John F. Kennedy was murdered by a Communist in an age of superpower tensions—but 60 years later, a counterfactual mythology continues to mislead Americans.
Six decades have passed since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas by rifle shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, a onetime defector to the Soviet Union, self-described Marxist, and admirer of Fidel Castro, but also a “nut” and a “loser,” according to some who knew him. The event stunned the nation and disrupted complacent assumptions about the stability of the American order. The assassin, no matter his purposes, delivered a blow to the American spirit with disorienting effects that linger today.
