Many of us learned in our US History class about “the shot heard round the world” — the Battle Of Lexington which started the American Revolution.  And one could say that the shot fired by John Wilkes Booth into President Lincoln’s skull caused a major alteration to our nations path. But for those of us in modern times perhaps no shots altered history more than those fired in Dallas 46 years ago, the ones that ended the life of President John F. Kennedy.  November 22, 1963 is said to be the day that Baby Boomers lost their innocence, that America’s post-World War 2 feeling of invincibility came crashing down.  As an amature historian I feel that it also sent us down paths Kennedy would likely have not followed.  I’ll not speak to the controversy over who fired the shots from what location, how many shooters, etc. only to the aftereffects. 

     Let us consider the biggest event of the 1960s for America, the Viet Nam War.  Even in 1962 and early 1963 President Kennedy and his advisors could see the writing on the wall, so to speak, that the South Vietnamese government was totally corrupt and undeserving of America’s support.  It was Kennedys plan to gradually reduce US military advisors and supplied equipment, particularly after the 1964 election and let South Vietnam stand or fall on its own merits.  Sadly his successor, Lyndon Johnson,  so feared being labled soft on communism that he would commit billions of US dollars and millions of US warfighters to a cause that was lost from the very beginning. Some 58 thousand names are chisled in black granite on the Washington D.C. mall that otherwise might have lived had not those shots rang out in Dallas.   I theorize that our entire dealings with communism for the remainder of the 20th century also changed on that November day.  Prior to the Cuban Missle Crisis, the USSR considered Kennedy a weak and naive leader. However his resolve during the crisis earned him grudging admiration from Nikita Kruschev.  A small thawing of the Cold War occurred in 1963, leading me to believe that a second presidential term for Kennedy would have seen the US and USSR become, if never friends, then at least nations willing to peacefully co-exist without the threat of instant nuclear annihilation.  Again, LBJ followed a different path.  While Johnson was a man full of bluster and bombast when dealing with underlings and political rivals, in essence he was noting more than a schoolyard bully. He so feared making the wrong decision and leading to nuclear war that he allowed the USSR and China to foster non-nuclear conflicts worldwide, from Viet Nam to the middle east to the Congo. 

       But let us also consider positive changes made by President Johnson that might have been delayed, or indeed never implemented under a Kennedy administration.  While Attorney General Robert Kennedy had done what he felt he could to protect black protestors in the south, the Kennedy administration as a whole felt a slow gradual change in race relations was the safer course to take.  To his great credit President Johnson saw the time for action was long past due and strong-armed the Civil Right Acts and Voting Rights Acts through Congress.  If it had not been for that, then the likelyhood of a young african-American from Chicago becoming our current president would have been greatly diminished.   The war on poverty is another area where one could say a major shift occured due to that terrible day in Dallas.  The poor and the uninsured were America’s dirty little secret during post-World War 2 boom. While most lived in luxury in the suburbs with new cars and full cupboards, a shameful percentage of our population, in rural Appalachia and the inner cities particularly, lived a hand-to-mouth existence.  The elderly were also constantly on the precipice of financial ruin from hospitalization and doctors bills.  President Johnson saw this and felt a country as blessed as America could do much more for its citizens, pushing legislation for his Great Society program which brought about among other things medicare, medicaide, food stamps, and Head Start education programs for disadvantaged children.  Oh yes, and it was Johnson’s Great Society that provided initial funding that brought us beloved characters like Big Bird, Burt & Ernie, and Oscar through Sesame Street. 

     All of this change, both good and bad, would not have happened in the way we know it had JFK not been gunned down in Dallas.  For like a stone tossed into calm waters the ripple of those shots wash ashore in Americans daily lives still to this day.