USD Magazine, 1993 Winter-Spring 1994

Afeer the requiem Mass at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Cathedral, John F . Kennedy Jr. saluted the caisson bearing his father's casket. Standing beside him were his mother, Jacqueline, and his sister, Caroline.

As president, he would do for the country what the country had done for him. Long before Jimmy Carter pledged to bring a new vision to the drab and stale corridors of government, Kennedy appeared poised to do just that, to sweep away the old and bring in the new. In effect, he became a living icon, a flesh– and-blood representation of all that was good and promising about postwar America. Though not himself a bona fide member of the baby boom genera– tion, he and his family became symbols for what the members of that generation aspired to be. The fact that Kennedy's image may have been more a reflection of a public relations ideal than of reality in no way diminished its impact on a generation poised on the threshold of adulthood. For the most part, the calculated behind– the-scenes work of what we would now call the Kennedy "spin doctors" went unnoticed by all but a few people. As far as anyone knew, this was the real John F. Kennedy, a person we could admire and live our lives through until we had attained our own "great expectations." As a result of American television and radio networks, Kennedy's sudden and violent death on the streets of Dallas was one of the first assassinations to be witnessed almost live by millions of peo– ple around the world. The subsequent shooting of Kennedy's accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was captured live on television, as were the preparations for and observances of Kennedy's funeral. For almost a week, viewers could tune in at any hour of the day or night and have the reality of Kennedy's death dri– ven deeper into their hearts and minds. Images of the riderless horse and the bravely saluting John-John would not and could not be forgotten quickly. In addition to relentlessly replaying the terrible moment that shattered our great expectations, television allowed the public to witness the surrounding events firsthand and conclude that there were inconsistencies in the official explana– tion of the assassination. It seemed most

Vietnam, Watergate and a host of other politically inspired atrocities. As we pass its 30th anniversary, it is not only JFK's death we are still trying to unravel, but the untimely and unfair demise of our own innocence as well. That effort is not likely to end until the passing of the last members of a genera– tion that can remember exactly where they were when they first heard that their president had been shot. As for the young man in Brother O'Reilly's "Problems of Democracy" class, two lessons were brought forward that day: one that concluded with the school's dismissal bell and one that has continued for 30 years. ~

of our leaders were incompetent, or there was more going on than was being told. Either way, facts didn't add up, and no amount of verbal dodging and weav– ing by government officials could make the explanation ring true. nedy's assassination was not only tl:ie end of a beloved president. On a much deeper level, the hopes and inno– cence of a large portion of America's young adult population died with the man that day. The president had been killed, and America would never be the same again. What had been an idealistic generation in the early 1960s became a much more hard-bitten and cynical lot as the decade progressed. A basic belief and trust in government officials was quickly replaced by a firm sense of gov– ernment duplicity and lies - a feeling verified time and again, it seemed, by

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