Peace Corps workers in South America had a similar experience. Riesman recalls the accounts of Peace Corps volunteers after the assassination. Although many of the workers themselves disliked Kennedy because of his tough anticommunist line with Castro, the rural peasants came to them to mourn the death of Kennedy. "They had been fashionably cynical, and the peasants who worshipped Kennedy came to grieve."

University professor Edwin O. Reischauer then the American ambassador to Japan, received the news at three or four in the morning. Two hours later he was on Japanese television, "reassuring the Japanese people that nothing had changed. It was something mysterious. I think, that the whole world had this feeling of enthusiasm for this young American leader," says Reischauer.

John K. Fairbank, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, Emeritus, said of Kennedy, "he had a style of idealism and practicality that would help our relations with other countries--he was seen potentially as a great world leader. The assassination of Kennedy was a real turning point where the U.S.A. started going downhill, where the world started going downhill."

Chayes describes the assassination as "a demonstration of the absurdist view of life." The sudden killing of a President graced with youth, education, and charm meant "nothing in the world can be stable," he comments.

Later would come the end of Camelot, the Kennedy Promise, the end of Ideology, on November 22, there was only shock. Chayes comments. "You were just numb at the time--I don't think you thought much of anything."

But Graham T. Allison '62 adds. "His life had a much greater impact on me than his death."