As a ward director in the 1960 Nixon campaign, I was disgusted when John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson seemed to have stolen the election. Nevertheless, on that day three years later I wept, watching the black-and-white TV along with my wife. For three days we watched, doing little else.
The event has even more depth for me now, as I see it in retrospect: the time when our national course took a sharp turn away from the one we had followed since the country's founding. The worldly wise Europeans knew they had witnessed a coup d'etat. How silly! This is America! The deed was done by a lone madman, captured and almost as promptly executed, saving us a trial.
During the recent 40th anniversary week, Peter Jennings--earnest, likeable, Eagle Scoutly--reassured us with a two-hour special to confirm the lone nut theory by use of computer imaging. It required a leap of faith for those who wished to believe; it seemed fraudulent to anyone who has studied the subject. If Lyndon Johnson were alive, he would have phoned Jennings to tell him what a good job he had done, calling him "brother" as he did J. Edgar Hoover.
