I first encountered the memory of President John F Kennedy in 1978. I was a teenager spending a year with my parents in a suburb of Boston. The November of that year was marked by moving remembrance of the terrible day 15 years earlier, when Boston’s most famous 20th-century son had been gunned down in Dallas. It was also only ten years since the assassination of Robert Kennedy, so the wounds were especially raw.
Now, 50 years on, the half-century since JFK’s death gives us an opportunity for another reassessment: neither hagiography nor jealous backbiting. JFK’s life and presidency are a testament to two of the greatest causes known to progressive politics: the promise of democratic government at home and the optimism of international engagement abroad.
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