An Excerpt from “Camelot Lost”
We cried on the way home. At Jan’s house I phoned my mother to tell her we were staying. She was distraught, more angry than sad. “I thought nothing was worse than FDR’s death, but this comes close. I’ll be in front of our TV praying that our new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson will have patience and wisdom. We were coming close to ending the Cold War.”
We grabbed two beers and sat in front of Dr. Rosing’s TV set. Except for quick meals and sleep, we stayed there for the next forty-eight hours.
On the TV black and white images flashed in front of me. The suspect was named Lee Harvey Oswald. Evidently the government knew a lot about him as an ex-Marine, who had defected to the Soviet Union and returned with a wife and child. An archival TV news report from New Orleans showed him passing out handbills of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
In custody, the TV footage showed Oswald in the Dallas police station with a black eye denying having a role in the assassination. It was reported that Dallas police and an FBI agent had interrogated him, but nothing was shared about what he said. At one point the police displayed an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano carbine with a telescopic sight, holding it overhead.
“How do you feel?” Jan asked on Saturday morning.
“Empty. The future has been swept away. How are you?”
“Pretty much the same. Lost, like when I was a young girl, and we kept moving from one city to the next.”
“This is the worst event of my life.”
“Do you believe that Oswald did it?”
“It appears too convenient—a patsy as he said. If that old carbine was the murder weapon a Marine could shoot it accurately, I suppose. Two or three hits at that distance is quite a feat. The better question is who else was involved.”
“You don’t think he’s a loner?”
“No,” I said. “But if others were involved it should be easy to find out.”
“The police need to find out why he did this. He has friends and family in the area. He evidently had some prior contact with the law.”
“If he had a less than honorable discharge his military records will be very informative.”
“Is he a Russian plant, a Manchurian candidate?”
“The TV coverage is superficial. I don’t believe they know anything important about Oswald. Of course, this is all brand new and horrible.”
“How are you handling this?”
“I’m numb. I can’t assimilate what has happened.”
“I can’t believe it. Something went terribly wrong with reality. In Social Psychology we looked at the impact of sociopaths on society. They can become violent, and they feel no empathy for others.”
“This isn’t like gawking at a car crash,” I remarked. “I have an overwhelming appetite for answers. Why murder a president on the verge of curtailing nuclear weapons proliferation?”
“You said he planned to pull out of Vietnam. Was the military behind this? They love their wars.”
“I don’t have any answers. All I know is how strongly I feel the loss of a great young president. His influence could have extended into the next century. We will have to watch American history being rewritten.”
“Your dad should ask Grampa Guy what the truth is about this assassination. He might have a pathway into Johnson’s brain.”
“Will he continue Kennedy’s policies or will he get us deeper into Vietnam or neglect his civil rights agenda?”
“I have a million questions on the first day after a horrific murder. I’m going to fix us a pair of cocktails to numb the pain.”
She mixed double Old Fashioneds. By this time Julia stopped fussing in the kitchen, and Dr. Rosing had arrived from his Saturday half day office hours. Sarah and Donna joined us. Jan got up and fixed her parents two more cocktails. We sat quietly in front of the TV screen, hoping that the images would somehow solve our despair. Although they weren’t fans of JFK, Jan’s parents too were disturbed at his violent death.
How does one describe collective grief? It wasn’t a death in the family; it was the death of dreams. My growing optimism and my hopes for a better future had been obliterated. I knew there was more to progress than a good president, but he was a catalyst, willing to take on cultural shibboleths and entrenched factions. He was a symbol of emerging youth in a new era.
I shared my mother’s skepticism about Lyndon Johnson, whether he could pull off what Kennedy promised to accomplish, which was nothing short of a transformation of our society, true racial equality, real justice, and lasting peace. Gone.
