Gleckman’s “Kennedy” Retrospective
Yesterday evening, November 18, the History Channel, gave a three part retrospective look at the personality and character of John Fitzgerald Kennedy from childhood to 1956 when the then-Senator from Massachusetts sought the Democrat Party’s nomination for the office of President of the United States.
Produced by Andrew Gleckman this documentary is superior to an earlier retrospective recently disseminated on MSNBC.
The character of JFK was shaped by a life of privilege and education (Choate/Harvard) granted to him by his father appointed by President Roosevelt to serve as U.S. Ambassador to England.
Both father Joe Kennedy and son Jack were cereal philanderers, a subject not mentioned by MSNBC. Not that it mattered--back then or now--because public officials who are philanderers (Donald J. Trump) pretty much operated with immunity from punishment so long as their professional performance was unaffected.
The first three parts of the History Channel documentary disseminated last night focused on
Pt. 1 Jack (1917-1940)
Pt. 3 JFK’s Early Career--Into the Political Jungle (1946-1956)
A full judgment of this production must wait to see how JFK’s “Progressive” leanings destroyed American policy toward Cuba and JFK’s disastrous dealings with the USSR’s Nikita Krushchev and how JFK’s successor Lyndon Johnson clouded the issue of who killed JFK.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union practiced assassination as “statecraft’’ and the link to the USSR by Lee Harvey Oswald was clear.
Glickman’s documentary will rise or fall over this question.