In September, 1951, there was no onrush of memories of President William McKinley, who was assassinated a half century earlier, on Sept. 14, 1901. In fact, there was virtually no remembrance at all. President McKinley was not, in the grand scheme of things, a significant president, and did not leave a lasting impact. Those who argue, correctly in our view, that the Kennedy presidency was not a significant presidency in terms of either domestic or foreign policy, err when they say that he did not leave a lasting impact.
Check out the overwhelming remembrance of the man on this, the year and the date of the 50th anniversary of his assassination, Nov. 22, 1963. In a perverse sort of way, google “McKinley 50th assassination remembrance” and virtually nothing pops up — about McKinley remembrances — but a lot pops up about JFK remembrances.
Even for the tens (hundreds?) of millions of Americans born after Kennedy was assassinated, he has clearly entered the American psyche. It was not just because of his or his wife’s glamour. In fact, it is instructive to note just how archaic, by today’s standards, the life of the Kennedys was. They knew nothing of computers, cell phones, joint replacements, four wheel drive (the Lincoln in which Kennedy rode when he was assassinated would today be called a clunker), email, social network sites, sophisticated chemotherapy, heart bypass surgery or anti-bipolar drugs. No, the staying power of JFK was something else.
It was an articulation of hope, of “idealism without illusion”; of confidence and unabashed pride in the strength — military and moral — of America; of transparency in government (in his dazzling press conferences, JFK met the press with enjoyment, not distrust, and with wit, not manipulation); of a sense of history, of connectedness to what had come before and anticipation of what could be; of thought, of an embrace of libraries, of reading, of intellectual exploration; of the value and the excitement of the pursuit of “outer space”; of who was an enemy of this country, and who was a friend.
The staying power of JFK, in a general sense, is the way he showed that public service could be for everyone, could be valuable and even, at times, fun; that politics was not only an honorable pursuit but a high calling, since the fate of millions depended on its success. The staying power of JFK, in other words, is due in part to the unfortunate, stark contrast between the social values he brought to being in public life and the values, if one may call them that, that governed much of politics after his assassination and in most of the decades since.
That day in November 50 years ago marked a drastic turn not only for a family but for a nation. It is difficult to resummon for those not then alive how people felt a tremendous sense of personal loss with the loss of the president; how so many millions felt that they had lost a member of their own family; how they had sustained a grievous loss not only as a citizen, but as a person.
We do not recall any record of masses of people remembering “exactly where I was, and what I was doing” when President McKinley died. Yet, virtually everyone who was a teenager or older in 1963 can tell you exactly where he or she was when Kennedy was shot. And can also recount, in fairly vivid memory, the hours that followed, the uncertainty, the funeral cortege, the family in black, the horse with boots in the stirrups, reversed; the absolute stillness of the nation; the shocking explosion of that stillness with the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. These matters are burned not into some ephemeral “collective memory” but into the memories of millions of individual Americans. Kennedy’s leadership meant far more than his policies, however successful or unsuccessful one may judge them in retrospect.
Needless to say, much that has come out about Kennedy’s conduct (“he was no saint,” as many put it delicately) since the assassination stains his legacy. Yet, the dimensions of the current rush to remember, in bright contrast to the potential parallel of the essentially non-existent McKinley remembrances of 1951, demonstrate that Americans still thirst for the hope, for the pride, for the curiosity, for the clarity that Kennedy embodied and championed. On this level, no president since has come close; even as LBJ far transcended JFK in civil rights legislation; even as Gerald Ford healed a nation uniquely; even as Jimmy Carter facilitated peace between Israel and Egypt; even as Ronald Reagan inspired a nation; even as George H. W. Bush led a nation in war; even as Bill Clinton lifted a nation economically; even as George W. Bush saved tens of millions in Africa from the scourge of AIDS; even as Barack Obama embodies the civil rights goals just coming to a head under JFK. Notwithstanding the short time he served as president, JFK still speaks to Americans in a way that no other American president in living memory does.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
