HAD LIVED? s already
JFK’s widow Jackie became almost as famous as her husband as she stoically mourned his death.
While she became an icon herself as First Lady, the reality may have been vastly different if he had survived.
Few think their marriage could have carried on, especially after his affairs - some with famous and often controversial women - came to light.
It is believed he had an ongoing relationship with Marilyn Monroe, and some say he would have divorced Jackie and moved the actress into the White House as First Lady if he had lived.
However, had the affair emerged, others think he would have been unable to survive the scandal and been impeached.
It wasn’t just Marilyn he failed to resist. Kennedy reportedly had affairs with prostitutes, a mobster’s girlfriend, White House interns and Washington socialites while in office.
Discussing JFK’s personal life, author Jeffrey Greenfield said: “I asked some people whether Kennedy could have survived this scandal. They said, ‘Of course not’. The cultural climate of the US in [the early 1960s] compared to the 1990s was just radically different.”
He added that the scenario “would have been far more shocking” than the Bill Clinton scandal involving Monica Lewinsky.
“In 1964 we had a presidential candidate, Nelson Rockefeller, who lost a key presidential primary just as his wife gave birth to a baby and it reminded people that he had left his older wife for a younger woman. We had never had a divorced president in 1964 and there was no idea of, ‘Oh well, it’s private, everybody plays around a bit’,” he said. KENNEDY helped advance the cause of civil rights as black Americans fought for racial equality.
In the 1960s, segregation was still normal in the southern states, with black people banned from sitting next to whites on buses, for example.
Just before his death, JFK told advisers he expected a tough re-election campaign as his plans for reform – backed by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr - ARGUABLY, if Kennedy had lived, so too, would 58,000 Americans and untold millions of Vietnamese, such were his concerns over the war.
Kennedy had worries about the conflict, telling aides weeks before his death: “On the one hand, you get the military saying the war is going better, and on the other hand, you get the political opinion with its deterioration. I’d like to have an explanation what the reason is for the difference.” Kennedy historical biographer Robert Dallek, the author of Camelot’s Court, SUCH was JFK’s passion for space exploration that many believe a mission to Mars would be much closer to reality than it is almost 54 years after his death.
Historian Benjamin Nicholson told The People: “Kennedy’s enthusiasm for space exploration really set the tone for his presidency, especially among the younger generations.
“He had a ‘can do’ mentality that was infectious.
“NASA would have benefitted far more if he had remained alive. He was an astronaut’s president.”
Kennedy had vowed in 1961 to put a man on the Moon before the decade was out - demanding an extra $9billion ($56billion today) over the next five years for the space race.
Within a year, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom travelled into space.
And JFK’s dream of reaching the Moon was eventually realised on July 20, 1969. stalled in the face of fierce opposition. A compromise deal to allow segregation to continue at public facilities was rejected by JFK. But a year after his death, his old ally and successor Lyndon B Johnson won the battle, partly thanks to a landslide election win and Kennedy’s legacy.
Professor David Schneider said: “Almost certainly JFK would not have been able to get the civil rights and voting rights bills passed.
“The Southerners hated him and vice versa. He lacked, and by a huge amount, the kinds of political skills (and ability to be mean) possessed in abundance by Johnson. Those bills were probably the most important since the Depression.”
Historian Winston Grady-Willis added: “I believe the pace of civil rights in the South would have been pretty much the same but there’s no question that the legislation would not have unfolded as rapidly as it did if someone other than LBJ was in office.” said: “There’s reasonable speculation that he would have gotten out of Vietnam. Or at least never have put those massive numbers of ground troops into Vietnam that Lyndon Johnson did.”
JFK expert Jeff Greenfield added: “He had always said to people that he wanted to disengage but he couldn’t do it until he was re-elected in 1964 – the politics wouldn’t let him. He would have been accused of being soft on communism.” Ultimately, says Greenfield, “I think we would have been spared [an all-out] war.” reached. Afterwards, both Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev began to soften the relationship between Washington and Moscow. The President’s diplomacy was credited with avoiding war and creating a very different world to the one we live in today.
Kennedy expert Jeff Greenfield has said: “It’s pretty clear that he and Khrushchev had come close to presiding over a nuclear holocaust. It dramatically changed the way he looked at the world. “That’s when he began looking for common ground with the Soviet Union: a test-ban treaty, possibly other steps to turn down the temperature of the Cold War.” There are also theories America’s relationship with Fidel Castro’s C Cuba would have been vastly different.differe Mr Dallek said: “If he had liv lived, there’s lots of speculation - w with good reason - that he might h have achieved some kind of rapproc rapprochement with Cuba. So the long histor history of Cuban-AmericanCuban-Ameri alienation wouldwo not haveha occurred.”