On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Sixty years later, Joe Biden wanted to pay tribute on Wednesday to the memory of a “war hero, a senator, a statesman” who left his mark on American history.
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His death was “a defining moment, a loss and a profound trauma that shook the soul of our nation,” wrote the current American president in a statement, who remembers the moment when, as a young student, he learned about news, “with our noses glued to the news, in silence, like the rest of the country.”
- Listen to John Parisella, special advisor for the National firm and former Quebec delegate in New York, talk about his admiration for JFK via QUB radio :
The former Democratic president, elected at age 43 in 1960, “set a clear course for our nation on so many of the great issues of the 20th century, from civil rights to voting rights to equal pay for women,” Joe Biden wrote again.
The man nicknamed JFK “never stopped doing everything possible to build an America that lived up to its greatest ideals,” he said.
On November 22, 1963 around 12:30 p.m., while the presidential limousine cut through the crowd gathered along the streets of Dallas, shots rang out, John Fitzgerald Kennedy collapsed, his wife Jackie at his side. The American president was declared dead at 1:00 p.m. from the hospital.
The JFK assassination commission concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine commando who had lived in the Soviet Union, had acted alone. But the assassination of President Kennedy has raised countless speculations until today.
Last December, the National Archives made more than 13,000 documents public. But Joe Biden’s White House has blocked the release of thousands more, citing national security concerns.
According to the National Archives, 99% of the collection is now accessible to the public.
