Fifty Years Ago

Fifty years ago today I was near the south end of the playground at Asbury Elementary School in Denver, Colorado. I was in the fourth grade, and we were on our lunch break when one of my classmates, Scott Haskins, who had gone home for lunch, came walking up with a big smile on his face and saying, "The president's been shot!"

We didn't believe him. Scott was kind of a rough kid and often in trouble, and everybody thought he was pulling our legs. But he insisted. We looked at each other and wondered, then went on playing. Only a few minutes later the bell rang and we ran back up to the building and to our classroom on the second floor. As we entered the room and saw our English exchange teacher, Miss Mundy, with her head bowed at her desk, the room suddenly became solemnly still. I knew then.

When everyone was seated, Miss Mundy got up wiping a tear from her eye and stood before us with her hands clasp before her. "There has been a tragedy," she said. "Your president has been killed." We sat in silence, but my skin tingled. She managed a half smile as she looked around at each of us. "It is a sad day for America," she said. "It's a time for you to be with your family. School has been canceled and you are to go straight home." There was no rejoicing. We filed out quietly and went home.

I remember coming in the door and telling my mom, "The president's been shot." "I know," she said to me. She was talking to someone on the phone. That's the end of my memory of that day. I never did think to ask my mother why she was home so early. She usually didn't get home from work until five. Maybe she'd been sent home early too.

It didn't occur to me until much later and I was much older that I think Miss Mundy grasped the magnitude of what had happened perhaps better than a lot of Americans did. Maybe because she was British and had the opportunity to work as a teacher in America she had an appreciation for our society and form of government that many Americans just took for granted. I have no idea what her political persuasions were or if she favored John F. Kennedy or not, but there was an understanding in her tone and demeanor that made me feel proud to be an American, and sad for our loss.

Two days later we were watching the news coverage when Jack Ruby stepped through a crowd in a police station and shot Lee Harvey Oswald. I don't remember now if we saw it live or a replay on the five o'clock news, but Mom turned and looked at me in total shock, "Did you see that?" she asked. "He shot him!" I saw it.

Assassination was not new to American politics. Ever since the dueling days when Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, congressmen and presidents have been assaulted. In 1856 South Carolina Representative, Preston Brooks, walked into the Senate chamber and attacked Senator Charles Sumner, beating him so severely into unconsciousness with a cane that it took Sumner a year to recover. The first attempt on a president took place on January 30, 1835. A deranged man named Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson, but his pistol misfired. Jackson hit the man with his cane and he pulled out another pistol which also misfired. Then Lawrence was wrestled to the ground by Davy Crockett.

The first president to be assassinated was Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War had ended five days before, and a war-weary president, relaxing for the first time in four years, was shot in the back of his head as he sat in a theater watching the play, Our American Cousin. His was particularly bitter as the war had just ended and his vision for restoring the South "with malice toward none and charity for all," died with him.

On July 2, 1881, James Garfield, in the first year of his administration was shot in the back. He hung on for two and a half months until complications led to a heart attack and he died. Twenty years later almost to the day William McKinley was shot by an anarchist. He lived for eight more days. His successor, Teddy Roosevelt, was the victim of an attempted assassination in 1912, but he survived to live on until 1919. His nephew, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was also the target for an attempted assassination. In 1933 another crazy man took five shots at FDR, killing the mayor of Chicago, but missing the president-elect. Shots were fired at Gerald Ford twice during his short presidency but he was unhurt. Then in 1981, Ronald Reagan came within a quarter inch of being the next assassination victim. Miraculously he survived.

But fifty years ago today it was JFK. This was before Camelot. The First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, had taken the world by storm and at the time was probably a lot more popular than he was. She would create the Camelot image after his death.

All I knew at the time was I didn't like him. It wasn't due to any nine-year-old political savvy. What I knew was what I saw on television. We had an old reddish-brown box, console type TV, about three and a half feet high, with a big speaker on the bottom and the picture tube on top. I remember watching Kennedy give a speech one night, his features somewhat blurred by the old grainy black and white picture, and hearing his New England accent. It made my mom cry and I hated him. "Now I know what a Russian sounds like," I said. Mom quickly corrected me. Near as I can figure that speech was probably about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A half century later there is more confusion about Kennedy and his legacy than ever. At the time of his death he was vilified by Republicans and even some in his own party. He was a welfare liberal who embraced civil rights and was weak on foreign policy, yet today conservatives praise him for cutting taxes and standing up to Kruschev, and are quick to point out that his civil rights bill, which was pushed forward by Lyndon Johnson, only passed because Republicans voted for it. And then there are the lingering conspiracy theories about how many shooters and who was behind it, all made possible because it was caught on film.

Fifty years ago while I played on a playground in Denver, shots rang out from the Texas Book Depository, the grassy knoll, and wherever else in Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Had JFK lived he would be 96. I wonder what he would have thought about his party and the state of the country today?