59 years ago

I was new to the setting. Being given up for adoption at birth, I was in a childcare unit of Lutheran Social Services for less than a month before my new family chose me to enter their family. My brother was 2.5 years old and seeing me said God bless him. I don't have such a memory that I am able to speak from direct memory, but there are baby books, and family stories that were told.

The place was 606th 36th &1/2 Northeast Minneapolis. The day was November 22, 1963 and I was upon a baby changing table being diapered for either requiring a new fresh one, or I'd soiled my current pair. My mother was doing her mom chores with the television on, and she had on a program showing the Dallas parade to welcome and celebrate US President John F. Kennedy. She told me that she had dropped a pin and bent over to pick it up, and the television went from serene, happy moments of popular president in a previously politically right bastion of US state of Texas, to immediate shock, followed by the sorrow and madness of the loss of a president of charisma, presumed great importance and quality.

America had spent 15 to 20 years reveling in the role of world leader, and had had elected a young war hero. A child of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy to the UK, brother to a Navy Cross winner, and himself a politician, someone of accomplishment, as a young lion of sorts. He was a writer who received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for his book PROFILES IN COURAGE. He was not universally loved in America, perceived according to the side of the divide one landed. Those upon the right wing saw him as weak towards communist states, those of the left wing saw him as a visionary for peace). He allowed  the CIA's planned invasion of Cuba to go forward, but it failed at the Bay of Pigs. He fired the director of the CIA and determined to reduce its abilities.

Wherever he stood in minds of Americans, the history of his time,saw that Kennedy stood against the Soviet missiles in Cuba, opposed the military arms race, and offered a new voice that offered mediation, an honorable path to avoid nuclear war, and constant war or brinksmanship. While he famously called America to go to the moon by the end of the decade, he also offered to go to the moon with the Soviets as partners, to join forces together, as means of deliberately reducing tensions, and enhancing efforts to find common goals. Some do not realize that he sent orders prior to his death calling home Americans from South Vietnam. That obviously went to nought, and some even suggest that he was murdered as way to keep America in the Vietnam war.

In my opinion, the two most intelligent and well written works in the world of comics about JFK's shooting are BADLANDS by Steven Grant, which might not be my solution for who did it, but it is brilliantly done. The other is The Warren Commission Report by Dan Mishkin and Ernie Colon. It is not a fictional work, recounting exactly what the reports has said, but it is really well done for newcomers and those who might be confused by all of the facts.

I haven't read all the tpbs/books shown, so, some might be better than others. But depending upon your level of interest, the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy can be delved further in visually interesting and well written ways.

BOOKS TO CONSIDER IF YOU really want to dig further...

Not all books about the Assassination are equally well done nor are they equally honest or factual. I recommend Rush to Judgement, not as the best but a starting place for the beginner who questions the Warren Report and the governments official point of views. Case Closed received a lot of praise, but I think it is cleverly wrong. It uses arguments that would be accurate, if only the facts they are based upon were proven and true. They aren't, so the framework of the arguments fail. Well sliced baloney will still have two sides, no matter how thin you slice it.