What did JFK do?

Question

This is what I know:

Bay of Pigs Disaster.
Started Vietnam War.
Sexy/Womanizer/Kennedy.
Lots of people think his death was a tragedy.
He was assassinated.

Nothing I know about him makes him seem all that great. Certainly nobody worth mourning over.

On the other hand, nothing seems to be deserving of assassination.

What am I missing?

Is everybody just intoxicated by his charisma to the point that they overlook that he was a bad president? Was he doing something really risky that nobody talks about that got the CIA on his back?

Does nobody really know or care? Is everything about him a preposterous myth of greatness because he got his head blown off for undisclosed reasons?

Why should I care?

Answer 1

John Kennedy joined, and thus enabled, the march toward civil rights and justice for black Americans. He launched this nation's exploration of space. Kennedy gave birth to the public's engagement in the arts and humanities.

Turning away from the advice of the military's hardliners, the intelligent and scholarly Kennedy avoided what may well have been a nuclear holocaust with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy backed the Soviets down through negotiations and embargo, and in doing so he may have saved many millions of lives. A war hero, he understood the necessity of military responsiveness and created the Green Berets, which is now known as the Special Forces. His wartime experiences and his attention to history also told him that most war is futile, so Kennedy also created the Peace Corps.

President Kennedy quickly corrected an economy that had been off course. He increased federal spending where it was needed, cut taxes in an equitable manner while keeping the deficit in check. Any president would be satisfied to have just one of those accomplishments during a White House term.

Of all his accomplishments, however, the one that is cited only occasionally, but is critically important, was his ban of the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Following the limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which President Kennedy accomplished with the Soviet Union, the era of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons ended, thus halting the continued and profound contamination of our air and soil.

The first nuclear test, Trinity, was July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico, yielding 21 kilotons and inaugurating the poisoning of the world's atmosphere. Atomic detonations proceeded for the next seventeen years with the United States conducting 217 nuclear tests and the Soviet Union 216. Each above-ground test produced vast amounts of irradiated dirt and dust thrown as high as ten miles into our atmosphere. The radioactivity traveled around the globe with rain and snow creating fallout and hot spots throughout the world.

Uncounted people became sick and died. The radioactivity knew no geographic boundaries and was indiscriminate in the spread of its deadly cancers. One memorable tragedy occurred when the Hollywood movie The Conqueror was filmed on a Utah site which was a few miles from the site of a nuclear test which had been conducted a full year earlier. Within 30 years of the filming, almost half of the cast and crew of 220 had contracted cancer and among the dead were the film's stars, Susan Hayward and John Wayne. President Kennedy put a stop to atmospheric testing by both us and the Soviets.

Answer 2

A little truth for our liberal brethren-

1) Averted the Cuban missile crisis - RIGHT!!!, but only half right. Let's also mention that he was the one responsible for it in the first place when he tried to overthrow Cuba (Bay of Pigs disaster) causing Castro to get closer to the Russians resulting in them sending the missiles in the first place - thanks Jack, nice job.

2) Kennedy was devoutly anti-civil right. review his voting record while a Senator in Massachusetts. It was Lyndon Johnson who pushed the 1964 Civil rights Act through despite fierce DEMOCRATIC opposition.

3) He was also a pill popping, lying womanizing scum bag in his personal life - par for a Kennedy and a Democrat so no big surprise there.

4) While he did not start the Vietnam War as you claim ( The war had been going on since the end of th Korean War), he did greatly increase our involvement.

5) Appointed Robert Kennedy Attorney General then has his brother use every sleazy trip in the book to chase down his enemies.

6) Only was elected because of rampant election fraud in both Texas (Lyndon Johnson) and Illinois (organized crime and Mayor Daley). Johnson and Daley had long histories of voter fraud throughout their entire political careers. You know, the typical simple minded crap the Democrats always pull - convicts voting, names from dead democrats appearing on the voter logs, people bused in from other states, etc, etc,etc.

As far as Presidents go he was fair when compared to most other Democrats but overall pretty much sucked when compared to virtually all Republican Presidents of his era. BTW - I am an Independent, not a Republican.

Answer 3

His assignation insured his good name in history. He was not a great President. He was against civil rights, his brother the attorney general considered Dr. King an enemy of the state. Kennedy was the one that had the North Woods plan drawn up (The one the conspiracy theorists say Bush used to get us into war, As if war has done him or any of us enough good to justify it.). Kennedy was also a methamphetamine junkie, not a good thing in a leader. Hitler was one too.

He did have balls and did prevent the USSR from placing nukes in Cuba.

Answer 4

You left out that he and his brother Robert bugged Martin Luther King Jr's telephones and tried to destroy the Civil Rights Movement from the beginning. I have more than one lump on my head caused by a federal U.S. Marshall under Kennedy's orders.

Camelot joined the cause long after he was assassinated.

Robert Kennedy joined the movement only after he declared himself a presidential candidate.

Answer 5

Well other than banging the hottest chick in the country & stopping the US from getting wiped off the face of the earth by Soviet Nukes in the nick of time & putting a man on the moon, you right he didn't do much.

Answer 6

The man got shot in the head with his wife next to him. Show some respect.

Answer 7

First Irish president, show respect because before him an Irishmen couldn't get a f#$@in job (God rest his soul)

Answer 8

You Sir, are an IDIOT

Answer 9

dont worry about it................punk