The
assassination of John F. Kennedy was the defining moment of my generation. When
he was killed in Dallas, I was 20 years old and a junior in college. During a time of stress in our nation—the Cold
War and civil rights, among other things—Kennedy embodied hope and a promise
for a better future. In hindsight, we now
know about his flaws including his reluctance to act on crucial issues, his physical illnesses, and his
personal indiscretions. In 1963, however, Kennedy seemed to embody all that was
good about America.
I have been
reading a book entitled What If? in
which leading military historians imagine what might have been if certain
military conquests had ended differently.
It is tempting to play the “what if” game with the assassination of John
Kennedy.
If Kennedy had
lived, would we have entered in the quagmire of Vietnam that resulted in the
deaths of 60,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands who lived in Southeast
Asia? Many young men (and women) would
not have lived broken lives upon their return to the States. Perhaps I would have spent my active duty
time on an Army base in Georgia rather than spending a year in Vietnam.
If Kennedy had
lived, would the US government have negotiated a rapprochement with Cuban
leader Fidel Castro? There are indications that the Kennedy Administration was
working on such a deal when he died.
If the Kennedy
had lived, would the youth revolution of the late sixties have been as radical
and reforming? The anger might have been
defused by a young, optimistic President.
If Kennedy had
lived, would the Cold War have ended sooner or would it have continued to drag
on? Would the absence of the failure of American policy in Southeast Asia have
emboldened American military efforts in other areas?
So many
questions and possibilities, but they are all speculation. The only thing we know for sure is that the
shots that rang out in Dealey Plaza
on Friday, November 22, 1963, changed our lives.
Comments