Crowds gather to remember JFK

The Dallas Morning News ^ | November 22, 2003 | By KIMBERLY DURNAN / Dallas Web Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Crowds gather to remember JFK

11:46 AM CST on Saturday, November 22, 2003

By KIMBERLY DURNAN / Dallas Web Staff

Some came to reflect or mourn. Others came to hawk hot dogs and books about conspiracy theories. The spectacle and media attention drew others.

By Saturday morning, an impromptu shrine had begun growing at the foot of the grassy knoll, near the white “X” in the street approximating the downtown Dallas spot where an assassin’s bullets cut down President John F. Kennedy 40 years ago.

Among the offerings were flowers and wreaths, flags of the United States, Great Britain and Canada, photos and a handmade poster board reading “Thank you for the gift of you, president Kennedy. We love you.”

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Linda Dowd, 49, of Arlington said it was her first visit. She came “just to remember Kennedy and come and see where it all happened,” she said. “It’s weird, even with all the people, it’s hushed. It’s amazing it attracts this much attention.”

The spot has never stopped attracting attention, ever since that day four decades ago. The charismatic president, visiting the home state of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, gave a speech that morning in Fort Worth, then flew to Love Field, where he was welcomed by a cheering crowd.

He departed the airport in a limousine with first lady Jackie Kennedy, Texas Gov. John Connally and Nellie Connally en route to the next stop at Dallas’ Trade Mart. The presidential motorcade was passing through downtown Dallas on Elm Street about 12:30 p.m. when shots were fired from the nearby Texas School Book Depository.

The car raced to nearby Parkland Hospital. President Kennedy, who suffered a massive head wound, was pronounced dead about a half hour later. Connally recovered from the serious injuries he sustained.

The government’s Warren Commission eventually concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting the president from a window on the sixth floor of the book depository. However, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations decided in 1978 that Kennedy “probably” was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy involving a second gunman.

Today, visitors still flock to the grassy knoll where onlookers dived for cover 40 years ago, and the book depository has become The Sixth Floor Museum, dedicated to preserving the memory of the president’s life, death and legacy.

Lewis Martin, 37, from Croxley, England, already was planning a trip to the area and wanted to be in Dallas for the 40th anniversary commemorations.

“I’ve heard a lot of things about conspiracy theories and that sort of thing and I’ve always been interested in historical and political events,” he said.

A few blocks away, at the Kennedy Memorial Plaza, Noriko Isagozawa was reading the commemorative plaque. The 27-year-old from Tokyo said she came specifically for the anniversary, which also has been remembered in numerous programs in Japan.

“When I was a child my mother told us about him and I became interested,” she said.

Email kdurnan@dallasnews.com

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/112303dnmetjfkfolo.2ea9fd29.html

[MeekOneGOP]

Barbara Davidson / DMN
Tourists posed for photos earlier this week
at a marker on Elm Street that purportedly shows
where the president was at the moment of the final shot.

[DeFault User]

I was home for lunch and listening to WFAA (Dallas AM), which had special reports on the President's arrival and motorcade. They were discussing the upcoming luncheon and the precautions that were being taken for his meal--his plate was to be selected randomly to avoid possible poisoning.

About 12:35 there was a report of what sounded like firecrackers, possibly gunfire during the motorcade. A few minutes later, WFAA had a report that the President was shot, that he had been hit in the head. About 1:00 came the announcement that Kennedy was dead.

Memories that vivid don't seem to be 40 years in the past.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Besides the event of this day forty years ago would someone please explain what John Kennedy did to be note worthy as a president? Please provide sources. TIA.

[MeekOneGOP]

I was living in Fort Worth at the time, in the fourth grade. We were having class in one of those portable buildings and another teacher came into the class and talked to our teacher. I remember overhearing her tell of it. She said that she was getting ready to have lunch at her desk and opened a drawer and saw her transister radio sitting there. She said she never listened to it, but that day she grabbed it and turned it on, just in time to hear the report of Kennedy being shot. When it was announced that he had died, they closed the school and sent us all home.

As you say, one of those days that will live with you all your life. I was 9 years old and politics was nowhere near my mind at that age. It was a sad day, sad event at the time. I was about the same age when this happened as my parents were when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor ...

[Greg Packer]

I remember watching the motorcade pass by the grassy knoll. Look for my picture and interview in the New York Times dated 11/22/63. My first full interview since the day Lincoln was shot.

[Mr. Mojo]

He cut taxes, brilliantly stood up to the Soviets in a nuclear crisis, and inspired us to do what many people thought impossible -- landing men on the moon and returning them safely to earth.

So yeah, there have been far worse Presidents than JFK. In fact, given his relatively conservative views on economics, he would almost certainly be viewed as a "DINO" by todays Rats (if he were a member of their party today).

[T'wit]

C.S. Lewis, a better man, died the same day, his death unmarked due to the JFK tragedy.

[T'wit]

He was a friend of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

[MeekOneGOP]

Besides the event of this day forty years ago would someone please explain what John Kennedy did to be note worthy as a president? Please provide sources. TIA.

He was the last Democrat President to understand that cutting taxes stimulates the economy. He pushed tax cuts and got them when the economy was in a recession.

The "Secret" JFK Tax Cuts

SUMMARY: Ted Kennedy and Democrats are fuming over the use of John F. Kennedy in pro tax cut advertisements. The ads show footage and the words of JFK, who greatly reduced taxes, including a reduction from 91% to 70% for the rich. Why the JFK tax cuts were no different than Reagan's tax cuts, and the ones proposed by Bush. Why Democrats are so desperate to hide this.

See also:

Google Search for John F. Kennedy Tax Cuts

[MeekOneGOP]

I remember watching the motorcade pass by the grassy knoll. Look for my picture and interview in the New York Times dated 11/22/63. My first full interview since the day Lincoln was shot.

Are you the original ?? ...

Tourist Guy ??

[mlo]

You out there?

[MeekOneGOP]

Tony Snow on FOX News just mentioned that, too ! Thanks !
He said something about he'll be addressing that tomorrow on FOX News ...

[Cobra64]

Holy shi'ite. I haven't seen the Tourist Guy here in about a year. Was he on a sabbatical?

[MeekOneGOP]

ha! ha! I hadn't thought about it, but I haven't seen many sightings in a while.

Yes, maybe he's been taking a much need rest ...

[Shooter 2.5]

Just came back and eating lunch. It was kind of nice since they blocked off the street and I was able to take my time with my pictures at the big X's.

Just like all the times before, the speaker's egos wouldn't allow them to shut the %&*# up when 12:30 rolled around. No moment of silence at all.

Jesse Ventura was there soaking up his adoring fans.

The weather is really windy today but the crowds had packed the area. I counted 13 people wtith umbrellas and the usual nutcases. Most of the crowd was the same as any tourist area. Very polite and reserved.

I found out why they had the route they did. It was because the limo couldn't jump a curb so they had to take the only route to North Stemmens.

I didn't go in the museum. I think it's a waste of time now since I've been there a couple of times before.

[eddie willers]

I counted 13 people with umbrellas

LOL...opening and closing them, I presume.

[Shooter 2.5]

Actually, no.

It's a real sunny day and they took full advantage of the shade.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Thanks to all who cited the accomplishements of JFK.

As I recall he never got his tax cuts through Congress. Rasputin's evil twin LBJ got it done in 1964, I believe.

I'd forgotten about the Kennedy connections to McCarthy in the 1950s.

I should have been more specific. Name something positive he did that did not involve getting out of a mess created by his own incompetence.

As one of millions of Americans who depended upon North Vietnam's "most trusted American" we thought we knew "the way it is" in those days.

Years later we learned that Khrushchev mopped the floors of Vienna with Kennedy, dumped Kennedy's limp body into a mop bucket, and left it to be discoverd by James "Scotty" Reston of the New York Times. "How was it?' Reston asked trying to act casual while pulling Kennedy's soaking wet body from the bucket. "Worst thing in my life. He savaged me," Kennedy responded. The president seemed to Reston to be almost in shock, repeating himself and speaking with astonishing candor to the journalist. . . ."

It was 1966, I believe, that Reston revealed what happened in Vienna in 1961. (Walter never did.) Khrushchev sized up the Presisdent as a punk who had chickened out of supporting the Bay of Pigs operation. A diletante who could be pushed around at will. Khrushchev doubtless knew that daddy's mob connections had stolen the election, even Cronkite couldn't keep that secret but Nixon refused to put the country through a recount.

Russia moved ahead having their way with Berlin and developed plans to put missiles in Cuba. Kennedy had to do something about Cuba -- as for Berlin he went no further than telling the Germans, in German, that he was a donut.

I had no use for the Kennedys then and, now with even more "the way it really was" coming out about the Kennedy "crack" and Whore House, I have even less respect for them. But they never deserved to be killed.

[Major_Risktaker]