Today is the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Some of my readers were alive when it happened.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about Kennedy. There are books that claim he was corrupt, yet there are many who herald him as one of America's greatest Presidents. In terms of accomplishments, I'm not sure why he deserves that honor, since he was only in office for about three years. But he did have certain charisma, in the sense that he projected the image of a likable guy, with the ability to inspire us. As Nixon's butler said in Oliver Stone's Nixon, he "taught me to look to the stars." And Kennedy may have been the inspiration for later Presidents who appealed to people's hopes--Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and now President-elect Barack Obama.
Was Kennedy a firm anti-Communist, or was he soft on Communism? He was a supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and yet there were right-wingers who celebrated his death, believing his Presidency was a threat to America's security. This issue looms large in the debate about Kennedy's assassination: was he shot by a lone Communist gunman, or by a government conspiracy, angered by his desire to pull out of Vietnam? And then there are those who say he had no intention of pulling out of Nam, since he sent more troops. So there are differences of opinion about what kind of character he was in the drama of American history.
One thing I really like about Kennedy was that he wanted to debate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 race for President. John McCain referred to this a lot in his own campaign, and Goldwater recounts it in his book, With No Apologies. We could have had a constructive debate about ideas had Kennedy stayed alive. Unfortunately, we got LBJ's slimeball campaign.