The JFK Assassination - Assignment Example

The JFK Assassination and Dr. Michael Rollins There are few events of the twentieth century which better stand out in the minds of Americans than the assassination of President John Kennedy. As an historical event it is one painstakingly etched into the collective memory of nearly all of us. It has become almost cliché for individuals in the media or who write historical books to mention that almost every American at the time remembers what he/she was doing when the news was announced that Kennedy had been shot. Since it is an event so vividly remembered by many Americans, I felt that it would make an excellent subject for my interview and report. Through a mutual acquaintance, I came to know (before embarking upon this report) a Radiologist by the name of Dr. Michael Rollins. Prior to conducting the interview with him, I already thought that he would be an excellent candidate based upon what I already knew of him. He grew up in the sixties, was on the draft list to go to Vietnam, and paid his way through medical school by joining the United States Army. He is today a successful, practicing doctor who lives in San Diego, California. After obtaining his consent via email, I conducted the interview with him on the telephone. It is important to remember that the assassination was not broadcasted live. Many people today have seen the famous Zapruder film which shows in gory detail the death of the President. Consequently, it is often thought that that was some sort of live broadcast. In point of fact, though it recorded live and caught on tape the fatal bullet that took the President’s life, the Zapruder film was only released long after the assassination and the subsequent investigation into it. Aside from those people who personally witnessed the killing in Dallas, most of the public found out once the major media outlets announced it. It occurred on Friday, November 22, 1963. The first broadcast to recount the sad event in Texas was CBS News. “The first word came over the television airwaves at 1:40 P.M. EST when CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite broke into As the World Turns with an audio announcement over a bulletin slide: “In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.” (Doherty 2010) People everywhere are reported to have been in shock. Women were crying the streets, traffic intersections were backed up, and people in some instances came out of their homes out into the street looking dazed. Dr. Rollins remembers too well the events of that day. He was living then in the same city where he lives now: San Diego. Today he is almost 59 years old. In November of 1963 he was only 11 years old. As a young boy, he attended a private Catholic school where he was enrolled in the seventh grade (he skipped a grade because he was more advanced than his peers). His teacher was a nun named Sister Catherine who taught mathematics. He remembers her as having a kind face but a strict sense of discipline. He joked that once when she caught him playing with a paper airplane along with one of his classmates, she dragged him out of the class by his shirt collar and made him sit in the hallway until lunch hour. Since he lived on the West coast at the time, the approximate time that the shooting of the president was announced on the television and radio was 10:40 A.M. Dr. Rollins stated that he remembers that he was doing some kind of mathematics problem that the teacher had written on the board for the students to do. He also said that he was sick with a cold. It is a subject of humor at Rollins family gatherings how Dr. Rollins always used to fake sick in order to skip school. His work as a doctor is jokingly portrayed as a penance he must pay. Each patient represents one skipped day of school. One reason he can remember that day so well (aside from the obvious reason) is that he had tried to avoid going to school because he was not feeling well. His mother would not let him stay home because she thought that he was not sick or that he was not as sick as he made himself out to be. Like the boy who cries wolf, she forced him to go to school, assuming he was fibbing. So he was in the classroom doing the in-class assignment. His nose had been running all day forcing him to constantly sniffle. For whatever reason, he decided to get up and go to the classroom sink, located in the back of the room. He raised his hand and Sister Catherine gave him permission. The tissues were not the soft kind we have today. They were in fact nothing more than a stack of paper napkins that he referred to, perhaps even anachronistically, as tissues. It was while he was blowing and wiping his nose with one of these napkins that the school secretary got on the building’s P.A. system and announced that something horrible had happened to the president and that everyone needed to standby and wait for further instructions. Sister Catherine told everyone to stay in their seats while she left the room to get more information. She came back minutes later looking distressed and told the children that the president had been shot, that class was cancelled for the day, and that everyone had to go home. Though Dr. Rollins could not say with absolute certainty what time it was, he knows that it was sometime during the morning because he had not yet eaten lunch. He was adamant that he could remember that day so well. He conceded that he could not remember what he was doing when Martin Luther King and/or Robert Kennedy were shot, but the shooting of JFK was clear in his mind. He said that his memory of the Robert Kennedy assassination had been made uncertain because he believed that the footage of that event was in his memory due to a rebroadcast of it. This is quite interesting since there is a body of research that says that major events which turn out to be a permanent part of the collective memory are not always reliably founded. A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has stated that “There is a lot of evidence that suggests we aren’t as accurate with these flashbulb memories as we think we are, and sometimes, the memories are just wrong” (Schoenherr 2003). Dr. Rollins admitted that that was possible in the case of those other assassinations, but not so on November 22, 1963. He said the killing of the country’s leader had a profound effect on him. It made him realize that there were evil people in the world. According to him, a part of the reason so many people were shocked was because society was more innocent then. Today he says people are used to seeing and hearing about violence on television, in the movies, and in the popular culture. Back then, things were not so and as such the president’s death literally brought millions of Americans to tears. I asked him if he really believed that the president had been shot when he was told. He said it was throughout the day a surreal realization. He admitted to having a certain amount of shame due to his initial reaction. He knew something was wrong and more or less understood what the nun had told him and his classmates. He today feels ashamed because part of him was happy, not because of the horrific event in Dallas, but because he got to go home, which is where he had wanted to be in the first place. He said that the seriousness of it all only really dawned on him later that evening at home when everyone knew that not only had the president been shot but that he had also died. Cronkite read on the air at 2:37 P.M. EST that the president had died (Doherty 2010). This would have been at 11:37 A.M. West coast time. Dr. Rollins said that he did not hear that broadcast. He was at the time getting a ride home from a friend’s mother. He arrived at home sometime after and took a nap. When he woke up, his mom was arriving home and she told him the president was dead. When asked if news coverage and popular culture regarding the assassination of JFK, especially the many conspiracy theories about it, had affected his memory of it all, he said no. He said he understood how newsreels can alter a person’s memory of an event, a comment that made me think of the Washington University study. He insisted that though his memory of that day had not been affect by the subsequent news coverage and Hollywood narratives, his personal thoughts on the matter had been affected. As someone who served in the armed forces, he considers himself to be a patriotic American. Though he did not serve in Vietnam, he did provide medical services to many vets in the late 1970’s while he finished his medical degree. He has an upfront understanding of what war and sacrifice really mean. He stated to me several times during the last part of the interview that he was always adamantly opposed to any sort of conspiracy theories regarding the president’s death. He just thought that the government, though certainly not perfect, could not and would not do something that horrible. He said this started to change for him in the early 1990’s when Gulf War vets came home with all manner of strange illnesses due to the so-called “Gulf War Syndrome.” This and other things compelled him to reassess his views. When I asked him if he thought Oswald had acted alone and had in fact killed Kennedy, he replied, “probably not.” Though I do not want to get into the merits of pro or anti-conspiracy arguments, it is striking that today an ex-military member is willing to admit the possibility that the government would not only lie about the death of a president, but also that elements within it might have conspired to kill him. I do not think that my research into the Kennedy assassination differed all that much from what I learned from Dr. Rollins. Everything I read more or less stated that most people remember clearly the events of November 22, 1963. Nearly everyone has a different story to tell with its own specific details. They all for the most part involve shock, disbelief, and profound dismay. The shooting was announced to the country fairly quickly after it occurred in Dallas. The news spread like wildfire. One must be careful not to place too much trust in any one testimony. Subsequent media coverage may have, in some cases, “colored” the memories of some individuals. Although Dr. Rollins claimed that with him this was not the case, more extensive interviews with other individuals would have to be done to establish a trend and build a bigger database of information. Personally, as a student in 2010 I can say that I can relate with Dr. Rollins and many other Americans who remember what they were doing when Kennedy was shot. The events of September 11, 2001 are just as well imprinted into the memories of people today. Many of my generation will remember the attacks on the World Trade Centers in the same way that people remember the JFK assassination. The interview made me realize that major events like assassinations (or terrorist attacks for that matter) form an indelible part of the collective memory. They are universally known. My memories of September 11 helped me to sympathize with Dr. Rollins. Even more intriguing is the fact that many conspiracy theories about September 11 regarding secretive government involvement or foreknowledge have become just as widespread as those involving the JFK assassination. In a way, history has repeated itself. Works Cited Doherty, Thomas. “Assassination and Funeral of President John F. Kennedy.” 2010. Museum of Broadcast Communications. 6 April 2010 http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=kennedyjf. Schoenherr, Neil. “Flashbulb memories of JFK’s assassination may not be so accurate.” 5 November 2003. Washington University in St. Louis. 6 April 2010 http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/516.aspx. Read More