Your summation has the same flaws as Hitchens summation of Kennedy's flaws.
But that's partly my fault.
Hitchens wants to say that Kennedy accomplished far less than his reputation implies and that that reputation is based more on charm and rhetoric than substance.
That can be debated rationally.
But Hitchens was careless with facts and characterizations as in
"President Diem -- whom he had installed at some price in blood" (Eisenhower installed Diem)
"willing to solicit Mafia hit-men for his foreign policy" (Eisenhower solicited the Mafia for the Castro hit. Kennedy didn't find out about it until a year after he became President)
"a president willing to risk nuclear war to save his own face" (John Foster Dulles recommended nuclear strikes after Dien Bien Phu. Perhaps Eisenhower acquised - it's not clear. In any case the threat of nuclear use to prevent Soviet agression was standard U.S. policy)
""Kennedy's War." (Kennedy was continuing a policy begun in the Truman era, a not unreasonable thing to do - especially for a newly-installed President with a strong anti-Communist bent)
and so on...
It irritated the hell out of me - especially since I knew Hitchens was smart enough to do better. So I figured I'd respond in kind - with carelessness and insults - to anyone who bought that kind of s**t.
No apologies. I had a good time doing it. :)
And I think it is too funny that to liberals, Democrats stood strong against Communism even while they appeased and backtracked and Reagan did nothing but shoot a bullet into the dead corpse
Each side seeks to denigrate the achievement of its opponents. What else is new in politics?
If Kennedy comes across weak... it's because you portray him as weak.
If Kennedy is the President you think he is... defend that. But don't try to lay his foreign policy mistakes at Eisenhower's door. Kennedy deserves better than that from you.