John F. Kennedy remembered: 62 years since the assassination that shook the world
November 22, will mark 62 years since
an assassin’s bullet ended the life of John F. Kennedy, the 35th
president of the United States, as his motorcade was traveling through
the streets of Dallas.
This coming Saturday, November 22, will mark 62 years since an assassin’s bullet ended the life of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as his motorcade was traveling through the streets of Dallas, Texas.
For
those who were alive at the time, it is one of those dates, like 9/11
or, more recently, October 7, that stays in one’s memory bank forever.
And, of course, we will always be able to recall where we were when we
heard the news.
That
fateful Friday, I was working as an active-duty signal officer serving
in the US Army Reserve assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. At one point
in the early afternoon, the word got out that the president had been
shot at 12:30 p.m. central time and was pronounced dead 30 minutes
later.
Witnessing history
Disbelief
was in everyone’s eyes, as it had been 61 years since William McKinley
was assassinated, the last president to have been murdered while in
office, which was well before those of us working at NASA were alive.
Ninety-eight
minutes after Kennedy was pronounced dead, as the US Constitution
provides, then vice-president Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th
president in a hastily arranged ceremony on Air Force One presided over
by a federal judge, Sarah T. Hughes.
