assassination in the next few years, what new information could possibly be dug up on Camelot that we haven’t heard or read about already?
The only book I might possibly get would be the compilation of news stories The New York Times wrote back then. But is their coverage any different from the republished issues I have of The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald that covered those days?
The library I had is gone now. Practically all the books have been sold off. All I have left on the shelf is “The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis” (2002) that recounts the conversations JFK, and his advisers had during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale: An American Tale” (1996), which I will read one of these days. The Life magazines I had all sit in a plastic bin at a storage facility. Gone are the video documentaries while some of the VHS movies have been replaced by DVDs. The only reason the custom framed “JFK” movie poster still hangs on my wall is because I haven’t found anything else to put up in its place. I am not sure though as to where those silver dollars are.
For many, interest in “the great crime of the century” continues but for this columnist, I have moved on. So has Mr. Kelley but should he ever come around one of these days, of all the questions he may have for me, the one thing he won’t be asking is anything having to do with President John F. Kennedy.
©11/26/03
