 to the Bay of Pigs invasion and who tried to have Castro assassinated. Moreover, one of Kennedy's few strong points was the public's enhanced respect for his tough stance on the Soviets following the Cuban Missile Crisis. Why would he have thrown that away by suddenly behaving like a dove?
It's telling that the historians seem to stick to foreign policy. In the domestic realm, Kennedy was rather mediocre with little to celebrate except a splendid tax cut. His approach to Civil Rights was to "go slow" (he put Johnson on the ticket partly to appease racial conservatives). What made the liberal reforms of the 1960s possible – the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Great Society – was JFK's death. This helped the Democrats to sweep Congress in 1964 and build up a large enough liberal majority even to overcome their racist Southern bloc in the Senate. Thereafter, Johnson proved a bolder and braver legislator than Kennedy ever was – undone, tragically, by Vietnam.
Then there's Kennedy's women problem. How long, realistically, could he have gone without someone blowing the whistle on his aggressive womanising – a sex addiction that was borderline security risk? Or how would he have handled the riots of 1965, which destroyed the mirage of peaceful liberal reform? Would Kennedy have attended the 1968 Chicago convention, where the cops beat up kids with flowers in their hair in a brutal parody of the Prague Spring? However long he had lived, JFK's reputation as a liberal superman would've eventually been tarnished. Regrettable though his death obviously was, it encased his memory in gold.
It would all have been different if Richard Nixon had won in 1960. Aside from being bolder on Civil Rights and tougher on the Cubans, we could've counted on Tricky Dick not to have slept with Marilyn Monroe. A road sadly untaken…
Britain doesn't need any constitutional conventions. It just needs better leaders
September 20th, 2014 11:59
Scotland votes 'no' and the Union remains 'bitter together'
September 19th, 2014 7:35
Early cheer for Unionists as the No votes pour in
September 19th, 2014 2:17
Scotland, please don't let friends and family become foreigners
September 18th, 2014 8:01
Don't be surprised if Scotland votes for independence. I think "yes" might have an edge
September 17th, 2014 13:06