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John Wilkes Booth is often regarded as a villain by many today. His assassination of Abraham Lincoln is commonly regarded as an act of pure evil and a great tragedy in the mythology of America. In fact, the narrative of Abraham Lincoln’s life, death, and presidency has been canonized and idealized in the public consciousness equally, if not more, than the founding of our country.
Conversly, Kennedy’s assassin and assassination—perhaps the penultimate examples of both in our nation’s history in terms of impact, remain enigmatic, and just outside of relevancy. We know that Booth was motivated by his love for the Confederacy, Oswald’s motivations remain a mystery. Was it politically motivated? Did he work on his own? Was he even the actual killer? Despite the century time difference between these two presidential assassinations to develop new crime solving technology and techniques, the Lincoln assassination remains far more cut and dry.
Despite Kennedy’s role in America’s domestic and international policy, we still consider him a second fiddle to Presidents like FDR, Regan, and Bush; he is even upstaged by his eventual successor— Lyndon B. Johnson. His continuation of Kennedy’s pushes for the Civil Rights Bill, and international disputes with Soviet Russia and Cuba would prove to ultimately be more impactful than Kennedy’s actions in office. In fact, you could argue that the most useful thing that Kennedy did was die....
To break it down—Abraham Lincoln’s name is immediately recognizable to almost every American, multiple units in separate grades in the American public education system are entirely devoted to teaching the narrative of his life to the next generation. On the other hand, most people in my school didn’t know who Kennedy was or what he accomplished in his presidency until the second or third grade, and only vaguely at that.
What if Kennedy’s role in US history is being downplayed to make future generations lose interest in him and the circumstances of his assassination?
Something fishy is going on people wake up! Now!
It is true that Kennedy didn't really accomplish much besides being able to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis successfully, but to be fair he was president for less than one term, which is why he doesn't have much accomplishments.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually say that Kennedy's assassination has made him more popular than he would've been otherwise. Kennedy has an unusually high approval rate, even decades on, and most presidents don't get nearly the fanfare of Lincoln. How much does the average American know about, say, Zachary Taylor or James K. Polk? His death basically made him into a martyr, and meant that he didn't have time to make any really significant mistakes, or stay in office long enough for the population to be disenchanted with him. Perhaps the real conspiracy is improving Kennedy's reputation when he did not deserve it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the appeal of Kennedy is his assassination. I don't think many people even know what Kennedy did as a president politically. But I'm sure a lot of people know about his affairs and his assassination because it kind of draws an air of mystery. People know the Kennedys because they're like American royalty and filled with dramatic scandals, and his assassination adds to that dramatic image.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is interesting to compare Booth and Oswald. I think that one reason less people know about the assassination of Kennedy is the fact that there are so many conspiracies about it. On the other hand, the assassination of Lincoln is a very clean cut story.
ReplyDeleteI think some of the allure of Kennedy is that he is (and was) regarded more as a "public figure" than a politician. Given his suspected affair with Marilyn Monroe, his movie-star looks, his talkative personality, and his affiliation with one of the most prominent names in American history, he is remembered more for these characteristics vs his policy, where Lincoln is known largely for his policy. That is why he is remembered differently from every other US president who has been assassinated.
ReplyDeleteI think that he probably was politically motivated. I like this post a lot and it's fun and engaging. I'd like to just play the devil's advocate that the reason you want so badly for there to be a conspiracy is because there is something deeply unsettling about the idea that Oswald for unknown reasons was just angry and shot the president and changed America's course forever. I think in many ways that is scarier than the CIA having done this. But I like the idea that this goes into our education system, and the CIA has made it so that we don't learn as much about Kennedy so that we'll stop looking into the conspiracies.
ReplyDeleteIt is really interesting to think about how people focus on how the Kennedy assassination happened instead of how evil it was. The idea that the focus on assassination is being used to overshadow his political legacy is also interesting but I'm not sure what the motive for that would be. I think the people who wanted to kill him probably would have preferred people to focus on his political legacy, albeit how horrible the parts they disagreed with were. Maybe it's a second conspiracy?
ReplyDeleteThough I do not know much about the politics of the situation, there are many conspiracies which include LBJ as one of the causes. One particular one I saw concerned a memo which said that the government needed to make sure that it was clear that Lee Oswald never had any co-conspirators and was in cahoots with communism, along with a couple other things I forgot. Regardless of whether or not LBJ was actually explicitly involved, this memo does suggest a level of purposeful removing of facts by the government in order to push a particular (unproved) theory.
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