Look, I wish I had something new and exciting to say about JFK. I don’t. He was like you and me (only richer). He had problems and issues. He had chronic severe back pain and was addicted to women, beautiful women. He was on narcotics. He was also brilliant and learned quickly. He was outsmarted by the Russians. Nikita Khrushchev thought that the American playboy was stupid or can be easily manipulated. He was wrong. It was Kennedy who shined in the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy did not understand race. He didn’t get it. It was only towards the end when he started to understand the importance of race in America.
We love conspiracy theories. We have conspiracy theories for almost everything and every phenomenon of national significance. The assassination of JFK is no different. It is hard for us to imagine that someone who was so beloved, so magical, could be struck down by a single assassin’s bullet. Therefore, it’s easier to imagine a complex conspiracy which includes the Russians, the Cubans and the Mafia. I, like many Americans, have read many books and have watched many specials on the JFK assassination. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy. I believe he fired two or three shots. That’s it. I have no idea how he got out of Texas School Book Depository. Yes, there are lots of unanswered questions. There are always unanswered questions whenever you have a major tragedy which is charged with emotion; like the Virginia Tech shooting, like Columbine high school and like the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This tragedy is so large that no amount of information and facts can explain everything.
There are those that say that John F. Kennedy was a great president. I don’t know. When you look at his body of work, he said many great things. He connected with the American people like no president has in the last 50 years (with the exception of Ronald Reagan). He started a lot of great things in motion. Yet, he really did not accomplish much during his presidency. I think that his presidency was a mixed bag. I think that you could label him a solid president, a good president, but not great president.
That’s my two cents on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK.
