<p>Plus, if you want context from the times, this is the record my uncle sent to my parents for Christmas
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Family_(album[/url])”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Family_(album)</a></p>
<p>I was a baby when Kennedy was shot so I have no memory of that time. However, I remember we were on a family camping trip when Robert Kennedy was shot. My mom sat crying at the picnic table as my dad consoled her. It was only the 2nd time I had ever seen her crying to the point of sobbing (the other time being when her young BIL died). It was really scary for me as a young child.</p>
<p>Jonri jolted my memories of regular “under the desk drills” in grade school during the Kennedy-Johnson years. Haven’t seen a fall-out shelter sign in years. Do they still run those test patterns and emergency alerts on late night and early morning TV? Also, I remember a lot of bravado and anti-Soviet talk among my Scandinavian and WASP grade school classmates, who also often insulted Germans as ‘Krauts.’ I was befuddled because I had no idea what kraut meant. Had never ate sauerkraut until my mid-teens.</p>
<p>Hahaha I was in a Catholic grade school when Kennedy was assassinated and can relate to many of the posts here. I recently bought the First Family Album off ebay. We listened to it a neighbor’s house back in the day.</p>
<h2>Nov. 1960: I recall as an elementary school kid walking through our newly-integrating city neighborhood. I walked alone the 5 blocks to school, as was normal then, even for a little girl in a city. I was in similar mode the day in 1960 when Kennedy was elected. I knew there was an election the night before as my parents stayed up late watching TV. I was curious who had won but forgot to ask them that morning. So, I popped my head into every storekeeper on my route to school – pharmacist, butcher. barber, I knew them all – asking each one, “who won the election?” The only one who bothered to answer the little gradeschool girl was the barber, who said, broadly and proudly, “Mr. Kennedy is the President of the United States!” Thank you, barber. I was happy because I knew my parents had voted for him, although I didn’t know why they supported him. I was glad my parents would be happy because I knew that, to them, it mattered a lot who was president. </h2>
<p>During his presidency: I recall a fierce debate between my parents and my mom’s sister and husband. My parents didn’t believe in fallout shelters, but my aunt and uncle were building one. My dad said, “why would I want to live in a world after a bomb? how could I keep my neighbors out?” He couldn’t fathom the idea of building such a structure. My uncle was proud of all his shelves and canned goods. It was the first time I understood that family could have markedly differrent political ideas, yet still love each other dearly.</p>
<p>Getting under those desks for the practice drills scared me to the core of my being. I was small but couldn’t make myself small enough. I’d look at the windows and imagine them blasting in, wondering how a desk could possibly save me from a nuclear bomb. The teachers made us stay under the desks for the full time-period of the drill, which seemed forever. I was a wreck for the rest of the school day.</p>
<h2>I absolutely adored and admired Jackie Kennedy, and watched her on TV showing off the White House redecoration. She was, to me, the most magical, elegant lady in the world.</h2>
<p>Nov. 1963: In 7th grade at the assasination, attending a very poor and rough Jr. High School 1.5 miles from home. I was one of the last few white kids left in the neighborhood. When the principal announced the death by intercom, he simultaneously dismissed the school and sent us all to walk home (no busses). The black kids were crying in the hallways and sidewalks, and clearly had stronger knowledge and feelings about President Kennedy than I did. They just seemed more “on it” and aware of what was happening that day. </p>
<p>I walked home alone, very confused, upset and angry. When I entered the house, I found both my parents had left work midday and were lying on their bed (the only TV was in their room), crying. I was so angry and felt quite alone. My school was a frightening and alienating place to attend (got mugged walking home, pushed around for lunch money…). The fact that my parents had come home from work was reassuring in that it agreed with how I felt: this was a day that was different, upsetting and important; and a time to draw together, not dismiss kids into the streets to figure it out for themselves.</p>
<p>I was in 7th grade when Kennedy was assassinated. Yes, it was an awful crime, but there is a lot of hype and fanciful history glorifying Kennedy and his Administration. Although he was charismatic, young, and handsome, he had very little accomplishments in his 3 years in office. He ordered the Bay of Pigs, a colossal failure, which he also admitted was a great mistake. He was warned many months before the Cuban Missile Crisis of suspicious Soviet activity in Cuba, which he and the intelligence agencies ignored until it was too late. Kruschev, after meeting Kennedy in Geneva, was convinced that Kennedy didn’t have the will to resist Soviet aggressiveness, which many historians concluded led to the Soviet intervention in Cuba. In addition, Robert Kennedy led a clandestine effort to assassinate Castro with exploding cigars and other equally bizarre ways. This understandably provoked an already paranoid Castro, who then requested assistance from the Soviets.</p>
<p>With respect to civil rights, the Kennedy Administration was very slow and quite timid in responding to the civil rights movement, because of electoral considerations. They knew they had little chance of reelection in 1964 if they lost the South. Remember, the 1960 election was one of the closest Presidential elections in the history of the country. Martin Luther King was very frustrated with Kennedy, and the March on Washington was primarily an effort to put pressure on the Administration. Kennedy tried to talk King into canceling the event but he refused. They spent days worrying about the political implications before ordering US Marshals to University of Mississippi. Really, the lion’s share of the credit for the groundbreaking Civil Rights legislation in the 1960’s should go to Lyndon Johnson.</p>
<p>The Kennedy Administration had very difficult relations with Congress. They were unable to pass any significant legislation. A coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans blocked Kennedy repeatedly. He was considered an outsider, and was not well liked by the powerful Committee Chairmen. It is a fact that all the significant legislation from that era was passed during the Johnson Administration, after Kennedy’s assassination. Ironically, one of his greatest legislative achievements was the reduction in marginal tax rates, an initiative opposed by many in his Party. </p>
<p>It is also interesting that Kennedy campaigned on the proposition that the Soviet Union had surpassed us militarily and he used that incessantly during the 1960 campaign to defeat Nixon. Historians now tell us that it wasn’t true and the United States had a vastly superior military and nuclear arsenal than the Soviets. I would say that this campaign rhetoric heightened tensions with the Soviet Union and may have led to Cuba and the Berlin crisis. I could go on but I will leave it there for now. There is a lot of nostalgia and wishful thinking regarding Kennedy, but not much of it is true.</p>
<p>Let me try to describe the years before Kennedy. Eisenhower, while a great war hero of WWII, ushered in 8 years of domestic complacency and social conformity. Racism was unquestioned, accepted and justified in North and South. Bias against Catholics was outspoken. A non-Protestant president was unimaginable. </p>
<p>The injustice of the Army-McCarthy hearings ruined many American lives and careers. There were writers, artists and professors who committed suicide, while others never regained their full creative and professional potential for the remainder of their lives. Suspicion was poisonous in American society. </p>
<h1>The White House interior looked like a faded old pink curtain under Mamie Eisenhower’s era in which her own troubles with alcoholism saw her preoccupied and depressed.</h1>
<p>The Kennedy presidency was like opening the window on a stale, dusty home that needed airing out. </p>
<p>Young President Kennedy had a quick learning curve. His first big foreign policy mistake (Bay of Pigs) came from taking his generals’ word, unquestioned, about how to conduct foreign policy. The next time (Cuban Missile Crisis), Kennedy was jaw-droppingly successful because he used his tremendous intellectual power to question the assuptions of military leaders before making a move. To get the Russians to back down was an amazing success, and it was based largely on his independent vision and research instead of swallowing the military establishment’s easy first answer. </p>
<p>He appointed someone he could trust - Robert Kennedy - as Attorney General, a man who relentlessly uncovered the extreme poverty in rural Appalachia and fought organized crime (Mafia) with tenacity. His brother-in-law Sargent Shriver (dad of Maria who’s now married to Arnold Schwarzenager) is said to have “brainstormed” new programs - Peace Corps and Special Olympics - around his own family dinnertable with wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The President turned golden ideas such as these into actual programs that continue today. </p>
<p>The tremendous pieces of legislation passed under Lyndon Johnson can be attributed to Johnson’s great skill getting Congress to act; he had been in the Congress himself a long time. But the origin of all those ideas, the shift in direction nationally towards fighting poverty and racial injustice, all began with Kennedy’s fresh vision. Johnson finished what Kennedy started, by passing great pieces of legislation in Civil Rights, such as the Fair Housing Law. Johnson knew how to make deals within Congress and seal the deal. That doesn’t mean that Johnson invented the ideas; he simply did in his time what was needed to cement the Kennedy vision into national law. </p>
<p>The Vietnam War began under Kennedy when he sent in “advisors” to prop up the Diem regime in South Vietnam. Sadly, under Johnson, this beginning escalated into hundreds of thousands of American troops, the death of more than 50,000 Americans and untold Vietnamese. Whether Kennedy would have seen the problems and avoided the escalation that brought Johnson to the point of not running for re-election is unknown, because Kennedy was gunned down while the Vietnam story was still just a matter of a handful of advisors propping up an unpopular regime there.</p>
<p>Kennedy set a personal example of intellectual brilliance and curiosity, on a daily basis. He was engaged in literature, the arts, and avid reading. The image of the president as a curious person, who learned from history to help inform current policy decisions, was genuine. </p>
<p>He exercised his ability to inspire the American people to solve problems, not wallow in them. For example, when faced with an educational achievement gap (sputnik) he set a national goal (to put a man on the moon…). NASA came into being and the technical skills were harnessed to achieve a national goal. Many compare this, in negative contrast, to our lack of harnessing of alternative energy sources over the past 30 years. Although we know how to do renewable energy, we have lacked the political will to organize and achieve it when it is well within our power. This is the polar opposite of how Kennedy responded to technology challenges. Immediately after Russia launched sputnik, Kennedy galvanized the nation to send a man into space, and eventually lead the exploration of outer space. </p>
<p>To me, the great strength of Kennedy’s administration was that he had Americans thinking of themselves as “citizens” not “taxpayers” and looking for ways to give of themselves more generously to their nation and local communities, not just feather their own private nest and seek personal wealth.</p>