In 1963

June 11, 1963: Kennedy emerges on civil rights

June 12, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 2 comments

President Kennedy’s growth as a leader in June 1963 is a key to understanding his life and death.

As the current issue of Arms Control Today documents, JFK’s June 10 speech at American University would influenced the arms control vision all of the presidents who followed him. And as this New York Times column notes, his often-overlooked nationally televised address on June 11, 1963, signalled his evolution as a civil rights leader.

Kennedy announced that the two black students had been enrolled at the University of Alabama, overcoming the objections of racist Gov. George Wallace, and he announced that after more than two years in office and two years of violent segregationist backlash in the South, he was introducing comprehensive civil rights legislation. In an evening, JFK went from timid and calculating on civil rights issues to bold and visionary.

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June 10, 1963: ‘A profile in courage with lethal consequences’

June 10, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 6 comments

President Kennedy’s speech to the graduating class of American University in Washington DC 50 years ago represented the high point of his efforts to wind down the Cold War. His vigorous style and clear mind never had a more important goal — or more powerful enemies.

Memorial Day 1963

May 26, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 14 comments

From historian Michael Beschloss, a glimpse of John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day 1963, one day after his last birthday. He was standing where he would be buried six months later.

Dec. 1, 1963: The origins of doubt

April 25, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 46 comments

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

One common misconception about the JFK assassination story is that suspicions of conspiracy originated with authors who dreamed up sensational theories. In fact, the controversy over JFK’s death emerged from the circumstances of the crime before any conspiracy theories had been published.

Case in point: On December 1,1963, Richard Dudman, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who was in Dallas, wrote an unusual article about JFK’s assassination. He did not assume the truth of public statements by law enforcement agencies. Rather, he compared those statements to what he had observed, and he asked “Did Assailant Have an Accomplice?”

Dudman was no conspiracy theorist. He went on to a long career in Washington journalism in which his independent reporting later would land him on  President Nixon’s so-called “enemies list.”

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April 10, 1963: Oswald tries to shoot Gen. Walker

April 18, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 49 comments

Life Magazine, February 21, 1964

Ron Capshaw, a writer in Midlothian, Virginia, notes that 50 years ago this month, Lee Oswald fired a rifle shot at Gen. Edwin Walker, who had been cashiered from the Army for proselytizing to his troops with his right-wing, white supremacist politics.

Capshaw, a contributor to National Review, The Washington Times, and The New York Post, argues this incident on April 10, 1963, points toward Oswald’s sole guilt as the assassin of President Kennedy seven months later. I disagree with Capshaw’s interpretation but agree the Walker incident is important.

Capshaw writes: Read more

Those Kennedy Kards

April 7, 2013 In 1963, Popular 14 comments

The now poignant Kennedy Kards deck was published in early 1963 when the public infatuation with JFK had been revitalized by his statesmanship in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

JFK was the Jack of Hearts, First Lady Jackie the Queen of Hearts, and Bobby Kennedy, the King of Diamonds.

“Long live the King, Queen and Jack,” proclaimed an informational card that came with the deck.

Within the year, the Jack of Clubs, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, would be president. Read more

Tableau of disaster

March 25, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 48 comments

President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline arrive in Dallas on November 22, 1963. As captured by White House photographer Arthur Rickerby, the first couple exude a charismatic style that did not impress or deter his enemies. The handsome head, the red, white and blue palette, the exploding roses, the uniformed onlookers compose a tableau of imminent disaster. The breakdown in presidential security is almost complete, thanks in part to the CIA’s mishandling (or manipulation) of a man named Oswald. Their limousine awaits.

The photo is part of an archival photography exhibition about JFK that will go up in Little Rock, Arkansas, on March 25. Read more

Silence like a cancer grows

March 25, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 4 comments

Did you know that Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” was a response to JFK’s assassination? I didn’t.

A glimpse of 1963

February 24, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 7 comments

The current issue of the Atlantic has a fascinating photo gallery of 1963, a reminder of the deeply divided United States of America over which JFK presided.

 

Jan. 28, 1963: Jack Ruby pursues an exotic dancer

January 28, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 6 comments

The business card of the man who silenced Lee Harvey Oswald.

On this day in 1963, Jack Ruby, owner of the Carousel Club in Dallas, returns to Dallas from Wichita, Kansas, where he visited the T-Bone Club to see Gail Raven, an exotic dancer. Read more

Jan. 27, 1963: Oswald thinks about buying a gun

January 27, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 14 comments

On this day in 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald is thinking about buying a gun. The CIA is paying attention to him and his wife.

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Jan. 15, 1963: Jackie Kennedy dazzles at State of the Union

January 15, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 No comments

The press coverage of President Kennedy’s State of the Union address, on the morning of Tuesday January 15, 1963, while generally positive could not match the adulation shown his wife and family.

Jackie at the State of the Union address January 1963

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrives at the Capitol to listen to her husband’s State of the Union address on January 14, accompanied the Architect of the Capitol, J. George Stewart. The man gesturing with his had in the background is Secret Service agent Clint Hill who would be at her side when JFK was killed eleven months later. (JFK Library and Museum)

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Jan. 14, 1963: JFK dowplayed Cuba as he prepared for State of the Union

January 14, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 No comments

JFK signsOn Monday morning, January 14, President John F. Kennedy woke up prepared to give his third State of the Union address on Capitol Hill. He would never give another.

The past few days had been spent in intense preparation. JFK had shaped the address to focus on managing the Western coalition arrayed against the Soviet Union while proposing a three-year $10 billion tax cut to sweeten prospects for his liberal agenda on Capitol Hill. Read more

Jan. 7, 1963: Under U.S. government eyes, Oswald goes to work

January 7, 2013 Assassination, In 1963 One comment

On Monday January 7, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald reported to his job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a graphic arts company in Dallas, where he had started working in October 1962. He would work there through April 1963.

Oswald’s time card

At the time Oswald was quarreling with his wife and corresponding with several leftist organizations. Various agencies of the U.S. government were also keeping track of him. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wondered “What really happened?” in Dallas and doubted that U.S. security forces were so “inept,” he had a point:  When it came to watching Lee Harvey Oswald, the U.S. government was not inept.

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Dec 24, 1963: Top CIA official seeking to investigate Oswald is ‘sandbagged’ by his bosses

December 24, 2012 Aftermath, Assassination, In 1963 No comments

The spy who sang

John Whitten is a rare hero of the JFK story. He was a senior CIA official who sought, behind the scenes, to conduct an honest investigation of what the agency knew about accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, before President Kennedy was killed.

But at a meeting on Christmas Eve 1963 deputy director CIA Richard Helms and counterintelligence chief Jim Angleton shut down Whitten’s efforts to investigate Oswald’s contacts among pro- and anti-Castro Cubans and relieved him of his responsibilities for investigating JFK’s assassination.

Whitten’s story, which I first reported in the Washington Monthly in 2003, illuminated the inner workings of the CIA in the days and weeks after JFK was killed. It is the story of a “good spy” whose pursuit of the truth about JFK’s death cost him his career. Read more

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