November 22, 1963 was the occasion of President Kennedy's assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald. Texas Governor John Connally, riding in the same parade car (a convertible) with the president, was seriously wounded.
Two days later nightclub owner Jack Ruby killed Oswald as Oswald was being transferred to Dallas County jail from police headquarters. It happened on live TV.
When I think back to those tumultuous few days, including the swearing in of President Johnson on Air Force One and the subsequent Kennedy funeral and burial, lots of memories return.
The following are a few of the more momentous ones that occurred during the next ten years.
After Kennedy's death, Great Society legislative programs were implemented, and the War on Poverty was begun. Civil rights marches were many. Later in the decade came Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968 followed by Bobby Kennedy's in 1969.
During the 1960 presidential race, Republican Vice President Richard Nixon had been defeated by Democrat John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic to run for president. Nixon next lost the gubernatorial race in California in 1962, apparently ending his political career. However, he then made a stunning political comeback and was elected president in 1968.
Upon election in 1968, Nixon succeeded Johnson, who had decided not to run for re-election. The country was in turmoil internationally as a result of the Vietnam War and domestically due to the various civil rights movements. Demonstrations, protests and even riots were ongoing.
When I take note of Occupy Wall Street and similar protests today, I think back to that totally different era of the 60s and 70s.
For one thing, I'm reminded of the Kent State killings of four college students by Ohio National Guard members on May 4, 1970. {Many believe that those killings led directly to the Watergate scandal a few years later, leading to Nixon's eventual resignation from the presidency on August 9, 1974.}
On August 15, 1971, the U.S. unilaterally went off the gold standard. President Nixon also imposed a wage and price freeze throughout the country in an unsuccessful effort to deal with our inflation issues.
After our table tennis team was invited by Chairman Mao to play exhibition matches in China in 1971, next came Nixon's remarkable China trip in 1972 and the opening of relations between our two countries.
Largely as a result of dollar weakening due to going off the gold standard (and the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, too), OPEC quadrupled oil prices from $3 to $12 in 1973-74, thereby exacerbating our inflation problems.
Nixon's Vice President Spiro Agnew, faced with bribery charges stemming from his days in Maryland government, resigned in late 1973. Gerald Ford was appointed Vice President.
When Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, Gerald Ford became president and Nelson Rockefeller became Vice President. Neither had been elected to their offices.
Lots of other things come to mind as well. But you get the picture. Many big things happened during those ten years following November 22, 1963. Lots of small things, too.
Yet we endured and kept on keeping on. That's what Americans have always done.
Perhaps the most important takeaway is that all this makes me proud of our great country and how we are able to endure whatever comes our way and then become an even better society as a result.
Today is such a time for getting better. It's not a time for being discouraged.
Disappointed perhaps, but not discouraged. Americans don't get discouraged.
We always have too much work to do to set the table for future generations.
Thanks. Bob.
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