I clearly remember where I was on November 22, 1963, when I heard the news that President Kennedy (JFK) had been assassinated.  I was in third grade class at Prince of Peace Catholic School, Lake Villa, Illinois.  Sister MaryAnn was hurriedly summoned from the classroom.  Ten minutes later she returned; “Children, we must get down on our knees and pray for the president.  He’s just been shot.”  Not understanding what was happening, the thought that ran through my 8-year-old mind was, “I got a shot last week and nobody prayed for me.”

In our lives, there are a select few events that are so shocking that we remember exactly where we were, and what we were doing, when we heard the news.  For my parents’ generation that event was Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, 1941).  For Gen X (born mid ’60s to late ’70s) and Millennials (early 1980s to late 1990s) the event was 9-11.  A few of the other shocking/significant events include the assassination of Martin Luther King (1968), Neil Armstrong walking on the moon (1969), the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (1986), the death of Princess Diane (1997), and the horrible Hamas attack on Israel (October 2023).  For Baby Boomers, that event was JFK’s assassination.

November 22 was a Friday. When I returned home from school, my mother had the TV tuned to CBS and Walter Cronkite. Over the next three days, the entire country was glued to our TV screens (mostly black-and-white).  There was nonstop coverage of everything related to Kennedy — his assassination, swearing in of LBJ, the capture and murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, preparations for the state funeral, and the funeral itself.  The assassination was a big deal to my parents, so it became a big deal to me, to all of us Boomers.

I didn’t watch continuously but my parents did.  Anytime I went into the TV room, they were watching.  And with six brothers and sisters, a couple of us were always watching as well.  If something important was happening, such as the state funeral, the burial procession down the streets of Washington DC, and JFK’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery; we were told to sit and watch. (Sometimes parents must do that knowing years later it will be remembered.)

That Sunday, we went to church; and when we returned home, we heard that Jack Ruby had killed Oswald.  That shooting was replayed over and over.  The next day was a national day of mourning which meant no school.  The coverage continued; most of it surrounded the state funeral with all the pomp and circumstance that goes with one.  I remember little John-John, JFK’s 4-year old son, famously saluting his father’s horse drawn casket as it passed by.  Or do I remember his salute because I’ve seen the photo so often that I think I remember the salute as it happened?

The JFK assassination has captivated the nation (and the world) for decades.  Everything about it is questionable.  Was there a conspiracy to kill the president or was it a lone, commie kook?  Arguments have been both ways.  However, nothing shouts conspiracy louder than the accused killer (Oswald) conveniently gets killed by a guy who conveniently has terminal cancer; and the official autopsy results (done at Bethesda) are different than what the emergency room doctors (at Parkland Memorial Hospital) testified to.

Because of the many unknowns, hundreds of books have been written about the assassination and countless theories advanced — the magic bullet; the grassy knoll; a lone gunman; the mafia; Fidel Castro sanctioned it; the KGB; the FBI/CIA; altered/missing autopsy report; and on and on goes the speculations.  Also, many movies and numerous documentaries have been made.  And the Texas Book Depository, where Oswald worked and from where he fired the three shots at Kennedy (or did he?), has been turned into a JFK assassination museum.  I’ve been to that museum, The 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, twice; and I’ve read at least five or six Kennedy assassination books, most recently was Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly.  O’Reilly makes a good argument that the assassination was most likely carried out by one man — Oswald.

Over the years, I’ve teetered between a lone gunman and a conspiracy.  However, in the last six years I’ve moved steadily towards the conspiracy theory.  Why?  Because of President Trump and the treatment he’s received.  Think of how the powers that be — the Dems and their media, the FBI, DOJ, the CIA, other intel agencies, the military hierarchy, academia, and the entire federal bureaucracy have tried to destroy one man.  We’ve seen beyond any doubt that the Deep State, Swamp, the government bureaucracy, whatever you care to call it, is real; and much larger and more devious than Trump or anyone else ever imagined.  That leftist cabal has targeted Trump mercilessly for years.  Why?  Because Trump’s on to them and they hate him for it.  So, if the cabal can do to Trump what they’re doing; it’s 100% plausible (and likely) they could have done the same to Kennedy.  

Image: U.S. Embassy New Delhi via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0.