Voices Speak: Reflecting on JFK’s Assassination, Government-funded Trips, and Rat Exports

JFK Assassination Commemoration

San Francisco: On Nov. 22, the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was observed. The impact of this moment in history remains unforgettable for those who lived through it. I vividly remember the news and seeing Walter Cronkite announce President Kennedy’s death on television. I was traumatically shocked, as was the rest of my family. I was eight years old in Southern California and had admired JFK for his charisma and charm. His tragic death marked an end to an era of idealism. The unimaginable events that followed, like JFK’s funeral procession and the assassination of his accused killer Lee Harvey Oswald on live television, heightened the sense of deep despair. Despite the tragic end, let us remember JFK’s eloquence and elegance in his famous speeches. He was called to Berlin and declared, “There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the communist world: let them come to Berlin.” His assassination brought indelible change to America and foreshadowed significant events in that era. The impact of President Kennedy’s death on that day will never fade from our memory. Bruce Farrell Rosen.