CBS News: Video: Person to Person: Edward R. Murrow Interviews The Kennedy’s in 1953

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

The Kennedy’s had just been married by this point in 1953. John Kennedy was about halfway through his first term as a U.S. Senate and already contemplating running for President. And had even considered being Adlai Stephenson’s Vice Presidential nominee in 1956. And this is going to sound hard, but Jack Kennedy was politically smart enough to know that he wasn’t going to get elected President as a bachelor. Especially as a bachelor with a reputation as a playboy. That is where Jackie comes in to make it look like Jack has settled down with one women and ready to start a family. Not saying Jack didn’t love Jackie, but that was not his primary motive for marrying her. He wanted to run for and be elected President in 1960 and the way to do that back then and still today is at the very least be seen as a family man. With a wife and kids and be perceived as loving both.

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PBS: Frontline- Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald

Source:The Daily Journal Plus– Lee H. Oswald in 1963, right before the JFK assassination 

Source:The New Democrat Plus

In his entire twenty-four years on Earth, he had at best a handful of friends, including his wife who was from Russia. He moves to Russia and figures out fairly quickly like any intelligent person would that hadn’t been brainwashed, that Russia and their Soviet system, might not be the best way for him to live. That even a devout Communist or Marxist needed some personal and perhaps even economic autonomy over their own affairs. And comes back to America in the late 1950s early 1960s when Fidel Castro’s Communists had just taken over Cuba. And learns about Castro’s Cuba and decided that maybe the Castro communist system was the way to go.

And this is the time that the Dwight Eisenhower Administration was cracking down on Castro’s Cuba and imposing all sorts of economic sanctions on Cuba. Move into 1961 with Jack Kennedy becoming President of the United States and the Kennedy Administration taking a tough hard-core stance against both Russia and Cuba and now Oswald knows which side he’s on. He likes Cuba’s communist system and doesn’t like America’s liberal democratic system and gets in bed with Communist Cuba. I think its obvious why Oswald assassinated President Kennedy. The question is, was there anyone else involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. Or was Oswald by himself.

Oswald assassinated Kennedy because of the Kennedy Administration’s crackdown on Communist Cuba. Including having the Russian missiles removed from Cuba. Jack Kennedy, Liberal Democrat. Lee Oswald and Fidel Castro Marxist Communists. According to Oswald, they couldn’t live in the same world together for communism to flourish the way he believed it could. Oswald wasn’t going to assassinate Fidel or commit suicide. Which meant that according to him Jack Kennedy had to go. Now the only question is was there anyone else behind the plot.
PBS: Frontline- Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?

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Garmon Bozia: Lyndon B. Johnson- The Accidental President

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat Plus

The Accidental President, I think I would find that insulting if I was Lyndon Johnson with all of his experience and qualifications to be President of the United States. And even though Vice President Johnson wasn’t a very active Vice President, because the Jack Kennedy White House kept him in hiding with very little if any responsibility as the 2nd Ranking Officer in the U.S. Government, he was still Vice President of the United States.

And according to the U.S. Constitution if the President can’t or doesn’t full fill their term as President and leaves office voluntarily or involuntarily, as was the case with President Kennedy, the Vice President takes over and becomes President of the United States. There was no accident to LBJ becoming President. He was Vice President at the time when President Kennedy was assassinated and JFK was assassinated as President of the United States. No accident in how LBJ became President of the United States and he was overwhelmingly elected President of the United States in 1964.
Garmon Bozia: Lyndon B. Johnson- The Accidental President

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CBS News: Walter Cronkite Announces The Death of President John F. Kennedy

Source:CBS News– anchorman Walter Cronkite, announcing the death of President John F. Kennedy.

“From the CBS archives from Friday, November 22, 1963, Walter Cronkite announces to the nation that President John F. Kennedy had died.”

From CBS News

“Assassination of John F. Kennedy, mortal shooting of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and defected for a time to the Soviet Union. Oswald never stood trial for murder, because, while being transferred after having been taken into custody, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a distraught Dallas nightclub owner.”

Source:Britannica– from the Chicago Tribune.

From Britannica 

“As The World Turns” was airing on CBS the afternoon of November 22, 1963, when Walter Cronkite broke in to tell the nation that President Kennedy had been shot. Coverage then went back to the soap opera, but not for long. Charles Osgood reports on how America learned of the shooting of a president.”

From CBS News

Newscasters and journalists in general are trained to never show their feelings and give commentary. That old Joe Friday saying of just the facts man. (For all of you Dragnet fans) But these people are exactly that, people and they have feelings too.

When you’re reporting on the death and not just death, but the assassination of someone you personally know, like, respect and even admirer, all things that Walter Cronkite felt about John Kennedy and then throw in the fact they were the same age and from the same generation, how you not show your human side in this situation. This was the first presidential assassination during the network news era. Where most if not all Americans, we’re getting at least part of their news from the networks.

And you are reporting on the assassination of someone who is just 46 and you are same age, to go along with all the other factors, I would’ve been disappointed had Cronkite not given people at least a little into what he was feeling about this horrible tragedy.

Cronkite was at the top of his game during CBS News’s coverage of the JFK assassination that he anchored. And part of Cronkite’s greatness was that he was a human being the whole time and not afraid to let others know that.

There was no precedent for network news to cover presidential assassinations. There hadn’t been a presidential assassination since William McKinley at the turn of the 20th Century. When radio hadn’t even been invented yet. CBS News, NBC News and ABC News, was literally learning how to cover this on the fly.

Walter Cronkite, wasn’t announcing the death of a cab driver who was mugged the night before in his cab in New York City. Not that murder is not important, because of course it would be. He was announcing the death of not just a public servant and public official, or politician, or even a Chief of State, or even a President. He was announcing the death of a President of the United States. He was announcing the death of his own President and President of his own country. A President he personally knew and perhaps even considered a friend. The first time this was ever done on network news and hopefully the last, because this assassination was way too expensive and should have never had happen. And Cronkite deserves a lot of credit for how he handled himself.

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on WordPress.

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British Pathe: ‘Presidential Fever- Sweeps The Nation: 4/10/1960’

Source:British Pathe– President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1960.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Milwaukee. MS.CU. Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy (later President Kennedy). MS.CU.Senator Hubert Humphrey seated at desk. LS.Street in Milwaukee. MS. Posters on wall, one of Kennedy and one of Humphrey. CU Big sign which says “Humphrey for President Headquarters”. MS. Signpost “Vote Here”. Various shot people voting. MS.People awaiting results. High angle GV. over packed hall.

Washington DC. MS.President Dwight Eisenhower and Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower on platform acknowledging audience. MS President shakes hands with man before sitting down. MS. President Eisenhower eating leg of chicken from box, with Mrs. Eisenhower next to him. CU Republican Vice President Richard Nixon (later President Nixon) eating cold chicken, pan to his wife Mrs. Pat Nixon next to him. MS.Nixon and Eisenhower together on stage, Eisenhower moves over to microphone. LS.Microphones, Eisenhower in front of them. CU.Eisenhower in front of microphone.”

From British Pathe

The 1960 West Virginia Democratic primary was a battle of dirty tricks. With the Humphrey campaign trying to make JFK’s Irish-Catholic faith and issue in an overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon Protestant state like West Virginia. Which is the South Carolina of the Mid-Atlantic.

The Kennedy campaign with Jack’s father Joe literally buying votes and West Virginia political leaders. Both campaigns running ads against the other that were simply false. When the West Virginia primary should have literally been a battle place of ideas. With HHH offering his social democratic, big government vision. And JFK offering his liberal limited government vision for the country. That would use government to empower people and not just take care of them.

This is one of the most interesting presidential campaigns ever I believe. Jack Kennedy vs Dick Nixon in 1960 was also a great campaign. But the campaign between Senator Jack Kennedy and Senator Hubert Humphrey (or Hubie, to be less formal) I believe at least in some ways was even better. Because it represented a battle of Democratic factions. The New Deal/soon to be Great Society progressive coalition faction of the Democratic Party. That had all sorts of big government social programs for people. Against an emerging liberal New Democratic coalition of JFK that wanted to use government to empower people in need to be able to take care of themselves.

What the Kennedy campaign tried to do here was to make it look like their candidate was the young candidate who represented the younger generation and that Senator Humphrey was old school and represented older people and the ways of the past. Even though they were both World War II Generation and were only six years apart in age. Senator Humphrey ran on his experience even though Senator Kennedy had actually served in Congress longer at this point than Humphrey. With his six years in the House before being elected to the Senate in 1952.

This campaign was really a campaign about ideas and the role of government in America instead. Humphrey wanted a bigger Federal Government to take care of more people. Kennedy wanted to use government to empower people in need to be able to take care of themselves instead.

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David Von Pein: Jack Paar Show- Robert F. Kennedy: March 13th, 1964

Source:David Von Pein– Jack Paar & U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1964.

Source:The Daily Journal 

“Friday, March 13, 1964 — Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy makes his first public appearance since the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, which occurred exactly sixteen weeks earlier (on November 22, 1963).

RFK elected to make his first post-assassination public appearance on “The Jack Paar Program”. The studio audience, as expected, gave Bobby a lengthy standing ovation.

This video includes the first part of Jack Paar’s 3/13/64 interview with Bobby Kennedy.” 

From David Von Pein 

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a few months after his brother President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, goes on NBC’s the Jack Parr Show. I guess he wanted to get back to living a normal life, or as normal of a life that a public official can have in America and get out of the funk he was in from losing his brother and did it in a big way by going on Jack Parr and trying to communicate to the world that he and his family were doing okay, or as well as they could be doing after seeing one of their family members assassinated.

Bobby Kennedy came back in a big way in 1964. RFK wanted to make his life worth serving again the only way he knew how outside of his family by serving the public and being involved in public affairs. He was already Attorney General of the United States, but had other interests as well.

As Attorney General, RFK was influential in getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act through Congress. His speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, resigning from office right after that and running for U.S. Senate in New York. Where he wins there, partially thanks to President Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater with New York being one of those States.

Bobby Kennedy not only came back in 1964, but came back in a big public way that few other people would’ve been able to come back from after a tragedy. Like losing a sibling in the manner that he did.

The Jack Paar Show, was perfect for RFK because Jack was a very funny man, but also up to date on current affairs and interested in them. And was Bobby Kennedy being a Kennedy with their famous wit and intelligence.

1964, was a very depressing and yet liberating year for Bob Kennedy. First, he was Attorney General, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States, but for a man he hated President Lyndon Johnson, who was President Kennedy’s Vice President. LBJ, not exactly best friends with RFK, but at least he let the Attorney General do his job. Unlike RFK who was always undermining any authority and responsibility that LBJ had as Vice President. But that is really a different discussion and perhaps debate, especially for RFK loyalists.

RFK, didn’t want to work for President Johnson and that is one reason why he decided to run for the Senate in 1964. And restore some freedom over his own personal life and career. And going on Jack Paar in early 1964, was the start of RFK returning to public life again.

 

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