Memories, History, and Opinions from November 22, 1963

It was a clear cold Friday in Jamestown N.Dak. I had just returned to High School from lunch at home. For several years, I had been working on the 21 merit badges required for Eagle Scout. The last merit badge was to be completed after school that day with Jamestown Fire Chief, Percy Welman.

The 1 PM class that Friday afternoon was Algebra II with Miss Michelsen.  Tests had just been handed out when over the intercom loudspeaker, KSJB Radio was announcing the news from Dallas, TX, “…that President Kennedy had been assassinated…”  A gasp went out in the class and the test was canceled.  Soon, all remaining classes were canceled… I then walked down to the Fire Department early to complete my Firemanship merit badge.  It was a somber setting. As with my parents(my father was a general contractor with a ready-mix concrete plant), and most voters of North Dakota, I considered myself a potential Republican. However, being a history buff, I recognized and was very saddened by the historical catastrophe of this tragic event… My Mom was crying when she picked me up from the fire department for dinner that evening. The Jamestown Sun newspaper had the largest headline I had ever seen.

Years later, it became clear to me that President Kennedy, although less experienced in foreign affairs than that of GOP VP Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, had many of the values and leadership style of the later 1981 President, Ronald Reagan. In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, both major political parties were mainstream. As an example, during the first televised Presidential debates, both Kennedy and Nixon struggled to find major differences. President Kennedy and Nixon were fervent anti-communists. During Kennedy’s Inaugural address, he said, “… the United States will pay any price or bear any burden in the defense of liberty…” . President Kennedy had the largest peacetime military buildup until President Reagan.

In 1962, when the Kennedy Administration discovered that the Soviets were installing ballistic missiles in Cuba, the world came very close to nuclear war. For “Thirteen Days”, President Kennedy and Soviet Leader Khruschev went nose to nose before the Soviets removed the missiles with an understanding that the US would later remove missiles from Turkey. Today, we know the US military wanted to invade Cuba and we also now know there were tactical nuclear weapons in a slack Soviet/Cuban chain of command. A couple of things might have made a difference. Several months after taking office, President Kennedy approved the CIA “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba by a rag tag guerilla brigade.  Following that debacle, Kennedy remained suspicious of what previous President Eisenhower labeled the Military Industrial Complex”. Also, both President Kennedy (South Pacific) and Soviet Leader Khruschev (Stalingrad) directly experienced the bloody combat of World War II.  (OVER)

John Kennedy understood economics, and cut the marginal federal tax rate from 90% to 70%. (President Reagan would later cut it from 70% to 28%). In his inaugural address, President Kennedy said “..ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country…”  A significate difference from the current demands for federal funding from factions of both political parties. Since the Kennedy Administration, there have about a handful of annual balanced federal budgets. For about a decade, federal deficits have been growing to over a trillion dollars per year.  Currently, at an average interest rate of just 3.5% on the now total $34 trillion on federal debt, the annual interest alone would be about trillion dollars per year!

As the economy of the early 60’s boomed. President Kennedy set a challenging goal to put a man on the moon and bring him home safely in that decade. Apollo 11 did that in 1969.  President Reagan funded a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).  Initially criticized as “star wars”, today versions of that missile defense system are protecting the United States, US Allies, and Israel (Iron Dome). President Kennedy originated what President Reagan later emphasized of America as an example of “the shining city on a hill”. Incidentally, Ronald Reagan was a conservative Democrat and along with other Hollywood figures such as Frank Sinatra, a strong supporter of John Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election. Both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were described as “great communicators”. President Reagan would later say, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left me.”, but I digress…

Every November 22, many Americans think, “what IF..?”  Disappointment began to infect an otherwise optimistic America of the early 1960’s.  Soon, the failures under President Lyndon Johnson in the Viet Nam war would magnify this national cynicism. With the resignation of Richard Nixon (elected in 1968) in 1973, and the “malaise” that President Jimmy Carter (elected in 1976) described in the late 1970’s, the negativity of America hit rock bottom.  In 1980, Ronald Reagan would defeat incumbent President Jimmy Carter in a landslide election.

President John Kennedy’s Nuclear Atmosphere test ban and the installation of a “hotline” with then Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev opened the door to President Nixon’s “détente” with Soviet leader Brezhnev. That détente, led to significant mutual nuclear weapons reductions under President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev.  Both President Kennedey (1963) and President Reagan (1987) went to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and challenged the Berlin Wall and the Communist system. Gorbachev’s attempt with “Glazunov and Perestroika” (openness and reform) led to the Soviets abandoning the control of eastern Europe in the late 1980’s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s.  For the first time in decades, tens of millions of oppressed people from Poland to Romania were significantly politically and economically freer with much greater opportunity.  Finally, for the next two decades, the US foreign policy of the 1980’s and 90’s left the world much safer from the annihilation of nuclear weapons.  PLEASE SHARE YOUR MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS…?

By Mark Lindberg, Mountain View, CA (Nov. 2023)