Distorting JFK

David Talbot has a rather long piece in TIME where he tries to make the case that JFK was a "peace-minded visionary." This kind of whitewashing of history gets under my skin. Right off the bat it is clear that Talbot is out to help an agenda not make any true historical contribution or clarification.

As the U.S. once again finds itself in an endless war — this time against terror, or perhaps against fear itself — the question of Kennedy's true legacy seems particularly loaded.

The words "once again" and "endless war" imply that the Cold War fought during Kennedy's Presidency was an "endless war" just as it implied that the current War on Terror will also prove to be an endless war. The fact is the Cold War was not endless - it did have an end and a victory for our side because we stayed the course and men like President Reagan weren't willing to just throw in the towel because the job was difficult.

I also take issue with Talbot's musing that we are currently at war with "fear itself". The War on Terror isn't a war against "terror" - it is a battle to stop the spread of Radical Islam. Just as the Cold War wasn't a war against low temperatures but in fact against the spread of international Communism. By saying that we are currently in an "endless war" Talbot is revealing that we are in a battle he doesn't think can be won. I disagree but my disagreement is opinion whereas Talbot is trying to pass his opinion as history.

Just two paragraphs into his article and already it should be clear that this is article in TIME is about what David Talbot believes much more than about what JFK believed. Skeptical that I'm telling the truth? Check out this whopper just two paragraphs later:

It would be hard to imagine the current occupant of the White House extending the same offer [an invitation to "quest for peace" JFK mentioned in his Inaugural Address] to Islamic jihadists or Iran's leaders.

The moral equivalence disgusts me. Would Talbot have also approved of FDR extending an olive branch to Hitler? Heck - that's exactly what JFK's isolationist dad proposed. No - JFK tried to negotiate peace because the USSR had the nuclear stockpile to blowup the world several times over. Our current enemies don't have nuclear weapons (yet) and are not concerned with blowing up the world - just their children with sticks of dynamite strapped to their chests.

Talbot talks about how JFK "outflanked" Richard Nixon in their 1960 campaign by making the "missile gap" and the cause of Cuban "freedom fighters" major campaign issues. The missile gap we know now was a fraud. The US was never close to being behind the USSR in missile capability and Kennedy made Cuban freedom fighters a campaign touchstone but once in office the failure at the Bay of Pigs somehow becomes the fault of the military or the CIA?

George W. Bush is ridiculed for "lying" about WMD in Iraq even though every Intelligence Agency in the world believed such stockpiles existed. JFK used what he knew was a lie about WMD as a campaign strategy (the missile gap) and it is hailed as good politics by Talbot? Strange.

Kennedy truly was a Teflon President. The Bay of Pigs wasn't his fault - it was the Generals fault (yet does anyone think Eisenhower would have been led into such a debacle?). Talbot argues that Kennedy just had 16,000 troops in Vietnam and that JFK planned to remove those troops after he was re-elected (wishful thinking - not true historical analysis). Finally we get to the Cuban Missile Crisis which historians portray as a huge win for Kennedy when the fact is it was not. The USSR couldn't afford to defend Cuba. The Russians ended up giving up missiles they didn't need for a promise from the US that we would never invade Cuba.

By all means - read Talbot's piece but do it with a grain of salt. Know that it is not history but an agenda motivated whitewash.