The Kennedy Half-Century (81 page)

Whatever the family’s political prospects, public interest in John Kennedy appears unquenchable. The books, articles, TV documentaries, mini-series,
and even music videos and video games continue to multiply.
⁴⁶
Caroline published a memoir about her mother, containing hours of unreleased tapes of Jackie discussing her late husband.
⁴⁷
Secret Service agents from the Dallas trip made their case about the assassination in
The Kennedy Detail
.
⁴⁸
Former CIA operative Brian Latell leveled a
j’accuse
at Fidel Castro concerning Dallas.
⁴⁹
Stephen King wrote a novel entitled
11/22/63
.
⁵⁰
Yet another JFK mistress, Mimi Alford, came forward in
Once Upon a Secret
.
⁵¹
FOX News commentator Bill O’Reilly published a runaway bestseller,
Killing Kennedy
.
⁵²
Stephen Hunter, author of the Bob Lee Swagger series, released
The Third Bullet
, another fictional assassination whodunit, to critical acclaim.
⁵³
One of the least circulated books with a Kennedy flavor contained one of the most fascinating tidbits. Archbishop Philip Hannan, in his memoir
The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots
, included a previously undisclosed December 20, 1963, letter he had received from Jackie Kennedy. Devout Catholic though she was, Mrs. Kennedy expressed a sentiment that most people who have lost loved ones have probably felt:

If only I could believe that [Jack] could look down and see how he is missed and how nobody will ever be the same without him. But I haven’t believed in the child’s vision of heaven for a long time. There is no way to commune with him. It will be so long before I am dead and even then I don’t know if I will be reunited with him … Please forgive all this—and please don’t try to convince me just yet—I shouldn’t be writing this way.
⁵⁴

One’s faith is understandably tested in circumstances similar to Mrs. Kennedy’s. And the heartfelt passion she expressed appears to contradict the view that JFK’s flagrant adulteries had created an empty, loveless union.
⁵⁵

Because of its deep wound to the national psyche, November 22, 1963, was the focus of more books and TV shows than any other aspect of John Kennedy’s story. Just in the past several years, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and the National Geographic Channel have aired at least six specials on what they claim are new aspects of the assassination.
⁵⁶
The fascination with the assassination has led to some unfortunate by-products. A British video game called “JFK Reloaded” re-created the assassination scene and permitted players to carry out the assault from different vantage points.
⁵⁷
Souvenirs of the tragedy are also now selling for incredible prices. The fedora worn by Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Oswald fetched $45,000 at auction, and Ruby’s shoes went for $15,000. The toe tag attached to Oswald’s corpse generated an obscene $83,000.
⁵⁸
Even more morbidly, the funeral director who embalmed Oswald sold Oswald’s first, discarded coffin, his death
certificate, and the instruments and table he used to prepare Oswald’s body for $160,000.
⁵⁹
The old ambulance that carried JFK’s body after Air Force One landed in Washington was purchased for $120,000.
⁶⁰
The owner of the boarding house where Oswald lived in November 1963 decided to put her property on the market to capitalize on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination.
⁶¹

The reason these items are trading for substantial monies is not simply because people want to own a piece of history, however perverse, but also because the Kennedy assassination is a wound that never healed for many Americans; they are still trying to come to terms with it. Souvenirs of the Lincoln assassination were highly sought after for generations, too, for much the same reasons. In fact, the opera glasses Lincoln was using in Ford Theater were recently put on the auction block with a minimum asking price of half a million dollars.
⁶²
The combination of a senseless act of violence plus historic change of a high order of magnitude—present in both the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations—traumatized society for years.

^ai
I searched through the records of every Democratic National Convention from 1964 to 2012 and found 96 substantial segments about, or references to, JFK and his family. There was not one Democratic convention without at least several Kennedy invocations and representations. Other historic Democratic figures, from Jefferson and Jackson to Wilson and FDR, were given short shrift by comparison.

21
The People’s President

It seems more than a little strange to apply any populist label to John F. Kennedy. He was a child of privilege, a young man sent to the best schools, a politician with a charmed life fueled by his father’s vast wealth and influence, and a refined individual blessed with looks, talents, and worldly goods beyond the hope of most mortals. What real connection did he ever have to the struggles and challenges faced by average citizens? Nonetheless, Kennedy’s life, presidency, and death combined to cast a powerful spell that has worked its magic on generations of Americans, and continues to this day.

What elements make up the Kennedy enchantment? As described in this book’s introduction, we undertook a detailed public opinion study to determine how and why JFK has maintained his position at the top of the presidential pile over the past half century.

The 2,009 American adults participating in the opinion poll supervised by Peter Hart and Geoff Garin were asked to rate all the presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being the best possible grade. (The two most recent presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, were not included since not enough time has passed for fair, less partisan evaluations.)

John F. Kennedy was the most highly rated by a considerable margin: Finishing immediately behind Kennedy were Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and Bill Clinton. The latter trio served eight full years each, compared to JFK’s less than three years. Few historians would claim that Kennedy’s actual achievements during his short term compared to those who were given the maximum tenure. Other than JFK, the less-than-two-term presidents all ranked lower: Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and, in the cellar, Richard Nixon.
¹

In most cases, the evaluations of those age fifty-five and over and those under fifty-five were not much different, although Carter was better liked by younger adults who perhaps knew him more from his popular postpresidential activities than from his generally unsuccessful White House term.

Naturally, partisanship was a significant factor in people’s evaluations of presidents, though much less so in the case of JFK than most others. Democrats gave Kennedy his highest grades, with 79 percent calling him one of the country’s best presidents
²
while 52 percent of Republicans offered the same superlative. While a considerable difference, the Kennedy results are much more balanced than the partisan findings for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Fully 87 percent of Republicans hail Reagan as one of the best, but only 31 percent of Democrats do so; 85 percent of Democrats figuratively see Clinton on Mount Rushmore, but a mere 28 percent of Republicans do.

Kennedy received especially high rankings from older voters; 72 percent gave Kennedy a rating of 7 to 10, far more than any other modern president. What is equally remarkable is that all but 16 percent of younger voters knew enough about Kennedy to rate him. Compare this to Kennedy’s predecessor and successor in the White House. Fully 42 percent of those under age fifty-five couldn’t rate Eisenhower, and 45 percent knew too little about Johnson to judge him. Of course, Kennedy has received far more media attention than less photogenic presidents—but JFK is also intrinsically more interesting and memorable in many ways.

In a separate question, participants were asked how much they knew about different presidents in terms of their personal history and background before becoming and while serving as president. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt were included along with JFK and other modern presidents. Somewhat surprisingly, 62 percent knew a great deal or a fair amount about Kennedy, compared to 56 percent for Lincoln, 49 for Washington, and a mere 36 for Roosevelt. All age groups were equally uninformed concerning long-ago great presidents.

However, Kennedy did not sweep every measure of presidential stature. In an open-ended question, respondents were asked which president, living or dead, they would want to be the next president. Reagan was picked by 24 percent, Clinton by 21, and Kennedy by 13, with Lincoln in fourth place at 9 percent.
³

In a revealing section of the survey, respondents were asked to specify President Kennedy’s most significant attributes and what they most closely associated with him. While some events such as the civil rights struggle were mentioned prominently, most people focused on personal characteristics: decisiveness, strength, youth, family, optimism, idealism, and energy. Participants were then queried about the most profound change JFK made on the country as president. Racial integration, standing up to the Soviet Union, and the space program were the top three choices. Once again, older voters offered more specifics. When asked how much they admired JFK, two thirds of those fifty-five and over replied “a great deal” or “a fair amount” compared to 55 percent of those under age fifty-five. The response was even more robust when people were asked to rate the impact JFK and his policies had on the United States. Two thirds of younger adults said a great deal or a fair amount; among older adults, 78 percent rated JFK’s impact highly.

Even more interesting, many of the standard divisions in American society—based on gender, race, religion, and the like—were much less pronounced for President Kennedy than for most political figures, past or present. There was almost no gender gap regarding the degree to which people admire JFK. Roughly three out of five men (57 percent) and women (60 percent) registered a great deal or fair amount of admiration. Not surprisingly, African Americans were high up on the admiration scale (71 percent), but so were Hispanics (63) and whites (58). The affection for Kennedy was naturally substantial among Catholics (62 percent), but Protestants were not far behind (55). Liberals were JFK’s biggest admirers (69 percent), yet moderates were close (62), and almost half of conservatives (49 percent) thought positively of him.

In the focus groups, participants repeatedly used certain words and phrases to describe JFK, which were then included in the broader poll: Kennedy was most strongly associated with the terms “charismatic,” “patriotic,” “a strong leader,” “courageous,” “inspirational,” and “optimistic.” The poll’s respondents also saw Kennedy as “wealthy and privileged”—though it was more descriptive than undesirable—and “concerned about the average person.” Negative words and phrases, such as “immoral,” “bad role model,” “arrogant,” “reckless,” and “did not accomplish much,” were rarely used, even among Republicans. Realistically, anyone could fairly attribute each of these criticisms to aspects of the life and presidency of John Kennedy. Clearly then, JFK is not seen as just another politician, whatever the truth of the matter.