On November 22, 1963—the day on which President Kennedy arrived in Dallas to lay the groundwork for his 1964 reelection campaign and Richard Hofstadter set off from Oxford to attend a dinner party in Cambridge, having introduced a lecture audience on the previous night to an eccentric strand of American political discourse he described as the “paranoid style”—Carl Oglesby undertook his usual five-mile commute to the Aerospace Systems Division of the Bendix Corporation on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Michigan. This particular workday began like any other.Article continues after advertisement
However, as it unfolded, it became apparent that there would be a delayed start to the weekend. The pressure was on for his department to complete a tender for contract work with the United States Air Force, and so Oglesby called to let his wife Beth know that he would be getting back late. It was from Beth that he then heard about the shooting in Dallas. As colleagues received the same news from other sources, a ripple of murmurs spread through the office. Joining the staff that was converging from different directions upon the radio in the arts department, Oglesby arrived in time to hear the broadcast confirming the President’s death.
