42 Years Ago

Photoshop credit

Saw posts up from Ian, Neil Shakespeare, TPM, and Agitprop. The New York Times made it the focus of "This Day in History."

I put my two cents worth in comments here and there: I was born a couple of years after JFK's assassination, as a child, I remember the books I read about him were decidedly respectful--war hero, tragic death, the All-American family. His father's, ahem, questionable business practices, personal life, and political stances were conveniently ignored...for that matter, JFK's own personal life wasn't exactly suitable for children's books...anyway, by the mid/late 70's the personal stuff became tabloid and magazine fodder...which managed to further obfuscate the man's political record, which was, well, mixed: extremely tepid support for civil rights, classic cold-war liberalism...one spectacular failure--the Bay of Pigs fiasco--a couple of modest successes--the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and, fortunately for all of us, settling the Cuban Missile Crisis without going to (presumably nuclear) war.

My own suspicions are, had he lived, he probably would've escalated US involvement in Vietnam, but of course we'll never know. And I'm certainly not glad he was shot and killed.

But it's interesting that something once certain to be a central focus now seems, well, as distant as April 12th must have seemed to a generation that never really thought much about Roosevelt. And I guess 9/11 is now the new seminal event in history that makes folks recall where they were, even more so than the Challenger accident of 1986 (to be honest, I remember where I was for BOTH of those, but I'd have to go look up the date for the latter).