Remembering John F. Kennedy

It was a cool, misty October day in 1960, when John Nark saw a convertible limousine inching up Philadelphia’s Thompson Street, not far from the Democratic National Convention.

The convertible stopped at a red light, and Nark made his move.

“I walked over and shook his hand,” he said. “I knew it was Kennedy, and I knew he was running for office. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

It was John F. Kennedy’s personable nature that Nark, who lives in Delran, has treasured ever since. And he is not alone.

Nearly 50 years after the assassination of JFK, his death still moves the nation. His was the first assassination of a U.S. president that most had ever lived through.

The shock of that tragic moment on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas remains vivid in people’s memories, even after a half century.

“Like 9/11, you know exactly where you were when it happened,” said Nark, 78. “These things don’t disappear with time.”

The Warren Commission, which investigated the president’s murder, concluded Lee Harvey Oswald fired at Kennedy’s motorcade from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and acted alone. Fifty years later, many still don’t accept the “lone gunman” theory of the commission, which included U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, the late lawmaker who represented Pennsylvania for decades.

But it wasn’t conspiracy theories that brought the nation to a standstill in the days following JFK’s death. It was shock and a profound collective loss.

Professor Meena Bose, director of Hofstra University’s Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, said Kennedy’s presidency was one of “hope and idealism.”

“He inspired a generation in 1961 with his inaugural address, with a call to public service and the creation of the Peace Corps,” the professor at the New York school said.

Many people are moved by the words Kennedy shared that day: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what, together, we can do for the freedom of man.”

Bose said Kennedy called on Americans to achieve so many inspirational goals, but “sadly, didn’t live to see them happen.”

“When I play his speeches for students, they are still so moved, despite their political affiliations,” she said. “He asked us to (give) more of ourselves than we might have thought was possible. I would say that the 50th anniversary of that horrific day is a time for reflection of what Kennedy asked us as Americans to do, what we’ve done since, and even how much more needs to be done.”

David Barrett, a political science professor who teaches a class on the U.S. presidency at Villanova University, said a combination of factors explain Kennedy’s pull with the American public. Early successes, his glamour appeal and his ability to stir emotion with his speeches all contribute to his legacy, Barrett said.

“He was unusually eloquent, and with his words, he had this ability to capture the mood of where the nation was and where it should be going; that reached a lot of people,” the professor said.

Barrett said Kennedy’s youth, good looks and picture-perfect family added to his appeal, while his calming reaction to the Cuban missile crisis helped his political image.

“This was a very intense 13-day period where the Soviets put nuclear arms in Cuba,” he said. “He was determined that they move them, but he didn’t want to have a war over them. Ultimately, he succeeded at getting the missiles removed without having a war, and the public gave him a lot of credit for that.”

Kennedy was beginning to make great strides in the civil rights movement, pointing the nation toward where it should go, Barrett said.

“He laid out a vision for the nation,” he said. “He was this young guy who figured out how to be president. Then, suddenly, he was murdered. It was an awful event that people who were alive at the time have never forgotten.”

Nark, in the Army at the time, was in artillery class when he learned about JFK’s death.

“It was a traumatic thing for the whole country,” he said. “You couldn’t believe it happened, you didn’t know what to do about it and everything came to a screeching halt. It seemed more personal than any other tragedy we had heard about or lived through.”

Judy Braunston, who now lives in the Delaware Valley, was in Dallas watching John F. Kennedy roll by in his motorcade just minutes before he was shot.

“Everybody knew I supported him and was crazy about him; he said all of the things I believed in,” said Braunston, who was pregnant at the time. “So, the crowd let me go right out front because they knew what a big fan I was.”

Soon after she waved to him and cheered him on, she returned to her office in downtown Dallas.

“As soon as I walked into the building, my phone was ringing, and it was my husband saying Kennedy was shot. An hour and half later, when I saw the flags lowering around us, it sunk in. I was in shock. I didn’t cry then. I was just paralyzed with shock,” Bruanston said.

She remembered people in Dallas being stopped and checked for weapons.

“At first, thousands of people were on the streets, then all of a sudden, there was nobody,” she said. “All you heard were sirens and the rumble of motorcycles. After it happened, the town shut down, people got off the streets, doors were closed, and TVs were on.”

An attorney from a nearby office walked Braunston to her car.

“When we got home, we locked ourselves in the house, then Sunday morning, we got up and watched Lee Harvey Oswald get shot,” she recalled.

Despite the difficult memories, Braunston and many others see the 50th anniversary of the assassination as a time to focus more on JFK’s life and less on his death.

Dallas resident Ernest Brandt, who has shared his eyewitness account with people across the country, recalled the day of the assassination and its aftermath. He remembers watching first lady Jackie, at his side, as Kennedy smiled and waved at the crowds from the back seat of the limousine.

Just before 12:30 p.m., the motorcade zigzagged toward Elm Street and neared a drab, seven-story brick building. Brandt and a business client stood on Elm Street as the motorcade approached Dealey Plaza. He was a freight line salesman, and he and a customer decided to watch the motorcade after lunch at a local barbecue spot.

“He passed directly in front of us and everything was fine,” he said. “Then, two seconds later, the first shot was fired. I was still looking at him. He was 15 feet from me, and he raised his hands up. I thought he might have reacted to a motorcycle that backfired.”

Then two more shots rang out, and the nation was changed forever.

“More shots came, three seconds after the first,” he said. “At that time, everybody — including me — realized shots were being fired,” Brandt said. “And I’ve been asked a thousand times since then, if I knew where the shots originated, and my answer has been ‘no.’ It was so loud and it reverberated in the plaza, and I couldn’t tell.”

Fearful for his life, Brandt hid behind a tree.

“I got tremendously frightened and my heart started pounding,” he said. “I turned and saw a tree behind me and quickly ran for that tree. My customer saw the third shot hit Kennedy in the back of the head – and he saw his head literally explode.”

A half-hour later, the president was declared dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. His body was sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where the autopsy was performed.

Ed Reed was working at the naval hospital as an X-ray technician at the time.

“They paged me to the morgue and the body was outside in a casket,” said Reed, who helped take 10 X-rays of Kennedy’s body. “For me, I was working. I had a job to do and I did it. Everybody was concerned. Everybody.

“In there, we were military, senators or congressmen,” recalled Reed, now a Delaware Valley resident. “Yet, that night, everyone was the same, and we all helped each other. There were a lot of red eyes.”

During his short term in office, Kennedy inspired generations of Americans and a nation was — and is still — left wondering what great things this man might have accomplished had he lived.

“Most people still remember where they were when the assassination happened because they were moved by him in some way, at some time. The day was bookmarked in your memory, frozen in time,” said John Reeder.

As a 10-year-old, he was just blocks from his home in Roebling when he heard a woman scream from her porch that Kennedy had been shot. The news hit Reeder hard because of his brush with the president during a speech JFK gave a number of years earlier.

“I had braces on my legs, from my hips to my ankles, and people made a space for me in the front of the podium where he was speaking from,” he said.

Reeder was too young to understand JFK’s speech or the significance of the moment, but a few memorable details stuck with him — especially Kennedy, facing an audience of thousands, staring at him.

“At the time, I didn’t understand why I was there and didn’t know what he was talking about, and with him looking at me, I felt even more out of place,” Reeder said.

After the speech, Kennedy sat next to Reeder, put an arm around his shoulder and explained the repeated glances. Kennedy told him that during a speech, he liked to focus on one individual in the audience. This speaking technique eased his nervousness, the senator told Reeder.

“I was his audience,” he said. “He seemed very nice and was concerned about what happened to my leg.”

Years later, Reeder went to the Kennedy Library in Massachusetts to meet Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter.

“I told her about the time Kennedy came down and sat next to me, and a tear ran down her cheek,” he said. “She then said to herself, ‘That’s just like dad.’ She looked up at me and said ‘thank you for sharing that.’ ”

Every year on Nov. 22, Reeder returns to the slab of sidewalk that marks the spot he stood the moment he found out Kennedy had been killed.

“It’s something I do that takes me back to that time,” he said. “It’s out of respect for President Kennedy.”

Marion Callahan: 215-345-3060; mcallahan@calkins.com, Twitter: @marioncallahan