Assassination of John F. Kennedy (November 1963)

Unlike some, I do not see this as the day America lost it's innocence. It had lost that years before, quicker than a drunken high-school girl loses her panties. The revisionist thinkers who want to mythologize Kennedy love to cite this as a great turning point in history. In fact there is little evidence to support such a theory. The true tragedy was the evident conspiracy (evident to anyone but the Warren Commission anyway) and the disinformation campaign to cover up whatever the truth was from the public.

Don't discount the symbolic effects of such an assassination. It set off quite a turmultuous decade.

Besides being the only presidential assassination we've all seen, it changed the course of a generation. It changed the way a president travels. Television suddenly became something important, rather than just entertainment. If not for Kennedy's death, we may very well have not entered full force into the Vietnam War, and you could easily make the argument that both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have been assassinated. On the other hand, perhaps some civil rights issues that were pushed by Johnson wouldn't have come about as soon as they had. I'd say the impact was pretty great, even if much of the impact is speculation.

Let me think, now. The youngest man ever elected president, very popular among the young, sitting in an open top motorcade, thousands of his adoring fans waving and shouting to him, his beautiful wife sitting next to him in the car, his young children not far away, the entire parade captured by tv cameras and transmitted across the country . . and suddenly shots ring out, his blood and brains are splattered all over the car and her, people in utter disbelief shrieking and crying, No! It can't be happening! Our own fawning press suddenly jolted back to the reality that they had a job to do, report the story, unemotionally, factually, etc. Later that day, the inevitable news, he's dead. Johnson, is sworn in with Kennedy's widow looking on. Oswald is captured and promptly murdered two days later. (Dead men tell no tales) All the joy, all the hope dashed in ten seconds and the nation's course changes from the new frontier back to the old boys' club. Pretty tragic. A wave of assasina... Read more

I remember that day very well. The only good that came from it is that it united our country in a time of shared sorrow. However, all kinds of opportunists started exploiting it. What really annoyed me most is the journalists who blamed the right wing for doing it (Oswald was a quirky leftist), and the ones who also blamed the city of Dallas. In fact, the city of Dallas had given Kennedy a wonderful and warm reception. Oswald had lived in Russia, New York, New Orleans, Ft. Worth, and only a short time in Dallas. These people in the media just don't know when to shut up.

Overrated event mythologied by the media and academics who believe that that history began in the 1960's. The 1860's were far more important, people. . .

This was tragic in a way, considering the blow it caused the American people. It affected and horrified many people, ruining the perfect illusion Kennedy had created for society. Reality broke through and it tore many apart...but in comparison to others on this list, it just doesn't compare. It was a truly sad, horrible event but not as tragic as it is deluded to be.

Rating the assassination of John F. Kennedy above three stars is absurd and frankly shouldn't be on the list. JFK's administration had many failures, yet people forget that due to his assassination and early death. He was the first president of his generation; therefore, people and history tend to give those in that situation a pass. The bottom line is that no one is indispensable, and the speculations as to what might have happened are merely that, speculations. Would the U.S. still have escalated its involvement in Vietnam? Probably, as that was the prevailing American Cold War philosophy at the time. Would have Nixon been elected? Probably, as it is difficult for one party to retain control of the White House for more than 8 and especially 12 years.

A terrible tragedy for both our country and for the world. What a horrible way to die- helpless, in front of his wife, in front of his countrymen. Too often, people think of this as a short time in history and forget the possible long-term effects it had on our country. I will not doubt that his death brought the country together, but only for a short time. I often wondered what would have happened had John Fitzgerald Kennedy lived. Would 58,000 of our young boys have parished in Vietnam? Would we have had the rioting and divisions in our streets? Would Richard Nixon been elected President and embarressed the nation with the Watergate Scandal? Would there have been a period of cynicism in America not cured until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. While, of course, none of these questions can be answered, I am confident that the answer to all of them is NO.