Tag Archives: john f kennedy

Paul Walter

The chilling parallels between the 1962 Cuban crisis and today in Ukraine

By Paul Walter | Tue 8th November 2022 - 9:55 am

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Historian Max Hastings’ latest book is “Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962” (William Collins, £30 557pp).

I was fortunate to attend a talk by Hastings on the book, at the recent Wantage Literary Festival. To a packed house, he gave a compelling narrative about the events.

His conclusion was that we (the world) were very lucky to John F Kennedy as President during the Cuban crisis. He brought a high intelligence to bear on the issue, and, in particular, faced down his military advisers who were “gung ho” for war. This is summed up by this excerpt from the book’s description on Max Hastings’ website:

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Paul Walter

The governor who stood in the doorway to stop black students entering university – and the landmark speech which followed

By Paul Walter | Tue 3rd October 2017 - 10:47 am


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This is the third of my posts based on a recent tour of the eastern half of the USA. I visited a number of sites relevant to African American history. To mark Black History Month, I am relating some of the things I saw, in the order I saw them.

On the first day of my tour, I made a bee-line for the John F Kennedy Presidential library and museum. It’s on the outskirts of Boston and quite magnificant. In the comprehensive display of JFK history, one of the events given prominence concerned two African American students trying to enrol in a previously all-white Alabaman university in June 1963.

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Posted in LDVUSA | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
Paul Walter

President John F. Kennedy continues to inspire, 100 years after his birth

By Paul Walter | Mon 25th September 2017 - 10:47 am

My photo of President John F. Kennedy’s beloved sailing boat, Victura, with his eponymous museum to the left and Boston’s harbour and city skyline in the background.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is holding a special exhibition called “JFK 100 – Milestones and Mementos” to mark the centennial of the great man’s birth.

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Posted in LDVUSA | Also tagged | 27 Comments
Paul Walter

Book review – Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews

By Paul Walter | Thu 24th November 2016 - 11:30 am

Books and films about the last second of President John F Kennedy’s life have been plentiful. “Jack Kennedy – Elusive hero” by Chris Matthews is a very engaging book which focusses on the great politician’s life before that last second.

Chris Matthews is a very well-known US TV broadcaster. He prefaces this book in a personal context – explaining his great admiration for JFK. The book does an excellent job in answering the key question which John F Kennedy himself described as the pivotal one for biographies: “What was he like?”

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Posted in Books | Also tagged | 5 Comments
Nick T

JFK: educator of the nation or a presidential achiever?

By Nick T | Fri 22nd November 2013 - 8:52 am

John F KennedyOn Monday 7 August 1962, Arthur Schlesinger, liberal historian and adviser to President John F Kennedy, had lunch at the White House with a friend of his, Harvard historian Frank Freidel. Naturally enough, the pair stopped off in the Oval Office for Freidel to be introduced to the president.

Among the things discussed was an article written by Schlessinger’s father, also a very accomplished historian, and published the previous month in The New York Times Magazine. In the piece, Schlessinger Sr published the results of a poll of 75 leading …

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