James Piereson: The Culture of Conspiracy
[Mr. Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism" (Encounter Books, 2007).]
This week is the anniversary of the tragic day in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas. Looking back, we can see that Kennedy's death marked a turning point, when the political consensus of the time gave way to the confrontational politics that we associate with the 1960s. The upheavals that followed -- along with the bitter partisanship that disfigured political life in the last third of the century, and whose echoes we still hear today -- can be traced back to that day in Dallas.
The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, is the only other event in the modern era that compares with the Kennedy assassination in terms of its shattering impact on public opinion. And there are parallels: The 9/11 attacks, like the Kennedy case, stimulated conspiracy theories claiming that either the U.S. government knew what was coming, or that somehow America itself was responsible.
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy riding in the backseat of an open limousine in Dallas, Texas, moments before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
Both events were expected to have unifying political effects -- but both soon gave way to intensifying periods of political conflict. The extreme rhetoric of the 1960s, in which leaders were cast as "war criminals" and America was spelled with a "k," is echoed today in claims that President Bush or neoconservatives lied or manipulated the nation into war.
Opinion polls routinely show that more than two-thirds of Americans believe Kennedy was cut down by a conspiracy engineered by organized crime, the CIA or FBI, or right-wing groups upset by Kennedy's liberal policies. Most believe the Warren Commission covered up the truth by concluding Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. Such suspicions encouraged the conviction that the national government is corrupt and untrustworthy -- and also that the nation itself was in some way responsible for Kennedy's death.
The reality is otherwise. As with the attacks of 9/11, events beyond the shores of the U.S. played a larger role in the Kennedy assassination than most Americans would like to believe; and President Kennedy, far from being a liberal idealist, was more of a practical reformer who never got too far out front of public opinion....
Read entire article at WSJ
This week is the anniversary of the tragic day in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas. Looking back, we can see that Kennedy's death marked a turning point, when the political consensus of the time gave way to the confrontational politics that we associate with the 1960s. The upheavals that followed -- along with the bitter partisanship that disfigured political life in the last third of the century, and whose echoes we still hear today -- can be traced back to that day in Dallas.
The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, is the only other event in the modern era that compares with the Kennedy assassination in terms of its shattering impact on public opinion. And there are parallels: The 9/11 attacks, like the Kennedy case, stimulated conspiracy theories claiming that either the U.S. government knew what was coming, or that somehow America itself was responsible.
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy riding in the backseat of an open limousine in Dallas, Texas, moments before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
Both events were expected to have unifying political effects -- but both soon gave way to intensifying periods of political conflict. The extreme rhetoric of the 1960s, in which leaders were cast as "war criminals" and America was spelled with a "k," is echoed today in claims that President Bush or neoconservatives lied or manipulated the nation into war.
Opinion polls routinely show that more than two-thirds of Americans believe Kennedy was cut down by a conspiracy engineered by organized crime, the CIA or FBI, or right-wing groups upset by Kennedy's liberal policies. Most believe the Warren Commission covered up the truth by concluding Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. Such suspicions encouraged the conviction that the national government is corrupt and untrustworthy -- and also that the nation itself was in some way responsible for Kennedy's death.
The reality is otherwise. As with the attacks of 9/11, events beyond the shores of the U.S. played a larger role in the Kennedy assassination than most Americans would like to believe; and President Kennedy, far from being a liberal idealist, was more of a practical reformer who never got too far out front of public opinion....