Why JFK?

I look at it from another angle. Why do people tolerate the existence of leaders? Are people so dumb that they need another person to tell them how to live their lives? Are followers just mindless sheep, and the leader is the only person with a brain? That's why this book doesn't make sense. It's like 200 million citizens are unable to do anything without that 1 guy who happens to be President.

I think this is one more reason Donald Trump is so popular. People are waking up to the fact that leaders are useless parasites who don't do much of anything, except line their pockets and lie to the masses.

marciel0, that's a great question that those of us who lived through the assassination of JFK don't often (if ever) consider. Perhaps you've heard comparisons of the attacks of 9/11 to JFK's assassination (unless you are too young to have been socially aware of the impact of 9/11 in 2001, although I was only 10 years old in 1963). Both events had people sharing "where were you when...?" conversations. I don't have a real answer for you, but the president of the U.S. is a figure head; killing the president caused many to fear that society and the country and the world would devolve into nuclear war (a common fear at that time). Plus, he was youthful and very charismatic. Also, without instant social media at the time, his indiscretions with Marylin Monroe and others were not known. He was a hero and an idol.

There was a boy in my 5th grade class in 1963 who, when the teacher announced JFK's death, said aloud: "Yay!" I wish I had noticed the reactions of the class and/or the teacher, but I was only 10 and did not.

In contrast, my mother sat sobbing for days in front of the television watching the news shows replaying the motorcade footage. Seeing her now behaving the same way since the recent passing of my father, I suspect Kennedy represented husband, father, and son to many.

I am an academic librarian. If you want recommendations of books to read that might give you some insight into the social/psychic phenomenon surrounding JFK's assassination, just reply here, and I will find some.

I think some of it of course is because he was a world leader, the president and his death was shocking to everyone. How could it happen right in our faces, where was his security? It was a different time then and MLK wasn't killed until 1968. To be fair he wasn't as nationally loved by all as JFK was. Racism the 60's etc. For me it struck me that he was a leader trying to cause change, he was a young man with a lovely wife and small children and hadn't begun to live out his potential. He was on the cusp of something and we never got to see how that would turn out so as time has passed people have idealized what would have happened. Would there have been a war in Vietnam? How would the progress of the civil rights movement been affected? So many policies and possibilities would have been affected. Again we don't know if it would have been better it could have been worse, but the speculation that if he had lived would have made the US so much better keeps the idea going. It's the parlor game like they discussed in his classroom, what if you could kill Hitler and prevent the Holocaust? Save lives and make the world a better place? Kennedy died young and had so much promise and ideas of a better future, everyone continues the parlor game of what if...

9/11 was much more traumatic to me than JFK's assassination. That was one man. 9/11 was almost 3,000 people and I knew it meant war, a different kind of war.


Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

Because to this day Lee Harvey Oswald is thought to Not have been the shooter (Lee was arrested and killed before even arriving at the county jail, and he could not have possibly made those shots from the building/vantage point he was in). So basically JFK was murdered by an unknown entity, and its never been seen solved. Most people do not think Oswald really killed JFK.

I was actually really disappointed that the show went the "lone gunman" route. I was hoping for some actually interesting JFK theories. No way was Oswald actually guilty. The only thing he did was live in belarus for a while, and because of the cold war, that made him suspicious (like now when terrorist= muslim in many people's minds).

To this day it is one of the biggest American mysteries, and its also sad that it seems we may not ever really know

im thinking 1963 was only a year away from 1962, the time the closet brings you to after you pass through it. So the closest major historic event to alter would be the jfk assassination. martin luther king jr's death would be 6 years away. it would be difficult to wait that long.

I would do the small bets and collect the winnings until I can save up a small fortune for myself when i get back to the future...or if i wanna keep coming back i would live a wealthy life in the 60's for a few months, enjoy all the luxuries...come back to the present...nice vacation tool lol

Because they were a young, good-looking couple. The closest thing America has ever been to a royal family.

The era was also one of optimism and prosperity, as well as the ever present fear of communism and nukes.

It was a "clean era", before the Vietnam war and the sexual revolution, so it has a lot of nostalgia connected to it.

And it was the start of the space race, all this contributed to the image of a perfect leader.

IMO Kennedy was a hyped and flawed leader, there are other leaders capable to handling, for example, the Cuban crisis better than forcing the issue until it was "cross this line and we are at war" with the soviets.

Kennedy also used drugs and slept around (M. Monro was one of his mistresses) and many historians claim he also had shady connections to mobsters.

The couple didn't even share the same bedroom anymore, this is evident in various documentaries, focusing on his last days.

The Kennedy clan was and probably is very powerful and isn't an example of good ethics, they are filthy rich, always was.

So there is the myth, and then there is reality.
Myths tend to get stronger as time flies, in relation to the boring truth.

I mean...we're not exactly the best group to ask about that since it happened over 40 years ago but any time a President, the person known literally as the "leader of the free world" is murdered, it's a shocking feeling for our nation and people. JFK was a good president but the biggest regret people have about him is what he MIGHT have done if he hadn't been killed, like his likely intention to pull out of Vietnam by 1965 thereby preventing the majority of the Vietnam war then again, maybe if he hadn't been killed there wouldn't have been the national sympathy that allowed the Voting Rights Act to get passed.