I tend to disagree. He was very much an idealist.
He stole the 1960 election. This was not a good guy. Nixon as President from 1961-69 and we’d have been on a different and better course. Castro would’ve been removed and more decisive action in Vietnam. It was too late for Nixon to clean up the mess by 1969 that JFK-LBJ and the Dem supermajorities had created.