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Since death of John F. Kennedy, early hagiography has given way to a sharply critical, revisionist portrait that depicts a mediocre president whose domestic program was a dismal failure. Kennedy was a man of words, not of deeds, one critic wrote, and his achievements less significant than James K. Polk. But in Promises Kept, eminent historian Irving Bernstein argues that the revisionists are dead wrong. By 1963, Kennedy had become a very effective leader and, if he had not been assassinated, there is no doubt that his whole program would have been enacted by 1965. In this brilliant reassessment of Kennedy years based on primary sources, Bernstein vividly recreates many of major political and social confrontations of early '60s, especially burgeoning struggle for civil rights. He describes 1961 Freedom Ride bus trip that headed south to defy Jim Crow (James Farmer and six other blacks were horribly beaten when bus arrived in Birmingham) and violent riot on campus of Ole Miss where a young James Meredith, with backing of Kennedy's Justice Department, National Guard, and U.S. Army, became first black ever to register at that bastion of Deep South. Bernstein also examines Kennedy's determined fight to push through education aid bills, raise minimum wage, establish Medicare and revitalize American economy and create full employment. Kennedy survived early stumbles of inexperience, Bernstein concludes, to become a master of legislative politics. By November of 1963, he had forged a working relationship with a hostile Congress and made breakthroughs that would lead to tax cut, Civil Rights Act, federal aid for education, and Medicare in 1964 and 1965. A provocative new account of Kennedy's domestic achievements, Promises Kept is first of a two-volume study of social and economic reform programs of 1960s. When complete, it will be a signal contribution to our understanding of recent American history.
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