I was in eighth grade history class when one of our math teachers walked into the classroom with a very somber look on his face. He leaned down, whispered something to our teacher, and tears immediately rolled down her face.
We all started looking at one another trying to figure out what happened when the principal of the school came over the PA system and announced that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas.
We all went into shock with the news. There was hardly a word spoken in the hallways as we changed classes.
On that Sunday I was sitting in the floor doing homework watching television. My memory is vivid I had just taken a sip of milk when Oswald was murdered. My first thought was “how does that happen in a police station “. With mixed emotions I was glad that Kennedy’s “killer” was dead but we would not know why he did it.
Like everyone else we watched the presidents funeral. Jackie dressed in black, very stoic, John-John saluting. The deathly quiet along the parade route. It was so quiet one could hear the clomp of the horses hooves as they pulled the caisson. The tears in my eyes when I saw the riderless horse.
How did it change my life? Even as a not-yet teenager I realized this country would kill hope.
When the magic bullet crap came out, the grassy knoll, the Zapruder film, I knew we were being lied to.
Ever since then I have wanted to know who killed my President.
Because of President Kennedy and his ideals I joined the Peace Corps immediately after college. Since returning I have worked for social justice and equal rights for our citizens.
Before I die I want to know who killed “my President”.
I was in the 6th grade at St. Margaret Catholic grammar school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. (Note: JFK was confirmed at St. Margaret church in 1927 when the Kennedys lived in Riverdale). Sister Joan, was buzzed on the classroom intercom when she answered the call she reacted with shock in her voice. She then announced the President’s had been killed and we would be going over to the church. The entire school (600+ students) filed into the church where Fr. Kildoyle led the student body in prayer for JFK. When arrived home my mother had the TV on with Walter Cronkite. I vividly remember when the plane arrived at Andrew’s AF base and the casket being loaded into the hearse and LBJ speaking. My brother and sister ate our dinner in the living room so we could watch the Television.
My entire family was in the living room on Sunday when my parents were on the way out the door when Ruby shot Oswald and we all sat down and watched the events unfold on TV.
Interesting side note: My wife was in the fifth grade at St. Margaret’s and she has the same memories as mine. We did not know each other then, we met in her senior year of high school.
The JFK assassination, has always held my interest, probably because I saw him on the Saturday before Election Day in 1960 when his campaign motorcade stopped briefly at St.Margaret’s church and rolled down the window of his Cadillac limousine and looked up at the Church Steeple and then waved to the assembled crowd outside the church, and then proceeded to the Grand Concourse where h gave two speeches.
I have visited Dealey Plaza on several occasions, on business trips, as well as the hotel JFK stayed at in Fort Worth.
In 4th grade at St Luke's, about one mile from RFK Hickory Hill. (St Luke's was Ethel's church.) Art class. Mother Superior announces JFK shot, prayers. Then announces JFK dead, more prayers. Early dismissal. Find mom at home on the floor crying. JFK was a god to us Irish Catholics. This was my epiphany with respect to "news".
I was in the 6th grade when they started playing the radio coverage on the PA system. At this point, we did not know that the President was dead. We were all sent home and I remember getting off the bus and seeing my Mom standing on the front stoop crying. We then watched Walter Cronkite for all the coverage.
On Sunday we turned on the TV and were watching as Oswald was being transferred. I will never forget the shock of watching him shot dead on live TV. For an 11 year old, this was truly a life shattering event.
Then we all watched the funeral and what still rings in my head is the cadence of the drums as the caisson was pulled along the streets.
Years later, while in college I attended a lunchtime lecture titled "Who Killed JFK?". It included a viewing of a bootleg copy of the Zapruder film. Like everyone else of that age, I had fully believed the Warren Commission's report since our government would never lie to us! I'll never forget that one of our professors actually stood up and said, "As someone who has felt the thumb of the CIA, I can tell you that what this man is saying is true." I walked out of that presentation with my hands shaking.
I then joined Mark Lane's "Citizen's Commission of Inquiry" and bought many books by him, Harold Weisberg, Edward Jay Epstein, etc. I had a bumper sticker and would talk to anyone who would listen.
To this day, I still am asking the question, "Who Killed JFK".
I was in biology lab at Johns Hopkins dissecting a salamander when the TA got our attention and told us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. He told us we were dismissed, that he would pick up after us. I was shocked. The day before, on the evening news I had seen Kennedy riding in an open limousine through downtown Houston, and I remarked to friends than anyone who wanted to could shoot him. But I didn't really think it would happen. Then on Sunday I was watching the news coverage when Ruby shot Oswald. I was so upset that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun saying that, as we mourn the loss of President Kennedy, we should also mourn the failure of our system of justice. Words of an overwrought teenage idealist, but I was truly appalled that a suspect could be killed while in police custody. (At the time, I was not even thinking about our nation's long history of racial terror, lynchings, and mob violence.)
How did it change my life? Soon after that day I dropped that course and switched my major from biology to history. The assassination wasn't the only reason I made the switch, but it helped me realize that I was more interested in history and government than in science. I would eventually go to law school, and spend my professional career in legal research.
I was disappointed with the Warren Report, and never believed it. I followed news accounts with interest, hoping for revelations that would confirm my belief that there had been a conspiracy, but it was not until the early 1990s that I started devoting more time to this topic. I attended some COPA conferences, read lots of books and articles (Third Decade, Fourth Decade, Probe, JFK Deep Politics, etc.), and eventually wrote several book reviews for the Federal Lawyer.
Rob Reiner's podcast has rekindled my interest, and I'm very grateful to Jefferson Morley for running this informative site, for his FOIA suits seeking release of files, and for his insights and perspective.
In 6th grade on PE time. Pretty shocking, even to 11 year old. I remember Mr. means herding us inside.
Now, I came from a politically informed family who often had long kitchen table discussions with friends—all of a conservative, National Review, Firing Line crowd. The JFK discussion never veered from, “there must be a conspiracy, do t listen to the WC”. Over the years, I read many of the books, always enjoyed true crime. Along with books on Cuban Missile Crisis (Max Hastings’ offering recently, very good); etc. in retirement, over the last year I’ve latched on to the story again, the post-ARRB info was missed.
We really need, as a nation, for the documentation to be released and analyzed. Theres no excuse for documents from people gone for 50 or 60 years to be “denied in full”. I’ve written my Senators on the subject.
I was three years and 18 days old, but I remember the event clearly. We lived in San Antonio, Texas. My dad was going on a sales trip to Uvalde that day, so he dropped me and my mom and my newly born brother off at maternal Grandma's house in Devine, Texas, about thirty minutes south of San Antonio. My father had not been gone long when he returned to tell us he had heard on the radio that the president had been shot. I knew even at that age that it was a very big deal, and I have not forgotten it from that day to this.
Good to hear someone who was that young has a memory. I do as well. Was 3 mos shy of 3 but I recall the funeral. It was of course boring to me and my 5-year old brother but our parents insisted we keep watching because it was ‘historic.’ My brother has validated that memory.
More vividly I remember my mom bringing out the Life and Look magazines out from the cedar chest every Thanksgiving about the assassination and passing them around to all us six kids. Later she added the assassination coverage of RFK. I was a reader and even then was fascinated and read every word each time.
Later my mom made our bedroom over in red white and blue with quotes from JFK and RFK hanging from the walls.
Looking back, you could tell those two deaths hit our Irish-American family hard. My dad was first gen and mom was second gen from poor backgrounds.
I was in 7th grade math class. A student who sat behind me came back from a trip to the office where he heard the news. He told the teacher and then told me. School was out a few minutes later so not much was said in class. I remember wondering if it was true, if he really had died. Rumors were rampant in the after school halls. My friend and I decorated our locker in black crepe paper around a picture of JFK. After school we walked downtown as usual to get “fries and a Coke”. Everyone was subdued. Then we went home to be glued to the TV all weekend, commiserating with Caroline Kennedy because I had recently lost my dad to cancer. I was 10 at that time. The same “locker decorating” friend and I had just been to DC with our moms. We saw JFK in his limo entering the White House gate. I believe that made it more real to us, that this handsome man had been cut down in the prime of his life. It hit both of us hard.
My mom and I left for my aunt’s house to have Thanksgiving dinner. It was during the drive there that Oswald was shot. It upset me that after all my TV that I missed it. Despite that, it was horrific.
I remember that weekend as if it were yesterday, such a tragedy for the nation, a great loss for all the policies of our nation.
I was 7 years old in second grade... When I arrived home from school my younger brother mentioned that “President Kennedy was shot today”. No one else discussed it with me either at home or at school. We had the TV on when Oswald was shot.
My parents did however save the Life magazine issues related to the assassination and I did read them. The official story of Oswald’s movements had the ring of an arrogant, haughty, evil lie even to my 7-year-old sensibilities.
I don’t know if the assassination affected me. I didn’t give it further thought until many years later. At age 7 I had never considered whether or not I trusted the government. But I do know there has never been a day in my life when I actually did trust the government. Maybe the assassination had something to do with that or maybe not. It certainly didn’t help when several years later RFK’s murder was also accompanied by a suspicious and slimy explanation. Or when a few years after that I found the specter of possibly being drafted and sent to Viet Nam breathing down my neck.
I had a fairly low draft number, so as a teenager, I had to decide if I was going to Canada or to prison if the call came. The fact that Muhammad Ali had the courage to go to prison had an impact on me. I knew we were committing war crimes, in fact the entire war was a crime, and I refused to participate. Just being a war protester at the time came with plenty of aggravation.
9th grade classroom...admin came in to tell everyone to go to the auditorium where the assassination was announced to all the students and teachers as a group (several hundred - small school). No details. No comments. Teachers obviously upset. Students dumbfounded. Students were sent home (back next day). I do not recall any conversations with parents or siblings. No followup at school. Like it did not happen. I also do not recall much substantive convo on TV. Flash forward to 2024 and the revealed role of the CIA, Angleton, Nam...I have read most of the books...what does it all mean?
It means there's a thoroughly evil secret government that really controls the US and that almost everything we were raised to believe about America is a lie. It means you can't trust a damn word the government and the mainstream media say about anything, but especially about war and foreign policy. We're just like the German people during the Nazi era. Our government starts wars and commits atrocities all over the world, and we barely take notice. JFK saw this and tried to put a stop to it. Principally, that's why they killed him.
A great crime was committed, and the government is covering it up by refusing to release relevant documents even after they are demanded by a US senator. Sound familiar?
Okay this is an enormous and important subject. I don’t think anyone has their arms fully around it — certainly not me — but Tucker and Rand Paul and Russell Brand are excellent sources.
As you may recall I mentioned to you roughly a year ago that I believed one could draw a straight unbroken line from the JFKA to Fauci.
Anyway here’s my 2¢... I think the two most heinous “crimes” committed by architects of the Plandemic were 1) insisting the “science” related to COVID-19 was known and well established (which it absolutely was not particularly with respect to COVID-19 but more generally “science” with respect to any subject is never known and well established)... and 2) insisting that those who challenged the official narrative posed the greatest threat to society and medical well being (where in fact such individuals are always the best source of crucial insights).
I think in the end their actual goals were 1) to create avenues of attack for defeating the election of Trump and then perhaps even more importantly 2) to create pretexts for shutting down free speech and particularly the Internet — because ultimately what they fear most is liberal democracy itself.
When I say I'm an "election denier," I mean it in a general sense. The elections are rigged, generally, and the pandemic provided cover for an unprecedented level of fraud. The mechanisms are easy enough to see. I would only add, by way of credibility, that I was an international election monitor in several countries over a period of six years. I've seen every trick in the book. Love Trump or hate him, something was very wrong with Election 2020. It's very dangerous to tamper with the popular vote. We may reap the whirlwind in America, after we have been undermining the popular vote in other countries for decades. The chickens are coming home to roost. It gives me zero satisfaction to say that.
The whole damn political system is rigged through gerrymandering, the electoral college, voter suppression, media blackouts on dissident candidates, and legislation that keeps third parties off the ballot. Is that a democracy? I don't think so. The Supreme Court says it can't figure out any solutions (ha!).
It wasn't necessary to tamper with the actual vote until a presidential candidate came along who the oligarchy couldn't control. Trump's principal transgression is that he won't greenlight all the wars they want. Of course, that's what got JFK killed.
How do you think the vote was tampered with? Trump's lawyers couldn't convince any judges that it was, including ones he appointed.
Yours is another great insight that takes us even deeper into the true nature of the problem we face (being the war on liberal democracy).
We the American People have in spite of ourselves and for over 70 years sanctioned extremely well financed and extremely highly skilled election interference operations around the world. Inevitably that weapon has now been turned against us domestically. And for anyone who has paid close enough attention it’s easy to see exactly how this was done.
Free speech died without so much as a whimper, just like our Fourth Amendment rights did previously. That really shocked me. The Twitter Files hearings spelled it all out.
What we are experiencing at this very moment is all out war against liberal democracy. It and the class of criminal Elites can no longer coexist. One must be destroyed.
Thanks, Paul. I refer to what we are living in as the Fourth Reich, but a lot of people would probably think that's extreme. We literally teamed up with the Nazis at the end of WWII after executing a handful for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most were never even charged. Most who received long prison sentences, even life sentences, served a few years and were quietly released.
“There is only one thing on my bucket list; I don’t want to die without knowing the truth about JFK’s assassination.” I have said this to my wife, children, and friends many times over the last few years, but I have been thinking it for decades.
I was twelve-years-old sitting in my middle-school music class when we heard the news. It was so visceral and monumental that no one questioned that we needed to go home. I have yet to meet any American of my generation whose school did not close as soon as the news came through. It’s hard to imagine any event having the same impact today. Why? I think Kennedy embodied the American ideal; an America at its best with even better days to come. The “face” of America was as thoughtful, witty, and moral as he was movie-star handsome. It was the face America saw in the mirror and the world saw as America. We all loved him…almost as much as we loved Jackie. My grandmother, who spoke only Yiddish, had a photo of Kennedy taped to her kitchen wall. I had to laugh. Could anyone look more Catholic and less Jewish?
Then, that charming face and those brilliant brains, were blown to pieces. Even before it became obvious, even to a 12-year-old, that something deeply nefarious was happening when Ruby shot Oswald in a police station surrounded by 70 officers with TV cameras rolling, I felt that dark forces had destroyed all that was light. In an instant, optimism turned to despair. The future, my future, now looked bleak and troubled.
These were strong, unusual, and sophisticated emotions for a child, which may be why they have been so indelible. I had no control over them and they surprised and confounded me. I live with them still. I don´t know why and I wish I didn´t feel them So, it’s been very helpful to learn from the posts to ¨Where Were You When?¨ that so many of my peers have similar feelings. And some were just in primary school at the time.
After listening to the final episode of Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien’s podcast, ¨Who Killed JFK?¨ my wife asked me, only half-joking, if I can now die in peace. Unfortunately, I still can´t. I need full disclosure. I think the JFK assassination was a virus that started what is now an epidemic of mendacity, cynicism, divisiveness, violence, and ridiculous conspiracies of every kind everywhere. American democracy is on life-support and may not survive. As long as we keep pretending that there was no virus and there is no epidemic, we will never heal. I will never heal. If those who are complicit in hiding the truth believe that the truth will tear us apart, they need to know that the cover-up is doing exactly that.
Strangely, I remember much about that day. Aged 13, I was at home in Mt Eliza, on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, near Melbourne, Australia. 12.30pm Dallas time on that fateful Friday was 5.30am Melbourne time on Saturday morning the 23rd. It was late spring and warm, summer was only days away. I remember rising for breakfast and the early radio news brought that terrible story. Early details were very sketchy and we spent quite some time by the radio listening for updates, which came painfully slowly. I remember the rest of the day quite vividly. It’s even stranger to recall those events on the very day 60 years later, as we’ve all just done. I have visited Dallas a number of times since, which always evokes the emotions of that morning.
I spent much of that day hanging around the house, much of it alone in a quiet mood of reflection but feeling disoriented and uncomfortable. We knew of Camelot and soon learned it was over. That night we saw the first grainy pictures from Dealey Plaza on our Admiral B&W TV. I guess they’d been transmitted across the trans-pacific cable. It was like I’d lost a close friend or relative, which I had just the year before when an aunt died. This time the emotion of loss lingered for quite some time.
On reflection now, this event was amongst the first I recall of the disquieting shift in the US economic and global policy direction, we now understand as the rules based international order, which in may ways commenced or recommenced on that day. The move back to war which Kennedy clearly admonished and was determined to end, demonstrated through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuba crisis, his difficult meeting with Khrushchev and his announcement of the Vietnam withdrawal, reversed in the days following his murder. We just need to look at the last 3 years of a Democrat led government and the prior 4, to understand the enormous consequences of that day for the entire world.
I was a first-year student at Choate School, living in one of JFK's old rooms. That Thanksgiving I Was invited to a friend's house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. My friend's step-father was Hank Suydam of Time-Life. One evening around Thanksgiving, around the 28th November, Suydam came home and asked if we wanted to see a film. He projected the Zapruder film on the dining rook wall. Vivid, in color, sharp. https://chestertownspy.org/2013/11/19/in-kennedys-rooms/
Well, the answer to your question is also the dust cover copy of my new Thriller, ASK NOT!
I started writing this book in 4th grade. When we were told that the president had been killed. Joey Lanz, who till that point was best known for being able to lick the bottom of his shoe, (we were 9) said. “Bomb Russia now!” Of course, he had no way of knowing who killed Kennedy.
60 Years later, a majority of Americans don’t really know either. The Kennedy Assassination endures because of shoddy crime scene forensics, sketchy autopsies, and the contrast between the senseless death of a great American president and a lone nut seeking infamy.
Or was he? Today you can find “evidence” to support any theory that makes you feel better about the assassination. From the myriad books, films, and articles of experts and near experts, the reason for the crime can morph through a series of anti-social, political, financial, military, and even racial motives. It can be seen as the actions of a lone nut, or vast conspiracy.
But what is undeniable is that the ‘assassination fascination’ surrounding the death of the 35th president wasn’t buried along with him under the perpetual flame in Arlington National Cemetery. However, perpetually burning questions still persist. But my suspicion is that for many, this whole field of controversy, conspiracy, and complicity is…fun. Maybe not as much fun as winning a pinky bet that Joey could lick the bottom of his Tom McCanns, but I’m betting it makes a great canvas on which to paint the murder mystery-thriller that this book has become.
I was in the 5th grade in a Catholic elementary school on Long Island in NY. My class was practicing for our part in the school Christmas pageant. I was going to be an angel, and was proud to have a part.
We paused practice when we heard our principal, Sister Petronella, make an announcement over the loudspeaker. This was something she did not regularly do, so we listened carefully.
Sister, in her Irish brogue, announced that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. She asked everyone to stop and pray for the President and his family. I’m sure that she knew that the President was dead by then, but decided not to tell the students. The staff may have shared the news among themselves , but I don’t remember anything else about the rest of that day. I remember getting off the school bus with my two younger brothers, and walking the block back to my house. My mother opened the kitchen door as she heard us open the front entrance hallway door, and I can still see the look on her face. He was probably holding my youngest brother, who was a week short of 3 months old. She told us that yes, the president was dead. We probably dropped our school bags and coats, and joined her in the living room, where we watched the continuous TV coverage, along with my 5 year old sister and 4 year old brother.
I remember being glued to the TV screen, and thinking about Caroline and John being without their dad. I particularly remember watching AirForce One arriving at Andrew’s AirForce Base, and Mrs. Kennedy getting off the plane and following her husband into the ambulance/hearse, still clad in that pink suit.
I remember Lyndon Johnson’s speech.
I remember that our local paper, Newsday, published a special Extra edition that night, that was delivered to our home.
As the weekend progressed, I remembered being a little mad at my dad because he would not take us to Washington to wait in line to view the President’s coffin in the Capitol Rotunda.
I don’t specifically remember Sunday Mass, other than it was still in Latin, but I’m sure that prayers were offered for the President and his family.
I do remember seeing the solemn procession from the White House to the Capitol, the riderless horse, and the music played as JFK was carried up the stairs of the Capitol, and then down again the next day. I remember hearing “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” and O God of Loveliness”. I cannot hear either hymn these 60 years after without remembering JFK’s funeral.
As I recall, all schools, and probably many businesses were closed on Monday November 25, for JFK’s funeral. I know we watched the funeral on our black and white tv, and I remember being impressed by all the ceremonies and all of the dignitaries in attendance.
Fast forward nearly 40 years to 9/11/2001. I was an adult teaching in a large urban elementary school. I remember very clearly that morning, as I made the left turn from Seneca Avenue onto DeKalb Avenue, looking as I always did at the towers of the World Trade Center across the athletic fields of Grover Cleveland High School. I never knew that this was the last time I would see them again.
I started teaching in 1990, and from time to time, lunchtime conversations among faculty members would occasionally turn to “where were you on 11/22/1963?” Several of my fellow teachers were actually teaching in the building at the time, and were able to share stories.
I’ve been retired for a few years now, I and I know that some of the newer staff were not even born on 9/11. But I know that if I were still teaching there, I would try to share how I felt as a student on 11/22/1963 and as a teacher on 9/11:2001.
It is important for witnesses of history to share their stories . That is one of the reasons why I have subscribed to JFK Facts.
I was in eighth grade history class when one of our math teachers walked into the classroom with a very somber look on his face. He leaned down, whispered something to our teacher, and tears immediately rolled down her face.
We all started looking at one another trying to figure out what happened when the principal of the school came over the PA system and announced that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas.
We all went into shock with the news. There was hardly a word spoken in the hallways as we changed classes.
On that Sunday I was sitting in the floor doing homework watching television. My memory is vivid I had just taken a sip of milk when Oswald was murdered. My first thought was “how does that happen in a police station “. With mixed emotions I was glad that Kennedy’s “killer” was dead but we would not know why he did it.
Like everyone else we watched the presidents funeral. Jackie dressed in black, very stoic, John-John saluting. The deathly quiet along the parade route. It was so quiet one could hear the clomp of the horses hooves as they pulled the caisson. The tears in my eyes when I saw the riderless horse.
How did it change my life? Even as a not-yet teenager I realized this country would kill hope.
When the magic bullet crap came out, the grassy knoll, the Zapruder film, I knew we were being lied to.
Ever since then I have wanted to know who killed my President.
Because of President Kennedy and his ideals I joined the Peace Corps immediately after college. Since returning I have worked for social justice and equal rights for our citizens.
Before I die I want to know who killed “my President”.
I was in the 6th grade at St. Margaret Catholic grammar school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. (Note: JFK was confirmed at St. Margaret church in 1927 when the Kennedys lived in Riverdale). Sister Joan, was buzzed on the classroom intercom when she answered the call she reacted with shock in her voice. She then announced the President’s had been killed and we would be going over to the church. The entire school (600+ students) filed into the church where Fr. Kildoyle led the student body in prayer for JFK. When arrived home my mother had the TV on with Walter Cronkite. I vividly remember when the plane arrived at Andrew’s AF base and the casket being loaded into the hearse and LBJ speaking. My brother and sister ate our dinner in the living room so we could watch the Television.
My entire family was in the living room on Sunday when my parents were on the way out the door when Ruby shot Oswald and we all sat down and watched the events unfold on TV.
Interesting side note: My wife was in the fifth grade at St. Margaret’s and she has the same memories as mine. We did not know each other then, we met in her senior year of high school.
The JFK assassination, has always held my interest, probably because I saw him on the Saturday before Election Day in 1960 when his campaign motorcade stopped briefly at St.Margaret’s church and rolled down the window of his Cadillac limousine and looked up at the Church Steeple and then waved to the assembled crowd outside the church, and then proceeded to the Grand Concourse where h gave two speeches.
I have visited Dealey Plaza on several occasions, on business trips, as well as the hotel JFK stayed at in Fort Worth.
In 4th grade at St Luke's, about one mile from RFK Hickory Hill. (St Luke's was Ethel's church.) Art class. Mother Superior announces JFK shot, prayers. Then announces JFK dead, more prayers. Early dismissal. Find mom at home on the floor crying. JFK was a god to us Irish Catholics. This was my epiphany with respect to "news".
I was in the 6th grade when they started playing the radio coverage on the PA system. At this point, we did not know that the President was dead. We were all sent home and I remember getting off the bus and seeing my Mom standing on the front stoop crying. We then watched Walter Cronkite for all the coverage.
On Sunday we turned on the TV and were watching as Oswald was being transferred. I will never forget the shock of watching him shot dead on live TV. For an 11 year old, this was truly a life shattering event.
Then we all watched the funeral and what still rings in my head is the cadence of the drums as the caisson was pulled along the streets.
Years later, while in college I attended a lunchtime lecture titled "Who Killed JFK?". It included a viewing of a bootleg copy of the Zapruder film. Like everyone else of that age, I had fully believed the Warren Commission's report since our government would never lie to us! I'll never forget that one of our professors actually stood up and said, "As someone who has felt the thumb of the CIA, I can tell you that what this man is saying is true." I walked out of that presentation with my hands shaking.
I then joined Mark Lane's "Citizen's Commission of Inquiry" and bought many books by him, Harold Weisberg, Edward Jay Epstein, etc. I had a bumper sticker and would talk to anyone who would listen.
To this day, I still am asking the question, "Who Killed JFK".
I was in biology lab at Johns Hopkins dissecting a salamander when the TA got our attention and told us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. He told us we were dismissed, that he would pick up after us. I was shocked. The day before, on the evening news I had seen Kennedy riding in an open limousine through downtown Houston, and I remarked to friends than anyone who wanted to could shoot him. But I didn't really think it would happen. Then on Sunday I was watching the news coverage when Ruby shot Oswald. I was so upset that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun saying that, as we mourn the loss of President Kennedy, we should also mourn the failure of our system of justice. Words of an overwrought teenage idealist, but I was truly appalled that a suspect could be killed while in police custody. (At the time, I was not even thinking about our nation's long history of racial terror, lynchings, and mob violence.)
How did it change my life? Soon after that day I dropped that course and switched my major from biology to history. The assassination wasn't the only reason I made the switch, but it helped me realize that I was more interested in history and government than in science. I would eventually go to law school, and spend my professional career in legal research.
I was disappointed with the Warren Report, and never believed it. I followed news accounts with interest, hoping for revelations that would confirm my belief that there had been a conspiracy, but it was not until the early 1990s that I started devoting more time to this topic. I attended some COPA conferences, read lots of books and articles (Third Decade, Fourth Decade, Probe, JFK Deep Politics, etc.), and eventually wrote several book reviews for the Federal Lawyer.
Rob Reiner's podcast has rekindled my interest, and I'm very grateful to Jefferson Morley for running this informative site, for his FOIA suits seeking release of files, and for his insights and perspective.
In 6th grade on PE time. Pretty shocking, even to 11 year old. I remember Mr. means herding us inside.
Now, I came from a politically informed family who often had long kitchen table discussions with friends—all of a conservative, National Review, Firing Line crowd. The JFK discussion never veered from, “there must be a conspiracy, do t listen to the WC”. Over the years, I read many of the books, always enjoyed true crime. Along with books on Cuban Missile Crisis (Max Hastings’ offering recently, very good); etc. in retirement, over the last year I’ve latched on to the story again, the post-ARRB info was missed.
We really need, as a nation, for the documentation to be released and analyzed. Theres no excuse for documents from people gone for 50 or 60 years to be “denied in full”. I’ve written my Senators on the subject.
I was three years and 18 days old, but I remember the event clearly. We lived in San Antonio, Texas. My dad was going on a sales trip to Uvalde that day, so he dropped me and my mom and my newly born brother off at maternal Grandma's house in Devine, Texas, about thirty minutes south of San Antonio. My father had not been gone long when he returned to tell us he had heard on the radio that the president had been shot. I knew even at that age that it was a very big deal, and I have not forgotten it from that day to this.
Good to hear someone who was that young has a memory. I do as well. Was 3 mos shy of 3 but I recall the funeral. It was of course boring to me and my 5-year old brother but our parents insisted we keep watching because it was ‘historic.’ My brother has validated that memory.
More vividly I remember my mom bringing out the Life and Look magazines out from the cedar chest every Thanksgiving about the assassination and passing them around to all us six kids. Later she added the assassination coverage of RFK. I was a reader and even then was fascinated and read every word each time.
Later my mom made our bedroom over in red white and blue with quotes from JFK and RFK hanging from the walls.
Looking back, you could tell those two deaths hit our Irish-American family hard. My dad was first gen and mom was second gen from poor backgrounds.
I was in 7th grade math class. A student who sat behind me came back from a trip to the office where he heard the news. He told the teacher and then told me. School was out a few minutes later so not much was said in class. I remember wondering if it was true, if he really had died. Rumors were rampant in the after school halls. My friend and I decorated our locker in black crepe paper around a picture of JFK. After school we walked downtown as usual to get “fries and a Coke”. Everyone was subdued. Then we went home to be glued to the TV all weekend, commiserating with Caroline Kennedy because I had recently lost my dad to cancer. I was 10 at that time. The same “locker decorating” friend and I had just been to DC with our moms. We saw JFK in his limo entering the White House gate. I believe that made it more real to us, that this handsome man had been cut down in the prime of his life. It hit both of us hard.
My mom and I left for my aunt’s house to have Thanksgiving dinner. It was during the drive there that Oswald was shot. It upset me that after all my TV that I missed it. Despite that, it was horrific.
I remember that weekend as if it were yesterday, such a tragedy for the nation, a great loss for all the policies of our nation.
I was 7 years old in second grade... When I arrived home from school my younger brother mentioned that “President Kennedy was shot today”. No one else discussed it with me either at home or at school. We had the TV on when Oswald was shot.
My parents did however save the Life magazine issues related to the assassination and I did read them. The official story of Oswald’s movements had the ring of an arrogant, haughty, evil lie even to my 7-year-old sensibilities.
I don’t know if the assassination affected me. I didn’t give it further thought until many years later. At age 7 I had never considered whether or not I trusted the government. But I do know there has never been a day in my life when I actually did trust the government. Maybe the assassination had something to do with that or maybe not. It certainly didn’t help when several years later RFK’s murder was also accompanied by a suspicious and slimy explanation. Or when a few years after that I found the specter of possibly being drafted and sent to Viet Nam breathing down my neck.
I had a fairly low draft number, so as a teenager, I had to decide if I was going to Canada or to prison if the call came. The fact that Muhammad Ali had the courage to go to prison had an impact on me. I knew we were committing war crimes, in fact the entire war was a crime, and I refused to participate. Just being a war protester at the time came with plenty of aggravation.
9th grade classroom...admin came in to tell everyone to go to the auditorium where the assassination was announced to all the students and teachers as a group (several hundred - small school). No details. No comments. Teachers obviously upset. Students dumbfounded. Students were sent home (back next day). I do not recall any conversations with parents or siblings. No followup at school. Like it did not happen. I also do not recall much substantive convo on TV. Flash forward to 2024 and the revealed role of the CIA, Angleton, Nam...I have read most of the books...what does it all mean?
It means there's a thoroughly evil secret government that really controls the US and that almost everything we were raised to believe about America is a lie. It means you can't trust a damn word the government and the mainstream media say about anything, but especially about war and foreign policy. We're just like the German people during the Nazi era. Our government starts wars and commits atrocities all over the world, and we barely take notice. JFK saw this and tried to put a stop to it. Principally, that's why they killed him.
Exactly.... Perfectly stated.... Especially the ending two sentences.... and also the comparison to the German people.
A great crime was committed, and the government is covering it up by refusing to release relevant documents even after they are demanded by a US senator. Sound familiar?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa0gri_hn30
This time millions of people around the world died, not just one president.
Okay this is an enormous and important subject. I don’t think anyone has their arms fully around it — certainly not me — but Tucker and Rand Paul and Russell Brand are excellent sources.
As you may recall I mentioned to you roughly a year ago that I believed one could draw a straight unbroken line from the JFKA to Fauci.
Anyway here’s my 2¢... I think the two most heinous “crimes” committed by architects of the Plandemic were 1) insisting the “science” related to COVID-19 was known and well established (which it absolutely was not particularly with respect to COVID-19 but more generally “science” with respect to any subject is never known and well established)... and 2) insisting that those who challenged the official narrative posed the greatest threat to society and medical well being (where in fact such individuals are always the best source of crucial insights).
I think in the end their actual goals were 1) to create avenues of attack for defeating the election of Trump and then perhaps even more importantly 2) to create pretexts for shutting down free speech and particularly the Internet — because ultimately what they fear most is liberal democracy itself.
When I say I'm an "election denier," I mean it in a general sense. The elections are rigged, generally, and the pandemic provided cover for an unprecedented level of fraud. The mechanisms are easy enough to see. I would only add, by way of credibility, that I was an international election monitor in several countries over a period of six years. I've seen every trick in the book. Love Trump or hate him, something was very wrong with Election 2020. It's very dangerous to tamper with the popular vote. We may reap the whirlwind in America, after we have been undermining the popular vote in other countries for decades. The chickens are coming home to roost. It gives me zero satisfaction to say that.
The whole damn political system is rigged through gerrymandering, the electoral college, voter suppression, media blackouts on dissident candidates, and legislation that keeps third parties off the ballot. Is that a democracy? I don't think so. The Supreme Court says it can't figure out any solutions (ha!).
It wasn't necessary to tamper with the actual vote until a presidential candidate came along who the oligarchy couldn't control. Trump's principal transgression is that he won't greenlight all the wars they want. Of course, that's what got JFK killed.
How do you think the vote was tampered with? Trump's lawyers couldn't convince any judges that it was, including ones he appointed.
Yours is another great insight that takes us even deeper into the true nature of the problem we face (being the war on liberal democracy).
We the American People have in spite of ourselves and for over 70 years sanctioned extremely well financed and extremely highly skilled election interference operations around the world. Inevitably that weapon has now been turned against us domestically. And for anyone who has paid close enough attention it’s easy to see exactly how this was done.
Free speech died without so much as a whimper, just like our Fourth Amendment rights did previously. That really shocked me. The Twitter Files hearings spelled it all out.
What we are experiencing at this very moment is all out war against liberal democracy. It and the class of criminal Elites can no longer coexist. One must be destroyed.
The criminal elite seem to be winning.
Thanks, Paul. I refer to what we are living in as the Fourth Reich, but a lot of people would probably think that's extreme. We literally teamed up with the Nazis at the end of WWII after executing a handful for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most were never even charged. Most who received long prison sentences, even life sentences, served a few years and were quietly released.
“There is only one thing on my bucket list; I don’t want to die without knowing the truth about JFK’s assassination.” I have said this to my wife, children, and friends many times over the last few years, but I have been thinking it for decades.
I was twelve-years-old sitting in my middle-school music class when we heard the news. It was so visceral and monumental that no one questioned that we needed to go home. I have yet to meet any American of my generation whose school did not close as soon as the news came through. It’s hard to imagine any event having the same impact today. Why? I think Kennedy embodied the American ideal; an America at its best with even better days to come. The “face” of America was as thoughtful, witty, and moral as he was movie-star handsome. It was the face America saw in the mirror and the world saw as America. We all loved him…almost as much as we loved Jackie. My grandmother, who spoke only Yiddish, had a photo of Kennedy taped to her kitchen wall. I had to laugh. Could anyone look more Catholic and less Jewish?
Then, that charming face and those brilliant brains, were blown to pieces. Even before it became obvious, even to a 12-year-old, that something deeply nefarious was happening when Ruby shot Oswald in a police station surrounded by 70 officers with TV cameras rolling, I felt that dark forces had destroyed all that was light. In an instant, optimism turned to despair. The future, my future, now looked bleak and troubled.
These were strong, unusual, and sophisticated emotions for a child, which may be why they have been so indelible. I had no control over them and they surprised and confounded me. I live with them still. I don´t know why and I wish I didn´t feel them So, it’s been very helpful to learn from the posts to ¨Where Were You When?¨ that so many of my peers have similar feelings. And some were just in primary school at the time.
After listening to the final episode of Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien’s podcast, ¨Who Killed JFK?¨ my wife asked me, only half-joking, if I can now die in peace. Unfortunately, I still can´t. I need full disclosure. I think the JFK assassination was a virus that started what is now an epidemic of mendacity, cynicism, divisiveness, violence, and ridiculous conspiracies of every kind everywhere. American democracy is on life-support and may not survive. As long as we keep pretending that there was no virus and there is no epidemic, we will never heal. I will never heal. If those who are complicit in hiding the truth believe that the truth will tear us apart, they need to know that the cover-up is doing exactly that.
Strangely, I remember much about that day. Aged 13, I was at home in Mt Eliza, on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, near Melbourne, Australia. 12.30pm Dallas time on that fateful Friday was 5.30am Melbourne time on Saturday morning the 23rd. It was late spring and warm, summer was only days away. I remember rising for breakfast and the early radio news brought that terrible story. Early details were very sketchy and we spent quite some time by the radio listening for updates, which came painfully slowly. I remember the rest of the day quite vividly. It’s even stranger to recall those events on the very day 60 years later, as we’ve all just done. I have visited Dallas a number of times since, which always evokes the emotions of that morning.
I spent much of that day hanging around the house, much of it alone in a quiet mood of reflection but feeling disoriented and uncomfortable. We knew of Camelot and soon learned it was over. That night we saw the first grainy pictures from Dealey Plaza on our Admiral B&W TV. I guess they’d been transmitted across the trans-pacific cable. It was like I’d lost a close friend or relative, which I had just the year before when an aunt died. This time the emotion of loss lingered for quite some time.
On reflection now, this event was amongst the first I recall of the disquieting shift in the US economic and global policy direction, we now understand as the rules based international order, which in may ways commenced or recommenced on that day. The move back to war which Kennedy clearly admonished and was determined to end, demonstrated through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuba crisis, his difficult meeting with Khrushchev and his announcement of the Vietnam withdrawal, reversed in the days following his murder. We just need to look at the last 3 years of a Democrat led government and the prior 4, to understand the enormous consequences of that day for the entire world.
I was a first-year student at Choate School, living in one of JFK's old rooms. That Thanksgiving I Was invited to a friend's house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. My friend's step-father was Hank Suydam of Time-Life. One evening around Thanksgiving, around the 28th November, Suydam came home and asked if we wanted to see a film. He projected the Zapruder film on the dining rook wall. Vivid, in color, sharp. https://chestertownspy.org/2013/11/19/in-kennedys-rooms/
Well, the answer to your question is also the dust cover copy of my new Thriller, ASK NOT!
I started writing this book in 4th grade. When we were told that the president had been killed. Joey Lanz, who till that point was best known for being able to lick the bottom of his shoe, (we were 9) said. “Bomb Russia now!” Of course, he had no way of knowing who killed Kennedy.
60 Years later, a majority of Americans don’t really know either. The Kennedy Assassination endures because of shoddy crime scene forensics, sketchy autopsies, and the contrast between the senseless death of a great American president and a lone nut seeking infamy.
Or was he? Today you can find “evidence” to support any theory that makes you feel better about the assassination. From the myriad books, films, and articles of experts and near experts, the reason for the crime can morph through a series of anti-social, political, financial, military, and even racial motives. It can be seen as the actions of a lone nut, or vast conspiracy.
But what is undeniable is that the ‘assassination fascination’ surrounding the death of the 35th president wasn’t buried along with him under the perpetual flame in Arlington National Cemetery. However, perpetually burning questions still persist. But my suspicion is that for many, this whole field of controversy, conspiracy, and complicity is…fun. Maybe not as much fun as winning a pinky bet that Joey could lick the bottom of his Tom McCanns, but I’m betting it makes a great canvas on which to paint the murder mystery-thriller that this book has become.
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Tom Avitabile
I was in the 5th grade in a Catholic elementary school on Long Island in NY. My class was practicing for our part in the school Christmas pageant. I was going to be an angel, and was proud to have a part.
We paused practice when we heard our principal, Sister Petronella, make an announcement over the loudspeaker. This was something she did not regularly do, so we listened carefully.
Sister, in her Irish brogue, announced that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. She asked everyone to stop and pray for the President and his family. I’m sure that she knew that the President was dead by then, but decided not to tell the students. The staff may have shared the news among themselves , but I don’t remember anything else about the rest of that day. I remember getting off the school bus with my two younger brothers, and walking the block back to my house. My mother opened the kitchen door as she heard us open the front entrance hallway door, and I can still see the look on her face. He was probably holding my youngest brother, who was a week short of 3 months old. She told us that yes, the president was dead. We probably dropped our school bags and coats, and joined her in the living room, where we watched the continuous TV coverage, along with my 5 year old sister and 4 year old brother.
I remember being glued to the TV screen, and thinking about Caroline and John being without their dad. I particularly remember watching AirForce One arriving at Andrew’s AirForce Base, and Mrs. Kennedy getting off the plane and following her husband into the ambulance/hearse, still clad in that pink suit.
I remember Lyndon Johnson’s speech.
I remember that our local paper, Newsday, published a special Extra edition that night, that was delivered to our home.
As the weekend progressed, I remembered being a little mad at my dad because he would not take us to Washington to wait in line to view the President’s coffin in the Capitol Rotunda.
I don’t specifically remember Sunday Mass, other than it was still in Latin, but I’m sure that prayers were offered for the President and his family.
I do remember seeing the solemn procession from the White House to the Capitol, the riderless horse, and the music played as JFK was carried up the stairs of the Capitol, and then down again the next day. I remember hearing “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” and O God of Loveliness”. I cannot hear either hymn these 60 years after without remembering JFK’s funeral.
As I recall, all schools, and probably many businesses were closed on Monday November 25, for JFK’s funeral. I know we watched the funeral on our black and white tv, and I remember being impressed by all the ceremonies and all of the dignitaries in attendance.
Fast forward nearly 40 years to 9/11/2001. I was an adult teaching in a large urban elementary school. I remember very clearly that morning, as I made the left turn from Seneca Avenue onto DeKalb Avenue, looking as I always did at the towers of the World Trade Center across the athletic fields of Grover Cleveland High School. I never knew that this was the last time I would see them again.
I started teaching in 1990, and from time to time, lunchtime conversations among faculty members would occasionally turn to “where were you on 11/22/1963?” Several of my fellow teachers were actually teaching in the building at the time, and were able to share stories.
I’ve been retired for a few years now, I and I know that some of the newer staff were not even born on 9/11. But I know that if I were still teaching there, I would try to share how I felt as a student on 11/22/1963 and as a teacher on 9/11:2001.
It is important for witnesses of history to share their stories . That is one of the reasons why I have subscribed to JFK Facts.
I was in my fifth grade class. I was the only student to know that LBJ would be the next President