November 22, 2013

John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s drive through Dallas in the black presidential convertible on this day 50 years ago was America’s brutal rendezvous with destiny.  His assassination shattered a sense of calm confidence in a nation not yet divided and torched by the Vietnam War and the revolution which drove us to the United States of today.  The question of motive in the assassination is trumped by the contingency of circumstance: What if it was rainy and the convertible’s cover was up?  What if Lee Harvey Oswald missed the imaginary bulls-eye he placed on the head of America’s first and still only Roman Catholic president?  What makes it all the more surreal is that this loss was captured on film and photographs, from amateur to professional-none of the footage short of a masterpiece by the mere fact that it documented in color America’s most charismatic president meet his most untimely end.  Sure there are the scandals of the tabloids which trumpet John F. Kennedy’s affairs to an ever-voracious audience.  The nagging question too, of how legitimately he was elected in the first place–how much help came from the mafia in getting the votes needed to beat Nixon.  These personal and political questions are of great significance to the world, but for me all I can think of is that a baptized Catholic, a man who however imperfectly professed in name and deed his allegiance to Jesus Christ was killed…one could even say crucified, and what a tragedy that is.  Tragedy that trite word of convenience that does more than hide the spattered American blood that still flows for a nation of people still not divided, but far from unified.  And so we continue to bleed.  Rest in Peace JFK.