# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![tombennett91](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@tombennett91](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tombennett91)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/141 "2016-01-22T22:02:18Z")
He was a huge inspiration to the nation the likes of which are rarely seen by a President. His handling of the cuban missile crisis was phenomenal. ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/142 "2016-01-22T23:00:36Z")
> [@tombennett91](#): > > He was a huge inspiration to the nation the likes of which are rarely seen by a President. His handling of the cuban missile crisis was phenomenal. Going back to my OP, this is what I mean by JFK being deified. ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/143 "2016-01-22T23:04:47Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Reagan didn’t have shit to do with it. If Putin had been in charge rather than Gorbachev, the USSR and Berlin Wall would still be around. > > We’ll never know how JFK would be remembered if he hadn’t been murdered. I think it might be as the last intellectual president until Obama came along. I think his greatest achievement was not listening to the military advice during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They wanted him to go ahead and launch a preemptive strike on the USSR. If he had done so, none of us would be around today to talk about it. One shudders to think what would have happened if it happened during the Bush-Cheney years. We don’t know if he could have gotten the Civil Rights Act passed. Certainly LBJ would have been enlisted to twist arms and maybe they could have done so. I suspect it would have been more difficult if not impossible. I don’t believe that any president would have started WWIII over Cuba, not Ike, not Nixon, not Johnson. I’m not sure what you mean by “last intellectual president.” Kennedy was an intelligent man but I would rank Nixon, Carter, and Clinton as more intelligent. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/144 "2016-01-23T00:30:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Don’t want to hijack the thread any further, so assuming the USSR was heading toward economic collapse and violent breakup, it still had squat to do with Reagan. Reagan put the Soviet Union under pressure, after two decades of detente let them off the hook. ---
**Author:** ![tombennett91](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@tombennett91](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tombennett91)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/145 "2016-01-23T02:31:25Z")
> [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > Going back to my OP, this is what I mean by JFK being deified. Hahaha brilliant! I regard him as a god because I referenced his handling of the cuban missile crisis and the fact that he is a great source of inspiration? I might just as well say it’s ignorant to dismiss these two extraordinary achievements. I might also say it’s incredibly simplistic to believe that three very different President’s - Ike, Nixon and Johnson would all come to the same conclusion; invading Cuba will result in WWIII. That was not a thought shared by all, indeed Curtis LeMay argued your exact point in reverse, Russia would not go to war over Cuba if America invades. The Russians had lied to the UN and US about putting the missiles in Cuba, the US would be ‘justified’ to invade Cuba in the eyes of the world. At the time the thought was that a full military invasion would be a complete success with minimal causalities. Castro would be gone for good. The US had many more missile’s pointed at Russia then they at them. LeMay’s claim that Russia wont do a thing if an invasion occurs was not because he desired a Nuclear Holocaust, it was because the evidence was there that invading Cuba would NOT result in WW III. Kennedy knew, from the start, that invading Cuba would result in a Russia response, whether that be in Berlin or some other area, but they would respond. Invading Cuba would be the first step towards a nuclear war. Kennedy did not let that happen and had the strength of character to tell the Generals they were wrong. No way in hell can anyone say for sure that any other President would have thought the same way. Yet history has proven Kennedy’s judgement to be true, invading Cuba would most certainly have begun a Nuclear War. I find it almost amusing how people consider JFK’s achievement for inspiring a nation a non-answer. Yet when the opposite happens with Bush responding to Katrina in a way that crushed the public’s spirit, it is perceived as a monumental failure in his presidency. JFK’s ability to inspire has lived on for generations, it is a huge achievement. I apologise for the length of this message, it really could have been summed with the following “JFK’s handling of the cuban missile crisis and motivational speeches are why he is remembered in high regards”. I could only imagine the hilarious response I would have received had I sent that instead 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Botie2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Botie2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Botie2)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/146 "2016-01-25T18:51:34Z")
I was on the corporate speaking cucuit for a while and although not American, I used JFK in my talks as an example of exceptional leadership. So i have done a lot of research on the man. Putting aside the Bay of Pigs, his support for vietnam extended only as far as the French Colonials and in fact was committed to not sending in US ground troops which put a lot of the industrial military complex off side, including his vice president. And although his farther made his fortune bootlegging and used his mafia connections to swing the vote in Illionis which was the decider, immediatly they got into power, his brother Robert as attorney general used his office to go after the mafia which put the mob offside (in a big way). Following the Bay of Pigs incident, Kennedy was determined to break the CIA appart and strip down its power which put the CIA naturally off side. What I used in my talks was his speach at Rice University which people remember for the famous line “We choose to do this and the other things not because they are easy…” The full speach has much more depth and vision than people give it credit for. Its predictive powers of (May not be adverbatim but very close “We will send a man to the moon before the end of the century in a rocket built of alloys we have not yet invented that are capable of withstanding heat at reentry of over 25,000 degrees, almost as hot as it is here today, Tuned to a precision finer than finest swiss watch…and return him safely.” Was the sort of vision exceptional leaders are able to muster to move people to want to be part of that vision. A vision that had greater predictive powers than nostradamnus. Think back (if your old enough to the "Space"frenzy his speach created. Almost every second sitcome was about space travel: Lost in space, I dream of Jeanie, Star trek, My favorite Martian…much more… That was in 1963, 6 months before his assassination. I remember seeing a documentary from 1969 about the new portable camera’s that could bring the news live into your living room and this was being demonstrated at NASA where the reporter said was buzzing with excitement as the launch of the first manned mission to the moon draws near. The reportr walks up to a man in overalls leaning on a broom and says to him “SIr, can you tell our audience what it is you do?” He say “Don’t yopu know? I am helping put a man on the moon.” He was such a great visionary that 6 years after his death, the whole country bought into his vision and made it happen. We expected following that, to see 2001 a space odessy by 2001, but without that sort of visionary leadership, Nassa has suffered drastic budget cuts and managed a remote control car on mars by 2008. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/147 "2016-01-25T20:51:29Z")
> [@Botie2](#): > > I was on the corporate speaking cucuit for a while and although not American, I used JFK in my talks as an example of exceptional leadership. So i have done a lot of research on the man… > > … And although his farther made his fortune bootlegging and used his mafia connections to swing the vote in Illionis which was the decider… So you’ve done a lot of research into JFK, but you are under the incorrect impression that Illinois swung the election? Here’s the 1960 electoral map. If JFK loses Illinois, he wins anyway. > **[1960 United States presidential election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960)** > > Dwight D. Eisenhower > Republican > John F. Kennedy > Democratic > The 1960 United States presidential election was the 44th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. The Democratic ticket of Senator John F. Kennedy and his running mate, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, narrowly defeated the Republican ticket of incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon and his running mate, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. This was the first election in which 50 states particip... I mean, that’s a pretty big fact to miss. ---
**Author:** ![Botie2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Botie2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Botie2)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/148 "2016-01-26T04:07:03Z")
[http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=391](http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=391) ---
**Author:** ![Botie2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Botie2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Botie2)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/149 "2016-01-26T04:08:03Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > So you’ve done a lot of research into JFK, but you are under the incorrect impression that Illinois swung the election? > > Here’s the 1960 electoral map. If JFK loses Illinois, he wins anyway. > > [1960 United States presidential election - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960) > > I mean, that’s a pretty big fact to miss. [http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=391](http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=391) > **[Chicago Tribune](https://www.chicagotribune.com)** > > Get Chicago news and Illinois news from The Chicago Tribune The best ytou can say is its debatable. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/150 "2016-01-26T04:18:47Z")
It is not a matter of debate. It is simple arithmetic. If Nixon had won Illinois, Kennedy would still have won the election. Add it up yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/151 "2016-01-26T10:21:45Z")
> [@Botie2](#): > > I was on the corporate speaking cucuit for a while and although not American, I used JFK in my talks as an example of exceptional leadership. So i have done a lot of research on the man. Putting aside the Bay of Pigs, his support for vietnam extended only as far as the French Colonials and in fact was committed to not sending in US ground troops which put a lot of the industrial military complex off side, including his vice president. > > And although his farther made his fortune bootlegging and used his mafia connections to swing the vote in Illionis which was the decider, immediatly they got into power, his brother Robert as attorney general used his office to go after the mafia which put the mob offside (in a big way). > > Following the Bay of Pigs incident, Kennedy was determined to break the CIA appart and strip down its power which put the CIA naturally off side. > > What I used in my talks was his speach at Rice University which people remember for the famous line “We choose to do this and the other things not because they are easy…” > > The full speach has much more depth and vision than people give it credit for. Its predictive powers of (May not be adverbatim but very close “We will send a man to the moon before the end of the century in a rocket built of alloys we have not yet invented that are capable of withstanding heat at reentry of over 25,000 degrees, almost as hot as it is here today, Tuned to a precision finer than finest swiss watch…and return him safely.” > Was the sort of vision exceptional leaders are able to muster to move people to want to be part of that vision. A vision that had greater predictive powers than nostradamnus. Think back (if your old enough to the "Space"frenzy his speach created. Almost every second sitcome was about space travel: Lost in space, I dream of Jeanie, Star trek, My favorite Martian…much more… > > That was in 1963, 6 months before his assassination. I remember seeing a documentary from 1969 about the new portable camera’s that could bring the news live into your living room and this was being demonstrated at NASA where the reporter said was buzzing with excitement as the launch of the first manned mission to the moon draws near. The reportr walks up to a man in overalls leaning on a broom and says to him “SIr, can you tell our audience what it is you do?” He say “Don’t yopu know? I am helping put a man on the moon.” > > He was such a great visionary that 6 years after his death, the whole country bought into his vision and made it happen. We expected following that, to see 2001 a space odessy by 2001, but without that sort of visionary leadership, Nassa has suffered drastic budget cuts and managed a remote control car on mars by 2008. Where is it documented the JFK didn’t want to send ground troops to Vietnam? Also, what steps did he take to break apart the CIA? I can see that JFK looked good on television and was a good speaker. So was Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/152 "2016-01-26T10:36:20Z")
I think the ground troops thing was a myth. We were taking Afghanistan-level casualties under JFK’s Vietnam policy, and the distinction between advisors and ground troops is more political BS than reality. Plus we were ferrying troops in with helicopters and they were getting shot down. I think what is more likely is that JFK would have rejected LBJ’s rolling escalation and gone in fast and hard right away and probably been willing to risk war with China to defeat North Vietnam. JFK, as we know, was not risk averse. LBJ was. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/153 "2016-01-26T11:26:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It is not a matter of debate. It is simple arithmetic. If Nixon had won Illinois, Kennedy would still have won the election. Add it up yourself. In fairness to Mr. Botie2, there was undoubtedly much election fraud in Texas also, perhaps enough to swing the state away from Nixon. Had Democrats only successfully cheated in one state, the GOP might have been able to contest the election. With two states it was hopeless. In that sense, _either_ Illinois or Texas could be considered “decisive.” (IIRC, some GOP advisors wanted Nixon to contest the electoral result. Some think Nixon’s refusal to do so was an example of putting country ahead of party.) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/154 "2016-01-26T11:28:10Z")
Yeah, the time to have that fight is when you’re trying to correct problems legislatively. If dead people cost you an election, you concede and then make sure that can’t happen in the next election. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/155 "2016-01-26T11:30:37Z")
Regarding Vietnam, Seymour Hersh quotes at least two JFK intimates that _JFK indicated he planned to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 election._ If it’s true that JFK delayed withdrawal just to avoid political embarassment, most would agree JFK was far too cynical. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/156 "2016-01-26T11:36:08Z")
But probably smarter about foreign affairs and how foreign affairs interacts with politics than LBJ. LBJ thought he could split the baby. Wage a half-assed war and slowly escalate. ---
**Author:** ![tombennett91](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@tombennett91](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tombennett91)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/157 "2016-01-26T13:30:28Z")
> [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > I can see that JFK looked good on television and was a good speaker. So was Reagan. Right there. You started this conversation under the false pretense of wanting to know why JFK is admired yet your mind was already made up and any facts given for JFK’s success you either ignore or dismiss whilst adding nothing new since your OP. What’s more likely, that JFK is remembered for his achievements with Civil Rights, Cuban Missile Crisis, Peace Corps, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Cease Fire In Laos, Inspiring The World (Ich Bin ein Berliner, Peace Speech) and Committing The Nation To The Space Program. Or you’re conclusion “He looked good on television and was a good speaker”. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/158 "2016-01-26T19:53:37Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > In fairness to Mr. Botie2, there was undoubtedly much election fraud in Texas also, perhaps enough to swing the state away from Nixon. Well that may be, but it was not the claim made. ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/159 "2016-01-27T09:31:24Z")
> [@tombennett91](#): > > Right there. You started this conversation under the false pretense of wanting to know why JFK is admired yet your mind was already made up and any facts given for JFK’s success you either ignore or dismiss whilst adding nothing new since your OP. What’s more likely, that JFK is remembered for his achievements with Civil Rights, Cuban Missile Crisis, Peace Corps, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Cease Fire In Laos, **Inspiring The World** (Ich Bin ein Berliner, Peace Speech) and Committing The Nation To The Space Program. Or you’re conclusion “He looked good on television and was a good speaker”. :smack: This is what I was asking about in the OP (the bolded part). How did he inspire the world? And to answer your question, yes, I do think he is more remembered for image and not reality. ---
**Author:** ![Botie2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Botie2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Botie2)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541/160 "2016-01-28T13:10:45Z")
I don’t claim I know anything about American ballot counting so I defer to experts. When I do a google search on “did Illionis swing the election for JFK” I get 369,000 results. Or I could just defer to you, but in debating this, your missing the whole point of why he was a great leader. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jfk-so-deified/741541.md?page=9)