Life Is Unfair -  Life of JFK Part Two.


     John F. Kennedy, who was U.S. president from 1961 until November 1963 once said, "Life is unfair."
   Years later when I remembered Kennedy's brief time in power, I once said dismissively,
"How would he know?". Yet despite his great wealth and power, Kennedy did know that life was unfair, probably even when he said this about life's unfairness.
    Kennedy was undoubtedly born into great wealth and privilege. He was one of eight Catholic children of multimillionaire Joe Kennedy and his devout wife Rose Kennedy. This big clan was fortune's family. For instance Kennedy told one journalist in effect, "I knew nothing about the Great Depression." Joe Kennedy gave each of his children one million dollars when they turned twenty-one. To-day this would be worth about $15 million.
    Yet by the time John Kennedy was in his early 30's life had shrunk his family. John's older brother Joe Junior, died in a World War Two plane crash in 1944. Joe Junior, like John, had enlisted in the U.S. armed forces in the second world war. A few years later, John's favourite sister Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy Cavendish died in a plane crash in France.
    Unlike other Kennedy siblings, Rose Marie Kennedy, didn't show up much to be interviewed or photographed. She was the mentally challenged sister who for some reason was given a lobotomy.
     John F. Kennedy was shot dead in 1963. Bad luck pursued his family after his death. His younger brother Robert Kennedy was gunned down by a Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles in 1968. Then-Senator Robert Kennedy was seeking the U.S. Democratic Presidential nomination at the time.
    The last and youngest Kennedy brother Senator Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy was on the same quest in 1980. He too wanted to be the Democratic nominee for president that year. "The dream never dies," Senator Kennedy told his fellow Democrats at their 1980 convention. Yet by now the Kennedy myth was fading. The incumbent Democratic president James Earl Carter held off the Kennedy challenge and went on to face Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Reagan went on to beat Carter.
     Edward Kennedy faced many setbacks. He was thrown out of one university for cheating. He too was in a plane that crashed in 1964  and he survived. Yet his back was badly injured. Kennedy also may or may not have killed a young woman Mary Joe Kopechne  who  he was partying with in Chapaquidick, Massachusetts in the summer of 1969. Kennedy at the time was a married man.
    "I can't see Edward Kennedy being president after this," a journalist I knew, said at the time. And he never was.
    John F. Kennedy's children didn't escape the Kennedy curse either.  Once again a plane killed another Kennedy. John F. Kennedy's son, John F. Kennedy Junior died in a plane crash in the U.S. northeast in 1999. His sister Caroline Kennedy is now the U.S. ambassador to Japan. Yet Japanese ultra-nationalists often harass and heckle her when she appears in public.
    More than ten years after the assassination of John Kennedy, a group of journalists including a leading writer of the time Tom Wicker met to discuss Kennedy's legacy. One man said, "Kennedy will only be remembered for being the first Catholic president in U.S. history. 50 years after his death, Kennedy is still the only Catholic who was president of the U.S. "The most overrated president in history," said the British historian E.J. Hobsbawm of Kennedy.
     True or not, Kennedy was the first t.v. president of the U.S. He was on t.v. many many times, in his brief two years and 11 months in power. Kennedy was a celebrity president, handsome, rich and supposedly vigorous. He also had a beautiful wife who showed up on television many times too.
   Kennedy's political achievements were few but his many t.v. appearances gave him world wide exposure. Millions of people knew him as a t.v. star. That's why his terrible death stunned the world. Yet it also proves as he said, "Life is unfair."