Thursday marked the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. In retrospect, I believe that horrendous murder was the end of innocence for America. To some degree, it was for me. At barely 16, my admiration for JFK began at the 1960 Democratic National Convention at the L.A. Sports Arena and where my late mother was in charge of the delegate seating.
Whether it’s a five star restaurant or a National Convention, the person in charge of seating is a big shot. So it was my mom worked with Adlai Stevenson, Eleanor Roosevelt and LBJ to name but a few. It included a charismatic Massachusetts U.S. Senator, John F. Kennedy. Though one had to be 21, via my mother’s pull, I excitedly attended the convention for a day and that’s all it took for me to be mesmerized with JFK. (Though she downplayed it, I was amazed that my mother was hobnobbing with people of power.)
President, Kennedy was a hero to me and almost my entire generation. Remember his inspiring Inaugural Address? (My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” Or the innovative and successful Peace Corps? Or his claim “We will put a man on the moon before the end of the decade” and we did! Remember how brilliantly he handled the 13 day Cuban Missile crisis which experts proclaimed could have cost “hundreds of millions of lives”? (God forbid if #45 had been in power.)
The pain of JFK’s death has never completely left me. You see at 19 my grandparents, great aunts and uncles all had passed before I was born. JFK’s passing felt like a death in my family.
Before JFK’s assassination, the country wasn’t remotely as bitterly divided as it his now. The extremely close JFK/Nixon race in 1960 didn’t result in recounts or riots on the Capitol. Opposing parties could be congenial. For examples, shortly before his death, JFK and Barry Goldwater agreed that for the ’64 race they’d fly around the country and engage in a series of high-minded Lincoln/Douglass type debates.
November 22, 1963 marked JFK’s 1,000th day in office. With the crowds cheering him it still haunts me that the last words JFK heard were from Nellie Connolly, wife of Texas Gov. John Connally, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”
JFK was handsome, Jackie was elegant and the they had two adorable children. I even ditched school to watch JFK’s press conferences because he peppered them with such great humor. As a sports writer on my high school paper I could get a signed pass to leave campus “on a story” from my elderly teacher.
There was a hamburger joint nearby that had a black and white TV and almost no customers until after school let out. Thus I could get the owner to tune to the press conference if I gave him some business. So I ordered a hamburger and fries, which I wolfed down as I watched JFK press conferences.
Over time I could even impersonate all three Kennedy brothers. In 2004 City Council candidate Bobby Shriver (JFK’s nephew) left me a voicemail. In returning his call, though I contemplated it, thank God I didn’t do my JFK impression on Shriver’s voicemail, “Bobby, this is Jack.”
Pat Lawford, JFK’s sister, lived in Santa Monica with husband, actor Peter Lawford, in a beach estate once owned by Louis B. Mayer, a wedding present to them from Joe Sr. There’s a wonderfully moving video of JFK swimming in the ocean in front of Lawford’s house. Google: “Kennedy swims in Santa Monica.”
After JFK won the nomination there was an elegant party at the Lawford’s house and my mother was among the invitees. I stayed up late until she finally got home whereupon I eagerly grilled her asking had she talked to JFK one on one. Reluctantly she confessed that JFK had ditched the Secret Service to rendezvous with Marilyn Monroe in Brentwood!
Young and naive, I refused to believe it. I was so upset I compared my mom to gossip columnist “Hedda Hopper.” Decades later, when JFK’s affair with Monroe was pretty much documented, I apologized profusely to my mother. Thankfully, she had forgotten the incident.
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis where JFK and Khrushchev had been so frighteningly close to a nuclear war, the two were profoundly affected. They began exchanging back channel letters. Khrushchev spoke fondly of time spent with his grandchildren and JFK wrote about the joy of seeing his kids growing before his eyes. The letters seemed to share their desire to obtain a lasting peace.
As I close, I ask you to Google “JFK’s speech at American University.” It’s only the two minute very end of the speech and is so moving it’s part of why I miss so dearly..
I’m reminded of a popular 1837 Irish folk song “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) R.I.P.