It is the 60th anniversary of one of the most iconic moments of the 20th Century.
On Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas; where he died shortly thereafter.
The 35th U.S. president was just 46-years-old and had served less than three years in office. He was the youngest president elected and the youngest to have died in history.
During that short tenure, Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, became immensely popular both at home and abroad, particularly so in Ireland, JFK’s ancestral home.
For the next several days, stunned Americans gathered around their tv sets as regular programming turned to nonstop coverage of the assassination and funeral.
From their living rooms they watched Mrs. Kennedy, still wearing her blood-stained suit, return to Washington with the slain president’s body.
Many witnessed the November 24 murder of Kennedy’s accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Viewers also followed the saddled, but riderless, horse in the funeral cortege from the White House to the U.S. Capitol, where Kennedy lay in state.
They saw the president’s young son step forward on his third birthday to salute as his father’s coffin was borne to Arlington National Cemetery.
Television played a significant role in Americans’ collective mourning. For the first time, the majority of citizens witnessed the ceremonies surrounding the death of a beloved leader in a collective tragedy.
Despite the intimate experience of events surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy, the nation failed to achieve closure.
Oswald never confessed, and the facts of the case remain mysterious. The Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald acted alone failed to satisfy the public.
In 1976, the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the investigation of the murder.
The Committee reported that Lee Harvey Oswald probably was part of a conspiracy that may have involved organized crime.
President Kennedy attends a reception and tea his ancestral home, home of his second cousin, Mrs. Mary Ryan, in Dungastown, Ireland. Pictured are Josie Ryan, Mrs. Mary Ryan, Mary Ann Ryan and guests. Please credit “Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston”
