It was the gunshot heard around the world, and historian Henry Frendo can still hear it.

“I remember it vividly. It was very dramatic, made all the more so by the fact that we could watch it on TV,” said Prof. Frendo, 65, as he cast his mind back to that fateful day 50 years ago.

“We had just bought a black and white set. Neighbours went to each other’s houses to watch the news as few people had a TV in those days,” Prof. Frendo recalled.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, while travelling in a motorcade on a political trip to Texas. He was 46.

The fresh-faced JFK was the first ever Catholic president of the US, something that made him very popular with the Maltese at that time.

“The whole island was shocked and upset at the news,” said Frank Attard, 85, who worked as a photographer for Times of Malta.

“The fact that he was very charismatic as well as Catholic was a source of fascination to the Maltese.”

Mr Attard took the iconic photograph reproduced on the front page of today’s newspaper.

It shows his daughter Miriam, then aged eight, browsing reports of JFK’s death while standing in Castille Place. The veteran photographer recalled flags being flown at half-mast around the island and a long line of Maltese queuing to sign the book of condolences.

“Some were crying,” he said.

Major Stanley Clews, 95, was at work in the dockyard when the news came across on the radio, sparking animated speculative discussions among the workers.

He later watched TV footage open-mouthed at home, as the iconic president met his fate with the cameras rolling.

“The assassination was all people could talk about for days,” Major Clews said.

Prof. Frendo said that, due to the nature of the times, JFK was a constant presence in the lives of the Maltese even before his death.

“This was the era of Communism versus the West and there was a genuine fear of nuclear war,” the historian said.

“Archbishop Gonzi was terrified of communism – it was not seen as something remote. It had an indirect effect on the Maltese political scene.

“That was the context in which the assassination took place.”

For Prof. Frendo, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear annihilation, was the defining moment of JFK’s presidency.

The US president had faced-off Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over communist plans to install nuclear weapons in Cuba.

As the world held its breath, diplomacy eventually won out over aggression, with both sides conceding ground in order to avert a catastrophic nuclear confrontation.

“There was real fear in Malta at this time and Kennedy was seen as something of a hero when the crisis passed,” Prof. Frendo said.

Although elected on a wave of optimism, many historians now view JFK’s political achievements as relatively modest, if not underwhelming.

Writing in yesterday’s Times of Malta, anthropologist Ranier Fsadni pointed out that JFK’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued his domestic programme on historic civil rights and tax cuts.

“In reality, Johnson, who was a legendary legislator, took on and expanded the programme to show he could succeed where Kennedy demonstrably could not,” Mr Fsadni wrote.

Prof. Frendo felt that politicians elected on a huge wave of optimism will always struggle to live up to expectations.

“We see the same thing happening with [current US president Barack] Obama,” Prof. Frendo said.

As well as being the first Catholic US president, JFK was also the first Irish-American, something that is not forgotten in the land of his ancestors.

Irish Ambassador to Malta Jim Hennessy recalled: “Ireland was devastated by the assassination.”

Only five months before, JFK had made the first visit of a sitting US president to Ireland.

“It is hard to imagine the excitement generated at that time.

“His coming was proof, to a young nation, that the Irish could walk with honour on the world stage. Here was one of our own, in name, religion and family, holder of the most powerful office on earth, acknowledging his ancestry by visiting the very homestead from which they had left and where his relatives still lived,” Mr Hennessy said.

“In terms of national psyche, this had an incredible effect. For the Irish, at that time, America was modernity, and President Kennedy the most modern of presidents. He came to honour his heritage, but for the Irish he was about the future.”