The Kennedy Assassination and the History Teacher

Abstract

LIKE THE JAPANESE attack on Pearl Harbor, writes historian Michael L. Kurtz, Kennedy assassination etched itself forever in the national consciousness.' November 22, 1963, the occasion of the murder of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, is sadly, but surely, another date of infamy in recent American history. Yet history teachers largely ignore this crime of the century despite its obvious traumatic impact upon the American people and the continuing controversy over the question of conspiracy.2 The primary purposes of this paper are generally to discuss and deprecate the historical neglect of the Kennedy case and specifically to show what the history teacher can do with the issue. Of course, there has been considerable historical effort to evaluate JFK as man and President. Most writing on Kennedy, as William E. Leuchtenburg observes, has had to take into account that JFK became part not of history but of myth, and so people write about him because he is imagined shining hero of Camelot or because he is not.3 As for rating the Kennedy Presidency, the famed Schlesinger polls of 1948 and 1962 occurred too early for JFK's inclusion, and the plethora of subsequent evaluations and rankings of the thirty-fifth President have placed him no higher than thirteenth.4 However, as Leuchtenburg also reminds us, there is surely more to the Kennedy story than simply chronicling the events of JFK's life and deciding whether Kennedy deserves to be admitted to the Valhalla of 'Great Presidents.'5 The Kennedy assassination is a credible example. Most history teachers, though, have proven obdurately