50th Anniversary Of JFK's Ireland Trip Celebrated With Prime Minister And Kennedy Family

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DUBLIN — The Irish government and the Kennedy clan celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of Ireland's most fondly recalled moments, the visit of President John F. Kennedy, with a daylong street party Saturday that was capped by the lighting of Ireland's own "eternal flame."

"JFK 50: The Homecoming" celebrations focused on the County Wexford town of New Ross, from where Patrick Kennedy departed in 1848 at the height of Ireland's potato famine to resettle in Boston. In June 1963, his great-grandson John returned to the town as the United States' first and only Irish Catholic president.

During his four-day tour across Ireland, JFK so charmed the nation that, even decades later, his portrait adorns many living-room walls as the ultimate symbol of Irish success in America.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny joined JFK's only surviving sibling, Jean Kennedy Smith, and his only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy, to hold three torches together that light a flame encased within an iron globe.

The flame had been carried Olympics-style from JFK's plot in Arlington Cemetery by aircraft to Dublin, then by Irish navy vessel up the River Barrow to the New Ross dockside. It was the first time the Kennedy eternal flame had been passed along in this fashion.

"May it be a symbol of the fire in the Irish heart, imagination and soul," Kenny told more than 10,000 who had gathered along the river bank.

Several members of Ireland's Special Olympics team helped carry the flame from the Irish naval vessel to the ceremony, a gesture to the memory of JFK's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics movement. She died in 2009.

And in a symbolic passing of the family political torch, Caroline Kennedy asked her 20-year-old son, Jack, to handle the main Kennedy part of the ceremony. His polished and idealistic speech reflected his long-expressed hopes to follow his grandfather into U.S. national politics after graduating from Yale.

"We have been told over and over that America is no longer the great country that it was when my grandfather was president," he said, noting that his generation would "inherit a series of problems that previous generations refused to address." He listed rising sea levels, the U.S. national debt, incessant Middle East conflicts and declining U.S. competitiveness as problems that "cynics and skeptics" could never solve.

But he said Ireland's ability to rise from centuries of poverty, emigration and social strife demonstrated that Kennedy-style ambition and optimism could find a home in the 21st century, too. "The glow from this flame can truly light the world," he said.

Earlier, Kenny and the Kennedys rededicated Wexford's Kennedy Arboretum, which was planted following the president's November 1963 assassination, and opened a greatly expanded Kennedy Homestead visitor facility on the ancestral farm that one of JFK's third cousins, Patrick Grennan, still lives on today.

Saturday's flame ceremony featured Irish drummers, an African-American gospel choir, Irish step-dancing star Michael Flatley and folk singer Judy Collins, who at 74 recalled performing for Kennedy in the White House more than a half-century ago. She concluded the event by singing "Amazing Grace" as four Irish Air Corps planes did a fly-past.

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Online:

JFK 50th events, http://www.jfk50ireland.com/

Timeline and video archive, www.jfkhomecoming.com

Kennedy ancestral home, http://www.kennedyhomestead.ie/

Wexford famine replica ship, http://www.dunbrody.com/

JFK Arboretum, http://bit.ly/mPKMva

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Daniel Alan Kennedy: Russia's New Exiles

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At first there appears to be little linking these three men. One is a 28-year-old entrepreneur and founder of Russia's most popular social network; the second, a respected economist who has been an advisor to Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev; and the third, a world-renowned former chess grandmaster and outspoken critic of the Kremlin.

What links Pavel Durov, Sergei Guriev and Garry Kasparov together is that all three have fled Russia in the past three months amid fears of politically motivated prosecution. They are, in effect, a new generation of Russian exiles.

Exile was a common fate for dissidents like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov in the 1970s and 1980s. Post-Soviet Russia has, by and large, avoided such heavy-handed tactics. However, the latest string of high-profile emigrants suggests the Kremlin may be turning the screws on previously untouchable figures.

Pavel Durov, occasionally called "Russia's Mark Zuckerberg", is the multimillionaire founder of social network, VKontakte. Durov's troubles began in April of this year when police announced he was suspected in a hit-and-run incident in St. Petersburg, where a traffic cop was injured by a white Mercedes. Video of the incident was broadcast on Russian television. Durov denied he was the driver and stated he didn't even own a car.

On April 17, Russia's feared Investigative Committee raided the company's headquarters. The following day, it was announced that Durov's business partners, Lev Leviev and Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who owned 48 percent of the company's voting shares, had sold them to United Capital Partners. UPC's President, Ilya Sherbovich, has strong links to the Kremlin and sits on the board of directors of both Rosneft, (Russia's state oil company) and Transneft (Russia's oil pipeline monopoly). Saint Petersburg police announced they wished to speak to Durov as a "witness."

Durov has disappeared, most likely to Italy, where he spent much of his formative years. Durov, who identifies as a libertarian and has refrained from personally criticizing the regime, likely fell foul of the authorities for his refusal to shut down groups on his site and hand over information on users involved in the protests that arose in the wake of December 2011's Duma elections.

Sergei Guriev was Rector of Russia's prestigious New Economic School and a board member of Russia's Sberbank until May 30, when he tendered his resignations and announced that he would not be returning from France, where he was visiting his wife and children. Guriev wrote an article in The New York Times explaining that he had been targeted by the Investigative Committee following recommendations he had made in a report calling for the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch imprisoned on charges of tax fraud. Amnesty International considers Khodorkovsky to be a prisoner of conscience.

Guriev claimed he was called (like Durov) as a "witness", but was subjected to interrogations and extensive requests for personal documents about the Khodorkovsky case. He stated that he and his wife were under surveillance and he had concluded his liberty was under threat.

Following Guriev's announcement, on June 6 another high-profile Russian, former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, announced that he too would not be returning to Russia. Kasparov has been an outspoken critic of Putin for some time and has been arrested before for illegal demonstrations.

On his Facebook page, Kasparov explained (in English) that, "Putin is cracking down harder than ever and is showing he is willing to create a new generation of political prisoners unseen since the days of Stalin. I have already been 'invited' to speak to prosecutors and such invitations have a way, at a minimum, of limiting one's freedom of movement. Adding another victim to the regime's list will not do much good."

The three cases display striking similarities. In each, the individual is questioned by members of the feared Investigative Committee, often as a "witness" to another case. The questioning and requests for personal information both interfere with the individual's day-to-day life and create a pervading sense of unease and fear. The cumulative effect of this questioning is to leave the individual in no doubt that life will be much easier if he or she leaves the country.

This process is much easier than actually putting people on trial. The departure of a high-profile individual creates much less of an impact in the Western press than the highly politicized trials of opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, on trial for alleged fraud, members of feminist art collective Pussy Riot, or Khodorkovsky. The process also gives the Kremlin plausible deniability - Putin's spokesperson Dmitri Peskov claims Guriev's move is solely for personal reasons and he is not wanted for any crime.

The Kremlin has discovered it is better to have troublemakers move abroad than to make potential martyrs of them at home. With Russia currently clamping down on dissent on all fronts, we can expect to see more high-profile Russians packing their bags for good in the future.

Follow Daniel Alan Kennedy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danielabkennedy

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Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of George Wallace, lives in the shadow of the father

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — 50-year-old Peggy Wallace Kennedy has lived in the shadow of his father, the Governor of Alabama George C. Wallace, when he stood in a door and attempted to stop two black students integrating the University of Alabama.

That single episode in the civil rights movement us - his infamous "stand in the door of the school" - attached an asterisk to his name, he says. It is a permanent marking that can not delete never, despite their own history as a moderate Democrat who supported early candidate Barack Obama for President in 2008.

"If you're the daughter of George Wallace, think that the asterisk will always be there. '"Oh, his father standing at the door of the school,' "he said in a recent interview.

Kennedy was only 13 at the time. His mother, Lurleen Wallace, had disappears you to a cabin of fishing from the Lake with his three brothers that day, thus would be far the wrenching historical drama in which her father had a prominent role.

George Wallace, a pragmatic politician and a populist, may or not have been a true believer in the segregation - while it was appointed in 1963 with a promise: '' segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".

On June 11, 1963, he stood at the door of the Auditorium of the University of Alabama Foster that Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood enroll for classes.

Wallace stepped aside after President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard.

Jones and campaign registered, and Wallace became a national political figure that would be candidate for President the following year.

On the 50th anniversary, all the major players - Wallace, Jones, campaign and Nicholas Katzenbach, representative of the administration of Kennedy in Tuscaloosa - are dead.

Wallace died in 1998 after serving four terms as Governor, but he has never discussed the events of June 11, 1963, with his daughter.

Kennedy says that their motivations will then remain a mystery for her so far.

"Never he talked with me about it. Even I do not know that talking with my mother about it. I never heard them talk about the school gates are in everything, "said Kennedy.

Looking back 50 years, Peggy Kennedy recalled that she was a young teenager who was terrified of what could happen to his father in the midst of the tensions and the violence of the conflict. And as the years passed, somehow is only an issue that could not discuss.

"When the issue was raised was brushed aside," told a hearing last March.

It is speculated that perhaps he was keeping only a political promise, but she cannot say with certainty.

Culpepper Clark, author of the 1993 book "the school gate: Last Stand of segregation at the University of Alabama," believes daughter of Wallace is correct in its assumption.

"Clearly strengthened Wallace e identified with white voters in Alabama and kept a promise", Clark said.

Kennedy said that the actions of his father were difficult to understand because his mother, who also became Governor, raised not to think she was better than anyone else.

"At" that time that simply did not understand why he just stand and two African-Americans have not entering a University, he said.

But he said the episode marked a change irreversible for the Wallace family.

"That day was the end of our hopes of a simple life. It was really the beginning of our life under the shadow of the door of the school for the rest of my life."

He visited his ill father frequently in the last few years before his death. The conversations were short, due to his health, and he wanted to talk about policy, not the past. After all, "politics was the family business," he said.

But he never discovered why he felt that he had to stand in front of the school. "Definitely I regret that," said.

Know about Kennedy is that his father changed after an assassination attempt during his presidential campaign of 1972. A bullet fired by Arthur Bremer - whose self-proclaimed intention was to assassinate the then President Richard Nixon or Wallace - Wallace left paralyzed from the waist down and constant pain for the rest of his life.

"What it did for him, he realized how much he had made the African-American community suffer and realized that I needed to be forgiven, truly forgiven," said.

Wallace went to black churches to apologize for his segregationist views and he won a fourth term as Governor in 1982 with wide support from black. It honored Jones and campaign and welcomed leaders of civil rights as Jesse Jackson at his home in Montgomery.

"He was a different man when he died. I assure you of, "said Kennedy.

Kennedy is also a different woman. For years, stayed in the background as her husband, lawyer Mark Kennedy, rose through the hierarchy political up to a justice in the Supreme Court of Alabama. Only after his retirement she step from the shadows, first by supporting Obama in 2008. He told voters that United States had still healing and "with Barack Obama to direct our power to heal will we turn."

Then in 2009, he attended events in Selma "Bloody Sunday" - remember the day in 1965 when police of the State of his father attacked voting rights of protesters at the bridge of Edmund Pettus.

In Selma, she introduced Attorney General Eric Holder - Jones's brother-in-law - and they shared a desire that Jones had lived to see the time. Then marched through the bridge hand-in-hand with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who was brutally beaten during the "Bloody Sunday".

Kennedy said that she crossed bridges many in his life, but none as important as that one.

Last March, he joined Lewis and other members of Congress in a pilgrimage of civil rights at the University of Alabama, and walked through the doors of wood and glass which his father tried to block. The daughter of the Governor, who promised "segregation forever" saw a campus with a student body that is nearly 13 percent black.

Kennedy, 63, said that she has tried in recent years to get out of the shadow of the door of the school and show that families can change.

"Perhaps someone gave a glimmer of hope," said.

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