Worth reading this book just on this examination alone:
“A chapter on the impact of the JFK assassination is so riveting that I insisted on reading portions aloud to my family. How, Piereson wonders, was it possible that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara became heroes to the American left when it was a committed communist who killed the left’s beloved Kennedy?
Piereson also deftly demolishes the myth of Camelot by recounting how a grieving first lady created the legend on a single weekend after the president’s funeral. Jacqueline Kennedy invited famed writer Theodore White to the family compound on Cape Cod so he could interview her for a Life magazine issue devoted to JFK.
There she told White that she and the president went to bed listening to the soundtrack of the then-popular Broadway show “Camelot,” which was based on a novel. She insisted that JFK loved the music and the story because he, too, was a courageous idealist like the fabled King Arthur depicted in the show. “There will be great presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot,” Jackie told White.
White and his editors resisted the grandiose and sentimental story line, but finally relented to the grieving widow. White later expressed regret for helping to create the Camelot myth.”
The hard left was already disenchanted with Kennedy; he was too far right for their tastes.