# History channel-JFK **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 18, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191 "2009-10-18T02:19:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/21 "2009-10-19T01:20:15Z")
Radio reporter Ike Pappas gave a [live moment-by-moment broadcast](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YSIYJFyfMc) of Oswald’s transfer and shooting. Pappas is the man in the dark coat on the right side of [this photo](http://events.mnhs.org/media/images/events/1384/1384_Jackson_300.jpg), extending his microphone between Ruby and Oswald at the moment of the shot. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/22 "2009-10-19T02:31:10Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > The assasination aftermath included interviews and re-creations, etc, that were interesting to watch. How long would the world have remained facinated by the event if we had to just read about it? No pictures? Even without photos of the event, the assassination of Lincoln is still a subject of great interest. > [@jtgain](#): > > What about that jerkwad at the Boston Symphony? He simply says “Zee President has been assassinated. We vill now play Beethoven’s funeral march” or some such insensitive nonsense. People in the audience are shrieking and he is worried about the next song. Beethoven’s funeral march (the second movement of his third symphony), taken by itself, is one of his greatest compositions and is often played in mourning of important people. You’ve obviously never heard it. If you had, you wouldn’t make such a statement. I suggest you listen to it. > [@Sailboat](#): > > The reason people care more about JFK than you do is that your version of him is, well, pretty non-mainstream. Mainstream is not necessarily accurate. There is considerable romanticizing of him and his administration. And that always seems to ignore this passage from his inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A Democrat wouldn’t dare make such a statement today. Anybody else would receive heavy criticism. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/23 "2009-10-19T02:54:34Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Even without photos of the event, the assassination of Lincoln is still a subject of great interest. > > Beethoven’s funeral march (the second movement of his third symphony), taken by itself, is one of his greatest compositions and is often played in mourning of important people. You’ve obviously never heard it. If you had, you wouldn’t make such a statement. I suggest you listen to it.Mainstream is not necessarily accurate. There is considerable romanticizing of him and his administration. And that always seems to ignore this passage from his inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A Democrat wouldn’t dare make such a statement today. Anybody else would receive heavy criticism. Why not? That is not so bad . Protecting liberty is a good thing. Johnson was undone by Vietnam. He was a wheeler dealer who got things done and would have been pretty good but the war killed him. He spend way too much time and money on it. But, just could not face it that it could not be won. And he listened to his generals, They always think more weapons, more troops more everything and we will win. Yet we still listen to them. I don’t get it. It is like asking advice from a priest. You know what he has to say before he says it. Just skip him and go on your own. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/24 "2009-10-19T03:16:50Z")
Oddly the “Was Harding murdered?” theories mostly came after JFK. There’s some [speculation](http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/assassins/warren_harding/6.html) his wife helped him along in a combination of revenge for his womanizing and protecting him from impeachment. It has about the same degree of evidence as most conspiracy theories- actually perhaps a tad more than some even- but far from conclusive. Of course with Harding there was nowhere near the outlet for conspiracy theories to go viral: radio wasn’t even around yet (came about a couple of years later). Plus JFK’s approval ratings never fell below 56% (there were millions who hated him passionately but most didn’t want his death) while Harding was a flop even in his own lifetime; not a lot of tears were shed. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/25 "2009-10-19T03:45:38Z")
One thing about this show that caught my attention was the reaction of the rest of the world to the assassination. It seemed as if the entire world joined us in mourning JFK’s death. Admittedly, there may have been some selective news coverage at the time, but I can’t imagine anything remotely similar happening in the political climate of today or even the last decade. (And before anyone jumps in, this is a purely nonpartisan observation, and should not be considered a commentary on the current or any other Administration.) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/26 "2009-10-19T03:50:14Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#): > > One thing about this show that caught my attention was the reaction of the rest of the world to the assassination. It seemed as if the entire world joined us in mourning JFK’s death. Admittedly, there may have been some selective news coverage at the time, but I can’t imagine anything remotely similar happening in the political climate of today or even the last decade. My boss was a teenaged military brat in Paris at the time and recalls people- some of them strangers who happened to recognize her as an American- coming up and hugging her, and some of them were crying. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/27 "2009-10-19T04:07:14Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Even without photos of the event, the assassination of Lincoln is still a subject of great interest. > > Beethoven’s funeral march (the second movement of his third symphony), taken by itself, is one of his greatest compositions and is often played in mourning of important people. You’ve obviously never heard it. If you had, you wouldn’t make such a statement. I suggest you listen to it.Mainstream is not necessarily accurate. There is considerable romanticizing of him and his administration. And that always seems to ignore this passage from his inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A Democrat wouldn’t dare make such a statement today. Anybody else would receive heavy criticism. Even in Cafe Society (which is the tread we are in) we cannot escape the endless multiple quote rebuttals? Deleting my personal subscription to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/28 "2009-10-19T04:07:41Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Oddly the “Was Harding murdered?” theories mostly came after JFK. There’s some [speculation](http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/assassins/warren_harding/6.html) his wife helped him along in a combination of revenge for his womanizing and protecting him from impeachment. It has about the same degree of evidence as most conspiracy theories- actually perhaps a tad more than some even- but far from conclusive. > > Of course with Harding there was nowhere near the outlet for conspiracy theories to go viral: radio wasn’t even around yet (came about a couple of years later). Plus JFK’s approval ratings never fell below 56% (there were millions who hated him passionately but most didn’t want his death) while Harding was a flop even in his own lifetime; not a lot of tears were shed. Neither of these assertions are true. If you read your own link it correctly points to the beginning of the murder conspiracy accusations in Gaston B. Means 1930 book _The Strange Death of President Harding_. I don’t see any new theories there after Kennedy. That’s probably because there aren’t any. The circumstances about his death were so strange that speculation began immediately but nobody really believes he was murdered. Because Harding is now thought of as one of our worst presidents, it’s become almost universal to push that backward and state that he was considered a bad president during his presidency. That appears to be totally untrue. He was popular throughout his less than three years in office. A huge national outpouring of grief accompanied his death. While one senator held hearings on Teapot Dome in 1923 and some of the participants were forced to resign for various reasons, the major revelations and scandal didn’t occur until 1924, the year after Harding’s death. Of all major newspapers and journalists, only H. L. Mencken launched a major attack. His is remembered. The positive majority aren’t. He is the reverse Kennedy. If you want to understand the Teapot Dome scandal the only book to read is [The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country, by Laton McCartney](http://www.amazon.com/Teapot-Dome-Scandal-Harding-Country/dp/0812973372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255925006&sr=1-1). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/29 "2009-10-19T04:20:12Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Mainstream is not necessarily accurate. There is considerable romanticizing of him and his administration. And that always seems to ignore this passage from his inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A Democrat wouldn’t dare make such a statement today. Anybody else would receive heavy criticism. While I’m debunking, this statement was a pledge to all nations that the U.S. would support anti-Communist activities wherever they took place. It was meant to reassure Republicans that Kennedy would not only keep up the Cold War but help out others, a sort of rebuke to Eisenhower’s handling of the Hungarian rebellion of 1956. Everybody on both sides and in all non-Communist countries cheered. Presidents love making statements that everybody loves back. There is nothing in the world situation today that any president could make such a comment about. Bush probably came closest in his statements after 9/11 and those were similarly approved of by people in both parties and around the world. Both statements turned out to be better rhetoric than policy, which is why most presidents shy away from them except in extreme times. They just led people to take stands and then wonder why the U.S. wasn’t there with them, on the one hand, and for the U.S. to make incursions that were not properly thought through on the other. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/30 "2009-10-19T04:32:02Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Why not? That is not so bad . Protecting liberty is a good thing. Doing that is good, but saying that is verboten in a speech. Just see if any politician would do that today. The American media acts as if firmness is congruent with intransigence, and an opposition party would turn it into irrresponsible and dangerous warmongering. Most politicians would be far more bland and evasive in intimating to what extent they would go in protecting liberty. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/31 "2009-10-19T07:54:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Of course with Harding there was nowhere near the outlet for conspiracy theories to go viral: radio wasn’t even around yet (came about a couple of years later). Here I jump back into techno geek mode. The first commercially-licensed radio station in the U.S. was on the air in 1920, and by the time Harding died in 1923 there were over [550](http://books.google.com/books?id=cZLQ9R5GKfsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA21#v=onepage) licensed radio stations, in almost every state. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/32 "2009-10-19T12:20:44Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Beethoven’s funeral march (the second movement of his third symphony), taken by itself, is one of his greatest compositions and is often played in mourning of important people. You’ve obviously never heard it. If you had, you wouldn’t make such a statement. I suggest you listen to it. I’m not criticizing the composition, but the manner in which the conductor introduced it. He announced that the President was dead in the same manner that you might say that drinks were on 2 for 1 special in the lobby. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/33 "2009-10-19T16:31:13Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Here I jump back into techno geek mode. The first commercially-licensed radio station in the U.S. was on the air in 1920, and by the time Harding died in 1923 there were over [550](http://books.google.com/books?id=cZLQ9R5GKfsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA21#v=onepage) licensed radio stations, in almost every state. Facts always need to be put into context. These facts are certainly true. However, stations broadcast almost nothing of what we would consider to be news today. They probably interrupted their programming to announce Harding’s death, but went immediately to somber music rather than discussion. No station would dare to broadcast reports of rumors of Harding’s murder, of his wife being anything other than a grieving widow, of a mistress, of any political scandals. These just weren’t done. I did my graduate work in the history of broadcasting, with a sociological and political slant. That was a long time ago, true, but I’ve kept up with lots of reading since. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/34 "2009-10-19T16:44:52Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Doing that is good, but saying that is verboten in a speech. Just see if any politician would do that today. The American media acts as if firmness is congruent with intransigence, and an opposition party would turn it into irrresponsible and dangerous warmongering. Most politicians would be far more bland and evasive in intimating to what extent they would go in protecting liberty. Bush did it over and over, even when it was not true. They hate us for our freedoms tack. It was wrong and stupid, but he was desperately flailing for war justification. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/35 "2009-10-19T23:03:52Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Bush did it over and over, even when it was not true. They hate us for our freedoms tack. It was wrong and stupid, but he was desperately flailing for war justification. Yes, but the original quote was that a Democrat couldn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191/36 "2009-10-19T23:05:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No station would dare to broadcast reports of rumors of Harding’s murder, of his wife being anything other than a grieving widow, of a mistress, of any political scandals. These just weren’t done. Did any newspaper at the time? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-channel-jfk/514191.md?page=1)