44 Years Ago Today!

[1bigsteve]

Rest In Peace, John F. Kennedy.

-1bigsteve )o:

[shakiboo]

My gosh! 44 years! It doesn't seem possible......Jackie and John Jr. have joined him. May they all rest in peace.

[doug65oh]

You know, days like this really make me miss the old days; I had the television on the better part of the day and nobody uttered a word about it being the anniversary - that I heard anyway. Before about 1993 or so there was almost always something on - even if it only amounted to an airing of the film PT-109.

Ironically enough I just checked the Dallas Morning News online and there's a page 1 story concerning two of the detectives who escorted Lee Oswald at various times that weekend. (Neither of 'em is Jim Leavelle, the feller that was handcuffed to Lee Oswald the morning of the 24th, but you might recognize their faces if you've seen any of the other pictures.)

dallasnews.com is the newspaper website.

Goodnight, Mr. President. May you rest in peace.

[twinsrwe]

Holy cow, it is unbelievable that it has been 44 years! Where does the time go? May he rest in peace.

(Click on image to animate)

[1bigsteve]

My gosh! 44 years! It doesn't seem possible......Jackie and John Jr. have joined him. May they all rest in peace.

Only Caroline is left. What a tragic family.

-1bigsteve )o:

[mbhenty]

The day of Kennedy's death we were on a field trip from school. Though not a teenager yet, I still remember the anguish felt by the teachers (Nuns) and all adults that day.

My mother cried. I had never seen so many adults cry.

Not soon after, a photograph of John Kennedy was placed on my mother's livingroom wall. Though it is not draped with a black veil, as it was all that week, it still hangs on the wall at her home.

It is doubtful that an American president will ever receive such respect reverence and love.

[doug65oh]

My maternal grandparents (both of whom were Republicans) used to have painted likenesses - they might have been plaster, I'm not sure - of both President and Mrs. Kennedy that hung on the wall of their front room. I wish I had those today - I remember 'em from about age 2 on up. I have a picture of President Kennedy hanging on the wall behind me here - and if I wear a tie, it's usually held in place with a PT-109 tie clasp...one of the post-election models without the '60 on it.

[Yooper]

There was a variety of emotions expressed that day with respect to Kennedy's death. A friend of my father's was piloting a boat down the Mississippi River for a client and when he tied up for a fuel stop along the way, he was greeted with "Did you hear the good news? They killed the bastard!" My father was a Republican and his reaction was that he didn't agree with Kennedy's politics, but he certainly didn't deserve to be killed. I remember listening to the information coming over the radio (we were in hunting camp at the time and had no television) and thinking we were being hosed. I wonder how many other twelve-year-olds lost respect for the federal government that day.

[Tina-Kate]

My mother tells me I was in my playpen when the news came over the radio.

Being so young didn't effect me hearing all about the legacy all my life & still reading about "Camelot" in present day!

[Jeff]

When I was a kid my parents took me down to Arlington Cemetary
to see JFK's grave. ( I guess i was started on cemetary's early LOL)
Poor Bobby is off to the side with just a cross .

I have always wondered who the man is taking Oswald out through the garage. The man with the white hat. He has become almost as famous
as Oswald in that picture wth Jack Ruby ( Rubenstein) emerging
with the gun.

While Oswald did kill Officer Tippett, I don't believe he fired a shot at
Kennedy. I believe he was set up. I think Lyndon Johnson had
something to do with it

[mbhenty]

Yes JEFF: I knew that the fellow with the tall white hat was a Dallas Detective but I didn't know his name so I went and looked it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Leavelle

And for those who are not Wiki fans: (which I fully understand)


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... 7rowe.html

[Jeff]

Yep, now I remember his name LOL. I didn't realize he was still alive.
I have seen numerous programs about the Kennedy assasination
and have never seen an interview w/ him.

[Yooper]

I still find it absurd that Oswald left the house that morning, intending to murder the president, and left his revolver behind! He left work and went home to retrieve it immediately after the assassination! If he ever though he might need it to defend himself, it would likely have been on that day. I really don't think he left the house intending to murder anyone.

[doug65oh]

You may have overlooked one thing Yooper: If you recall, Oswald hitched a ride into Dallas with a co-worker that Friday morning carrying what he said were curtain rods. The co-worker (Wes Frazier, was it?) lived a few doors over from the Paine residence in Irving, Texas where Marina and the children were staying.

The pistol, on the other hand, was apparently in the room he kept on North Beckley Avenue in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. The landlady Mrs. Roberts said that he returned to the roominghouse briefly, grabbed what she described as a "short coat" (a windbreaker I'd think she meant) from his room and left.

What else he might have grabbed before he left is open for debate I suppose, but at least one of the arresting officers said that the pistol was tucked into the waistband of Oswald's pants. He pulled it on one of the cops there in the theatre, very shortly thereafter got a good smack over the eye, and the rest is...well, you know...

[Yooper]

You're right, doug, Oswald was at home rather than at his room, I had forgotten!

Wesley Frasier was Oswald's co-worker and gave him a ride to work. He described the package of curtain rods as being carried between Oswald's hand and armpit. I'm substantially taller than Oswald and I can't get my hand within six inches of the end of either the barreled action or the stock of any of my bolt action rifles if they are taken apart. If the rifle is intact, I can't get within a good foot of the end of the barrels.

[doug65oh]

I know what you mean, Yooper. I'm a bit rusty on the different dimensions - the rifle assembled vs. disassembled - but Frasier's description of the package (if it was the rifle) strikes me as a little short, altho not by terribly much, a few inches. I'm close to Oswald's height myself; never carried a disassembled rifle in brown paper or otherwise, but them that I have seen broken down would be difficult at best to carry wrapped up with no overhang.

Interestingly enough, if the package contents were curtain rods, why on earth would Oswald have left Elm Street - presumably unarmed - went to the roominghouse and grabbed a jacket and a pistol? Like so many things surrounding the assassination, that one really makes no sense at all - even taking into account his relationship with the FBI.

[Kat]

It sounds like you guys have read the same source, in this case- I mean in this exchange of posts - what was it, please?
I'm interested.

[doug65oh]

Well, I can't speak for Yooper, but in my case (at the time I wrote the above posts) the source is at least one television documentary that might be fifteen years old or thereabouts. It aired on CBS, that's all I recall at present.

The underlying source though - which underpins everything more or less - is either the Warren Commission Report or the 26 volume set of hearings held in 1963-64. They are out there, free, arranged in pdf files.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/contents.htm

[Yooper]

My sources are the Warren Report, a rusty recollection of events at the time, and several television documentaries over the years. I remember one special which was hosted by Dan Rather who covered the event in Dallas when it happened. There was footage of the Zapruder film with some of the frames reversed which made Kennedy seem to move forward at the final shot.

The rifle was certainly not carried assembled in a package, Oswald would have been capable of tying his shoes without bending over to accomplish that. If Oswald somehow knew he would be framed, he would likely arm himself and possibly wander a bit trying to figure his next move. Another question is if the package contained curtain rods, where were they afterward? Both Oswald and the authorities had an interest in finding them, but Oswald was in no position to retrieve them. Did Marina ever mention hem?

[doug65oh]

Ayup, that sounds right now that I think about it. One of the shows I'm recalling was called 48 Hours: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Marina never mentioned the curtain rods at all that I know of, altho it's been quite awhile since I looked at the transcripts of her testimony. It's possible she was never asked. That story came from Frasier, who got it from Oswald. Marina was aware of the rifle, however.

I was reading a little of Frazier's testimony last night before I went to bed. I wouldn't wish him as a witness on any lawyer in any courtroom, that's for sure! He was telling his tale as best he could for a 19 year old kid, but good grief his narrative was all over the map!:lol:

Just before he testified, there's some mention of a brown paper sack or package among the commission members. I didn't look though to see what exactly the item was they were referring to though.

[Angel]

Whatever happened to Marina and their children? Does anyone know where they are now and if their lives were devastated having to deal with such a history?

[doug65oh]

Reliability is somewhat an issue (the source was one of those supermarket-variety birdcage liner sorts of newspapers) but the last I'd seen or read anything of the two children they were in college and had changed their names. The rag carried a photo of one of the girls. She was an attractive girl then, but looked a bunch like her father, especially 'round the eyes.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the dates (time runs together) but within the last several years I read an article in the Dallas Morning News that said Marina was working at some sort of thrift or consignment shop somewhere in Texas - possibly somewhere within the DFW area, I don't recall. She remarried many years ago and is Marina Porter now, or was the last I'd seen in print.

[doug65oh]

You asked about the curtain rods, Yooper. I just did a search in Marina Oswald's Commission testimony and found this, in Volume 2, at pg. 68-69:

Mr. RANKIN. On the evening of the 21st, was anything said about curtain rods or his taking curtain rods to town the following day?
Mrs. OSWALD.No, I didn't have any.
Mr. RANKIN. He didn't say anything like that?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
----
Her not knowing though is really no surprise, given what relative little we know about the state of their relationship.

[Yooper]

All things considered, I tend to believe Wesley Frasier. He saw Oswald with the package and someone carrying a few ounces of curtain rods is going to handle the package differently than one carrying a rifle weighing several pounds. I think he would be able to make that distinction, or at least he would have detected a discrepancy.

[doug65oh]

Oh I agree. Frazier is quite credible in his description of the package. It would be interesting (and pretty well seal the deal if you think about it) if the commission had asked him to describe how Oswald handled the package, if that makes any sense. That is to say, a brown paper-wrapped set of curtain rods, being lighter than a disassembled rifle, might handle differently, just as you say.

[Yooper]

Yes, I know what you mean, Oswald could have "one-handed" curtain rods easily, turned them quickly with his wrist without any evidence of strain. I think it was a subtlety Frasier would have noticed if it had seemed like something as heavy as a rifle.

[doug65oh]

True. Brings an interesting question to mind: I've never - ever - heard of any package of curtain rods being found anywhere in the Book Depository, or for that matter in the room on North Beckley. Have you? If they existed at all, they'd have to be in one place or the other - yaknow?

[Yooper]

Either they never existed or they were disposed of. It has to be one or the other. Oswald never had the chance to hire an attorney to look out for his interests, and finding the curtain rods would have been one of them. No employee of the book depository has come forward having found curtain rods, although I think a number of people have held information back out of fear. They would have to be found at the book depository to provide a viable alibi.

[Kat]

Thanks for the links you sent me PM Doug-Oh.
I can hardly believe you guys can remember such detail. I saw lots of documentaries and read the Warren Report years ago but did not go any deeper into testimony etc.

Interesting stuff you guys.

[doug65oh]

You're welcome!

I dunno... I particularly enjoy the documentaries of the older vintage because even though they might have put forth "answers" or theories that have changed with time, they still provided in some way an opportunity for the viewer to evaluate and make his or her own decision, if that makes any sense at all. (The newer docs are much too packaged and flashy for my taste.)

It also makes a person cynical, or can. In the end though each must come to his own, as it is with most things. I've been looking at this mess off and on for 33 years and still have no real answers other than the obvious - that murder was done, but also that something else seemed to die too. Or if not to die, that some mark or scar was left on the human psyche. It doesn't throb as it used to, but is at times a bit tender.

I had the good fortune to grow up among folks who often said that the only truly heroic leader they'd ever known or heard of was FDR, or Mr. Churchill across the water. Kennedy was close, if not for what he accomplished or tried to accomplish, for what he gave to Americans: a sense that while our fight will be hard, we will fight indeed. We will in the end be better than we are.

Personal life had nothing to do with it, partly because almost everyone knew by that time that even FDR was not a perfect man in that arena. Nobody saidmuch about it, but...

For some reason, we bought it. We believed we could in those days. We choose to go to the moon! We did, sure enough... The resolve didn't die with him, but in a way you might say that something vitally important did. That something can have many names: Innocence, trust, a measure of hope, etc.

What was it the late Senator Moynihan said that week? "Oh... we'll laugh again - but we'll never be young again."

In a way it all goes back to Aeschylus:

And even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
and in our own despair against our will,
comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

The assassination? It's much the same with the Borden case except that there are several thousand more pages of material to deal with.

Right... It's time for a certain long-winded idealist to shut up here and go to bed. I now return you to our regularly scheduled program - right after this message from the makers of Imperial magarine. Yes, Imperial. It's just the thing. Don't believe us? Ask the King!

[Tina-Kate]

...comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

What an amazing line!

[Yooper]

Very well stated, Doug! What I think was lost was the concept of "we". The governmental authorities behaved in a way which cast the government as an entity unto itself which did not need to answer to the American people. "We" were no longer in control. Events such as Ruby Ridge and Waco seem to remind us of this. The real tragedy is that we were and are content with this.

[doug65oh]

The Aeschylus? Oh, I know what you mean, TK. There is I think a simplicity, but yet also a profound mystery in those lines.

[doug65oh]

I know what you mean, Yooper. In some ways it’s frightening and shameful to think of what we were, and contrast that with who we are now, today. Philosophy is part of it, but only a small part really. Of the people, by the people, for the people seems to have effectively crashed and burned. Participatory government in the truest sense has devolved and taken on an air of bitterness. We’re all in this together – that spirit – has given way to an atmosphere in which it’s my way or the highway, so to speak.

The fault is ours. We stood for it. The you did this/no, it was you crap doesn't work. We've got one boat, and everybody's in it.

[Yooper]

I agree Doug, the togetherness created by the depression and World War II seemed to be supplanted by Communist paranoia and an air of suspicion.

[doug65oh]

That's true. In retrospect, it's amazing the lasting effect either the Depression or the War - or some combination of both - had on social and political life for many, many years.