On Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly

Like many people my age, the Kennedy assassination is something that seemed like the beginning of a whole lot of things that have gone wrong in our country.  I was too young to know “where I was when I heard President Kennedy was shot” but old enough to remember my parents sadness (they were ardent supporters) and watching the funeral on our black and white Philco TV.  Although I’ve seen the documentary footage so many times I can’t remember, my bona fide memory is my mother pointing out to me the boots pointed backwards in the stirrups of the horse (representing Kennedy as a fallen warrior) and I remember the whipping I received from my mother because I kept standing in front of the TV when she was trying to watch it!  There were many social forces afoot in the 60’s (Vietnam, Civil Rights, Women’s Lib, Experimental Drugs and the Sexual Revolution) that would have happened anyway, but from the perspective of a kid, it seemed after President Kennedy died then things sort of went crazy.  In retrospect I’m glad they did, because by the time I was old enough to get caught up in things, everyone was tired of crazy and just wanted to dance and make money.  Yes, my generation’s great rebellion was disco music (or is it a social contribution?).  That said, I recently finished Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy and want to recommend it to anyone who lived through the times or is too young to remember but curious about why JFK was so popular and yet was assassinated before completion of his first term.  I’ve read a few books about Kennedy but this one is unique because it tells the story of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald (his assassin) and what was going on in both their lives from Inauguration day in 1961 through November 22, 1963 when their lives connected for 9 fateful seconds.  There are no revelations in the book but there are some incredibly interesting details that are supplied as the story unfolds.  O’Reilly obviously leans in the “lone gunman” direction, but I think deftly leaves the door open for the possibility of there being a wider conspiracy.  In typical O’Reilly fashion, he is judicious in making sure we put our weight down on the known facts, even though there are some other more sinister possibilities.  What struck me most about the book was that like so many other fateful days in history, the weather played a major role.  When Kennedy went to his first event in Ft. Worth on November 22, it was raining, but as his plane touched down in Dallas (only 32 miles away) the weather had cleared and the sun was shining.  This led the decision to not install the bubbletop on the Presidential limousine which fully exposed him.  Had Kennedy not worn a backbrace, he would have survived the first shot because it would have knocked him forward.  But instead it did its job and held him rigidly in place while Oswald got the second and fatal shot in.  On the other side of the equation, had Oswald’s wife held her resolve and not taken him back for the third time or if the Cuban embassy had not rebuffed his application to immigrate several months prior, he probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near Dallas that day.  But, it didn’t happen that way .   Once again we learn that the big events of history are all resourced in the small, daily choices we all have to make and sometimes these small things can change the world or at least our own lives in the time it takes to take a breath.  I would add a personal correction to Mr. O’Reilly with regards to the point he makes about Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy’s last dinner party in the White House before going to Dallas.  In wanting to point out the macabre irony of the dinner party including activities where Abraham Lincoln’s body was prepared and then viewed by friends, family, and associates nearly a century before, he forgets that the entire White House was gutted during the Truman administration and only the outer shell is original.  Thus they were not the actual rooms, but rather the approximate places these things happened.