# Why Is JFK So Deified? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541 "2015-12-28T06:44:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/21 "2015-12-28T18:51:28Z")
[Here are the U.S. Presidents ranked by historians on several criteria.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Siena_College_Research_Institute_survey) Click, for example, on Luck to see the Luckiest (Washington, Teddy) or Unluckiest (Hoover) Presidents. Just now for fun, I ranked the Presidents by the _ **variance** _ among their 21 ranks in that table. The lowest-variance included Pierce and Andrew Johnson (scored poorly across the board), Jefferson and both Roosevelts (scored high across the board) and Cleveland (middling ranks across the board). More interesting may be the _highest_-variance Presidents, who are, in order: LBJ (highest variance) – scored poorly on Integrity and Luck Hoover – scored well on Intelligence, Background, Integrity Reagan – scored poorly on Intelligence, Appointments Jackson – scored poorly on Ability to compromise Nixon – scored well on Foreign Policy accomplishments Clinton – scored poorly on Integrity J.Q. Adams – scored poorly on Leadership, Luck Carter – scored well on Integrity Wilson – scored poorly on Ability to compromise John Adams – scored poorly on Ability to compromise JFK – scored poorly on Integrity, Luck ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/22 "2015-12-28T19:23:42Z")
Do you ever like to fantasize about what you’d do if you were the president? I’d want to do it with money, charisma, good looks, a pretty wife and an unchecked libido. Much of what we remember about JFK is wrong. He’s remembered as some kind of liberal pacifist on the verge of signing the store over to Khrushchev. In fact, he was a rather traditional Cold War hawk. He’s credited with championing a lot of Civil Rights legislation that actually got passed on Eisenhower’s or LBJ’s watch. He’s remembered as trouncing Nixon in the debates. He could play to the television camera like nobody else, but people listening to the debates on the radio were under the impression that Nixon won them. However JFK is rated (or deified) has to do with the person doing the rating and filling in the blanks. With JFK, there were a lot of blanks to fill in, the biggest being the unserved final year of his term. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/23 "2015-12-29T08:22:01Z")
Clinton and JFK had poor personal integrity but they cared about good government and the government was actually less corrupt under their watch. There were no Iran-Contra or Watergate type scandals during their Presidencies, nor were there major agency failures due to mismanagement or corruption. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/24 "2015-12-29T10:15:39Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Much of what we remember about JFK is wrong. But the important thing is that we actually do remember JFK. Most other presidents fade away. No other president has spoken with a voice that still rings through history. Offhand, I can’t think of a single quote from any other president. But JFK gave us lots of them. “Ich bin Ein Berliner.” “Ask not what your country can do for you.” “put a man on the moon before the decade is out.” “we will pay any price, bear any burden…for liberty” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/25 "2015-12-29T11:28:22Z")
Who deifies Kennedy these days? Any overestimation of his administration happened within the first decade or so after he died. Since then most people have tended to think of him as a flawed man. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/26 "2015-12-29T11:33:01Z")
> [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > He most likely was elected with the assistance of voter fraud. Not really. The Chicago machine could have been incarcerated to the last man and Illinois could have gone 99% for Nixon and he would still have won the election. Nixon could even have taken Illinois and all of Byrd’s Electoral votes and JFK would have still won. > [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > And worst of all, he allowed the coup in South Vietnam and the assassination of Diem to proceed which pretty much made the Vietnam War inevitable. Diem was a mistake of Ike’s presidency who should not have been put into power. When Diem’s brother, (with his acceptance), began looting the country and he began to persecute Buddhists, his overthrow was inevitable. And LBJ could have refrained from sending in large numbers of troops, regardless who held the presidency of South Vietnam. I think his charisma overshadows many of his errors, but these two claims are part of the non-factual anti-myth that those who did not like him promote. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/27 "2015-12-29T11:47:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Not really. The Chicago machine could have been incarcerated to the last man and Illinois could have gone 99% for Nixon and he would still have won the election. Nixon could even have taken Illinois and all of Byrd’s Electoral votes and JFK would have still won. > > Diem was a mistake of Ike’s presidency who should not have been put into power. When Diem’s brother, (with his acceptance), began looting the country and he began to persecute Buddhists, his overthrow was inevitable. And LBJ could have refrained from sending in large numbers of troops, regardless who held the presidency of South Vietnam. > > I think his charisma overshadows many of his errors, but these two claims are part of the non-factual anti-myth that those who did not like him promote. Had Nixon taken both Illinois and Texas he would have won the White House. And there was certainly election fraud in Texas. [QUOTE=Wikipedia] Cases of voter fraud were discovered in Texas. For example, Fannin County had only 4,895 registered voters, yet 6,138 votes were cast in that county, three-quarters for Kennedy. In an Angelina County precinct, Kennedy received 187 votes to Nixon’s 24, though there were only a total of 86 registered voters in the precinct. [/QUOTE] OTOH, unlike Illinois, JFK might have won Texas even without the cheating and, anyway, electoral fraud seems to be as American as apple pie. However the claim that Ike, rather than JFK, was responsible for errors in Cuba and Vietnam is too wrong to ignore. It assumes that the great General who defeated Adolf Hitler would have made the same mistakes as the arrogant novice. On the specific matter of the CIA-inspired coup against Diem: [QUOTE=Hồ Chí Minh] I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/28 "2015-12-29T11:59:13Z")
THe thing about Diem is that although he was bad, he was the only guy strong enough and with enough support to lead South Vietnam in its fight against Ho Chi Minh. After Diem’s fall, South Vietnam never had that caliber of leader again. Given the crisis Diem created it’s hard to blame Kennedy for the decision to support his overthrow, but it probably did hurt the war effort and it didn’t bring South Vietnam any closer to a more decent regime. ---
**Author:** ![botsgotme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@botsgotme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/botsgotme)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/29 "2015-12-29T12:29:39Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > He certainly got off to a bad start, although given the campaign he ran it’s impossible to see how he could have done otherwise even if he’d been experienced. He campaigned as if the Eisenhower years had been disastrous, but when he took office of course things were pretty okay and thus anything that happened was probably going to be worse than what came before, not better. When I was reading about the campaign from Time and Newsweek I was struck by how little Kennedy’s portrait of the Ike years comports with the way we think about Ike now, and even how people thought about Ike then. Unemployment was like 6% and Kennedy acted as if the sky was falling, plus the missile gap… Just a weird campaign, but I guess someone as charismatic as him could sell anything. Plus voters often want change even when a Presidency is fairly successful. It’s really hard to succeed a two term President of your own party, even a popular one. I have always wondered what would have happened if Ike has stayed another term. Most likely, the USA would never have gotten into Vietnam in a big way, and history would have been very different. Ike was a military man, and realized that it was not in the USA’s interest to conduct a foreign, costly, and indecisive war. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/30 "2015-12-29T12:58:57Z")
The Kennedy family and media admirers promoted [the “Camelot” legend](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/12/how-jackie-kennedy-invented-the-camelot-legend-after-jfk-s-death.html), which did much to perpetuate the image of a hugely talented and wonderful leader cut down in his prime. The comparison with Bill Clinton is apt in one sense - although Kennedy’s personal behavior (and the risks he took) apparently far exceeded anything Clinton did (read Seymour Hersh’s “The Dark Side Of Camelot”). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/31 "2015-12-29T14:11:45Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > I have always wondered what would have happened if Ike has stayed another term. Most likely, the USA would never have gotten into Vietnam in a big way, and history would have been very different. Ike was a military man, and realized that it was not in the USA’s interest to conduct a foreign, costly, and indecisive war. JFK was as well. Military vets actually seem to be more hawkish than non-vets, at least that’s my observation. I think what made Ike think the way he did was his position in the military, which gave him a better view of the big picture than former junior officers. And to Ike, the big picture was that WWIII was going to be a nuclear war, so why bother with conventional weapons and why bother to get into small wars over strategically unimportant countries? Ike was however very willing to fight the Cold War covertly. Iran and Guatemala coups happened under his watch and he wasn’t hesitant to take credit for them, whereas most Presidents were more circumspect about acknowledging the US’ role in interfering in small countries. ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/32 "2015-12-29T14:11:50Z")
I’ve always been a bit baffled by this. I suspect the fact that he was assassinated gives him an air of martyrdom. Criticizing JFK probably equates to being a Communist murderer in most people’s eyes. FWIW, I think much the same of Reagan. Every time I hear a politician say they want to be a “Reagan Republican,” I want to ask them if that means they intend to sell missiles to Iran or compromise our SIGINT assets to Putin. But people in general are very bad at accepting that people can have both good and bad qualities. We prefer to be able to say that people are “all good” or “all evil.” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/33 "2015-12-29T14:18:35Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Had Nixon taken both Illinois and Texas he would have won the White House. And there was certainly election fraud in Texas. > > OTOH, unlike Illinois, JFK might have won Texas even without the cheating and, anyway, electoral fraud seems to be as American as apple pie. Despite all the claims no evidence of significant election fraud has ever been brought forward. When some Illinois Republicans cried foul the Democratic Machine in Chicago said they’d be fine with a recount of the entire state, and the Republicans backed down. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/34 "2015-12-29T14:22:29Z")
A recount doesn’t really uncover dead people voting. That requires a deeper investigation and I’m not even sure the feds were in a position to conduct such an investigation legally. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/35 "2015-12-29T14:35:47Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > … WE see this displayed today in the actions of the current president, with his $70 million “winter vacations”. Mr. Obama spends $70 million on a holiday ? The shrimp must be exceptionally good. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/36 "2015-12-29T14:55:25Z")
Judicial Watch (not exactly a neutral source) puts the taxpayer cost of [all of the Obama family’s personal travel](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article50172810.html) since 2009 at $70 million. It’s certainly not the cost of a single vacation, as our new friend implies. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/37 "2015-12-29T15:04:11Z")
Well, why can’t he and the family just travel coach class as the Founding Fathers intended ? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/38 "2015-12-29T15:38:21Z")
Too much hassle with a Kenyan passport, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![botsgotme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@botsgotme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/botsgotme)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/39 "2015-12-29T16:30:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There are no conventional military responses to Soviet actions either. It was assumed long before and long after JFK that a conventional confrontation was likely to lead to WW3, which is why it never happened. It was just as unthinkable, and thus considered by some to be a waste of time. Correct-the Bay of pigs disaster convinced Kruschev that Kennedy was a wimp, who could be walked over. In turn, Kennedy’s rage at being humiliated led to his foolish decision to send troops to Vietnam. Had Kennedy supported the Free cuban invasion, he would have been respected by Kruschev-as Kruschev put it years later (in his memoirs):“we expected a devastating airstrike, followed by a powerful invasion force. When this did not happen, we realized we could have our way”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/40 "2015-12-29T16:56:22Z")
U.S. troops had been in South Vietnam as advisors since Truman sent them in 1950. JFK was not in a “rage” when he continued the U.S. military mission there, and he sent fewer troops than the Pentagon urged him to. The big buildup there began in 1965 under LBJ, who did not have JFK’s instructive experience of being given bad advice by the Joint Chiefs before the Bay of Pigs and during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For more, see the aforementioned _A Thousand Days_, as well as _Kennedy’s Wars_ by Lawrence Freedman (an interesting British perspective) and _Essence of Decision_ by Graham Allison. All good examinations of the foreign policy crises which JFK faced and largely overcame. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541.md?page=3)