im doing Jfk as my extension history topic and i have to say the man is hard to crack first i saw the camelot view and i admired him then i read the revisionist and it has just been two extreme views, i cant make up my mind sure he was flawed but to what extent did that affect his leadership during the cuban missile crisis.
it would be great to hear people's opinions. thanx
2007-07-08 05:05:18 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
i completely get what you guys are saying but concerning the pt109 he was the reason it was hit if he had been doing his job they would not have been hit, aparentely he was sleeping at the time. Kennedy is a conflicting character to do and with my finals coming up i have to make sure i figure it out, ultimately though i dont care that he had a flawed character his myth is great because it inspires people, he was in essense hope for many americans during that period and i don;t think revisionist historians should be completely destroying his myth like that. they are destryoing an ideal more so then just kennedy the man.
with his handling of kruschev i have always believed that it was kruschev who pulled the strings think he knew exactly how kennedy would react, no way would kruschev not have known about the jupiter missiles being removed from turkey, i believe he instigated the whole missile crisis just to have them removed before the americans could place the new nuces in.
2007-07-08 05:50:54 · update #1
Yes he did have a flawed character on a moral standpoint on a sexual scale but this is not the way to judge his views on the political scale especially the Cuban Missile Crisis. He did exactly what Khruschev did not think he would in that he stood up with more vigor and determination than expected and I believe this is what caused the Soviets to back down for the time being and leave Cuba and gave the US a much needed positive action since the botched up Bay of Pigs venture of a year earlier. It was a great test for a young President and secured his standing in the world theatre.
2007-07-08 05:19:09 · answer #1 · answered by Dave aka Spider Monkey 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
JFK was the most liberal president elected to that time. He was also a strong leader who had been through the fire. Read the true story of PT109, JFK was a good man with a strong social agenda for the internal USA. His foreign policy was a mixture of the Monroe Doctrine and the isolationist policy George Washington held. Had he lived the face of America would be quite different today. JFK wanted unlimited legal immigration from the educated people of the East Block countries who could escape the Iron Curtain. This would have flooded the USA with a wave of White Europeans. RFK opposed his brother in private but followed his lead in public.
2007-07-08 05:19:38 · answer #2 · answered by Coasty 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
JFK was an outstanding leader during the crisis. He stayed calm, kept his advisors cool, managed to take in and balance wildly conflicting advice, and played an outstanding game of chicken with the Soviet Union when a mistake could have led to World War 3.
2007-07-08 05:17:21 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
In my opinion, he was a good crisis manager. I wrote an essay on a similar topic so I provided the link beloew. Hope it is of some use!
2007-07-08 05:47:09 · answer #4 · answered by Christopher A 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You must remember he was the first catholic President of the USA. He had precedents to set and was a hard act to follow.
2007-07-08 05:22:17 · answer #5 · answered by bob_e_dawg 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋