On the day of John F. Kennedy‘s inauguration (January 20, 1961), the Northeast was paralyzed beneath 1-2 feet of snow. The president’s speech was carried on the heels of fierce winds and a biting cold. People were relatively more optimistic in those days, in spite of their fears and paranoia…before the fall of Camelot and the rise of the Vietnam War suddenly cast a damper on people’s expectations. But, in spite of this, the beneficent potential of the Kennedy era became frozen in time : a lasting, if arguable, monument for the ages.
In 1961, America was fighting the Cold War: that uncertain battleground where a clouded-alignment of real and imagined threats suspended reason and silenced talk. Both America and Russia were acquiring stockpiles of nuclear weapons with the potential to blow the world up twenty times over; the Soviet Union’s breakthroughs in space exploration (or first-strike capability), with Sputnik and manned-orbital flight, increased the stakes. While America’s economy had been declining for two years, Russia’s had been growing and causing us political embarrassment. The Soviet Union was also gaining increased strength with more countries (especially former Asian and African colonies) looking to it for leadership and for alliance…with Cuba in the lead. The United States, for the first time since 1812, felt vulnerable to invasion.
So, it was not surprising that the new President would give an inaugural speech that was essentially a cold war battle cry. Only two words in Kennedy’s speech even touched on domestic affairs. Those words were “at home,” and they were added by Kennedy and his gifted speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, at the very last minute. (NY TIMES)
Because Kennedy was relatively young and dynamic-looking (actually, he was in poor health), and, essentially, because his untimely death leaves an eternal “What If?” imprinted on history and on the imagination, politicians have forever tried to measure up to him. The character and charisma he (and certainly his wife Jackie) exuded, more than the handful of goals that JFK achieved, played a crucial part in JFK’s presidency and served as a dazzling smokescreen to his administration’s less appealing side. Yet, even more than Lincoln or FDR, Kennedy ranks foremost among the role models for aspiring political leaders. The fact that he (and especially his brother Robert) would be seen as politically conservative by today’s standards is lost in the myth and romance of JFK’s legacy.
President Obama is, of course, the latest JFK aspirant. While it’s somewhat forgotten that the well-publicized dreams and presumed ambitions of Kennedy were, in fact, carried out by his successor Lyndon Johnson (his Great Society, ironically, helped to destroy his presidency) JFK’s martyrdom earned him the glory. No one remembers whether or not Kennedy balanced America’s budget (at best, it was stabilized) or that he was often reluctant to take a direct stand on civil rights issues if it wasn’t politically expedient, or whether or not the war in Vietnam would have escalated if he had lived (Kennedy often acceded to war hawks), etc…most of us remember him, unfortunately, as an assassinated president amidst a collage of countless and intriguing conspiracy chronicles.
One of JFK’s worries was, of all things, in being upstaged by Robert Frost who was to deliver “The Gift Outright,” a poem written by the great poet in tribute to the inauguration. While Frost, his poem, the blizzard that froze the Northeast 48 years ago, are barely remembered (if not totally forgotten), Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” would be forever honored, forever recalled and forever overlooked. Then again, Kennedy, like all heroes, wasn’t beloved for what he accomplished but for what it was believed he had accomplished. I, along with most of my Baby Boom contemporaries, spent the past 46 years engaged in this psycho-therapeutic nostalgia and, alas, will most likely spend the remainder of my life engaged in it. I wish it were otherwise, but the like of a Nixon, Clinton and, more recently, Bush, Jr., made it all the more easier to rely upon. I hope that President Obama will leave a deeper and more significant impression on future generations.
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