Opinion for Jfk's Presidency

One cannot be sure how to exactly judge a president on how well or not he did in his terms as president. Do you judge the character or the things done whether good or bad? For someone like President John F. Kennedy do you judge him on the things he did or simply by the fact that his last name Kennedy had already been so famous before he even stepped in office? But he did make significance by himself too and not only that but ones that still are in affect today. But did the short life of this young president effect the future and what could have been if he was not shot and killed? Would the world have been better if he was able to serve his other term as president?

The significance of the brief presidency of John F. Kennedy was not only that he was the youngest president to be elected at his the time he won the position as President of the United States, but it was also that he knew all along that he was not going to live a very long life as it was. Throughout the entire time he served in office he was not medically in any position to run such a large country and take on the events and situations he had too. John F. Kennedy suffered from Addison's disease and a degenerative back problem caused by a birth defect that put him in so much pain that he took his chances on a very dangerous and fatal surgery. He had a traumatic surgery done for his back pain and at this time, because trauma triggers Addison's disease, no one had survived the surgery. But in the end Kennedy ended up being one who survived. He was on a lot of different strong medications every day of his life including for sleeping that how can one in right state of mind to make such important decisions in that conditions? Therefore, we can conclude as Reeves says, "he did not wait his turn" (p. 86). I completely have to agree with Reeves and I think this because Kennedy was afraid he might not live a long life and just took every chance he got because of how eager he was.

With all of the good and bad throughout Kennedy's years as president I would have to think he was actually a pretty good president. During the time he was first elected into office he had a lot on his plate. Never before in history was the entire nation afraid that we were going to invaded on. At that given time the only major issue he needed to put before all was the fear of a nuclear war. In this situation Kennedy showed his true courageous side of him and really stepped up and did his role in protecting his country. Not many know that Kennedy built a relationship with Khrushchev. In fact, Reeves describes Kennedy as "the co-contractor of the Berlin Wall" (p. 97).Kennedy did not believe in resorting to nuclear weapons and he when he found out the true political issue Berlin was having with runaway refugees the two politicians decided to work together. This resulted in the construction of the Berlin Wall. They agreed on the terms that the Soviet Union would take down the missiles targeted at the United States and we could not invade the Soviet Union. Therefore, there wall was the only solution and when that wall went up Kennedy believed that we had no right to control what happens on the other side of that wall because that was not out country. Kennedy did an outstanding thing with all that he actually defused the tensions of a nuclear war occurring. He solved one of the greatest threats the United States has almost had to face.

Another important issue was the civil rights movement occurring at the time and everything happening with that. This was a very major moment and time for the country with the problems facing whites and blacks. There were a lot civil rights going on like the Washington March, Martin Luther's speech, the freedom writers and many more of those well-known and more popular movements that we have learned about throughout this chapter. It has been said that Kennedy was slow in taking actions on civil rights and this is indeed true. But on the contrary we find out from Reeves that, "John Kennedy signed off on the overthrow of government on South Vietnam on August 28, 1963. That was the day of the great civil rights March on Washington" (p.86). That was the same day Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech. I would imagine that everything would not so entirely get down all at once. Yes it's true that Kennedy had to tell them to take of certain lines in the speech and that if it got too carried away the microphones would be turned off and that after the speech everyone was