[yarddog]

It is strange that the capt of the Japanese destroyer (I wouldn’t have remembered the ship’s name) says he didn’t see the PT-109. I have seen an interview filmed quite a few years ago in which he describes clearly that the PT-109 was rammed deliberately.

In 1974 we were living in Tulsa and I met one of the Captains in Kennedy’s squadron. I asked him about the incident and he said it was considered the absolute worst thing that could happen to a PT boat to be rammed. He also said Kennedy was well liked by all of them.

I think it is pretty much known that Arthur Schlesinger was the real author of “Profiles”.

[Richard Kimball]

Good info. As a kid, I was fascinated by Kennedy, as he was the first politician I knew about that wasn't a geezer. I read "John F. Kennedy and PT109" and was in the 4th grade when he was assassinated. It wasn't until years later, when I re-evaluated him as an adult that I realized how much of the stuff about him was part of a manufactured image. I remember the book about the 1968 elections called "The Selling of the President" about how Nixon was packaged and sold as a commodity. I thought it was funny, because no President was ever packaged and sold as successfully as Kennedy.

The Profiles in Courage thing has always set off my BS detector. It's like a guy comes in off the street and gets named the starting quarterback for the Super Bowl and wins, having never played a game before and never playing again. The rumors I'd heard were that Theodore Sorenson, his primary speech writer, wrote most of it.