JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:04 am  

So it's 50 years today that he got assassinated. I guess we'll never know who did it.

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:06 am  

Dead Man Walking wrote:

So it's 50 years today that he got assassinated. I guess we'll never know who did it.

Last year was the 200th anniversary of the assassination of Spencer Perceval, can't recall much of a fuss being made over that

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:08 am  

cod'ead wrote:

Last year was the 200th anniversary of the assassination of Spencer Perceval, can't recall much of a fuss being made over that

Not that well known even now.

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:23 am  

Dead Man Walking wrote:

So it's 50 years today that he got assassinated. I guess we'll never know who did it.

Or even care.

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:32 am  

One thing's for sure, his assassination has made sure that history has been kinder to him than it ever would if he'd remained in power

[TimperleySaint]

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:37 am  

cod'ead wrote:

One thing's for sure, his assassination has made sure that history has been kinder to him than it ever would if he'd remained in power

How do you know that?

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:53 am  

Mike Oxlong wrote:

How do you know that?

Do you think things like Viet Nam would not have happened? He would've taken the blame for that instead of Johnson & Nixon, along with many other acts attributed to them. Look behind the cosy family man presentation and you'll find a philandering mysoginist, unused to being challenged by anyone. There's plenty of detail out there, you just need to look for it.

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:01 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

... Look behind the cosy family man presentation and you'll find a philandering mysoginist,

A tad unfair, as he lived in an era of rank misogyny and whilst he no doubt philandered, in this he joined maybe a third or two thirds (depending which stats you believe) of the world male population.

cod'ead wrote:

unused to being challenged by anyone..

Being the man basically in charge of the planet, do you see that as a bad thing?

if you're looking for faultless saint-like characters in world leaders, good luck with that.

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:23 pm  

I quite like this portion of his speech to Rice University on the decision to start the Apollo Lunar project...

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute

"...some of which have not yet been invented..." sort of puts the thing into context, that speech was in 1962.

[Durham Giant]

Re: JFK : Fri Nov 22, 2013 3:57 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

One thing's for sure, his assassination has made sure that history has been kinder to him than it ever would if he'd remained in power

Both JFK and his brother were very much behind making civil rights a federal issue so he would have come out of that fairly will i think.

Plus he bedded Marilyn Monroe so he has my envy. !!!