Episode 93 - One Thing Leads to Another

We ended the last episode with the Commencement Address that President Kennedy gave at American University, which marked a major thaw in the cold war, leading to a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was on June 10, 1963. Now let’s move on to June 11^th.

Governor George Wallace, in defiance of federal desegregation orders, attempted to block the enrollment of two African American students at the University of Alabama. Symbolizing his resistance to federal integration efforts, he stood in the doorway and proclaimed, “Segregation Now. Segregation Forever.” It’s hard to know if he thought his action was going to intimidate the President, but it did no such thing. JFK quickly federalized the Alabama National Guard, who immediately removed Wallace from the premises.  

That night, the President delivered a televised address to the country announcing that he had ordered the National Guard to ensure the enrollment of the two African American students. Then, emphasizing the importance of upholding the rule of law and the Constitution, he clearly reaffirmed his administration’s full support of the Civil Rights movement.

It turns out that the month of June was to become a truly historic month for him because as it continued, on June 26th, he made his legendary trip to West Berlin. In his world-famous speech to 120,000 wildly admiring West Berliners, he said, “There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.” Then, with the wit of biting sarcasm he continued, “Freedom has many difficulties and Democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.”

At that point, he concluded the speech with words that went down in history, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner.” Of course, it meant, “I am a Berliner.”

At the end of the trip, he left Berlin for a four-day visit to his ancestral homeland in Ireland, a journey that can only be called a love fest. Not only was he the first US president to ever visit the emerald isle, his trip was celebrated as the return of a truly beloved native son, and wherever he went, he was mobbed by adoring Irish crowds.  He then moved on to two days spent in London consulting with Prime Minister MacMillan before returning to Washington.

Following his return from the exhilarating trip abroad, it was time to begin preparing for the coming presidential election. Although it had been a promising first term, he still had a tricky path to navigate in 1964, as his political enemies were powerful and the road ahead of him had some serious obstacles.

During these early, pre-elections days of October and November, there were rumored to have been two other events that may have happened which would have critically changed world history if they had come true. The first one is that Kennedy, concluding that the government of South Vietnam had become too unstable to justify further US support, had supposedly set in motion plans to terminate all US involvement in Vietnam by the end of December, 1965, He had made up his mind and we were pulling out.

The second possible event is the report that Kennedy had decided to drop Lyndon Johnson from the ticket for the election of 1964 and had told him so.

Now, there is no substantial proof to verify either of these claims and there never will be. Still, if you let your imagination run wild a little, you can see how the history of the coming era would have been radically different.

Whatever his plans might have been, they would have had to remain top secret given the turbulent politics of the upcoming presidential election. In that regard, he began to embark on some politically-motivated trips. On November 2^nd he left for Chicago, followed by a trip to Tampa, Florida on the 18th. Then, on November 21, he and the first lady departed for Texas.

They went to San Antonio, then Houston, and then to Fort Worth, where they stayed overnight. The next morning, they took the short flight to Dallas and arrived at 11:38 AM. They got into the presidential limousine and left Love Field at 11:55, arriving in downtown Dallas following the short ride. The streets were lined with throngs of awestruck people, enthusiastically cheering them on, as the most recognized and charismatic couple in the entire world slowly passed by. As they basked in the warmth of the adoring crowd, the motorcade continued on, into the brilliant sunlight of what was shaping up to be an absolutely perfect day. Then, at 12:30 pm, the unthinkable happened.

 

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It’s neither necessary nor possible to begin to describe the effect that it had on America, and in particular, the youth of America, as the plague of that horrible news spread like wildfire throughout the population. And it went on for the full thirty days of mourning that followed. For me, when the assassination happened, I had just begun ninth grade, my last year in junior high school and I was in the sadly unfortunate position of being just old enough and just young enough.

I was old enough to understand the true gravity of the tragedy, but still young enough to have my childhood sensibilities shaken to the core. And let’s not even talk about that four-day stretch of dark days. There was the assassination itself, followed by a day of absolute shock, then the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on national TV, followed by the incredibly sad and deeply somber funeral, as the forty-six year-old, fallen hero of the republic was laid to rest. It was all so sad, but also, it was all so weird.       

For the first time ever, the whole country stopped to watch television as the entire nation stood still for the six-hour funeral. Something like this had happened before, on April 14, 1945 when President Franklin Roosevelt was buried, but that was only on radio. This was completely different. It was much more graphic, as one incredibly grief-stricken image after the next was broadcast to the entire western world.

And when it comes to tragic images, the spontaneous salute that John-John gave to his father’s flag-draped coffin as it passed him by was seared into our collective memory. Nobody saw that heart-wrenching moment coming.

It was almost as if we were being taught as a culture, a dramatic seminar on the ever-present possibility of sudden death…how everything can come to a screeching halt, no matter who you are. And subconsciously the message was clear - if instant death can happen to someone like that, who was at the absolute pinnacle of power, it can happen to any one of us. We can be gone in a flash. And then nothing is the same.

In total, all three major networks suspended normal programming for four days and played seventy consecutive hours of the live coverage of the proceedings. From a mass media perspective, the only other time anything like this has ever happened was the coverage of the 911 attacks in 2001.   

Again, the purpose of this series of podcasts is to focus on the mass evolution of consciousness that happened during this formative era, as well as to examine my own story as I went through it all. At this point, to put it simply, we all had the wind completely taken out of our sails. Our daily lives continued, but again, it was all so sad and it was all so weird, like we were painfully groping our way through the shadows of a slowly unfolding nightmare that never seemed to end.  And then, suddenly, something completely different happened.

 

***

 

Exactly eighty days after the assassination, on the night of February 9, 1964, variety TV show host Ed Sullivan walked onto the stage of his Sunday night program and with five words, spoke a phrase that absolutely changed everything - “Ladies and Gentleman – The Beatles.”

Seventy-Seven million people were watching and for the youth of the country, it was like a magic spell had been cast, designed to dissipate the suffering and the pain that had enveloped us. In an instant, one phase of our life ended and another began. The mourning period was over and suddenly, it was time to sing and dance again. And boy, did we!

Once more, it is neither necessary nor possible to begin to describe what happened. Suffice it to say that everything changed for us almost overnight, as this thing called Beatlemania set it. We had four new heroes, these guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo and they were so cool, yet so incredibly upbeat at the same time. Their music was truly amazing but there was also something else about them, something intangible. They seemed to be happily above the toils of life, like they had just arrived from another planet that ran on nothing but pure fun.

And on top of it all, their haircuts were like nothing we’d ever seen before. It seemed a little strange at first, but within a few months, all the guys were copying them. I know I went from the standard buzz-cut to the new mop top as soon as my hair would grow out. If it sounds like we were completely awestruck, we were, but don’t forget what we’d just been through, not to mention our age – I was just a month shy of turning fifteen.

Amazingly, it ended up that the Beatles were just the first wave of what became known as the British Invasion as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, the Hollies, the Zombies, the Kinks, Herman’s Hermits and God knows how many others came cascading into the country. It seemed like every day, wave after wave of new songs washed up onto the shores of our AM radios, which we had blasting all the time. And that’s not to mention all of the new remarkable American music that helped launched us into hyper-space, as well.

Of course, we were still going to school and studying, as normal life continued, But, a massive new party had obviously begun, with the Beatles leading the way.  

Things went on like that for about six months. Then the Beatles hit an unexpected, little turn in the road, when on the night of August 28, 1964, they finally got to spend an evening with one of their primary musical heroes, the enigmatic Bob Dylan.

Now this was another one of those events that was only a very quick couple of hours, and it was largely unnoticed at the time. On one level, it was just your standard meeting of two major musical superstar acts. At the time, the Beatles were enjoying a level of fame that had never been seen before. And along with also being extremely famous, Dylan was the most influential musician of his time.

It started out with a lot of goofing around, a lot of partying, you know the standard kind of things that can happen in a glitzy high-end hotel room in New York City when the absolute pinnacle of rock and roll gets together to relax and have a good time.

But it ended up being quite a bit more than that. Even though it was extremely subtle, again, those subterranean Teutonic plates were set in motion and a major earthquake was looming, just over the horizon. Well, this is a perfect place for us to stop, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let’s get together in the next one.