A New Take on J.F.K

By Richard Stengel / Managing Editor

We tend to think that history is written in stone, that it's unchanging, immutable, fixed. But history isn't a one-way conversation; it's a continuing dialogue between the past and the present. Dutch historian Pieter Geyl once wrote that history is "an argument without end." And it's fair to say that historians have been arguing about John F. Kennedy's presidency from the moment it tragically ended.

Kennedy went from being perceived as a reflexive cold warrior to the golden prince of Camelot to a less than sure-handed Commander in Chief. At the same time, Kennedy's hold on the popular imagination has remained strong: national polls over the past 20 years have consistently placed him in the top three of greatest American Presidents. Now, in many ways, we are at a pivotal moment similar to the one in 1960 when Kennedy was elected. In this issue, the sixth installment in our annual Making of America series, we reassess the Kennedy presidency not only from the perspective of the 1960s but from today's as well. Indeed, the premise of this series is to view history through contemporary eyes and to mine it for ideas and examples that can shed light on our world today.

David Talbot's lead story argues that Kennedy was less a cold warrior than a warrior for peace, that he was a man who despised war and sought above all to avoid nuclear conflict. The Kennedy who emerges is a wily pragmatist who had certain moral limits that he would not compromise. In November 1961, Kennedy gave a speech in which he said that there was nothing "soft" about averting nuclear war and that America showed its true strength when it avoided using military force.

We also re-evaluate Kennedy's commitment to civil rights and the role religion played in his election. The historian Robert Dallek argues that Kennedy has been given too little credit for progress in dealing with America's oldest and greatest social divide. Nancy Gibbs' powerful story about Kennedy's Catholicism shows the discrimination he faced and the boldness with which he triumphed over it. Kennedy ultimately made a practical argument against prejudice. "While this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed," he said in a speech to the conservative Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, "in other years it has been--and may someday be again--a Jew or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist ... Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you."

The entire package was overseen by deputy managing editor Priscilla Painton. Cynthia Hoffman and Christine Dunleavy designed it, and Hillary Raskin and Bill Carwin Jr. searched out its distinctive photographs. All the while, Andrea Dorfman and her band of reporters immersed themselves in J.F.K.'s life. I hope you will too and that Kennedy's example will help you better understand not only his world but our own.

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR