The day President Kennedy was assassinated. The day when many say America lost its innocence. The day Camelot and the New Frontier vanished along with the promise of new, youthful energy replacing the old stogey establishment generation. “The Torch has been passed to a new generation…” Kennedy proclaimed. He was against those things that held us back from being a more perfect union. His agenda was in part, no intervention in regional wars, like Vietnam. No invasion of countries we didn’t agree with, like Cuba. No racial segregation in our society, like in Alabama. No coddling of wealthy industries like oil and military contractors for political support. No mob control of culture and vice.
He stood for much. He was cut down for most of it. Anyone who was above the age of 8 remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I was in 4th grade. I remember the hollow feeling – a chill. Many teachers, who understood the gravity of the moment, were seen with moist eyes as we were let out of school early. We all shook with nerves as we waited for the dreadful Air Raid sirens to start wailing out their warning of instant, immolated death. A flash of light that would leave all of us as shadows of ash to mark where we died. It was the Cold War. The threat of nuclear annihilation was ever present as we routinely “ducked and covered” under our school desk, facing away from the windows, as if that made any difference to a supersonic nuclear fireball disintegrating everything in its path with the heat of a thousand suns. Kennedy was out to stop all that… ’til he was stopped.
For nearly 40 years I have shared the national “Assassination Fascination” that grips America. Today is the birthday of the founding of that cottage industry of conspiracy theorists and their hundreds of books, movies, TV shows, and articles all trying to make sense of the senseless killing of a man trying to be sensible about our world and America’s place in it.
My new thriller, Ask Not, is in many ways an homage to the national obsession with those 6 seconds in Dallas – six seconds whose devastating effects have lasted 60 years. My hero must sift through the world of conspiracy and fact to try to avenge his brother’s death – a brother who was deep into the assassination craziness.
Recently, during a coast-to-coast radio interview, I was asked where I was when the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza on that day. Here is a short video of my response.