Nation: In Remembrance

The tributes to John F. Kennedy’s memory poured forth, ranging from official orations to folk songs, from churchly ritual to crass commercialism, from public breast beating to silent prayer. It was the anniversary of the assassination, and those who knew his quick, sensitive, critical mind could not help but speculate on how he would have commented on the observance.

The “Broody” Look. In Washington, President Johnson issued a proclamation saying: “In churches and homes everywhere, on Nov. 22 let us rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of those ideals of human dignity in which he believed and whose course he so brilliantly illuminated.” A shop-window placard in New York’s Times Square proclaimed: SALE! COLLECTOR’S ITEM. KENNEDY HALF-DOLLAR. 880. Boston’s Richard Cardinal Gushing prepared a sermon for a special Mass that said: “He became the voice of mankind to interpret the issues of the day and to help lead our generation to higher levels toward an era of relaxing tension, humane hopes, and peace on earth. We thank God, however, that we had him, even for less than three years, as the first Catholic President of the United States.” And an NBC-TV producer named Lou Hazam spoke boastfully about his Kennedy documentary (one of several commemorative efforts by networks) because his crew had shot the route of Kennedy’s funeral procession in infra-red film: “It turns the sky black, the leaves on the trees white, and we get a ‘broody’ look.”

Lou Harris, Kennedy’s favorite pollster in 1960, reported on a national survey indicating that 35% of the people miss Kennedy more now than they did a year ago, that 35% have no strong feelings, and that 30% believe that “time is healing the wound.” Nearly five-dozen books about Kennedy or his assassination are on the market. West Germany proudly issued a new J.F.K. postage stamp last week, but tiny Sierra Leone had already achieved an insurmountable lead in that category by printing 14 different Kennedy stamps in the last year. A bronze bust of Kennedy by Sculptor Felix de Weldon, who did the massive statue of the Two Jima flag raising for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., was accepted by President Johnson; it will eventually be placed in the $10 million Kennedy Memorial Library.

Gaucherie & Tears. A special memorial symphony was written by Roy Harris (an American composer frequently given to writing symphonic paeans to the U.S.) for performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. The University of Indiana chorus prepared a new oratorio, taken from a Nov. 24, 1963, New York Times editorial that began: “The leaden skies of yesterday were like a pall.” Sicilian troubadours chanted a musical legend that grew up among the island’s villagers after Kennedy died: “With his big heart and full of courage/ He attracted the people with his manner/ And many, many learned the language/ Of peace and loyalty without making fools of themselves.”

The U.S. Information Agency last week issued for public showing in 114 countries (but not the U.S.) a 90-minute documentary film, narrated by Gregory Peck, called John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums. Among selected U.S. audiences who were allowed to see the film, some persons who had been close to Kennedy felt that it reflected too much Hollywood gaucherie. But to most it brought unabashed tears.

At Kennedy’s tomb in Arlington National Cemetery, where a $2,000,000 monument is planned, thousands marched by each day. Cemetery authorities had received so many requests to lay wreaths at the graveside on Nov. 22 that they closed reservations months ago, granted permission for 21 such ceremonies; among the privileged few were West German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroder and Juanita Castro, anti-Castro sister of the Cuban dictator. Last week Miss Castro said that her brother was in part responsible for Kennedy’s assassination because he “must have influenced” Lee Oswald by constantly calling the President “the illiterate millionaire” and a “murderer.”

The family planned no special observance. Mother Rose and Father Joe were to stay at Hyannis Port. Jackie, as her official year of mourning came to an end, planned to remain pretty much in seclusion. Bobby was to attend Mass in Washington’s St. Matthew’s Cathedral, where the President’s funeral was held. Teddy is still hospitalized, but was about to take his first steps since his back was broken in June, and now hopes to walk under his own power into the Senate when it convenes in January.

“Essence of Potentiality.” The outpouring of memorials was new testimony to the well-established fact that John F. Kennedy’s style had caught the imagination of people around the world.

The best of the memorials were, correctly, a tribute to his spirit rather than an attempt to overstate his accomplishments. Amid all the words written or spoken or sung, none put the tragedy and the truth of Kennedy’s death into better perspective than the first two sentences in the script of An Essay on Death, a National Education Television documentary. “This is a program about death. It is also a commemoration of a man who was among us a short while ago, and one who, having been the essence of potentiality, stirred in us a deep and perplexing grief because that potentiality was shattered in an instant.”