Editorial: Assassination anniversary

For most citizens even in a retirement haven such as our area, the media attention is akin to news. With the median ages 44 in Collier County and 45 in Lee, there are many who do not remember firsthand those dark days of November 1963.

To many, this charming, witty, youthful leader -- the first president born in the 20th century -- seemed a symbol of a new vitality in a land that had experienced relative quiet in the decade prior to his election. He seemed filled with promise, but that promise was cut short, and it was as if history had been robbed.

But that's where the supposed greatness of Kennedy resided: in a future that we can never know for sure.

His 1,000 days as president were not successful. He did stimulate the economy with a tax cut -- make you think of another president? -- and he acquitted himself reasonably well during the Cuban Missile Crisis, although some historians believe his own ineptitude brought that crisis about. And yes, he initiated the project that caused this country to put men on the moon. That's about it on the positive side.

The negative side includes the fact that he began the involvement leading to the Vietnam quagmire. Some analysts think he might have reversed course had he lived, but there seem at least as many reasons to think them wrong as to think them right. He gave the go-ahead for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and then denied the fighters promised air support. He came late to the cause of civil rights, and it remains debatable whether the cause was ever more to him than a tricky political issue.

Then there were all the lies about his health. He had Addison's disease, back pain, colitis, prostatitis and urethritis. He took all sorts of pills throughout the day, it has been reported, and was pumped up with amphetamines.

And there were his innumerable affairs while he was president, one with a woman suspected of being a communist spy and another with a Mafia moll. This is very reckless, very dangerous stuff. He could have endangered national security. He could have found himself blackmailed.

So here is what the public thinks, according to pollsters: JFK is the second-greatest president in American history, right after Abraham Lincoln. It's important on these anniversaries for the media to tell the whole story. There is more to this one than a murder that stunned the world followed by whodunit conspiracy theories.