JFK - Was He Any Good?

[us920669]

I'm racking my brain but I can't recall the title.  It had a red dust jacket.  It was not gross Kennedy-bashing - maybe mid-80s.  It was kind of the same vein as Seymour Hersh's Dark Side of Camelot.  Hersh was basically a guy who liked and admired Kennedy saying - Hey, he was just a man and he had his weaknesses.  The one I was thinking of paid some attention to his sex-addiction - he was as bad a sexual harasser as Clinton - mainly the sleazy dirty-trick brand of politics he practiced.  He totally slandered Humphrey in the primaries with some untrue stuff.  On the war service, it was really pretty favorable.  He was liked by his men and his commanders and his performance after the boat was sunk was excellent.


I think all the president's looked wimpy on Berlin because, tank for tank, the Red Army would beat NATO in Europe.  They never demobilized after WW II.  We were stronger with out nuclear arsenal, but no one wanted to go there. 

[us920669]

The book I am thinking of was called A Question of Character, by Thomas Reeves.  It is available in the used book market.  Reeves is a PhD historian specializing in American.  He may well be conservative from the looks of some of his other books but he has a good resume.  I am sure this is the book with the bit about JFK not being fully trained.  It has been a long time.  If someone gets it and reads it, let us know.  I already got in trouble for using books and now I'm worried.

[yellowtail3]

I remember Reeves' book. Reeves knew about as much about PT operations as Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble. It was pretty much a hit-piece on JFK, with Reeves fancying hisself an iconoclast.

[us920669]

Did you read it or read about it?  I'm asking cus the book did not leave me with a bad taste about JFK, just that he ware'nt no saint.  Also, I thought the PT thing had been reinforced by other oblique references about how the old man hustled him out of the country over the Arved mess.

[SHOOTALL]

It may be a better question for us to ask of the man who talked about what you could do for your country , was he good for America ? I don't think Govt. has ever been trusted since his term .

[us920669]

I sure agree with that.

[OldSchoolRanger]

  On the war service, it was really pretty favorable.  He was liked by his men and his commanders and his performance after the boat was sunk was excellent.

I think all the president's looked wimpy on Berlin because, tank for tank, the Red Army would beat NATO in Europe.  They never demobilized after WW II.  We were stronger with out nuclear arsenal, but no one wanted to go there.

I beg to differ, see attached article; note the statement "Russian generals were terrified the Americans would call Khruschchev's bluff ...."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/when_america_blinked_ZZeaXP08St6m6kzutzqZgL

[SHOOTALL]

If I recall correctly JFK had intel to the effect the Russians would back down. Giving them a good reason to do so was the hard part .

[us920669]

First case of Western failure to act was Berlin food riots of '46 or'48, biggest was Hungarian Uprising of '56.  There were a couple of more crises in Czechoslovakia, virtually unmentioned in US media.  Looks like all US presidents were advised not to push Russia too hard in there sphere.  They may have let their forces run down - I would hate to be the president who guessed wrong.


When Kennedy went to Berlin and made his speech the people went wild.  It was the best performance they had seen out of us yet.   

[us920669]

A Great American - not afraid of dissent.

[ironglow]

  US920669 says;
   " I think all the president's looked wimpy on Berlin because, tank for tank, the Red Army would beat NATO in Europe.  They never demobilized after WW II.  We were stronger with out nuclear arsenal, but no one wanted to go there."
*****************************************************************************************
   Reagan handled the Reds about as good as anybody.  Of course, after taking helm following Carter, he had to rebuild our military.  A regular routine..the Democrats take control, they deplete the military and increase socialist/dependancy programs.  When the Republicans take over again ..they have to rebuild the military and trim the dependancy/control programs.  That's been true for at least the 60 or so years I have been really observing such events.The same will take place if the next election works out well.  I hope there are more REAL conservatives put in office.
  As Reagan's efforts began to strengthen his hand..he moved more boldly.  From "Mr Gorbachev, take down this wall" to the firm answer of "NYET" in Rekyavik..which sealed the Soviet Union's fate.
      I was in Germany, living in a small city there.. when JFK was shot.  The German's were quite attached to him.  I believe the mourning was more heartfelt among them than among the American military.  Naturally, we were put on an standby alert for several days.
  Should the Russians make an attack, our plan then (I can tell it now), was to fall back west of the Rhine blowing all bridges, and hold the line there until reinforcements arrived from the states.  We expected the Russian army to force the "Fulda Gap" between the East German border and Frankfurt, since the Danube and the North German Plain were less feasible..but still would be watched . By falling back,  blowing the bridges and concentrating our forces west of the Rhine..Our artillery and air power including NATO, could hold until reinforcements arrived.
  That was the plan, but thank the Lord we never needed to deploy it..although we had plenty of practice "alerts"
   
       ....Funny, but those 'move out' alerts seemed to take place most often at 2 or 3 in the morning.        

[us920669]

Hey IG, I felt bad after I wrote that, almost went back and changed it.  I had understood it had been gamed out and they had a preponderance of force.  I'm sure we would have won in the end.  Thanks for your service.

[mannyrock]

 
  For all of you folks who were outraged with Clinton's sex fest in the Whitehouse, where is the outrage towards JFK?   He invited Marilyn Monroe to the Whitehouse numerous times, swam naked with her in the Whitehouse pool, and had sex with her in the Whitehouse.
 
   One of the most famous pieces of written memorabilia from JFK is a note that he passed across the table to Bobby during a meeting in the Whitehouse, which read "I got into the blonde last night."   It was sold at auction a few years ago, was authenticated, and brought tons of money.
 
  The Press new all about this little affair, even about the swims in the pool, but back  then the Press was extremely carefuly to protect all aspects of the President's personal life.
 
   Monroe kept calling the Whitehouse constantly, and became such a "problem" that JFK passed her off to Bobby, who also had a lengthy affair with her, while the Attorney General of the U.S.  Then she became a bigger problem for him.
 
   And oh yea, the book "Profiles in Courage."  JFK wrote his senior thesis at Harvard about key moments in the lives of great men when they had to show extraoridinary courage.  It was probably a pretty good paper for a college kid
 
   When JFK got in the national limelight, his criminal father (Joseph Kennedy) decided that a best selling book would be a great thing for Jack. So he hired a ghost writer to "help" Jack turn it into a good book.  The day of its release in bookstores, Joseph had pre-arranged to buy all of the books received by the big bookstores.  He bought thousands and thousands and thousands of them, turning it into an instant "best seller."  The Kennedy's use to laugh about having basements in their houses stacked to the rafters with this book.
 
   JFK was an extremely brave man in combat, but a liberal's liberal through and through and just a Massachusett's Clinton.  (Or maybe, Clinton was just an Arkansas Kennedy?)
 
 
 
 

[ironglow]

  Manny;
        You came pretty close...  It's not that anybody didn't care that the prez was personally sleazy but we were not informed by the then "reputable" press. Some hints were offered by the likes of the GOSSIP type mags..but the regular media was quite silent.
  As today, most people don't put a lot of stock in the various papers available at the checkout counter.  When one sees a negative story about the president in a publication, right beside a story about a family of sasquatches living on welfare in the Oregon woods, or Martians running a hot dog stand in Hastings, Nebraska..just how seriously will they take the presidential story ?
  There was a delerious, cult following around JFK and to a lesser extent..Bobby. It was somewhat like the Obamanites or other of today's politicians.  I think the end of such concealment ended with Teddy's accident.  The violent death of Mary Jo Kopeckne was too big and too public to hide, althoughthe media did try to cover somewhat for Teddy.
 
  BTW:  JFK would not fit in with today's liberals..  He understood that lower taxes meant more  prosperity for all, didn't trust communists...and he did believe in the freedoms of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I estimate his politics would come somewhere among the "establishment" Republicans...or rinos.

[chefjeff]

You know, as big a womanizer as he was,the press wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole....my how times have changed......

[ironglow]

You know, as big a womanizer as he was,the press wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole....my how times have changed......

****************************************************************
  You're correct on that Chefjeff !

[sidewinder319]

I was just out of college when JFK was elected. It was phoney from the beginning. They  made up the Camelot yarns and the PT 109 stories and songs were a joke.  He was had Judith Exner in the White House for fun and games. She was the girl friend of a Mafia Chiefton. His connection with the movie stars was will known. The only thing he did was lay the foundation for the Vietnam War. What a guy?? He insured Castro's take over of Cuba and allowed the communist to slaughter the Cuban freedom fighters at the Bay Of Pigs.  You can not defend this son of Organized crime.

[us920669]

I think you're wrong on the war record.  He went there and he did that, and when things went suck he handled himself very well - there were other officers who didn't measure up.  Beyond that, yeah, there was a giant vacuum where his morals should have been.  Americans are fond of saying that his personal life was his business, but it's hard to separate them when you are in a "full time" job like the presidency.


Sources I deem reliable maintain that he was on the verge of dealing with Castro once and for all.  Certainly a very lively discussion here.

[ironglow]

  Yes, Sidewinder the "Camelot" thing was pure Hollywood..and it was known that he was friends with the "rat pack"..Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford , Sammie Davis Jr etc., but I don't recall the press coming out speaking about any JFK trysts with M Monroe..and the info about Exner, Arvad etc only came out in regular publications well after his death.
 
  Yes; if his wife and kids can't trust him..why should john Q Public do so ?
 
  While I won't detract in the least from JFK's war record..he did obviously go there and do that ; I stand by my statement that there was a "cult following" involvement concerning him.  Sometimes when people ghet too many stars in their eyes..they can't see the REAL world..
    Thje book "PT 109" was a volume of praise. Johnny Horton a well known country singer composed a praise song in his honor called, "Big John"..after his demise somebody wrote a mourning song called something like "Johnny, we hardly knew you"..(perhaps somebody here knows the composer).  There were heroic Kennedy facial images all over the place..finally culminated by his image on the half dollar.
   Even then, I could think of several presidents more deserving..

[sidewinder319]

His war record was invented. The men who were there told a different story. I think John Cash's brother was the one who had the song "We hardly knew you". He was a liberal lackey singer who failed long ago.

[yellowtail3]

His war record was invented. The men who were there told a different story.

Yeah? Name names and provide sources.  Innuendo is easy, but weightless.


I'll stand by, curious to know if you've got anything.

[SHOOTALL]

anyone who went to a naval battle in a plywood boat and attacked line ships was a bit brave .

[gypsyman]

I don't think he was in office long enough to prove himself. All this camalot stuff was made up after he was assasinated. I believe that Eisenhower had sent in the first ''advisors'' to Vietnam in '59. He and Jackie did make a trip over there. But, I've read different stories, and they conflict, as to weather he wanted to escalate the conflict. He did start the Peace Corps. But the Bay of Pigs feasco cost him. I think he was made out much lager than what he was, just because of the assasination. Not saying he was bad, just not as good as most make him out to be. gypsyman

[us920669]

I'm curious about the source too - I can't find mine.


Also, the link from the vet says they were not exactly plywood, but that's a minor detail.  Taking a speedboat against a ship of the line is not for the faint of heart.

[nw_hunter]

  US920669 says;
   " I think all the president's looked wimpy on Berlin because, tank for tank, the Red Army would beat NATO in Europe.  They never demobilized after WW II.  We were stronger with out nuclear arsenal, but no one wanted to go there."
*****************************************************************************************
   
      I was in Germany, living in a small city there.. when JFK was shot. 
   
     

I was living in Germany (Baumholder) when the Cuban missle crisis started.
Kennedy and crew moved a large number of strike units like mine to the southern states to prepare to invade Cuba.We were placed at Ft. Benning Ga.

I thought Kennedy handled that situation well. The Joint Chiefs and others  wanted to invade Cuba.........Even drew up a plan to kill a few innocent Americans and sink a few of our own ships to get the voters in a rage and eager to go to war. (Check out the De-Classified) Northwood papers.

Kennedy didn't go for it!! Most today would.Just look at the spinning GW and O.did, to get us involved in these so called war's. "Almost forgot old Johnson" Now HE was a piece of work!

Did he bring a lot of baggage to the W.H. with him? Yep! Most of them do. Pretty hard for a good guy wearing a white hat to make it that far..................Look at Ron Paul

On a scale of 1 to 10 , I give him and Reagan a 6. The others....UH! somewhere between a 1 and 3.

[ironglow]

I'm curious about the source too - I can't find mine.


Also, the link from the vet says they were not exactly plywood, but that's a minor detail.  Taking a speedboat against a ship of the line is not for the faint of heart.

****************************************************************************
   us920;   The PT boats were made by several builders, primarily Higgins and Elco.  While made of wood, it was not plywood, but rather mahogany planks.  While not a major weapon, they were effective in the same way snipers are effective on the battlefield...both beyond their power and numbers.  PT Boats had the ability to sink a ship and being made of wood, could often slip up on the crude radar of the time.  With their speed, they could dash out of a cove in one of the thousands of Pacific islands..and smack a couple torpedos home.  Final run required a straight run toward the enemy ship..facing whay guns he could muster on that small, wooden boat.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat
   Attacking major ships..one can expect the casualty rate to be high..no place for cowards...that is, if they are actually doing their duty..  Admittedly, being caught by a destroyer ( 33 knots ) and get your boat, capable of 50 knots cut in half...somebody HAD to be asleep.
 
  BTW:  Higgins did build a very well known plywood boat.. the landing craft..see below;
 
 

[yellowtail3]

Admittedly, being caught by a destroyer ( 33 knots ) and get your boat, capable of 50 knots cut in half...somebody HAD to be asleep.

Clear evidence you don't have a clue about how PTs actually operated in the Solomons in 1943, and Wiki hasn't help a bit. Get a better source, Ironglow -


http://www.americanheritage.com/content/farthest-forward

Why would PT-109 and PT-105, built for speed and dependent on speed for their survival, be waddling about so slowly in the presence of enemy warships? I, too, assumed, when first introduced to the trade, that PT boats would attack at high speed, and I’ll bet the Navy did too. But that’s not the way it worked. In the first place we found out very quickly that in daylight we were easy targets for both ships and planes. So we hid out as best we could during the day and sneaked out at night, which brings me to the second place: At night in the tropics, our wake, which was large for such a small boat, glowed madly from bioluminescence. Millions of microscopic organisms disturbed by the thrashing of propellers turned on their lights to see what was going on. Looking down over the stern, I was fascinated by the way those tiny lights swirled up and down, then not amused at all when I saw that at any speed above idling that wake was a long, shining arrow pointing right up our ass.
Kennedy is criticized in several books for having only his center engine in gear when the destroyer was sighted, and one officer is quoted as claiming this was against “standard procedure.” I do not know who this fellow is or what standard procedure he’s referring to, but I also followed the practice of running only on the center engine, both on the 105 and later as a division leader on boats from every squadron out there when we were just puttering around on station. One propeller produced less wake than three, of course, but the center propeller was a bit deeper in the water than the wing propellers and therefore produced even less wake while providing a little more power than either of the other two. If we needed speed in a hurry, we lost a few seconds getting the three engines in gear, but I and every boat captain I rode with gladly gave up that time to cut down even a little bit on the giveaway wake.
Our high-speed wake was visible to enemy planes many miles away, and then it was tally ho! We were their prime prey, and their bombs were more accurate than the shellfire from surface ships. We took every conceivable measure not to be visible at night from above—to the point of paranoia. For instance, we taped the radium dial of the compass so that I saw my course through a little slit. That compass could have been detected only by a bomber pilot flying over us upside down at ten feet. Running only on the center engine, however, was not paranoia.
We were even more afraid of the plane we could not see until it was too late than of the one we had spotted soon enough to open fire. In the latter kind of duel, our gunners had a chance to blow him out of the air before he could get a bomb on us. Several boats did just that. So when I had to show a wake, my strategy had to do with ways to spot night-flying planes. I was alert for any change in the sound of the 105's engines. On one of our first patrols, I lost my executive officer, Phil Hornbrook, to a bomb from a plane that flew up our wake. Maybe five seconds before that fatal bomb hit I had heard what I took to be a change in the pitch of our engines. What I was hearing was the bomber. After that, whenever I noticed any change in engine sound, I didn’t waste the seconds it took to decide what caused it, like somebody blocking the engine-room hatch; I started cranking hard over.
Whenever the 105 was showing a wake, the stern twenty millimeter and port fifty caliber were trained up and astern, the gunners intent on the stern quadrant of sky. If a blob appeared, they opened fire without orders from me. A single second’s delay could be too much. The starboard fifty gunner watched the rest of the sky, where he might detect a flicker of exhaust flame from a plane orbiting down. One crewman watched the brightest quadrant of the sky between about thirty to sixty degrees altitude. There was always one part of the sky brighter than the rest, and only in that sector might there appear, for a second or two, the blurred outline of a plane still high up, cruising along looking for someone like us. Once we saw him we could always see him, and if he came in at us, he was dead—we hoped.
Whizzer White (the star football player, later Supreme Court Justice Byron White) was our base intelligence officer. He rode on several patrols with me. Passengers were considered bad luck, but I was glad to have Whizzer along. He was good company. I was puzzled, however, when he picked my boat not once but twice, so I asked him why. He said he noticed that I seemed to attract fewer bombs than the others, and he was trying to figure out what I did that was different. I told him that I was a good student of subjects that interested me, and staying alive was at the top of the list, so after each untoward event (our shorthand for nearly getting killed) I went over what had happened and tried to figure out what to do or not do the next time. Together we wrote up a tactical doctrine on how to lessen the risk of getting bombed out of your socks. Maybe that little paper is stuck away in the National Archives. If it is, I guarantee it will contain the center-engine trick to minimize wake that Jack Kennedy was using the night he was run down

[ironglow]

  US920;
   As I said earlier, there was virtually a cult following around JFK..and called upon to comment in the 1960s, differing accounts/excuses were given for JFK's losing his craft.  Depends if friend or foe...same happened with John Kerry and his  swift boat.  Some liked him and made excuses, others comprised "the swift boat veterans".
  While some attacks were made at night..of course not all were...still, with radar and authorized watch, with a destroyer bearing down, he should have spotted the destroyer at a minimum of a mile.  Even at the last moment, he should have made a hard left or right, pointing the prow toward the destroyer..and been shunted aside rather than being "cut in half", which betrays a sudden, broadside hit ! With a mile or even a half mile warning, he should have been able to fire up all engines and launched an attack of his own !
   Unfortunately, the Japanese admirals did not always launch their attacks at night..most fleet battles were fought during the day..Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake etc....it behooved PT skippers to make daylight attacks.
  Here are a couple videos made at the time..one showing attack style, the other explaining it.  First one, somewhat into the video it shows from the PT deck, an attack being carried out:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGRBLr3WAC8&feature=player_embedded     
  Now we see a film (by the navy museum) where a Naval historian explains that the PT boats "used their speed" to attack enemy ships; (at about the 1 minute mark)
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aewVphp5WV8

[us920669]

No question, JFK still stirs strong emotions, even today.  Film looks like it was made during the war - great footage - thanks.

[yellowtail3]

While some attacks were made at night..of course not all were...still, with radar and authorized watch, with a destroyer bearing down, he should have spotted the destroyer at a minimum of a mile.

Against shipping in the Solomons? Mostly at night, because that's when the targets came out. From the time the Cactus Airforce setup shop at Henderson - and especially after late Nov 1942 - Japanese surface ships stayed out of sight in the Solomons. They operated at night, because a/c of the day weren't effective against ships at night. ALSO - Blackett Strait, PT-109 was not equipped with radar.

Even at the last moment, he should have made a hard left or right, pointing the prow toward the destroyer..and been shunted aside rather than being "cut in half", which betrays a sudden, broadside hit !

Leaving aside your shiphandling experience vs JFK's... this is from another PT skipper who was actually there that night in Blackett Strait:

About 0200 hours my starboard gunner, standing on the turret ring as a lookout, spotted the bow wave of a Japanese destroyer moving slowly west across the course of the 105, range five hundred to seven hundred yards. He could not see the ship itself because it was inshore of us. I couldn’t even see the bow wave, but it didn’t matter because the destroyer saw me and let loose a couple of shells, nicely illuminating his forward superstructure for the millisecond I needed to fire my two remaining torpedoes. When I fired, I saw his stern wake boil up as he went to full speed. There was no explosion, so I assume they missed astern. I wasn’t looking; I was concentrating on finding the nearest exit.
About ten minutes later and five miles away, that destroyer or one of his buddies raced out of the night and rammed the 109. The 109 could not have seen the onrushing destroyer farther away than we had seen him (five hundred to seven hundred yards) because the destroyer had the same inshore advantage it had had on us, while the 109 and 105 both stood out against the horizon like ducks in a shooting gallery. I think that the destroyer I fired at had probably seen me for quite a while, but the captain figured he could go right by with no one the wiser, and his job was to get back home, not destroy a lone PT boat—unless of course that PT lay directly in his way. I think he stopped shooting so abruptly because he didn’t know whether there were other less visible PTs around that would get clear shots if he took me under sustained fire.

Too bad JFK didn't have the benefit of your many years of shiphandling that night.

   Unfortunately, the Japanese admirals did not always launch their attacks at night..most fleet battles were fought during the day..Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake etc....it behooved PT skippers to make daylight attacks.

Against what? The barges re-supplying IJA troops travelled at night, to avoid air attack in the daytime. They could land raids and support them, but barge-busting was mostly a nighttime operation. Daytime shoot-outs with IJN warships didn't happen, as - mentioned earlier - those warships kept away from Henderson's strike radius. And anyhow... a PT going up against a destroyer in daylight, would result in the destroyer burning fuel and ammo and sinking the PT.