I wrote about my own personal recollections of that day many years ago here, so I’ll try not to repeat too much of that. I’ll only say that, with the passage of time and acquiring a bit more of an adult perspective on things (which I guess is debatable), you can appreciate the legacy of the man at the center of all of this while still looking back at that time with what I guess you could call a bit of a jaundiced outlook.
In fewer words – the point of this is not to stain the legacy of our 35th president, slain on that infamous day in Dallas 60 years ago. However, I’d like to offer more history on his family and that era, most of which has already been added to our collective “memory bank” by now. And, like with all towering figures of history, there’s fact, there’s legend, there’s rumor and innuendo, and then there’s a place where all of that comes together (or, as the reporter says at the end of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”).
With this date in mind, I more or less assigned myself the task of reading “The Dark Side of Camelot” by Seymour M. Hersh earlier this year (purchased at a terrific little place called Second Time Books in Mount Laurel, NJ). I trust Hersh on this stuff; he’s a first-rate reporter and he puts together a scrupulously detailed narrative with tons of citations, going back to JFK’s grandfather, John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, who (in Hersh’s telling) more or less created the Kennedy template of the glad-handing pol who campaigned with theatricality and maintained a larger-than-life presence in Boston’s “north end” (and managed to acquire and spread around lots of cash – JFK named his boat “Honey Fitz” as a tribute). His daughter Rose married Joe Kennedy, an unparalleled businessman who managed to acquire so much money in his own right that it likely will be impossible to ever trace all of it. “The Ambassador,” as Kennedy was called by his kids (out of equal parts fear and respect) earned the title for representing our government in the U.K. during World War II, at which time he butted heads with FDR and Winston Churchill over making peace with “Herr Hitler” because (as Kennedy saw it), England and the rest of the kingdom would never survive the Nazi onslaught.
However, Joe Kennedy changed his tune and did all he could to support the rising political career of his second-oldest son Jack (his oldest, Joe Jr., died in World War II). And while a lot of this wasn’t exactly news to yours truly, it was a bit mind-blowing to see the extent of the payoffs in the 1960 political campaign, primarily in West Virginia and Illinois. Also, Hersh makes a compelling case that Dem Missouri senator Stuart Symington was slated to be JFK’s running mate (which would have helped in the California Dem primary, which JFK lost), but Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn found a way to change that, likely through acquiring dirt on Kennedy.
And with that in mind...well, I didn’t mention the women, did I? Yes, there are the ones we knew about – Marilyn Monroe of course, along with Judith Campbell Exner (the go-between for the president and Sam Giancana...Hersh makes it pretty plain that Giancana and Johnny Rosselli were basically working some kind of a “back channel” in Cuba to get Cuban Premier Fidel Castro killed...there were many “back channels” in JFK’s presidency). However, I didn’t know about JFK’s quite likely first marriage to Palm Beach socialite Durie Malcolm (before Jacqueline Bouvier of course), and the escapades with Ellen Rometsch of East Germany, who quite probably was a spy; if the news of JFK’s dalliances with her had become public, then it very likely would have had the same impact in this country that the Profumo Scandal had in Great Britain, which was going on at about the same time. There were many others that I’m not going to try and list here (there’s also reports of the many naked pool parties at the White House in the first lady’s absence, though they appeared to reconcile in JFK's final months, partly due to the death of their son Patrick).
(I mentioned Castro earlier – Hersh posits that JFK pretty much spent most all of his presidency trying to get back at Cuba for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, even to this point where our interference on that island – which, aside from its proximity to our shores, really didn’t have strategic importance - may have precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also, as I read this, it became crystal clear how much Bobby Kennedy spent running interference for his brother and trying to clean up any controversies...especially after the Bay of Pigs, the two formed an ironclad bond to keep out those they perceived as a threat, which included the vast majority of the D.C. political, military and media establishment.)
One item saddened me a bit among the others, and that is when I found out that JFK’s speech at American University in D.C. (known as the “peace speech,” which was praised by former Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev) was meant to deter missile testing in the sea/ocean and the air, but not underground testing, which continued after Kennedy spoke those wonderful words. Also, by trying to “beat the Soviets to the punch,” the goal of the Kennedy Administration (as a bit of an undercurrent to the speech) was to lock in our advantage on nuclear warheads. I guess that’s just realpolitik at work, though (and Khrushchev was penalized for, in essence, getting played by JFK on the speech, and arguably the Cuban Missile Crisis also, as the Soviets saw it anyway; Khrushchev was deposed in October 1964, though fortunately for him as opposed to Kennedy, the price he paid was political only). It was also more than a little startling to read that JFK, in the final months of his time in office, contemplated an attack on what was believed to be a Chinese nuclear facility, even to the point where he approached Khrushchev for help (the Soviet premier angrily refused).
As I said, I thought Hersh did a terrific job, and his book is worth the read for sure. And again, my goal is not to denigrate JFK’s memory. However, I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we fail to take into account all of the history of any public figure who has captured our imagination and influenced both our politics and popular culture, for now and likely for untold future generations.
And with all of this in mind, I now give you a clip of the announcement from Walter Cronkite of Kennedy's assassination (narrated by Charles Osgood)...
...and here is a tune for this occasion.
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