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Welcome to Invisible Iceberg, I'm Bernie Rainow.

On today's show, Dr. Joe Myers and I share the untold story behind the assassination

of President John F. Kennedy and reveal how weather may have played a major role.

Plus, in our segment, What If, we look at what John Kennedy's legacy could have been

if his life was not cut short in November of

And we'll share how other U.S.

Presidents have treated their visits to Dallas since

then.

It all starts now on Invisible Iceberg.

Dallas, November 22,

A young charismatic president, along with his glamorous first lady, was in town for

what was planned as a short-hours long trip.

Many overcast skies turned to a beautiful day as the motorcade wound through the city.

But did a change in weather change the course of history?

It's one of the fascinating stories in the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and

Weather Shaped History.

Joining me to help delve deeper into the untold story of JFK's assassination is AccuWeather

founder and executive chairman and author of the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate

and Weather Shaped History, Dr.

Joel Myers.

The Kennedy assassination still, to this day, is talked about in many ways.

Why is the story so fascinating, do you think?

Because everyone who was alive at that time remembers where they were.

Where were you?

I was on the Penn State campus leaving class.

And I remember walking toward the hub, the Student Union building.

And it was strange.

It was eerie quiet.

I guess the president had been shot about 15 minutes before, but I didn't know.

But I saw somebody in their car apparently listening to the radio.

When I got to the Student Union building, I heard about it.

And then, of course, watched TV and saw the reporting.

And then about an hour later, it was reported the president had died.

It's still etched in your memory, isn't it?

It is, yes.

And can you describe what the mood was on the Penn State campus, just what you observed

at that time?

Disbelief, sorrow.

It was an eerie kind of feeling.

Everybody was in shock.

I remember John F.

Kennedy was barely elected.

He ran against Nixon.

He wasn't decided until noon the next day when a flurry of votes showed up in West Virginia

and Illinois and put him over the top.

There was questions about whether he really won or not.

Nixon didn't challenge it.

It was different in those days.

And just accepted it.

But he was charismatic.

It was controversial.

He was the first Catholic elected, and there was concern about that.

That's why he picked Lyndon Johnson as his vice president, to carry Texas and to counter

that concern about, in those days, he would be taking orders from the Vatican and things

like that.

It was a different era.

But he was charismatic.

His wife, obviously, Jacqueline Kennedy, was very well-liked.

And so while he barely won, he became popular, and his speeches were awesome.

He was the most charismatic president one can say, certainly of the century.

That's up for debate.

But he really had a following, and his wife, of course.

But actually, heading into the date of the assassination, his popularity was on the wane,

and there were questions whether he would be reelected or not.

But despite all that, when he was assassinated, it all changed, and everybody thought well

of him, because it was just a shock.

Why was he in Dallas on November 22, ?

What was his reasoning to visit the state?

Well, it was a question whether he could carry Texas in the election, and then

without it, he may not be reelected.

So he was there for a brief visit and tour, and Governor Connolly was in the motorcade,

and he and his wife were with the president, Jacqueline.

And he wanted to make an appearance, and he wanted to do all he could to help carry Texas.

Well, let's get into the weather and climate.

How did that set the stage for the JFK assassination?

Well, it had rained.

It was raining early.

When the motorcade was about to begin, the skies had cleared.

And of course, there was a bubble top to keep the rain off, but the bubble top was not bulletproof.

President Kennedy said, is it raining downtown?

What's the weather like there?

And they came back, it's sunny here also.

Of course, they didn't have the AccuWeather app in those days.

That would have been very helpful.

Right.

The radar and minicast and all that.

So since it was sunny downtown as well as at the airport, Kennedy said, lose the bubble

top.

And of course, he rode without any protection.

We're going to introduce a little politics, just a little bit.

Let's say Kennedy remained president.

Would Republicans like Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes have been elected Kennedy's successors

as president?

Well, this is the fascinating thing for me.

OK.

President Kennedy was questioned whether he'd be really, if he wasn't, of course, the Republicans

would win.

But once he was assassinated, there was tremendous sympathy for Johnson, who was his vice president.

And Johnson used that to get all kinds of legislation passed that would not have passed

probably otherwise, the Civil Rights Bill, Medicaid, Medicare, all the social programs,

what he called the Great Society.

And by itself, it might have been OK.

But he also escalated the Vietnam War.

Kennedy was more of a fiscal conservative.

Probably wouldn't have spent as much.

And also Kennedy, since he had been burned by the Bay of Pigs, a failed invasion of Cuba,

was very skeptical of the advice he was getting from the military advisers and the generals.

And he did not want to escalate the Vietnam War.

And Johnson's expertise was in local politics, U.S.

politics on the social side, knew nothing

about international, nothing about military strategy and so on.

And so he took the advice of his generals and escalated the Vietnam War.

And that sowed his demise.

He was very popular, got all these things passed in a couple of years after the assassination.

But by , there was all kind of demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

He could have run again because you can serve two terms of being elected.

So the year and a half he was president as vice president didn't count.

So he could have run in

But he was so unpopular by then because of the Vietnam War.

He just chose not to run and died several years later.

And so Nixon came back from the dead, so to speak.

Nobody thought he had won the election.

And if you look at it, except for Jimmy Carter, who was a one term president and only got

elected probably because of the Watergate, the Republicans might have been in the White

House for 24 straight years until Bill Clinton got elected.

All right.

Thanks, Joe.

We'll talk to you in a few minutes as we go over some of the what if scenarios relating

to this tragedy.

President John F.

Kennedy was shot from a window at the Texas School Book Depository.

The six floor museum at Dealey Plaza is located there today.

To give us a little more perspective on the Kennedy assassination is the museum curator

Stephen Fagan.

Stephen, thanks for joining us.

My pleasure.

There's been much discussion about the limousines bubble top if it was on.

Was that bulletproof?

It was not actually.

It was just a plain plexiglass inclement weather top for that vehicle.

It was about six sections of clear plastic that snapped together on the top of the car.

And then there was an optional canvas cover that could go over that.

It was not bulletproof or even bullet resistant.

So it would have probably offered little protection to the president anyway.

Certainly.

I mean, it could have possibly deflected a bullet slightly more significantly, though.

There was widespread belief really right up to the present day that it was a bulletproof

cover.

So if an assassin or assassins were lying in wait for the president and saw this plexiglass

cover on the car, it might have influenced whether or not they even risked taking the

shot if they assumed it was bulletproof.

Why can't a similar tragedy occur today?

These days and in recent memory, you simply don't have a presidential parade route published

in the newspapers and promoted ahead of time.

Now, when the president comes in and out of a city for an event, it's, you know, a bulletproof

vehicle, dark windows, no announcement of the route being taken.

That's closed off ahead of time.

And a lot of people I know that have that have visited Dealey Plaza, they always tell

me how surprised they are, how small it is.

Just because of the magnitude of the event that took place here, there is this expectation

that Dealey Plaza is going to be this enormous, vast environment.

But really, world history can change in a small geographic spot like Dealey Plaza, just

like it can at Independence Hall or at Gettysburg.

There are these sites that, you know, where you can point to a spot and say world history

changed right here on this site.

Has any other president visited or driven through Dealey Plaza since ?

That's a question that we actually get asked quite often.

Be surprised.

But to our knowledge, no.

I mean, the Secret Service, they don't always reveal the routes that a president would take

even after the fact, after a visit to the city.

But our understanding is that no president has ever passed through Dealey Plaza since

Whether that is simply because of the route selected or a deliberate choice, I do not

know.

Stephen Fagan, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, thank you again for

joining us.

My pleasure.

Invisible Iceberg returns after a quick break.

Welcome back.

It's time for our segment, What If, where we look at what President Kennedy's legacy

might have been if his life had not been so tragically cut short in November

Joining me again is ACUEA, the founder and executive chairman and author of the book

Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr.

Joel Myers.

This really is one of my favorite segments of this show, because when we look at these

events, there's always things, one or two things that could have changed.

Let's kind of delve into this.

Let's say Kennedy would have remained president, and we talked about this a little bit.

Would he have accelerated U.S.

involvement in Vietnam the way in which Johnson did?

Probably not.

It's speculation.

It's speculation.

It's all speculation.

But the evidence does point that way, doesn't it?

It does.

And it's up to the historians and the people who really study this and so on to have the

final word, if you can.

But it comes down to what really drives, is it people or is it events?

This is the debate that always occurs.

How much of an impact do leaders have and how much is events?

But it appears Kennedy was more conservative fiscally than Johnson.

Kennedy was very wary of foreign involvement.

Johnson took the advice of his generals.

And so, in all likelihood, it would have been a different outcome.

Also, because of the assassination and the sympathy toward what Kennedy was pushing,

a lot of legislation got passed.

Johnson was able to get passed because he was a masterful leader in the Senate.

And now he was able to use that best experience and, as president of the United States, got

all kinds of legislation passed, which was expensive, but also the basis of social programs

and so on, that wouldn't have gotten passed in all likelihood if Kennedy was trying to

get it, even if he was reelected.

So you're thinking, even though Kevin, he was so charismatic, from policies and economic

legislation and the civil rights legislation, you believe that it may have not been as easy

to pass if he would have been alive?

I think something would have passed, but they would have been less dramatic, probably more

compromised.

And he was more fiscally conservative.

I don't think he would have pushed for as much as Johnson got through.

And, of course, the negative part of that is the inflation, which resulted from so much

deficit spending, which led to high interest rates, which always follows.

Interest rates went sky high.

People couldn't afford mortgages and so on.

So it was really a negative period that lasted for nearly two decades.

Well, let's get into the economy part of this.

Let's say Kennedy had not been assassinated and remained president.

We talked about the deficit and the stagflation and the problems that we had.

Do you think that would have any thought on if that would have still occurred if he was

still president and Johnson was not?

Well, it's all speculation.

And it's also could the people, whoever, if it was more than just Oswald acting alone,

right, if it was the CIA or if it was a foreign power, if they remember his brother was going

after the unions, which were very powerful at that time.

Also, there were other forces that didn't like what he was doing.

And so internally and externally.

So maybe there would be another attempt on his life.

Who knows?

And of course, the whole situation was made worse by the assassination of his brother,

who might have become president in 68 after Johnson bowed out.

And of course, Martin Luther King Jr.

being assassinated created all kinds of turmoil,

all these things happening within a matter of a few years with the Vietnam War and the

protests of people going to Canada to escape the draft.

And it was a period of division of families.

It's likely that all that would not have happened.

And with that, if he would have, of course, escaped assassination, could have been a second

term.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the incumbent always has the advantage, even though his popularity has been declining

in the year in

It still was about 50 percent and it still was probably a little above where it was before

he got elected.

So in all likelihood, he would have been reelected in a narrow margin.

And then there would have been even greater.

What happened in the last in the decades following could have been a far different period, could

have been far different, far different.

In not only from the economy, but even other aspects of American life.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, no question.

Well, Nixon may not have been elected.

Who would have?

You know, he came out.

He had been defeated by president.

He was defeated by the run for the governor of California in

And he comes back and becomes president.

And then it was Watergate.

And that was more turmoil.

So it is not a good.

And we went into such a pessimistic mood during that time frame.

And you just wonder from a even even from a larger overall picture of American life,

how much changed that day.

Yes, it's incredible.

And again, it begins with one one weather event that shaped the history for decades.

Yeah.

If it had rained of the rain, it would have been less than just what had been on Oswald

may not have taken the shot.

If he did, he might have missed and it would have been it could have been all very different.

It could have been all very different.

And as we as we look forward to even his legacy, it could have been even greater legacy than

what it is now, because he's still known as one of the more popular presidents in U.S.

history.

Correct.

Well, he was very charismatic.

His wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, became, you know, one of the most popular people in the

country.

And a part of that results, unfortunately, from you being assassinated.

That's part of that's part of the overall story.

It's a fascinating story.

And I can't wait to get into more stories here as we continue to delve into these stories.

The more and more you read the book, the more and more you learn.

And as always, weather and climate shapes a lot.

It does.

Thanks, Dr.

Joe Myers.

Many feel this tragic event is when America lost its innocence.

Up next, we go a little deeper into how it also changed the course of our country, even

to this day.

We'll be back with more after the break.

Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.

I'm Bernie Rainow.

The JFK assassination was the first moment in a challenging next decade for the country.

When Lyndon Johnson became president, he used JFK's legacy to get the Civil Rights Act

of quickly passed.

Although the new law made race-based discrimination illegal, progress proved difficult.

After winning reelection in , President Johnson escalated the Vietnam War dramatically,

which led to mass protests and disillusionment with government.

Although Johnson's general kept telling him we were on the verge of winning, the

Tet Offensive made it clear that we were nowhere close.

In a televised speech in March of , Johnson announced that he was pausing the bombing

of Vietnam to allow peace talks to proceed, and then surprised the nation when he also

said that he was not a candidate for another term as president.

JFK's brother, Robert Kennedy, gained support after he calmed the nation following the tragic

assassination of Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. in April.

He ended the presidential race and became the frontrunner upon winning the California

primary in June.

Tragically, Robert Kennedy was assassinated that night, leaving Vice President Hubert

Humphrey as the Democratic nominee, which then led to Richard Nixon's election.

The Nixon administration would later become entangled in the Watergate scandal, eventually

leading to his resignation.

I want to thank Accuweather Foundry and Executive Chairman and author of the book, Invisible

Iceberg, when climate and weather shaped history, Dr.

Joe Myers, for joining us today.

And a big thanks to all of you for watching.

If you have a question or comment, send us an email at questions at

We look forward to seeing you next time.