We can never know, obviously, but to my mind it is likely the brutal unfairness would have continued under Kennedy. Of course, Johnson's insecurity about foreign policy pushed him to wade ham-fisted deeper and deeper into Vietnam, pushing his country to a different schism, a division of age and politics, rather than race and politics. That probably wouldn't have happened either if Kennedy had lived. The death of hope has echoes today, perhaps.
Maybe Barack Obama is the Kennedy who lived. What JFK might have become had he lived, a second-term president, flawed and real, falling short of the aspirations invested in him.
A reminder of what impossibly high hopes are doomed to become - disappointments. But the hope embodied in JFK has continued to burn eternally bright because his light was cruelly, prematurely, snuffed out.
JFK and the rise of conspiracy theories. JFK assassination: Where were you? President John F Kennedy. Clips from JFK's speeches. Why is JFK so popular? Bob and I were the same age and had children with similar ages. We quickly became good friends, and sometimes were roommates on campaign trips. When Kennedy ran for president in , he ran to end the Vietnam War, which he had originally supported but came to believe was morally wrong. I will always remember the Stevenson campaign when we traveled to Springfield, Illinois.
Bob said that when he was young there were three great influences on a child—the home, school, the church—but that he now saw a fourth great influence: television. Americans today remember John F. Kennedy as one of our most beloved presidents, along with Abraham Lincoln. Like King, he had been a mostly unfocused young man with moments of brilliance—his undergraduate thesis, Why England Slept , was published and sold 80, copies.
He was a hero of World War II and of the generation that returned from the war determined to work for peace. Jack Kennedy first won a seat in Congress in , a year in which Republicans won both houses, which gave him instant stature within the Democratic Party. Six years later he moved to the Senate, and eight years after that he became the youngest man elected to the presidency and the first born in the 20th century.
Kennedy was also the first president of the television age, and an early master of the medium. He told me more than once that he would not have been elected but for his four televised debates with then-Vice President Richard Nixon in I went to Washington in to work in his administration, believing then as I do now that his election signaled a historic moment, a call to duty.
I still believe that had he lived our country would have avoided some of the worst political and social turmoil of the s, and that it would never have suffered the prolonged tragedy of Vietnam. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Historians most often remember Kennedy for his foreign-policy achievements, especially his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, but also the creation of the Peace Corps and the Limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty with Great Britain and the Soviet Union. We succeeded, and the president later invited the American broadcasters who helped make it happen, together with me, to the White House to thank them for their unprecedented service to the country.
In November , he sent federal marshals to Oxford, Mississippi, to confront a governor and an institution, the University of Mississippi, dead set against the matriculation of James Meredith.
After the March on Washington, in one of the last acts of his presidency, Kennedy sent the bill to Congress that became the Civil Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the 20th century. When we were leaving Washington to return home, Kennedy invited my family to the Oval Office to say goodbye.
My wife and our three daughters visited the president on May 29, —his last birthday. A picture of us with him is one of our most cherished memories. Even more specifically, they credit him with inspiring the nation to achieve great feats in space exploration, especially landing on the moon. Camelot was mentioned by many, but so were accusations of nepotism. He had few if any accomplishments.
The poll revealed that Americans have a more complete picture of President Kennedy than we might cynically think otherwise. Kennedy is more than just Camelot and a tragic motorcade in Dallas. Americans are aware of his personal failings as well as both his policy triumphs and failures. In short, John F. Kennedy was a popular president who was not afforded the chance to damage his own popularity.
Full results can be found here. US About For business. Printable version. John F.
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