The Innocent 1960s: Politics in the Kennedy Years
In the early 2000s, President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) was widely esteemed as one of the most important leaders in U.S. history. In fact, a 2003 poll conducted by Ohio University and the Scripps Howard News Service revealed that 14 percent of Americans listed Kennedy as their favorite president, placing him second only to Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65), who led the United States during the Civil War. Yet it is difficult to point to tangible reasons for Kennedy's popularity: on domestic issues, he promised far more than he accomplished and passed no important legislation; in foreign policy, he fumbled an invasion of Cuba, narrowly averted a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and enmeshed the United States in what became the protracted war in Vietnam. Clearly, it was not his lackluster record of political accomplishments that won Kennedy the love and respect of Americans, both at the time and in the following decades. What Kennedy offered instead was an inspiring challenge for Americans to live up to their higher ideals and, for Americans looking back, a nostalgic reminder of a less complicated time in American life. In the early twenty-firstcentury, Kennedy remained a symbol of the simpler side of the 1960s.
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