J.F.K WHY WAS HE KILLED

Like many people I clearly remember what I was doing when the assassination of President John F Kennedy was announced. I was a nine year old with a newly plastered arm,curled up on the sofa with my mother because I could not sleep. Also in common with the rest of the world I could not believe that such an illustrious personage as the President of the United States of America could be snuffed out in such a manner.

As the news proved to be all too true I remember the adults talking in hushed voices about the event and I remember that I cried for Jackie in her bloodied dress looking,somehow more beautiful than ever in spite of her great grief,and for her children,especially I cried for the children.

Some how the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald the following day seem to draw a line under the tragedy, it seemed like poetic justice, now I wonder if it wasn't meant to do exactly that?

By the time Bobby Kennedy too had died at the hands of an assassin that sense of closure had long ceased to anaesthetise the public’s curiosity,questions were being asked,and the unthinkable thought. Of all those questions the most pertinent then and now is not who killed the President but why was it necessary to kill the President.

There have been many answers to these questions .in the midst of rumour,coincidence and down right untruthful finding any firm ground is well night impossible, it's rather like playing join the dots and ending up with an elephant when you expected an emu..nothing is what it seems.

I shall not go into all these possibilities here,this has been done many times by those better qualified than I,but this I will say. After many years of chasing this particular set of shadows you might be better off asking who didn’t want John Kennedy dead,it is a much smaller list.

It is fashionable in these times to rubbish Kennedy,to dwell on his relationship with Marilyn Monroe, to call his handling of the Cuba crisis inept, and to be accusatory about his secret health problems, but I do not subscribe to this.

Kennedy gave the American people a sense of pride and worth,at a time when most of the world was still ruled by the old guard he presented a view of the future to the whole world, and the world loved it.

Nothing can tarnish the pure gold of Kennedy's magic touch he will always be love by his country men,and that is a fitting tribute to a man of undoubted courage.

Whatever Kennedy did or did not do I think it certain that he was executed rather than assassinated to say otherwise stretches creditability to far for most people. It maybe that we shall never know the whole truth and as these events recede into history perhaps that no longer matters.

What does matter is that in spite of his violent death and decades of muck raking, the man I still held as a beacon to his countrymen, a standard of America's greatness, the legend is almost Arthurian...the once and future King,for in its heart of hearts America is still waiting for a return of those glory days, and a brave young king to lead them out of the darkness.