11/22/63
Michael Everett | 23.11.2003 11:20 | Analysis | Social Struggles | London | World
A student Cold Warrior remembers the day JFK died, goes to the funeral, meets a woman, gets drunk, gets married, gets divorced, joins the revolution, becomes a fugitive, goes to California.
November 22, 1963
I don’t buy into the Kennedy mythology as America’s greatest president, but there can be no doubt that his passing forty years ago changed our world back then every bit as much as 9/11 changed our world a couple of years ago. On this fortieth anniversary of that indelible day in history, for that majority of Americans who aren’t old enough to have any personal recollection of those times, I offer this personal reminiscence of how it impacted the life of one American.
In 1963, I was a bright-eyed student at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Though we had already begun to have our doubts about our involvement in Vietnam and just a month earlier some of us had protested the visit of Madame Nhu to our campus, we remained eager recruits in training for America's Cold War, and Kennedy's invitation to serve our country was our inspiration.
In my freshman year, Kennedy was a Senator and lived a few blocks from my dorm. I remember one day walking near his house lost in thought and looking up just in time to see him and his wife approaching me on the sidewalk. He was flourishing a black walking stick and carried himself in a very jaunty manner. At his inauguration, some of us clung to an icy rooftop above Pennsylvania Avenue and watched him as his car proceeded to the White House. His inauguration speech was our inspiration, and in time, we probably all knew it by heart.
When Kennedy was assassinated, I was walking from Dupont Circle to the campus in Georgetown. When I got there, something seemed out of place, but I couldn't figure out what it was. In front of a campus building was a car from the State Department that had evidently dropped someone off and a few people were gathered around it speaking in hushed tones. The car was in radio contact with the State Department and the driver was relaying word about the death of the President and that's how I got the news. Of course, we, and the entire city were in an indescribable state of shock.
Soon everyone I knew began collecting at Teehans, our local cafe to share our grief and shock. The rest of the day was pretty much a blur. As I recall it was a Friday and we always had a party on Fridays. We were an international crowd and this Friday the Africans were throwing the party, which was not to be missed, as they pumped things up with African music and serious dancing. They wanted to cancel the party for obvious reasons, but the Americans insisted that wakes were a traditional form of American partying and they should not cancel the party, and as I recall it was one hell of a party that night. We drank Scotch and danced to West African High Life music which was very hot at the time. The Algerians were there arguing with the French, and there were an assortment of international exiles with prices on their heads. I clearly remember Sadeq Qotbzadeh being there, who even at that moment could talk about only one thing -- the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Sadeq would later get his wish and become Khomeini's Foreign Minister, and later be executed by Khomeini. As I look back now, that party seems like the last party on the Titanic.
Washington was absolutely blown away, and tears were shed openly. Almost at once, every shop put pictures of Kennedy in their windows and draped their display with black bunting. The next night Kennedy's body was brought back from Dallas to Andrews Air Force Base. Then it was transferred it to a helicopter and flown to Walter Reed. It was night by then, and I remember going out on my front stoop near Dupont Circle and looking up in the sky and seeing the lights of that helicopter blinking in the darkness as it made its way to Walter Reed.
It must have been the next day when I was awakened by the television in the next room to learn that Jack Ruby had shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Then my roommate Tom and I walked the two blocks to the route of the funeral procession near St. Patrick's Cathedral. We saw that whole remarkable procession with the riderless horse, the black draped caisson, and the mourning widow, followed by all the world's leaders, with Charles de Gaulle and Haille Selassie walking side by side.
After the procession passed, we saw a young woman frantically calling out to a police car that was about to drive off with her purse on top of it. She was a classmate, and since the event was breaking up, we agreed to retire to a local pub for some serious drinking. Her name was Chris. We got along pretty well that day. One thing led to another, and some years later we became man and wife. We divorced in 1976. My roommate Tom was a dear friend for many years and died five years ago.
Needless to say, I never entered the Foreign Service and I don't know how many of my classmates ever did either. Things went badly after Kennedy died. For many in my generation the dream was over. From then on it was the generation gap, war, riots, assassinations, Watergate, Cambodia, Kent State, LBJ, Nixon, Agent Orange, the draft -- as they said after 9/11 -- things would never be the same.
All that remains to me now from that era are a hundred or so pages of heavily censored government documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act of what various government agencies had collected on me for my antiwar activities. For those who weren't there, people think the 60's were nothing but fun -- sex, drugs, and rock n' roll -- yes, there was that, but lots of us weren't sure if we would ever get out of the 60's alive, and a knock at the door was ALWAYS a cause for concern. The police broke into people's homes and killed people in those days (some things never change.) They drafted us and sent us to die by the tens of thousands in Vietnam. They rounded us up and sent us up the river for years for smoking a joint. They chased us down in the streets and beat us with clubs. They dragged hippies through the streets by their hair. The FBI spied on us and set up a dirty tricks department against us. Blacks and gays were singled out for especially violent treatment. It was a very serious time and you had to stay on your toes or else.
My last official act of the 60's was to come to California which I did as a fugitive in the early 70's, fleeing a District of Columbia indictment for incitement to riot and destruction of property (I was innocent of the latter charge) during the Kent State uprising. In 1977, fourteen years after Kennedy's assassination the statute of limitations had expired on the indictment, and since they had still not apprehended me, I guess that's when the 60's finally ended for me.
The construction of the Kennedy myth began within moments of his assassination and historians will debate his effectiveness as a president down through the centuries, but there can be no debate that he inspired a generation, and that when he died a dream died and a generation was set adrift and beset with a time of troubles not one of us could have ever imagined in those golden days of the early sixties.
Michael Everett
Santa Monica
ia728@adelphia.net
I don’t buy into the Kennedy mythology as America’s greatest president, but there can be no doubt that his passing forty years ago changed our world back then every bit as much as 9/11 changed our world a couple of years ago. On this fortieth anniversary of that indelible day in history, for that majority of Americans who aren’t old enough to have any personal recollection of those times, I offer this personal reminiscence of how it impacted the life of one American.
In 1963, I was a bright-eyed student at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Though we had already begun to have our doubts about our involvement in Vietnam and just a month earlier some of us had protested the visit of Madame Nhu to our campus, we remained eager recruits in training for America's Cold War, and Kennedy's invitation to serve our country was our inspiration.
In my freshman year, Kennedy was a Senator and lived a few blocks from my dorm. I remember one day walking near his house lost in thought and looking up just in time to see him and his wife approaching me on the sidewalk. He was flourishing a black walking stick and carried himself in a very jaunty manner. At his inauguration, some of us clung to an icy rooftop above Pennsylvania Avenue and watched him as his car proceeded to the White House. His inauguration speech was our inspiration, and in time, we probably all knew it by heart.
When Kennedy was assassinated, I was walking from Dupont Circle to the campus in Georgetown. When I got there, something seemed out of place, but I couldn't figure out what it was. In front of a campus building was a car from the State Department that had evidently dropped someone off and a few people were gathered around it speaking in hushed tones. The car was in radio contact with the State Department and the driver was relaying word about the death of the President and that's how I got the news. Of course, we, and the entire city were in an indescribable state of shock.
Soon everyone I knew began collecting at Teehans, our local cafe to share our grief and shock. The rest of the day was pretty much a blur. As I recall it was a Friday and we always had a party on Fridays. We were an international crowd and this Friday the Africans were throwing the party, which was not to be missed, as they pumped things up with African music and serious dancing. They wanted to cancel the party for obvious reasons, but the Americans insisted that wakes were a traditional form of American partying and they should not cancel the party, and as I recall it was one hell of a party that night. We drank Scotch and danced to West African High Life music which was very hot at the time. The Algerians were there arguing with the French, and there were an assortment of international exiles with prices on their heads. I clearly remember Sadeq Qotbzadeh being there, who even at that moment could talk about only one thing -- the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Sadeq would later get his wish and become Khomeini's Foreign Minister, and later be executed by Khomeini. As I look back now, that party seems like the last party on the Titanic.
Washington was absolutely blown away, and tears were shed openly. Almost at once, every shop put pictures of Kennedy in their windows and draped their display with black bunting. The next night Kennedy's body was brought back from Dallas to Andrews Air Force Base. Then it was transferred it to a helicopter and flown to Walter Reed. It was night by then, and I remember going out on my front stoop near Dupont Circle and looking up in the sky and seeing the lights of that helicopter blinking in the darkness as it made its way to Walter Reed.
It must have been the next day when I was awakened by the television in the next room to learn that Jack Ruby had shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Then my roommate Tom and I walked the two blocks to the route of the funeral procession near St. Patrick's Cathedral. We saw that whole remarkable procession with the riderless horse, the black draped caisson, and the mourning widow, followed by all the world's leaders, with Charles de Gaulle and Haille Selassie walking side by side.
After the procession passed, we saw a young woman frantically calling out to a police car that was about to drive off with her purse on top of it. She was a classmate, and since the event was breaking up, we agreed to retire to a local pub for some serious drinking. Her name was Chris. We got along pretty well that day. One thing led to another, and some years later we became man and wife. We divorced in 1976. My roommate Tom was a dear friend for many years and died five years ago.
Needless to say, I never entered the Foreign Service and I don't know how many of my classmates ever did either. Things went badly after Kennedy died. For many in my generation the dream was over. From then on it was the generation gap, war, riots, assassinations, Watergate, Cambodia, Kent State, LBJ, Nixon, Agent Orange, the draft -- as they said after 9/11 -- things would never be the same.
All that remains to me now from that era are a hundred or so pages of heavily censored government documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act of what various government agencies had collected on me for my antiwar activities. For those who weren't there, people think the 60's were nothing but fun -- sex, drugs, and rock n' roll -- yes, there was that, but lots of us weren't sure if we would ever get out of the 60's alive, and a knock at the door was ALWAYS a cause for concern. The police broke into people's homes and killed people in those days (some things never change.) They drafted us and sent us to die by the tens of thousands in Vietnam. They rounded us up and sent us up the river for years for smoking a joint. They chased us down in the streets and beat us with clubs. They dragged hippies through the streets by their hair. The FBI spied on us and set up a dirty tricks department against us. Blacks and gays were singled out for especially violent treatment. It was a very serious time and you had to stay on your toes or else.
My last official act of the 60's was to come to California which I did as a fugitive in the early 70's, fleeing a District of Columbia indictment for incitement to riot and destruction of property (I was innocent of the latter charge) during the Kent State uprising. In 1977, fourteen years after Kennedy's assassination the statute of limitations had expired on the indictment, and since they had still not apprehended me, I guess that's when the 60's finally ended for me.
The construction of the Kennedy myth began within moments of his assassination and historians will debate his effectiveness as a president down through the centuries, but there can be no debate that he inspired a generation, and that when he died a dream died and a generation was set adrift and beset with a time of troubles not one of us could have ever imagined in those golden days of the early sixties.
Michael Everett
Santa Monica
ia728@adelphia.net
Michael Everett
e-mail:
ia728@adelphia.net
