JFK Undeserving of High Presidential Ranking – Commentary by Douglas Young

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." --John 8:32

"There is no truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world." --Thomas Jefferson

It’s disconcerting that the recent ranking of U.S. presidents by American presidential historians put John Kennedy sixth, ahead of even Jefferson and Reagan. That over 45 years of sordid revelations have failed to stop White House 'scholars' from elevating JFK to the top tier of our leaders confirms that many academics prefer mythology to history.

Kennedy’s rise to the White House may be the most corrupt ever. Just as Joe Kennedy bought his boy’s way into Congress, he literally paid for loads of votes in West Virginia’s crucial 1960 presidential primary campaign. And, on November’s election night, Chicago’s corrupt Mayor Daley machine made sure Cook County votes were counted Democratically. Added to masses of Texas graveyard votes, Kennedy “won” one of our closest national elections.

Of President Kennedy’s revered “New Frontier” agenda, most of it never left Capitol Hill. What’s more, his civil rights credentials are grossly exaggerated. Despite pledging to end segregated federal housing (a cynical ploy for black votes), he waited two years to sign the order. Martin Luther King lamented that the White House moved forward on racial justice only when pushed by massive protests. The Kennedys had King wiretapped.

JFK’s foreign policy was terrible. No one accelerated the arms race more. From his false campaign charge that the Soviets were ahead of us due to a “missile gap,” to his unnecessarily large nuclear missile build-up, to his shockingly bellicose rhetoric against Moscow, Kennedy’s macho obsession made the world more dangerous.

We never had a bigger cold warrior in the White House than in the early ’60s. This James Bond aficionado had U.S. agents help overthrow South Vietnam’s president (resulting in his murder), try to uproot the Dominican Republic’s regime (whose leader was also killed) and incompetently attempt to topple Cuba’s Fidel Castro, first in the tragically inept Bay of Pigs invasion and then with bungled CIA assassination attempts. So pervasive were Kennedy’s deadly operations that President Lyndon Johnson said we’d been running “a G.D. Murder, Inc.” and that JFK’s death may have been “divine retribution.”

At a minimum, Kennedy’s obsessive-compulsive womanizing left him open to blackmail. One presidential mistress, Judith Campbell (who claimed to have aborted a baby fathered by the president), was the moll of the most powerful Mafia boss in the country, Sam Giancana. She even exchanged envelopes between her two powerful lovers. Constitutionally challenged FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s evidence of this affair kept the president from firing him (President Johnson said he’d rather have Hoover “pi**ing out of the tent than in”). But “Bad back, Backdoor Jack” continued his incredibly risky sexploits to the end.

There’s even evidence that tapes of his and Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s adulterous intimacies with Marilyn Monroe were in mob hands and that Robert searched her home for compromising materials after the star’s 1962 suicide. More appalling was when the president eluded the secret service to chase girls and was actually separated from the nuclear briefcase.

But his worst mistake was anchoring us in Vietnam. Refuting the myth that he was about to withdraw, Kennedy increased our troops there from 1,000 to 17,000 and refused to slow the Americanization of the war, bluntly declaring, “I think we should stay.”

A second Kennedy term would have given us the same Vietnam catastrophe plus a possible impeachment upon inevitable disclosures of the president’s involvement with a reckless CIA, the Mafia, and an endless parade of women, including many prostitutes. At a minimum, the fairy tale bubble of “Camelot” would have burst and Kennedy would finally pay for his excesses.

But, in our celebrity-worshipping pop culture, too many historians prefer the handsome, herculean Jack of Camelot fame, the shining knight tragically struck down just before ending the cold war and getting us out of ’Nam as depicted in the Oliver Stone fantasy film. Sadly, while JFK is great cinematic agitprop, it’s lousy history. And historians know better.

Most scholars ranking Kennedy so highly are likely baby-boomers for whom he’s always been an icon. As younger, less emotionally compromised historians take the field, JFK’s pedestal will likely be lowered considerably.

"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive--of our forebears. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. " -–John F. Kennedy, Yale, 6/11/1962

"We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad." -–John F. Kennedy, State of the Union 1963

Dr. Young teaches political science and history at Gainesville State College where he also advises the Politically Incorrect and Chess Clubs. He is a life member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the [Gen. James] Longstreet Society.

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