[Clipping: Will Dallas ever shake the Kennedy stigma?] Part: 4 of 8
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Page4A Thursday, November 20, 2003 £ljc pallas ^Horning Jscius
FROM THE FRONT PAGE
Can Dallas ever shed stigma of assassination?
BARBARA DAVIDSON/Staff Photographei
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T. Payne said.
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Hate mail was sent to Dallas from across the country after the Kennedy assassination. Some
is housed in the archives at DeGolyer Library at SMU.
3219 Knox Street ♦ Dallas
214-528-0321
u)u>w. weirsfumiture. corn
but from the left,” he said.
—'“‘Sbpeopleliere said, You can’t
blame Dallas; Dallas gave the
president a positive reception,’”
he said. “But then you had the oth-
er side, the Kennedy loyalists, and
they said, You created this envi-
ronment of hatred.’ ”
As people across the country
pointed accusing fingers, Dallas
officials fumbled for the proper
way to proceed.
“There was no good rule book
for responding to something like
this,” Mr. West said. “It was some-
thing we didn’t know how to han-
dle in the ’60s. It was a terrible
event, and no one knew exactly
what to do.” _ ___
Mayor Earle Cabell offered presidintiaf efection^when John-
sympathies on behalf of the city. / sonUtheMTeffiocratic vice presi-
So did federal Judge Sarahf dentraT'candidate~and a Towering
Hughes, who had given Lyndon B. ~ ~
Johnson the oath of office after
Kennedy’s death.
But to the watching world,
Dallas officials seemed intent only
on salvaging the city’s reputation,
as tattered as it was.
“It has been very clear that the
city of Dallas is not so much inter-
ested in its own intrinsic fault in
the murder of the president as it is
in leading others to believe that it
was not at fault at all,” an Episco-
pal priest wrote to the mayor.
The problem confronting Dal-
las was that even though America
and the world were shocked at a
presidential assassination, few
seemed surprised that if some-
thing like that happened, it would
happen in Dallas.
It only confirmed what so crossing. 7
many already believed.
“People thought that’s the way
Texas is,” Dr. Linden said. “Bobby
Kennedy died in Los Angeles, but
people don’t blame L.A. Martin
Luther King was killed in Mem-
phis, but we don’t blame Memphis
forthat.”
Edward M. Kennedy and long-
time spokeswoman for the Kenne-
dy family.
“The part that remains difficult
is that this is where President
Kennedy was murdered. Emo-
tionally, they do not want to revisit
that pain and grief.”
Several members of the Kenne-
dy family have come to Dallas, in-
cluding two of the president’s
nephews, Anthony Shriver and
U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
And on a quiet Sunday last
summer, Eunice Shriver, the pres-
ident’s sister, paid an unan-
nounced visit to the Sixth Floor
Museum, said executive director
JeffWest.
“She was the only immediate
member of the family who has
been in Dallas in the last 40 years,”
Mr. West said.
Ms. Miller visited Dallas and
the museum when it opened in
1989 and told family members, as
well as civic leaders in Dallas with
whom she met, that they had done
“a most honorable job of creating a
museum that did not exploit or
commercialize President Kenne-
dy’s death. The Kennedy family
knows this.”
But, she said, “the Kennedy
family prefers to remember their
loved ones and celebrate their
lives, rather than dwell in the past
or look backward at such a shat-
teringloss.”
Ted Kennedy, who was in Texas
two weeks ago to receive an award
for public service from former
President George Bush, hasn’t vis-
ited Dallas, though Dr. Linden
said museum officials asked him
“over and over to come.”
No privacy
One reason he has declined,
friends say, is there is no way he
could go to the Sixth Floor Muse-
um without being watched, and it
would be traumatic for him to try
to endure such memories in pub-
lic.
But a letter from the senator
read at the rededication of the
Kennedy Memorial in Dallas in
2000 seems to buiy any idea of
animosity.
“On behalf of all members of
the Kennedy family, please accept
my gratitude for the care and con-
cern you have shown in renovat-
ing your memorial to President
Kennedy,” he wrote. “It means a
great deal to know that the citi-
zens of Dallas County loved him
too.”
But the pain from the presi-
dent’s murder lingered for years,
so much so that Special Olympics
International, founded by Mrs.
Shriver, abruptly abandoned
plans to hold the 1995 event in
Dallas for fear that the focus
would shift from the games to the
assassination.
The pain lingers for the city as
well, and particularly for those
who remember President Kenne-
dy’s triumphant i^ide through
downtown and the horrific mo-
ments ending in his death.
“The city was shocked, and
there were a lot of conflicting emo-
tions in the first days,” said Dar-
win Payne, then a young journalist
in Dallas and now professor emer- nal
itus of communications at SMU. . intolerant place^a rabid corner of
“People__thought something^<a -ebnservafive^ state where right- ...
terrible could happen, and it didZ wing extremism prospered _ and__
But it came not from the farright, Texas’ lone Republican congress-
man, the ultra-conservative T
Alger, was,fleeted to five consecu-
tive terms, “
ers here in those days — ‘Get the
U.S. Out of the U.N.’ The John
Birch Society was quite popular
and groups like the National In-
dignation Committee/ Mr. Payne
said. “There was 'considerable
right-wing sentiment issued in
vpry unseemly ways.”
But two specific incidents ce-
mented Dallas’ reputation in the
national consciousness.
The first came in November
1960, just a few days before the
im. reception._y_ Staff writer Carl Leubsdorf
d.”) '.-“And they dicL— except for Lee. contributed to this report.
>frs' Hafvdy Oswald'y 7
protesters coughed in uni- .. That sealed fthe city’s reputa- E-mailmyoung@dallasnews.com
son. They walked the aisles with tion. But it also led to significant
upside-down American flagsA changes.
Frank McGehee, leader of the Na? / Mr. Cabell gave up his mayoral
-tional Indignation Committee, seat to run for Congress against
stood up and began-shouting until Mr, Alger “because he was seen to
police removed him. f be an extremist, and that was seen
([Withthe speeefrover, Mr. Ste- aSahadthing/Mr. Payne said?
vensoh began to leave whenan tyAndthe farsight groups that
Oak Cliff housewife swung her an- had been so popular and enjoyed
ti-U.N. placard and bopped him at least official tolerance if not en-
on the head, an incident caught by dqrsement soon disappeared?^ I
TV and newspaper photogra- <?T think there’s no doubt that
phers. And as he neared a waiting this pushed the city to a more,
car, an Jiving college student spit moderate position,” Mr. PayneJ
athim._D said, y
• “After I shoved him in the car... Bdt it couldn’t fully wash away. >
[the protesters] started rocking the guilt, which helps explain the'
the car, and the driver had to gun city’s decisions to distance itself
the car aqd almost kill a person to from assassination events and
controversies.
“I think Dallas probably satis-
fies itself that it steered out of the
image that prevailed at the time of
the assassination and that it’s
figure in Texas politics, tried to.
cross Commerce Street for a lun-
cheon at the Adolphus Hotel with
his wife, Lady Bird, at his side.
Several hundredjfiering pro-
testers "blocked their path. One
carried a Johnson campaign post-
er with the scribbled message,
“Smiling Judas.” Mr. Alger_stood-
at the front of the croWdfshouting
at Johnson and waving a sign that
read, “LB j'Sqld Out to the Yankee
Socialists^-, /
Security officers urged John-
son to use side doors to avoid the
crowd, but he refused.
“No, I only hope the day never
comes when a man cannot walk
his lady across the street in Dal-
las,” he said.
( It took 45 minutes to make the
Lady7Bird said shed never
been so frightened as she was at
that time‘7Mr. Payne said.
/ Three/years later, before the
president’s scheduled appearance,
pthoughQiad.acquired.a—U.N. Ambassador Adlai Steven-
•eputationasaJiardand—son came to Dallas...to speak at a w
thecar anff almost kill a person to
get out,’jthe late Dallas retailer
Stanley./Marcus said years later.
“There was a mob scene that
night.”'7
7 Walter Cronkite showed the
television footage the next eveningprobably more tasteful to low-key
on the CBS news, and newspapers it now,” said Dr. Dennis Simon, an
across the country ran the photo associate professor of politics at
it page) .. SMU.
the Stevenson incident, C Qver the decades, Dallas
as terrified.,.”-Mr. Payne emerged as a modern, moderate
leaders did not want to American city, and time eased the
have^-an ~efnbarrassmg.-jncident perceptions and healed the
henthepresident camey wounds. /
f “We had an ordinance passed “As the country has gotten over
/There were softie people who banning protest groups from it, the [Kennedy] family has got-
tried to downplay it later,>even gathering. We had speeches from ten over it,” Mr. West said. “Now
igress-_ Adlai Stevenson himself,’/ Mr. the?mayor and the police-chief, the community has to get over it,
Bruce -Payne saity “He said it was just a bombarding the people with the_ too.”
few peOpie) but n wasn’t just a few. need to give the president a good
I’d say it was half the auditoriui
, and that auditorium was packed.
f During__ Mr. Stevensoi
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Young, Michael E. [Clipping: Will Dallas ever shake the Kennedy stigma?], clipping, November 20, 2003; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1596957/m1/4/: accessed June 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.