Search -
Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy
Four Days The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy Author:United Press International(Editors), American Heritage (Editors) The four harrowing days that began on November 22, 1963, brought us face to face with the future. What happened next was up to us. That is why those four days are worth re-examining. We relive that time of tragedy less to commemorate a departed President that to dedicate ourselves. When the army bugler sent the haun... more »ting notes of "Taps" across that grave in Arlington Cemetery he sounded a long goodbye and a commitment to eternal rest for John F. Kennedy. For all the rest of us, that was the trumpet of dawn itself.
What John F. Kennedy left us was most of all an attitude. It was time for us to take that attitude, because we thought we were growing old. The world was moving faster than ever before and we were beginning to regret that it was moving at all because we were afraid where it might take us. But President Kennedy personified youth and vigor. Whatever he did was done with zest, as if youth were for the first time touching life and finding it exciting. With all of this there was a cool maturity and outlook. It was his attitude that made the difference.
From the beginning, the whole of our American experiment has been made up of an infinite number of aspirations and unremembered bits of heroism, devotion, and hope, lodged in the hearts of innumerable separate Americans. When all of these are brought together, the nation goes forward.
That, in the last analysis, is the faith America has wanted to live by. We turned a corner, one era came to an end and a new one began. It reflected a change in the times themselves. Almost for the first moment in our lifetimes we began to look ahead once more and to realize that it was not only possible but imperative to think about the limitless future rather than about the mere problem of warding off disaster.
President Kennedy came to symbolize that moment of change, not because he caused it but because he fitted into it; not because of what he did but simply because of what he was.« less