THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

November 20, 2003
		The assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, shocked millions around the world and reshaped the leadership of the United States. Considered one of the critical events of 20th century history, its impact leads many to easily recall where they were when they "heard the news." We asked you how the Kennedy assassination affected your family or community and how you thought it changed the United States or the nation's collective identity. Below are some of the comments submitted from around the nation and the world reflecting on the events 40 years ago.

Online NewsHour Special Reports: The Kennedy Assassination: 40 Years Later

Susan Ellis Gabbard of Oklahoma City, Okla.: I was in the 8th grade at Stripling Junior High, Fort Worth, Texas. I was so excited the President was in my city. Someone had a transistor radio on in gym class. We were sitting around and she said, "The President has been shot." I was shocked and afraid. We had an assembly that had been planned and cancelled once and the Latin teacher insisted on giving her annual book review. So we all went to the auditorium and lots of people were crying including me. I loved President Kennedy. Finally the assembly was over and they let us go home early. I walked out the back door of the school to walk home down the block and around the corner to my house on the next street. But I couldn't go my regular path because across the street from my school was Lee Harvey Oswald's mother['s] home and there were several hundred people in the yard and on the street. Policemen, FBI, Texas Rangers, Sheriffs, reporters. It was unreal. I turned around and ran home the other way. When I got home and turned on the TV I learned they were still looking for Oswald. I was so afraid he could be in my backyard trying to sneak back to his mother's house and hide out. Of course he was apprehended a few hours later. Yesterday I was talking with a friend. She said, "we'll never love another president the way we loved Kennedy." She is so right. The world changed forever. I believe there was a cover up. I believe the shots came from in front of the car not above it. Any one who has ever shot anything knows the force knocks things backward. You can't do that from 8 stories above someone at the angle Oswald supposedly fired from. The hopes and dreams of a young generation were shredded apart with the loss of JFK. We have spent a lifetime trying to regain and rebuild confidence in government. I think it is tainted forever. Greg Kitt of Chicago, Ill.: I was 5 years old when President Kennedy was shot. I remember that Bozo's circus was on and it was interrupted with the news. My mom loved JFK, and I remember being afraid to tell her because I knew she would cry. Our nation did indeed take a turn that dreadful day. President Kennedy, as strong as he was on defense, was an FDR liberal in the truest sense of the word. Had he lived, I believe with all my heart that another age of "enlightenment" would have come to the nation, and the world. Jeffrey Pansino of Atlanta, Ga.: Yes, I think the event has had a profound impact on the public. There is no way a logical thinking American would conclude it was a lone gunman who killed Kennedy. You look at the film and the fatal wound is clearly a frontal shot. There is no way Oswald made that shot. Those who continue to deny the evidence of independent researchers are doing this nation and our democracy a tremendous disservice. This topic will not go away as some of your (very biased) PBS panelists have predicted. Why not speak to younger Americans such as myself and answer our simple questions? Let us ask the questions of your distinguished panel of experts. We will ask the hard questions -- the ones no one seems to want to ask. The American people can handle the truth. What the American people can not handle is a lie forced on us. Jeff Nordahl of Minneapolis, Minn.: The reason that I think the Kennedy assassination is so important, is that the cover-up of the investigation shows us how dishonest our government was then and I believe it still is today. Lee Oswald was not connected to the rifle in the book depository nor was his pistol linked to bullets from the Tippet case. Oswald was tried in the media in the first hours after the tragedy in Dallas. Our secret govt. spoon-fed the media then as it always does to its citizens. Our govt. has not changed, that is the most important point. From preventing the reunification election in the temporarily divided Vietnam in 1955, the Johnson lies about being attacked by Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, to overthrowing the democratically elected President in Chile in 1976, to trying to overthrow the democratically elected govt. in Nicaragua in the 1980s while supplying and supporting the terrorist contra's with money from importing drugs into this country, to lying and about Iraq's intentions as a cover to make war. Alan Schoenfeld of Bronx, N.Y.: As a young person, 16 years old in 1963, who grew up during the years of the Warren Commission (and subsequent criticisms of the Commission's Report) and the turmoil years of Vietnam, one of the issues that convinced me of a conspiracy theory regarding the Kennedy assassination was the fact that many of the records and documents obtained by the Warren Commission were to be sealed for a number of years (I don't remember the exact number - perhaps 75) until most or all citizens alive in 1963 had died. This convinced me that the full truth had not been revealed and that in order to avoid a public clamor for war against the conspiratorial nation involved, Cuba or the USSR, the records had to be sealed. (I never fully believed in the premise of a right wing conspiracy of the CIA and other government officials as put forth by Oliver Stone.) This long term sealing of documents may have been reversed when the Assassination Records Review Board was created in 1992. I hope to read or review the Report of this board, released in 1998, and then re-evaluate my belief in a Conspiracy Theory. Bob Schroeder of West Trenton, N.J.: I was in 7th grade English class when the assassination occurred. Ever since then I've followed the various theories and having weighed the evidence, I'm convinced that Oswald did not act alone. The word "conspiracy" has been given the unfair connotation of "crackpot theory." Actually it's from two Latin words meaning, "to breathe together"- which implies two or more people. As pointed out in the book "Into the Buzzsaw," press and other media accounts of the facts can be sanitized. I was surprised that no one on your panel tonight mentioned the book "Farewell America" by the pseudonym James Hepburn. Also, no one mentioned how people connected with Oswald conveniently died such as Dorothy Kilgallen. I'm dismayed that no truly objective discussion of the Kennedy assassination has ever taken place even after forty years. John Parker of Petaluma, Calif.: November 22, 1963 marks the day when America stopped believing in itself. We saw with our own eyes what happened and didn't believe what they TOLD us we saw. Only when we know the whole truth will we begin to believe we CAN believe again. In a way, we didn't just lose our President, we lost our country. I was 12, lived outside D.C. , and couldn't believe there were parties on my block. With each day that went by the doubt grew. With the Warren report the truth seemed forever unfindable ... it remains that way today in our hearts. Underneath we know that our leaders still don't think the American people can handle the truth of the assassination just like they didn't let us see the real dark side of JFK for 30 years. It is so much more sad to have lost faith in your beloved country than it is to have lost one president ... regardless of who shot him or had him shot. Would someone please just tell us the whole truth, in a way that we can TRULY believe it, so we and future generations can move on? Audrey Reid of Minneapolis, Minn.: I believe we were not told the truth 40 years ago, and we are still being kept in the dark. Many Americans of my age (71) lost faith in our government from that time forward. We fought for our country, died for it in many cases, and love our country, but feel that a shadow government governs us. We cannot remain a free and democratic nation unless the lies are revealed once and for all not just about l963, but everything from Vietnam on down to this war we are in today. The truth shall set us free. Thank you for remembering, too. Jaroslav Vydra of Prague, Czech Republic: I remember that it was my 14th birthday. I was at the breakfast table at around 5:30 and started to cry when I heard the news on the radio. For me something beautiful had died, even though I knew next to nothing about Kennedy, the USA or conspiracies. My opinion has stayed the same through the years, my 21 years' stay in the West, my psychology studies and practice - no one has persuaded me up to this day that it was LHO. It is like an absolute black mark on my image of the USA freedom, and indeed the reality on this Earth. (Specifically, no one can persuade me not to believe the physical fact, that blood and bone can spray backwards, and that your body jerks towards to a shot.) From that day the fact that conspiracy is a part of this world has only grown in me, whatever I did to see it differently. Good luck to all who want to find the truth. Only truth will make us free. Ismael Quinones Jr. of Yonkers, N.Y.: The saddest moment of my life that was not personal. I was 14 years old and the aura of the U.S. Presidency died with his murder. It marked the victory of evil over good and a certain loss of naivete and innocence. I have not trusted the motives of the U.S. government since, and I realized what ruthlessness must have been used to subdue the American Indian and obtain hegemony over the new world. I learned that the acquisition of power and distribution of wealth mean more than democracy. I long to see the perpetrators of this disloyalty to our system exposed and disgraced. Les Colonello of New Orleans, La.: The moment marked the loss of innocence for my generation. Things were never the same. A darkness entered my soul and left an indelible mark. The Online NewsHour may have edited some comments and did not publish all submissions.