Few events in US history have caused the collective shock and grief that the nation experienced upon hearing of President Kennedy’s death in 1963. Sixty years on, Nige Tassell asks Professor Mark White how America may have been different had Kennedy lived
There is no denying that the assassination of President John F Kennedy on 22 November 1963 brought the United States to an unexpected junction. The calm, strong leadership he’d shown in the near-three years of his administration – most notably in winning the ultimate blinking contest with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 – was abruptly extinguished that day in downtown Dallas and the country would endure very turbulent times for the rest of the decade. But had a bullet not ended Kennedy’s life prematurely, what shape would those subsequent years have taken, both for the US and the world?
The first conundrum to answer is whether Kennedy would have won the presidential election of 1964. Mark White, professor of history at Queen Mary University of London and author of Kennedy: A Cultural History of an American Icon (Bloomsbury, 2013), explains that Kennedy’s re-election “was not a foregone conclusion, but it was highly likely. The biggest electoral problem that he had was the fact that, due to his strong, commendable stance on civil rights in June 1963, in which he had given a great television speech to the American people, his popularity in the South had decreased markedly during the last five months of his life.
“But he had generally been a very popular president. Indeed, he still has the highest average approval ratings of any president in modern American history. In addition, he had enjoyed successes, notably his superb leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that had bolstered his credibility.”
Professor White is also adamant that Kennedy’s numerous extra-marital affairs wouldn’t have presented an obstacle to re-election. “It was an unwritten media rule at the time not to report on the private life of a president, a rule which Kennedy understood and relied upon.”
SHIFTING ALLEGIANCES
After Lyndon B Johnson succeeded Kennedy, the Texan declared that the passing of his predecessor’s civil rights bill would be a fitting way to commemorate the late president.
