John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President

Camelot! Didn't anyone then realize that King Arthur's court met with bad demise? Yet the contemporary media was bandying about that term in consideration of him...

But it was not without reason that this appellage was visited upon his administration. Like Arthur, Jack was young, energetic, idealisitic, visionary, and charismatic. Those were the reasons why he is fondly remembered. And he was cut down so unexpectedly, so young; another reason why he'll be so long remembered.

He did have a resume. A senator from Massachussettes. A war hero. Good-looking. Intelligent. Did I say good-looking? Jackie was beautiful too--not that I'm saying that I think she looked beautiful. Everyone else back then did. So she's remembered in her petticoat even though she survived him by decades.

But on to substance. Basically, he was the man for the post-war period (post-WWII, post-Korea). His youth complimented or made that. I'm not sure which. He made college students want to serve their country (you know that famous University of Michigan address, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"). He gave them the Peace Corps (thanks in large part to Sargent Shriver). He declared his mission (sadly not seen fulfilled by himself) of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade (the 1960s). His was the formulative years of white political backing of the civil rights movement.

Yet though idealistic, youthful, and optomistic, he was tough--and therein lies some detraction. He was a cold warrior. If he wasn't there was no way he would have ever been elected. (Barely eeking out being Catholic...) First there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. Then there was the Cuban Missle Crisis. I'm sure that there are more defenders of his actions there than there are detractors. I have to agree with one of the commentators on Cafferty's website: Kennedy brought the US this close to war with the Soviet Union. However, I'm ignorant about what I'm ignorant about. Who knows what the world would have been like if there had been Soviet nuclear missles parked off of Florida. By the 1980s that really meant nothing with the advent of submarines carrying a nuclear missle payload. But for the time of 1962 onward, it may have put more swagger in Soviet policy. I, for one, am glad Krushchev blinked--even if I was born more than a decade later. Yes, I know more than one student was upset that they had to do the homework.

Then there's Vietnam. We'll never know Kennedy's intentions. He sent advisors there, but how long would he have kept them there? I speculate that he probably would have followed the same course as LBJ. People are projecting hindsight and their own wishes on a liked assainated President to really believe that Kennedy was just about to pull troops out of Vietnam on November 23, 1963 (the day after his death...) Foreign Policy in regards to containing Communism was very nearly universal in both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

He would not be remembered so ardently today if not for his assaination, but that is not to say that he wouldn't still have been well liked if he survived to his twilight years.