Stephen Knott provides a balanced account of key aspects of the Kennedy presidency that have been under contestation. One of Knott’s goals is to parley with hagiographers and ideologues of past and present to frame a counternarrative intended to deconstruct the many myths that have accrued over the years. . . . By offering an enlightened, reformative narrative, Knott has provided substantive material to help us think more clearly and judge more judiciously when evaluating John F. Kennedy. This is no mean accomplishment.”—Presidential Studies Quarterly
“Provides an excellent prism for conducting a more objective, balanced, and nuanced assessment of JFK’s presidency and some of his policies.”—Congress and The Presidency
“A sober and searching account of a complex president.”—Kirkus
“Knott’s approach will enable readers to see the Kennedy presidency more clearly.”—Current
“Knott’s writing is excellent throughout the book, and he makes a reading about pivotal, decades-old events exciting all over again.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Stephen Knott sheds new light on the early 1960s by placing John F. Kennedy in a larger arc of presidential history, discussing both the precedents that guided the thirty-fifth president and the legacy that forever marked the US political landscape. Knott deftly weaves telling moments and decision points that help recover from decades of mythmaking a fresh, nuanced portrait of a president who remains widely misunderstood.”—Patrick Lacroix, author of John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith
“Stephen Knott’s reappraisal of John F. Kennedy’s presidency is intertwined with a personal story of his own long journey away from the Kennedy mystique and then back to his clear-eyed appreciation of a leader who did his duty and deserved better than myths. This is more than a book about JFK: it is a call to remember the inspiration for a better America.”—Tom Nichols, contributing writer, Atlantic
“John F. Kennedy continues to hold a prominent place in American political and cultural history. His reputation and image have received much scholarly praise and scrutiny. Stephen Knott’s Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy is a nuanced, well-balanced reflection on JFK’s legacy and its role in Knott’s own scholarly journey. Knott masterfully shows how JFK came to personify modern liberalism—the idea that the federal government can and should act for the benefit of the least fortunate. His reflections on Kennedy’s role in the expansion of presidential and federal power as well as his views on civil rights and foreign policy are a must-read for anyone interested in American institutions and politics.”—Patrick Sobkowski, lawyer, and contributing writer, Liberal Currents
“It’s refreshing to witness an eminent historian think anew about one of our most popular presidents. Stephen Knott’s engaging and powerful reflections on John F. Kennedy not only illuminate our thirty-fifth president’s strengths and limitations, but also provide a model for thoughtful historical revisionism. Drawing on his personal experience and professional expertise, Knott argues that JFK’s influence continues to shape the presidency and the nation. It is an impressive work.”—John M. Murphy, professor, University of Illinois, and author of John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion
“Stephen F. Knott’s revisiting of the presidency of John F. Kennedy is a masterful and judicious balancing of Kennedy’s brief and tragically unfinished presidency. It is neither an apologia nor an unvarnished critique but is instead a finely nuanced analysis of Kennedy’s deficiencies and his strengths as president. I strongly recommend this book as one that is both accessible to lay readers while also fulfilling the demands of well-crafted scholarship.”—Bert A. Rockman, professor emeritus of political science, Purdue University
“Professor Knott has produced an extraordinary book that should be widely read by scholars and the public alike. Detailed, discerning, and deeply introspective, Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy is a compelling history about far more than the thirty-fifth president of the United States. It is a nuanced exploration into the myth-making enterprise that has surrounded the historical legacy of Kennedy’s presidency and personal character. Alongside the richly textured and carefully documented descriptions of Kennedy’s successes and shortfalls, Knott reveals his own past experiences and professional perspective on the wide variety of attempts to shape—both lionize and denigrate—the public’s memory of John F. Kennedy and his one thousand days in office. As in his highly regarded Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, Knott again invites the reader to contend with the frequently self-serving historical constructions of his subject and reconsider their own historical biases and past judgments. He also humbly reminds us that those individuals who become revered as statesmen not only possess human frailties, but also that if we are to uncover the truth about these men and women and their public works, then we must wrestle with their full characters and complete list of accomplishments. Simply put, read this book, and read it more than once.”—Lara Brown, president and executive director of The New Center
“Stephen F. Knott has a unique vantage point from which to assess John F. Kennedy and his legacy. Infusing his analysis of the thirty-fifth president with a blend of personal recollection, deep research, and fresh insights, Knott deftly challenges conventional narratives of JFK on topics that include Civil Rights, Cuba, Vietnam, and the dark day of November 22, 1963, and forces us to reassess what we thought we knew about the man and his presidency. All readers will appreciate that there is still something original to say about one of our most consequential presidents. Scholars as well as general readers will love this book.”—Christopher J. Leahy, professor of history, Keuka College, and author of President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler
2023-03-24
Knott provides a thorough reconsideration of President John F. Kennedy’s legacy in this nonfiction work.
The author, a professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College, grew up revering Kennedy under the influence of his Irish-Catholic mother, but after working at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston for almost six years beginning in 1979, his “faith-based, ethnic allegiance” was replaced by a more intellectually scrupulous appraisal of the president, one unburdened by the fantasy of Camelot. Knott focuses his interpretation of Kennedy’s legacy on five key issues: his expansion of executive power, his support of the civil rights movement, and his foreign policy record with respect to Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. In each case Knott argues that, despite Kennedy’s missteps and imperfections, he conducted himself with impressive intelligence, guided by moral precepts consistent with the nation’s founding principles. While one can criticize Kennedy for insufficiently backing the fledgling civil rights movement, partly out of fear of political backlash in the South, it is also true that he loathed segregation and ultimately submitted the “most comprehensive civil rights legislation [the Civil Rights Act of 1963] ever proposed by an American president.” Similarly, while the Bay of Pigs debacle was the “low point of his presidency,” the author asserts that his approach to Cuba was neither reckless nor timid, as detractors from either side of the political aisle have charged. Ultimately, Knott contends that, while Kennedy was not a president of the order of Abraham Lincoln, he was still a “near-great” one. Knott’s accounting of Kennedy’s accomplishments includes a thoughtful discussion of the way in which he expanded executive power, contributing to the idea of an “imperial presidency” that elevates the office holder’s cult of personality. The author displays admirable skepticism regarding the conclusions he can draw regarding what Kennedy might have accomplished had he not been assassinated. On the president’s theoretical handling of the Vietnam War (had he lived longer), Knott concludes, “Kennedy’s public words, even the ones that support the thesis that he would have prevented Vietnam from becoming an American quagmire, which I now believe to be the case, must be read with caution.” While the author clearly holds Kennedy in high regard, he avoids the “myths of the idolaters,” as is evident when he takes him to task for the philandering Knott calls “reprehensible.” Knott’s treatment of the “assassination conspiracy complex” is less rigorous—while he debunks theories about a second shooter, he seems dismissive about assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s “association with anti-Castro activists” and the possibility of his state sponsorship. Oswald defected to the Soviet Union and maintained deep ties to the regime, a fact that the author never mentions. While Knott’s analysis of Kennedy’s tenure as president is a welcome corrective to the more extreme partisan accounts available, he doesn’t break any new ground—although to be fair, originality is a high bar to clear given the exhaustive literature on the subject. Still, this is a sober and searching account of a complex president, and it’s manageably concise.
A lucid treatment of Kennedy’s virtues and vices.
