From the moment the first TV news bulletin cut through the sticky story line of a soap opera called "As the World Turns," at exactly 1:40 (EST) on Friday afternoon, the world of communications - if not the world - was to be a vastly different sort of place, never to be quite the same again. It was not just the sudden, senseless cutting down of a young, vigorous President that made the experience cut so deep, but the fact that no one had ever lived a national tragedy in quite these terms before. When Lincoln was assassinated by a frenzied actor at Ford's Theater in 1865, Americans had time to assimilate the tragedy. Most people in the big cities knew within 24 hours, but there were some in outlying areas for whom it took days.
In the new world of communications there was no time for any such babying of the emotions, no time to collect oneself, no time for anything except to sit transfixed before the set and try to bring into reality this monstrous, unthinkable thing. Because the word was not only instantaneous but visual, and because at no time did the television reporters know any more than the viewers did, 180,000,000 were forced to live the experience not just hour to hour, or minute to minute, but quite literally from second to second, even as the reporters themselves did. According to Nielsen statistics, a point was reached during the funeral on Monday afternoon when 41,553,000 sets were in use, believed to be an all-time high. For four days the American people were virtual prisoners of an electronic box.
Thus what happened on the television screen became in every sense an epic drama four days long, in which the viewers were not so much spectators as participants. The insistent commercial, the thin, strident melodrama and the pleasantly foolish prattle of the quiz game had suddenly been stilled, as a blizzard stills the clamor of a big city. No pat endings here. In their place came the endless images of human frailty, dignity and grace, until it seemed the spirit could absorb no more: Mrs. Kennedy, vibrant testimony to the heights to which the human spirit can rise. The new President, constantly reminding us by his actions that there was still someone in charge. "Now then, let's get this airplane back to Washington." The endless thousands filing by the casket of the President in the rotunda. Robert Kennedy, a man so shattered he seemed almost to be walking in his sleep. The solid phalanx of visiting heads of state advancing on the church and looking for all the world like factory workers at closing time. The tum-tum-tum-ta-tum of the muffled drums crossing Arlington Memorial Bridge. John-John's heart-stopping salute to his father on the steps of St. Matthew's. Blackjack, the riderless horse, ancient symbol of the fallen hero, all skittish and full of spirit The white-gloved hands during the flag folding at Arlington National Cemetery. The bugler who played the sour note during taps. "The bugler's lip quivered for the Nation," Edward P. Morgan observed later.
The nasal voice of Richard Cardinal Cushing, whose burial service seemed at times more like a cry of anguish. Counterpointed against all this, the jarring impact of the alleged assassin's own murder, so quick, so unexpected, so nightmarish in its implications and so immediate because an already-staggered Nation saw it as it happened on TV. "It was as if the sacrifice of a President were not enough," Charles Collingwood said.
