It was the New Frontier. Full of “vigah”, offering service programs like the Peace Corps, and stressing physical fitness and 50 mile hikes. Later it would be romanticized as Camelot and dampened by revelations of personal failings, but in 1963, many young Americans were still enthralled by the youthful President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.  It came to an end on a November morning in Dallas, and within minutes, television and radio news brought the word that the president was dead.  After receiving the Associated Press bulletin, WHUS, the student radio station, turned a monitor out a window so that those passing the Student Union Building could hear the latest news.  In a special Saturday edition November 23, the Connecticut Daily Campus reported on the scene in the Student Union Lobby: “The shock grew and so did the crowd. They were more hopeful and at the same time more fearful. Rumor said he was dying. Everyone took another glimpse at the AP or UPI wire services and waited and prayed … Then the television announcer said, ‘President Kennedy is dead.’ It took a while until the meaning of the words were felt. Then they wept.”

Memorial to John F. Kennedy, 1964 Nutmeg

–Mark J. Roy, University Communications (retired)