KENNEDY, JOHN F. (1917–1963)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy entered the White House in 1961 as the heir to the liberal, Democratic party tradition of woodrow wilson, franklin d. roosevelt, and harry s. truman. Youthful, vigorous, and blessed with extraordinary rhetorical powers, Kennedy saw himself as an activist chief executive and pledged to "get the country moving again," especially with respect to economic growth and international competition with the Soviet Union. But during his one thousand days in office, Kennedy's performance often lagged behind his promises.

His appointments to the Supreme Court were unexceptional. To the first vacancy, created by the retirement of charles whittaker, he named deputy attorney general byron r. white, a former All American football player, Rhodes Scholar, and campaign adviser. White's intellect and productivity exceeded those of his predecessor; he often aligned himself with the conservative faction on the warren court. To replace Justice felix frankfurter and to fill the chair once occupied by oliver wendell holmes and benjamin n. cardozo, Kennedy named arthur goldberg, a hard-working, conscientious labor lawyer, who usually voted with the liberals on the Warren Court but was blessed with neither intellectual brilliance nor a dashing prose style.

Kennedy's appointments to the lower federal courts were often dreadful, especially in the southern circuits, where "senatorial courtesy" gave great influence to segregationist Democratic senators. The result was Kennedy's appointment of a number of federal district judges who were openly segregationist and, in some instances, openly racist. On the other hand, Kennedy did place thurgood marshall on the circuit court in New York; the Department of Justice, under the prodding of Attorney General robert f. kennedy, began to intervene to protect civil rights workers in the South; and Solicitor General Archibald Cox became a forceful and articulate spokesman for racial justice.

The struggle of black Americans to batter down the walls of segregation and win access to the voting booths of the deep South was the great domestic constitutional issue of the Kennedy years. The administration's response to this crisis blended pragmatism and expediency with idealism and occasional moral outrage. While forcing the South to accept the token integration of higher education, the administration did not push hard for similar results in the primary and secondary grades. The official violence inflicted upon civil rights activists during the Birmingham, Alabama, demonstrations led Kennedy to propose to Congress legislation which became, after his death, the landmark civil rights act of 1964. Many students of the Kennedy presidency regard his televised address in support of this legislation as his finest hour. On the other hand, the Kennedy brothers were not enthusiastic supporters of the 1963 March on Washington, and under pressure from FBI Director j. edgar hoover they endorsed the electronic surveillance of civil rights leader martin luther king, jr.

If civil rights received growing constitutional protection from the Kennedy administration, civil liberties often suffered at the hands of a regime that espoused vigorous presidential leadership and believed that the ends usually justified the means. Outraged that the nation's leading steel producers had raised prices in defiance of an informal agreement with labor and the White House, Kennedy threatened the offending corporations with tax audits, securities law investigations, and cancellation of defense contracts. Robert Kennedy's unremitting war against organized crime figures skirted the boundary of assorted illegalities, including warrantless searches and electronic eavesdropping. By waging a clandestine war against Fidel Castro's communist regime in Cuba, the Kennedy brothers also displayed a cavalier attitude about the rule of law. Operation Mongoose, directed by the attorney general, involved acts of sabotage and terrorism against the Cuban regime, most of them in violation of the neutrality laws.

Although their motives were sometimes the highest, John Kennedy and his closest advisers often fostered a disrespect for legal norms and an inflated conception of executive power that would haunt the nation during the decade after his assassination in 1963.

Michael E. Parrish
(1986)

Bibliography

Navasky, Victor 1977 Kennedy Justice. New York: Atheneum.

Parmet, Herbert S. 1983 JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. New York: Dial Press.