This is the House that Jack Built

just two months before he died President John F Kennedy said things do not just happen they are made to happen at the time the president hoped that he would be the one to shape the future of the nation but assassin's bullets in Dallas changed all of that so when and how do we fairly assess the short life of President Kennedy the 100th anniversary of JFK's birth provides a good opportunity to try time cannot fully erase the inspiration created by his public words and deeds they altered history and they continue to be a source of fascination for new generations who didn't live during Kennedy's presidency in many ways JFK's success in life was partly of birthright predestined by the power and privilege of the Kennedy family but his birthright was just the cornerstone of his legacy in the spring of 1936 a young JFK's health deteriorated he had been studying at the London School of Economics but had to come home they thought it might be jaundice they thought it might be some other sort of disease and it turned out it was Addison's disease a journalist friend of his father's suggested the j6 ranch in Arizona as a place where Jack and his older brother Joe could both benefit from the warm dry air and get into shape for the fall athletic season while they were here amended fences they herded cattle but also they worked on building the office that Jack's feeding the owner the ranch had and they spent the whole summer on it pretty much [Music] and Jack like to call it the house that Jack built because Jack Kennedy was the one that built the house and not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country [Music] piece by piece Jack Kennedy constructed his own unique legacy and this is the house that Jack built [Music] [Music] funding for this program is provided by Sabra are and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation Joseph admin trustee [Music] additional support provided by the following [Music] you [Music] for just about all of us even those of us who are older it's hard to imagine JFK at a hundred he's frozen in time at age 46 and he looked younger than that there's been so much attention to all things Kennedy for more than a half-century that it's hard to believe that there might be unseen photos or untold stories and yet there are and that's why you come here and we're going to show them to you lonna sherrard you have managed to collect photos that have never been seen before of President Kennedy or the Kennedy family I just started collecting because I wanted to have a little piece of history and then as I started to collect I realize just how much there was that was in private hands I have a lot of photos a lot of photos a lot of these photos are unpublished [Music] I feel that we need to have these open to the public not put away somewhere President Kennedy has this amazing ability even in death to bring people together people often wonder what could have been [Music] and we all have that question I think it also is a question that I think brings people to learn about him more it defines him unfortunately but when you do learn more there is so much more to learn [Music] at the time that the Kennedys lived here Brooklyn was a changing community this was a starter home for mr. mrs. Kennedy while the Kennedys lived here this street had not even been fully developed this house was the last house on the street while John F Kennedy was born in this house and the master bedroom on the second floor on May 29 1917 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon it was a somewhat cloudy day mrs. Kennedy wanted to make sure that the doctor had all the available light that he would need to attend to the birth so mrs. Kennedy used the bed closest to the window [Music] mr. Kennedy was not in attendance he would have been downtown in Boston at his office as was customary at the time the Kennedys quickly outgrew this home within the course of five years they had four children Joe jr. Jack rosemary and Kathleen and the year they moved out mrs. Kennedy was already expecting her fifth child [Music] it was one of the largest families and of course celebratory families in America the press covered them extensively and being from so wealthy a family John Kennedy was able to go to private schools and so he went to choke in New England that you prominent private school where the sons of elite went John F Kennedy was here for four years following in the footsteps of his older brother JFK entered in 1931 and graduated in 1935 he really didn't have a great time here when he was a student all the teachers recognized they had the capability he didn't apply himself Joe Kennedy jr. was sent here so it was natural that Jack would follow Joe was the natural athlete so then along comes Jack who couldn't physically measure up to his brother [Music] Jack just didn't like rules or didn't like them to apply to him so he decided to be sort of a nonconformist a cut-up [Music] Jack Kennedy had a group of pals informally called the muckers about a dozen of them and they took the name from a derogatory term for Irish workers they're pranksters LEM Billings was a classmate Jack and LEM roomed together for two years their junior and senior year here at Joe's they met when they were working on the school yearbook I think what do them together was a mutual dislike of the school and the fact that they both had higher achieving older brothers at the school so there was a little bit of sibling rivalry there and they both had very similar sense of humor so it was a friendship that took off from the beginning I think another ingredient in their bonding was the fact that JFK was sick a great deal when he was at children LEM helped take care of him it's not entirely clear but I think he found out that LEM was gay pretty early on there appears to have been a letter written by LEM in 1934 that seemed to suggest that he was interested in Jack in more than a platonic way and JFK responded in a letter saying I'm not that kind of boy but it didn't end the friendship one of the events that bonded them was a trip to Europe that they both taught together in 1937 they took that together just the two of them to Americans in Europe at a critical point just two years before the war broke out and they traveled around Nazi Germany Mussolini's Italy they were even on the French Spanish border during the Spanish Civil War the trip influenced them both a great deal especially JFK politically and of course it further cemented their friendship of course the Kennedy family was a Catholic family in some ways quite conservative but by all accounts they accepted ylenne almost as fully as JFK did Glenn visited the Kennedy homes in Palm Beach and Hyannis Port and stayed there for weeks at a time soft and in fact that Joe Kennedy JFK's father said at one point that land was his second son they remain very close they exchanged letters during the war even though they were in different theatres of the war after they came home LEM was involved in JFK's political campaigns to the consternation of JFK's political operatives because LEM was not that interested in politics and he wasn't very good at it but JFK wanted him involved and so he was even though he messed up district after districts in the elections at the JFK in Fort when JFK was president Glenn would go to the White House he didn't even have a Secret Service pass as incredible as that may seem today he just walked right on in there and whenever he wanted to and when JFK was free of his political commitments they would hang out but LEM had his own room at the White House and would frequently be at the White House so much so that actually Jackie Kennedy said at one point that that guy LEM has been a part of my marriage every single weekend since I married jack in 1953 the many Americans still don't know that the 35th President of the United States his best friend was a gay man for 30 years they stayed friends until Dallas the Arizona heat was blistering in the summer of 1936 as Jack and his older brother Joe traced their initials in the foundation of the house later on before the brothers left for Harvard Jack and Joe pressed their fingerprints into the wet Adobe near the fireplace having cemented their legacy at the j-6 ranch they set out on the more challenging task of making their mark on the world neither could have imagined what lay ahead [Music] older brother Joe had been the Kennedy son designated to enter the public arena room by Joseph P Kennedy senior left to his own preferences Jack Kennedy might well have chosen journalism or publishing world war two transformed the equation lieutenant Joe Kennedy was killed on a dangerous bombing run in Europe for which he had volunteered in August 1944 Joe senior turned to his next oldest son Jack with the political backing of roses relatives and the financial support of his father Jack Kennedy was a virtual shoo-in for the US House of Representatives in 1946 he ran for a House seat in Boston in some ways he was what was known as a carpetbagger because he hadn't lived there in a long time but that's Joe Kennedy joked he said with the amount of money I put into that contest I could have lected my chauffeur Kennedy was 29 when he was elected the house he looked like he was about 15 he was an impatient ambitious driven person not particularly interested in the mechanics of the legislative process he wins again in 48 but he he doesn't like being a member of the House in fact he says we were a bunch of worms there it even said after a couple years he says I'm ready to leave the house it's sort of up or out you know he was not interested in making a career of it and so he runs for the US Senate Kennedy because he had so much charm and was so articulate and of course once again Joe Kennedy put an awful lot of money into the campaign he won Senate seat particularly in terms of his Senate career he was a person of significant talent great intelligence a great historical sense but he didn't fit in smoothly with the Senate of his time he treated people well even when he disagreed he disagreed with class and with dignity but also people found him a cool distant personality he was not one of the boys he didn't socialize really with senators for the most part and Lyndon Johnson was very quick to say you know Kennedy has a lot of smarts with his Harvard education but when you need someone in the trenches to actually get stuff done he's not going to be around he's flying around the country focusing on other things I don't think he had the sort of basic patience that you need to be a great legislator and then I think by 1956 his political career completely turned around his book Profiles in Courage was widely praised and became a bestseller we are collecting here today the man who for the next four years will be guiding for good or evil for better or worse the destinies of our nation and to a large extent the destinies of the free world Kennedy almost became the vice presidential candidate for Adlai Stevenson in 56 he was the darling of the Democratic convention Kennedy got involved in issues more seriously during the Senate you know he became a much more forceful speaker a more confident speaker during his Senate years there's a definite maturation that occurred and from the air he was keenly interested in moving on to run for the president because again he wasn't terribly interested in being a legislator and there are no bills that you can cite that came out of the Congress during his years in the house in the Senate which carried his name and identified him as you know a successful legislator I'm just saying I'm just in the center of action the president now with your interests many many people are not just be presidencies the thing that we don't always appreciate is the Senate has not been the best road to the White House before Kennedy succeeded in 1960 the only other sitting senator to go directly to the White House was Warren Harding in 1920 and since Kennedy the only senator to have gone directly to the White House is Barack Obama let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of Liberty the public image JFK and his administration wanted to project during his presidency was that of a magnificent rhetorician and steady leader who skillfully brought the nation through domestic and foreign crises and while they came up short in some cases generally they were successful he was the youngest man ever to be elected to the office and he was also the first Catholic to gain the White House and so he represented a kind of modern breakthrough in American presidential history in fact they used to hold live televised press conferences and he was the first president in American history to do that unquestionably the messy reality behind the scenes contradicted the well orchestrated public picture he came to the presidency wanting to be known as the foreign policy president he wanted International Affairs to be the centerpiece of his administration and he initially did some very innovative creative moves I have today sign an executive order providing for the establishment of a Peace Corps on a temporary pilot basis this call will be a pool of trained men and women sent overseas by the United States government or through private institutions and organizations to help foreign countries meet their urgent needs for skilled manpower and then in terms of foreign policy you have any disasters of the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion the Cuba of 1961 the advice of those who were brought in on the executive branch was also unanimous and the advice was wrong so that and finally and I was responsible so it finally comes down that no matter how many advisers you have frequently they are divided the President must finally choose you had the Berlin Wall which we have to remember was put up in June of 1961 by the Russians he was keenly interested in history he was particularly taken by books about World War one and the idea that the great leaders of those European nations they had blended into that horrible war which turned out to be the most devastating conflict in human history to that point in time he was very concerned to avert the kind of mistakes that had taken us into this disaster citizens of Berlin and therefore as a free man I take pride in the words ich bin ein Alina when he became president and he asked the Pentagon for the nuclear war plan the Joint Chiefs had a meeting with him that says - what would happen if they fought a nuclear war and they explained to Kennedy that they could kill some 270 million Russians and Eastern Europe fans and as Kennedy walked out of the room he said to his Secretary of State Dean Rusk and we call ourselves the human race and so he was deeply disturbed by that information and he was greatly concerned to arrive at some kind of day tone with the Soviets the breakthrough came with the Cuban Missile Crisis when they averted a nuclear holocaust this government as promised has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned Island the purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere he was incredibly sensitive to the issue of nuclear weapons and that how impermissible it would be for a president to have to fight a nuclear war we will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the course of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced all ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port where they found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons be turned back we've known since then from the materials that have been released the fridges flushing from the Soviet Union that we came this close to a nuclear war there could have been such a such a conflict but he wisely used diplomacy I call upon chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine reckless and provocative threat to world peace and a stable relations between our two nations if there was one thing above all which I think he achieved it was to avoid conflict with the Soviet Union in that Cuban Missile Crisis and then of course he got the test ban treaty a war today or tomorrow if it led to nuclear war would not be like any war in history a full-scale nuclear exchange lasting less than 60 minutes with the weapons now in existence could wipe out more than 300 million American European and Russian as well as untold millions elsewhere yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere in outer space and underwater let us make the most of this opportunity and every opportunity to reduce tension to slow down the perilous nuclear arms race and to check the world slide toward final annihilation and there was a lot of resistance to it at the time but his leadership was quite effective in that regard so I think his greatest achievement in many ways was to not just a Verdun nuclear war but to move the country toward some kind of agreement with the Soviets to avoid any future conflict the early 1960s were a transitioning time in the country for feminism and the civil rights movement Kennedy's administration reflected that women played a vital supportive role in the Kennedy White House yet they did so without titles Equal Pay and many of the perks and privileges men enjoyed my name is Nancy Hogan my name is Nancy Hogan my name is Nancy Hogan I Nancy Hogan work in Washington and have the rather confusing title of administrative assistant to a special assistant to the President of the United States so let's start the cross-examination number one who sits to the right of the President in the meetings Dean Rusk number two who sits to the left of the President McNamara I graduated from college I was for JFK steady job you've ever held but I just graduated from college and previously I just worked for the campaign so starting to talk you're way down and there I was six months later after graduating from college first floor West Wing and once again it's time to vote we were what you called back Dan administrative assistants which meant you helped follow up on policy you helped make sure something happens will the real nancy hogan please stand up so you had an opportunity to actually feel as if you were getting up every morning being part of the new frontier and you were changing the world I was in the White House press office I had worked with pierre salinger during the campaign and the morning after the election or when it became clear that kennedy had one pierre said and you'll come to the White House won't you with the with me and I said sure absolutely the press office was right around the corner from the president's office so it was readily available for taking dictation he had an amazingly quick mind and enquiring mind he was fascinated with anything and he expected you to be able to do almost anything and the result was that if he asked you you could do anything it was just a challenge to be around him all the time we weren't seven-days-a-week much of the time long into the night traveling all over the world and we didn't make much money either neither did anybody in the White House you know I suppose if I stop to think about it I might have been annoyed at the fact that none of the women had titles to speak of and we were called girls or what-have-you and had we been there longer I can see a situation where a lot of us might have been more vocal and it was the times we were not as upset as women would have been 15 years later we were more the 50s and willing to accept that this was our slot there were no special assistants that were women there were no cabinet members that were women it's not that we were treated differently than any other women at that day and age we weren't I'm sure but it was such an exciting place to be in such an exciting job that I really didn't spend an awful lot in fact I spent no time thinking about it it wasn't in my psyche at all at that stage [Music] african-americans weren't sure what to make of their new president even though an estimated 68 percent had voted for Kennedy they wondered how committed he really was to the cause of civil rights it was clearly the major domestic problem facing the United States and yet JFK didn't do anything for the first year or the second year and only reluctantly into his third year he understands that to be elected he has to be a compromise figure he has to appeal to segregationist he goes very slowly for instance Kennedy had promised to end discrimination in housing with the stroke of a pen and yet it takes him two years to actually sign an executive order to that effect Kennedy is working in a global context so he's dealing with a cold war Cuban Missile Crisis Bay of Pigs so one really has to consider his record within a large context he on the other hand does something and a magnitude that no other president had done which was to appoint blacks to federal posts it's not that he wasn't interested it's not that he wasn't committed he was slowly dragged into civil rights because of the integration of old myths the integration of the University of Alabama and finally because of Martin Luther King and the movement and the sit-ins so in June of 1963 he gave the most eloquent civil rights speech that I think any of us had ever heard the heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated if an American because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public if he cannot send his children the best public school available if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him if in short he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed dr. king who at once called Kennedy's schizophrenic on civil rights is overjoyed and it is really Kennedy's finest hour this is something that he did not have to do [Applause] Kennedy drafted the civil rights bill and submitted it to Congress it passed the house but by the time of his assassination it had not passed the Senate which was going to be very difficult and it took an LBJ it probably never would have passed without Lyndon Johnson making progress on civil rights is what we had all hope to see much more of and he did it but he had to die for it for over 50 years there has been an ongoing struggle to reconcile the facts of the assassination beginning with the Warren Commission in the 1960s then the House Select Committee on assassinations in the 1970s and the assassinations records review act of the 1990s with its 25 year deadline ending in 2017 much of the public has not accepted the findings of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassinated President Kennedy and so for many the search for the full truth goes on in the weeks following the publication of the Kennedy half century in 2013 I received hundreds of emails letters and tweets I learned to knew that those who have followed the assassination story these many years have long since chosen sides and are heavily invested in particular theories about it no one will ever be able to change their minds the controversy about the assassination shows no signs of fading away even after almost five and a half decades a handful of the messages I received came from individuals who insisted they had new information about President Kennedy's assassination I meant spoke by phone or exchanged correspondence with the most credible of them the mother of one of my former students at the University of Virginia who requested that her name not be used publicly had just begun her job at the CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia in November 1963 [Music] I've been at the CIA for a week I was sitting at my desk you know doing my job and somebody comes in and says Kennedy's been shot and I don't remember what point it was I heard the name Oswald straight to the left of my desk was a doorway going out and there was maybe 10 feet of metal file cabinets and the first one closest to me on top the Oh files were in there and I went over and opened it [Music] and there was Oswald's file so I pulled the file and there was a queue section and I just flipped it and I moved it to the queue section with the idea that I'd come back and look at it later I mean I don't know what I was thinking and shortly thereafter I went into Jim Angleton's office sat like a mouse in the corner and on the floor all of these people kind of were just coming in from all over i sat there literally overnight [Music] and I went back to the office in the morning and the file was gone my theory was that if I wanted to stay alive I just keep my mouth shut [Music] you [Music] lone gunman advocates insists their conclusion is the logical result of the facts that have been uncovered for example Oswald's success in bringing a rifle to work on the morning of the Dallas motorcade was surprisingly easy the neighbor with whom he hitched a ride early on the morning of November 22nd Wesley Buell Frazier said Oswald was carrying a brown paper wrapped package that contained curtain rods Oswald's cover for his disassembled rifle yet Frazier who had the opportunity to handle and measure an Italian Carcano rifle in later years insists that Oswald's package was too small to be the weapon after leaving work on November 22nd Buell Fraser headed to the hospital to check on his stepfather who had recently suffered a heart attack as he left his stepfathers room Fraser was thrown against the wall by two Dallas police officers then handcuffed and taken in for questioning they took me downtown Dallas I said at a I couldn't look left or right I had to look into this wall [Music] detective Rosa dick is still well they questioned me for a long long time they got tired of talking I guess and so they sent a new set of police officers in and the same questions over and over and over again and they got tired they went out and another crew come in [Music] and I went through all their questions and then captain will Fritz came in he had a paper and all of that was a type of confession saying that I don't want to knew about the assassination but I was part of it and he put it down at a des and Benny pen said sign that and I said I'm not signing it I said that's ridiculous he drew his hand back to hit me I said this police officers out there and I said before they get in there I said you're not gonna have one hell of a fight and I'm gonna get a couple of good licks in on you he got so red-faced he snatched up the paper and stormed out of the room and that was there many many hours I didn't go home until early hours of Saturday morning the purpose of today's hearing is to hear the testimony of us Lee Frazier and Lenny Mae Randall Commission proposes to ask these witnesses questions concerning their knowledge of the assassination of President Kennedy my sister and I we were notified that we were to appear before the Warren Commission do you call yourself Buell or Wesley I'll go Bob Wesley well Wesley what is your age sir what is your age 19 well I was very nervous and very scared because I didn't know a lot about the world where do you work I work at Texas skovox did you commute back and forth from your sister's home in urban yes sir driving back and forth with Oswald did he ever talk about guns no sir they never did here you had these people and I supposed to be really interested in what you had to say someone was so interested that they slept through most of my testimony was that the 21st of November yes sir well tell us about that he says I'm going back home and gets some curtain rods he said you know put in an apartment the next morning you had breakfast about what time between 7:00 and 7:15 did you both get into the car about the same time yes sir and when I got in the car I noticed that there was a paper sack laying on the back seat so I said what what's in the package lean he said curtain rods now you knew that the president was going to pass that building sometime that morning didn't you well I heard he would did you ever talked to Oswald about that no sir I didn't we have over here this exhibit which is number 364 which is a paper sack made out of tape sort of a homemade affair would you take a look at this does this appear to be anything like the color of the sack you saw in the backseat yes sir I'd say it was would you take a look at it as to the length does it appear to be about the same length no sir even though people didn't like what they heard I was telling them the truth and then they put us in two separate rooms and we had to make bags similar to what we had seen on November 22nd and all we had was brown wrapping paper a pair of scissors and say we didn't have any things to measure they take the bag out of the room and then come back we gotta make another one I can't tell you how many bags we both made I think they were looking for something to unravel our distort in our testimony I don't think it really is looking for the truth I've had a lot of time to think about that tragedy sure we lost a president but look at the other countless lives that that tragedy effective on November 22nd 1963 there were nearly two dozen police motorcycles traveling ahead of behind and along the sides of the Kennedy motorcade as it slowly moved through the streets of Dallas all of these officers had a police radio to communicate with central headquarters [Music] one radio malfunctioned broadcasting continuously during the minutes surrounding the assassination did this open microphone record the sounds of gunfire in Dealey Plaza the House Select Committee on assassinations thought so and more than 10 years after the Warren Commission finished its work this second government investigation used the recordings to conclude that there had been multiple shooters in Dealey Plaza and therefore a conspiracy [Music] when we first heard the recording could hear the dominant sound of a motorcycle engine surely this must correlate with the movements of a motorcycle in the motorcade if it is a motorcycle in the motorcade on a parade route with crowds coming over the edge of the sidewalk you didn't expect these things to be running at 3,000 rpm for three minutes at a time but that's exactly what we saw thereafter we see a drop to idle for sustained periods of time occasional excursions and speed but basically the motorcycle isn't going anywhere this is completely at odds with the known movements of the motorcade after the assassination many elements of the motorcade raced off to Parkland Hospital further on in the recording we hear the sounds of sirens and a car horn that occurs at a time when the motorcycle engine speed is descended to near idle so we know the bike isn't moving quickly but we hear these sirens and we hear the car horn the car horn is dr. shifted that suggests a speed difference between the motorcycle with the stuck microphone in the car furthermore you can hear a police whistle being blown and it's not Doppler shifted that means that it is at or around the same speed as the motorcycle from that I would conclude that you have a stationary motorcycle being overtaken by an automobile horn sirens it sounds like the motorcade recording is very interesting but our study shows that is not germane to the question as to the number of shooters and Dealey Plaza that day because the motorcycle most likely wasn't in a position to record the sounds of gunfire you in 1992 in response to Oliver Stone's movie JFK and the controversy that it generated Congress did a very sensible thing they passed a law and they said all JFK records have to be made public 25 years after the passage of this law the bill was signed into law on October 26 1992 by the first president Bush so 25 years later is October 26 2017 so now we're down to the last 3,500 documents that are held by the government [Music] there's the story that I've worked on and pulled which are the files of George Joe and Edie's Tony this was in charge of psychological warfare operations in Miami in 1963 he was also in charge of a an anti-castro student group called the Cuban Student Directorate and every month he would go and give them a lot of money up to twenty five thousand dollars in cash which they use to support various anti-castro activities anti-castro propaganda [Music] well in the summer of 1963 New Orleans Chapter of the Cuban student Directorate had a series of encounters with Lee Harvey Oswald the Cuban students saw Oswald handing out Castro pamphlets on the street and they got into a fight with him they challenged him to a debate on the radio they wrote a press release calling for a congressional investigation of Oswald the Cuban student Directorate was funded by the CIA and George Jo and v's at the time of its contacts with Oswald and in fact we have joined Edie's job performance from the summer of 63 and it says he's got the Cuban students under control he's doing a great job [Music] hours after Kennedy is killed the Cuban students go to the press and they present the information that Oswald was a leftist so the president is dead Oswald is in jail and the CIA funded Cuban students are going to the press saying look he's a Castro supporter that story made the front page of the Miami Herald on November 23rd 1963 it made The Washington Post they themselves also put out their own publication which said President of the United States assassinated and at the top of the page that picture of Castro and a picture of Oswald and it said the presumed assassins it's dated November 24th 1963 so it's less than 48 hours after the president's death so it was the first JFK conspiracy theory ever to reach public print the first conspiracy theory is published and it's paid for by George Johnny D's and the CIA what's the explanation there what's my theory I don't have one I want the facts we deserve the fact series have nothing to do with it had JFK not been assassinated it's doubtful that the Kennedy years however they might have played out would have been able to sustain such a dominating presence for half a century President Kennedy is frozen not just in memory but of a special moment of peace prosperity and surging American power style and tragedy are the reasons JFK is still inspiring Americans old and young there will probably never be a more attractive couple in the White House than Jack and Jackie good looks and fashion sense transcend time mrs. Kennedy and the entire Kennedy family were determined that the president's work would continue so his life and shortened term in office would have more meaning these efforts mattered because Kennedy's death was the spur to enact many of the promises that otherwise might have remained unfulfilled [Music] the elements have taken a toll on the house that Jack built as a young man but the legacy that he constructed as president indoors while it has weathered many storms it still stands as a monument to his service today the events of John Kennedy's life resonate even in the 21st century the successes and the failures of his career contained lessons that fully apply to today's challenges of the presidents who served from 1950 to 2000 that is Dwight Eisenhower through Bill Clinton Kennedy received higher average ratings than any other and more than half of the respondents named him as one of the top two best presidents in the second half of the 20th century I teach a course called media and the Kennedy era many of the students who come into this class have an interest in politics some have an interest and journalism [Music] many members of the Kennedy family and administration were very very savvy about media and used media to create the legacy of John F Kennedy as a president there's a lot of problematic aspects of the Kennedy years particularly around the manipulation of the media major problems with his relationship with women they do seem to come away continuing to haul JFK in high esteem all the more negative stuff that we look at doesn't really shake that there's also nostalgia for when there was more of a sense of idealism about political work in Washington it seems to be impossible to shake the kind of clear-eyed idealism that young people still seem to have for JFK attention pay attention to me okay here we go this is the most critical thing in the whole afternoon and I want you to notice it can be half dollar and this had better still be here when we finish we still care about John F Kennedy for somebody who was only president for a thousand days and had some failures as well as some successes what is driving this and my own answer to that is that I think the people like JFK they like his background they might even like to be like him they liked that he went to Harvard they'd like to see published books and want a Pulitzer Prize they liked that he was a war hero they liked that he was good-looking they liked that he married well and had a wonderful family they liked that he family went to Hyannis and they sailed and they played football and they were vigorous and outgoing and useful given all that you either could have been jealous of them were found reasons to dislike him and we didn't dislike him we liked him and I think that's why we still follow him the early 1960s under his presidency despite it being at the height of the Cold War was an optimistic hopeful time in American life I don't think it's a presidency that's been matched in terms of style and substance [Music] there's always the thought of what would he have been what more could he have accomplished we often wonder what will the next century brain you know will JFK we seen in history as just a one-term president over he continued to resonate for generations to come [Music] funding for this program is provided by Sabra are [Music] and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation Joseph admin trustee [Music] additional support provided by the following [Music] you

Channel: UVA Center for Politics

Views: 133,447

Keywords: JFK, Robert Dallek, Buell Frazier, Nancy Dutton, Fred Dutton, Vogelsinger, David Pitts, John Shaw, Jack and Lem, Lem Billings, John Kennedy, JFK Assassination, President Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Kennedy, Larry Sabato, UVA, Tomiko Brown Nagin, Harvard, Harvard Law School, J6 Ranch, J Six Ranch, Arizona History, This is the House that Jack Built

Id: cralUgfosDI

Length: 57min 31sec (3451 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019