Why is JFK thought to be a more effective President than Nixon or Reagan?

Question

JFK was charming, good looking, he spoke well, and he was shot. That is why he is considered to be a good President. Even though I give him credit for realizing his failures, he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs campaign and almost got the US minutes away from a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Nikita Kruschev trampled all over Kennedy in the Vienna debates, was played games with him, and called Kennedy and Americans fools, Richard Nixon on the other hand, was a better diplomat than Kennedy, cleaned Kruschev's clocks in the Kitchen Debates, and made him look like the uneducated peasant that he was.

The Soviets played games with Kennedy in the time of Kruschev and Carter in the time of Brezhnev. They realized that they could not mess with Nixon or Reagan, however.

Answer 1

His best move was cutting taxes and getting the economy moving again. The next best thing was the goal to get a man on the moon. He did have some major moments in his short presidency but I think he is mostly glorified because of his celebrity status and mysterious assignation. Nixon was a far better president in reality, particularly in the diplomacy department.

Answer 2

Thought by whom? I think they all had pluses and minuses in their favor. JFK was not in the Presidency long enough to be truly judged against 2 term Presidents, although he did have a very active administration in his short lived (no pun intended) tenure. You are correct in your assumption that JFK receives mountains of praise based on his martyred status. I do however believe that based on his achievements and conviction that he would have been considered a very effective and well liked President even if he had not been assassinated.

libsticker: You are incorrect about Vietnam regarding JFK. JFK inherited Vietnam from Eisenhower who sent the advisors. It was JFK's intent to withdraw all troops from Vietnam within a year beginning as early as December of 1963. He signed a NSAM to this effect before he died. It was Johnson who then seriously escalated our troop strength.

For relevant information regarding Kennedy's last action in regards to Vietnam review NSAM 263. Link below.

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html

Edit: I will admit that JFK increased our presence in Vietnam over that of the Eisenhower administration and the added concentration of forces was noticeable. However, I still content that the real escalation began under Johnson in 65. This  also does not change the fact that Kennedy intended to remove those forces in 63. However, I am content to agree to disagree on what constitutes the real escalation of the war.

Answer 3

JFK had the Bay of Pigs and his many indiscretions with women (cheating on his wife with the likes of Marilyn Monroe and others). He was young and good looking and charming...and he had his dad's money backing him. Because he died such a horrible death at such a young age, leaving a wife and two young children behind, people tend to remember the good and forget/forgive the bad...in effect turning him into some sort of saint, which he wasn't.

Obama has a lot of the celebrity stuff going on similar to how people felt about JFK, but Castro loves Obama, because Obama has said that he wants to DISARM the U.S. of nuclear weapons (see the video on youtube). Obama never served his country like JFK did though...JFK served in the Navy and won a purple heart. Also JFK had Irish catholic parents. Obama had a deadbeat African polygamist Muslim father and an atheist mother who renounced her U.S. citizenship and left her young son with her parents to raise him while she traveled to Indonesia.  

Answer 4

Well let's see he never traded weapons with terrorist and he never had to quit before being impeached for starters.

Answer 5

JFK was not effective, he is the one that escalated us into Vietnam, then took us to the brink of Nuclear war by meeting with Kruschev without preconditions which made him look weak to the Russians (their words not mine).  Reagan was a much better poker player, he bluffed the Russians with Star Wars and getting the trillion dollar funding for it from congress.  The Russians knew they could not keep spending on Nukes when we would render them useless.  Best bluff in history.

Edit:  I am correct about Vietnam, Eisenhower did send in the first advisors, JFK increased and escalated that by sending in a Green Beret unit to train subversives.

The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of a wider strategy called containment. Military advisors were sent beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s and combat units were deployed begining in 1965

Answer 6

Reagan was effective?  In what way.  In 8 years of Reagan he raised taxes 7 times.  The federal deficit grew at record rates.  Government spending and government growth reached all time highs and that was after running on a 'small government' platform.  Inflation and stagnation were major problems.  Reagan out spent the Russians in military spending and that was about his only claim to fame.

Answer 7

He was assassinated, which makes people believe he was great in today's society. They also idealize him because he was a Democrat, funny thing is he would be conservative if he was alive today with the same policies.

Answer 8

Unfair comparison.  Had JFK lived long enough, then perhaps you could ask that question.

Answer 9

Because Regan and Nixon are not liberal like the media and JFK.

Answer 10

I agree, but JFK proposed putting a man on the moon and in doing that, it showed mankind that anything is possible.

Answer 11

You are correct. The liberals love him because he was a celebrity like Obama. He was an ineffective president just like Obama would be.  

Answer 12

The press was basically in his pocket. It was a time of Camelot, fantasy and fiction. The Russians got exactly what they wanted during the Cuban missle crisis and that was the removal of missles from Turkey. The press didnt report that until two decades later. Nixon and Reagan were constantly under the scrutiny of the press.

Answer 13

Effective?  Let's see, what did he do...  he almost got the world blown to radioactive dust.  He was, however, pretty effective at showing us that he had a brain.

Answer 14

He isn't. The best thing Kennedy did for the country was get shot.

Answer 15

The only thing I can say good about JFK is that he banged Marilyn Monroe but in all likelyhood had her killed when the secret was going to be released.  Pappa Joe Kennedy had her killed by his Chicago mob connections.

Answer 16

He isn't. JFK was and is a highly over-rated President who achieved very little. He is much like an urban legend.

Answer 17

Um, he made Kruschev stand down on the Cuban Missile Crisis.  My parents were in their 20s-30s then and they said Kruschev thought he could intimidate our young president.  We discovered they were building missiles in Cuba, and Kennedy got his advisors  together, but it was JFK who decided a naval blockade was the best solution.  Kruschev then proposed a compromise and the missiles were removed.

What would you have done?  Nothing and let them keep building missiles?????  Invade and risk a nuclear exchange with the USSR (not "just" Russia)????

"The Cuban missile crisis was perhaps the greatest test of John F. Kennedy's Presidency, and while he and Khrushchev were able to achieve a peaceful resolution, the crisis had a number of far-reaching historical consequences. Within a year, Kennedy and Khrushchev signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age. Also in 1963, the first "hotline" between Washington and Moscow was installed."

(3) James Reston, a journalist on the New York Times newspaper, travelled to Vienna with President Kennedy when he met Khrushchev for the first time He commented on this meeting three years later in an article for his newspaper.

Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs; he would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed.

(4) Theodore Sorensen was a friend and speechwriter for John F. Kennedy. He was with Kennedy in Vienna and later wrote about the meeting between these two men.

Neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev emerged victorious or defeated cheerful or shaken. Each had probed the other for weakness and found none. Khrushchev had not been swayed by Kennedy's reason and charm. Kennedy had not been panicked by Khrushchev's tough talk.

Kruschev guessed wrong.  Kennedy got us through probably the only real threat of nuclear exchange during the Cold War.  Ask someone who lived through how truly scary and nerve-wracking it was.  



(5) Elie Abel's book, The Missiles of October: The Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, was published In 1966. In the book Abel comments on John Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna.

There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure at their Vienna meeting in June 1961, and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions... There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America's power. He questioned only the President's readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are "too liberal to fight.'

Answer 18

Not to mention his constant infidelity.

He had and has an army of PR people (the media) then and now covering for him and idolizing him.

Answer 19

he didn't live long enough to prove his effeciencey ,and yet he was overall a good presedent

Answer 20

JFK was assassinated, so everyone gives him sympathy points.

Nixon was a great president, but watergate overshadowed him

The liberal media hates Reagan.

Answer 21

Reagan is perhaps one of the greatest, if not the greatest American president in history. He won the Cold war and got U.S. out of Jimmy Carter's mess.

Nixon was actually a very good president. He normalized relations with China and if responsible for U.S. getting out of Vietnam.

JFK was a good president, but his inexperience showed during the Bay of Pigs invasion. He could have made Cuba a democracy.