JFK
Fifty two years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Kennedy’s reputation has not worn well over the years. Personally, I think the reason is that he had the wrong reputation to begin with.
Kennedy was a pivotal executive in the early, and perhaps most dangerous, days of the Cold War. I think what set him apart was his gut-level grasp of what Winston Churchill christened the “double-barrel” strategy, and the tension that persisted between his administration and the military.
In Churchill’s mind, the best way to counter the danger of the Soviet Union was to combine a strong defensive posture and an active engagement with the Soviet people. He believed the communist economic system was doomed to fail, and that the Kremlin’s downfall would be hastened by the contrast between life behind the Iron Curtain and life in the West.
Kennedy was beset by a belligerent military, with a number of flag-level officers convinced the US could “win” a nuclear war, and aggressively advocating a nuclear strike. At times the behavior of certain officers skirted insubordination, and more than a few in Washington privately worried about a military coup – a fear that only seemed validated by the 1961 coup attempt in France, discovered and thwarted at the eleventh hour.
I will point to just one example of why I believe history has misjudged JFK. He is widely remembered for his 1962 speech at Rice University.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade…because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…
It was inspiring rhetoric. It was also, in a very real way, a lie.
Declassified transcripts and tapes of White House meetings with James Webb, NASA Administrator, reveal that JFK was far less interested in space exploration than he appeared to be in public.
But this is important for political reasons, international political reasons…I know all these other things and the satellite and the communications and weather and all, they’re all desirable, but they can wait…If you’re trying to prove preeminence, this is the way to prove your preeminence.
I believe Kennedy was intent on demonstrating the preeminence of US missile technology as a warning to the Soviets, without giving ammunition to Soviet hardliners. This would have been critical, because in 1962 our nuclear deterrent was not yet fully credible. Just as American hardliners believed the U.S. could win a nuclear war, so did Soviet hardliners believe they could win, and failures of American space launches next to the launch of Yuri Gagarin in orbit, in 1961, were stoking that perception.
The path chosen by Kennedy was a difficult and dangerous one. He was as skeptical of the advice of his own military as he was of the intentions of Nikita Khrushchev. I think he was right on both counts.
I think we were fortunate to have him. It’s too bad his successor was not equally skeptical.
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