13. Jacqueline Jones, Peter H. Wood, Thomas Borstelmann, Elaine Tyler May, and Vicki L. Ruiz, Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States, 2nd ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006), 855. Milton Viorst, "D.C. Is a Hardship Post for Negro Diplomats," Washington Post, August 28, 1960; John F. Kennedy to the Honorable Christian A. Herter, August 25, 1960, Winifred Armstrong Papers, Box 1, Series 1, "Discrimination Against African Diplomats in Washington, DC," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

14. Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980), 63; Larry Sabato, ed., The Sixth Year Itch: The Rise and Fall of the George W. Bush Presidency (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008), 9; John Hart, "Kennedy, Congress and Civil Rights," Journal of American Studies 13 (August 1979): 16578. During the campaign, Senator Kennedy expressed support for sit-ins. On June 24, 1960, he told the press that, "Such action inevitably involves some unrest and turmoil and tension, part of the price of change. But the fact that people are peacefully protesting the denial of their rights is not something to be lamented." See Anthony Lewis, "Kennedy Salutes Negroes' Sit-Ins," New York Times, June 25, 1960.

15. Brooks Jackson, "Blacks and the Democratic Party," FactCheck.org, April 18, 2008,

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/

[accessed February 26, 2013].

16. "Harlem Leader Talks to Kennedy," New York Times, July 7, 1960; "Jack Robinson Raps Kennedy," New Orleans Times-Picayune, December 12, 1960; Jackie Robinson to RFK, May 25, 1961, Box 5, Folder 14, Jackie Robinson Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC; Jackie Robinson to JFK, February 9, 1961, Box 5, Folder 14, Jackie Robinson Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

17. Mark Stern, "John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights: From Congress to the Presidency," Presidential Studies Quarterly 19 (Fall 1989): 797823; Russell Baker, "Kennedy Pledges Civil Rights Fight," New York Times, September 2, 1960; "Democratic Party Platform of 1960, July 11, 1960," John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online], Santa Barbara, CA,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29602

[accessed December 9, 2010]; "He Will Support Negro Rights, Kennedy Tells Jackie Robinson," Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1960.

18. Wofford, Kennedys and Kings, 151; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 29597. Seigenthaler later described the scene in Montgomery as "absolute war." Freedom Riders, DVD, produced, written, and directed by Stanley Nelson (Boston: Firelight Media, 2010).

19. Nelson, Freedom Riders.

20. Personal interview with Maxwell Taylor Kennedy during the Virginia Film Festival, November 3, 2012, Charlottesville, Virginia.

21. Susan Page, "The Kennedy Mystique," USA Today Special Edition, "JFK's America," Fall 2010, 5; Susan Page, "50 Years After Win, a Legacy Endures: JFK's Short Tenure Is Still Shaping USA," USA Today, September 27, 2010.

22. Personal interview with Maxwell Taylor Kennedy during the Virginia Film Festival, November 3, 2012, Charlottesville, Virginia.

23. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 299.

24. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1492Present (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003), 454.

25. Louis Martin, "Memorandum on Black Muslims," April 12, 1961, Louis Martin Papers, Box 6, Folder 12, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

26. At a speech in San Francisco on November 2, 1960, Kennedy said, "I am convinced that our young men and women, dedicated to freedom, are fully capable of overcoming the efforts of Mr. Khrushchev's missionaries who are undermining that freedom." "Making Economic Aid Effective: An American Youth Peace Corps," Current 8 (December 1960): 55.

27. At two A.M. on October 14, 2010, Peace Corps director Aaron Williams and former senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania gathered on the steps of the student union at the University of Michigan to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK campaign speech that led to the formation of the Peace Corps; fifteen hundred students turned out to celebrate the anniversary. "Peace Corps Director Visits Michigan: Commemorates 50th Anniversary of John F. Kennedy's Speech That Inspired the Peace Corps," US Fed News, October 16, 2010.

28. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1993), 69; Kevin Lowther and C. Payne Lucas. Keeping Kennedy's Promise: The Peace Corps: Unmet Hope of the New Frontier (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), 3. The Peace Corps was not Kennedy's idea, but he turned it into reality. Some historians trace the Corps' origins to FDR's CCC program. "In 1950 a group of World Federalists advanced the idea of a voluntary 'peace force' to work in the developing countries. In the same year, the Public Affairs Institute published a pamphlet proposing American 'work centers' in the Third World." "Harris Wofford, one of the major architects of the Peace Corps, helped set up the International Development Placement Association, which, in the early 1950s, sent a small number of college graduates to teach or do community development in the Third World." Sargent Shriver made an unsuccessful attempt to sell his idea of three-man political action teams to the Eisenhower administration. Henry Reuss (D-WI) promoted a "Point Four Youth Corps" in the late 1950s and introduced H.R. 9638, which called for a study on the "advisability and practicability of the establishment of a Point Four Youth Corps." Hubert Humphrey's youth service bill, S. 3675 (June 1960), was the first to use the name "Peace Corps." Kennedy picked up on the idea during the campaign. Gerard T. Rice, The Bold Experiment: JFK's Peace Corps (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 411.

29. Shriver to JFK, March 8, 23, and 27, 1962, R. Sargent Shriver Papers, Box 12, Series 2, "PC: Memorandums to President Kennedy," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. The Peace Corps produced its share of headaches as well. At least one volunteer sent to the nation of Gabon brought along a firearm "for recreational hunting purposes." Bill Moyers, deputy director of the Peace Corps, thought that taking guns to Africa sent the wrong message. "White men have been coming to Africa for generations with guns," he wrote; "if we are truly different, it seems we ought to be different on the little issues as well as the big ones." He also argued the presence of guns could be misinterpreted "by the leftists and anti-Americans." Bill Moyers to Sargent Shriver, undated, Box 13, Series 2, "Peace Corps Policy," R. Sargent Shriver Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Shriver came under fire for both preserving the secularity of the Peace Corps and attempting to link it with the service arms of churches. The Catholic-affiliated American Council of Voluntary Agencies expressed their "regret" and "resentment" at Shriver's decision not to award contracts to church groups. Later, when Shriver attempted to strengthen ties between the Corps and the churches, Cardinal Richard Cushing resisted: "I don't want any part of federal aid for anything because I don't see how you can get it without control. It is for this reason that I 'keep my mouth shut' with regard to federal aid to education and other projects." Richard Cushing to Shriver, January 31, 1962, and "Recent Peace Corps Rebuff to Churches," The Tablet, December 23, 1961, Box 12, Series 2, "Peace Corps Correspondence," R. Sargent Shriver Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Despite these problems, the Peace Corps remains popular today, having convinced generations of people they could make a difference in the world. It has become the creative basis for many other proposals about national service. See, for example, my own plan for Universal National Service (UNS) in Larry J. Sabato, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country (New York: Walker, 2007), chapter 5 (entire).

30. Stephen G. Rabe, "Controlling Revolutions: Latin America, the Alliance for Progress, and Cold War Anti-Communism," in Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 19611963, ed. Thomas G. Paterson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1057. Rabe believes that the United States' Cold War policies undermined the effectiveness of the Alliance for Progress program. "Through its recognition policy, internal security initiatives, and military and economic aid programs, the [Kennedy] Administration demonstrably bolstered regimes and groups that were undemocratic, conservative, and frequently repressive. The short-term security that anti-communist elites could provide was purchased at the expense of long-term political and social democracy."

31. The historical context is instructive. In early 1961 the Communists appeared to be winning the Cold War. They could boast of major economic and technological triumphs and were poised to take control in countries such as Laos and the Congo. Many Americans wanted their government to take a tougher stand against Communism, especially in the Western Hemisphere.

32. Thanks to an FOIA lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive, scholars now have access to four volumes of the CIA's "Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation." As of August 2011, the CIA has refused to release volume 5, which contains "a rebuttal to the stinging CIA Inspector General's Report done in the immediate aftermath of the paramilitary assault, which held CIA officials accountable for a wide variety of mistakes, miscalculations and deceptions that characterized the failed invasion." See Peter Kornbluh, "CIA Forced to Release Long Secret Official History of Bay of Pigs Invasion," Global Research, August 2, 2011,

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25864

[accessed August 2, 2011].

33. "Report of the Committee on National Security Policy," November 9, 1960, Paul H. Nitze Papers, Box 141, Folder 8, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

34. Bowles landed in hot water when he talked to the press about his opposition to the plan. He was eventually sent packing from the State Department and replaced by George W. Ball.

35. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 24051; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "Memorandum for the President," February 11, 1961, National Security Archive, The George Washington University,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/19610211.pdf

[accessed on October 13, 2010].

36. Peter Kornbluh, ed., Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (New York: New Press, 1998), 2; R. Hart Phillips, "A 'Fight to Death' Is Feared in Cuba," New York Times, April 9, 1960.

37. Kennedy made some changes to the original CIA plan. He moved the landing site from Trinidad to the Bay of Pigs and reduced the number of airstrikes in order to make the operation "less noisy." Like Eisenhower, Kennedy thought that he could somehow conceal the United States' role in the operation.

38. Kornbluh, Declassified, 23; Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 191763 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 363; Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 195864 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 95. Stephen Rabe says that an additional airstrike would not have made a difference since Cuban pilots were "prepared to take off at a moment's notice" after April 15. James N. Giglio and Stephen G. Rabe, Debating the Kennedy Presidency (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 34. The CIA and Cuban exiles were counting on Kennedy to intervene even though the president had made it clear that U.S. forces would stay on the sidelines.

39. Eisenhower was proven correct. The failure at the Bay of Pigs strengthened the resolve of Nikita Khrushchev, who stiff-armed Kennedy at the Vienna summit and then deployed nuclear weapons to Cuba. The worst consequence may have been that Kennedy decided to take a stronger stand in Vietnam to show the Communists that he meant business, accelerating what was to become the greatest American miscalculation of the postwar period.

40. Stephen A. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 63839.

41. Kennedy was also deceived by the Central Intelligence Agency. "Despite repeated White House instructions to keep U.S. forces from directly participating in order to preserve plausible deniability of American involvement, the CIA ultimately gave permission for U.S. pilots to fly aircraft over the beaches. The aviators were told that, if they were shot down and captured, they should describe themselves as mercenaries and the U.S. would 'deny any knowledge' of them." Four U.S. airmen were killed in the fighting. It is also clear that top CIA officials did not believe that the invasion could succeed without U.S. military involvement. See Robert Dallek, "Untold Story of the Bay of Pigs" and Peter Kornbluh, "Bay of Pigs History Held Hostage," Daily Beast, August 14, 2011,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/14/bay-of-pigs-newly-revealed-cia-documents-expose-blunders.print.html

[accessed August 25, 2011].

42. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 365.

43. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 639.

44. Sorensen, Kennedy, 308; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 370.

45. The columnist George Will is among many who has asserted that the Bay of Pigs disaster convinced Khrushchev, "the 67-year-old grandson of a serf and son of a coal miner, that Kennedy, the 43-year-old son of privilege, was too callow to recognize the invasion's risks and too weak to see it through." George F. Will, "JFK's Berlin Blunder," Washington Post, August 12, 2011,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jfks-berlin-blunder/2011/08/12/gIQAGOcxBJ_story.html

[accessed August 15, 2011].

46. Kornbluh, Declassified, 4.

47. Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 239.

48. Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, "Anatomy of a Failure: The Decision to Land at the Bay of Pigs," Political Science Quarterly 99 (Autumn 1984): 47191.

49. America in the early 1960s might reasonably be compared to Athens in 400 B.C. Nicias, one of the Greek city state's most prominent politicians, made exaggerated estimates about the number of troops and ships that would be required to invade Sicily, attempting to trick the governing assembly into abandoning the expedition. But the Athenians were so consumed with blood lust that they approved Nicias' faux plan and put him in charge of the invasion. In other words, an absurd military plan took on a foolish life of its own.

50. Piero Gleijeses, "Ships in the Night: The CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs," Journal of Latin American Studies 27 (February 1995): 142.

51. In early May 1961, JFK told Schlesinger, "If it hadn't been for Cuba, we might be about to intervene in Laos." Herbert S. Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 136. "Robert Kennedy recalled that 'we would have sent ... a large number of American troops into Laos if it hadn't been for [the Bay of Pigs failure] because everybody was in favor of it.'" Giglio, Presidency, 66.

52. Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 329, 336; Giglio, Presidency, 6368.

53. Parmet, JFK, 182. Robert Dallek attributes Kennedy's back problem to his use of steroids. Prolonged steroid use can cause osteoporosis and a weakened immune system. "Navy medical records indicate that back surgery Kennedy underwent in 1944 had revealed clear evidence of osteoporosis. The surgeons removed 'some abnormally soft disc interspace material' and anticipated additional problems if he continued to suffer bone loss." In the early 1950s, Kennedy's back problems worsened. X-rays from JFK physician Janet Travell's records show that Kennedy's L-4 "had narrowed from 1.5 cm to 1.1 cm, indicating" an imminent spinal collapse, and they also showed "compression fractures in his lower spine." Kennedy's fifth lumbar vertebra did collapse in the spring of 1954. He opted for a risky operation that never fully solved the problem. See Robert Dallek, "The Medical Ordeals of JFK," Atlantic Monthly 290 (December 2002): 4961,

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/12/dallek.htm

[accessed September 1, 2010].

54. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, "The Goal of Sending a Man to the Moon (May 25, 1961)," Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia,