The President Has Been Shot!: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Nonfiction | Biography | YA | Published in 2013

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1, Chapter 3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-13

Part 2, Chapter 14-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapter 14-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Assassination”

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “Sunday November 24, 1963”

The funeral procession to the Capital of Kennedy’s body was deliberately made to resemble that of Lincoln in 1865. Jackie’s favorite eulogy at the funeral was delivered by Senator Mike Mansfield. It called attention to how Jackie placed her wedding ring in Kennedy’s hands in his coffin.

Meanwhile, with Oswald given less security to allow the media more access to him, Swanson argues that he was vulnerable. While being transported to prison, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, described by Swanson as “a middle-aged club owner and a creature from a world of sleazy nightlife” (187). The killing of Oswald was “broadcast […] on live television to the entire nation” (187).

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “Monday November 25, 1963”

The public funeral of Kennedy was held with the public allowed to walk past the coffin. Jackie cried loudly during the ceremony and Kennedy’s son John Jr. “saluted his father’s coffin” (193). Oswald was buried the same day. Only his mother, brother, wife, and two young children attended.

Epilogue Summary

Overwhelmed by public attention since she had become “an obsession” (204), Jackie moved away from Washington DC to try to have a private life. In a speech to Congress given two days after Kennedy’s funeral, President Johnson vowed to “carry on the dead president’s work” (203). Johnson created the Warren Commission, so named because it was headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination.

The Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Oswald, who acted alone. However, the odd circumstances surrounding Oswald fed conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination: “Many people found it hard to believe an inconsequential man as Oswald could change history in such a monumental way” (204-05). These conspiracy theories include the belief that the president was killed by right-wing extremists, the Mafia, the military, the FBI, or the CIA (206). Swanson asserts that none of these theories have disproven the Warren Commission’s findings.

Next, Swanson considers the question of Oswald’s motives. He suggests Oswald was motivated not by his Communism, but by “fame” (208). At the same time, Swanson suggests that perhaps it was just that “Lee Harvey Oswald was evil” (208). Swanson notes in conclusion that some people see the assassination of Kennedy as a “dividing line in our history” and “the day when something went terribly wrong in American life” (209). This is because the years after Kennedy’s assassination saw the Vietnam War worsen, increased civil unrest, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Swanson concludes, “we will never know the ways in which the death of John F. Kennedy altered the future course of American history” (209). He reflects on the words of Jackie Kennedy, who observed that Kennedy had become a “hero” (210).

Part 2, Chapter 14-Epilogue Analysis

With the second half of Part Two, Swanson concludes his narrative of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. In particular, he discusses Mass Media, Fame, and Heroism. Swanson continues to speculate that Oswald was motivated by a desire to be famous, although ultimately Oswald’s exact motives remain a “great mystery” (207). Swanson also raises alternate possibilities, such as Oswald hoping to gain favor with the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom Kennedy had tried to overthrow with the Bay of Pigs invasion (207-08).

As much as Swanson is speculating, he does imply that he believes that ambition was Oswald’s main, if not only, motive. As Swanson explains, “By killing the president, Oswald’s deluded mind sought to merge their identities, hoping that some of the JFK magic that Oswald never possessed […] might rub off on him” (208). At the very least, by killing Kennedy Oswald himself became a figure of mass media attention. His own death was as widely broadcast on television as the assassination of Kennedy, and took media attention away from Kennedy’s funeral (187). Also, ironically, Oswald’s own killer, Jack Ruby, sought in his own way to “be a hero” (187).

In Swanson’s view, the kind of “heroism” shown by Oswald and Ruby is a morbid inverse of the type of heroism he sees in Kennedy. Citing Jackie Kennedy, Swanson continues to argue for the image of Kennedy as one who fulfilled his ambitions through service to others. In addition, he notes that Jackie believed that the assassination itself “transformed him into a hero too” (210). This is because of the widespread view that Kennedy’s presidency was unique and represented a positive turning point in history. However, some if not all of that potential was lost when Kennedy died before he could serve as president for a second term. This again highlights The Importance of the Kennedy Presidency.

Of course, as Swanson himself admits (209), there is no way to know if President Kennedy would have done more to help the civil rights movement or how he would have handled the Vietnam War and the growing public opposition to it. One could also argue instead that the nostalgic view of the Kennedy presidency has more to do with Kennedy’s charisma, and the image of a young and popular president tragically struck down before his first term as president even ended. Nonetheless, what is important is that many Americans believed that Kennedy and his presidential administration represented a better era and a potentially better path for the United States. This in turn would inspire the conspiracy theories that nefarious forces, like the CIA or the FBI or the Mafia, were actually involved in planning Kennedy’s assassination (See: Background).