John F. Kennedy and the Revisionists

Abstract

I begin by declaring my intellectual interest: I share the cold war convictions and the counterrevolutionary attitudes which Richard J. Walton attributes to President Kennedy in Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy (Viking; 234 pp.; $7.95). What he states as accusations are beliefs which I—and I think the late President—would willingly avow. Moreover, in the nearly nine years since Kennedy's death when the revisionist attacks on his presidency have steadily mounted, my own admiration for Kennedy has grown. I thought fairly well of him at the time. In the light of what has happened since his death, he seems to me an absolutely towering figure. I am either the worst or the best possible person to comment on this book.