Just as it was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 that fostered the congressional climate essential for the passage of his previously thwarted domestic legislative goals, it was the 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield-who was elected the year before on a platform that called for complete and radical civil service reform-that created the climate necessary for the passage of the nation's first significant reform measure-the Pendleton Act of 1883.