Host one of a number of ceremonies at Arlington National cemetery. The only surviving member of the immediate Kennedy Family, Jean Kennedy Smith, the younger sister of president john f. Kennedy who served as u. S. A visitor to ireland during the clinton administration, among those on hand for the tribute in the posting of flowers and the regiment, the military regiment. The posting of the colors and the wreath at the tomb of president john f. Kennedy. Richard reeves, the kennedy years, joining us from new york. Guest one of my thoughts about all this that we forget really but hits us, the president of the United States is not only the head of government, he is also the head of state. The equivalent of the british Prime Minister and the queen. The president is the physical embodiment of the american people, so he had a position above party and most of us respond to that, that he speaks for the nation. That is brought home to us because, as we were talking about television, he was in our living room. We thought in some way that we knew this man, which brings us back to the death in the family reaction of millions of people. Host we will watch the scene from Arlington Cemetery and hear from andy joining us from marlborough, massachusetts. Caller good morning. I was born on march 21, 1960, so at the time i would have been a little over three and a half years old. I always remember, my First Congress in memory that i ever had was being in the kitchen of our thirdfloor apartment and my mother crying. I remember asking her, you know, what was wrong, why was she crying, and she came out and said that it bad man or someone had shot the president. To this day i would give a Million Dollars to remember the questions i am sure i probably asked her as any three and a halfyearold would. She was a strong woman and really did not cry that often, but i remember to this day her crying and that really affected her like i guess they did the rest of the nation. Every time i hear of the assassination, i always think that that was the first thing that i really remember happening in my life, my mother, how hard she took it that day. That is all i have to say. Thank you. Host thank you for the call. I want to go back to one of the iconic photographs, november 22, the open air motorcade with the president and first lady. In front of them, Nellie Connally and the governor of texas John Connally who has since passed away. He became a friend of president nixon, himself running for president but losing for that bit. Back in 1991, he reflected on what it was like to be in the motorcade and being hit i the sniper Lee Harvey Oswald. [video clip] we were in the motorcade going through the main part of town. The crowds were extremely enthusiastic, excited, exuberant, and just after we turned off of main street, someone turned around and said to the president , mr. President , you cannot say dallas does not love you now. He said, no, i cannot. We turned onto elm street to go under the overpass, and i heard this sound that i thought was a rifle shot. I turned to look over my right shoulder because that is where the sound came from to see if i could see anything. I did not. I was in the process of turning to look over my Left Shoulder when i felt an impact, as if someone hit me with a closed fist in the middle of my back. It knocked me over, and i saw that i was covered with blood. Frankly, i thought i had been fatally hit. My wife pulled me down in her lap. She was in the jump seat on my left. I was in the jumpseat he directly in front of the president. She pulled me down into her lap. At about that time, i heard another shot, about that loud, a snack. My eyes were open. I was conscious. I saw the interior of this president ial limousine covered with blood and brain tissue. And i knew that the president had been fatally hit. Host july 1991, the comments of former Texas GovernorJohn Connally. This week and on American History tv, we will be focusing on the kennedy assassination 50 years later. Today on the cspan networks, two reflections you can watch here on cspan and also on c span radio. 12 30 eastern time at the moment in which president kennedy was assassinated, live coverage from dealey plaza in dallas, texas. Historian David Mccullough will read jfks speeches. And the u. S. Naval academys mens glee club performing. From the jfk president ial Library Museum in boston, starting at 2 30 because singer and songwriter james taylor among those performing. And the Massachusetts Governor speaking and commemorating the life and legacy of president kennedy. Back to your phone calls. A call from west palm beach, florida. And Richard Reeves is joining us from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host turn your volume down on your tv set, please. Caller ok, good morning. I actually was in philadelphia when the president was shot, and i was going to be returning to palm. In any case, i was a republican. Days later, i got a call from mrs. Rose kennedy. She asked me through an appointment agency to become her personal secretary, and i did and i stay there for two and a half years. In hyannisport, we had Jackie Kennedy and many of the visitors. I have not published anything about it, but i have written extensively about these wonderful people. Host what have you written . What are your memories of rose kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy . Caller rose kennedy, i would say her religion, no question about it. Her best friend was god, and she was very careful in turning to him. There were difficult times. That, of course, was because of her time with the nuns. Jacqueline kennedy was the kindest woman i ever met. She thought of other people. She was very aware of what was going on. And she did not react immediately. I think she weighed the circumstances, and she also rock comfort in her writing courses. Riding horses. Rose kennedy turned to god, and Jackie Kennedy had faith, too, but she found great comfort in gods land. Host what years did you work for the Kennedy Family . Caller december 1963 through july 1966. Host the immediate aftermath of the assassination. I want you to stay on the line. I want to see if Richard Reeves would like to ask you a question. Caller i would very much like to be in touch with him. Guest first of all, when you said cynthia from west palm beach, i have a daughter, one of my daughters is a teacher in royal palms. Her name is cynthia. So i thought, my god caller my god. Guest i must tell you, i am stunned. You are registered with an Employee Agency and rose kennedy called the agency . Caller called them, gave a false name. They checked my credentials and she said i want her to start tomorrow. I was up in new york and cannot get on an airplane flight. She said call the secret service or fbi, say she is my secretary and put her on a flight. He just laughed and said i think a better check this out. You call back in good 20 minutes and said you are on a flight. And that was my introduction to power. Host cynthia, i have one other followup. You were with her just a month after the assassination. What do you remember about what was going on inside the family, how they were dealing with the grieving process and the suddenness of the assassination of her son . Caller the family did not come over to the big house. A lot of them did not stay there in palm beach. Primarily because of the ambassadors illness, out of respect for that. The grieving that mrs. Kennedy did was a very personal grieving. She had her religion, and i would like to talk to mr. Reeves or his daughter and see what we can do. Guest do you know how the president s father Joseph Kennedy was given the news or was not . Host i do not, but he was given the news. I believe a Family Member who was in charge of his medical treatment spoke to him about it. But i do not think he was told immediately. I believe it was the next day and teddy was up there and the family had come around. And it was very hard to know what his mental capacity was. I was there when president kennedy i am sorry, president johnson visited the ambassador. And that is a unique story. Host well, share it with us, cynthia. Guest for people who do not know, the president s father had been disabled by a stroke. I guess he cannot speak except a few words. As you say, it was hard to understand how much of his mental faculties were working. Caller exactly right. If you would ask your daughter to call me, i can leave my phone number afterwards. Guest i am going to see her tomorrow. Host i will have you stay on the line and we will get your phone number. President johnson met with the Kennedy Family, including president kennedy father. You were there. Caller i am not going to tell you on the air, but it was a unique experience. Host cynthia from west palm beach, florida. Stay on the line and we will get your phone number to pass on to Richard Reeves. We appreciate your recollection from 50 years ago. Anyway, this book with the letters in november 1963. It was in january 1964 that former first lady Jackie Kennedy thanked the public for their support. [video clip] i wanted to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the hundreds of thousands of messages, nearly 800,000, which my children and i have received over the past few weeks. [inaudible] these tributes are something i shall never forget. I need them. All of you who have written to me know how much the world loves him and he returned that love in full measure. It is my greatest wish that all of these letters be acknowledged. They will be, but it will take a long time to do so. I know you will understand. Each and every message is to be treasured, not only for my children but to the future generations to know how much our country and people of the nation loves him. The letters will be left in his memory along the river in boston, massachusetts. Host from 1964 to this friday morning, november 22, 2013. The kennedy gravesite at Arlington National cemetery, the eternal flame. A photographer captured the moment. Family members, including Jean Kennedy Smith on hand, the younger sister of president kennedy, to pay tribute to our 36th president. Headlines from around the country focusing on what happened in dallas. This is from the detroit free press. 50 years after the kennedy assassination, a day i will never forget. The tallahassee democrat, shocked, sadness my car and disbelief is the headline. That photograph moments before Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots in dallas, texas. From the Orange County register, the day jfk was shot. This from the Richmond Times dispatch, enduring mystique, jfk 50 years later. From the atlanta or no constitution, jfk, that awful day in dallas. Larry is joining us from maryland. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I was about 10 years old when i received the information at school, just devastating. Since that time, it has haunted me immensely over the years. So much information has come out. And i am quoting here, reading something that says perhaps there was one assassin. But he did not act alone. Dallas was the ideal location for such a crime. A friend of the kennedys speaking on behalf of robert and Jacqueline Kennedy used a back channel to give this information to a soviet leader. I am haunted by the House Assassination Committee back in 1976 coming up with kennedy was likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Senator hart he said that american journalism has failed to follow up on this story. What is your reaction when you hear that in lieu of the fact that, as was mentioned by mr. Reeves, kennedy was trying to do a seachange and policy of looking at what had typically been folds of the cold war in light of his june 10 American University speech . Host thank you for the call. Richard reeves . Guest i do not believe any of it. As i mentioned before, the culture of assassination, the zeitgeist was abetted by john kennedy and his Brother Robert because of their of session with castro and the fact that we had plot after plot to try to kill the man. But it was our man who was killed. I have spent a lot of time on the site. I do not doubt that excuse me. Oswald was a very strange fellow. He was a member of fair play for cuba. And other organizations. Whereas the danger in dallas, a very right wing city at the time, and it may be that the events, the kennedys attempts to eliminate castro did motivate oswald, but i do not think there was any conspiracy. As we know, oswald wanted to kill general edwin walker who was a right wing icon in the country at the time. He has been forgotten, thankfully. But i do think he acted alone. So many of these theories there is the grassy knoll theory, and if you listen to the, there was a battalion of people hidden on the grassy knoll. The grassy know is like a big suburban lawn, a very small setting. I think the conspiracy theories and whatnot of our young prince being shut down and dying young really inclined a lot of people to think this cannot have been an individual action of hate and passion and evil. It is hard to accept. As this gentleman said, he is haunted by it. Well, a lot of americans were haunted by it and have continued to try to find a reason, a conspiracy, a group who did this. The mafia did this. Cubans did this. Communists did this. I think it is a natural reaction, and i do not think those things happened. Host back to this headline from the Baltimore Sun november 23, 1953. Texan who lived in russia charged in assassination. It was said that Lee Harvey Oswald made no statement, admitted nothing, and signed nothing. And this photograph from monday morning of the New York Times with jack ruby shooting and killing Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he allegedly killed john f. Kennedy. Light rain is falling here in washington, d. C. , this friday morning. The scene at Arlington Cemetery as the crowds continued together and pay tribute to president kennedy. We have a call from massachusetts. Good morning. Caller i have a question about the kennedys trip to france. After the second world war, england gave independence to india. [indiscernible] africa, algiers, hands of vietnam. Kennedy sent troops there when the french were defeated. I often wonder what happened on his trip there with jackie to france. Thank you. Host Richard Reeves . Guest obviously, the visit, what i think is most important, in 1954, then senator kennedy went to vietnam and the president of South Vietnam was a catholic and had lived in the United States in new jersey and had been supported by the Kennedy Family. And when young senator kennedy, 1954, there was a rooftop bar at the caravelle hotel, the tallest building in saigon, he was having a drink or coffee with a Young American diplomat named Edward Gallion who became the dean of the tufts school of diplomacy. As they were talking, night fell, and there were flashes across the river and explosions. Kennedy said, what is that . And gallion said that is the vietcong. Kennedy said, what is going to happen . And he was told that they are going to drive the french out, they are going to come in and beat us, too. So it was not that kennedy did not know frances role. I mean, we were against the french in terms of colonialism at that time. Johnson is blamed for vietnam, but we had 1500 men there when kennedy became president. When he left, it was 17,000. Part of it was that democratic president s, including barack obama, are under regular attack from conservatives about being weak militarily, not strengthening the military of the country. And kennedy wanted to avoid that. But i do not know if anything happened between he and the president during that trip, but kennedy knew just as much as the french new about what was once French Indochina in which we wanted the french out. But then to prove how tough we were, we went in there, and as colin powell years later said in another context, we broke it. We broke vietnam. Jack kennedy, president kennedy, twice signed off on two plots in vietnam. Once in august of 1963 and then again on november 1 of 1963 when we told the general in saigon that we would not interfere if they tried to overthrow, which they did immediately and killed him immediately. And all of this is forgotten in history largely because kennedy was dead weeks later. As the years went on, the war became more unpopular. Some journalists would say kennedy intended to get out. Maybe he did. But it is a hell of a lot easier to get in then get out of situations like that, as we have learned over the years in other countries. One final thing about it, there was a book called the ugly american which was about vietnam. It was fictionallytold and it was a book saying america should straighten us out and this is how we should do it. Kennedy gave that book to every member of the senate and every member of the house when he was still a senator. So he was not without knowledge of that part of the world, and he made a huge mistake which most people blame on johnson. Ironically, johnson gets all the