The assassination of US president John F. Kennedy 50 years ago on November 22, 1963, shook the world as no other event did since Nathuram Godse silenced Mahatma Gandhi 15 years earlier. While Godse confessed to his crime and the conspiracy behind it, and was convicted and hanged, Kennedy’s killer Lee Harvey Oswald could not be tried as he was killed by another man within 48 hours in full view of television viewers in the US.
The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination, concluded after looking at all the available evidence that Oswald was the killer. But, he never confessed even after being grilled by the police; and night club owner Jack Ruby shot him dead as he was being moved from one jail to another in Dallas. This further fuelled suspicion. Was Ruby part of the conspiracy? Did he want to silence Oswald to destroy all the evidence?
According to news reports, Ruby claimed he helped the city of Dallas “redeem” itself in the eyes of the public and Oswald's death would spare “…Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial”. Oswald, 24, was described in news reports at the time as a Left sympathiser and an active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. An admirer of the erstwhile Soviet Union and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, he had once lived in the then USSR. All these fed the suspicion of a conspiracy — remember, this was at the height of the Cold War.
Spontaneous grief
According to a recent CBS news poll, 61 per cent of Americans don’t believe that Oswald acted alone.
In India, the grief was spontaneous. The images of Kennedy, 46, young and handsome, his charming wife Jacqueline and their two children — John, just 3 and Caroline, 6 — were familiar to readers of newspapers in India. In fact, Jacqueline had visited India in March 1962 and had been a great hit with leaders and the people alike.
Kennedy had caught the imagination of the youth and his famous declaration, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” was often quoted in Indian classrooms and public functions.
I still remember the poignant moment at the prayer meeting in my school in Thuthukudi on the morning of November 23, 1963, a day after the assassination. My history teacher, S. Muthukrishnan, paying tributes to Kennedy, broke down midway. Wiping his tears, he said, “I feel I have lost someone in my family.” After the prayer, school was closed for the day as a mark of respect to the slain president.
Dramatic scene
Ten years later as a journalist with PTI, I learnt about the dramatic scene at the news agency’s central desk in Bombay. It was past midnight on November 22/23 in India. The news traffic had tapered off and there was no sign of any major newsbreak. The subs, sipping tea and smoking, casually debated on the next day’s lead story. Many said a major strike in a city textile mill would make it to the first lead.
Abruptly, the placid and pipe-smoking chief sub, scanning a UPI ‘flash’ told them: “You are all wrong. Kennedy has been shot and may be dead!” and rushed to the transmission room to creed what was undoubtedly the lead story for the next morning.
The subs were left gaping. And the newsroom came back to life with the death of John Kennedy.
(The author is a former deputy editor of PTI and New Delhi-based freelance journalist.)