Posted on 11/21/2020 12:05:41 PM PST by Rummyfan
Jack Kennedy, we hardly know ye—and to know ye is not to love ye
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what the Kennedys ever did for your country. Bring the monkey’s paw of being telegenic into politics? Of all the things that the American political system needed, this was the last. And whatever it was that the Kennedys did, they did most of it a long time ago. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is almost as distant in time as the assassination of William McKinley was when Kennedy took office.
McKinley, by the way, also had great personal popularity. And greater political support, having won reelection in 1900 by a margin of almost a million votes out of some 14 million cast. McKinley’s murder by anarchist Leon Czolgosz grieved and shocked the nation (and gave rise to conspiracy theories) the same way Kennedy’s murder did.
And yet we didn’t endure six subsequent decades of public figures deemed “McKinleyesque.” Despite a late-1890s economic boom, fiscal and monetary policies more prudent than Kennedy’s, and a Spanish-American War conducted with a success very unlike the Vietnam conflict, the McKinley administration wasn’t mythologized in Broadway terms. No one called the McKinley years “The Mikado Era” (the hit musical of the day). The Kennedy tale ought to be finished. But JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century 1917–1956, by Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard history professor Fredrik Logevall, brings us no closure and implicitly threatens a second 1957–1963 volume and even—spare us—a Legacy third.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
I was a couple years old and all I remember was being happy about all the horses on TV.
Unless I’m mistaken, he did face down the Soviets in the “Cuban Missile Crisis”. That was big deal at the time. Soviet intermediate nuclear missiles on our doorstep was not acceptable. But then, I haven’t read that much about it, but the above is my understanding. And yes, I was also one of the kids practicing drills under my desk...as if it would have done any good since I lived close to Los Angeles.
The Sov's felt perfectly comfortable throwing crises at Kennedy, like erecting the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. They also made trouble in S.E. Asia.
Cubar was a real problem for "Jack." One of his big issues was the so-called "missile gap" claiming the Russians had more missiles than we did. It was a lie. But, Khrushchev ran most of his missile force into Cubar because Kennedy was caught in his lie. He could have seized most of their missiles that close to the US, but the country would not allow that, falsely believing there was still a first strike capability back in the USSR. So, Kennedy agreed to pull our missiles out of Turkey and concealed that from the country. Khrushchev rolled him again.
Oh, and then Kennedy started the nuclear arms race, announcing the 1,000 missile Minuteman program to close the nonexistent "gap." How many times have you heard from the press or academia that Kennedy kicked off the arms race?
How to explain Camelot? He was telegenic. He owned the media. He wasn't very smart but was witty and could tell a good joke. His long suffering wife was beautiful and gracious. It was the Soaring Sixties - the economy was booming. And, please don't take this wrong, Kennedy's death was timely for his legacy. In the second half, the Sixties went to hell in a handbasket. Vietnam, violence in the South, race riots in the North, inflation kicking up. Kennedy's buddies in the press and academia shielded him and threw the blame on Johnson and Nixon. How was Nixon responsible for stuff that started before he was President? Well, like Dubya and Trump, it was all his fault.
Oh, and you will never, ever hear this, but their were rumors Kennedy was thinking about postponing the Civil Rights bill because he was going into an election in 1964. That was part of the agenda for his trip to Texas - gauge Southern support.
Whoa...what minute. Kennedy was shot? When did this happen ?
I don’t get it. I guess I grew up too deep in the hills with all those other white country folk.......
I was in second grade.
I didn’t feel too much as we weren’t a political family. I certainly didn’t understand why everyone was so upset Ruby killed Oswald. I was a TV/westerns kid and it seemed like the right thing - “He killed he president so he should be shot.” was how my preadolescent brain processed it.
I mostly remember there was NOTHING else on TV for what seemed like weeks. Even my favorite show and the number one rated show in the country at the time - The Beverly Hillbillies. It seemed unnecessary to have the endless coverage - and on EVERY (that is, all 3) channels!
I was in high school in Georgetown, Washington DC. (At the beginning of Georgetown’s gentrification because of the Kennedy home). Back then we only got Thanksgiving Thursday off. It was a chilly gray overcast day the Friday we returned to classes. Principal let us out at 10 or so. A group of guys, about a dozen went down to the field by the reservoir to play touch football. A car full of classmates drove up honking their horn to tell us the radio news of the JFK shooting in Dallas. We all gathered around the car to hear more. I recall the two Hungarian refugees of their revolution silently turned to look at one another without a word. In that instant I knew were all thinking the same thing, Russians did it.
Yes, I remember all this, too. (Nor a Kennedy admirer, just explaining the times.) but it was a defining moment in time for us. I was a senior in high school. The first traumatic event in our lives - the Buddy Holly plane crash, was the first time we knew that young people could die. The second such incident was the Kennedy assassination. It never occurred to us such a thing could happen. And all while we were in school and our teachers were telling us all about it. I think that’s all it was - it was a traumatic event to very young people. And it took a long time to get over it. It all seemed so unreal.
Many of the men Kennedys’ age would or should have known how hard it is to get a PT boat cut in half by a jap destroyer. I was five when he was shot. Twenty years later I wondered myself exactly how he managed that.
Read this a book written by a former believer in the Kennedy mystique.
If I remember the book correctly it has the weather & visibility reports in Kennedy’s PT squadron’s AO. Draw your own conclusions.
I was a couple years old and all I remember was being happy about all the horses on TV.
____
I was seven. We lived in Falls Church & my mother would take us to visit the horses kept for ceremonial purposes as at least three of us were horse crazy. I got to pet the nose of Black Jack, who was the ‘riderless horse’ in the parade. And one of those white horses pulling the caisson bit my mother. I think his name was Cloud Burst.
PJ ping
All though the 60's Kennedy was idolized as the great martyr. I knew he wasn't what he was cracked up to be, but I still find him fascinating. He's like a movie star. His charm and charisma were off the charts. He wasn't really what he seemed, but he seemed larger than life.
I remember JFK Junior telling the story that he was trained to salute the casket during the funeral procession. He kept saluting with the wrong hand so his Mom gave him a flag to hold so he would salute with the correct hand. To be so concerned about optics at that time is very sad.
“o be so concerned about optics at that time is very sad.”
When Jackie agreed to marry Aristotle Onassis, many felt betrayed. The idea that ‘St Jaqueline’ would remarry just seemed so wrong. It’s almost as if it was felt she should retire to a nunnery.
Looking back, it was a very strange time and reading about it or watching movies about it really doesn’t convey what it was like.
The day of the funeral was JFK Jr’s Birthday
His birthday party was after the funeral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr.
JFK Jr Born November 25, 1960
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_funeral_of_John_F._Kennedy
JFK state funeral on Monday, November 25.1963
I was in US Air Force Survival school at Stead AFB, Nevada.
They locked the base down, increased the “DEFCON” and then cancelled all parties or celebrations post graduation...it was cold enough for three of us to get frostbite. Spent 7 days on snowshoes, escaping and evading. 18 inches of snow one night just about buried us in our 2 man “tent,” made with a parachute canopy. Those were the days!
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