H.W. Bush, JFK, and US
The death this past week and the funeral for President Bush reminded me of a post, and one that I meant to get back to, but did not.
When another President, Trump, allowed the release of files about the Kennedy assassination that had been sealed for 50 years, after some agreements with the FBI and the CIA had been ironed out, we got another glimpse into the functioning of the government in the chaotic days after the assassination. How do you tie the events together? Simple. The President, be it George Washington, or H.W. Bush, or Kennedy, or even Trump, IS us. We, as citizens, define ourselves through who, and more importantly, HOW someone is President. When JFK was murdered, litterally before our eyes, WE died. When President Trump makes it okay to name call, to bully, to be mean, we all are given license. How a President acts matters. What happens to them happens to us.
Can we survive bad Presidents? We can, and we might even NEED them, to show us what a problem it is to have a bad President. When President Bush refused to deal with the AIDS epidemic, to even utter the word, to allow gay guys to die, it became clear: Gay guys don’t matter, do what you want to them. It was brutal, and caused suffering and death. That, however you spin it, is unacceptable. The President is President for everyone. Period.
The Federal Archives released files from the days after the Kennedy assination in the fall of 2017. After I read the files that were released I wrote a post.
What happened to JFK? What happened to us? Have we recovered? I would say no, but we cope. We will recover, someday, from the current Administration, but, hopefully, we won’t forget.
We recovered from President Bush, mostly. Those guys, the ones that Bush ignored? They were great guys. They will be forever 30, or 35, their lives unlived. I knew them. I loved some of them. I won’t forget them, or what happened to them. They, alas, never recovered.
That post, here:
As an amateur expert on the JFK assassination, the news from the files is not earth shattering. There were some intriguing tidbits — strange calls to the US Embassy in London BEFORE the shooting, more Oswald in Mexico City, none of which was revelatory. I was 5 when Kennedy was killed. I came home from kindergarten to a mother unwilling to play our usual checkers, until we moved the board to in front of the TV.
The real meat from the files — things that the FBI and the CIA did not want released, remain sealed. There seems to be some interesting documents from the 1975 Church Committee, but they end in strange places, and there is nothing to follow.
You have to look at the context. It was 1963. We were 17 years away from Hiroshima, nuclear weapons had been loosed on the World, and half of Europe was under Soviet domination. There was peace in Europe, but barely. The economies of Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and Europe had been bombed, strafed, and blown up. There had been 60 to 70 million casualties. 7 Million Jews and others had been murdered. The Americans had, with NATO, guaranteed Europes defense, but De Gaulle, being De Gaulle, had pulled French troops out of NATO, complaining that the Americans always waited too long, and arrived late. Krushcev, feeling that John Kennedy was young and could be manipulated, had bullied and threatened the President in meetings. The Russians, fearing mass defections from East to West Berlin, had started building the wall.
Into this whole scenario we can add: The failed Bay of Bigs invasion, and President Kennedy’s refusal to send the Air Force, to provide air cover when the invasion fell apart. We were a year out from the Cuban Missile Crisis, which could have resulted in 20 million American casualties. Things were tense. Then, suddenly, the President of the United States was murdered, right in front of us. Two days later, his assassin was murdered, on live TV. Lyndon Johnson, trying to run and hold together a shocked and distraught nation, wondered if the Russians were behind it. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, realized how explosive the whole situation was. The Secret Service, which was responsible for the safety of the President, had failed.
There have been 4 American Presidents assassinated. Kennedy, Lincoln, Garfield, and William McKinley.
The Kennedy assassination raised so many questions because of the times, the brutal nature of it, (remember Jackies dress,) and television. It is estimated that 8 of every 10 Americans watched the whole weekend. There were no commercials.
The questions still remain: How could the most important and powerful man in the country and the world be murdered with a cheap gun and some guy? Didn’t he have to have help? How could he have done this alone? There were people who were not honest actors. There were people who captured the whole thing on film, the Zapruder film, which the Secret Service took control of, there was a dead President, and a gravely injured Governor. So, the questions still remain: Did Oswald act alone?
Nellie Connelly, before she died, said she believed it was just Oswald. She wrote a book, and she pointed out that it didn’t “feel,” organized. That is intriguing, and may be the best explanation. But, the government keeps holding out — they have messed around with these papers for 60 years. They should release all of it, and have it over with.
The Presidential Limousine, a 1961 4 door Lincoln Continental, speeds on down the Stemmons Freeway. We know from the “Jackie” movie what was happening in the back seat, finally, but we still don’t completely know why. We may never.
