Does "jar" mean "shock? " The swift solution of the riddle of who had fired the shots was to have the effect of dissipating early reactions. This was lucky for the gloaters. Had the assassin been identified, say, as an agent of the John Birch Society, Birchers everywhere would have been in for an awkward afternoon. It was also fortunate for domestic tranquillity. Almost as soon as conclusions had been drawn, they were to be confounded, and instead of hysteria the national attitude became one of pervasive sadness. Perhaps hysteria would have lost its momentum in any case. Since Orson Welles's Martian fiasco of 1938 Americans had been through two major wars and the tensions of the Russian armistice; they had become more sophisticated and harder to jar. Conceivably they would have behaved equally well if the riddle had endured or grown more complex.