Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Virtual JFK
Can a president make a
decisive difference in matters of war and peace? Can a president decisively
lead his country into war, or keep his country out of war? Or are the forces
that drive nations into conflict far more impersonal – out of the control of
any single human being, even a president?
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Normally, I would most likely say that a single president cannot make a decisive difference in matters of war, since the Congress and other governmental bodies have so much power, and some veto power over the President. But now, having studied JFK and LBJ, especially having watched Virtual JFK, I am taken aback by how much my opinion has changed. As written in our textbook, no president before or since JFK has put so much of his personality into his presidency. JFK's actions were so vitally anti-war that one can see from watching Virtual JFK that the Vietnam War would not have been so destructive, and may not even have involved the U.S., if JFK had not been killed and Johnson had not been so obsessed with the use of federal power.
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