Hating Kennedy

[struggle4progress]

By John Avlon
November 23rd 20132:10 pm

... In Texas, the Baptist convention passed a resolution "cautioning members against voting for a Roman Catholic candidate" – a measure echoed across a handful of other states – buoyed by the argument that a Catholic president would put loyalty to the Pope ahead of loyalty to the United States. Just weeks after his election, a virulently anti-Catholic retired postal worker tried to assassinate Kennedy in Florida.

After the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy became a curse word among many Cuban exiles who blamed the president for abandoning their brothers on the beaches to Fidel Castro. Even a half-century later, the community's anger continues ...

Kennedy's initially tentative embrace of civil rights caused him to be hated by some in the South. When James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi, he was escorted by 300 federal troops, while more than 2,000 students protested, chanting "Two, four, one, three, we hate Kennedy" ...

Against the backdrop of history, it is sobering to learn that the US Secret Service, which protects presidents, investigated 34 threats on President Kennedy's life from the state of Texas alone ...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/23/hating-kennedy.html

[PDJane]

1. Yep. I remember that, too.

I thought it was silly, even at the time...and I was barely 14.

[enough]

2. Very important history to remember. This was a constant part of that time

as it was experienced. The hatred was everywhere, from all directions.

[northoftheborder]

3. In the 60's, Dallas was the breeding ground for right wing Birchers, as well as dominated by....

....white Protestants, many of whom hated Catholics. Both hated Warren Burger and the civil rights movement in general. I watched hours of the television coverage yesterday, and never quite heard a vivid description of the seething hatred dominating Dallas at the time, more than any other Texas city. Whatever motivated Oswald, I don't think a historian can ignore the state of mind of many citizens of that city and the effects it could have had on Oswald or anyone else with propensity for violence.

[roguevalley]

4. my mom and dad got up in church and left it forever when the minister began that talk

about voting.

The worst thing was a friend of mine all my life who when we were told the President was shot but we didn't know yet he was dead sat with us speculating. She said he would get re-elected in the next election because he would get the 'sympathy vote'

I never forgot that colossal evil remark to this day.

[Mc Mike]

5. Physical attacks on Adlai Stevenson and the Johnsons preceded the assassination, also.

One of the Dallas movie theaters advertised "PT 109" with the tag 'see how the (Japanese) almost got Kennedy'.

Many school kids there cheered when they heard Kennedy was shot.

Prescott bush was infuriated by Kennedy's firing of Allen Dulles over the Bay of Pigs, and a few months after Bobby was assassinated he wrote Dulles' wife a letter saying 'I have never forgiven them'.

With all that swirling around Dallas, it was less than understandable how several members of Kennedy's Secret Service detail could stay up drinking into the wee hours at a club (The Cellar, owned by an associate of Jack Ruby).

[Paladin]

6. The amount of extreme hatred now directed at Obama......

....makes 1963 Dallas look like a Democratic convention, by comparison.