"Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

                I really liked President John F. Kennedy. Lots of other people did not. Friday is the 50^th anniversary of President Kennedy being shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy had serious enemies. The Mafia openly talked about having him killed. Cuban exiles in the U.S. believed that he had left their brethren hung out to dry in the Bay of Pigs invasion (and he had). They openly rejoiced in his death. The Soviets were still stinging from having to back down in the Cuban Missile Crisis (they didn’t really have to) they had no love for Kennedy. The U.S. Military despised him for what they believed was weakness on his part when he didn’t retaliate over the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane by the Cubans during the missile crisis. The pilot was lost. Also, Kennedy had begun to see the folly of  military advisors in South Vietnam and had been talking about an advisor pull out. The military doesn’t like it when you threaten to take away their source of funding and their purpose for being. Then there was that disaffected little man who wanted to be a big man: Lee Oswald. Take your pick. So many people and groups hated him and could have had a hand in his death. My post this time is less about who killed him than what was killed in me when our President was murdered 50 years ago.

               
            We use the euphemism assassinated to try and make the horrible seem less horrible and more clinical.  He was murdered in cold blood on a Dallas street, with his wife sitting next to him. He was shot through the neck and then with the second (or third) shot he had half his head blown away. His wife, the First Lady had to crawl on the back of a Lincoln Town car to retrieve part of his skull. Just like Abe Lincoln 95 years before him,, he was shot from behind, in the head, in an act of cowardice and malice. I didn’t think things like that could happen in the “modern world” of 1963. Boy was I naive.

 I was an impressionable 12 year old when I first became aware of John Kennedy. The close nature of the 1960 Presidential race between Kennedy and Nixon really caught my attention. I like drama and this was political drama at its best. It was a showdown at high noon, winner take all. In this corner an old money, famous family, catholic war hero from Massachusetts against, in this corner, the middle class upstart from a Quaker family in Southern California; that stuff really appealed to me.  The first televised presidential debate was great theater too. Nixon stood there in the badly lit part of the stage, in the shadows wearing his his bad suit, with his nervous tics and all the while sweating profusely. He was doomed just on image alone. That by the way was a BAD thing. Kennedy came across as a man that was smart, verbal and confident. He seemed like Harvard. Nixon came across as a man that had something to hide. He seemed more like mail order College. Kennedy won that debate based on image; the actual talking points were essentially even. Ever since that time, image has counted more than ideas. Look at Obama, the quintessential image over substance president. He’s not alone, Reagan with his rouged up cheeks, Bush Sr. and Jr. and their homespun folksy talk and let’s not forget Clinton’s perfected smile of sincerity; most of them image over substance.

              
      Kennedy was magnetic, I saw him on TV give his famous Berlin speech in front of 500,000 people. When he said, “Ich bin ein Berliner”, I had chills go up and down my spine. The West Germans loved him. Half a million came to hear that speech! Think about that, half a million!  He was so sincere and genuine. He was funny and warm. I loved the fact that he really was transparent with the American People. He went on TV regularly to tell the American people about almost everything. During the Missile crisis he was explaining everything to the American people. He had aerial photos, and explained exactly why we had to get missiles out of Cuba and how we were going to go about doing it.  Obama and the rest of the late 20^th and 21^st Century Presidents could take a cue from Kennedy. They not only don’t tell us the truth when something is happening, they tell us a spin-doctored version of the truth after the fact. What did really happened in Benghazi Mr. President?

              
       When Kennedy said at his inaugural address in January of 1960, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” that was the ultimate “nationalistic” request. I knew when I heard it that it would be a famous line. I took what he said to heart. Don't be self-centered, do something good for your country, other people and yourself. He followed that up by establishing the Peace Corp. Young people flocked to a service organization and spread help, ideas and good will everywhere in the world. I planned on joining the Peace Corp myself after I graduated high school. I never got the chance. Kennedy was killed, Johnson expanded the Vietnam War, the draft went into effect and I had to get into college. A lot more than one man died that day in Dallas.

              
       I know that many years later we found out that Kennedy had been a skirt chaser. He cheated on Jackie many times (including with “Happy Birthday Mr. Pres i dent, herself Marilyn Monroe) and there is no “Camelot” style rhetoric that will take away that stain from his character. I was disappointed to hear that about him. I also think he made both a strategically and morally wrong decision by not following through on his pledge to support (with air power) the Bay of Pigs freedom fighters trying to overthrow Castro.  For Kennedy it may have been ultimately a fatal mistake.  He had flaws and to say otherwise is not being truthful.

Still, I mourned the loss of Kennedy 50 years ago and I still do. He represented  a bright future, a pride in country that was genuine and not jingoistic. He gave americans confidence that we (all of us) could do what we had a mind to and that we owed it to ourselves and each other to live up to the promise of this country.  He was leader.  Even though I was only a teenager in 63' I  knew something important had been taken from both me and millions of others like me. I felt it keenly. I felt it deeply inside me.  Many baby boomers became cynics that day, I believe.   Jackie continued to wear her blood stained pink outfit the rest of that day, and despite being asked several times to change her clothes  she said, “no, let them see what they’ve done to my husband”.  Indeed, let them see,  even 50 years later, what “they've done to us all”. (end)

**I invite you to share a memory of JFK, where you were (please don’t say you were a glint in your father’s eye) that fateful Friday or if you are younger, what you think about him when these conversations come up. What you learned in school etc. I will publish (without names) responses in an upcoming blog.
Be honest, if you didn’t like him say so.