JFK was an icon in my working-class neighborhood. Looking back, his legacy is complex | Opinion

It’s a funny thing about reading history. Those who write it can never remove themselves from their own times and experiences, and that may play a subtle role in their interpretation of historical events. Its accuracy depends on just how much of the truth is accessible. As I search for interesting takes on historical events, it’s not unusual to find a review of a book declaring that what I’m about to read is the most accurate version because of recently discovered material or newly unclassified documents.

If you lived through an event in history you are now reading, dependent only on your memory and that first draft of history that journalists write, it may be difficult adjusting to new information previously hidden from public view. I thought of this recently when I read Stephen F. Knott’s “Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy.”

Political scientist Knott examines the Kennedy presidency to check the work of those who have dismissed aspects of Kennedy’s brief presidency as not worth a ranking. The depth and quality of his research on so many analyses of America’s 35th president is impressive considering that over 40,000 books have been written on the Kennedy years and the assassination.

Like the memory of 9/11, anyone who is old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination knows exactly where he or she was on that day. I was washing dishes in the college cafeteria as word spread of his assassination. We were sent home immediately for an early Thanksgiving break, and I remember sitting with my parents in our living room watching live coverage of sheriff’s deputies moving Lee Harvey Oswald to another location as a guy named Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.

The mystique of the Kennedy family loomed large in our family. Knott tells us it was Jackie Kennedy who came up with Camelot to depict the Kennedy years, based on JFK’s love of the musical, Camelot, and his favorite line, “don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”

Camelot was alive and well in my family. My Irish Catholic mother, my aunts and uncles, and most in our working-class neighborhood worshiped the Kennedy clan. Camelot was for them “one brief shining moment” wedged in between a less than inspiring Eisenhower presidency and the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, who looked the part of a conniving, deal-making politician. Here was this youthful president and his younger wife and two children often pictured romping in the Oval Office with their father. Thanks to his PT-109 exploits when his heroics saved members of his crew, he was the picture of a courageous and activist president leading a nation struggling to win a Cold War and promising to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Later versions of history would uncover a side of Kennedy that was hardly the dutiful and faithful husband, but in those days the norms of journalists and public officials kept such behavior shuttered from public view. In my daily view was a photo of JFK and his brother, Bobby, that hung in our hallway. A year after Kennedy would give his “New Frontier” speech at the 1960 Democratic Convention, I would deliver my graduation address to my fellow students at our high school graduation. Entitled The New Frontier, Kennedy’s famous exhortation encouraging public service and civic participation — “ask not what your country could do for you, but what you can do for your country” — found its way into my remarks.

I knew he was speaking directly to me. Most of my life and career either teaching government or serving in public office was an answer to Kennedy’s call. And I learned over the years that many of my contemporaries were equally convinced of this personal invitation to the public service.

I suppose there is some irony in the fact that this Democratic president inspired me to cross over to the Republican Party as I did when I was hired right out of graduate school to work for Illinois Republicans in the Illinois House of Representatives. And that experience would lead to 18 years of elective office as a Republican.

As a moderate in a party those days that tolerated such deviations from its conservative playbook, I would hardly look back on my years as the son of Truman Democrats who idolized John F. Kennedy. Perhaps it’s a credit to the man and the myth that he encouraged young people to serve their country on both sides of the aisle although who knows how many crossed over as I did.

Knott’s book brings a flood of memories back to anyone who lived thru those days or those who studied those years in their history books. It is an excellent treatment of what happens to legacies of the famous long after they are gone. There were many writers who viewed the Kennedy years under the microscope of historical analysis and not with the infatuation of my Irish Catholic mother. According to Knott, over 40,000 books were written about the man and his era.

He offers a scholarly survey of five critical issues where Kennedy has been subject to the greatest criticism: presidential power, civil rights, foreign policy toward Cuba and the Soviet Union, Vietnam and his assassination.

“Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy” is a welcome shortcut to so many analyses of the Kennedy presidency with Knott offering a rebuttal to critics of his brief presidency, but always with a balanced treatment of the pluses and minuses. He concludes that Kennedy is a “near great” president, quite the contrast from the hagiographies that failed at critical analysis and negative appraisals bent on destroying the Camelot myth.

When I compare my youthful experience in the Kennedy years to what America’s youth see and hear from the Trump presidency and now his candidacy for another term, I realize there was something to Camelot in those bright and shining moments when Kennedy’s intellect, wit and compassion ruled the day while Trump’s day is baked in vengeance, hate and spite.

It causes me to wonder where our nation is heading as he models such egregious behavior for America’s youth to carry into their futures. There are already too many examples of incivility and violence incited by Trump’s words and his latest prediction of bloodshed if he is not elected is just the latest evidence that he is in the process of fashioning a new American far removed from the archetypal American voter who turned out for Kennedy or Reagan.

Camelot will always be derided by many as a Madison Avenue take on a brief presidency — mediocre at best. Yet, however historians grade Kennedy, I will always know that when I was searching for direction in career and life, he inspired me to choose a path of public service, and thanks to Knott, I too can come to terms with JFK and wish for a brief shining moment once again.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.