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E W N 21 - 27 November 2013 / Axarquía - Málaga East
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OPINION & COMMENT
Where were you fifty years ago on November 22, 1963? Peter Fieldman London-born journalist and author, Peter spends his time between Paris and Madrid. His novel ‘1066 The Conquest’ available on Amazon or www.1066TheConquest.com
www.pfieldman.blogspot.com
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HIS November 22 will be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy. I was 20 years old, and seven days earlier had boarded a transatlantic liner in Southampton. JFK had become an icon in Europe since his election in 1960 and had transformed the image of America. The President and his family were a sophisticated civilised, cultural elite who acted and spoke in a way Europeans could understand. They had become the Royal family of America and, like so many young people, I was enticed by the American dream.
On November 22, the ship was one day out from New York. Clocks and watches had already been set to Eastern time and everybody on board was thinking about the final night’s gala dinner. At about 1pm I was making my way up the main staircase for lunch when I noticed a large blackboard on which was scrawled ‘President Kennedy dead, RIP.’ Why would somebody write something so stupid, I remarked. On reaching the main promenade deck I noticed groups of people clustered around radio sets. It soon sunk in that the notice had not been written as a silly gesture, the president had indeed been shot and was in hospital. When the news came through that the president had died no passenger was able to hold back tears. The gala dinner was cancelled and a memorial service was held in its place. Early the following morning the ship entered New York harbour passing the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline, shrouded in mist, and into the Hudson river to dock at the city’s passenger port. After passing through immigration, far simpler than today, I set foot for the first time on American soil. A taxi took me to a small west-side hotel. After unpacking I ventured out into deserted streets. It was cold and overcast with newspapers blowing across the street in the icy wind. It reminded me of the final scene in the movie ‘On the Beach.’ With food and drinks purchased from corner stores, I spent three days glued to the old TV set in the hotel bedroom. Lyndon Johnson had immediately been sworn in as president on Airforce One and the police had apprehended the
supposed assassin. But events turned to incredulity when Jack Ruby shot Oswald dead as he was leaving the Dallas police station, live on TV. Then the funeral took place in Washington with the president’s family and world leaders in the cortege slowly following the horse drawn carriage on its way to Arlington cemetery. After travelling around the country, I worked in New York until June when I booked a passage on a transatlantic liner taking advantage of the summer weather and groups of American college students travelling to Europe. It was a perfect ending to a great adventure, which had begun so tragically. I had seen enough of America to understand why JFK was killed and was a fully, fledged conspiracy theorist long before Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK. While the West and East coast were more sophisticated, cosmopolitan centres, the rest of the country remained backward and insular. Gun ownership was an intrinsic part of society. I had witnessed run down city centres and a great deal of poverty across the country as well as racism and a strong North-South divide which still seemed to be a legacy of the Civil War, contrasting with pockets of immense wealth. When I learnt that three university students from New York had been murdered in Mississippi by opponents of
the civil rights movement at about the same time I was passing through the State with a New Jersey registered car, I thought how close I had come to danger. Four years later in 1968 I was living in Paris. It was a dramatic year: as well as the student revolution in Paris, the Tet offensive had started in Vietnam, Russian tanks rolled into Prague, Martin Luther King had been gunned down and Robert Kennedy was assassinated. He was perhaps a greater loss than his brother. Acclaimed by young and old, rich and poor, white and black, across the country, he was clearly on his way to the White House. Thousands lined the tracks on the final train journey to Washington carrying his coffin on an open carriage. A few years ago, after a visit to the Gettysburg battle site, I went to Arlington cemetery to see their burial place. There was another young president in the White House idolised by millions of people. But Barack Obama has not been able to fulfil his promises either and America is more divided than ever. The American Dream was an illusion. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, shot and killed on November 22, 1963.