Why the JFK Assassination Still Intrigues and Rankles America

More than sixty years after November 22, 1963, the assassination of John F. Kennedy remains the wound America cannot stop picking at. It is not simply that a young president was murdered in broad daylight; it is that the nation watched its own innocence die on live television and then spent the next six decades arguing about what, exactly, it saw.

The intrigue begins with the sheer improbability of the official story. A lone gunman, a misfit Marine with a mail-order rifle, fires three shots in six seconds and changes history forever. The Warren Commission assured us this was possible, yet every subsequent investigation, from the Ramsey Clark panel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, has nibbled away at that certainty. Acoustic evidence suggested a fourth shot; the “magic bullet” still performs geometric miracles no ballistics expert can fully replicate. Doubt metastasized into a thousand theories because the evidence itself seemed to conspire against closure. (Read The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh.)

But the deeper rankling is existential. Kennedy’s death arrived at the precise moment when postwar optimism was curdling into cynicism. Vietnam was escalating, the CIA was running rogue operations, and organized crime felt untouchable. If a president could be erased with such apparent ease, then no one was safe and nothing was sacred. The assassination could easily be labelled the original sin of modern American paranoia: the moment citizens realized their government might lie to them not out of incompetence, but by design.

What keeps the fascination alive is not the hope of solving the crime; most serious researchers now accept we never will. It is the recognition that JFK’s murder marked the fracture line between the America that believed its myths and the America that could no longer afford to. Every new document batch, every grainy Zapruder frame slowed to agony, is less about finding the killer and more about staring into the abyss of what we became when we stopped trusting the story we were told. I think here of Kurtz's stark observation in Heart of Darkness upon staring into that abyss: "The horror."

For those who lived that moment in time, every one of us remembers exactly where we were, what we saw, what we felt. It was quite similar to having you car struck by a speeding vehicle that ran a red light, leaving you dazed and confused. We were suddenly lost in a nationwide concussion. 

In remembrance of that day and event, here is a collection of links to some of my past blog posts about the JFK assassination as well as the life of JFK.

Did Lee Harvey Oswald Act Alone? Here's a Fresh Analysis and Disturbing Conclusion

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2025/08/did-lee-harvey-oswald-act-alone-heres.html

Flashback Friday: Will A.I. Finally Solve the JFK Assassination?

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2024/11/flashback-friday-will-ai-finally-solve.html

Notes of Infamy: Paul Metsa's Song About the Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2023/11/notes-of-infamy-pul-metsas-song-about.html

JFK -- Murder Most Foul and the Debate Goes On

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/04/jfk-murder-most-foul-and-debate-goes-on.html

More Thoughts on Murder Most Foul: Most Foul Indeed

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/07/more-thoughts-on-murder-most-foul-most.html

JFK's Speech to the Northland Shows What Hibbing Was Like During Dylan's Youth

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/04/jfks-speech-to-northland-begins-by.html

Latest Dylan Release Brings Back Memories of JFK's Three Visits to the Northland

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/03/latest-dylan-release-brings-back.html

Dylan Dishes Up A New Meal with a Feast of References: Murder Most Foul

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/03/dylan-dishes-up-new-meal-with-feast-of.html

Wordless Wednesday: The JFK Assassination

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2012/01/wordless-wednesday-jfk-assination.html

11/22/63, The Rest of the Story

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2012/01/112263-rest-of-story.html

A Midpoint Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2012/01/midpoint-book-review-112263-by-stephen.html

A Book That Changed History

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/10/book-that-changed-history.html

A Few JFK Quotes

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/09/few-jfk-quotes.html

Where were you on this day in 1963?

11/22/63, The Rest of the Story

No, I'm really not going to spoil the ending of Stephen King's latest bestseller, 11/22/63. But I will complete some thoughts about the book that didn't make it into Monday's review.

First, thought... If you dislike the word "obdurate" then do not read this book. Being a one thousand page book, you will have read this word between fifty and two hundred times by the time it's over. (Can someone get me a count on this?) Your brain will be bruised if you try to resist it. This word is out to get you.

As you already know, the novel is about a teacher and writer who goes back in time to change the past. But, as Stephen King reminds us over and over, "The past is obdurate and protects itself against change." In other words, King has personified "the past" so that it actually feels like it has a mind, volition and power to interfere with you if you mess with it. If you accept the premise of a character who goes back in time, you will have to give King credit for making the obdurate past one of the characters in his story.

Preventing the JFK assassination is our hero's quest. Jake Epping, who assumes the identity of George Amberson of 1958, actually has a two-step mission. Before interfering with Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination (his second objective), he must determine whether Oswald acted alone, or was actually indeed "the patsy" in a bigger plot.

We all know that King made his name by creating frightening nightmare tales and scenarios. Therefore, it would be out of character for King to make a straight story about a guy who tries to stop Lee Harvey Oswald. By necessity a King story almost requires a sinister element like the living past who is determined to thwart the hero's objectives.

JFK plays a relatively minor role in 11/22/63. That is, Kennedy's actions which get covered in the news serve as mile markers along the way toward his date with destiny. Instead, Lee Harvey Oswald's life and times are fleshed out to a degree that most people have forgotten. That he was a former marine, that he defected to the Soviet Union for a couple years, that he was initially arrested for shooting a police officer, J.D. Tippet, about 40 minutes after JFK was shot, that he had a stormy relationship with his wife Marina who was fluent in Russian, that he spent time in New Orleans handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets during the months preceding the assassination... these details and much more are fleshed out as Jake/George eavesdrops on his target's life.

Most of us forget, too, that Oswald was investigated for making an attempt earlier that year on General Edwin Walker's life with the same rifle he used to shoot the president. General Walker was a segregationist, anti-communist and right-wing extremist member of the John Birch Society. (Remember them?) Before the Kennedy assassination the Dallas police didn't have any suspects in the attempt on Walker's life. King brings all these characters back into focus to help recreate the past which is not only obdurate but often obliterating, that is, leaving many of its details obscured with fog.

There is a technique that writers use to help strengthen the bond between readers and characters. That technique is pain. That is, when a character, especially your hero, goes through pain the reader develops an increased empathy. Assuming we care at all about the characters, we cringe and we want to comfort them when they get hurt. So it is that King uses this tool to keep us in the game later in the book, for both Jake/George and his heart throb Sadie experience suffering in this story. (We writers can be so mean!) And though the suffering may just be a natural outcome of the characters' choices earlier in time, we readers know it is the inhuman past trying again to thwart our heroes from accomplishing their aims.

Whereas this book deals with a significant moment in history, I'm not sure it can be called an "important book" with regard to the event it revolves around. It's fiction, it's fun and it's written "for profit." Nevertheless, for those who care, King has set the stage for those who desire to see a more vivid re-creation of the times we or our parents once lived in. It's more than suitable as an informative form of escapist entertainment.

Right up to the end you'll be guessing what happens next. That's just how it is...

Photo captions: Images from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1963. Bottom right, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Click images to enlarge.

A Midpoint Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

The premise… Maine schoolteacher Jake Epping has a chance to go back in time to track down Lee Harvey Oswald and interfere with the JFK assassination. He takes the plunge.

The first section of 11/22/63 is setup. A friend introduces Jake Epping to the wormhole in time, and explains its machinations. No matter how long you stay it is always only two minutes later when you get back to the present, and it always brings you back to 1958. Once back in the past, Epping needs and identity and assumes that of George Amberson of Wisconsin. If the reader takes the bait and accepts the premise, King has a lazy cantering style that clip clops along in a breezy, unhurried pace as he re-creates America in 1958 and following. If you’re a reader like me who wants to cut to the chase and bypass mountains of detail, you may get impatient. On the other hand you may give in and go for the ride. Remember, we’re starting in 1958 and the destination is five years down the road. As expected, King throws in more twists and turns than a sidewinder.

This book blends two themes which are endlessly fascinating for most Americans: the JFK assassination and time travel. H.G. Wells started it, Robert Zemeckis popularized it again in the 1980’s with his Back to the Future trilogy, and many other films such as Peggy Sue Got Married toy with it. What happens when we enter the past and tamper with it? It’s a variation on the butterfly effect. Choices have ramifications. Will history have alternate outcomes if we go back in time and mess with it?

(I toyed with a variation on this theme in one of my own stories, Unremembered History of the World, which you can read in my short story collection Unremembered Histories.)

Currently I am half way through the book, 500 pages to go. Throughout we get memory jogs of what life was like a half century ago, sewn seamlessly into the story. Here’s one of a thousand examples. “I never saw a single fast food franchise, unless you count Howard Johnson’s with its 28 Flavors…” How long has it been since I thought about Howard Johnson’s? And can you imagine a road trip without running into golden arches?

I like the first person approach in the story. It enables the reader to follow the narrator’s thinking as it evolves, as it wrestles with the conundrums of his experience. His quest is a noble one and you’re rooting for him as well. You learn with him as he goes along.

At this point (halfway through the book) his love relationship with Sadie has just fallen apart, a relationship that took hundreds of pages to get to. The sojourn down Lover’s Lane with Sadie helps King throw in details about attitudes towards sex during that time, as well as details about preventing pregnancy before the pill. The wedge that finally divides them is Epping/Amberson’s failure to remain completely in the 50’s, inadvertently singing Honky Tonk Woman while driving in his car with her, a realistic oops that would probably happen to any of us, singing a favorite song that had not yet been written. At this she points out another half dozen or more occurrences where he used expressions that just weren’t from that place in time, like kick out the jams, and dude.

In this sense, King has done a masterful job of being realistic even in this most unrealistic fictional premise. John Gardner once wrote, “Detail is the lifeblood of fiction,” and you can see here that King has done his homework, not only with the facts of the fifties, but the behavior of his characters.

I don’t have to know how it ends to give it a strong endorsement. It may become the longest book I’ve ever read. It’s certainly hard to put down… and is waiting for me now.

Photos... Top right: The target of Jake Epping/George Amberson's quest... to stop this man.
Middle: Article from Cleveland Plain Dealer, the day before it happened.
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE