WRITTEN IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING JFK’S ASSASSINATION1Those who remember November 22, 1963, cannot escape the darkness of a moment that has haunted us for fifty years. Most recall every second of the frequently replayed, silent home movies that recorded John Kennedy’s last living ride through Dallas. “In the naked light” of a bright Texas sun at noontime we forever see, as Paul Simon did in his assassination-inspired song, the motorcade passing on Dallas streets, “ten thousand people, maybe more—people talking without speaking.” It is a nightmare that will never be erased from our national consciousness. The lingering, gnawing questions about the assassination reinforce our inability to forget. The seeds of modern cynicism were planted that day, and their bitter fruit has left us unwilling to trust much of what we are told by the powerful in and out of government.But a leader’s legacy—a kind of life after death—is shaped by a career’s beginning and middle, not just an awful ending.
