That same day… Sunday, November 24th, we watched Jackie and daughter, Caroline, standing by JFK’s flag-draped casket at the White House. No one among friends and staff had the courage to tell the Kennedy children about the death of their father until several hours after the tragedy. Who could tell them why?
On Monday, America observed a long, slow funeral procession from the White House to Arlington National Cemetery. Jacqueline explained the JFK would be buried there, rather than the family plot in Massachusetts because, “John belongs to the country”. Indeed, the young politician had always been a welcome guest in our homes (via TV), more so than any president before or since.
Kennedy’s funeral served as the culmination of the most tragic series of events ever covered by television, and the most unbearable for Americans to watch. We felt as if we had been locked up in a dark dungeon for four days, and then beaten, tortured and brainwashed for no apparent reason. Our captors forced us to watch the same nightmare images over and over again: amateur Super-8 footage of the assassination, blown up, slowed down, and examined frame-by-frame. Ironically, police found the murder weapon among the history texts at the Texas Book Depository. We witnessed Jackie, stunned and splattered with Jack’s blood, standing next to LBJ as he took the oath, and live snuff footage on NBC. And, finally, the entire country cried and prayed for the Kennedy children (no President has ever shown such open affection for his kids)… especially when Little John performed a goodbye salute to his father.
We Boomers, and America, lost our innocence in those four days. From that point onward, the most important piece of personal trivia for every First Wave Boomer is not your sign, or how you lost your virginity, but instead, “Where were you when you heard that Kennedy had been shot?”
For the first and only time in its glorious career, America’s greatest salesman hadn’t made a single pitch for nearly four straight days. Finally on Monday night, a few stations returned to their regularly scheduled programs. It seemed like an eternity since escapism had been offered and America jumped at the opportunity. The intro of the first program on ABC (“Outer Limits”) assured us that “There is nothing wrong with your TV set. We are controlling transmission… we will control all that you see, and hear (and think)…”