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Because of the changes in the cold war climate that occurred during his Administration, millions, even on the enemy side, mourned John Kennedy as a man of peace. But above all they mourned him for his person. Perhaps even more than his own countrymen, other peoples saw in him the embodiment of American virtues—youth, strength, informality, good looks, the idealistic belief that all problems can eventually be solved. A Southern Rhodesian paper called him "the golden boy," and Common Market President Walter Hallstein said that Kennedy "personified the most beautiful qualities of his people."
Possibly more than any other President in U.S. history, he had set out to charm the world, and he had succeeded in convincing many a nation that it was his special favorite.
Alive, John Kennedy had been particularly idolized by the citizens of West Germany, who received him last June as they had no other foreign leader. When the President told a crowd of 150,000 West Berliners, "Ich bin ein Berliner," the German people were his. Dead, John Kennedy was instantly enshrined by Germans as a hero. On the night of his assassination, 25,000 West Berlin students assembled and marched on city hall, where Mayor Willy Brandt, exhausted from a trip to Africa, told them: "I know how many are weeping tonight. We Berliners are poorer tonight. We all have lost one of the best."
West Germany's Chancellor Ludwig Erhard was on his special train returning from a Paris meeting with Charles de Gaulle. A Scotch and soda at his elbow, he was briefing himself for a trip to Washington to see Kennedy, scheduled for this week. When Erhard's press chief came suddenly into the car and blurted out the news that Kennedy was dead, Erhard sat in a stunned silence. Finally he murmured, "Unfassbar, kaum fassbar [Inconceivable, hardly conceivable]."
Under Fire. In Paris, the news reached President de Gaulle in his private apartments at the Elysée Palace. He turned on his TV set. When Kennedy's death was confirmed, De Gaulle —himself twice the target of assassination attempts—called in his staff. His face drawn and pale, he dictated his statement of condolence: "President Kennedy has died like a soldier, under fire . . ." Russia's Red Army Choir, performing at Paris' Palais des Sports, interrupted its program for the announcement of the death and then, after a moment of silence, sang a Schubert lied in Kennedy's memory.
In Geneva, Swiss citizens jammed traffic by abandoning their cars in the middle of the streets to snatch up newspapers. An old woman, tears staining her cheeks, cried, "What an age we are living in!"
In Spain, no foreigner has ever won the public's heart as had Kennedy. Said a Madrid editor, "Nothing has jolted me so much since the start of our own Civil War." Americans were sought out for a pat on the shoulder, a comforting phrase such as, "Hombre, lo siento mucho [Man, I feel deeply]."