Forty-five years ago still reverberates

Saturday marked the 45th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That number of years — 45 — still astounds me. The most significant world event in the first half of my lifetime is being relegated to near-ancient history. Most Americans alive today do not remember the assassination — a fact emphasized to me by an offhand comment I made while teaching a college journalism class some 20 years ago. I was talking about the importance of big news events. "You remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about the Kennedy assassination ... ," I began, and was greeted with blank stares. Finally one student explained, "We were born in, like, 1965." Suddenly, I felt old.

Today's mantra is that you remember where you were and what you were doing Sept. 11, 2001.

That day in Dallas just doesn't seem so long ago. On the 10th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, I was working in Washington, D.C. While living in the area, I visited the Kennedy grave at Arlington. On the 20th anniversary, I pulled out my old color slide I had taken of the Kennedy grave with the Capitol in the distant background and published it (a rare front-page color photo) in the newspaper. The 30th and 40th anniversaries were less memorable.

On this 45th anniversary of the destruction of the dream Kennedy embodied, we have elected a man who is too young to remember the Kennedy assassination. Many comparisons have been made between Kennedy and Barack Obama. Both men have inspired youthful followers. But despite all the youthful exuberance Obama embodies, he is four years older than Kennedy was when elected. He is older than Kennedy was when JFK was assassinated.

My generation was set adrift by an assassin's bullet, never again to trust wholeheartedly in an elected official, never again to believe that individuals can change the world, never again to think of politics as a noble calling. The aura of martyrdom has inflated the Kennedy mystique and has obscured his failings, the same phenomenon that turned Lincoln into the embodiment of all things positive about America. But an objective analysis of Kennedy's presidency has to admit that much was lost that long-ago day in Dallas. He had inspired the Peace Corps, endured weekly press conferences to speak directly to the public (and spar with the press), used self-deprecating humor to disarm critics, initiated civil rights legislation, pushed for Medicare, set America on the path to the moon and armed the baby boom generation with principles and causes.

As Nov. 22, 1963, fades into the distant past, its impact on America's future will never diminish.