Saturday, August 07, 2004
Whodunit ?
"America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem."
These are notes from the speech that was to be made at the Trade Mart in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Just that they were never delivered. Barely anyone recognizes these lines today. However, "The president is dead" are immortal words entrenched in the memory of people who went through the trauma of seeing one of the world's most popular statesman shot dead by a “mad” sniper.
The murder of John F Kennedy.
My interest in this whole affair was sparked off by Oliver Stone's award winning but highly controversial movie JFK. Gripping plot, convincing performances, excellent direction - the movie had it all. I was so taken up by the whole saga that I must confess I spent a good part of two months in my second year at SP reading a helluva lot of material on the JFK murder. Starting from the Warren commission report to the Clay Shaw case transcripts to the single bullet theory, I suppose I must have read loads and loads of documents but what is fascinating is that even today whilst it is known that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one who pulled the trigger, no one still knows whether he did it all by himself or there were people behind it. Was it the KGB or J.Edgar Hoover and his FBI? Or maybe it was the handiwork of the Texas Oil Barons or Castro or the Cosa Nostra? There is no dearth of evidence but it's been virtually impossible piecing it all together and coming to one firm conclusion. 41 years later, the JFK murder continues to be one the most confounding whodunits in the history of crime.
I am very passionate about the subject and this post might have made absolutely no sense to people who are not aware of this case. However if you are someone who loves a mystery and has time to spare, just ping me and I shall share all the wonderful links I have assiduously collected over the last two years. Trust me, there is so much literature on this case in the net that I wished I was in the business of coding and “in bench” :-)
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3 comments:
hi
first time visitor..and i just have a comment on that bit of poetry you have..."am not the Prince.."..wondering why you have credited it to Erich Segal, when it's actually from T.S Eliot's "The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock". Although the poem doesn't mention "Hamlet"..
also checked out the "love story.."..u might want to think of a career as a bollywood script-writer....:)
The president is dead. Guess thats why his speech was never delivered (duh! at myself). Like himself his idea of america is also slowly but surely dying. I am awestruck by the almost prophetic ring of his words. Replace "those who" with "adminstration like that of bush". This thought stuck me ,if bush is 're-selected' it would be a bigger day when the words "the presidency is dead" would be entrenched in our memories.
Hey Priyanka,
Danks for dropping in n leaving a comment. I fell in love with that quote long before i realised it was from a TS Elliot poem.. These are actually lines that introduce a character Andrew Elliot in CLASS hence my acknowledgements to Segal :-)
As far as Love Story.. goes, those pieces were written by a team of 4 of which i was part.. The idea was to make it as some sort of a mega serial kinds with all possible genres thrown in. We had a ball doing it though it has kinda lost steam now.. Looking desperately to kickstart it back :-)
Hi III,
Used to follow US politics till the last Presidential elections - psephology being one of my interests.. But have been reading quite a bit abt this years run up - Hey, i know Bush sucks but Kerry seems no better - he looks as dour as a doormat..For all his faults, i think Clinton scored high on atleast charisma :-)
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