Name The Most Important Historical Fact About JFK's Presidency

His wife lived in public housing twice - once at the White House and later when she was on assistance.

We are here because in Oct 1962 JFK had the sense not to destroy the planet. Thanks Jack.

The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs.

Oh yeah, that thing in Dallas.

Lem Billings

[quote] the Bay of Pigs.

That was his favorite BoP!

JFK was the only president to have met Little Edie Beale!

Clare Booth Luce was said to have advised one incoming president that a president gets one sentence in the history books. JFK saved humanity. A pretty good sentence.

And with Bay of Pigs he almost destroyed us. So he saved us and almost destroyed us. I guess saved us wins out.

I like the fact that he kept up the all male prep school tradition lost to history of swimming naked in the White House pool.

The wimp out on the bomber raids on Cuba preparatory to the Bay of Pigs, leaving enough of Castro's air force to sink the invasion ships.

To regain face he then ramped up troops to Vietnam from seven hundred advisors to over sixteen thousand combat troops, murdered President Ngo Dinh Diem, and all that flowed from these decisions both foreign and domestically including the Russian nukes subsequently sent to Cuba.

[quote] JFK saved humanity. A pretty good sentence.

An excellent sentence, but then the New Frontier never lacked for fine rhetoric to cover its failures.

I always thought the Bay of Pigs and the nuclear crisis in Cuba have been weirdly distorted.

The Bay of Pigs invasion was crafted by the CIA well before Kennedy was in office. He was pushed into it less than 3 months into office. He didn't know about it until a 2 months before.

And the nuclear crisis - Cuba relied on the Soviet Union for financial and literal material support because the US had blockaded all trade. It was a quid pro quo AND it helped to prevent the US from trying another invasion. Remember, the US were also trying to poison Castro as well. AND the US had a military base on Cuba to plan more invasions.

It was a protective measure and a help to Russia. The US had nuclear missiles in Turkey pointed toward USSR. Why couldn't USSR have the same?

He was a sex addict and said he got headaches when he didn’t fuck someone regularly.

[quote] The US had nuclear missiles in Turkey pointed toward USSR. Why couldn't USSR have the same?

And Jack's historic staredown of the Russians "saving humanity" involved the US quietly acquiescing to each of the Russian demands including the removal of those Turkish nukes.

JFK didn't agree with the plan to send US military to invade Cuba. He didn't like that he was being cornered to approve military for an illegal act. He was right. Eisenhower was reluctant to agree with it as well, which is why they tried to finagle the new president to go along.

Yes, R13, it was such a “win” for the Soviets that its premier, Nikita Khrushchev, was deposed within two years.

He secured the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress.

Jackie on antibiotics.

And Cuba has been trouble to the US for the last three generations.

Youngest

[quote] Youngest

Wrong.

Who cares if they pulled out of Turkey? They had multiple nuclear missile facilities in Western Germany.

When the international community found out about the illegal invasion attempt and the US was being condemned, he refused additional air support which is why they lost.

It was a plan he never wanted, enacted by the CIA and Eisenhower the year before he was elected. Then what is he supposed to do? Drop bombs and push it into a global conflict with USSR getting involved?

They only had 1300 or so fighters. The whole thing was ridiculous and the Republicans used it against Kennedy and Dems for decades - despite it being THEIR IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Despite those here who persist in believing otherwise, he was the father of DL’s favorite pin-up boy, JFK, Jr.

He started reducing taxes on the rich by h iring Walter Heller to recommend it. We have been paying for this idiocy ever since.

Yeah, R23, a 90% tax rate seems fair.

He was murdered by the CIA.

He was murdered by a crazed lone gunman.

[quote] He started reducing taxes on the rich by h iring Walter Heller to recommend it.

More accurately reducing taxes on himself and his corrupt daddy. Similar to how he took care of himself first regarding the Cuban trade embargo.

[quote]Name The Most Important Historical Fact About JFK's Presidency

He prompted the most valuable dress in modern history to go into production:

First televised presidential debate- JFK and Nixon

Jackie's fabulous and immaculate Chanel suit. Which unfortunately didn't stay that way for long.

If he didn't wear that heavy corset-like brace because of his back problems, he may not have taken the second bullet to the head.

Jackie's Chanel suit was not Chanel. It was an authorized copy by another house. I think if you live another hundred years you can see it. Would people care? Would you care to see what Mary Todd wore to see the hit play sweeping the country Our American Cousin? Why does nobody produce it anymore? Maybe it doesn't hold up for modern audiences.

He forgot to duck?

"Significunt"? Oh, dear!

R32, Jackie had worn the pink suit in public prior to Dallas, including while viewing architectural drawings in Washington, DC, as shown.

I think Our American Cousin was like Plaza Suite. One of those plays wives dragged their husbands to see in the 60s. I'm exhausted, I'm tired, and I've got to sit through two hours of stale jokes and still get up for work tomorrow morning?

R35, Jackie also wore it when visiting Lee in London.

John John and Caroline wore matching dresses to his funeral.

I liked Lee. She was a cunt’s cunt.

[quote]And Cuba has been trouble to the US for the last three generations.

So, you're saying he could have saved us from that by acceding to nuclear annihilation?

[quote] One of those plays wives dragged their husbands to see in the 60s.

The 1860s.

John John was non-binary before it was the in thing to be.

Today, Jackie would be roasted for dressing him in gender confusing clothes.

He initiated the Civil Rights Movement before his assassination.

R43, JFK was hot and cold on civil rights. No representative from his administration attended MLK’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington in August of 1963.

Lest it be forgotten, JFK would not have been elected in 1960 but for the electoral votes of what remained of the then-Solid South.

Jackie was the most sought after interview for the rest of her life, and unlike Diana, she never caved.

R46, Excuse me?

[quote] JFK initiated the Civil Rights Movement before his assassination.

WRONG! That was Marsha P Johnson.

R43 R44 JFK wanted to advance civil rights causes, but decided not to actively press for civil rights actions or bills until after he got reelected. I believe this was according to his close friend and press secretary, Pierre Salinger.

So, gas OP ever returned to enlighten us?

Killed on TV, supposed killer killed on TV

He wasn’t killed on tv, R51.

He was going to get you wacky Americans out of Vietnam. In his final interview with Walter Cronkite around Labour Day out at Hyannis, he said "In the final analysis it's THEIR war". There are notes in his handwriting and dictated records in the Kennedy Library in Boston which clearly state his intention to start removing the American 'advisors' from Vietnam even before the '64 election and were to be fully removed by sometime in 1965. Unfortunately, LBJ was intimidated by the Pentagon mandarins and went along with the total lie that was the Gulf of Tonkin incident and you had 11 years of war, almost 60,000 dead GI's and millions of dead Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians. Eisenhower was right about having to beware of the military industrial complex. As a Canadian, I can't be glib as the Dow chemical plants outside of Toronto manufactured Agent Orange so we have blood on our hands too.

[quote]I think Our American Cousin was like Plaza Suite.

Even truer when you remember that Maureen Stapleton was in the original opening night casts of both plays.

[quote]Jackie's Chanel suit was not Chanel. It was an authorized copy by another house. I think if you live another hundred years you can see it.

"The garment is now stored out of public view in the National Archives. It will not be seen by the public until at least 2103, according to a deed of Caroline Kennedy, Kennedy's sole surviving heir. At that time, when the 100-year deed expires, the Kennedy family descendants will renegotiate the matter.

His assassination. Not being snide, just seeing it from today’s context and the historical impact that the event had in the US, world, American 1960s culture, and the generation’s youth in the wake of it.

What does the GI possess?

R53 RFK was going to end it once he became president. There's no doubt about it that he would have been elected.

Were you even alive in ‘68, R58? Bobby Kennedy was not going to even be nominated by the Democrats, let alone be elected in the general. The party was still firmly in the grips of LBJ, who was never going to cede control to his arch-nemesis. Bobby’s theory of the case was to sail through the few primaries then in existence in hopes of somehow persuading the party bosses that he was their best choice. But that was upended by his loss - the first then for a Kennedy - in the Oregon primary, one week before the California primary. By California, Humphrey, LBJ’s vice president, who had not even entered a single primary, had already amassed the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination.

Thanks r59. You saved me some typing

I pick my nose.

That picture of John John saluting the casket and was taken on my 21st birthday.

Not a whole lotta fun that day.

Well our foreign policy and the Bay of Pigs were the product of the reactionary lunatic Dulles brothers. Allen Dulles CIA Director, had the entire thing set in motion before Kennedy ascended. JFK was no fan of the Dulles brothers. So if he really was planning to get us out of Vietnam without further escalation, then he was also going against the conventional wisdom of the day. Because the Dulles brothers, John Foster the Secretary of State and Allen at CIA, had put a target on the backs of several "dangerous people" who had to be eliminated. The leader of Guatemala, Sukarno of Indonesia (they failed on trying to get him ) Mossadegh in Iran, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Castro in Cuba, Lumumba in Africa, Lumumba's assassination was particularly brutal. Eisenhower loved the brothers. He loved their rationale of having the CIA conduct these clandestine coups rather than sending American GIs into conflict. Cheaper too. Needless to say, the Dulles brothers got a lot of stuff wrong.Churchill and Roosevelt hated them. Winston said John Foster Dulles was the only bull with his own china shop. So Kennedy defied Allen Dulles on the Bay of Pigs, and he was d efinitely not on board with the Vietnam policy. Foster Dulles had died, but Allen carried on until after the Bay of Pigs,Kennedy let him twist in the wind then accepted his resignation and "retirement."

JFK was the first President born in the 20th Century.

As someone said earlier, "that thing in Dallas." The assassination, obviously, it shook the United States and the world.

WTF, OP? Another broken promise. Another person who doesn’t keep their word. WTH did you go dude?

R55, In 2103, I’ll be 110 and still hot.

I was only 8 years old in 1960, but I can recall the feeling of excitement when JFK was elected, especially living in Massachusetts.

JFK and Jackie were such a drastic change from Ike and Mamie.

How is it that in 60 years we have gone from that feeling of youth and optimism to now having two doddering 80 year old men vying to be President?

If OP was thinking of the assassination, then it was the most glaringly obvious answer such that it didn't merit a thread.

I was 11 in 1960, r68, all gung-ho for JFK. On Election Day this year I'll turn 75, all gung-ho for Joe.

I wouldn't mind a younger Democratic Presidential candidate....next time. Old is as old does.

He ended the practice of wearing hats and that was history.

Robert Frost wrote a poem and spoke at his inauguration. That’s pretty important historically.

R72, And the podium caught fire as he was reading it. LBJ stepped forward and extinguished it.

I once held an orgy that turned into a Bay of Pigs.

It was delicious!

^ Why mess or cover up that glorious head of hair?!

90% was fair. What's not fair is billion dollar incomes. They are not fair. Nothing those people have done could ever be "valued" that much.

I think it was hard to find hats to fit that gigantic head

James Madison said the biggest danger to republics was factions, and that the best way to prevent factions was to prevent people from immoderately profiting from the operations of government by 1) taxing the rich to mediocrity; and 2) supporting the poor to comfort. We ignored his advice, and now we have a million fake issues stirred up by the rich to divide us.

I've been watching a few videos with historian and "complexity scientist" Peter Turchin lately. He argues that the danger to societies isn't so much factions but the overproduction of elites, which, I think he argues, LEADS to factions fighting over the concentrated spoils that arise from wealth moving from the lower classes to the elites (which is what we're seeing today across the West). But his prescription for the prevention of (or correction for) this overproduction of elites would be the same as yours, r78

Truman said if he had been President instead of Ike he would have welcomed the Cuban revolution and supported Castro and his revolutionaries, before the Russians, thus averting the Cuban Missile Crisis in the future completely.

He said he then would have told Castro to "get a shave and a haircut."

Anti-JFK Truman, before the nomination was sewn up in 1960, also said it wasn’t the Pope that concerned him about Kennedy’s candidacy, but the Pop.

The most important thing is Laurie Metcalf as an Assistant DA with an ACCENT from the ham gods.

Truman was right. When we think of Kennedy in WW 2, we think of PT 109 and the heroic efforts he made to save his shipmates. But it was Joe Kennedy Sr. who was thefly in the ointment. He was a terrible person who was into appeasement and betrayal, and Churchill and Roosevelt hated him for all the right reasons. Truman was expressing what he knew of Joe Sr.'s meddling. No one wanted the old bastard whispering in his Son's ear and trying to run the show. Fortunately, God intervened on Truman's side.

R32 I could've sworn the materials were genuine Chanel and it was assembled by an authorized non-Chanel boutique or something like that.

He was a real pussy when it came to civil rights.

R78, What's wrong with fractions?! I have many recipes that call for a third cup of this or a quarter cup of that! Young people need to learn these! I read that one fast-food place lost customers who thought that their 1/3-lb burger was smaller than a competitor's 1/4-pounder!

What's that? Oh. Never mind!

R84, you might like to tell this group that Joseph P Kennedy had a stroke and became a wheelchair bound mute in 1961. He only got to shape JFK's cabinet, especially one member was totally against - Bobby as Attorney General.

^ one member JACK was totally against

^ Not so sure about that. JFK wanted someone in the Cabinet he could count on totally. Bobby at Justice sure fit that bill.

JFK realized after winning the election in 1960 that there were too many right-wing MIC compromised people in high levels of the government and he needed a staunch and dependable ally, which is why he appointed Bobby as AG.

[wuote] he needed a staunch and dependable ally

S-T-A-U-N-C-H

R12, you described 80% of DL.

R90, it's a well documented fact. Perhaps he changed his mind later, but Bobby was a total neophyte in 1961.

Bobby was the campaign manager of the winning candidate for president, R94.

[quote] When we think of Kennedy in WW 2, we think of PT 109 and the heroic efforts he made to save his shipmates

Which happened only because Jack had been totally compromised in his safe Washington DC desk job by fucking a Nazi spy. Hoover tipped off Joe and protect Jack's older brother president-designate Joe Jr's future campaign JFK was packed off as far away as possible to head off yet more scandal.

Inga Binga

His death spawned a cottage industry of conspiracists.

Ich bin ein Berliner.

[quote] Ich bin ein Berliner.

Translation: I am both fattening and bad for your teeth

Truman had been in the pockets of Pendergast, so he was no angel himself.

But that's why the GOP is so big on abortion, crime, and homosexuality. Three things which no government has ever stamped out (exccept Japan and crime, but only with an extreme solution no other society has copied), so it's the gift that keeps on giving.

R100 = Eddie Izzard

He got us into Vietnam

He was about to hand over Taiwan to the People's Republic of China. Th Taiwanese got a lucky break when he was shot.

R100, nobody in Berlin interpreted it that way when he said that. It's a stupid myth.

R103, That was Ike.

R106 beat me to it. Eisenhower sent advisors to Vietnam.

Why did you choose Oliver Stones movie poster? You do know that this film was a crock of bullshit?

Nixon was in Dallas the day Kennedy was assassinated. Didja know that? Huh? Huh? Didja? Ol' Tricky hisself.

^ And that Kennedy, like Lincoln, was replaced by a Johnson, & while Kennedy’s secretary was a Lincoln, Lincoln’s secretary was a Kennedy.

R109, So was . . .

And George H W Bush was there.

^Don’t forget me.

R111, Joan had just told JFK that she could give him a better blow job than Lem Billings.

What’s the answer?

After that he threw up, R114.

OP...What, then, is The Most Important Historical Fact About JFK's Presidency?

R117, Frankly, that he was assassinated.

He was a pill popping, hardcore drug addict.

WELL, OP?

He was the first president to civil rights a moral cause.

^to recognize civil rights as a moral cause.

No, actually Eisenhower was, R121,R122. He sent federal troops to Little Rock to confront Gov. Faubus of Arkansas, and he set up the first modern Civil Rights commission and appointed Father Ted Hesburgh the PResident of Notre Dame University to chair it. Also the beginnings of Affirmative Action were formed under Ike. Truman integrated the Armed Forces, Ike took it further. Kennedy made a great speech, and he saw the political potential of the Black Vote, and the potential for violence and division in our country as events were unfolding and MLK, Jr rose to prominence. So Kennedy did recognize the "new era" of activism.

Kennedy was concerned if he was seen as pushing civil rights too quickly he would lose support by Southern Democrats and wouldn't get reelected. His intention was to take on more progressive civil rights after the 1964 presidential elections. He was correct about that. When Johnson signed to Civil Right Act of 1965 into law, the southern Democrats all left the party and became Republicans.

Kennedy was ultimately a pussy when it came to the civil rights agenda. LBJ was instrumental and far more effective than him at pushing through legislation to stop legal segregation and discrimination.

As suggested upthread, the courage JFK ultimately displayed in elevating the cause of civil rights - & yes, he was the first president to make it a morale cause cannot be gainsaid. He would not have been elected president but for the electoral votes of staunchly segregated states. Try to imagine a president now who would so affirmatively bite the hand of such a key constituency.

[quote] He was the first president to civil rights a moral cause.

HUH?

Yes, R127.

"On June 11, 1963, the very evening of the showdown with Wallace, President Kennedy delivered a remarkable televised speech on civil rights. It was the first presidential address to the nation explicitly characterizing and condemning at length segregation as a moral wrong, unworthy of a great country. “One hundred years of delay have passed,” Kennedy reminded the nation, 'since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed 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.'"

Yeah, I'll stick with my saving humanity response.

He looked better in the pink suit than she did.

He was WELL HUNG 🍆

^ NOT according to Truman Capote