I don't mean to denigrate the man's memory, but it is on the one hand completely frightening that the man had the "nuclear football" while he was on so many mind altering drugs and on the other hand completely amazing he was able to fool people into thinking that he was the picture of health when he was a walking medical nightmare. In all honesty I don't believe that the man could have functioned too much longer without either dying or completely falling apart. Here is what he was on: Lomotil and paregoric for “bowel” issues (both are opiates) Codeine, Demerol, Methadone for pain (also opiates) Phenobarbital (barbiturate), Librium (a benzodiazepine like Valium), Milltown (aka mepobamate) as muscle relaxants for back spasms. up to 36 daily injections of Novocain and Procaine for back pain IV testosterone He took massive amounts of oral and IV corticosteroids for Addison’s disease independently administered by 3 physicians who didn’t know the other’s were prescribing. Excessive use of these drugs can cause strong "danger seeking" behavior and excessive libido. Ironically, his "tan" was a side effect of these drugs. He also had a quack named Max Jacobsen who gave him IV “vitamins, hormones and enzymes” which was really methamphetamine. When confronted with the actual composition as determined by FBI crime labs by RFK, JFK reportedly said that he didn’t care as long as it worked. He was on all of these basically all through is presidency, even having Max Jacobsen visit him several times in the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Most of these drugs would either have not been prescribed concurrently or prescribed at lower dossages had doctors known what he was already taking. Essentially the combinations and dosages would have made Hunter S. Thompson turn pale. I've honestly come to believe that if he hadn't died in Dallas, he would have gone on to make many horrible decisions. The only other major world leader I can think of who is known to have takes such large amounts of drugs is Adolph Hitler. Only using Hitler as a comparison for leadership and decision making (not to compare the politics or personalities), I can't help but believe that the deterioration of Hitler's abilities would have been echoed in JFK.
No, not at all. I've heard the allegations, and merely find they are in poor taste, especially today. Keep D&D Civil.
I'm glad I'm not the first one to trample on the JFK myth. IMO if JFK had lived he would've gone down in history as a mediocre to bad president. My view of JFK is how many view the current Bush Presidency as someone who got elected more due to luck, name and other factors and not capability. Most of his foreign policy moves are of highly dubious benefit or outright failures. The building of the Berlin Wall was a failure. He gave a nice speech but that didn't stop the Wall from being built. The Cuban Missile Crisis, of dubious success. Yes the WWIII didn't break out but we also gave up a strategic advantage of missiles in Turkey. We had nukes on their doorstep so they put them on ours and we both took them off of each others doorsteps. I would chalk that up as the Soviets got the better deal since we already had missiles in Turkey. The Bay of Pigs, complete total failure, bad idea even worse execution. Just a complete embarrassment for the US. On the domestic side things weren't that great either. JFK never got a civil rights bill passed and its very likely he wouldn't as he had a very high level of resistance in Congress even among his own party. The only major legislative victory he had was getting a large tax cut passed. The truth is it took LBJ playing off of the dead JFK to get JFK's social agenda passed. The space race, produced a great moral victory but of little strategic value and costed a lot of money. The one area where I'm surprised that so many people on the left side of the spectrum give JFK a break is on Vietnam. Yes LBJ escalated but JFK was the one who started sending US advisors to their. On top of that the architect of Vietnam, McNamara, was first appointed by JFK. I understand there's a lot of speculation that JFK was going to end US involvement in Vietnam but I've yet to see any firm evidence that that was the case. As the cold warrior that he was its just as likely he would've been as concerned about SE Asia going Red as much as LBJ. From the progressive anti-war side if you look at things like the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam JFK was as much as a loose cannon as GW Bush.
i totally agree with everything you said. i think b/c he was assasinated he gained a "martyr" status. bay of pigs was one of the worse missteps in presidential history. and though we became involved w/ vietnam during ike's term, jfk was the one who pulled us into that conflict. he wasnt going to pull us out. he was pretty weak on civil rights too. all rhetoric and no action. fortunately lbj had the balls to actually do something about civil rights.
'I'll take the defeat,' he said that night to the generals and admirals, 'and I'll take all of the blame for it.' ""During the next few days he made it plain to all of us that he wanted no blame for the failure placed on anybody except himself" He was a leader of character, I think, despite his mistakes. You can't expect a president to pass everything you want, there are so many variables. But you want him to show character when it counts.
I'll give him credit for character but that doesn't make him a good president. As many people note Jimmy Carter is a man of great character but that still doesn't make him a great president.
wnes, I may begin to get irritated after a while. I still can't believe people are posting this crap on the anniversary of his death, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Read this: And this: Document reopens debate on JFK's Vietnam plans December 22, 1997 Web posted at: 8:46 p.m. EST (0146 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly declassified government documents support the theory that weeks before his assassination John F. Kennedy wanted his military leaders to draw up contingency plans for a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam following the 1964 presidential election. The documents add to the historical controversy over whether the nation might have been spared the loss of 58,000 American lives in Vietnam had Kennedy not been killed. Some historians believe that Lyndon B. Johnson, upon succeeding Kennedy, deepened the U.S. commitment out of eagerness not to be seen as the first American president to lose a war. But historian Ronald Spector of George Washington University said the execution of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem three weeks before Kennedy's murder in 1963 may have been more decisive than the change at the top of the U.S. government. American leaders soon discovered that Diem had been hiding reports from the field that showed the war was going badly for the South Vietnamese, said Spector, who teaches a course on the U.S. role in Indochina. And Diem's successors proved even more ineffective than Diem in combating the Viet Cong. The newly released documents did not discuss Kennedy's role in sanctioning Diem's assassination -- another contentious issue from those days. Assassination panel releases 800 pages of records The document on plans for a withdrawal was among 800 pages of Joint Chiefs of Staff records that were made public Monday by the government's Assassination Records Review Board. The board was created by Congress to amass for public inspection any records that might shed light on Kennedy's murder. "All planning will be directed towards preparing RVN (South Vietnamese) forces for the withdrawal of all U.S. special assistance units and personnel by the end of calendar year 1965," said an October 4, 1963 memo from Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Taylor drafted the message for discussion by the joint chiefs. But their reaction was not reflected in the new documents. Less than a month after Kennedy's assassination, Johnson told his commanders to plan for "increased activity" against North Vietnam, another paper showed. Papers suggest LBJ sought to act surreptitiously In making such plans, Johnson directed, commanders should take into consideration "the plausibility of denial," the possibility of North Vietnamese retaliation and "other international reaction" -- all suggesting Johnson wanted to act against Hanoi surreptitiously. The documents support McNamara's claims that the former defense secretary wanted to pull out of Vietnam Historian George Herring at the University of Kentucky, author of "America's Longest War," said there was no doubt that American officials discussed a withdrawal by 1965 "but the question is whether you read this (document) as evidence whether Kennedy had made up his mind. I would say from earlier evidence that it was still up in the air." Another memo showed that at a May 6, 1963 Honolulu conference Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara pressed for an initial withdrawal of 1,000 troops "in one package" by the following December. Gen. Paul Harkins, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, agreed, the memo said, but did not want the troops to leave "with bands playing, flags flying" because "this would have a bad effect on the Vietnamese, to be pulling out just when it appears they are winning." At the time, the United States had only 16,300 advisers in South Vietnam -- a commitment that would swell to more than 536,000 within five years. America remained in the war until August 1973, when an agreement negotiated by the Nixon administration permitted a U.S. withdrawal. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran Saigon. Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Vietnam/vietnam_kennedy_ap.html In my opinion, had JFK changed his mind, and that was a possibility regarding Vietnam, I don't think he would have fought the war like Johnson at all. It's my belief that he would have either done what he appeared to be seriously considering, withdrawing, or he would have gone in with overwhelming force, probably invaded North Vietnam, and certainly began a massive bombing campaign as soon as he decided that this was going to be a real war to the finish. Treeman said much the same thing in an excellent thread I quote below. The Bay of Pigs was planned by the Eisenhower Administration. Kennedy made an error in deciding to withhold US air support, for which he publicly apologized (a novel thought for a President) when he accepted blame for the disaster. Privately, he was livid about the intelligence he had received from the CIA, and decided to, "...splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." In short, he was not just pissed off with himself, but with the Agency brass as well, choosing not to make that public. (Marchetti, Victor and Marks, John D. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. Dell Publishing Co. 1974) I'm not even going to get into the other stuff. He banged everything in a skirt that drew his eye. I could care less and, back then, neither did the press. (Ike had an affair during the war. So what?) Some of you disappoint me. I would have expected some respect for the dead on a day like today. If you are exercised about Jack Kennedy, then start a thread about it. My impression is that this isn't the one to air whatever dirty laundry about the man that you think you've found. I want to add something else. I remembered posting the declassified "top secret" document in a thread a couple of years ago. After a search (thanks, Clutch!), I found it here http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=66713&page=3&pp=30&highlight=secret+vietnam, a fine example of the great discussions we used to have around this place and, ironically, it was about whether Reagan was a great President. In my opinion, had JFK changed his mind, and that was a possibility regarding Vietnam, I don't think he would have fought the war like Johnson at all. It's my belief that he would have either done what he appeared to be seriously considering, withdrawing, or he would have gone in with overwhelming force, probably invaded North Vietnam, and certainly begun a massive bombing campaign as soon as he decided that this was going to be a real war to the finish. While I'm at it, I want to apologize to Mango for not supporting him in his disagreement with SamFisher about Carter's Afghan policy. I should have, because I agreed with him. Sorry, Mango, I let you down. Trample all you want, people. Just be sure to wipe the mud off your shoes. Keep D&D Civil.
Not to be a killjoy but I don't think the fact that it's the anniversary of his death should impact what gets said about him. It's not like he died this morning. Should we refrain from talking ill of any famous figure if it's the anniversary of their death?
Not to belabor the point, but they are only “allegations” inasmuch as the National Archives doesn’t release the documents. Several biographers and MD’s have looked at the official documents and unless there is a massive conspiracy to fool the public 40+ years after his death, he was definitely on all of these medications. In any case, I have heard nobody offer credible (or even incredible) evidence refuting his medical records. He was not “allegedly” on all these drugs. He was on them. Ref. 1 Ref. 2 Again, I'm to a great deal more than anything else impressed that the man could function as well as he did and not break down or even show some hint of his pain and problems. Better living through chemestry. But if you can find any credible information that disproves my "allegations" I'd like to here/see it.
This is the 43rd Anniversary of his death and while yes many boomers haven't gotten over that tragedy a generation and a half have come of age since then so its as good a day as any to analyse the JFK administration. For instance on August 5th. Yes there are remembrance services regarding Hiroshima but there is also a lot of debate regarding whether it was necessary to bomb Hiroshima and what implications come from that. But consider this. If GW Bush were to die in office and 20 years from now you on a political forum there are a lot of remembrances about him and people talking about how what a great president he was and if he had lived he would've withdrawn from Iraq wouldn't you express your opinion that you didn't think he was that good of a president? Interesting stuff but it is speculation. The truth is we don't know whether Kennedy would've implemented that plan at all since even in was considered secret and its possible that once US troops started withdrawing there might've been an outcry saying that the US was cutting and running leading him to decide to stay. As for a contigency plan I'm not surprised one exist. In any major policy decision there are several contingency plans, it wouldn't surprise me if Rumsfeld has one for rapid withdrawl from Iraq. Whether they ever get implemented that's a whole other question. Once again this is speculation that JFK would withdraw but we do have him on record as saying that we are committed to winning in Vietnam and that if Vietnam falls then all of SE Asia goes. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1961.html "October 24, 1961 - On the sixth anniversary of the Republic of South Vietnam, President Kennedy sends a letter to President Diem and pledges "the United States is determined to help Vietnam preserve its independence..." "Kennedy justifies the expanding U.S. military role as a means "...to prevent a Communist takeover of Vietnam which is in accordance with a policy our government has followed since 1954." "September 2, 1963 - During a TV news interview with Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy describes Diem as "out of touch with the people" and adds that South Vietnam's government might regain popular support "with changes in policy and perhaps in personnel." Also during the interview, Kennedy comments on America's commitment to Vietnam "If we withdrew from Vietnam, the Communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya, would go..." So we have as late as Sept. 1963 JFK still committing to hold Vietnam as a bastion against Communism. The idea that JFK would've done it differently is even greater speculation that is questionable considering the incrementalist approach he undertook getting into Vietnam. "October 1961Taylor reports to the President and advises Kennedy to expand the number of U.S. military advisors and to send 8000 combat soldiers. Defense Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend instead a massive show of force by sending six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam. However, the President decides against sending any combat troops." Considering there was disagreements within the JFK Admin. itself it is very possible that an incrementalist approach similar that bedeviled LBJ would've continued. There's no indication that JFK would've committed to going massive in Vietnam. Supporter of the current invasion in Iraq also cite that the Clinton Admin. passed the Iraqi Freedom Act yet we don't hold the Clinton Admin. responsible for the current invasion. Anyway what you cite just further shows that the JFK Admin. bungled the operation. As I said though 43 years have passed since the assasination. This isn't recent history anymore to many of us. Just as its fair to discuss the implications both positive and negative regarding the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima on the August 5th. So yes it is a tragedy that Kennedy died but that doesn't change that as a historical figure he isn't open for discussion especially on the anniversary of his death. Besides that though I'm also raising the issue of the myth of JFK and one that I think is undeserved. I'm also surprised that this myth is primarily kept alive by so many liberals and progressives when looking at JFK's history he and his admin. were quick for military confrontation and IMO bear many disturbing similarities to the current Bush Admin.. There's the same messianic zeal towards using American military power. "January 11, 1962 - During his State of the Union address, President Kennedy states, "Few generations in all of history have been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its maximum hour of danger. This is our good fortune..." Combined with confusion and occasional delusion regarding the nature and execution of policy. "May 1962 - Defense Secretary McNamara visits South Vietnam and reports "we are winning the war." So yes it is a tragedy that JFK died but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't examine the history of his Admin or question the mythic proportions that he and his Admin have been conflated too and whether that is deserved.
I disagree with the entire thrust of your post, but I'm not in the mood to debate it. It is entirely speculation. Any defense of Kennedy would be seen the same way by you, so I'll pass. You are seeing history through a foggy lens, my friend. It might be said my lenses are equally unclear, but I rest easily with my opinion. Carry on. Keep D&D Civil.
Deckard; This is the D & D where we debate and discuss controversial issues and challenging the JFK legacy is certainly a controversial issue. You're right though this is speculation since no one knows what JFK would've done if he had lived or how history would've treated him but that's what makes this an interesting topic of discussion. I understand that to many Boomers like yourself JFK's assasination was a defining moment to your generation. Having born well after the assasination I will admit that I don't feel that way and have a far more skeptical view of JFK. I will go even further to admit that I've also been annoyed at times by the JFK legacy in regard to things like two week national paroxism around the death of his son or how often people cite him as our greatest president. Whether people feel his assasination was tragic I can't disagree with and can't debate but my point is that if you look at the 3 years of JFK's Admin. and compare them to other Admins. I don't see anything there that would indicate it as being successful in terms of legislation passed or foreign policy.
It was wrong for me to give anyone grief about discussing Kennedy's career on the anniversery of his death. It bothers me, personally, but I should have started a "JFK Appreciation Thread," if I wanted to look at the good the man was responsible for. Carry on. Keep D&D Civil.
