That this was the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age does not tell us how dangerous it was.—McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy National Security Advisor
American history books are full of praise for presidents who win great wars. A word should also be said for those who prevent them.—Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy Senior Speechwriter
Do not put a loaded rifle on stage if no one is thinking of firing it.—Playwright Anton Chekhov
THE LEGACY OF JOHN F. KENNEDY
Following settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy works tirelessly to prevent the same kind of clumsy interaction that he had suffered through with Khrushchev. To that end, a “hot line” telephone system is installed in June 1963, which allows either leader to contact the other directly without the typical delays in transmitting messages, which often requires four to six hours’ time. It is one more step in normalization of the relationship between the American president and the Soviet leader.
In another gesture of the warming relationships between the two superpowers, Kennedy and Khrushchev sign a partial nuclear test ban treaty, which prohibits nuclear testing above ground or under water. From this point on, all such tests are to be conducted below ground, thus alleviating fears of radiation pollution.
Kennedy also institutes a policy in Latin America, providing significant aid for stimulating growth in that region, as well as establishing more solid relationships between the OAS nations and the United States.
Kennedy’s domestic agenda, known as the New Frontier, expands on many of the reforms first championed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unemployment and Social Security benefits are increased, a water pollution act is passed, the minimum wage is increased, and the most significant aid to farmers since 1938 is put into law.
Kennedy becomes the driving force behind the American space program, with a goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. The goal is accomplished by 1969, six years after Kennedy’s death.
Kennedy follows the lead of his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, emphasizing the vulnerability of foreign lands to potential Soviet domination. He pursues the policy of sending military advisors to the small nation of South Vietnam, believing that American strength there will fortify the Vietnamese into driving off a threat of Communist takeover. Though Kennedy will not send American combat forces into Vietnam, he expands the number of armed advisors from five hundred to more than ten thousand. Motivated by the need to confront the spread of Communism where it threatens most, he nonetheless opens the door for his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, who radically expands the American role.
In June 1963, Kennedy signs into law the Equal Pay Act, to abolish disparity in salaries and wages between men and women. Though the act is slow to move, it exists today as the law of the land, despite the slow progress in equalizing pay regardless of gender.
In an oft-forgotten capstone to the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, after considerable negotiation with Fidel Castro, approximately eleven hundred prisoners from that operation are freed by the Cuban government, in exchange for a ransom of some fifty-three million dollars. While no doubt the decision to launch the operation was Kennedy’s great mistake, he can at least claim that the final outcome has some measure of success. The return of the prisoners cements the bond between Miami’s Cuban exile population and the president.
Perhaps no other part of Kennedy’s legacy is as monumental to American society and culture as his Civil Rights agenda. A series of executive orders outlaw racial discrimination in federally funded housing and employment by federal contractors. On June 11, 1963, he gives a landmark speech, claiming that Civil Rights is a moral cause, proposing equal access to public schools, many other facilities, as well as protection of voting rights. This campaign drives forward after his life and leads directly to what will become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In November 1963, Kennedy is invited to speak at the Remembrance Day Celebration in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, marking the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. However, there is a conflict, a previously scheduled appearance in Dallas, Texas, what is to be a political hand-shaking event to smooth over disgruntlement among some Democratic officeholders there. To celebrate his visit, a motorcade is scheduled, which gathers a considerable crowd of onlookers as it winds through downtown Dallas. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy’s motorcade passes through Dealey Plaza, beneath the windows of the Texas School Book Depository. On the sixth floor of that building, Lee Harvey Oswald waits for the motorcade to pass, and when the time is right, he fires three shots, one of which is a lethal shot into the president’s skull. After feverish efforts to revive Kennedy at Parkland Hospital, he is, after a short time, pronounced dead. Kennedy is immediately succeeded in office by his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy is the fourth U.S. president to die by assassination. He is forty-six.
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis our most basic common link is the fact that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.—John F. Kennedy
The Kennedy assassination killed more than a dynamic young president at the peak of his popularity. It also removed a leader who had stared down a Soviet challenge and begun, with his enhanced stature and reputation for toughness, to seek a new, more stable relationship with the Russians.—Journalist Max Frankel
ROBERT F. “BOBBY” KENNEDY
One of the youngest men ever to serve in a president’s Cabinet, Bobby continues in the role of attorney general after his brother’s assassination. He leaves the post late in 1964, to run for office as U.S. senator from New York, facing one of his principal nemeses, Kenneth Keating. Bobby wins the election and builds a stout reputation for his friendships and sympathy for the causes of many influential and important Civil Rights and worker’s rights leaders. He is one of the voices strongly advocating for the Civil Rights Act.
He becomes devoutly antiwar, believing the Vietnam War, now under the leadership of President Johnson, is a disastrous mistake. His outspokenness results in a hard push for him to seek the office of president himself. When Johnson bows to antiwar sentiment and declines to seek a second term of office, Bobby is immediately deemed the frontrunner. The power of the Kennedy name virtually assures him of the Democratic nomination, and just as likely, the election. On June 5, 1968, after winning the important California primary, he is shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian who disapproves of Bobby’s support of Israel. Bobby dies a day later. He is forty-two.
Sensing the wave of antiwar sentiment that had propelled Bobby’s candidacy, the eventual winner of the presidential race, Richard Nixon, begins a policy of reducing American troop numbers in Vietnam and eventually pulls the United States completely out of the war.
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
True to his own predictions, his power is substantially weakened by what many in the Soviet hierarchy consider his near-traitorous capitulation to the Americans during the missile crisis. However, his poor leadership in agricultural matters contributes even more to the growing dissatisfaction with his rule, as none of the loudly trumpeted plans he introduces amount to much improvement in the lives of Soviet citizens.
In October 1964, a conspiracy to oust him is led by Leonid Brezhnev. Upon returning to the Kremlin from an agricultural tour, Khrushchev is arrested by forces friendly to Brezhnev. He is asked not to offer resistance, for the good of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev, aging and unwell, agrees. Thus, the transfer of power is, by Soviet standards, relatively smooth.
Khrushchev is allowed a house, and his dacha, plus a comfortable pension of five hundred rubles per month. He begins work on his memoirs, a risky proposition, since he assumes that the KGB monitors his every move. Though the KGB ultimately confiscates the manuscripts, Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, succeeds in smuggling a copy to a Western publisher. Thus, in 1970, is the memoir published under the title Khrushchev Remembers and is readily available to Western readers today. Upon its publication, the Soviet news mouthpiece Izvestia labels the book as a fraud.
Khrushchev dies of a heart attack in September 1971, at age seventy-seven, and is buried in a public cemetery. He is denied a state funeral.
I’m old and tired. Let them cope by themselves.—Nikita Khrushchev
Khrushchev was at once a Stalinist and an anti-Stalinist, a Communist believer and a cynic, a publicizing poltroon and a crusty philanthropist, a trouble maker and a peace maker, a stimulating colleague and a domineering boor, a statesman and a politicker who was out of his intellectual depth.—Historian Robert Service
There is no way to imagine the course of world events if Kennedy and Khrushchev had survived in office and been allowed to explore a less hostile relationship. The passions and suspicions produced by two decades of Cold War were not easily overcome. But the two governments fully absorbed the lesson that war between the superpowers had become unprofitable and that they were obliged to prevent peripheral issues from ever again creating a comparable risk of military clash.—Journalist Max Frankel
JOSEPH RUSSO
The English professor continues teaching his subject, but never fails to expound on the experience he and his students shared during those two weeks in October. He begins to take a more active interest in politics, believing that the views of those like his neighbor are dangerously misplaced. He is thus devastated by news of the Kennedy assassination. The Kennedy for President bumper sticker remains on his car.
In summer 1964, he takes his family on a visit to the New York World’s Fair and decides at the last minute to take a side trip to the battlefield at Gettysburg. Though he is well-read about the battle, he is caught off guard by the impact of walking the ground, and the storyteller in him becomes obsessed with putting that story to paper. But he is no historian, chooses instead to write the account as a novel. He spends seven years on the project, and once the story is completed, he is disappointed to find that none of the first fifteen publishers who see the book have any interest in publishing it. Finally, the book finds a small independent publisher, and in 1974, the novel is released. Surprisingly, the book becomes a monumental success, perhaps the most defining novel written on the Civil War.
Russo is active in the campaign of Lyndon Johnson for president in 1964, facing down the staunchly Republican community in which he lives. Vindicated somewhat by Johnson’s overwhelming victory over Barry Goldwater, he is shocked by Johnson’s expanded push into Vietnam.
He continues to teach by day, writing more stories by night. But, as was common for the time, he begins to suffer the effects of cigarette smoking, and dies in 1988, at age fifty-nine.