JFK ... the crown king of Camelot

"It's the classic cycle for a hero," says David Lubin, author of "Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images. "He's venerated after his premature death, loses his reputation, and plunges into rehabilitation.

"Kennedy's star is on the rise again."

Americans love tragic heroes, and the Kennedys have been the royal dynasty: Jackie the fragile beauty. Bobby the folk hero. John Jr. the sex symbol. Caroline the survivor.

Yet no one shines brighter than the big guy, JFK, Mr. Charisma, the man you can't take your eyes off. Forty years later, he literally makes men and women swoon.

Last year, a Zogby International Poll of registered voters named him the greatest American president. An ABC.com poll of Americans put him second, behind Abraham Lincoln. JFK was the most admired president in a 1996 nationwide Marist Poll.

Kennedy's term was short, his accomplishments debated. So why the fascination? Many reasons, some not so obvious.

Obviously, the big one is murder, which froze the 46-year-old president in time like a modern-day Dorian Gray. Imagine him today, white-haired and 86, sunning himself in Palm Beach Even though he was a classic Cold Warrior, Kennedy is popular around the globe. Latinos point to the Alliance for Progress. Young people still join the Peace Corps, galvanized by his idealism and his promise. The Cuban missile crisis is seen as sparking the Soviet break-up. Author Thomas Maeier said Kennedy's 1957 book "A Nation of Immigrants" led to a 1963 reform bill that his brothers later got passed. And even today, the results resonate.

"When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected, Ted Kennedy said it was proof positive that we are a nation of immigrants," Maier noted.

Yet who remembers policy? Kennedy was the quintessential Westerner. He was young, good-looking and sexy. Even his randy private life added excitement and danger to the man. He was publicly relaxed, disarming with witty self-deprecation. When asked how he became a World War II hero, he said, "Easy. They sank my boat."

JFK was arguably the best modern presidential speaker. Armed with brilliant wordsmiths such as Ted Sorenson, Kennedy gave an inaugural address that is one of the greatest American speeches. Stylistically, he conveyed conviction with sincerity. With other great communicators such as Reagan, Clinton and even FDR, sometimes you saw the gears turning.

Kennedy seduced the press with his entertaining news conferences. Asked what he thought about news coverage since he took office, Kennedy said, "Well, I'm, uh, reading it more and enjoying it less."

Reporters of his era keep the flame alive, going out of their way to share anecdotes about "Jack" with a familiarity unheard of for other presidents.

Yet for many, even today, Kennedy was more than a president. He was a rock star, James Bond, Casanova, romantic poet, pop culture icon.

The myth began with Jackie, who said: "So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man." She begged Theodore White to use the Camelot allegory in a December 1963 story about the man on the fast track to martyrdom. She and Bobby romanticized JFK the idealist, not the pragmatist he actually was.

The Kennedy Library in Boston stokes the furnace daily. With a secrecy that shuts out historians faster than you can say Norma Jean, the library limits access to friendly biographers such as Maier ("The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings.") and Robert Dallek ("An Unfinished Life").

The library is following a 45-year tradition of attempting to manipulate public perception. "We'll sell Jack like soap flakes," bragged his father, Joseph P. before the 1960 race. Jack carefully crafted himself, too. Every reddish, chestnut hair was in place. He never ate in public, fearing awkward food-in-mouth photos. Considered the best golfer of all the presidents; JFK often played in secret. Golf was old man Ike's game.

Style works, and it is lost on post-JFK presidents. Kennedy would never display his surgical scar, nor fight a killer rabbit. He wouldn't throw up in a prime minister's lap or show off in a flight uniform.

That makes the Zapruder film of his shooting jarring. The calculated Kennedy cool couldn't prevent that ultimate moment of vulnerability. Between Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, Nov. 22, 1963, is the "where were you?" moment for a generation. The suddenness, the gruesome film and the endless conspiracy theories keep the public morbidly fascinated.

Oliver Stone's "J.F.K.," almost 30 years later, grossed $70 million. The Kennedy presidential car is in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. More than 400,000 annually visit the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. Here, the assassin's lair in the old Texas School Book Depository is carefully preserved.

"The place really has an emotional effect," says Jack Bunning, marketing director at the museum, " this being hallowed ground, much like the Ford's Theatre site."

"Grassy knoll" means only one thing around the world, and conspiracy buffs comb it for clues implicating the Mafia, CIA, Castro, Oliver Stone or Lyndon Johnson.

ABC claims that a computer-generated reconstruction airing Nov. 20 proves one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed Kennedy. Court TV's Forensic Files on Nov. 19 echoes ABC with acoustical evidence. Yet conspiracy talk goes on, keeping Kennedy's face in public.

"It's a parlor game," says Court TV producer Paul Dowling. "We can all buy the Zapruder film, we can all play the home version of 'Where Did the Bullet Come From?' If there was a film of Lincoln getting whacked, it'd be the same."

President Kennedy was also the first Hollywood president. Name an actress JFK wasn't linked to. He partied with Sinatra until the crooner's Mob ties became too much of a liability.

Kennedy wanted Cary Grant or Warren Beatty to play him in a movie. His Hollywood obsession mirrors America, so it's one more thing about him with which average folk can identify.

In 1961, Life magazine's list of JFK's 10 favorite books included the Bond thriller, "From Russia With Love." Fleming wrote Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1962: "I am delighted to take this opportunity to thank Kennedys everywhere for the electric effect their commendation has had on my sales in America." The film version of the book was the last movie JFK saw, two days before his death. Kennedy disciple Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has downplayed the "alleged" Bond interest, but it fits Kennedy's public persona and adds to the appeal.

Kennedy's sex drive, which irked a self-described male "married virgin" adviser, added to the mystique for others who loved the bad boy image.

"I have been observing how the public has been very kind to him," says Christine Arato, supervisory park ranger at the John F. Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline, Mass. "People are very forgiving."