In the wake of President Kennedy’s assassination, there was much speculation about whether it was politically motivated. As Robert Conquest points out, the real villain isn’t political orientation, but political fanaticism. Here we reprint Conquest’s notebook, from the week after Kennedy’s death:
(There is a) current tone of anti-Americanism, which implies they are a terrible lot because one of them killed the President. But quite a few millions didn’t — and indeed voted for him and supported his policies, or opposed them in a decent fashion. But an even more unpleasant and significant thing has been the way in which the killer’s motives have been prejudged, over here as much as anywhere. to suit the political bias of the commentator. Before any actual. facts were known, one Sunday paper , gave us pages of closely- reasoned rant by a well-known left-wing journalist concerned to implicate the entire South as accomplices : he feared that people might be misled into thinking that it was just an odd segregationist fanatic.
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As plans for a ceasefire were announced on Wednesday night, videos of Gazans celebrating with glee made their way onto international news broadcasts. The celebrations were distinctive in style, and looked nothing like those of a people experiencing the end of a genocide. Many an anchor and analyst overlooked the detail, but we would all do well to
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