Something real and gigantic and precious was lost that day
The convertible limousine was parked alone under a single yellow street lamp in the Pennsylvania dusk. The two men in dark business suits sitting together on the trunk lid did not see me approach until I was almost to the car. It was a campaign stop to change drivers and for this brief moment the car and its passengers were left unattended. In a few months time one of the men would be President of the United States. I was a skinny boy of 14 with a short blond crew cut walking up to that long black vehicle and I was feeling a little scared. The two men were talking and I reached up and touched his forearm to get his attention, “Mr. Kennedy, can I shake your hand?” He seemed to notice me for the first time, turned towards me looked down and smiled, “Sure son” he said and extended his hand.
That summer and fall was the first time politics had ever meant anything to me. I followed the campaign. I stayed up late to watch the election results on that small black and white television. I wanted him to win. And not just because I met him. No, it was something about the guy. He was talking about a world that included me, a world I wanted to grow up in and be a part of.
It’s impossible now to recapture what it was for the country and the world in those brief thousand days: the tangible sense of the real possibility for a better future. So much has been written about it, so much has been said and yet the reality of that time’s spirit can not be recovered. Those of us who lived through it remember and do what we can to pass on those memories. But they are just memories. Not life. Not Breath. Something real and gigantic and precious was lost that day in Dallas. The memories are insufficient to convey that loss.
In the time immediately following his death very few of us were thinking about conspiracies. The country was in shock. The media only reported the facts. We had a new President. Civil Rights and the Vietnam escalation were front page news. The Warren Commission was proceeding with it’s work but the conclusion it would come to was already something most Americans believed: Oswald was the killer, Ruby acted out of his concern for Jackie (we saw him do it live on television). Single frames from the Zapruder film were finally published but the actual viewing of the film by the general public would not occur until many years later. It took the accumulation of facts emerging over a period of years to shake people’s acceptance of the official narrative. But emerge they did, one by one. I remember watching the CBS Special that simulated the shooting. The best marksman they could find failed to duplicate what Oswald supposedly did.
Years passed and more facts emerged. I was not paying that much attention. I had a family to take care of and bills to pay. But every once in awhile something would be reported that would catch my eye: Oswald having a security clearance and working on the U2 base, Ruby’s Mafia connection, Giancana and Trifficante confirming their involvement before they died. At some point, I’m not really sure exactly when, the tipping point came and I stopped believing the official story. The fact pattern revealing some kind of conspiracy was simply too detailed and compelling to ignore.
In the mid 80’s I traveled to Boston for a business conference. It was a grey, cold afternoon and I took some time away from work to visit a small library on the shores of Boston Harbor. Inside are most of the artifacts from that time so long ago. The rocking chair is there and the desk with the inscribed coconut still holding its place next to the phone. Most of the collected papers and many films and news conferences are there, the ones that could be located and recovered. You can listen to tape recordings of the phone calls that he made while the Alabama school was being desegregated.
But what was absent was that sense of the wide open future that I felt back then. Back when we believed there could really be something like a new frontier in which all of us together could build a world and make this dream so many of us carry around inside ourselves a reality. As I stood in the lobby buttoning my coat against the raw New England chill I looked up at the tall entrance wall. It was covered in metal letters, the words to one of his speeches. I’d hardly noticed it hours ago when I first arrived. I read the words then and felt that small catch in the back of my throat. Yes, I thought, there is still a little bit of it left inside the words. Just enough to remind us once again what was lost.
“What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace -- the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living -- and the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.
Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable -- and we believe they can do it again.
So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal..”
Address at The American University, Washington D.C. (10 June 1963)
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Thank you.
