The Wrongologist

Today is the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s
assassination. A tsunami of books, blogs, movies and TV reports are now hitting
the beach. They dissect every element in the story of John F. Kennedy.

How do we remember JFK, that sad day and the legacy of his
presidency? Everyone has a story; each has an opinion about the man, the
assassination and the times since his death. Today, the Wrongologist will share
his thinking, and asks that you also share yours.

In a sense, his assassination marked the beginning of the end of
America’s optimism: The inspiring promise of an exciting future began to die that
November day 50 years ago, along with Kennedy.

In the early 1960s,
many in America were willing to believe that JFK was someone who would “get the
country moving again”. Action and dynamism were central to Kennedy’s appeal.
During his 1960 presidential campaign, he called out the Republicans for eight
years of stagnation:

Kennedy gave urgency
to the idea of pursuing a national purpose—the New Frontier, a great American vision.
In 1960, which was just 15 years after the end of World War II, momentum
had been slowly building in the United States, fueled by anxieties about our
rivalry with the Soviet Union and by optimism about the dynamic performance of
the American economy. Kennedy
embodied certainty. His orientation was toward the future, rather than the
past.

A member
of the “Greatest Generation”, Kennedy had survived great difficulty, and
he had confidence as did others of that generation, that they could build a
better future.

How
different JFK was from the Baby Boomers who followed him: Even today, Boomers
are nostalgic for their youth; they look backward more than forward. They may
be remembering the loss of JFK, and with him, much of their idealism. Now, as
they enter their dotage, many are blaming the mess they’ve made on others.

Growing up, the Wrongologist believed that America could do
anything. He had worked in the civil rights movement. He worked to help elect
Kennedy, doing door-to-door canvassing on Long Island in 1960. He graduated
from high school in 1961 and was in college in Washington, DC, sitting in class
when JFK was killed in 1963. He watched Lee Oswald get shot live on TV. He was
drafted and went into the military in 1966. Then, with Lyndon Johnson presiding,
came the escalation in Vietnam. And in 1968, the Tet Offensive, the
assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the riots, Lyndon Johnson’s “I shall not
seek” speech, when he pulled out of the race for a 2nd term as
President, opening the path to Richard Nixon.

1968 was a fulcrum year for America. We were stumbling toward
the unknown. Young demonstrators, certain of the essential rightness of their
worldview, were arrayed against an establishment that also had moral certainty
about their opposite worldview.

In a sense, there is a direct line from JFK’s death to Ronald
Reagan. In between, we had a succession of presidents who could not articulate
a vision for the country, who did not truly command respect globally, who did
not leave the country in a better place than they found it.

We experienced Nixon and the Mai Lai massacre, the Kent State
shootings, price controls and Watergate. Then, Ford and the fall of Saigon. Carter
gave us the oil embargo, the Iran hostages, 18% prime loans, and gas shortages.
Carter made America feel insecure, opening the door for Ronald Reagan.

Reagan sold the American people a new vision and an ideology of
lower taxes and small government. His optimism helped him capitalize on the
Kennedy legacy. 29% of Dems who voted
for Carter in his 1st term voted for Ronald Reagan. Kennedy and Reagan shared
an anti-communist fervor. In 1963, Kennedy said that he was a Berliner, meaning
that we would never accept the USSR controlling East Germany. In 1987, Reagan
said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, thereby capturing some of JFK’s Berlin
magic.  

Millennials have no real concept of
what has been lost. They have no memory of believing that anything was possible
with hard work and a little luck. They have no memory of good union wages, of ordinary
workers buying a new car every 2 years, of plentiful summer jobs that paid college
students today’s equivalent of $21/hour. Few have seen lower middle class stay-at-home
moms keeping house in the home the family owns.

We
have had 9 presidents since John Kennedy. Were any truly great? Which if any, changed
the course of history? It is arguable that both Reagan and G.W. Bush changed
the course of America, but it was not for the better.

Did
any of these presidents, with the possible exception of Johnson, make America a
better place to live?

Thinking
about Kennedy, it was his handling of the Cuban missile crisis that is his
legacy. He saved the world from what was a real threat of a nuclear war. Today,
we think that nuclear war couldn’t happen, but in 1962, it could easily have
happened, given Khrushchev and our military. This was the nation’s closest
approach to WWIII and nuclear holocaust.

When people recall
JFK’s domestic record, they think of civil rights, especially the struggle to
end segregation. Jim Crow was still flourishing in the Deep South. It is important
to remember that Kennedy was elected President just 6 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision
by the Supreme Court. That decision said racially separate schools were not
equal schools under the Constitution.

Ferment over civil
rights began before JFK was elected president. President Eisenhower sent the
101st Airborne Division, and later the Arkansas National Guard to enforce
school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas in September, 1957. Yet, when Eisenhower
tried to pass a civil rights bill in 1957, Senator
Kennedy voted with southern (segregationist) Democrats against the bill.

He was thus thought
of as a “moderate” on the civil rights issue when he ran for
President. He only partially overcame that label during the 1960 campaign, as 32% of black votes went to Richard Nixon in 1960.

JFK did not live long enough to be a great president. He was a conservative Democrat,
anti-communist and a political realist. He skillfully surfed the wave of popular
opinion. His most memorable quality was his charm, that was attractive to many
Americans. 

His
violent death came at a time of great upheaval for the country that was being driven
by civil rights and Vietnam. Death propelled him into mythology for many
Americans. Many believe that he would have side-stepped the problems of the
mid-to-late 1960s. Many believe that he would not have escalated our
involvement in Vietnam, for example.

But,
it is likely that he would have dealt with these issues similarly to Johnson and
Nixon, had he lived. A different question is: Would Nixon have become the next
President if JFK lived? If not, where would we be now?

So, on this day, what
do you remember?

Was JFK a great
president?

Do you believe Oswald
acted alone?