Friday Flashback: A Look Back at JFK

This entry, which contains links to several previous posts from The Prices Do DC, originally appeared in The Lantern Lit.

It is said that everyone who was alive in 1963 remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed. And while all may have memories, some memories are more dramatic than others. Take those of former PBS news anchors Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. At the time, MacNeil was a young NBC TV reporter covering the presidential trip to Dallas. Lehrer was a young staffer for one of Dallas' local newspapers. Here is what they remember about that fateful Dallas day 50 years ago that changed their lives and all of America forever. What follows is a series of articles offering a look at JFK's life, death, legacy, and legend.

Before That Fateful Day in Dallas
The Election

• The 1960 campaign. (from the JFK Library Presidential Library and Museum)
• The phone call that may have made JFK president. (from The Prices Do DC)
• Did Kennedy really win because he looked better on television? (from Slate)

The Cuban Missile Crisis

• To the brink. (from The Prices Do DC)
• The words that could have ended the world. (from The Prices Do DC)
• Thirteen days to the destruction that wasn't. (from The Prices Do DC)
• Armageddon avoided. (from The Prices Do DC)

JFK and the Early 60s

• Herblock looks at 1962. (from The Prices Do DC)
• What was life like in 1963? (ABC News)
• Painting the president. (from Face to Face)
• The Beatles, Phil Spector, and JFK. (from Slate)
• JFK's 10 greatest political accomplishments. (from Netplaces)
• A collection of stories about the JFK years. (from Byliner Anthologies)

November 22, 1963

• Dallas then was a place of hate. (from The Guardian)
• Ten facts about the assassination you probably don't know. (from Yahoo)
• The day as reported in the New York Times.
• The day my history teacher cried. (from The Huffington Post)
• The flight from Dallas. (from Esquire)
• 22 days of JFK. (from The Daily Beast)

Unfinished Business

• What would have happened had Kennedy lived? (from The Denver Post)
• The speech JFK would have given on the night of his death. (from The Huffington Post)
• Kennedy's vision for mental health. (from The Huffington Post)

The Immediate Aftermath

• The day JFK died, TV news came of age. (from SF Gate)
• How the assassination changed the Secret Service. (from GPB News)
• How sports changed on that November weekend. (from USA Today)
• Classical music paid tribute. (from The Los Angeles Times)

Let the Conspiracy Theories Commence

• The enduring need for a conspiracy. (from The American)
• 1966 book starts the avalanche. (from USA Today)
• All the theories. (from Wikipedia)
• TV detective Munch tackles real-life JFK mystery. (from The Prices Do DC)
• Oliver Stone talks about JFK movie, conspiracy. (from The Prices Do DC)
• Fidel Castro says Oswald couldn't have killed Kennedy. (from The Atlantic)
• Why the Warren Commission is right in saying Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. (from Probe)

Where JFK Stands Today

• Gun debate started by JFK killing still rages. (from ABC News)
• 14 movies we still watch that come from the assassination. (from The Wrap)
• Why the fascination endures? (from CantonRep.com)
• We are still trying to understand the elusive president. (from The New York Times)
• We are still saddened by all that was lost. (The Washington Post)

Friday Flashback: Touring DC in the Steps of JFK

This post originally appeared on July 3, 2013

This year, 4 historic anniversaries are being celebrated in the nation's capital: the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech, and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To commemorate the 4 events, The Prices Do DC has designed a full-day tour featuring monuments and museum exhibitions selected to help you know more about the people and events of the times. Today's tour: The Life and Times of President John F. Kennedy

Morning

Kennedy Grave Site at Arlington National Cemetery
Pay your respects to the slain President. To learn more, click here.  Free. (Metro - Arlington Cemetery - Blue Line.)

Newseum
It has been 50 years since President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and to commemorate JFK's life the Newseum is displaying 3 special exhibitions: A Thousand Days, Creating Camelot, and Three Shots Were Fired. To learn more, click here. Admission charge. (Metro - Archives - Yellow and Green Lines.)

Afternoon

Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space
In 1961, President Kennedy pledged that America would send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. Although he did not live to see it, America made the deadline. The story is detailed in the exhibition From Apollo to the Moon. To learn more, click here. Free. (Metro - Smithsonian Station - Blue and Orange Lines or L'Enfant Station - Yellow or Green Lines.)

International Spy Museum
The 1960's was the time of the Cold War and one of President Kennedy's favorite authors was Ian Fleming, the creator of 007 James Bond. Check out the exhibition Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains. To learn more, click here. Admission charge. ( Metro - Gallery Place/Chinatown Station - Yellow, Green, and Red Lines.)

Evening

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
There are electronic kiosks here where you can learn more about JFK. The building itself is impressive and worth a visit. Also, every night of the year at 6 p.m. there is a free 1-hour show on The Millennium Stage. To learn more, click here. Free. (Metro - Foggy Bottom Station - Blue Line - then take the free shuttle bus to the Kennedy Center.)

Related Dining Experiences for Lunch or Dinner

• Martin's Tavern (This 78-year-old Georgetown eatery is where John Kennedy proposed to Jackie) 
• Mrs. Kennedy loved elegant dining and French food. Try one of DC's French restaurants. Click here for some suggestions from Yelp. 

Tuesday's Take - Oliver Stone Talks JFK, Conspiracy

This post originally appeared in The Lantern Lit

Stone makes a point with Newseum Vice Chairman Shelby Coffey III

When film director Oliver Stone speaks about his controversial film JFK, he wants it understood that he was not depicting absolute truth. Instead, he was making what he calls a countermyth to contrast with what he calls the myth of the Warren Commission Report, a voluminous compendium of information that maintains Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago.

"We were not making a documentary, we were dramatizing," Stone says. "I thought the Warren Commission was fiction and I still do today."

Stone appeared at the Newseum in Washington, DC to discuss his film, which was released 22 years ago and is enjoying a resurgence because of the timeliness of the 50th anniversary this month of that dark day in Dallas.

"The (Kennedy) investigation was badly handled from the beginning," Stone said as he detailed his belief in both a conspiracy and a cover-up. "A major medical fraud took place. He should have been autopsied in Parkland (the Dallas hospital where Kennedy died). A doctor there says for 18 minutes he saw brains emerging from the back of President Kennedy's head. A shot from the front was the kill shot and that is a shot that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't have made."

Of course, if the Warren Commission is wrong and Oswald didn't act alone, the question becomes - who is responsible for killing JFK?  "Look at the people who had the power," Stone contends.

In Stones' view, the military/industrial/intelligence complex was highly disturbed about Kennedy actions that they believed were wrong for an America which, at the time, was engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union and the idea of Communism.  "Kennedy was moving toward detente and the end of the Cold War. The generals wanted to blow up the Soviet Union because they could. They wanted a war because they knew they could win it. But Kennedy realized we were facing the end of the world as we knew it and he said no. They were furious and didn't want him to win re-election in 1964. Kennedy took them head-on and paid a price for it ," Stone said.

The director said he began to question the Oswald-only position after reading On The Trail of the Assassin by New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison in 1989. Garrison's book detailed his investigation of a Kennedy conspiracy. Kevin Costner portrayed Garrison in Stone's film.

Stone said he had always admired the 1969 film Z, by Greek director Costa-Gavras, a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of a Greek politician and the outrage at the military dictatorship which hatched the killing plot. "I wanted to do something similar on an American level," Stone said. "I wanted to give a reason why he (Kennedy) must be removed from office."

"In drama, you have the right to interpret history as you want. Shakespeare proved that," Stone said. "Even documentaries aren't objective. But I think the facts of JFK hold up to me."