I’ve reported a lot about where people were when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Last week Kenneth Fujii told me where he was when John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963, 54 years ago this week.
I’ve written about the Kennedy family before. President Kennedy came to Hawaii in June 1963 to speak to the nation’s mayors on civil rights. Over 200,000 lined his motorcade route, Diamond Head down Beretania Street to Kapahulu Avenue, Ewa on Kalakaua Avenue to the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Jackie Kennedy and her children spent most of the summer of 1966 in Hawaii, vacationing, water-skiing and taking painting lessons from a local artist.
Ken Fujii says he was a student at the University of Hawaii, walking through the campus to his dormitory at the Atherton YMCA, when he realized something had happened.
“I thought it was strange that as I passed through the campus parking lot, students were raptly listening to their car radios, and it was not rock and roll playing, but the voices of many newscasts.
“Except for the radios, there was eerie silence among the students. Some couples were embracing each other, but those did not look like hugs of passion, but rather, embraces of comfort and solace.
“I walked into the Atherton dorm, which was a residence for international and U.S. students, many of (whom) were attending the newly created East-West Center.
“There were many residents talking quietly but excitedly, sitting in small groups. The students from India in one corner, the students from Japan in another, the students from Korea and Thailand in another part of the lobby, and the students from the Philippines in another group, and the U.S. students in still another area.
“Not knowing what the issue among the students was, I walked up to the closest group, the students from India, and asked, ‘Hi guys, what’s up?’
“And they looked up at me and, in very serious tones, said, ‘Your president is dead! Kennedy was shot by an assassin in Texas this morning.’”
It took Fujii many seconds to digest that statement. “I couldn’t even remember the last time that an American president had been assassinated. I knew it wasn’t Lincoln, but was it Garfield? Or McKinley? It was a long, long time ago. I thought, things like that don’t happen anymore, do they?”
“The students from India were visibly concerned and invited me to sit down among them. The first question they asked me was, ‘Do you recommend that we leave the U.S. and return home to our country?’
“And I asked them, ‘Why, do you want to go home?’ They replied, ‘Your country has no leader. We want to return to where it is safe.’
“Their responses reflected their uncertainty about what happens in our constitutional democracy when our president dies. They asked me whether there would be riots in the streets of America tomorrow, and whether the military would take over the government or whether there might be a coup by a dissident political party trying to gain control.
“They asked whether they were safe from harm living in a YMCA dormitory on campus, or whether they should seek out a safer location.”
“We are afraid of what will happen next,” some said. “And with that statement, many of the students from other countries, who had come over to listen to us, nodded in agreement,” Fujii recalls. They all feared dangerous days of governmental instability and rioting to come.
“Many of the international students who had crowded around us also started relating tales of tumult in their own countries when a leader is assassinated or overthrown. They described weeks of rioting in the streets, martial law, citizens rounded up and imprisoned, public transportation shut down, news censored, food shortages, schools closed, roadways blocked. These were all too common in their memories.
“I almost chuckled at the vivid images of an American Armageddon that these students’ fears had generated in their minds. But I saw that they were dead serious. So I tried, the best I could, to recall my history and social studies lessons about the succession of power granted in the United States Constitution.”
Fujii slowly told these listeners what would happen in the next few hours and days. Vice President Lyndon Johnson would be sworn in as president of the United States, and all powers of the presidency would automatically transfer to him.
“I assured them that there would be no tanks and no militia in the streets, and no cessation of government services. I told them that tomorrow the sun will rise, the buses will run, the mail will be delivered, the university will be open and the cafeteria would still be serving cheap meals to students. There would be sadness, but America would survive without military intervention in the streets.
“In essence, I assured them that there was no need to rush back to their homelands or to seek shelter at their consulates. They were safe right here in the dorm, on campus.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the lobby, a group of local U.S. students was organizing a contingent to walk or drive down University Avenue to the Church of the Crossroads where an afternoon memorial service was scheduled in remembrance of President Kennedy. Some students placed U.S. flags on their cars’ antennas. Some wore patriotic colors. Others wore black. It was all done in an atmosphere of somber sadness.
“The next morning when I went down to the lobby, heading to the cafeteria for breakfast, a group of international students came up to me and thanked me for the calm assurances and information I gave them the previous day.
“They now understood that they were safe,” Fujii says, “and that they were in no imminent danger here in the dorm in Hawaii.
“They had called home the previous night and assured anxious parents or spouses that they were secure in America and there was no need for them to evacuate this land and return home.”
And they said, “Now we truly understand your democracy and what your famous Constitution does for Americans. This experience was more vivid, and better than any lecture we could have heard in history class.”
“True to what I had told them, Vice President Lyndon Johnson had taken over the reins of government and been sworn in as president aboard a jet about to fly him back to Washington, D.C. And the American people had accepted the transition, with no riots and no discord. The Constitution had worked.”
A student from Taiwan observed, “Your country does have a leader, after all. Your country, the United States of America, is a miracle!”
“Yes, our Constitution is a miracle of sorts,” Fujii believes. “It provides for the smooth transfer of power both as a result of elections and in the case of death or disability of the president, so there is never any vacuum at the top.
“And on that sad day in November, I hoped that the lessons taught would resonate among all peoples and countries where the people yearn for freedom and democracy. For us in America it was a day that brought all of us together as one, as the pledge says, ‘One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’”
Bob Sigall’s latest book, “The Companies We Keep 5,” has arrived, with stories from the last three years of Rearview Mirror. Email him at Sigall@yahoo.com.
