Kennedy Assassination, 50 Years On: Memory Of A Lifetime

“By Rajan Philips -November 24, 2013

Rajan Philips

It certainly is not like yesterday, but few among those born before 1957 would fail to remember the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, 22 November 1963, an event that traumatized all of America and touched the entire world.  The fateful day and the moment have become a point of temporal reference for Americans – ever since comparing notes as to where they were and what they were doing when choking radio broadcasters startled the nation with the news flash that President Kennedy had died.  Not just the Americans, Svetozar Rajak, a Serbian and now Cold War historian at LSE, was six years old in 1963 and remembers his shock watching on television the announcement of Kennedy’s death .  His family was living in Belgrade in what was then Tito’s Yugoslavia and the family had just bought their first television.  Two days later the family and neighbours were cramped around the new television to watch Kennedy’s funeral meticulously choreographed by his grieving widow.  Their street in Belgrade was renamed John Kennedy Street.

I was fifteen, it was Saturday morning in Sri Lanka and I remember coming out of the parish Church after morning Mass and joining others crowded in front of shops listening to the radio news announcing President Kennedy’s death hours earlier in far way America.  Television was still sixteen years away for Sri Lankan homes but the radio and the newspapers were riveting enough over the next two days.  Four years younger, I had followed with equal intensity the death and funeral of Prime Minister Bandaranaike, the first political assassination in my life time.  But for whatever reason the death of Kennedy was greater drama.   Read More

The Trail of Lee Harvey Oswald

“By Ruwan M Jayatunge -November 24, 2013 

Dr. Ruwan M Jayatunge MD

In 1988 I went to Minsk - the capital city of Belarus to find some facts about Lee Harvey Oswald who was believed to be the lone gunman in JFK Assassination. It had been 25 years after the President John F Kennedy‘s assassination. The Minsk had almost forgotten the American defector who lived in their city. No one talked about him.  Moreover the Soviet people had no interest in the JFK saga and they had other things to worry about. Perestroika and economic changes have caused dramatic changes in their lives. People were anxious about market economy and other reforms that rapidly changed the Soviet society.

It was mid January and temperature was about minus sixteen degrees Celsius. My Polish winter coat did not fully help me to fight the Russian winter that defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus. The cold wind was terrible and it was piercing through my bones.

Near the Minsk train station (Vokzal Minsk) I took a taxi cab- a black color Volga which was popularly known as the Russian Mercedes. The taxi driver was a middle aged man who knew the city of Minsk like the back of his hand. Where to? He asked in a polite manner. I immediately noticed his Belorussian accent. I did not know my destination. It was a frantic effort to look for someone who lived in this city some 26 years ago. I had no address, only had a name: Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald.

I need to find the apartment that Lee Harvey Oswald lived many years ago I told the taxi driver. Who? He asked with a surprise. I explained him again, Lee Harvey Oswald the guy who killed the president of the United States of America. The taxi driver had no clue about Lee Harvey Oswald. But he knew who JFK was. So we reached a Police Officer. I posed the same question to him. Instead of answering my question he checked my documents. I was a medical student on my winter vacation and I had obtained a visa to travel to West Germany. My documents were in proper order. So he returned my documents.          Read More