Kennedy was also famous for being the first President to harness the power of the media and the new age of entertainment. In his four famous, live televised debates with Richard Nixon (the Republican candidate for President) Kennedy came across as charismatic and intelligent whereas Nixon appeared dishevelled and unprepared in front of the cameras.
He was also famous for the image of his White House as a modern “Camelot”, the glittering court in the legend of King Arthur. The media was, for the first time, invited into the White House and during his glorious “thousand days” in the White House, the Harvard educated President attracted the “best and the brightest” of the day to work with him. Intellectuals and artists of the day were welcome in the White House and his wife Jacqueline hosted a series of glamorous and glitzy parties there. Kennedy was very attracted to the world of Hollywood and celebrity and several Hollywood stars were regularly invited to the White House.
Kennedy was controversial for his colourful love-life especially for his affair with the Hollywood sex-symbol and actress Marilyn Munroe. This was made even more controversial when Munroe died in mysterious circumstances; and although it was reported that she had taken an overdose several facts concerning her death didn’t add up e.g. there was no suicide note and she had no reason to commit suicide. This led to many conspiracy theories concerning her death these included the theory that the Kennedy family arranged her death because she was about to come clean about her affair with JFK. JFK had many other affairs as well, including with his long-term lover Judith Campbell and his two secretaries “Fiddle and Faddle”. This was made even worse by the fact that Kennedy was a married man and had several children. There were rumours that Kennedy even had paid prostitutes brought to him in the White House while his Secret Service agents had to turn a blind eye.
Kennedy was also controversial for his use of increasingly strong pain-killing drugs to control his recurring back pain. This image of “sex and drugs” made him controversial and gave a whole darker side to “Camelot”.
Kennedy was both famous and controversial for his proposed domestic reforms. The first of these was to improve Medicare (free healthcare) for poor Americans and the elderly. This reform was controversial and greatly opposed by Republicans and right-wing conservatives as they would have to pay for it out of their taxes. Although Kennedy wasn’t a socialist they felt it stank of socialism and the weak western European “welfare state”. Kennedy was also controversial for being weak in Congress and not being able to get his bills passed. The Democrats only held a small majority in Congress and many southern Democrats were suspicious of him.
His most famous domestic reform was to try to improve civil rights for America’s black community by opening predominantly white universities to them, opening election registrars to them and ending general discrimination by enforcing existing civil rights’ laws. This was a very controversial issue in America especially in the Deep South e.g. Alabama, where racism was prevalent and white racists were afraid that blacks would outbreed them and destroy their way of life. This resulted in a white anti-Kennedy backlash in the south and even the state governors and judges who had been appointed by a Republican President were against Kennedy and civil rights. His proposed increase in the minimum wage was passed but it too was controversial among Conservatives. His proposed drop in taxes was also controversial with the senate.
Kennedy also became controversial, especially among liberals (some of his main supporters) by failing to take a strong position against McCarthyism. He was in the hospital, suffering from a recurrence of his old back ailment, when the Senate voted on December 2, 1954, to reprimand its Wisconsin Republican member, Joseph R. McCarthy. McCarthy’s methods of investigating Communist influence in the United States during the early 1950's had caused great controversy. It was generally felt that they had violated rules of fair play and had unduly damaged reputations. Liberals criticised Kennedy for what they considered evasion of a difficult issue.
Kennedy became famous but also controversial because of his foreign policy. When the wall between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin was erected in August, Kennedy responded by sending 1,500 US troops over the land route to Berlin to reaffirm access rights there. Although this move and the speech that Kennedy made when he was in Berlin were famous they were also controversial as they angered the Soviets. Cold war tensions were further aggravated when the Soviet Union sent the first man into space in April and resumed atmospheric nuclear tests in September.
One aspect of Kennedy’s foreign policy that was particularly famous and controversial was his handling of the Cuban missile crisis. This occurred when American U2 spy planes flying over Cuba spotted Soviet nuclear missiles being smuggled into Fidel Castro’s Communist island of Cuba. These missiles, once operational, would be within striking distance of every major American city except Seattle. Many of Kennedy’s Joint Chiefs wanted to invade Cuba or bomb the missile sites but Kennedy argued against this and decided on a military blockade of Cuba to stop any Russian ships bringing more missiles into the country. He later signed a secret treaty with the Soviet Union agreeing that if they removed their missiles from Cuba, America would later remove its missile sites in Turkey and Greece that were pointed at the Soviet Union. Kennedy came out of the crisis in a good light, as the man who had faced down the threat of the Soviet Union and averted nuclear war.
The missile crisis also made Kennedy controversial and he has increasingly come under criticism for his handling of the crisis. Kennedy didn’t actually “win” the stand-off because he had to remove some of America’s missile bases in Europe in return for Soviet withdrawal from Cuba. Some historians have actually blamed Kennedy for the Missile Crisis developing in the first place, claiming that he presented a weak, inexperienced image to the Soviet Union. They believe that he failed to keep Fidel Castro on side and that because Castro wasn’t welcome in America whereas he was welcomed with open arms in Russia may have caused Castro to turn Communist. Finally, some historians have accused Kennedy of over-reacting; claiming that he needlessly raised the stakes and took the world to the brink of war by over-dramatising the situation. They say that there was no evidence that the Soviet Union was actually going to attack America and some say that the move was only in response to the American missile bases in Europe. Throughout the crisis Kennedy had one eye on the important mid-term elections which were due in November. His priority, it is alleged, was to win domestic support by taking a tough line against the Soviets. These historians say that Kennedy risked everything for political gain.
Kennedy was also controversial for his authorisation of the disastrous “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba (an idea passed on from the previous administration) where anti-revolutionary Cuban exiles that had been organised, trained and equipped by the CIA were put into Cuba to overthrow Castro’s Communist regime there. Although the exiles had hoped to gain support as they went along the invasion was a failure and the exiles were easily overpowered by the Cuban Army with the American Government later spending vast amounts of money to ensure their release. Many blamed JFK for the invasion even though it was Kennedy’s predecessor Eisenhower who drew up the original plans.
Kennedy was also controversial for his foreign policy in Vietnam. He wanted to stop the spread of Communism into South Vietnam and probably gave the authorisation for the CIA to kill the unpopular leader there, Diem. Although Diem had been an American puppet he had become very unpopular and there was a risk that he would have been overthrown in a Communist revolution. This secret state-sponsored assassination of an American supporter was very controversial. Although he was probably under direction from the Joint Chiefs, Kennedy made another controversial move in South Vietnam by sending around 10,000 American “Advisors” (mainly troops) into South Vietnam to deter any attempted uprising. But this move only inflamed the situation in South Vietnam.
He also attempted the controversial state-sponsored assassination of Fidel Castro after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. There were several rumours that Kennedy approached his old mafia contacts asking them to kill Castro and he almost certainly authorised the CIA to attempt Castro’s assassination who tried almost every trick in the book, including sending Castro an exploding cigar. This open, state sponsored assassination made Kennedy very controversial as the President was meant to be the face of the Free World and a man that you could trust.
But what Kennedy arguably became most famous for was ironically out of his control - his assassination in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963 while he was riding in an open top limousine on a tour of Texas. His would-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (a former US marine) who had visited the Soviet Union was later shot while in custody by Jack Ruby – a Dallas Nightclub owner. JFK’s assassination was one of the most controversial events in history and there are hundreds of conspiracy theories as to who shot him, including that it was the work of disgruntled Cuban exiles or that he was assassinated by white racists who opposed his civil rights bill.
By Andrew Kirke 5S
