Remembering that Friday: 50 Years ago this Day

Why do you think things would have been much different at all?

"Why do you think things would have been much different at all?"

It's impossible to accurately say how things would be different but LBJ certainly did escalate the involvement in Vietnam. Who knows? Maybe JFK would have done the same. But the way Vietnam divided this country certainly shaped the future.

I was just 6 years old in 1965 but was old enough to remember boys couldn't even wear jeans to school. Girls had to wear dresses. Might seem like silly little things now, but I believe the protests over the Vietnam war empowered an entire generation to make changes. I'm not just talking about the complex geo-political situation, but real changes that affect everyone each day. Like how long your hair is or what kind of clothes you can wear. Stuff like that.

Alucrap,funny how you bring up JFK, did you click"Post Comment" at one second after midnight? How fitting, since your character is constantly being assassinated here on TUSCL. There will be no Camelot or Eternal Flame for you. The only mark you will leave on the world is one big greasy shit stain. Just my opinion.

@Motorhead: sounds, almost paradoxically, like it might have been net positive then if things would have remained status-quo if not for Vietnam.

"And it's one, two, three what are we fighting four?"

Where was I when I heard Kennedy was shot? I believe I was a teenager in High School history class. Abraham Lincoln got shot too.

@shark: You're older than I thought.

Echo Place Elementary, 7th grade, right most row, 2nd to last seat in Mr. Skipper's class when the principal came in and told us that the President had been shot. The headline that night was in red - the first color ever used in the Brantford Expositor.

World skaking indeed. BTW, that was in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

BTW, Alucard, thanks for reminding us all.

I wasn't alive then, but the world would have certainly been different. I would imagine if both Kennedys (Bobby too) would have survived they would have held the presidency from 61 to 77.

Bringing this back OT, Among the business interests of Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald in the jailhouse basement, was a burlesque club. He was quite popular with all of Dallas' finer dancers, I've read.

I was only 4 years old.

Keesler AFB, Biloxi, MS.

I wasn't alive then, but I'll leave this

" My attitude is cold and callous
Killed Kings in Tennessee
Presidents in Dallas
And if the past be known, at last we know
What happened that afternoon on the Grassy Knoll
It's what made a widow of Jackie O
The government hired Lee Harvey to blast me though
Fatality shot entered from the right temple
Was not fired from a six-story window
Can it be that it was all so simple
But yet remains so painful to rekindle"

Freshman Calculus Class with Dr. Durgin. Motor speaks of how things rapidly changed due to Vietnam War protests: A friend of mine at the time was expelled from a state college for wearing jeans to class. He had the temerity to have long hair as well (pre-Beatles)
More importantly, I think that the year following the assassination marked a demarcation of trust-no trust in government. We, the people, began to understand that the government was lying to further the objectives of a few. I was active in anti-war activities as were many of my friends who served in Vietnam. As vivid as my memory is regarding JFK's assassination, I also remember sitting with Vinny, who had just returned from SE Asia, smoking weed in my apartment, when he started crying, telling of being under attack from a group of North Vietnamese and he let loose a barrage of gunfire which literally cut one of the attackers in half. After the skirmish he went to the enemy's body and found it to be an 11 year old girl - the same as his little sister. Vinny didn't know why he was there. None of us understood why our freedom was being protected by killing little girls. When the answers to our questions were not adequately answered distrust and anger were the only responses available.
Would Kennedy have made a difference? I think so, however it might have been a cosmetic difference. He engendered trust. LBJ engendered distrust. The differences and the lack of respect between the 2 men is well documented and one wonders if RFK's subsequent assassination was necessitated by his "meddling" in LBJ's agenda.
I have a stack of Evergreen magazines from that period and it really is fascinating to now re-read articles from the extreme left and try to put them in today's context.

I have some of the same stories as a few of you, above. I was in a seventh grade drafting class. Mr. Rig was the teacher. The principal made the announcement over the school's P.A. system, at about noon, pacific time. That class period ended about 12:20 and then there was lunch. Kids were trading stories about their experiences all through lunch. Two more school periods to go after lunch.

When I got home, I had a paper route then for an evening paper. Along with by best friend, we always rode our bikes to school together. We raced home to read the newspaper account of the assassination. There was a warning notice in my stack of papers that read something to the effect: "Due to today's important news, fines for service errors (missed deliveries) will be doubled." Just a bit of how my day went. I remember it all too well.

That an 11 year old girl was shot in Viet Nam in the 60's because of Bush and Cheney is a real stretch. At least obama blames Bush for everything after the fact. You place blame before the fact. How in the world can someone be responsible for something that happened 40 years before they were in a position where they could even be considered responsible.
LBJ and the Congress of that time were the ones responsible. LBJ sent the troops that Congress authorized.

On topic: We were in a team meeting prior to our first round game in the state championship playoffs. The principal announced it on the PA. We were all shocked. It was a bad game that night. We were ranked #1 for the 4 previous weeks and were beaten by an unranked team.

It wasn't 50 years ago for me. It was much more recently in High School history. Maybe earlier if the information slipped out sometime.

I was a high school senior in Detroit in October 0f 1962 when I saw JFK in a motorcade through the heart of town. The motorcade route was printed on the front page of one of the local papers. The president was riding in an open Lincoln convertible, seated up on the rear deck, between other local politicians. I had never seen a president before and this was quite a moment.

November 22, 1963 I was a college freshman when I heard the news while browsing in the campus bookstore. An exchange student from The Gambia, who later became the U.N. ambassador for his country, was telling the bookstore manager about the event when I overheard the conversation. My gym class was scheduled for a one mile run around the exterior of the campus. A department store truck driver told me about JFK while I was jogging back to campus.

I still have the original New York Times of November 23, 1963 with the first reports.

We really don't know what would have happened in Viet Nam if he had lived. There are some indications he was waiting until he was reelected to begin the withdrawal. I believe that he would have taken additional steps to control the spread of nuclear weapons after the success of the Test Ban Treaty. He said at a press conference that he was troubled by the prospect of 10 or 20 nations having operational nuclear weapons by the end of the 1970s or 1980s. He and Kruschev (sp?) were both willing to work on this after having come so close to blowing up the world in the Cuban Missle Crisis.

I've said this before - I also believe the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 also had a major role in the future events. The killing of RFK obviously did not have same impact on people as the assassination of the president but it was important.

I've always like those "what if" time travel scenarios. (Remember the TV show "Sliders?)

I'm sure Bobby Kennedy would have defeated Richard Nixon in 1968. But when Nixon became president, an entire chain of events started that still impact this country.

With RFK in office, no Watergate
No Watergate, no distrust of Washington insiders
Jimmy Carter never gets elected
The horribly weak presidency of Carter empowers the Iranian "students" to overrun the embassy
This is the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in the Middke East which has become the most dangerous threat to world peace we still have today

Meanwhile Teddy Kennedy was such a loser he wasn't even worth the trouble of assassinating.

For you conspiracy buffs: Ted Kennedy's car steering wheel was sprayed with a chemical that was absorbed through his skin that made him disoriented and confused. The drug induced hallicinations. He lost control of the car, didn't know what he was doing, saved himself and came to his senses too late to save his passenger. He didn't really know what happened and couldn't explain it. He lied because he didn't know how else to explain his conduct, not knowing it was caused by drugs. Mary Jo did not drown. She was asphixiated--she ran out of breathable air in the partially submerged car.

Where do I get this crazy idea? G. Gordon Liddy (former CIA)has stated publically that he considered spraying a chemical on the steering wheel of journalist Jack Anderson's car (1973-74) to cause him to be disoreinted when he gave a TV interview on his findings about Watergate. The idea was discredit Anderson who was tracking the Watergate break-in, the money and the cover-up. Liddy decided not to use the chemical spray for two reasons:(1)Anderson wore driving gloves and the chemical would not have been absorbed through the palms of his hands;(2) if it were absorbed and took full effect before he made the commute on I-495 from Baltimore to DC, a lot of innocent people could have been injured or killed in the automobile collisions that would have surely happend when Anderson lost control of his car.

Remember E. Howard Hunt (CIA) of the "plumbers" was assigned to find ways to discredit Ted Kennedy from the first days of the Nixon administration. Liddy ran the "plumbers." Liddy's public statements reveal that the CIA had this disabling drug and he was ready to use it in 1973-74.

Would Hunt, Liddy or others use it on Ted Kennedy in 1969? Why not? They could not risk a third murder. They knew about his playing around and wiretaps told them about the picnic. A random rowboat, a tourist, and a passkey to the car--easy to do. Catch Ted playing around and set up the accident.

OK, I'm a nut, but it will make a good movie.

I think the US and the World would be a little better place had he NOT been SHOT!