In war, he saved the lives of his crewmen, swimming for four hours with the strap of a man's life jacket in his teeth, carrying that badly-burned sailor on his back.
Say what you will about Jack Kennedy. He accepted the call to duty -- and met that duty when his time came.
His time came again as president when he saved his country and the world from a nuclear war, in a way I can't imagine any other president doing, with cool detachment, cold calculation and a brazen ability to cut the secret deal that got us through.
And, oh yes, he was the president who stood up for civil rights right out there in the midst of the fighting down South, with a strong voice and with federal troops to cut through history and begin the change that had awaited three and half centuries, the real end to slavery and its long, cruel afterburn.
So, yes, he met his duty, and yes he had courage, and yes he had the strong, positive, hopeful vision that none of us will ever forget, nor should.
But he was, too, what he was. The new book by Mimi Alford gives us more details of a story most of us already knew well. Certainly his widow did. The week after he was killed, Jacqueline, just 34, told a friendly reporter "all men are a combination of bad and good." The reporter covered for her, transposing it to "good and bad" when printed in Life magazine. She said his mother "never loved him; never loved him," she repeated. And the reporter never printed that, though the widow was trying desperately to say something true about the man she'd just lost.
Was she trying to explain that cold detachment of his, that ability that gave him such remarkable power, to know so well the feelings and motives of others, to track and use them for his own purpose, yet not to be moved by them… at all? That detachment, that cold ability to know others so well but not be affected, that edge that got him to be such a cold-steel leader, could be just as headless of the people close by and therefore so deeply cruel, most of all to her?
In 1980, long after he was gone, Jacqueline Kennedy called him that "unforgettable, elusive man."
That's where I got the title. She said after hearing a tribute to Jack by Ted Sorensen that included: "He made no pretense of being free from sin or imperfection." She said it was "the only true portrait of him that has ever been done."
Jack Kennedy was hard to figure. He prayed at his bedside each night, a ritual his wife thought superstitious. He went to mass, grieved prayfully for his lost brother and sister and his lost child. At his Protestant boarding school he would go into town for mass, to another island; when he was a naval officer in war, to confession right to the end. He lived life in compartments, sharing himself with Jacqueline in one, his political confederates in another, his social pals in another, his affairs in yet another, his religious beliefs in another still.
His was a flawed hero but, looking coldly at history and what he did, a hero nonetheless. And, yes, he makes us proud.
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I would have added the word true to hero at the end of the piece because Kennedy was a true hero, despite his personal flaws, just like the rest of humankind.
Chris, I am not being a smart ass! I really don't care what someone (especially a president) does in the bedroom, although right-wing nut-jobs do. I have been reading a lot of blogs giving you B.S. about your respect for JFK and the timing of your book on the subject! I hope it helps with sales!
But, dude, as with Clinton and the sordid cigar situation, JFK is no better when he encouraged the 19 year old intern to have sex in the pool with one of his staff while he watched! Both equally sordid!
What really is disturbing is that they know this behavior (not so much the sex itself) in a place (White House or even a church) that shows judgement that of "my nut is more important then the ramifications that could follow!"
On the brighter side though, better a president "screwing a bimbo" better then screwing a nation!
How are all of her claims verified? How?
Chris there is an important read about Iran/Mossad over at your home base as well as some interesting comments
Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News
Thu Feb 9, 2012 5:16 AM CST
Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists ...
msnbc.com - 5 hours ago
Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists ...
msnbc.com - 5 hours ago
When oh when will you and your team help educate the public about the situation with Iran based on facts, history, knowledge and wisdom? Please have former Bush administration officials Flynt and HIllary Mann Leverett on your program
The Race for Iran
www.raceforiran.com
Flynt Leverett – Biography
Flynt Leverett is a professor at Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs and directs the Iran Project at the New America Foundation, where he is a Senior Research Fellow. He is also a Visiting Scholar at Peking University’s School of International Studies.
Dr. Leverett is a leading authority on the Middle East and Persian Gulf, U.S. foreign policy, and global energy affairs. From 1992 to 2003, he had a distinguished career in the U.S. government, serving as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and as a CIA Senior Analyst. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror.
Dr. Leverett has written extensively on the politics, international relations, and political economy of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. In a series of monographs, articles, and opinion pieces (many co-authored with Hillary Mann Leverett), he has challenged Western conventional wisdom on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy and internal politics, documented the historical record of previous Iranian cooperation with the United States, and presented the seminal argument in American foreign policy circles for a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain”. His new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic (also co-authored with Hillary Mann Leverett), will be published in 2012.
Dr. Leverett has published opinion pieces in many high-profile venues, including The New York Times, POLITICO, and CNN, and contributes frequently to Foreign Policy. He has been interviewed about Iran and its geopolitics on leading public affairs programs around the world, including Charlie Rose, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Empire and Riz Khan (Al Jazeera English), Viewpoint (Abu Dhabi Television), Spotlight (Russia Today) and Washington Journal (C-Span), as well as in leading publications such as Der Spiegel and Le Monde. Along with Hillary Mann Leverett, he was featured in the PBS Frontline documentary, “Showdown With Iran”, and profiled in Esquire magazine.
Dr. Leverett has spoken about U.S.-Iranian relations at foreign ministries and strategic research centers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. He has been a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.
Dr. Leverett holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Hillary Mann Leverett – Biography
Hillary Mann Leverett is CEO of Strategic Energy and Global Analysis (STRATEGA), a political risk consultancy. In September 2010, she will also take up an appointment as Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
Ms. Leverett has more than 20 years of academic, legal, business, diplomatic, and policy experience working on Middle Eastern issues. In the George W. Bush Administration, she worked as Director for Iran, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, Middle East expert on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. From 2001-2003, she was one of a small number of U.S. diplomats authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qa’ida and Iraq. In the Clinton Administration, Leverett also served as Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council, and Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the U.S. embassy in Cairo. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Watson Fellowship, and in 1990-1991 worked in the U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Israel, and was part of the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.
Ms. Leverett has published extensively on Iran as well as on other Middle Eastern, Central and South Asian, and Russian issues. She has spoken about U.S.-Iranian relations at Harvard, MIT, the National Defense University, NYU, the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, and major research centers in China. She has appeared on news and public affairs programs on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera (Arabic and English), and was featured in the highly acclaimed BBC documentary, Iran and the West. Along with Flynt Leverett, she appeared in the PBS Frontline documentary, “Showdown With Iran”, and was profiled in Esquire magazine. She has provided expert testimony to the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
Ms. Leverett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University. She also studied at the American University in Cairo and Tel Aviv University.
Chris..It appears your "hero" President Kennedy couldn't handle his sex drive. Here is a man, who is the President, 40 something years old and wants to make it with a 19 year old intern. The guy was a sick puppie, as was his brothers. Why am I not surprised to hear anything about a Kennedy. In my opinion Teddy got off the hook to easy with what happened in Chappaquiddick. He was nothing but a lush. He should have gone to jail, but "money" talks.