Assassinations and History

November 22 is the fiftieth anniversary of President John Kennedy's assassination.  It is a time to reflect on how the world may have been different without the political assassinations that have marred human history - not just JFK's but others that might have made a difference.  

 

John Kennedy's assassination in 1963 was the fourth of a US president. It was the first of three assassinations in the 1960's that took the lives of charismatic liberal political leaders in the United States. The civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK's brother and Democratic Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy were both killed within a two-month span in 1968. How much different would the America and the world have been had these men lived? 

 

November 4 was the eighteenth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli radical.  It now appears that the death of Rabin's fellow peace prize winner PLO leader Yasser Arafat  on November 11, 2004 was also an assassination - by polonium poisoning by person or persons unknown. As reported in Al Jazeera on November 6: "A 108-page report by the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, which was obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, found unnaturally high levels of polonium in Arafat’s ribs and pelvis, and in soil stained with his decaying organs."

 

Vietnam

A question long debated has been whether John Kennedy would have escalated the Vietnam War as did his successor Lyndon Johnson or whether Kennedy would have withdrawn American forces. An argument could be made either way. On the one hand, Kennedy subscribed to the failed domino theory used as justification for this tragic war and Johnson inherited Kennedy's "best and brightest" advisors. On the other hand, Kennedy was growing increasingly skeptical of the war and disenchanted with his advisors.

Robert Kennedy's assassination almost certainly delayed the end of the Vietnam War. If Robert Kennedy went on to win the Democratic nomination in 1968, he would have defeated Nixon. Certainly, Bobby Kennedy would have ended the Vietnam War long before 1975. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

 

Domestic Programs and Politics

The assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King likely did not have much effect on the domestic programs of the 60's and early 70's. In 1964, the election of the most liberal Congress in decades with Johnson's landslide victory over conservative Barry Goldwater led to the enactment of the most progressive legislation since the New Deal. The Civil Rights Movement made significant progress with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1968. Lyndon Johnson's other Great Society programs, some of which were stalled initiatives from John Kennedy's "New Frontier", were enacted by the liberal Congress and then expanded by Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford. The "War on Poverty" (e.g., the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964), medical care for the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid), Federal aid to education provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, improvements to Social Security - all came about in this period.

Although the assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King may not have made a great difference in the domestic programs of the 60's, the deaths of these great leaders did effect the national political atmosphere. JFK's call for the new generation to step forward in leading the country to the beckoning New Frontier inspired many. MLK's message of unity, brotherhood, and social justice and RFK's idealistic vision may have counteracted or mitigated the mean-spiritedness and stigmatization of the poor, the greed and the hatred of government that has developed with such force in some quarters over the past three or four decades. There is no way of knowing how this would have played out in the long term but we surely would be looking at a better version of than America democracy than we are now.

 

 

Israel and Palestine

 

Probably no single event has had as great an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli fanatic in 1995. The assassin was angered at Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords which were to form the basis of the two-state solution. Rabin was succeeded by fellow Labor Party member Shimon Peres until 1996. A 17 year period of primarily right-wing Israeli governments began with the formation of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. The years since Rabin's death have been marked by little-to-no progress in the creation of a viable state for the Palestinian people. No Israeli since Rabin has been far-sighted enough to engage the Palestinians. No Israeli since Rabin has been able to bring Israelis back from, in Chris Hedges' words, "the psychosis of permanent war." Had the promises of the Oslo Accords been acted upon and a Palestinian state created, the Middle East would be a more stable, more secure region today. Israel would be at peace and unthreatened. Palestinians would have attained justice.
Images
JFK and quote is from Prose Before Hos website
Yitzhak Rabin is from Wikipedia entry.