Ouachita Baptist University
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11-22-2013
November 22, 1963
Raouf J. Halaby
Ouachita Baptist University
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Halaby, Raouf J., "November 22, 1963" (2013). Articles. Paper 15.
http://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/articles/15
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JFK and the 6th Fleet: November 22, 1963
Weekend Edition November 22-24, 2013
by Raouf J. Halaby
During a recent telephone conversation with my older son about my recollections of President
Kennedy’s tragic death, he observed the following: “While my generation is familiar with President
Kennedy’s assassination through books, newscasts, and documentaries, unlike you, I don’t have a
personal experience and frame of reference for these events in the same manner that the 9/11
experience has given me and my generation.” How true! The tendency to frame historic and personal
experiences through the lens of “before,” “during,” and “after” an event is a unique ocular device
through which the admixture of active personal eyewitness and communal poignant experiences are
structured so as to narrow the focus from a macro to a micro perspective. This perspective allows the
individual to be an active participant at the front and center of a momentous historic event — thus
giving credence to the notion that a collective catastrophe could transform individuals and nations.
Before (the Great Depression, war, fire); During the (Great Depression, storm, flood), and After (the
tornado, massive lay-offs, forest fires) are framing devices that prompt people to start a conversation
with the following: “I remember when,” “I was on my way to,” “I was in the middle of” and a myriad
other Chaucerian prologues to personal narratives that set the tone for what follows. I have no doubt
that today, Friday, November 22, 2013, millions of people around the world will pause to say “I
was …… when I heard that President Kennedy was assassinated fifty years ago today.”
In addition to its being Lebanon’s Independence Day and my birthday, the events of 22, November,
1963, and a world away from the U.S., have had an enduring impact on my life.
In January of this year my colleagues at the university honored me by selecting me to deliver the annual
April Last Lecture, one of two campus bi-weekly forums that afford the faculty the opportunity to pursue
an across-the-academic-disciplines dialogue in a scholarly sacra conversazione di sapienza that, in the
words of St. Denis’ Abbot Suger, sheds lux nova in the best definition of the word. These forums affirm
Socrates’ statement that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Coming at the end of a forty year
career, I decided that, instead of a scholarly lecture, I would draw on the magic that started at an early
age, a magic that unfolded itself between the covers of books, and about early childhood and adolescent
experiences that have left an indelible mark on my life — experiences that helped shape my character
and served as a trajectory for a lifetime of a love affair with books. Drawing on the famous English
Romantic poet William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, the longest autobiographical poem in the English
language, and written in collaboration with his closest friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poem is
about the author’s intellectual growth as a poet. 40 years in the making and published posthumously in
1850, Wordsworth’s Magnum Opus conversational poem is a kaleidoscopic circular journey to early
childhood experiences where Past and Present are recaptured and blended in a montage of
reminiscences that give credence to the notion that we are the sum of our cumulative vita activa and
vita contemplativa, a kind of Blakeian ascendance to higher innocence. Wordsworth zeroes in on
vivid personal and life-changing childhood, coming of age, and adult personal transformative
reminiscences which he aptly labels The Spots of Time. Childhood and adult experiences that punctuate
our lives are recaptured, taken out of the deep sub conscious, juxtaposed, and fused into a web of an
intellectually seasoned conscious present.
“There are in our existence spots of time/ That with distinct pre-eminence retain/ a renovating
virtue …” (Prelude)
“Such moments, worthy of all gratitude/ Are scattered everywhere, taking their date/ From our first
childhood/ As far as Memory can look back” (Prelude)
“We see into the life of things” (Tintern Abbey)
While the first half of the lecture drew on some landmark transformative spots of time from my early
childhood in Jerusalem, Palestine, the second half, in the form of an epistolary, drew on my adolescent
and teenage years in Beirut, Lebanon. The inspiration for what follows came from Caspar David
Friedrich’s painting under the title Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog.
Dear Randall,
I received your card earlier today and was overwhelmed with a flood of memories. Upon looking at
Friedrich’s painting, the first recollection that came to mind was Acker Bill’s Stranger on the Shore, as
ever a moving melancholic yet soothing piece of music that could ever be piped through a clarinet’s
mouthpiece. You see, in 1959 my family was forced to leave Jerusalem; we moved to Beirut, Lebanon,
and lived in a second story apartment on Bliss Street, at the end of the tramline, by the historic Beirut
Lighthouse, and only two blocks from the American University of Beirut. A spacious balcony at the
back overlooked the beautiful azure-blue Mediterranean Sea. I was fourteen years old at the time, and
my Palestinian dialect set me apart from the rest of my classmates. Teen-aged and stateless, my twin
brother and I struggled to find our niche in Beiruti society, a society that was rich in heritage, seeped in
history and culture, and a citizenry enriched by an amalgamation of ethnic groups whose religious,
linguistic, and ethnic diversity made for a wonderful pluralistic crucible in which I was to plod through
the rites of passage, a passage that saw me traverse from youth to adulthood. I joined the Beirut Sea
Scout troop # 2, and our headquarters were located on a beach front property directly across from the
American Embassy at the end of the beautiful coastal Beirut Corniche. Knowing full well that my future
in Lebanon looked bleak and greatly inspired by the election of a young and dynamic American
President, From 1961 through 1965 1would frequently look at the US Embassy and fantasize about the
day I would walk through the large doors to apply for a student visa to study in America, a land I’d
heard, read and dreamed about, and a land whose vibrancy and idealism were exemplified by John F.
Kennedy and his beautiful and genteel wife Jacqueline. What Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise baptistry
doors are to pilgrims, the large glass doors to the embassy were my personal “Gates to Paradise.”
During the summers of 1962, 1963, and 1964 I embarked on an ambitious journey that would see me
spend hours at the American University of Beirut’s library, the USIA (United States Information Agency),
and the British Council. The latter is a cultural center that reeked with the musty yet good smell of
thousands of books, many of which paid homage to the British Empire and its sordid history of colonial
rule that celebrates Rule Britannia, Britannia Rule the Waves. The AUB library was rich in books, historic
maps, artifacts, and art exhibits; the USIA was rich in magazines, journals, encyclopedias, biographies of
Great Americans, and it was also the place where I cut my teeth on Zane Grey, James Fenimore Cooper,
Hawthorne, Melville, Irving, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. Little did I know at the time that the USIA was
also a CIA front for disseminating anti-communist propaganda. And how ironic it is that some 30 years
later that same agency would commission me to write four articles.
Given the choice between books and Drones, I had rather see us export the former because it
represents true American exceptionalism. And because they kill, maim and uproot millions of innocent
civilians, wars of choice and drones are antithetical to true American values. And aren’t the lives of
Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Libyan, Yemeni, and Palestinian children as precious to their parents as Jenna,
Barbara, Chelsea, Malia and Sasha’s are to theirs? And don’t these parents grieve for their dead
children and loved ones as we do? Are they, perchance, children of a lesser God?
During these three summers I would spend hours curled up with a book on our veranda divan; for a
backdrop I had a beautiful seascape some 3/4 of a mile from my perch, a seascape that, from my
vantage point, morphed, as the weather dictated, from placidity to playfulness and, on windy days,
to tantalizing white-frothed impasto crests that only Poseidon and Van Gogh could conspire to create.
There were also the hourly V-shaped water drawings left by the rudders of the sailboats and ships that
made their way into Beirut’s harbor much like their Phoenician, Carthaginian, Egyptian, Greek and
Roman predecessors.
Randall, all of this to say the following: While the painting depicts a man in a solitary setting, who,
perhaps feels like a stranger staring into a horizon of dislocation and uncertainty, the scene took me
back to the three summers of my life when I would listen, over and over again, to the melancholic
melodies of Acker Bill’s Stranger on the Shore, melodies that tantalized and sharpened my senses with
their gentle and soothing echoes. And, for delight, I would pore through and get lost between the covers
of multitudes of books whose pages took me to a rich world beyond my physical reach, a make believe
world whose inexhaustible richness and vivacity is as exciting today as it was – 55 years ago. I frequently
visit these precious Spots of Time, these precious moments that afforded me the escape from the
complexities and uncertainties of adolescence and were the catalyst that gave me a purpose and set my
compass on due north. Simply put, I fell in love with that which is between the covers, of a book that is; I
fell in love with the beauty, cadence, music, and rhythm of the written word and its magic-like effect to
transpose me through time and place. These precious hours lovingly spent between the covers were yet
another furnace and anvil on which my literary, aesthetic, and intellectual sustenance were forged and
hammered. To draw on Milton’s poemas, these were the LaLegros and Il Pensoros of that segment of
my life.
REWIND to 22, November, 1963. While my twin brother and I were celebrating our 18th Birthday with
friends, listening to the BBC’s Top Twenty, including the Beatles, Paul Anka, and fancying the Itsy Bitsy
Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka dot Bikini and all that these words and dots conjured, the radio went
silent, and a morose dial tone much like the ones I would hear in my younger days in war- time
Palestine, screeched across the airwaves and, with Big Ben pounding in the background and in a grave
tone, the BBC announced to the world that President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead in Dallas,
Texas, at 7:00 p.m. Greenwich time.
Shocked, confused, bewildered, speechless, and stupefied, our 18th birthday party was soon over and
friends quickly dispersed, and for three days flags across Lebanon flew at half mast, and for three days
church bells shattered the silence with their dirges in a continuous elegiac cacophony; citizens of all
faiths grieved for the loss of such a great American.
And for some reason it was precisely at that moment that I felt as though I had lost my innocence and
was ejected into the world of adulthood. And Acker Bill’s Stranger On the Shore melody took on a
deeper and more personal meaning.
FAST FORWARD to 5 August 1965. Stateless, I boarded a plane for New York and wound my way by bus
to Arkansas. And to this day I am dumfounded that the bus was never stopped at any checkpoint by uzitoting Israeli soldiers. I survived the turbulent sixties (and I can honestly say that I neither smoked nor
inhaled). I saw the Vietnam conflict morph under JFK’s successors into a miserable war, and I religiously
watched such icons as Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Peter Jennings, Frank Reynolds, Chet Huntley,
John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley. Unlike today’s sensationalist sycophants, these
were professional journalists par excellence.
As for President Kennedy’s accomplishments, to name but three, the Peace Corps, promoting the arts
(because of their humanizing value, because art is a subtle instrument that helps develop civic duty and
aesthetic values), and the launching of space exploration are stellar accomplishments. And even though
he took the initial steps that led to a messy and protracted war in Indo-China and in spite of his human
shortcomings, his personal charisma, idealism, vibrancy, and eloquence electrified the world. He was
larger than life; he belonged to the whole world, and it is fair to say that people from different climes
are likely to say: “You can keep your Bushes, Johnsons, Nixons, Clintons, and Obamas. JFK belongs to us
as much as he does to you.”
For a not-so-long while a great man lived in our midst. While today many are asking why did it
happen? And who was involved? I dwell on the following: What would the world have been like had
the dastardly event of 22, November, 1963, not occurred? I am not a gambling man, but I’ll bet a
fortune that the world would have been a much better place.
In a world where images are catalogued in one’s mind and heart to become precious Spots of Time, the
following are the iconic images that have been etched in my mind. A young widow, much like Euripides’
Hecuba, maintained her dignity, poise and composure and taught us how to grieve by example.
Innocence captured in the image a young child saluting his murdered father. A young girl tenderly
embracing her younger brother, and now, full circle, a beautiful grown woman carrying on with her
father’s legacy and imbued with her mother’s grace, has just presented her credentials as our
Ambassador to Japan. A riderless horse sans its master striding to the somber measured elegiac beat of
a drum. A horse-drawn carriage bearing a hero to his final resting place where the flame he lighted
burns eternal in the hopes and dreams of millions around the world. A whole nation and citizens of the
entire world in utter shock, many of whom are and still wondering. Why?
Postscript: In the summer of 1962 the U.S. Forrestal air craft carrier (and accompanying destroyers)
sailed into the Beirut Harbor, dropped her anchor, and floated in majesty and in full view of Beirut and
Lebanon’s ante-mountains. While there was no doubt that the 6th Fleet’s visit was intended as a show of
military muscle to counter the Soviet Union’s slow advances in the region, in true American-Kennedian
spirit, it was on a friendly mission. The aircraft carrier sent its giant launches to the Beirut port to ferry
Beirutis to visit the ship. I distinctly remember the launch that eased into Beirut 2 Sea Scout Troop’s
dock to load some fifty scouts and their leaders and sail them to the carrier for a special tour of the
deck, the belly, the different quarters, and to the commander’s station. In a special ceremony each of us
was given a brand new navy hat, mementos that were treasured for a long time.
Tragically, today’s Lebanon is a pawn teetering on the precipice of yet another fractious factional crisis
and possible civil war the plans for which are spawned in Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Washington, and Western
capitals. And, instead of Kennedy-style goodwill missions to the Eastern Mediterranean, the U.S.
6th Fleet, on Obama’s orders, is poised to launch deadly guided missiles to blow ancient civilizations back
to the Stone Age and to kill innocent civilians by the thousands. Tragically, America’s Kennedy is no
more.