Read Kennedy: The Classic Biography Online

Authors: Ted Sorensen

Tags: #Biography, #General, #United States - Politics and government - 1961-1963, #Law, #Presidents, #Presidents & Heads of State, #John F, #History, #Presidents - United States, #20th Century, #Biography & Autobiography, #Kennedy, #Lawyers & Judges, #Legal Profession, #United States

Kennedy: The Classic Biography (139 page)

History and posterity must decide. Customarily they reserve the mantle of greatness for those who win great wars, not those who prevent them. But in my unobjective view I think it will be difficult to measure John Kennedy by any ordinary historical yardstick. For he was an extraordinary man, an extraordinary politician and an extraordinary President. Just as no chart on the history of weapons could accurately reflect the advent of the atom, so it is my belief that no scale of good and bad Presidents can rate John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A mind so free of fear and myth and prejudice, so opposed to cant and clichés, so unwilling to feign or be fooled, to accept or reflect mediocrity, is rare in our world—and even rarer in American politics. Without demeaning any of the great men who have held the Presidency in this century, I do not see how John Kennedy could be ranked below any one of them.

His untimely and violent death will affect the judgment of historians, and the danger is that it will relegate his greatness to legend. Even though he was himself almost a legendary figure in life, Kennedy was a constant critic of the myth. It would be an ironic twist of fate if his martyrdom should now make a myth of the mortal man.

In my view, the man was greater than the legend. His life, not his death, created his greatness. In November, 1963, some saw it for the first time. Others realized that they had too casually accepted it. Others mourned that they had not previously admitted it to themselves. But the greatness was there, and it may well loom even larger as the passage of years lends perspective.

One of the doctors at the Parkland Hospital in Dallas, observing John Kennedy’s six-foot frame on the operating table, was later heard to remark: “I had never seen the President before. He was a big man, bigger than I thought.”

He was a big man—much bigger than anyone thought—and all of us are better for having lived in the days of Kennedy.

APPENDIX A
SELECTIVE LEGISLATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF
THE EIGHTY-SIXTH AND EIGHTY-SEVENTH CONGRESSES

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (required Senate approval only)
The Civil Rights Act
The Tax Reduction Act
The Trade Expansion Act
The Peace Corps
The Mental Health and Mental Retardation Acts
The Higher Education and Medical Education Acts
The depressed communities Area Redevelopment Act
The Manpower Development and Retraining Act
The authority and funds for
1. A full-scale outer space effort, focused on a manned moon landing in the 1960’s
2. The largest and fastest military build-up in our peacetime history
3. New tools for foreign policy: the Disarmament Administration, a revamped Foreign Aid Agency, an independent Food-for-Peace program and a UN bond issue
4. The Alliance for Progress with Latin America
5. More assistance to health, education and conservation than had been voted by any two Congresses in history
6. A redoubled effort to find an economical means of converting salt water to fresh
7. The world’s largest atomic power plant at Hanford, Washington
Modernization of New Deal-Fair Deal measures:
1. The most comprehensive housing and urban renewal program in history, including the first major provisions for middle-income housing, private low-income housing, public mass transit and protection of urban open spaces
2. The first major increase in minimum wage coverage since the original 1938 act, raising it to $1.25 an hour
3. The most far-reaching revision of the public welfare laws since the original 1935 act, a $300 million modernization which emphasized rehabilitation instead of relief
4. A revival of Food Stamps for the needy, plus increased food distribution to the impoverished and expanded school lunch and school milk distribution
5. The most comprehensive farm legislation since 1938, expanding marketing orders, farm credit, crop insurance, soil conservation and rural electrification
6. The first accelerated public works program for areas of unemployment since the New Deal
7. The first major amendments to the food and drug safety laws since 1938
8. The first full-scale modernization and expansion of the vocational education laws since 1946
9. A temporary antirecession supplement to unemployment compensation
10. The first significant package of anticrime bills since 1934. plus a new act on juvenile delinquency
11. The first major additions to our National Park System since 1946, the provision of a fund for future acquisitions, and the preservation of wilderness areas
12. A doubling of the water pollution prevention program, plus the first major attack on air pollution m. The most far-reaching tax reforms since the New Deal, including new investment tax credit
13. Major expansions and improvements in Social Security (including retirement at age sixty-two for men), library services, hospital construction, family farm assistance and reclamation
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing poll taxes (required ratification by states instead of the President’s signature)
The Community Health Facilities Act
The Communications Satellite Act
The Educational Television Act

NOTE: This listing is restricted to measures advanced as well as initiated by John F. Kennedy and thus omits the War on Poverty Bill of 1964. While he was not present to sign approximately one out of six of the measures listed above—including such important measures as civil rights and tax reduction—and while President Johnson skillfully facilitated their passage, the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses have stated publicly that these measures, too, would have passed the Eighty-seventh Congress had Kennedy lived in—and view of his role in formulating and forwarding them—properly belong in his record.

APPENDIX B
SELECTED MILESTONES IN THE PRESIDENCY
OF JOHN F. KENNEDY

1961
January	Inaugurated
February	Proposes measures to end recession and gold outflow
March	Launches Alliance for Progress
April	Takes responsibility for Bay of Pigs landing
May	Pledges U.S. space team on moon before 1970
June	Meets Khrushchev in Vienna
July	Augments combat troop strength to meet Berlin crisis
August	Denounces Soviet breach of nuclear test moratorium
September	Challenges Soviets to “peace race” at UN
October	Calls for national program to combat mental retardation
November	Grants exclusive interview for publication in Russian newspaper Izvestia
December	Renews American commitment to Vietnamese independence

1962
January	Calls for new Trade Expansion Act
February	Proposes U.S.-Soviet space cooperation following Glenn orbital flight
March	Announces resumption of nuclear testing in absence of treaty
April	Seeks rescission of steel price increase
May	Increases economic stimulants in wake of stock market slide
June	Announces Geneva Conference agreement on neutral Laos
July	Otlines Atlantic Partnership in “Declaration of Interdependence”
August	Pledges 1963 reduction of taxes to boost economy
September	Sends troops to fulfill court order of desegregation at University of Mississippi
October	Imposes quarantine to force withdrawal of Soviet missiles inCuba and rushes aid to India under attack from Red China
November	Issues Executive Order against racial discrimination in Federal housing
December	Concludes Nassau agreement on NATO nuclear fleet with British Prime Minister Macmillan

1963
January	Hails reunification of Congo through U.S.-supported UN effort
February	Initiates series of policy reviews following De Gaulle’s block of European unification
March	Confers with all Central American heads of government on combating Cuban subversion
April	Takes first of a series of actions to prevent a nationwide rail strike
May	Seeks end to racial strife and discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama
June	Speaks at American University on test ban and peace, to nation on civil rights, to Berliners and other Europeans on U.S. commitment
July	Announces conclusion of nuclear Test Ban Treaty
August	Meets with leaders of Washington march supporting his civil rights proposals
September	Calls at UN for further U.S.-Soviet cooperation, including joint moon mission
October	Authorizes negotiations for sale of American wheat to SovietUnion
November	Initiates emergency assistance program for destitute areas of eastern Kentucky

INDEX

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