In December of nineteen sixty-one the great topic of conversation in my family was the visit of the President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his wife, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, who would be in our country on the sixteenth and seventeenth.
Expectations were very high; in the minds of Venezuelans the terrible images of the unfortunate events that had occurred during the visit of Vice-President Richard Nixon a few years earlier, on May thirteen, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, were vivid.
On that day there were strong disturbances, groups of demonstrators attacked the car of the Vice President when he was driving through West Caracas and put Nixon in danger of death.
There were those who said that the same would happen with Kennedy, that the people would receive him in a bad way.
However, the conditions of both visits were different. Nixon had visited the country only a few months after the fall of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in January 1958. People remembered the support that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had given to the dictatorship. And perhaps that is why they did not look favorably on the visit of their Vice President.
But by the time Kennedy came, new elections had been held in Venezuela, a democratic government was beginning, and the American President came with the intention of reaching out to the nascent Venezuelan democracy.
My grandmother was among the people who loved the American president, she said that he and his wife were good people. She was confident that the visit would be a great success and that our country would benefit greatly from it.
On the sixteenth of December sixty-one my grandmother gave me the great news that I would not be going to school. Instead, I would accompany her to the beginning of Sucre Avenue, about four kilometers from our residence, to see the passing of the caravan of vehicles where the U.S. president would be.
For security reasons, we did not know the exact time when the official vehicles would pass, but rumor had it that it would be after noon.
At about nine o'clock in the morning my grandmother and I left for our destination. All the buses were completely full, so we had to walk the long way.
About three blocks before we got to Sucre Avenue, people practically wouldn't let us walk. My grandmother made a long detour and we managed to get to a small hill from where we could see the whole street. There we waited for a long time, under the inclement sun of the end of the year.
After several hours of waiting, people began to shout. In the distance the first cars of the caravan could be seen, it was not known in which of them the President and his wife would come, so people waved their hands waving to all the cars.
Suddenly my grandmother surprised me by taking out of her purse a small flag with the stars and stripes. She was the only one in our place waving the American flag, people saw her and cheered, it was obvious that Kennedy was well received by our city.
Back at our house my grandmother was beaming with joy, she kept talking about how important this visit was. She told me that we had to celebrate. She asked me if I wanted something special and I told her golfeados, a sweet bread topped with molasses and cheese. We went to a bakery, she accompanied her golfeado with a coffee with milk and I accompanied mine with a soda.
Kennedy and his wife's visit was a great success. Economic assistance agreements were signed and plots of land were given to farmers under the Alliance for Progress program. A highlight of the visit was the speeches of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, speaking to the crowds in perfect Spanish.
Two years later, the figure of President Kennedy was also a reason for me to suspend several days of classes, but that time there was no joy, but sadness.
It was November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three. That day my mother had taken me to school as she did every afternoon, my shift started at one o'clock. Not even an hour had passed when she showed up very upset, spoke to the teacher and told her that I would be leaving. During the whole trip back she didn't give me any further explanations, she only said that something very bad had happened.
When we arrived at Grandma's house, everyone was in shock, with their attention on the radio. The announcers kept repeating that an attempt had been made on President Kennedy's life during his visit to Dallas. By that time no precise information was available.
Before the end of the afternoon the terrible news was confirmed, Kennedy did not survive the assassination attempt. Upon hearing those words my grandmother burst into tears, she said that they had killed a great man, a friendly President...
As if he were one of our family, my grandmother performed the ritual we used to do to our friends and acquaintances. For nine nights in a row the whole family group prayed novenaries for the soul of President Kennedy.
The altar that my grandmother prepared included three candles, a picture of the President and, on one side, the small flag that she waved in his hands during his visit in December of 1961.
I am publishing this post motivated by the initiative proposed by my friend @ericvancewalton, Memoir Monday, in its seven week. For more information click on the link
Thank you for your time.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Logo creado por @themanualbot
That's an interesting back-story about the Kennedy's, it was a sad day indeed, very tragic!
He was a character very dear to my grandmother, although I was small when he came to our country, I clearly remember the joy with which he was received. Thank you very much for stopping by and for your support, dear @lizelle . A big hug from Maracay.