My "Where were You"? Update
Those of you who regularly read this blog know, by now, that I missed my only opportunity to vote for JFK in 1960, because he selected LBJ for his Vice Presidential running mate. Fifty years after his assassination, I still think JFK would be alive today had he picked someone else. As a 21-year-old, first time voter in 1960, I was very well aware of LBJ's track record with the "Segs" of the South; and learned, later, that he was extremely close to J.Edgar Hoover. At that time, the FBI was full of Southern Segs, and openly anti-black. Washington D.C. was racially segregated and dominated by politicians from below the Mason-Dixon Line.
On November 22, 1963, a Friday, I was at work in a physics research laboratory in the Washington, D.C. area. The small group of researchers numbered less than 30, virtually all male (a lone female researcher), half Jewish; the other half mostly Catholic (few Protestants, a single black, a single woman). We often had heated political arguments in the lunch room on Fridays, where we also held a mandatory, Friday lecture on some topic related to advanced physics research. As I remember, the Catholics on the staff were nervous about the fact that JFK was not well liked in the Congress and in the Nation. Opposition to his leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis a year before, and his stance on Civil Rights made them anxious that there could be some anti-Catholic "blow-back".
When the announcement came of the assassination, we left, in shock, early for home. The general atmosphere in the Washington, D.C. area was, because of the Missile Crisis the year before, highly tense and very fearful. I remember the nation's response to be mixed between those who were openly cheering the event and those who could not contain their grief. I remember a news report that Gerald Ford, a member of the Commission to investigate the assassination, provided J. Edgar Hoover private reports of each day's activities on the Commission. Suspicions reigned, in about every direction.
The "9-11-2001" event cast a pall over the nation in a very different way than that of "11-22-63", in that the rage-mixed-with fear of this century, was deep grief (for some), mixed with glee and fear, then. Both marked extremely dark chapters in our history, and a "turning" toward ever-darker events.
I probably won't live long enough to see it, but I believe this nation will work its way out of the darkness that has shrouded the past fifty years; when it comes to see clearly and understand the connections between what is happening now and what happened then.
Stay Vigilant! VOTE in 2014, as if the election were a Presidential Election!! Do that for
"your Country"!!
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