Kennedy Revisionism

There has long been a marked disparity between scholarly and popular opinion on the subject of John F. Kennedy's presidency. For the most part scholars consider Kennedy to be at best a mediocre president, but in public opinion surveys he is consistently rated as "great" or "near great." To some extent this was due to public shock and horror of the assassination that wiped from our memories all the disappointments of his actual incumbency, but far more important was a sophisticated and coordinated media campaign that capitalized on the nation's grief to construct an idealized image of the young prince of Camelot, cut down before his time. This image was of enormous political value to a generation of reformers who build support for their agendas by asserting, often meagre supporting evidence, that this was what Kennedy would have done had he lived.

The political value of the Kennedy myth is wearing a bit thin these days, especially when Republicans cite him in support of tax cuts or an aggressive foreign policy, and slowly, but surely, a more reasonable assessment of the man and his legacy is beginning to move from the scholarly to the popular realm.

Two recent items in the press illustrate this process.

One of the high points of Kennedy's presidency was his famous defiant stance when he faced the Berlin Wall and declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" [which some humorists, translate as meaning "I am a donut," noting that "ein" is superfluous]. American Heritage, citing Richard Reeves' biography of Kennedy, notes that the defiant tone for which Kennedy is today celebrated was not his intention.

As Reeves writes: “In his enthusiasm, Kennedy, who had just given a peace speech and was trying to work out a test ban treaty with the Soviets, had gotten carried away and just ad-libbed the opposite, saying there was no way to work with Communists.”

“Oh, Christ,” the President exclaimed, when he realized what he had done.

Later, at the Free University of Berlin, he tried to put the genie back in the bottle....

Read it here.
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And then there's Jonathan Yardley's review in last week's WaPo of Nick Bryant's recent book on Kennedy's civil right's record. Public opinion holds that Kennedy was a great champion of black civil rights, but that was far from the actual case. Bryant makes the very important point that tne nation as a whole [including the Republican Party] was much more willing to enforce civil rights reforms than was Kennedy, who was perhaps overly sensitive to the demands of the powerful racist wing of his Party. As Yardley notes, Kennedy

was essentially passive on the moral issues raised by segregation and manipulative on the political ones....

Read it here.

The times..., they are a'changin'.

It is interesting to note that the History Channel recently broadcast a program on "the most overrated president" that quite properly placed Kennedy at the top of the list. Right behind him was Ronald Reagan, another president whose political utility increased after he left office.