Gore Vidal: I Knew JFK, & Believe Me--Obama Is the Better Leader

What else would you expect a historian like Paul Johnson to write?

This is a guy who thought Nixon was just peachy keen, thought Watergate was overblown ,defended Oliver North in the Iran Contra affair and was an apologist for Franco.

 

JFK was on the fence about the space program at first.

But seeing the nation's reaction to Shepard's 15-minute ride got him on board in a hurry.

The "before this decade is out" speech, however, could have gone badly. NASA was hurrying like crazy to meet this unofficial deadline and dodged a couple of catastrophes in their haste.

 

It's hard for the broad public to maintain a measure of perspective about JFK, but it's doable, without being harsh.

Cuban missile crisis? US had to take the worst of it, but the price was worth paying. JFK demonstrated that he'd learned his lessons well from Daddy about how to deal with assholes, in that spot.

Bay of Pigs? Epic F-Up. Deal with it.

Domestic economics? Incomplete. His dealings with Big Steel were less than mature. Re-read now, JFK's comment about, "My father told me that all businessmen were assholes, but I didn't believe him, until now;" laughably naive.

Happy to note that (especially in contrast with a bumbling tool like W), JFK was a 180 in terms of presenting a positive, easy-to-take face to the world at large.

A privileged brat, in his private life? No kidding. Another lesson he picked up from Daddy.

 

JFK was in some ways, the last of a dying breed of affluent and well educated men (mostly all male then) who believed in a concept that has all but vanished today: public service.

You worked in government either as a politician or a bureaucrat because you wanted to make your country a better place.

If you've read Halberstam's "The Best & The Brightest", you know the smartest guys in the room weren't going to work in the private sector to make their millions.

 

In that vein, JFK was in significant part a product of a wildly-ambitious father who wanted the big political stage for his sons, was denied because of Joe's death, and proceeded to lay it all on the line for Jack.

 

Jack wasn't even supposed to be the one for POTUS, most say it should have been his older brother who died in the war.

 

As I said, there . . . Joe was the original designate.

 

or Bobby/Ted after that.

 

And lit the Kennedy family on fire; all of it true