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Source: Daily News, Los AngelesNov.迷你倉 10--What if?Most of us ponder these two words in assessing our own lives, but as the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy approaches, the question takes on a bewildering number of implications.In the next few weeks, a barrage of new books, DVDs and television specials will appear, focusing on every conceivable angle of the 35th president's life and tragic death. They will join the countless other titles (an estimated 40,000 books alone) already dealing with JFK over the past half-century.PBS will present its 17th biography of President Kennedy, and that's not counting the other programs the network has produced related to his life -- like those on the assassination, conspiracy theories, the March on Washington, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, extramarital affairs, politics, his home life, civil rights issues and his razor-thin win in the 1960 presidential election.So what does this outpouring mean? The Kennedy presidency was a mere 1,036 days. William McKinley was in office for six months into his second term and had presided over the Spanish-American War when he was assassinated in 1901, but when is the last time you heard his name?Kennedy's ascension to the White House can almost be viewed as a series of lucky -- and some unlucky -- breaks. JFK survived combat in World War II, while his older brother Joseph Jr., who was being groomed for public office by their father, did not. He barely won the 1960 election, thanks to some suspicious votes in Illinois giving him the majority of Electoral College votes. A few more drops of rain in Dallas on that day in 1963 might have prevented the assassination.Destiny? Perhaps, but arguably Kennedy's importance today is because his life continues to impact the nation, the world and, in turn, each of our lives. That may sound like a vast overstatement, but JFK's death came at a moment in history when change was in the air and a slight nudge would send the dominoes falling in another direction.The domino theory was, of course, one of the reasons American troops had been sent to fight in Vietnam. The idea was that if that country fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow.When Kennedy died, the United States had a limited commitment of troops involved in the conflict. Within two years, the country was embroiled in a stalemated war under JFK's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, that cost more than 50,000 American lives and divided the nation.Jeff Greenfield is one of those who believes that had Kennedy lived, the Vietnam War wouldn't have happened."It would have had a profound effect on the 1960s," says the longtime television journalist and author, whose new book is "If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy: An Alternate History."That effect wouldn't have been limited to just foreign policy. Greenfield envisions a different homefront. He says while Woodstock may have happened because of "changing demographics, shifts in sexual mores and the morphing of rock 'n' roll into more sophisticated music," he also believes American youths would not have had reasons to rebel, as they did over the war and draft. The Students for a Democratic Society, a leftist peace-oriented activist group, had even endorsed Johnson in the 1964 election against Barry Goldwater. By 1965, the group had become radicalized over the war."Flag-burning doesn't happen, the Weather Underground doesn't happen, and I don't think an oppositional culture happens the way it did because you don't have the disillusionment that came with Vietnam," says Greenfield.(In the book, he has the president surviving the assassination attempt because continuing rain prevented the removal of the limousine's bubble top.)Had there been no anti-war movement, more idealistic young people might have joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America, a federal anti-poverty program) or the Peace Corps or otherwise worked for peaceful social and governmental change, Greenfield and others believe, which possibly could have paved the way for a society more attuned to public service than the one we have now.Either way, the killing did shatter some illusions in this country and opened the door for more suspicions and paranoia about the government; as an example, the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman was met with skepticism.Ah, speculation, you say, is only for mad men, and, yes, the hit AMC series of that name did have an episode dealing with the assassination. JFK redux has been a popular theme in modern culture, repeatedly finding its way into TV, movie and book plots. "The X-Files" once implied that its nefarious character "Cigarette Smoking Man" was the actual assassin and Oswald his patsy.Theories about the killing continue to run wild. Tonighton the Reelz network is "JFK: The Smoking Gun," which posits that a Secret Service agent behind the president's car killed Kennedy that day in Dealey Plaza in Dallas."The biggest crime scene in America's history," says Colin McLaren, an investigative writer involved with the show, "and it was covered up all the way up to Robert Kennedy, the attorney general."Those involved with PBS' "Nova" installment, "Cold Case: JFK," think that is easily disproved, and that Oswald was the lone gunman. The network commissioned new ballistic tests, a vself storagertual autopsy and 3-D laser scanning to re-create the crime scene.John McAdams, a professor at Marquette University and author of "JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy," says there are a lot of advantages psychologically for believing in a conspiracy."Governments do lie to people with some regularity, so you can sort of feel sophisticated (saying): 'I don't buy the official version,'" McAdams says. He adds that many people have trouble believing that history can be affected by small, trivial incidents."The truth is, of course, that strange coincidences can change history," he says.Cautions like that aren't likely to stop conspiracy theorists. Filmmaker Oliver Stone has released a new 20th anniversary DVD version of his controversial film, "JFK," which revolved around the 1969 investigation into the assassination by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who believed there was a massive government cover-up."Garrison was -- well, he was a crackpot," McAdams said. "Let's be blunt about it. He was grossly irresponsible. He had almost a different theory every day."Stone, on the other hand, has noted intelligence leaker Edward Snowden's revelations of spying on U.S. citizens; perhaps Garrison, who thought his phones were tapped, wasn't paranoid.Greenfield, who worked for Bobby Kennedy as a junior speechwriter and was in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when RFK was killed in 1968, believes Oswald acted alone."Part of why there's a Kennedy myth is that he was murdered at the time there was a lot of collective guilt," says the author. "There was this sort of poisonous hatred in America and that was in part responsible for his death. It was hard to believe that a deranged self-taught Marxist with delusions of grandeur killed Kennedy."On the 40th anniversary of the assassination, an ABC News poll found more than 70 percent of the nation believed there was a conspiracy. One taken by The Associated Press in April found that number had dropped to around 60 percent.No doubt it was the sudden and unusual nature of JFK's death -- played out for four days on national television in everyone's living room -- that so powerfully seared those images in people's minds. Even those born long afterward are familiar with the pictures of 3-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr.'s salute to his father at the funeral, Oswald being shot on live TV by Jack Ruby, and Jackie, the president's glamorous, 34-year-old widow, in her bloodstained pink dress..In these ways, the Kennedy assassination anniversary has become something of a nostalgia trip. In September, the Emmy ceremony awkwardly tried to meld a tribute to JFK -- using Walter Cronkite's famous announcement of the president's death -- with the coming of the Beatles to America a few months later. Kennedy was the first president to take advantage of television. Jackie even hosted a famous special in which she showed viewers around the White House, and photographers were always around to take pictures of the Kennedys at work or play.Susan Bellows, producer of "American Experience: JFK," the new two-part PBS biography, says whenever they thought they had seen all of the photos of Kennedy, new ones would show up."There's an incredible amount of amazing imagery out there in part because Kennedy himself was so aware of the importance of that and documenting his world, and he himself was so media savvy and really understood how to use it," Bellows says.Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, RFK's daughter, says she remembers cameras constantly being around the White House."I think President Kennedy had the confidence that what he was doing was worthwhile reporting, and that he wanted people to see because he loved history so much, history in the making," she says of her uncle.Like other icons of the era -- James Dean and Marilyn Monroe -- Kennedy's image is somewhat ethereal. Lives cut short, so promises of tomorrow are gone with the wind. It's difficult to get a fix on who he really was. And over the years, JFK's legacy continues to be reassessed. It seems on an upswing recently because of his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which leaves some to wonder how Kennedy's presidential rival, Richard Nixon, might have handled the confrontation with the Soviet Union had those votes in Illinois not shown up."The reason that a portrait of Kennedy can be so much richer now than it could have been 10 years ago or even five years ago is that John Kennedy taped 260 hours of his conversations, and they weren't available until a year and a half ago," notes "American Experience" producer Tim Naftali, a former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.Still, secrets about JFK remain, including those author William Manchester obtained in two five-hour interviews with Jackie Kennedy in 1964. The former first lady apparently had second thoughts about what she said to the historian, so the interview tapes are kept under seal at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston until 2067.Would it be a different America today had Kennedy lived? Less cynical, less divided? Or would it all be a wash?"Way above my pay scale," says Greenfield, laughing. "That's why I ended my book in 1968."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 Daily News (Los Angeles) Visit the Daily News (Los Angeles) at .dailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷利倉