Politics & Government

A Dark Day In November 1963

Reflections on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination


November 22, 1963. The day began in sunshine. It ended in darkness by early afternoon.

I had just left the school nurse's office at Oak Street Junior High School in Basking Ridge, headed for my homeroom, when the world as we knew it changed with the crack of a rifle shot.

It was a little after 2 p.m. Eastern time when the principal's voice crackled over the intercom. He said shots had been fired at President John F. Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas.

"President Kennedy is dead," he said.

No one in that long-ago eighth grade classroom said a word. We sat in stunned silence for about a minute. It was broken by a boy named Doug. He muttered "I wouldn't have wasted a bullet on that guy."

The other boys were on him in seconds. They took turns pummeling him. Mr. Brostoski - our very reserved, very stern homeroom teacher - tried in vain to restore order.

I can still hear him yelling, "Boys, boys, stop it, stop it!"

It's difficult to convey to people who were not alive or too young to remember what that horrific day was like. There still are no words.

Author William Manchester describes the seconds after the shooting in his classic 1967 account of the assassination "The Death of a President."

"Lee Oswald...steps back into the shadows in the deliberate lock step of a marksman retiring from the range," Manchester wrote. "Below him, he leaves madness."

When the school bus dropped us off later in the day, I immediately sought out  my mother. My parents were die-hard Republicans. She had our little portable television set up in the kitchen. She was crying. Neither of my parents slept well for some time. None of us did.

That day was the beginning of a national marathon of mourning. There were only three television networks back in 1963. Walter Cronkite nearly broke down when he announced the president had died.

All over the United States, people stumbled in the streets, hunkered over transistor and car radios, or watched television sets in stores.

Washington, D.C. reeled, Manchester wrote.

"North of Lafayette Park the bell in St. John's church, the church of the Presidents, was tolling wildly, like a fire gong. And motorists were going berserk. They were ignoring stop signs, signals, pedestrians, policemen and other motorists. Cars swerved drunkenly from lane to lane, or spun without warning in crazy U-turns, or were left forsaken in the middle of intersections, their engines idling and their doors hanging open."

For the next four days, there were no soap operas, no sitcoms and no commercials. Nothing but biographical footage of President Kennedy, updates on the assassination, live footage of his casket lying in state, first in the East Room of the White House, later in the Capitol Rotunda, his majestic funeral procession that ended in Arlington National Cemetery.

The broadcasts were often accompanied by hymns. Not too many people had color television sets back in 1963. Black and white seemed appropriate for those traumatic days.

I was sitting in our living room with my baby sister Mary in my lap, numbly staring at the television on the Sunday after the assassination, as Dallas police made arrangements to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald.

We watched stocky Jack Ruby dart forward and pull the trigger. The look of horror on the officer handcuffed to Oswald was unforgettable. My reaction to the shooting was less than admirable. I was glad the little rat had been gunned down.

I can still hear the cadence of the drums on the day of the President's funeral. The horse Black Jack being led down Pennsylvania Avenue in the funeral cortege, a pair of boots placed backwards in the stirrups to honor a fallen hero.  Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy walking in the procession with world leaders. John F. Kennedy Jr. and his heartbreaking salute.

I can still see the caisson carrying the President, winding through the paths of Arlington National Cemetery. The eternal flame lit and flickering in the chill November twilight. It was a terrible time.

My allegiance to John F. Kennedy began during the 1960 campaign. I begged my parents not to pull the lever for Nixon. Barely ten, I was already referring to him as "Tricky Dick."

When our fifth grade teacher at Demarest School suggested we have a classroom presidential election, I immediately began lobbying my classmates to vote for Kennedy.

I was crushed when Nixon won. I decided to write to then-Senator Kennedy to tell him that although he had lost in Mr. Edinger's class, I was sure he would prevail in the general election.

Several days before John Kennedy's inauguration, a letter dated Jan. 10, 1961 arrived for me. The return address said "United States Senate."

To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. Mr. Edinger had me read the letter aloud to the class.

Dear Pat:

Many thanks for your cordial recent message.

Your enthusiasm on behalf of the Democratic Party and your good wishes for the future are most encouraging. I hope that you will sustain your interest in politics and in the welfare of this nation.

With all good wishes, I am,

Sincerely,

John F. Kennedy

The letter was signed. I was thrilled. I don't know whether it was an authentic signature or written with an autopen. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now.

I do know I am forever grateful that John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were in the White House during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Americans back then didn't know from one day to the next if we would be blown to bits in a nuclear war.

Had they not been there, I might not be writing this and you might not be reading it.

Children of the late 1950s and early 1960s grew up hiding under their desks during school drills and learning where the nearest Civil Defense shelter was located. We watched horrifying footage of nuclear blasts, with houses, buildings, trees swaying, then exploding.

Fortunately for all of us, Kennedy prevailed by allowing Nikita Kruschev to back out of the confrontation. The crisis was over.

All that is gone now. The excitement and the hope of the early 1960s, when John F. Kennedy occupied the White House, has never returned.

It's hard to describe the loss many felt on that day so many years ago and still feel to this day. William Manchester says it better than I can. Fifty years ago and yet it seems like yesterday.

"The sky again is the same faultless blue," Manchester wrote, describing the first minutes after the three shots rang out. "Everything beyond the immediate scene looks as it did. Dallas, the country, and the world have not had time to respond. But they are not the same, they can never be; the thirty-fifth President of the United States has been assassinated; John Kennedy is gone, and all he could do for his country is history."

Rest in peace, Mr. President. Thank you.

What are your recollections of that day? Share them in the comments section below:


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