Students in my history classes sometimes wanted to know what kind of man John F. Kennedy was. It was not an easy question to answer. I guess I would have to say, he was quite a fascinating man!
He was born rich into the Kennedy clan. By rights one would have expected him to represent the interests of the richest class. Instead, his name has become inextricably inter-woven with efforts he made on behalf of peace, civil rights, and human rights for all people. His name is now said by some Americans in the same hushed breath usually reserved for Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln.
He was recognized as a champion of the people and not merely a mouthpiece for the economic elite. He set and achieved goals that helped make the future a safer place. At a time when newspapers and politicians screamed we were in danger of attack from the Russians, John F. Kennedy signed the first nuclear peace treaty. Both countries agreed to stop all in-air (atmospheric) nuclear bomb tests to lessen the dangers posed by radioactive fallout.
JFK was still a young man when he achieved this agreement, much younger than Lincoln was when he assumed the office of the president. Like Lincoln, Kennedy continued to mature politically at an astonishing rate–for this was one of his best qualities, the ability to learn and grow. He was willing to change his mind when proven wrong or adopt new policy and principle when shown a better way.
He was able to slow himself down to keep in step with the tempo of the times when his own boundless energy would have driven him forward at too great a speed. He did not recklessly pursue new policies that the public was not yet able to accept and yet he was able to speed up a time-table for civil rights legislation when the demands of justice cried out for attention.
The two landmark bills signed by his successor, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, were begun under his administration: the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
The precipitating crisis broke upon the nation rather quickly: a southern Governor planted himself in front of a school door and swore the approaching Negro student would NEVER get by him. This racist Governor had earlier called out the National Guard to help his state defy integration, based on the Supreme Court’s ruling that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
Kennedy responded decisively; using his power as president, he federalized the state troops and put them under his command. As commander-in-chief, Kennedy understood (like Pres. Eisenhower before him) that these soldiers were obliged to follow his orders and not those of the Governor.
Still, what did Kennedy know of the suffering of Black people? Not much–at least not from his own boyhood. Yet in any full assessment of John F. Kennedy, we must never forget that he was truly a well-educated man, familiar in detail with American history.
He was a graduate of Harvard College; for his dissertation he authored Why England Slept, a book which helped explain why England was so under-prepared to deal with Hitler after he came to power in Germany.
Beyond his first-class college education, he was well-read; he often used quotations from great writers and philosophers. He was known as a speed-reader with estimates ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 words a minute. He devoured newspapers in the morning . . . although aides prepared the way by circling articles of special importance.
Still, his erudition was truly amazing. His second book, Profiles in Courage, was hailed as a remarkable work and its reputation has not tarnished in the years since. This book, written in 1956, gave John Kennedy a chance to express his own political opinions in a fresh and insightful manner; it became a best-seller and won a Pulitzer Prize the following year. (Ted Sorensen, his speechwriter, is today given a larger share of the credit).
Kennedy chose to deal with the theme of political courage– the courage shown by men who held high office in America. He didn’t just focus just on successful men to illustrate his point.
Instead, he chose eight Senators who, because of a single decision, put their career at risk. Their crucial decision was based on conscience without regard to personal consequences–and that is why John Kennedy marked these men as especially courageous.
Sam Houston, the Governor of Texas at the time of the Civil War, is included in Profiles in Courage. He spoke out against slavery despite the hold of the slave-owners on his own state; he believed Texas should remain loyal to the Union. This position ended his career but his courage did not fail to impress John Kennedy the writer a century later. As his brother Robert Kennedy noted, courage was the one quality John Kennedy admired most in others.
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What kind of man was John F. Kennedy? Besides charismatic and intelligent, he was also courageous. He demonstrated both physical and moral courage and he was not weaker in the one area than the other. Of which courage shall we speak first?
The courage to overcome illness and injury, the years spent in pain, the back operations after the end of World War II? The times as Senator he had to hobble around on crutches? And yet, always with that handsome smile we remember so well–not with a frown from terrible pain but a happy winsome smile that could light up a room.
The time when his boat PT-109 was destroyed by a Japanese torpedo, when he and the men he commanded were suddenly thrown into the dark cold sea? His friend, struggling to the surface, badly injured and unable to swim, trying to sputter out a last goodbye to his friend, John Kennedy?
And what was Kennedy’s response though his own back was nearly broken? He “used a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth to tow his badly burned senior enlisted machinist mate, MM1 Patrick McMahon”.
With one end of the strap in his mouth, the injured John F. Kennedy, future president of the United States, began to swim the long distance to the nearest island, towing his friend behind him. It took four hours to cover the 3.5 miles.
How in the world did he make it? No one will ever know, other than to realize he must have called on some great secret reserve of strength and determination—perhaps someday someone should add one more chapter to his book, a profile of John F. Kennedy as a man of courage.
It’s hard to describe his face when on rare occasion one got a glimpse of it contorted by such great pain–it is said that back injuries are the most painful of all. Yet he had good days where he piloted a sailboat, played with his family on the beach, even a little touch football, and led his young daughter Caroline around on her pony.
There were days when he came into a news conference in an especially good mood; one could anticipate that more than a few jests and ad-libs were coming. Before long, he would have the audience laughing along with him.
When a journalist managed to pin him down with a tough question all the news reporters held their breath and waited, not knowing whether Pres. Kennedy would choose wit or wisdom with which to respond.
When given an honorary degree at Yale University, he was asked: how did it feel to have a Yale degree?
Remember, John Kennedy was a Harvard man and these two schools were longtime rivals in sports and every other collegiate area. Kennedy paused for effect and then said simply that he was a satisfied man that day because he now had the best of two worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree.
He emphasized the Yale degree by putting it last, of course. The Yale crowd loved it and burst into applause; here was President Kennedy’s own special brand of humor to make the occasion especially festive!
This education that he possessed was truly first-rate. With inquiring mind and self-discipline, he learned for himself the story of America and of her people. John Kennedy had great pride that he was an American. He was intelligent, educated, and courageous.
He served his country in the military during a time of war; he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart. As a citizen he was willing to risk his own life in defense of freedom.
He was an American citizen before anything else: that is what mattered most to him. That night in the waters of the South Pacific, he proved just how courageous one American citizen can be.
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I think one can safely say John Kennedy was ambitious. And not in the bad sense of the word; we are too familiar with its negative connotations these days to remember that “ambition” has a positive side. If one has the necessary talent and intellect, is it wrong to picture oneself as a national leader, even president?
John Kennedy thought not; he had a great deal of self-confidence and believed he was the best man for the job. And so he ran for the highest office and against the odds he won. It was a very close election but over the next several years, millions of Americans were made hopeful by his presidency. Indeed, his popularity was steadily on the rise. Even so, he still had critics a-plenty; he never seemed to run out of political enemies.
To his other qualities, add self-confidence. During a news conference, he once answered that his idea of happiness came from the Greeks: that is, the full development of one’s abilities along lines of excellence. He never stopped striving for excellence: to improve, to grow, to learn anew.
Add, too, curiosity and open-mindedness to his other traits. And yet he could be tough as nails when necessary. He could turn a stony face to bad advice and make changes to outdated policies because they were ineffective, no matter how many feathers got ruffled. Many people were very comfortable with the System just the way it was and there were those who didn’t like anybody tinkering with it.
Wealthy oil tycoons did not like it when he took away a lucrative tax loophole that they had been abusing for years. JFK forced Nikita Khrushchev to back down with the Cuban missile crisis at its peak.
He signed the test ban treaty on nuclear weapons with the Russians because his scientific advisers convinced him that radiation from atmospheric tests was poisoning the milk children drank.
He helped support the movement to end segregation in the South, toppling racist institutions and practices that had been in place for decades. He met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and invited him to the White House.
He made time to travel to California and visited Yosemite National Park, for he was a friend to the Environment before most people even knew the word.
He opposed organized crime tooth and nail and fought against it during his entire political career, including the years when he was a senator from Massachusetts. He especially opposed organized crime’s hold on certain of the labor unions of the country.
Both John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, worked hard to cut the ties between organized crime and organized labor: both paid with their lives for acting on their beliefs.
John Kennedy promoted the Peace Corps, made up of young American volunteers who would go to other countries to help the people there in many different capacities: from advice on how to increase agricultural yield to teaching, building, and engineering.
The program was wildly successful from the start as a generation of young college students enthusiastically responded to a President who had asked them to help America hold out hope to others less fortunate than themselves.
What kind of man was John Kennedy? I struggle to describe him because he is not an easy man to summarize. I have not even broached discussion of his faults, for he was by no means perfect. He was such a complex man that we only have time for a few words of praise for him tonight–no time for a full biographical accounting of his entire life.
For myself, I would rank him as among the nation’s greatest presidents along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Like other great men before him, John F. Kennedy’s life was cut tragically short. This leaves us the impossible task of speculating as to what else he might have achieved, had he lived.
It sometimes boggles the mind, like looking at a dazzling sky when considering the possibilities, a horizon filled with beautiful colors and sparkling comets–each color, each streaking comet standing for one more accomplishment of this president. The future becomes a beautiful vision, as a time of peace and justice.
I can only say, whatever the path, he would have followed it with the same courage, conviction, and determination that he showed in everything he did in his life: to be the best and to do the most good.
This is but a mere sketch of the man and barely does him justice. If you want to know more about him, read a book or talk to me after class. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you may have!
-Prof. Rosenberg
