Scholar to scrutinize JFK presidency (slash and burn of Ronald Reagan... PUKE ALERT!)

The Missoulian ^ | 2/23/2004 | Betsy Cohen

[PeteFromMontana]

Scholar to scrutinize JFK presidency By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

Was John F. Kennedy really a great president?

Allen Matusow, a scholar of U.S. presidents, will give his answer Monday night in the next installment of the University of Montana's President's Lecture Series.

Matusow will discuss Kennedy's tenure in office, his political legacy and recently released documents that shed more light on his presidency.

Although it has been 40 years since Kennedy was assassinated, there has been no president - no person - in the past 50 years who has grabbed the public's attention and held it like John F. Kennedy, Matusow said.

"Unless you are a scholar, most people are unaware of the avalanche of documents that have become available about his presidency," Matusow said. "Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an outpouring of documents, Soviet and American documents, that tell us more of what went on."

Matusow will incorporate the new material into his talk, which highlights two significant events of Kennedy's presidency - the Berlin crisis in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

During his afternoon presentation, Matusow will examine the two terms of President Reagan, whom he is writing a book about.

"One of the most contentious issues about Reagan is how much credit we should give him for ending the Cold War," Matusow said. "I hope this lecture will be an occasion for the audience to take another look at the history of the Cold War. Now that it is over, it might look somewhat different."

Matusow is a Rice University history professor and the associate director for the academic programs at the university's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Matusow is the author of several books, including "The Political Economy of Richard Nixon," and "The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s."

He is currently working on book titled "Carter, Reagan, and the End of the Cold War."

For your information

Rice University professor Allen Matusow will lecture on "John F. Kennedy and the Cold War: the View 40 Years Later," at 8 p.m. Monday in the Montana Theatre in the Performing Arts and Radio/TV Center at the University of Montana.

Matusow also will give a lecture titled "Did Reagan Win the Cold War?" at 3:10 p.m. Monday in the Gallagher Building, room 122.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

[PeteFromMontana]

"One of the most contentious issues about Reagan is how much credit we should give him for ending the Cold War," Matusow said. "I hope this lecture will be an occasion for the audience to take another look at the history of the Cold War. Now that it is over, it might look somewhat different."

___________________________ contentious??? Since when? History being re-written here?

[maestro]

"John F. Kennedy and the Cold War: the View 40 Years Later,"

Montana?

This is 'serious' stuff.

:-(

[Always Right]

"One of the most contentious issues about Reagan is how much credit we should give him for ending the Cold War," Matusow said. "I hope this lecture will be an occasion for the audience to take another look at the history of the Cold War. Now that it is over, it might look somewhat different

Oh darn, I knew the Dems would steal my idea. It was when Mike Dukakis got in the tank that the Soviet Union got scared and dismantled....

[roadcat]

Was John F. Kennedy really a great president?

Absolutely not! Only 2-1/2 years in office, and not much accomplished of note. Except maybe his pledge to land a man on the Moon in a decade. That's about all he'll be remembered for, a hundred years from now. This guy almost ended up getting us all killed due to bumbling around in Cuba (Bay-of-Pigs etc.)

President Ronald Reagan - now that's a really great president with many noteworthy accomplishments on behalf of our nation.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Was John F. Kennedy really a great president?

How can you call someone who spent most of his time chasing skirts a great president? I mean what did JFK actually achieve policy-wise besides the tax cuts?

[Reagan Man]

Prior to the Reagan Presidency, the Cold War was fought mostly through appeasement and the diplomatic efforts of detente. The strong leadership of PresReagan finally ended the Cold War. There's no doubt about it. Reagan deserves most of the credit for closing the books on the USSR and European communism.

If Allen Matusow is going to be honest, he will report that the legacy of JFK, is an incomplete legacy, at best. In historical context, JFK is a martyr to the liberal Democratic establishment. JFK`s death gave us LBJ, who gave us the Great Society, the VietNam War, the War on Poverty, higher taxes and bigger governemnt, forced equality, wealth transer and social engineering.

I'll take Reagan over JKF or LBJ any time!

[PeteFromMontana]

Absolutely not! Only 2-1/2 years in office, and not much accomplished of note. Except maybe his pledge to land a man on the Moon in a decade. That's about all he'll be remembered for, a hundred years from now. This guy almost ended up getting us all killed due to bumbling around in Cuba (Bay-of-Pigs etc.)

_______________________

Nicely said, spot on.

[Ole Okie]

This guy almost ended up getting us all killed due to bumbling around in Cuba (Bay-of-Pigs etc.)

To say nothing of his getting us involved in Viet Nam.

[cubreporter]

Both lectures are free and open to the public.


Guess he can't get people to pay for dribble.

[cubreporter]

Yes, Vietnam was a Democratic war begining with the REAL JFK and LBJ.

[RanchoStash]

What do you expect from Univ. of Montana? Cats rule - Griz drool!

[PeteFromMontana]

LOL, and so it goes on

[houndofzeus]

Historians have modified their view of the Cold War a couple times. The traditional view held the Soviet Union responsible, pointing to Stalin's paranoia. The revisionist view claimed the US was culpable for increasing tension. Post-revisionism holds a couple of premises. First is that of hegemonic war--when one nation surpasses the other in power, there will tend to be a retaliation..."use it or lose it." Post-revisionism says that there was no hegemonic war because the USSR never really was capable of challenging the US, except militarily. Gorbachev put in place reforms such as glasnost and perestroika to alleviate the economic pressure caused by an unsustainable military budget. The new openness contributed to the empire's downfall. Reagan's policies most likely contributed to this. I tend to think he should be given most of the credit (as would most Freepers, I think) but it still remains a contentious point.

[fire_eye]

I am sure that the learned and esteemed Perfesser, after a thorough and objective evaluation of the evidence, will conclude that after making an idiot of himself and destroying our deterrent credibility with the Soviets by failing to kick Castro's Communist regime out of our hemisphere, Kennedy then intrepidly and courageously sent our troops into a Southeast Asian cesspool to die in droves trying to stop Communism over there, since we all know that the Commies were going to land in San Fagdisco (hmmmm.........) within weeks if Vietnam fell.

Additionally, I'm sure that he will finally set the record straight and point out that Kennedy had made himself so unpopular by the end of 1963 that the Demonrats were about to lose the White House at the next election barring some sort of miracle (HMMMMMM......), and that the only reason he's now such a sainted martyr is that some gang of idiots didn't have enough sense to wait for him to self-destruct instead of whacking him out.

(Anyone want to buy some real estate in South Florida?)