Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
Presidents have at least three different jobs: (1) Having good policies and a good vision for the future; (2) Having the intelligence and other skills to serve in this difficult position; and (3) Inspiring the nation, using his "bully pulpit" to unite the country.
It is as an Inspiration that JFK is especially revered. He was a great orator. Although it was LBJ who got the programs enacted after JFK's death, without JFK's inspiration the major progressive agenda of the mid-1960's might never have passed: Civil Rights, Voting Rights, War on Poverty, etc.
JFK was the youngest man ever elected President(*) and his youth and appearance of vigor inspired America! His youth was in sharp symbolic contrast to his predecessor who was the first 70-year-old President. (Perhaps only early Boomers like myself will remember the sense of empowerment and potential for change this gave us.) He challenged the country to do 50-mile races for physical fitness, and many took him up on it. Saying "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country," he founded programs like Peace Corps.
(* - Vice Pres. Teddy Roosevelt was slightly younger but first became POTUS by predecessor's death, not election.)
It was early in JFK's Presidency that the Berlin Wall was built. Khrushchev hoped that the difficulty of supplying the now-surrounded city would force the U.S. to reassess its commitments. Instead JFK flew to the surrounded city and declared himself to be a symbolic citizen of Berlin.
Michael Hart has published a very well-reasoned List of History's 100 Most Influential Persons. There are three U.S. Presidents on that List: Washington, Jefferson, and John F. Kennedy. Hart includes JFK for one reason and one reason only. It was JFK who pushed for the Apollo Moon Landing program over the objections of both his political and scientific advisors. Hart thinks that without JFK's personal efforts, man's visit to the Moon would not have occurred for a LONG time. The fact that man has not set foot back on the moon for more than 50 years supports this idea. Certainly it would be impossible for the U.S. to mount such a huge effort in today's political clime.
Rightly or wrongly, JFK is sometimes credited with saving the world from the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I call JFK the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" President. I could write a few paragraphs on JFK's faults, but here I just try to answer lpetrich's question.
