Richard Shank
Columnist
ABC News is to be commended for a special broadcast aired November 24, two days following the 62nd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After watching the two-hour special, this viewer was no closer to solving the puzzle on who all were involved in the tragic event more than six decades ago. Perhaps, there are some happenings we are not to know the full story, including the 1937 disappearance of Aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
I have found it fascinating to visit with a couple people who knew JFK, as he was affectionately called, to ask what he was really like. When JFK’s good friend Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee visited Hutchinson in 2001 for a speech at the Dillon Lecture Series, I inquired about his friendship with Kennedy. Bradlee responded although Kennedy was blessed with wealth, he was never into things and objects. Kennedy drove an Oldsmobile, and Bradlee did not remember him being a particularly good driver.
Helen Thomas, the famed UPI White House correspondent, also a Dillon Lecturer, knew Kennedy and said no President had a better vision of what America should be than did JFK.
I, for one, miss a President who had a genuine sense of humor like JFK who brought smiles and laughter to a nation waged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union.
In a 1962 White House dinner for Nobel Laureates, Kennedy gazed across a room filled with honorees and said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been gathered together in the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
When a young man asked Kenned how he became a war hero, the President responded, “It was involuntary. They (the Japanese) sank my boat.”
Commenting on the daily briefings regarding international issues, Kennedy said, “I do not think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.”
During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy drew applause when he said, “Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I am the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.”
In 2015, while in Boston, we stopped by the Kennedy Presidential Library on the campus of the University of Massachusetts and it was deserving of the tour we received. Kennedy preferred the library be built on the Harvard University campus where he graduated, but it was not to be. A faction of Bostonians opposed the construction with protestations of creating traffic congestion in the area. Meanwhile, across town, the University of Massachusetts came to the table with an offer to provide 10 acres of prime real estate, and the family was only too happy to accept. I remain puzzled that Harvard turned down an opportunity to house the Kennedy Library, and assume there is more to the story.
Based on Kennedy’s love of water and sailing, it seemed only natural his library should be built alongside Boston Harbor with a backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. His sailboat Victura, a gift from his parents, is displayed outside. The library, an 11-story glass pavilion gives the visitor a panoramic view of the vast ocean beyond.
Apparently, Kennedy and his staff kept good records, the library is a repository for 50 million pages of documents, 400,000 still photographs, 7.5 million feet of motion pictures , and 11,000 reels of audio recordings.
His Presidency set in motion a series of initiatives, many of which survive to this day. Four months after assuming the presidency, Kennedy summoned the nation to send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth. Kennedy created the Peace Corps and in doing so sent thousands of Americans to developing nations to teach everything from agriculture to literacy. In doing so, Kennedy may have done more for American diplomacy than all the diplomats who have served in our nation’s history.
A tax cut, initiated by Kennedy, and passed following his death, returned money to taxpayers and increased government revenue, something that has not been duplicated before or since.
And, let us not forget Kennedy restored his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower to the rank of Five Star General, a fitting tribute to a man who spent a lifetime defending his country and its way of live.
More books have been written about Kennedy than any other President, excluding Abraham Lincoln. Only 4 of the 34 Presidents who preceded him knew Kennedy, and many of the 11 who followed him tried to imitate his style and charisma, only to find out there was only one JFK.
Speaking at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Presidential Library in 1977, his brother Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy called JFK a universal man. “He could talk with a poet or prime minister, start an astronaut toward the moon, reach a black child in the south, throw a spiral pass, haul a sail and make a Russian blink,” Senator Kennedy said.
Ronald Reagan had special words for Kennedy. “He seemed to grasp from the beginning that life is one fast moving train, and you have to jump aboard and hold on to your hat and relish the sweep as it rushes by,” Reagan said.
Perhaps, Kennedy summed up his philosophy best in nine words in what some call his greatest quote. “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings,” Kennedy said.
