Anne, Mallory, and I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on Sunday. This is a striking modern building, designed by I.M. Pei, on a low-rent section of the Boston Harborfront. Your visit starts with a film about JFK’s life up to the 1960 Presidential campaign. Despite the Kennedys’ Irish-Catholic origins, the early years of yachting and touch football in the family compound could have come straight out of the movie “Wedding Crashers” (a must-see for Christopher Walken’s definitive WASP lifestyle portrait). One is struck by how much more interesting and intelligent JFK seemed before he went into politics. With every year that he spent in political office, he was more prone to uttering sound bites and less prone to speaking out complete thoughtful ideas.
The Kennedy-Nixon debates were remarkable for how good Nixon looked and how much like Ronald Reagan he sounded. Kennedy wanted to make the entire world safe for democracy, whatever the price that might be payed by Americans. Kennedy wanted federal tax dollars flowing to alleviate every domestic problem. Nixon wanted low taxes and to ensure that the government didn’t spend “one dollar that might be better spent by the people.” Instead of expanded federal ambition, Nixon promised more jobs and higher income through economic growth spurred by lower taxes, pointing to high G.N.P. growth during the Eisenhower Administration.
There are rooms devoted to the Peace Corps (created by Kennedy), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the dinner parties hosted by Jackie. Nerds will appreciate the room devoted to the Space Program. Kennedy asks Johnson, in a memo, “why aren’t we working 24 hours per day, with three shifts, on this?” American fears of being overtaken by the Soviets are palpable in the documents in this room.
[The room shows the economic benefits of having the right enemy. We sent our children to study Physics when we were afraid of the Russians. We sent our children to study engineering when we were afraid of the Japanese. Now we are afraid of the Muslims and we send our children to study Arabic and medieval Islamic history.]
Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy, supposedly the brains of the Kennedy family, gets a room with a desk devoted to his impressive achievements in enforcing laws guaranteeing equal treatment of black and white Americans. Bobby’s 1968 assassination isn’t covered, but it would make for an interesting exhibit. JFK worked hard to shift American immigration policy away from giving preference to northern and western Europeans. Sirhan Sirhan, a “quiet and polite” Palestinian-American from Pasadena, California, was exactly the kind of immigrant JFK wanted to encourage. Sirhan Sirhan, safely ensconced in a California prison, seems destined to outlive all of the Kennedys.
The gifts interspersed throughout the museum demonstrate the value of befriending Third World dictators; they can have some amazing stuff made, usually out of solid gold. The pictures of officials, reporters, and dinner guests demonstrate the value of being a white male from a good WASP family in the early 1960s. There wasn’t a lot of competition for the plum jobs. There are no exhibits devoted to the Vietnam War, perhaps the most important legacy of the Kennedy Administration.
JFK’s assassination is covered in a dark hushed corridor with some television images from the time rolling on multiple small screens. You walk out from that into the enormous glass-paneled lobby overlooking the water and one of JFK’s sailboats.
Summary: A vivid evocation of an era that passed almost 50 years ago; not a thoughtful exploration of policy alternatives.
If I remember my local history correctly, the current location of the library is the result of nimbyism on the part of Cambridge grandees. The original site of the museum was supposed to be near Harvard Square. The site is currently a park next to the Kennedy School of Government.