Seeing Kennedy in 1962

Frank Grundstrom and I drove to Waterbury in the summer of 1962, to wait on the green with a huge crowd of people for the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, to arrive.

The weather was pleasant. Kennedy would make a short speech in support of a Waterbury congressman who was hoping to be reelected in the fall.

His motorcade, more than an hour late, had made its way up the valley, stopping along the route so the president could say hello to residents and flash that winning smile.

Frank and I were young reporters for the Torrington Register, both Kennedy advocates. Being from the Boston area, Frank was very strong in his support for the charming young Senator who had beaten Dick Nixon in one of the closest elections in U.S. history in 1960.

He finally arrived, spoke briefly, shook a few hands and was gone again.

But we had seen him, heard him and that was everything to us. We had a memory of JFK to carry along with us through life.

Now, 55 years after his assassination, we still have it and cherish it.

Grundstrom moved on, the following spring, to the Quincy Patriot Ledger and from there to the Boston Globe, from which he retired many decades later as a vice president. He eventually retired to Arizona. I moved on to The Hartford Courant, where I had a long and eventful career.

Now and again, we communicate by phone, and during the course of our conversations, the Waterbury experience is mentioned. No matter the scores of books and television specials that have cast him in a negative light, the memory of JFK still has the effect on me (and Frank, too) that it had when he was president.

Because he had the charm and charisma few public men or women possess, it seemed to be impossible to dislike him. His sudden death at the hands of the cowardly assassin Lee Harvey Oswald sent the nation into deep mourning, which lasted long after the Eternal Flame was lighted at Arlington National Cemetery and Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration had assumed command.

LBJ, speaking after he had returned to Washington, D.C. on the terrible evening of the killing, talked about putting an end to “the teaching and the preaching of hate” in the country. Obviously, that hasn’t happened yet. At Thanksgiving time, we pray it will.

Johnson, deplaning, also said, “The greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time.” They seemed the perfect words for the moment. I remember my father, watching the funeral on television, saying, “It’s like losing a member of your own family.”

And yet, many people loathed him. A teacher friend remembered that she was involved in parentteacher conferences at the time of the killing. When the word came that the president had been shot, a mother she had been talking to clapped her hands for joy, saying, “Good. He was such a womanizer.”

The teacher immediately stood up and said, “This meeting is over.” She then went to the school office and told the secretary, “Cancel the rest of my appointments please.’” And went home.

I saw Kennedy again in person one more time, at an Army-Navy football game, as he crossed the field at halftime.

In the 55 years that have passed since the killing, none of what we’ve learned about JFK, good and bad, has changed my original feelings toward him. It wasn’t what he did or didn’t do during his short term in office.

What endeared him, to we who loved him, was the way he made us feel.