The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a cataclysmic event for the American people, flooding them with anguished feelings and subjecting them to "a primordial religious experience," according to Sidney Verba, reminiscent of the death of a sacred king. (Bradley S. Greenberg and Edwin B. Parker, eds, 1965). Henry Fairlie was astounded at how greatly and how archaically Americans were gripped by the Kennedy assassination:
One would think that one was reading about the death of a pharoah in ancient Egypt, when people did indeed think that the sun would be darkened forever, that the moon would leave its course, that the very stars would be affrighted at his passing. One would not think that one was reading about the death of a politician in a republic, with a pragmatic temper and a positivist tradition, in the middle of the 20th century. (Henry Fairlie, 1973).
Americans felt a rare unity in their grief as they joined together in a seventy-one-hour telethon studded with religious symbols that sought to apply healing to the hurt and inspiration for continued living in the glow of Kennedy's remembrance. "Death swept away both affection and enmity," wrote William Manchester; "it was replaced by idolatry." (William Manchester, 1967).
First to be transformed was the manner of Kennedy's death. There is nothing inherently valiant in having a crackpot take a shot at you and no great witness in being shot down while campaigning for reelection. But Kennedy was soon construed as a hero, who died like a soldier in the line of duty (de Gaulle), and a martyr, who sacrificed his life for his country. Cardinal Cushing concluded Kennedy's funeral with a benediction asking angels, martyrs, and God to receive him and give him rest along with "all those who made the supreme sacrifice of dying for others." (William Fine, 1965).
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