As we witness the fifty-fifth anniversary of the evil assassination of President John F.

Kennedy, we witness
even more information coming about that deals with his life plus legacy. For decades, JFK has been a very
popular human being. He never lived beyond 50 years old, but his life existed with leadership, monumental
events, and historical changes. He lived during the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and World War II.
His family loved him and expressed solidarity with him. His wife, Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, propelled
fashion and other aspects of culture in the White House including abroad. His brother, Robert Francis
Kennedy, was his close ally and he was the Attorney General of America. Now, we witness a greater
appreciation of his courage and his enthusiasm to advance idealism in the midst of a changing world. As the
35th President, he set out a course to promote the arts, commerce, space exploration, civil rights, and
economic development in a myriad of speeches and policies. John Fitzgerald Kennedy also wanted
environmental protection as Nature must be honored with continuous cultivation. Today, as we approach
2020, we are further inspired to intrepidly execute compassion, to believe in tolerance, and to accept the
great responsibility to understand the advancement of human justice for all. That means that tax cuts for
the super wealthy are not representative of democratic principles. Income inequality and stagnant wages
are not right politics. A male in the White House condemning the independent judiciary is not righteous
either. Investment, progressive taxation, and civil liberties must be advanced in order of America and the
world to reach into higher heights of fairness and equality. This time is the fall of 2018, and we will always
believe in the awe-inspiring principal of social justice.

JFK's Life
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was born in wealth
and privilege. His Kennedy family was very wealthy. His father was the businessman Joseph Kennedy, and
his mother was Rose Fitzgerald. As a child and into his adolescence plus adulthood, John F. Kennedy
experienced many health illnesses and diseases. During his youth, he traveled into many schools. JFK
suffered taunts for being Irish, and kids challenged him in fights. Later, he enrolled in Harvard College. One
of his famous pieces of literature was a book entitled, “Why England Slept.” The book criticized
appeasement which was done by some British leaders. Appeasement contributed to the rise of World War
II. Joseph Kennedy supported Neville Chamberlain’s actions in the run-up to World War II. It is no secret
that Joseph Kennedy made anti-Semitic remarks. During World War II, the Navy enlisted John F. Kennedy.
He saved lives after the Japanese destroyer Amagiri rammed his PT 109 boat. He was praised and joined the
House of Representatives. He visited Vietnam early in his career and criticized colonialism in his famous
November 14, 1951 speech. John F. Kennedy came into the Senate and released his Profiles in Courage
book in 1956. That book documented the courage of eight senators throughout American history. It sold 2
million copies during that time. He ran for President in 1960 and won after a hard campaign. He defeated
Richard Nixon, praised the separation of church and state, and outlined his New Frontier vision for America.
His 1961 inaugural address was one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.

In that speech, it was a combination of anti-Communist rhetoric and a call for public service in idealistic
terms by him saying, “...ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
JFK had strengths and weakness. He was strong to resist the military generals who wanted an invasion of
Cuba. Some accused him of not being more overt in fighting for civil rights legislation early in his Presidency
out of political reasons (since Congress had tons of pro-segregationist politicians). John F. Kennedy believed
in nuisance and wanted to have access to many perspectives as possible before making a final political
decision. The irony with JFK was that he had a more contentious relationship with the Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev at the beginning of his Presidency, and then later, their relationship improved (with the signing
of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, talks about détente, the creation of a nuclear hotline, and other policies
that resisted war with the Soviets). Also, others pushed President John F. Kennedy on many issues. Dr. King,
SNCC, and other civil rights leaders had many meetings with the Kennedy administration so that the
administration would promote real civil rights legislation in Congress. He had fears about the March on
Washington and then supported it. So, John F. Kennedy was not a perfect man, but he was a man who
changed to be more progressive and open-minded by the end of his term. John F. Kennedy was a very
intellectual, intelligent man. He would outline views with eloquence, examples, and other forms of
inspiration. He passed away in a cruel, evil murder. We are indeed motivated to carry forward the vision of
egalitarianism and justice.

JFK was a Liberal

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a liberal. He said so himself in a speech. Many conservatives promote the lie
that John F. Kennedy was a conservative. That isn’t the case at all. John F. Kennedy gave a speech to accept
the New York Liberal Party Nomination in 1960. He said the following words, “…If by a "Liberal" they mean
someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,
someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs,
their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and
suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say
I'm a "Liberal.” Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal
funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government
intervention to halt the recession. He also promised an end to racial discrimination, although his agenda,
which included the endorsement of the Voter Education Project (VEP) in 1962, produced little progress in
areas such as Mississippi where the "VEP concluded that discrimination was so entrenched.” JFK supported
affirmative action policies, promoted labor rights, believed in civil rights, advanced environmental
protections, and believed in the investment of the arts. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy proposed an
overhaul of American immigration and naturalization laws to ban discrimination based on national origin.
He saw this proposal as an extension of his planned civil rights agenda as president. These reforms later
became law through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which dramatically shifted the source of
immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and
Asia. The policy change also shifted the emphasis in the selection of immigrants in favor of family
reunification. The late president's brother, Senator Edward Kennedy helped steer the legislation through
the Senate. Many conservatives lie and say that since JFK wanted tax cuts passed, then he was a
conservative.

Personal Moments of the Presidency of John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy was in a
motorcade in Patrick Street,
Cork, in Ireland on June 28,
1963.
In this location, President John
F. Kennedy visited the John
Barry Memorial at Crescent
Quay in Wexford, Ireland.
This is one of the final images
of President John F. Kennedy
when he traveled into Fort
Worth, Texas, on Friday
morning, November 22, 1963.

The truth is that the top marginal tax rate was at 91 percent which was created to pay for World War II. JFK
acknowledged this and wanted it to go down. So, he wanted to lower the top rate to 65 percent, and that
rate would go down to 70 percent under the Revenue Act of 1964. The current top income tax rate was
39.6 percent, which was more than 50 points lower than Kennedy’s time. Also, JFK lived during a time of
less income inequality than today. Back then, the wealthiest 1 percent of households had less than 10
percent of the income share in 1962. Now, the 1 percent owns much more than 10 percent of the income
and the super wealthy today pay less in taxes. Some rich folks pay no income taxes today. John F. Kennedy
was a Keynesian, not a supply-side tax cutter. Kennedy believed that budget deficits can have a stimulative
effect which is anathema to neoliberal views. JFK wanted tax cuts to stimulate demands and grow the
economy from the bottom up. John F. Kennedy believed in both tax cuts and spending increases to
stimulate the economy. He wanted to do tax cuts first and then increased spending later.

"First we'll have your tax cut," he told chief economic adviser, Walter Heller, 11 days before his
assassination, "then we'll have my expenditures program." One of the greatest pieces of evidence that John
F. Kennedy wasn’t a conservative was how he gave a speech at Madison Square Garden promoting
universal health care for the elderly (which would be Medicare). That was on May 20, 1962, and
conservatives back then, including Ronald Reagan, opposed him. The conservatives slandered JFK as
promoting socialism or communism by JFK saying that the elderly deserve government health care. In that
speech, he said the following words, “…And then I read that this bill will sap the individual self-reliance of
Americans. I can't imagine anything worse, or anything better, to sap someone's self-reliance, than to be
sick, alone, broke--or to have saved for a lifetime and put it out in a week, two weeks, a month, two
months…” John F. Kennedy supported Social Security which is a government program. Therefore, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy supported Social Security, health care insurance for the elderly, civil rights,
environmental protections, labor rights, investments in welfare, educational development, ending the tax
loopholes for oil companies, and a higher minimum wage.

Therefore, he wasn’t a conservative. By his own words, President John F. Kennedy was a liberal.

November 22, 1963

By 1963, Diem was assassinated by his own military generals. The Civil Rights bill was in Congress. John F.
Kennedy was in Dallas, Texas in his 1964 Presidential campaign already. He also wanted to travel into Dallas
for another reason. He tried to mend fences between the liberals (who were Ralph Yarborough and Don
Yarborough. They weren’t related to each other) and the conservative John Connally. Texas Governor John
Connally was a lifelong friend of the Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was from Texas. Each man
worked together in a meeting in El Paso, TX on June 5, 1963. JFK wanted to raise money for his reelection
campaign by 1964. Kennedy was in a motorcade traveling in Dallas with cheering fans. People of many
colors supported him in the travel route. He wanted to have a meeting luncheon at the Trade Mart where
he would meet with civic and business leaders. Secret Service agents guarded him. On November 22, 1963,
JFK just had a breakfast speech in Fort Worth. He came from San Antonio, Houston, and Washington, D.C.
during the previous day. He boarded Air Force One by 11:10 am and arrived to Love Field 15 minutes
later. At about 11:40, the presidential motorcade left Love Field for the trip through Dallas, running on a
schedule about 10 minutes longer than the planned 45, due to enthusiastic crowds estimated at 150,000–
200,000 people, and two unplanned stops directed by the president. By the time the motorcade reached
Dealey Plaza, they were only five minutes away from their planned destination.

JFK was in an open top 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible limousine. It traveled into Dealey
Plaza at 12:30 pm. CST. Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas, turned around to the President, who was
sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," which President
Kennedy acknowledged by saying "No, you certainly can't." Those were the last words ever spoken by John
F. Kennedy. From Houston Street, the presidential limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm,
providing it access to the Stemmons Freeway exit. As the vehicle turned onto Elm, the motorcade passed by
the Texas School Book Depository. Suddenly, shots were fired at President Kennedy as his motorcade
continued down Elm Street. About 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. Governor Connally
was shot too. Secret Service agents ran to President Kennedy. The last shot blew the President’s head off.
The limousine sped into Parkland Memorial Hospital where he passed away. Mrs. Kennedy was there
throughout the ordeal. President John F. Kennedy died by the gunshot wound to his skill, and he was
pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. CST. President Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One administered by
federal judge Sarah T. Hughes.

Members of the President's security detail were attempting to remove Kennedy's body from the hospital
when they briefly scuffled with Dallas officials, including Dallas County Coroner Earl Rose, who believed that
he was legally obligated to perform an autopsy before the President's body was removed. The Secret
Service pushed through, and Rose eventually stepped aside. The forensic panel of the HSCA, of which Rose
was a member, later reported that Texas law indicated that it was the responsibility of the justice of the
peace to determine the cause of death as well as the necessity of whether an autopsy was needed to
determine the cause of death. Theran Ward, a justice of the peace in Dallas County, signed the official
record of the inquest as well as the second certificate of death. John F. Kennedy’s autopsy was performed
at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. It started at 8 pm EST and ended about midnight EST.
The choice of autopsy hospital in the Washington, D.C., area was made at the request of Mrs. Kennedy, on
the basis that John F. Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II.

*The footage that shown the shots that murdered President John F. Kennedy came from the Zapruder film.
The final at Kennedy caused his head to move to the back and to the left. There is agreement among many
people that the bullets came from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald
displayed strange behavior during this time. He told his wife that he had shot a General Walter Walker and
he was thinking about hijacking plane and sending it to Cuba. He didn’t talk much to his work colleague. He
disappeared 40 minutes before the assassination. He was briefly spotted on the 2nd floor the TSDBD for 2.5
minutes after the assassination. He fled all over Dallas, Texas until he was arrested.

President Kennedy’s funeral came during the three days that occurred after the assassination. His body was
placed in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours. His coffin was carried on a horse-drawn caisson
to the United States Capitol to lie in state. Thousands of people came to see the guarded casket.
Representatives from over 90 countries attended the state funeral on Monday, November 25, 1963. After
the Requiem Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral, the President was laid to rest 2.7 miles from the White
House at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
The Warren Commission
The Warren Commission viewed Lee Harvey Oswald of murdering John F. Kennedy alone. It was created by
Lyndon Johnson via the Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963. The final report had 888 pages. Jack
Ruby also murdered Oswald two days later. The Commission’s findings are controversial since people
debated the results since 1964 (when it was released) to this very day. Members of the Warren
Commission were Earl Warren, Richard Russell, Jr. John Sherman Cooper, Hale Boggs, Gerald Ford, John J.
McCloy, and Allen Dulles. Allen Dulles was fired by JFK, so it’s ironic that he would be a member of such a
commission. Every member of the Commission had ties to the political establishment or had ties to the
intelligence community. In recent years, we see a report from the CIA Chief Historian David Robarge. It was
released to the public in 2014. According to this CIA report, CIA officers had been instructed to give only
"passive, reactive, and selective" assistance to the commission, in order to keep the commission focused on
"what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth' — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet
undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." The CIA was also covering up evidence
that the CIA may have been in communication with Oswald before 1963, according to the CIA findings. Also
withheld were earlier CIA plots, involving CIA links with the Mafia, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel
Castro, which might have been considered to provide a motive to kill Kennedy.

The report concluded, "In the long term, the decision of John McCone and Agency leaders in 1964 not to
disclose information about CIA's anti-Castro schemes might have done more to undermine the credibility of
the commission than anything else that happened while it was conducting its investigation." If we know of
these things for years, it shows that the CIA isn’t some benign organization. It has a known history of
controversial actions. Four of the seven members of the commission, Boggs, Cooper, McCloy, and Russell,
had serious doubts regarding the conclusions of the commission that the President and Governor Connally
were both wounded by the "magic bullet" and regarding the view that Oswald had acted alone. Even
President Johnson and Robert Kennedy (before they died) expressed some skepticism about the Warren
Commission’s basic findings. Robert Kennedy asked McCone point blank if the CIA had killed his brother
and McCone denied it. It is no secret that LBJ and RFK didn’t like each other. RFK called LBJ and his wife,
“Uncle Corn Pone and his little pork chop.” LBJ called RFK the “little runt.”

It is no secret that both LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover were annual guests of the Texas oil men Clint Murchison Sr.
and Sid Richardson at Hotel del Charro in California plus at the nearby racetracks. Senator McCarthy,
Eisenhower, and Nixon were other guests. The oil men opposed John F. Kennedy’s plan to ban the oil
depletion allowance. This allowance would force the oil industry to pay its fair amount of taxes. Dallas oil
millionaire D. Harold Byrd visited the Hotel del Charro. He had business partnerships with the oil companies
of the Rockefellers and the Mellons. Harold Byrd was a close friend of Lyndon Baines Johnson and Texas
governor John Connally. Harold Byrd was the founder the Civil Air Patrol. This Civil Air Patrol was where Lee
Harvey Oswald operated under the eccentric David Ferrie and Byrd was the owner of the Texas School Book
Depository building (where Oswald was employed weeks before the assassination of JFK). Byrd’s friend was
George de Mohrenschildt.

One of the most significant omissions of the Warren Commission was the truth that President John F.
Kennedy didn’t agree with the CIA on everything. Miami CIA station chief Ted Shackley and CIA deputy
director of operations Richard Helms wanted outright confrontation against Cubans and the Soviets that
Kennedy rejected. Also, LBJ planned the existence of the Warren Commission with the known Kennedy
hater J. Edgar Hoover. You have to have unbiased people to investigate such serious matters, especially
when it comes to the assassination of an innocent President.
Alternative Views
Three other U.S. government investigations have agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that
two shots struck JFK from the rear: the 1968 panel set by Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the 1975
Rockefeller Commission, and the 1978-79 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which
reexamined the evidence with the help of the largest forensics panel. The HSCA involved Congressional
hearings and ultimately concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, probably as the result of a
conspiracy. The HSCA concluded that Oswald fired shots number one, two, and four and that an unknown
assassin fired shot number three (but missed) from near the corner of a picket fence that was above and to
President Kennedy's right front on the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. However, this conclusion has also been
criticized, especially for its reliance on disputed acoustic evidence. The HSCA Final Report in 1979 did agree
with the Warren Report's conclusion in 1964 that two bullets caused all of President Kennedy's and
Governor Connally's injuries, and that both bullets were fired by Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depository.

Also, many researchers accuse the CIA of assassinating JFK. Many of such scholars believe that the CIA’s
Miami’s station called JM/WAVE had members so angry at Kennedy’s response during the Bay of Pigs
invasion that some members of that group were involved in the assassination. JM/WAVE constantly worked
to use covert operations against Cuba. William Harvey ran the program then Ted Shackley. Many people
who worked under Shackley at JM/WAVE were David Morales, Felix Rodriguez, Rafael Quintero, George
Efythron Joannides, David Atlee Philips, Carl E. Jenkins, Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Thomas Clines, and
other people. Many of these names come up to the Vietnam War, Watergate, drug trafficking accusations,
and Iran Contra. Other people blame the Mafia, the far right wing factions, the Cubans, and other human
beings of conspiring to murder JFK. Many of these scholars have worked for decades to promote these
views. Polls show that a majority of American people believe that a conspiracy was involved in the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Courage
There is no question that President John F. Kennedy exhibited a lot of courage before and during his
Presidency. He saved the lives of many soldiers during World War Two. He refused to support a U.S.
military invasion of Cuba when even Eisenhower and numerous military general wanted such an invasion.
Kennedy approved of the National Security Action Memorandum 55, 56, and 57. This stripped the CIA of its
power for large-scale covert and overt paramilitary programs in places like Vietnam and Cuba. It gave the
responsibility to eh Department of Defense with the CIA as a supporting role. Kennedy rejected Operation
Northwoods proposal that wanted false flag attacks in America to provoke an invasion of Communist Cuba.
He rejected General Lyman Lemnitzer’s proposal. Lemnitzer joined the far right American Security Council.
JFK supported the left wing Sukarno government of Indonesia and sent billions of dollars to its military and
domestic services. The CIA supported the overthrow of Sukarno in 1965 along with the extermination of
tons of suspected Communists. JFK planned to visit Sukarno in 1964. As early as 1956, then Senator
Kennedy said the following words in opposition to colonialism: “…The Afro-Asian revolution of nationalism,
the revolt against colonialism, the determination of people to control their national destinies…In my
opinion, the tragic failure of both Republican and Democratic administrations since World War II to
comprehend the nature of this revolution, and its potentialities for good and evil, had reaped a bitter
harvest today – and it is by rights and by necessity a major foreign policy campaign issue that has nothing to
do with anti-communism.”
John F. Kennedy’s more progressive views on anti-colonialism are documented in Richard Mahoney’s “JFK:
Ordeal in Africa” from 1983, Philip Muehlenbeck’s “Betting on the Africans,” and Robert Rokave’s
“Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World.” The latter two books were both published in 2012.
American diplomat Edmund Guillion advised JFK on foreign policy affairs too.

John F. Kennedy supported Algerian independence

against French imperialism. JFK supported the progressive
United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjold. He
also was an ally of Patrice Lumumba in opposition to the
traitor Moishe Tshombe. President Kennedy was also a
friend of Cyrille Adoula in Belgian Congo too. The CIA
supported Tshombe including the Belgian government.
The CIA also backed Mobutu and Mobutu was part of the
elite 1001 Club with its ties to Prince Bernhard, the
Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, and Robert McNamara.
Lumumba was unjustly assassinated on January 1961
This picture is from the AP/File. This image
which was days before Kennedy’s inauguration.
showed President John F. Kennedy celebrating
Eisenhower supported Lumumba’s assassination. The UN the success of the 1963 March on Washington.
secretary general Dag Hammarksjold died in a plane crash This event took place on the date of August 28,
in September of 1961. 1963. The people in this image were Whitney
Young (National Urban League), Dr. Martin
JFK supported the leader Kwame Nkrumah of Kenya in Luther King Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership
support of nationalism (President John F. Kennedy also Conference), John Lewis (Student Nonviolent
supported the independence of the nation of Guinea). In Coordinating Committee), Rabbi Joachin Prinz
many of his speeches, John F. Kennedy wanted America to (American Jewish Congress), Dr. Eugene P.
join with the countries of the Third World in a pro- Donnaly (National Council of Churches), A. Philip
nationalist, anti-colonialist mentality (in disagreement Randolph (AFL-CIO), Walter Reuther (United
with the views of Acheson and Dulles). President John F. Auto Wokrers), Vice President Lyndon Baines
Kennedy forced Park Chung-hee of South Korea to restore Johnson, and Roy Wilkins (NAACP).
civilian rule a year after his May 1961 coup against the left
wing government.

Likewise, as an anti-communist, he didn’t want communism to spread in the world. Kennedy was friendly
with Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt while Eisenhower including LBJ had a more hostile relationship with
Nasser. LBJ supported the anti-French socialist Ben Bella in Algeria. JFK signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty
in October of 1963 while others like General Curtis LeMay opposed this action. JFK also wanted Israeli
Prime Ministers David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol to not make Israel have nuclear weapons. We know now
that Israel had nuclear weapons back then but Israeli leaders hid them from JFK’s eyes. In 1963, JFK
sympathized with the Italian party of Partitio Socialista Italiano. This was a socialist party. Pietro Nenni or a
PSI socialist was the vice prime minister under the moderate Christian Democrat Aldo Moros. JFK visited
Italy in July of 1963.

CIA Director John McCone and even secretary of state Dean Rusk criticized Kennedy on these issues, but
John F. Kennedy allied with Nenni. CIA station chief William Harvey and other CIA agents used Operation
Gladio tactics in trying to end the communists and socialists in Italy even using overt terrorism.
 President John F. Kennedy congratulated
Syracuse Heisman Award winner Ernie Davis
in 1961. Ernie Davis was the first African
American man to win the Heisman Trophy
Award in history.
Diahann Carroll is talking to
President John F. Kennedy.
Carroll sang to many people
at a New York City reception
in 1962.

By June of 1963, President Kennedy was the first President to endorse federal civil rights legislation
regarding a matter of morality. He not only spoke of supporting equality, but he called his proposal a moral
issue. It was one of the most active calls for equality and justice made by an American President. On June
11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy said the following words on racial equality:

“…One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln feed the salves, yet
their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of
injustice. They are yet freedom from social and economic oppression. And this Nation,
for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free…”

President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in June 1963 too. John F. Kennedy spoke in his American
University speech in 1963 about world peace and détente with the Soviet Union. We recognized the
humanity of the Soviet Union in his speech while not ideologically agreeing with Stalin. His speech moved
even Soviet Union Khrushchev. One of the greatest advisers to John F. Kennedy was the late, great John
Kenneth Galbraith. He advised Roosevelt, Truman, and LBJ too.

He rejected civilian bombing targets during World War II. He was a great economist. Galbraith was a great
friend to President John F. Kennedy in writing some of his speeches and being a mentor to him. Galbraith
was, of course, a follower of Keynes. This is why JFK’s Presidency saw a growth of the economy in GDP and
a decline in unemployment. Galbraith (who wanted a neutral settlement to end the Vietnam War conflict)
didn’t want American ground troops in Laos. Edmund Gullion, Nehru of India, and General Douglas
MacArthur advised JFK not to send combat troops into Vietnam. Galbraith said that American military
involvement in the Vietnam War with ground troops would harm domestic programs and split the
Democratic Party apart. He was right. Therefore, John F. Kennedy expressed a great deal of human courage
from standing up for human rights to desiring an end to the Cold War with his American University speech.
The conservative establishment back then harbored JFK because of his foreign policies. Today, there is still
the conservative establishment and the liberal establishment. One interesting fact is that according to
author Dallek’s book called Flawed Giant (about LBJ), Lyndon Johnson wanted Nelson Rockefeller to run for
President on the Republican side since he wanted him to potentially face RFK.

Legacy
For decades, we indeed discussed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He had great leadership qualities of
embracing nuisance and standing up for truth especially when the time called for it. He not only spoke up
for détente. He believed in strong federal civil rights legislation. Now, I don’t embrace the two extreme
views of some about JFK. One extreme view is that JFK was just a Cold War capitalist who didn’t care about
anything but profit. The other extreme view is that JFK was a far left revolutionary who desired far left
policies to rule the world. The truth is that President John F. Kennedy was a mainline liberal who made
many significant, positive contributions to American society and he had imperfections (both inside White
House and outside of it). The late President John F. Kennedy also had courage to stand up for the National
Security State when it was wrong. For example, when members of the National Security State wanted
invasion with Cuba, Operation Northwoods to be in existence, and other reckless, reprehensible policies,
JFK rejected them. John F. Kennedy stood his ground. Today, we see a new era of time and the same
military industrial complex infiltrating Hollywood (books and articles document how Pentagon and CIA
officials consult many directors on movie projects) and other aspects of our society.

That is why we, who are part of this generation, must rededicate ourselves to the principles of political
independence, human equality, and justice. Therefore, we have to look at the truth. A large part of the
legacy of John F. Kennedy was his embrace and promotion of the arts. Throughout his Presidency, he gave
speeches in favor of poetry, artistic expression, and intellectual development. In 1963, he gave a great
speech about the role of the artist on October 26, 1963, in honor of his favorite poet Robert Frost. He gave
his eloquent tribute at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Therefore, we always believe in
leadership, justice, and the growth of the power of the human race so we can witness authentic
progressive change in the world.
By Timothy

BOB DAUGHTERTY / AP Civil-rights marchers stage a rally of about 1,500 people in

Indianapolis on August 4, 1963