J.F.K. —Greatness in the Eye of the Beholder? S Some Historians

COLUMN ONE J.F.K. —Greatness in the Eye of the Beholder? ■ was one of the coldest of the Cold increasingly conclude that he Some historians say Warriors and conspired to assas- was a cunning and cold-eyed Kennedy mystique lives sinate some Third World leaders, realist, even a cynic. His belated including Fidel Castro and South embrace of the civil rights cause on because we embrace a Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem. Was due in large part to political well-honed image that In fact, 30 years after he was calculation. And a strong case killed in Dallas, John F. Kennedy can be made that he would have hides many flaws. is considered by the American prosecuted the Vietnam War as Defenders say his value public to have been the greatest vigorously as his successors did, of presidents, easily outranking with much the same result. was in 'making us believe.' Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Revelations about his personal Roosevelt and George Washing- life show him to have been By JOHN M. BRODER ton. One recent survey even has addicted to sex and danger, and TIMES STAFF WRITER him tied with Lincoln as the most to have been under constant influential world figure of the medication that may have af- BOSTON—He is venerated as past 1,000 years. fected his judgment at critical a champion of civil rights when, And yet Kennedy's public junctures. in reality, he was furious with mystique stands in stark contrast But even if the flesh-and- the Freedom Riders, who forced to the emerging verdict among blood Kennedy falls short of the him to act before he was ready to historians: that he entered office heroic standard, his memory is embrace the cause of racial unprepared and improved little accorded mythic stature. equality. in three years. Historians can find only one He is hailed as an apostle of He is remembered as an ideal- explanation: the manner of his Associated Press world peace when, in truth, he ist, but students of his presidency Please see KENNEDY, MO John F. Kennedy Glowing Image Lingers

JFK: Poll vs. Pundits According to a poll, John F. Kennedy left an indelible mark on history ..

■ Question: As you may know, every year Time magazine names a Man of the Year. Suppose Time were to name a man or woman of the millenium, someone who for better or for worse has had the most impact on the course of history in the past 1,000 years. Whom would you name?"

Top responses

JOHN F. KENNEDY Abraham Lincoln Martin Luther King Jr. Albert Einstein Christopher Columbus Adolf Hitler Thomas Jefferson 88% of respondents named Ronald Reagan other individuals who Franklin D. Roosevelt received I% or less of the total. Mother Teresa

. But historians see him differently.

"The historical judgment is really very negative at this point among the majority of my colleagues.... Right now on foreign policy, Kennedy is getting an F from most diplomatic historians. On domestic policy, most are writing that nothing was accomplished." —Stephen Ambrose, presidential scholar at the University of New Orleans

"I don't think that most serious analysts would give him very high marks on anything but style. He wasn't President that long, but in terms of purely positive accomplishments, there weren't many.... It was obviously a time of action but not necessarily progress." —tee Slgelman, political scientist at George Washington University

Source: Poll of 800 adult Americans taken for Thre/CNN in Jay. 1992. by Yankelowch. Clancy. Shulman.

Lon A n ge tee Timex natural disbelief in their leaders. Continued from Al That suspension was aided by sudden and shocking death. Kennedy's natural reserve, his es- "The image of Kennedy is not senttel opaqueness, which con- based on what he accomplished but cealed his true thoughts and feel- on his promise, the hope he held infra from even those closest to out," said presidential scholar Ste- him Those who met with Kennedy phen Ambrose of the University of lett ins office believing he agreed New Orleans. "There's a very MO 'them and would take the strong sense that if he had not died, action they had recommended. But we would not have suffered the 30 frequently that was not the case. years of nightmare that followed— Ms. handsome visage and his the race riots, the white backlash, light-filled eyes were not a win- assassinations, Vietnam. Water- dow tb his soul but rather a mirror gate, runaway inflation, Iran-Con- for all those who gazed upon them. tra. "Be retained an impenetrability, "People just want to believe that even to those who thought they if only J.F.K. had lived, all this knew: him well," said historian wouldn't have happened." Doris' Kearns Goodwin, who has There are other factors: his written biographies of the Kenne- youth (he was 43 at his inaugu- dy family and Lyndon 13. Johnson ' ration in 1961), his looks, his wit andvel t.is completing a book on Roose- and his irresistible charm. He was the first television President, and "Because of his death, he re- he used the medium better than mains unfinished. The sense of any who followed. possibility he left allows people to He brought style and zest and project back onto him not only optimism to a nation that had what he might have become, but embraced the inertia of the 1950s what they and the country might after years of economic depression have become," said Goodwin, who followed by war. His glamorous ed to former Kennedy aide family fascinated the world and set i mirror-like quality of a tone for Americans during a 44 phase of unprecedented prosperity, ; presidency, Goodwin material consumption and econom- if accounts for the gaping ic growth. di:. dy between the cool as- "I wish I could have met him. He s me of professional histori- had a real magic about him," said ana the passionate regard of Marlyne Deibler, 57, of Warmins- thd. That and the assassina- ter, Pa., as she gazed upon the tion'. flame at Kennedy's grave site at While an admirer of J.F.K. and Arlington National Cemetery this an intimate of the Kennedy clan, past weekend. Goodwin says as a historian it "When I saw him on television, would be hard for her to rank he always seemed like a person Kennedy among the greatest pres- who would reach out to you and ident* listen to you and understand your "I find this whole thing not just feelings," she said. "Given the mystifying, but frustrating," she chance to have stayed in office, he said .in an interview in the library would have done a lot for the of he home in Concord, Mass. "It country." seems unfair to other presidents, Kennedy was blessed with mag- particularly Roosevelt and Lin- • nificent ghostwriters and speech coln. ;He has just become what writes who allowed him to project everyone wants him to be. And no the image of an intellectual when one can match that. If he had his tastes ran to Frank Sinatra and completed the two terms, however starlets. extraprdinary they might have been, the mystique he enjoys today " Pulitzer Prize-winning could!not be equaled." Hbook, "Profiles in Courage," was helped greatly by Theodore C. nfair, says Charles U. Daly, Sorenken, his brilliant speech writ- Udirector of the John F. Kenne- er, antii his earlier bestselling "Wh) dy Library overlooking Boston England Slept" benefited from the harbor, a video-age reliquary of ministrations of New York Times the J.F.K. legend. Like other Ken- reporter and family friend Arthur nedy defenders, Daly said he be- Krock. heves that ordinary historical This carefully crafted public standards cannot be applied to the J.F.K: was eagerly consumed by 35th President. the Atnerican people, who for per- He :should not be judged by the haps the last time suspended their 1_ number of bills signed, treaties Site Where J.F.K. Was Shot to Be U.S. Landmark

From Assocked Press _L./ ALLAS —The site where Presidia John F. Kennedy was assassirated will be designated as a national historic landmark today, the alth anniversary of his death. Nellie Carnally, widow of for- mer Texas Cpv. John B. Connally, who was seriously wounded in the Nov. 22, 190 attack, was sched- uled to make the official presenta- tion of the plaque. The Connaltys were riding in the same open -ail limousine with the President and his wife when shots rang out in Ilealey Plaza, on the west end of downtown. 'The dedication ceremony will focus on our responsibilities in a democracy tc preserve both good and bad history," said Walter S. Blake, president of the Dallas County Historical Foundation.

he designation of the assassi- Tnation see as a national historic landmark was granted on Oct. 12 by Interior Secretary Bruce Bab- bitt. The foundation runs a museum that draws about 400,000 visitors a year to the sixth floor of the old School Book Depository Building, where Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have fired the shots that killed Kennedy. No official events were planned in Kennedy's hometown of Boston. "We are not very enthusiastic about celebrating the day he got killed," said Charles Daley, direc- tor of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. "We celebrate Kenne- dy's birthday, which we think is more appropriate." negotiated. crises manageu ana programs initiated, argues Daly, a American leaders "for making us than 100 years to match the output former J.F.K. White House staff really believe." on Kennedy in just the past 30. member. Rather, his greatness lies Indeed, Kennedy served at a Of the books that are less than in that "intangibles." If he had not time of soaring optimism. His rhe- worshipful, two recent studies of been a great President, Daly asked, torical legacy is unmatched by his personal behavior attempt to "then: why the hell are you here 30 later presidents, and his unfinished portray him as reckless in his years;later?" story is one that will hold allure for pursuit of women, a manipulator, a pawn of his ambitious, multimil- Dares own a..isrv...!r. K4-i tie`.1Y generations. must be ranked among the greatest One measure of his impact can be lionaire father and a liar. •. found in the stacks of the Library Daly sniffed at the books—"A of Congress. The collection in- Question of Character" by Thomas cludes 714 books about Kennedy, C. Reeves and "Reckless Youth" compared with 685 about Wash- by Nigel Hamilton—as the work of ington and 845 about Lincoln. Lin- "a couple of literary whores" out to coln's biographers needed more Please see KENNEDY, All

LINDA SCHAEFER 1 For The Times Gilbert and Anita Bond tell their children about their memories of the assassination of President Kennedy. the atmosphere that that man and can American households. 4-year-old son, Jacob, a photo of a his wife and his children created "I think many black folks, at young boy, holding a candle, for the nation," he said. "There was least many black Christians, start standing in the rain at a public a tone of hopeful expectancy. from a foundation that human mourning service in Chicago. A Along with that was the pride I beings are terribly flawed," Bond tear rolls down the cheek of the felt, and so many other children said. "And so they don't create a boy in the black-and-white image. felt, in a belief that you could do sort of false, pristine image of who "That's the way Daddy looked something to make a difference people ultimately are. . . . They when Daddy heard Kennedy died," about the issues that were prob- are not deeply disturbed to find out be told his young son. "Daddy was that, oh, the man was deeply lematic in the country." so sad he cried at school and Bond, who is working on a limited in so many ways. For them couldn't eat his lunch. And, when doctoral dissertation on religion that is not mutually exclusive." he went out on the playground, no and literature at Emory University Bond paused and picked up a one was playing." in Atlanta, said John and Robert F. Life magazine dated Dec. 6, 1963, Kennedy and King will always the first issue after Kennedy's Times researcher Edith Stanley In represent a holy "triptych" in Afri- assassination. He pointed out to his Atimta contributed to this story, ry the issue of nee was a moral issue," Lewis said. "That tied him Continutd from HO to the black commtnity forever." hake a ick buck. But these are all tiews from the • The of J.r.K.'s womanizing elite. It is at grotrid level that Have n wet-trod since the Kennedy continues to inspire mil- , whet Judith Campbell lions of Americana, that his picture 1!1xner rekaled her liaisons with still hangs in homes across the land the leadeof the free world. Later and around the world. Could the accounts have riaced Kennedy in experts be wront and the masses the clandestine company of dozens right? of other 4en. But the revelations have done Gilbert Bond tlinks so. Bond, 41, lIttle to uncture the Kennedy who lives with his wife and four Mystique. ln a perverse way, they children in a midest bungalow in ipay have Magnified it, putting him an Atlanta suburb, said Kennedy's in the co y of movie, sports critics miss his significance to and rock s who live by differ- black families Each as his when he tint rules f the rest of us. was growing up in Kentucky and Certainly the instant sense of Southern California as the son of a foss after ha assassination pro- laborer. pelled the American people into a ▪ "What they con't capture was Wave of ilatry more typically reserved fo .presidents who had withstood thi test of time. By the hundreds, scools, roads, bridges, parks and aiports where named for him throtghout the remainder Of the decade. Perhaps thOlearest evolution of the Kennedy itgacy occurs among black Americars. Kennedy trill to discourage Dr. Martin Luther 1{.ing Jr. and other black leaders nom holding the n1D,63 March on Washington,landmark Augt4ig f that it would lead to violence.00ting and—more important—a melt against his Ad- ministration. • Despite the ciril rights leaders' "lntreaties, Kemedy refused to 2articipate in themareh. .. After it concuded peacefully, Nennedy invital King and the rhers to the Wlite House, where itec congratulated 'hem—in private. ne of those leiders, John Lew- Dis, then the A-year-old chair- man of the Student Non-Violent Zoordinating Contnittee and now a Democratic congressman from • Georgia, said he and other black leaders were incensed by Kenne- 2y's stance. Man; protests of the Ira, he said, wire designed to mrovoke a reluctint Kennedy to act. • "In my own sprech during the Darch, I said that Kennedy's [civil lights] leglslationwas too little and 'loo late," Lewis laid in an inter- :Thew. "Many of tie people in my lrganization disafreed with him 2rofoundly." And yet, Lewis aid, he has come 7p appreciate Kennedy for the mall strides he uok on race, and 4or the soaring rletoric that ac- Zompanied them. I ▪ "He was the fist President to Associated Press Poll Kennedy assassinattok

Many remain suspicious... Think Americans have not been told whole truth

Think there was official cover-up

Think Oswald was part of conspiracy Conspiracy believers suspect: CIA Mafia

Anti-Castro Lyndon ohnson CtAb *kilos

Source: AP natronal poll of L026 adults raSan Nov 5-9 by ICR Survey Research Group of Mocha, Pa., part of AUS Consultants. Margin of etton.3 anannapa pants, plus orminws • Kennedy Legacy Changes, Endures After 30 Years

liYANN1SPORT, Mass. (AP) - books and everything. It's kind of eign tourists — not young cynical." Ed Cliggott has stood guard — lit- confusing." Americans — who hope to Perhaps the greatest evidence erally and figuratively — over the Indeed, considerably more has glimpse the famous compound. of the alarm about preserving Kennedy legacy. been alleged about Kennedy in "Most of the young people to- Kennedy's memory is in Boston's As a policeman, he manned the the last 30 years than was widely day really have no idea who he JFK museum, which has been re- entrance to the Kennedy com- known during his lifetime, when was or what he was about, be- vamped to make its subject rele- pound. Then he became a teach- by contemporary accounts he was cause it's a long time ago," said vant to people who do not re- er, answering President John F. perceived as far above the baser Newman. member Kennedy. Kennedy's call to public service. vices. But that was long ago. These The re-examination more or "Between his assassination Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, days, Cliggott has trouble con- less began with Chappaquiddick, and Bobby's assassination and noted when the new museum veying JFICs,impact to his young which raised questions about the the war in Vietnam, America has was opened last month that most students. judgment of U.S. Sen. Edward M. changed completely," Newman of its visitors were not yet born "I've found it impossible to re- Kennedy and whispers about the said. "We're a great deal more when he was President. late to my kids the feeling of libido of his brothers. those three years," said Cliggot. Then there were accounts of af- "The kids know the celebrity fairs with Marilyn Monroe and aspect of it. I don't think they un- Judith Exner, said to have been derstand the idealism." the mistress of mobster Sam Even in this community so Giancana as well. And tell-ails long associated with John F. Ken- about Jacqueline Kennedy Onas- nedy, his image has begun to sis, once the sainted queen of blur three decades after his Presi- Camelot. dency ended with an assassina- Others asked: Did someone tion that shocked and riveted the ghost-write Kennedy's Pulitzer world. Prize-winning book "Profiles in "I've heard JFK was such a Cdurage"? Did the Kennedy ad- great President, but we weren't ministration disguise a lackluster there," said Megan Ough, 16, a performance behind brilliant student in Cliggott's honors class public relations? in U.S. history. "To us, the way Time, too, has dimmed the he died is the only thing that glow of Camelot. makes him different." Larry Newman, a friend and "When a President gets assas- neighbor of the Kennedys, said sinated, you only hear about the the buses that still clog the nar- good things," she said. "Then row streets of picturesque Hyso- there are all the movies and the nisport bear older people or for- 20A NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS, Manchester, N.H. — November 21, 1993 The Question: Who

Ely MIKE COCHRAN Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) — In death as in life, John Connally could not escape the echoes of gunfire 30 years ago in Dealey Plaza. As the former Texas governor lay in state in Austin this sum- mer, researchers were demand- ing bullet fragments from his body. They insisted tests would prove President John F. Ken- nedy's slaying was the result of a conspiracy. The attempt failed. The frag- Killed JFK? ments from the horror of No- vember 1963 were buried with Connally. But the theories were not. Indeed, they have never been firecracker. The second and third more pronounced than today, as shots were unmistakably gunfire. case, branding it outrageous and a generation of Americans born inexcusable persecution. after the assassination reaches In 1964, the Warren Commis- sion concluded that three shots Thirty years later, surveys adulthood. were fired on the motorcade, all show that more than eight out of It is almost as if the trauma of from the depository building's 10 Americans do not accept the 6 Kennedy's death and the memo- sixth floor and all by Lee Harvey basic conclusion that Oswald, a ry of his Camelot cannot compete Oswald. lifetime misfit., was the lone as- with the clamor about conspiracy. Soon, however, the first wave sassin. The question these three dec- of conspiracy buffs were arguing Yet, as so many reject the com- ades later, it seems, is not "Who over how many shots were fired, mission's finding, the Kennedy was JFK?" from where and by whom. The family itself accepts it. It is "Who killed JFK?" grassy knoll next to the book At the heart of most conspiracy The sky was overcast that Fri- warehouse would become, as one day morning, but the autumn arguments is whether the same writer called it, "an elevation on bullet — the so-called Magic Bul- sun melted away the chill and the the American landscape as prom- cloud cover as Air Force One let — could have passed through inent as Mount Rushmore." Kennedy's upper back and made the short hop from Fort Significantly, no one reported Worth to Dallas Love Field. caused the wounds suffered by seeing a second gunman that Connally. It was Nov. 22, 1963. day, and virtually everyone re- At the urging of local politi- The two were struck almost at ported hearing no more than the same instant If the same bul- cians, Kennedy ordered the re- three shots. flective glass shield atop the let could not have wounded both Even so, the Warren Report men, there had to have been a Presidential limousine removed. came under attack almost imme- Huge, enthusiastic crowds second bullet — and therefore a diately, and a zealous district at- second gunman. greeted the motorcade. Kennedy, torney in New Orleans launched his wife Jackie at his side, smiled A new book by lawyer-journal- an investigation that eventually ist Gerald Posner offers a case for and waved from the back seat. resulted in the only criminal trial Up front, John and Nellie Connal- the single-bullet theory that ad- connected to the bloodshed in heres to the government's basic ly beamed at the Texas welcome. Dallas. Just before 12:30 p.m., the mo- conclusion. Jim Garrison prosecuted busi- Posner explains how medical torcade slipped out of the glass nessman Clay Shaw on conspira- and steel canyons of downtown expertise combined with compu- cy charges in a trial that included terized re-enactments, special en- and zigzagged toward Elm Street 34 days of testimony and less and a drab, seven-story brick hancements of the Zapruder film than an hour of jury delibera- and new bullet-impact tests building. tions. After the acquittal, Garri- The first shot sounded like a prove the single-bullet theory. son arrested Shaw for perjury, Accordingly, Oswald's first shot but the courts dismissed the missed, tne second hit both Ken- nedy and Connally and the third indisputably was the fatal Ken- nedy head shot. But so many, still, refuse to be- lieve. Partly, it is because Ken- nedy's death was such a consum- ing event; partly, it is because in subsequent years — during Viet- nam, throughout the Watergate scandal, at so many other junc- tures — the government lied. uer. And that's not all. The official commission created to investigate the murder made mis- . takes of its own, starting with the way it conducted the investigation. Instead of hiring independent investiga- tors, the Warren Commission depended on the work of the CIA and the FBI, the very Implausible Case agencies that some saw as part of the con- spiracy. And when the House Select Committee Builds Skepticism on Assassinations restudied the Kennedy case in 1979, it concluded that the slaying WASHINGTON (AP) — The mob did it. "probably" was the result of a plot, But hav- Fidel Castro did it. The KGB did it. The ing decided that, it disbanded. No govern- right wing did it. The left wing did it. The ment body followed up. government did it. The writer of a recent best-seller that Thirty years alter the murder of John F. finds fault with the Warren Commission's Kennedy, most Americans think that some- work but endorses its fundamental conclu- one other than Lee Harvey Oswald killed sion points to an additional factor to account Kennedy. Or they think Oswald had help- for the skepticism. ers, never apprehended, in a plot that's Oswald never was put on trial. Because of never been investigated. that, said Gerald Posner, author of "Case They reject the Warren Commission's Closed," the American adversarial system of conclusion that Oswald was a warped loner justice — in which two sides lay their cases who acted alone, without the knowledge of before a neutral judge or jury — was denied anyone else. the opportunity to work. If the Kennedy family itself accepts the Compare Oswald's fate to that of James commission's conclusion, why is it so widely Earl Ray, who was tried in the murder of doubted? Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore told Martin Luther King Jr. and found guilty. reporters last year that they doubted the of- Ray subsequently wrote a book asserting ficial version. that he was part of a conspiracy. One reason for the skepticism is obvious: "But we don't pay him much heed be- the case is so implausible. cause Ray had his day in court," Posner Consider: said. A 19-year-old former Marine defects to the "Oswald never had that day. If he were Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War sitting in jail today and saying there was a and marries a Russian woman. Three years conspiracy, some people might listen to after his defection, Soviet authorities allow him, but it would not be the same," Posner him to return to this country. He drifts to said. Dallas and on the day that the President is Distrust of the government runs strong to visit, he is able to sneak a rifle into his and feeds the skepticism, said Tulane Uni- work place, overlooking the route of the versity psychologist Fred Koenig. Presidential motorcade. The sense that a massive conspiracy and He fires three shots in short order. A sin- coverup existed was reinforced for the mil- gle bullet kills the President and wounds lions who saw the 1991 Oliver Stone movie, Texas Gov. John Connally. Then, despite "JFK" the intense security that accompanies any President, he gets away from the murder scene on foot. But he is arrested and jailed. Two days later, while being transferred from one jail to another, a nightclub owner with ties to the mob manages to get into the jail with a gun and to kill Oswald. It seemed preposterous 30 years ago; it seems preposterous still; Small wonder that to millions of people it remains beyond be- .. November 22,1963 The horrifying scene that unfolded in Dealey plaza at 12:30 p.m. was intensified by the presence of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Her cry of "Oh my God, they have shot my husband!" reported Two Secret Service agents were in the minutes after the shooting, was the first indication front seat. In the left jump seat, Nellie to the outside world that Kennedy had been hit. Connolly; in the right was Texas Gov. John B. Connolly; left-rear, First Lady And her ashen appearance in Washington beside her Jacqueline Kennedy; The President, right husband's casket, with her dress smeared with rear. Bullet damage to the inside-front blood, shocked the nation. windshield helped support arguments that Kennedy was shot from behind. THREE SHOTS Lack of bullet damage elsewhere in interior supported single bullet theory.

j Paper bag contained rifle

No clear audio tape of the The Warren Commission said assassination exists. But many two hit: the first passed through witnesses, including reporters, JFK's neck and Gov. Connally's police, and secret service agents, chest and wrist, lodging in his testified to three shots. A Dallas thigh; the second struck radio reporter had a tape, later Kennedy, fatally, in the head. erased, indicating three shots.

Palm and fingerprints and a rifle crease were discovered on cardboard book boxes at the open window. Mitre

1,0 "

Third shot (Fatal shot shattered the President's skull))

Lee Harvey TEXAS Oswald