May 20, 2017 5 min read

Our final glimpses of the 35th president of the United States were ever so brief.

It makes us wish for more, and wonder what might have been, had John Fitzgerald Kennedy lived a long life.

His last smiles and waves to the crowd that day in Dallas haunt us now as we prepare to remember Kennedy on May 29, the centenary of his birth.

Everyone alive when Kennedy was assassinated can clearly recount where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day in November 1963. I was 12 years-old, and in the seventh grade at a parochial school in Latrobe. It was an unusually warm fall Friday, and the Thanksgiving holiday was just around the corner. My male classmates and I attended a once-a-week shop class at the nearby Fourth Ward School.

Shortly after 2 p.m., the shop teacher informed us that something had happened to the president, and we were sent home. When I entered my parents’ house, no one was home. My father worked the 3-to-11 factory shift at Kennametal, and I remember seeing his partially-eaten lunch left on the kitchen table. He had seen the news bulletins on television.

For the next several days, our black-and-white TV set brought us images like none we had ever seen before. A grieving first lady clutched her two small children close to her, as a horse-drawn caisson carried her husband’s casket through the nation’s capital. There was the salute from John F. Kennedy Jr., that broke so many weary hearts. We had our first view of the suspected assassin as he was gunned down in a Dallas police station. And who can forget the sound of the drums and cannon salutes that ended with the lighting of an eternal flame at Kennedy’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery?

Those days are but a faint memory, revived now only by old news footage and photographs. Our images of Kennedy are frozen in time. He is forever youthful and handsome. He remains the articulate voice of generations, including his own, and that of the many young people who admired and loved him.

Kennedy was not a saint. Few, if any, politicians can make that claim. But his enthusiasm and love of country inspired us. He appealed to our better instincts. He was a classic Cold War warrior, prepared to defend the boundaries of the free world, in West Berlin or in a little Asian country called South Vietnam. He also rejected the futility of mutually assured destruction in a thermonuclear war.

After the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought us to that brink, he resolved that the United States and the Soviet Union must learn to coexist or die. In the midst of that standoff, he overruled generals who were eager to invade Cuba, which might have prompted a devastating Soviet nuclear response. His blockade of the island and quiet assurances to the Russians that American missiles, located in Turkey and aimed at them, would be withdrawn, brought the crisis to a conclusion.

Kennedy struggled with American involvement in South Vietnam. No one will ever know for sure what type of commitment he was prepared to make in that conflict. He sent American military advisers, but no ground troops. In an interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News, Kennedy expressed serious skepticism as to what our future role should be. Ironically, it would be Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, who greenlighted a substantial military deployment not long after JFK’s death.

Kennedy was our first and, so far, only Catholic president. The 1960 presidential campaign was a hard-fought contest both in the primaries and in the general election. JFK’s religion was a point of controversy. But Kennedy faced the issue squarely, and told the American people that his religion would play no role in his governance.

Kennedy’s 1,000 days as president were not perfect. He stumbled badly in the Bay of Pigs fiasco early in his tenure. With a Cuban invasion plan he inherited from the Eisenhower administration, he relied too heavily on military advice and not enough on his own instincts. But, unlike many political leaders today, he owned up to his failings and accepted personal responsibility for the disastrous results.

It is interesting to note that Washington has ties to the Kennedy legacy. On Oct. 13, 1962, Kennedy came here and spoke on the steps of the county courthouse. Many locals still vividly remember that day. The Kennedy Library even has an audio recording of the speech he gave to the assembled crowd.

His legacy and the story of his life live on in his words and deeds. They serve as a constant reminder that freedom is never free and that we must always face the future with courage and optimism.

Just two weeks before his death, Kennedy went to Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to the honored dead. As he strolled down the rows of white tombstones, he remarked: “This is one of the really beautiful places on earth. I could stay up here forever.” Now he rests there in the company of heroes of America’s wars.

As we pause to remember Kennedy, his challenge to us remains clear: “All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, not in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

Haberl is a retired teacher and a resident of South Strabane Township.