I’ve never been a big JFK assassination expert. But I do think this video is interesting as a cultural artifact. Notice how much more serious, articulate, and direct District Attorney Henry Wade is compared to today’s pols, as are his interlocutors in the press. The Kennedy assassination was a watershed event; America’s civilization was very much riding high before it took place. The trauma of the shooting, the Vietnam War, and the unrest of the civil rights struggle all combined to fuel the cynicism and declining national pride that defined the sixties and seventies. The culture of the pre-sixties America, including its virtues compared to today, is clearly visible in this old footage.
8 Nov 2007 at 9:10 pm
So, have you ever been a small JFK assassination expert?
I’ve read a lot about it myself, but it’s a bit worrying that one of the main lights of the JFK conspiracy crowd is James Fetzer, now a big cheese amongst 9/11 truthers.
9 Nov 2007 at 6:48 pm
Looking back, the JFK assasination was the end of the 1950s in a cultural sense. The 60s ended with the resignation of Nixon. I tell the younger people I know that they will never know the relatively happy America I knew in my youth. It is as long-gone as Pericles’ Athens.