James N. Giglio - The Presidency of John F. Kennedy

The Presidency of

JOHN F .
KENNEDY

AMERICAN PRESIDENCY SERIES

George Washington, Forrest McDonald

John Adams, Ralph Adams Brown

Thomas Jefferson, Forrest McDonald

James Madison, Robert Allen Rutland

James Monroe, Noble E. Cunningham, Jr.

John Quincy Adams, Mary W. M. Hargreaves

Andrew Jackson, Donald B. Cole

Martin Van Buren, Major L. Wilson

William Henry Harrison & John Tyler, Norma Lois Peterson

James K. Polk, Paul H. Bergeron

Zachary Taylor & Millard Fillmore, Elbert B. Smith

Franklin Pierce, Larry Gara

James Buchanan, Elbert B. Smith

Abraham Lincoln, Phillip Shaw Paludan

Andrew Johnson, Albert Castel

Rutherford B. Hayes, Ari Hoogenboom

James A. Garfield & Chester A. Arthur, Justus D. Doenecke

Grover Cleveland, Richard E. Welch, Jr.

Benjamin Harrison, Homer B. Socolofsky & Allan B. Spetter

William McKinley, Lewis L. Gould

Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis L. Gould

William Howard Taft, Paolo E. Coletta

Woodrow Wilson, Kendrick A. Clements

Warren G. Harding, Eugene P. Trani & David L. Wilson

Calvin Coolidge, Robert H. Ferrell

Herbert C. Hoover, Martin L. Fausold

Harry S. Truman, Donald R. McCoy

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chester J. Pach, Jr., & Elmo Richardson

John F. Kennedy, James N. Giglio

Lyndon B. Johnson, Vaughn Davis Bornet

Richard Nixon, Melvin Small

Gerald R. Ford, John Robert Greene

James Earl Carter, Jr., Burton I. Kaufman

George Bush, John Robert Greene

The Presidency of

JOHN F.
KENNEDY

SECOND EDITION, REVISED

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS

The aim of the American Presidency Series is to present historians and the general reading public with interesting, scholarly assessments of the various presidential administrations. These interpretive surveys are intended to cover the broad ground between biographies, specialized monographs, and journalistic accounts. As such, each is a comprehensive work that draws on original sources and pertinent secondary literature, yet leaves room for the authors own analysis and interpretation.

Volumes in the series present the data essential to understanding the administration under consideration. Particularly, each book treats the then-current problems facing the United States and its people and how the president and his associates felt about, thought about, and worked to cope with these problems. Attention is given to how the office developed and operated during the presidents tenure. Equally important is a consideration of the vital relationships between the president and his staff, the executive officers, Congress, foreign representatives, the judiciary, state officials, the public, political parties, the press, and influential private citizens. The series is also concerned with how this unique American institutionthe presidencywas viewed by the presidents, and with what results.

All this is set, insofar as possible, in the context not only of contemporary politics but also of economics, international relations, law, morals, public administration, religion, and thought. Such a broad approach is necessary because a presidential administration is more than the elected and appointed officers composing it; its work often reflects the major problems, anxieties, and glories of the nation. In short, the authors in this series strive to recount and evaluate the record of each administration and to identify its distinctiveness and relationships to the past, its own time, and the future.

Since the first edition of this book in 1991, much has been added to our knowledge of the Kennedy presidency. This includes the declassification of documents on foreign policy and the opening of other previously closed files and newly processed collections at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Arguably, the most important new material is the Kennedy White House medical records, which were first investigated by Robert Dallek in 2001 and then by myself about five months later. The Nigel Hamilton Collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston also proved invaluable, as did the hundreds of books published on the Kennedy presidency since 1991. Moreover, the cold war is over and the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the United States is presently engaged in a global war against terrorism, all of which alters the way we view the 1960s. For the above reasons, I took to heart the invitation of Fred Woodward, director of the University Press of Kansas, to write a revised edition of The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. I incorporated the most pertinent of the newly available material, particularly when it enhanced or appreciably altered my understanding of the Kennedy presidency. The bibliographical essay was expanded to reflect publications that have become available since the original edition, and I added photographs as well.

This edition stresses the extent to which domestic and foreign policies were interconnected during the Kennedy period, when the cold war dominated our national life. Even though Kennedy was a cold warrior who sometimes precipitated crises, I have come to appreciate that he was cautious and prudent in the way he handled the major challenges of his presidency. Even in Vietnam, where he made some serious mistakes, one must believe that that situation would have been less ominous had he lived. Newly available sources, such as the Kennedy tapes, reveal the correctness of his response to the Soviet missiles in Cuba, in light of a much greater danger than we could envision then or even in 1991. Kennedy had every reason to fear a nuclear holocaust and thus committed himself to the banning of atomic weaponry in his final months. None of this suggests, however, that I minimize the limitations of his foreign or domestic policies.