Skip to main content

The Apotheosis of John F. Kennedy



It was an odd confluence of events yesterday.  While CNN was having a prelude to the memorial of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, BBC was highlighting the birth of the long-running British elevision series Dr. Who, which began on the same day.  In time, both networks were covering the memorial services in full, apparently the first for JFK in Dallas since his assassination.  It seems that not only Dallas but Americans as a whole have come to terms with Kennedy, who tops the list of most popular past presidents at 90%.

Dr. Who would probably be the best person to explore the events surrounding JFK's death with his famous time travel machine machine, Tardis.

Kennedy's approval rating in November 1963 stood at a respectful 58%, but was down 22 points from his high in March, 1962, following an international disarmament conference that led to draft treaties between the US and USSR on nuclear disarmament, an attempt to set the Doomsday clock back a few minutes.  A clock Kennedy had dramatically pushed forward during those 13 days in October, 1962.

There was growing disgruntlement with Kennedy on both the right and the left.  The Birchers went so far as to distribute "Wanted for Treason" leaflets prior to his arrival in Dallas on that fateful day, and there was much anxiety in the South over the civil rights legislation the Kennedy administration was proposal.  The Dixiecrats had effectively been able to block all legislation, but Kennedy is probably best remembered desegregation attempts at the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama, which became battle cries for Southerners determined to keep Jim Crow laws in place.

Kennedy was also having a hard time getting a tax cut bill through Congress, which he felt would go a long way to easing the US out of economic recession.  Seems the post-war boom had finally abated, and the Kennedy administration was looking for any kind of stimulus to get things moving again.

A Fair Housing bill had also stalled in Congress, which Johnson would get passed in 1964 along with all the other bills the Kennedy administration had failed to get moving, precipitating a massive boom in public housing across the country, which indeed would get the economy moving again.

One certainly has to credit John F. Kennedy for all these initiatives, but they probably would have all died on the vine if it hadn't been for that great transformative event on November 22 1963.  Robert Caro argues, as have other historians, that by acting quickly Johnson was able to use JFK's death to mobilize Congress in a way that hadn't occurred since the end of the Civil War.

Of course, FDR had passed some monumental legislation during his time, but he too had been afraid to touch Jim Crow laws.  The first real dents came with the desegregation of the military of the military in 1949 by Truman, and the famous Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which Eisenhower enforced by having Ruby Bridges escorted to her first day of elementary school in New Orleans.  Civil Rights legislation was eventually enacted in 1964, and a federal ban on lynching finally passed through Congress in 1968, after having first been rejected by Roosevelt out of fear of losing the Southern vote.

As history becomes a blur, it seems most Americans point to Kennedy as that great transformative figure in contemporary events.  He received an even higher approval rating than Ronald Reagan, which is pretty impressive in this day and age.  Of course, Lyndon Johnson is all but forgotten, but it is safe to say that without LBJ there would not have been this great JFK legacy.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!