Images and More: Passed Presidents - # 35

Since the ‘Dead President’ stories began, they have all been about figures long gone and histories long past. There’s no need to rehash this man’s story, especially since the media has been flooded with documentaries, dramatizations and remembrances all month. Why? Because ‘50’ is a nice round number, he was murdered and - there are still many people alive who remember him.

The Kennedy grave viewed from the Custis-Lee Mansion,

Arlington National Cemetery (14 November 2013)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have been exposed to the milestones of JFK’s life. Rich, Catholic family; badass Joseph P.; Faithful Mother Rose; Harvard; PT 109; three-term Congressman; two-term Senator; Elegant Jackie; Marilyn Monroe; Peace Corps; Man on the Moon; Bay of Pigs; Cuban Missile Crisis; Hyannis Port; Dallas; Lee Harvey Oswald; John-John’s Final Salute; Arlington National Cemetery.

For me, the John Kennedy story is different because I remember him. I remember the famous televised debates with Richard Nixon and how the young, handsome Senator changed election strategies forever by looking so fine against Tricky Dick’s uncomfortable, sweaty demeanor with the added five-o’clock shadow. In 1961, I saw his inauguration on a small, grainy black and white TV in a hospital lounge. Even as a teenager, I thought his invitation to, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country” was resounding.

As everyone in my parents’ generation knew where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed and every adult now remembers their personal details of 9/11, people my age know what they were doing when Kennedy was shot. I was working at my first job after high school at a Wall Street business with one radio in the office. Work ground to a halt as we waited for better news that never came. My wife was ten years old in a Catholic grade school. She remembers the PA announcement that the president had been shot. The nuns and then all the students were crying. She went home to find her mother crying. Our only Catholic president had been murdered.

John F. Kennedy grave, Arlington National Cemetery (7 August 2005)

He was so different. So young and handsome. And there was Jackie...glamorous, outgoing...a breath of fresh air after Mamie Eisenhower, Bess Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt. Camelot. Young children in the White House. Touch football on the lawns.

Would JFK have been elected to a second term? Would he have gone on to greater glory as a statesman? He was only 43 when elected. That would have made him just 51 if he served two terms. What would he have done for the next 30+ years, assuming a normal, full life?

In 1988, I lived in New Orleans and attended a history class taught by Steven Ambrose. He wrote biographies of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon and gained greater fame for his D-Day and Band of Brothers books. The combination of this star author and the class subject [20th Century Presidents] made me sign up to audit this class after work. There I learned that JFK’s ethically-challenged father Joseph P. Kennedy, had bullied the Pulitzer Committee into changing its vote so that his son’s book, Profiles in Courage (largely written by Ted Sorensen), would win the prize.

Two infants are buried with their parents (14 November 2013)

It appears that his thousand days in office were otherwise unremarkable. There were few significant legislative achievements. Kennedy was a Cold Warrior who was more interested in foreign affairs and battling the spread of Communism. Some fault him for not doing more to improve civil rights laws but he needed the support of southern segregationists who were Democrats like him. He did plan to introduce legislation in his second term but the assassin ensured that Lyndon Johnson would get the credit for that.

There were the Peace Corps, the ambitious commitment to land a man on the moon and the Cuban Missile Crisis success. But there also was the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and the escalation of the Viet Nam war. When he took office, we had 60 soldiers in Viet Nam. When he died, the number was 16,000. On top of that, he was an avid skirt-chaser. By the time Slick Willie was in the White House, the press cooperation and public acceptance of that particular behavior had changed.

Kennedy was young, glamorous and rich. We were young and wanted to be glamorous and rich. I’m sure he lingers in our memory because of that. But he was also inspirational. He prompted many in the great Boomer generation to live lives of public service and reach for the stars.

Sometimes, I get the sense that we revere him because he was so handsome and smooth, Jackie was inordinately popular AND his life was cut short. Especially that last part. James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and many others who died young remain iconic. We’d rather not think about what their lives would have been like if they lived them out. They might have reached even greater heights or they might have faded away. We’ll never know.