Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311250366
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A33 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Not that it signifies much, but many Americans still believe firmly that Kennedy deserves to be ranked among our greatest leaders. Perhaps the man himself expressed the problem best when he said, "... the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie ... but the myth."
Like other martyred leaders, he has entered the realm of mythology, cherished by the masses, permanently armored against debunkers.
As Stanton said when he learned of Lincoln's death, "Now he belongs to the ages."
Not really in Kennedy's case, though the newsreel will always give him a vividness that those who came before can never have. Historical figures are relevant to the living generation only so long as the events in which they played a role are relevant. Kennedy was pre-eminently a president of the Cold War that arose from Russian aspirations to capitalize on victory in World War II and extend spheres of influence, or buffers, into Central Europe and the Far East. But these were lately extinguished by the implosion of the Soviet system.
Most of the large events in American history from 1946 to 1989 were based, however, upon our perceptions of Russian power and intentions: The Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift, NATO, Korea, McCarthyism, the space race, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Star Wars; even Watergate and Iran-Contra.
All you need to know about the political context in which Kennedy operated can be found in his celebrated inaugural address, which pointed us straight for deep trouble in Southeast Asia. "Let every nation know," he said that raw January day in 1961, " ... we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship ... to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Yes, there was a time when even Democrats talked like that.
Considering that Kennedy is now enshrined in the liberal pantheon reserved for expanders of the state, the remarkable thing is the extent to which he was a conservative president: ever cautious in domestic policy - even pushing a tax cut - and always the American jingoist abroad.
I have always believed that the one constituency Kennedy cared most about pleasing was his father, the Wall Street freebooter and gut-bucket political operative who used the family fortune to try buying respectability. "Old Joe" is a somewhat forgotten figure now, but no less a personage than Franklin Roosevelt treated him with both fear and respect.
As Roosevelt's ambassador to Great Britain from 1937 to the climax of the Battle of Britain in November 1940, Joe Kennedy took a dim view of British hopes to stop Germany and urged American neutrality. Was it the Irishman's customary hatred of the British, or the reflection of a deeper political view that saw fascism as a necessary bulwark against the spread of communism? I don't know, but strident anti-communism became a staple of the elder Kennedy's life and his son's presidency.
While historians have the luxury of speculation, politicians must take issues as they find them. From our present perspective, we can see the abiding fraud of communism and say it was always destined to collapse.
But a real Soviet blockade was imposed upon Berlin in 1948; real communist soldiers almost took South Korea in 1950; and real Red Army tanks rolled into Budapest in 1956 and into Prague in 1969. Had there been no American counterweight, they may never have rolled into Paris or Rome. But perhaps there would have been no need of that. The mere perception of the future being on Russia's side might have sufficed.
In retrospect, we might also see that the real intentions of a succession of American presidents was not to "win" the Cold War in terms of delivering a knockout blow, but to buy time while a post-imperialist age struggled to be born.
Despite numerous mistakes and needless losses of blood and treasure, this policy seems handsomely vindicated. It isn't their fault that future threats to our security are more likely to arise from tinpot dictators with small missiles and very large bombs. Technology was always fungible - or for sale - and once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle, it was only a matter of time before third-rate powers such as North Korea would have the bomb and a means of delivering it.
The interesting thing about the Kennedy mystique is the extent to which first his brothers and then his party discarded his political testament. His reputation today rests more on soap opera and the space his family still merits in the media than any sober appraisal of his policies. Nor would they be particularly popular.
The greatest political figures make the old scripts obsolete. Kennedy didn't do that. In fact, it's hard to see what would have changed had he served out the full eight years to which he was entitled.
The arrogance Kennedy showed in his inaugural address - like the arrogance of many large American institutions - was bound to trip us up sooner or later. They say we lost our innocence the day Kennedy was shot. But the last thing that citizens of a great power needs is innocence. The good news is that after 30 very troubled years, we seem to be grasping for a greater realism.
\ Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB