VISITING HISTORIAN OFFERS INSIGHTS ON JOHN KENNEDY

America's love affair with John F. Kennedy began with his election in November 1960 and was still going strong at the time of his death in November 1963, says author and historian James N. Giglio, professor of history at Southwest Missouri State University at Springfield.

"Americans liked John Kennedy. He never went below 59 percent in the Gallup Poll, so this admiration did not start with his death," Giglio said in an interview here Saturday. "He was probably the most telegenic president we've ever had. His approval rating during his press conferences was 91 percent. Even after the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, Kennedy still had an 80 percent positive opinion rating."

Giglio was in Cape Girardeau Friday to present a lecture on "JFK: The Personality, The Presidency, and the Film," at the Southeast Missouri State University Conference on History.

Giglio based his lecture on material gathered for his book, "The Presidency of John F. Kennedy." The book is one of a series of volumes published by University Press of Kansas on American presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The book was published in December 1991 and has received critical acclaim for its content and new material.

"The purpose of the series is to try to provide an overview of a particular presidency dealing with that president's relationships with the Congress, the judicial branch, the press, how he ran his office, his personal life and how it impacted on his presidency," Giglio explained.

Giglio, 53, a graduate of Kent State University and who received his doctorate at Ohio State University, also has first-hand knowledge of the Kennedy years. He was an Army intelligence officer stationed at Fort Meade, Md., at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.

Giglio spent a part of several years at the Kennedy Library in Boston reviewing the written and oral interview records of the Kennedy White House era. He said some of the material was closed to researchers for more than 30 years and was opened only through the efforts of the National Archives and the Freedom of Information Act. Among them the materials were Secret Service gate records that show who visited the White House.

Giglio says Kennedy was extremely popular with Americans in the early 1960s because he was a young, dynamic person. "We were used to older leaders at the time, such as Truman, Eisenhower and Krushchev. Here comes this young Kennedy with a very attractive personality, wife and family," he said. "He was similar to Ronald Reagan in that both men were good communicators, both had upbeat, positive personalities. He also had excellent manners toward women and older men and treated them with proper respect. Kennedy was most often a patient person, with a lot of charm and courtesy."

Giglio said Kennedy also used humor very effectively, "which is a great quality for a political leader to have, that is, not to always take himself seriously." He said Kennedy was very articulate. His speech writer, Ted Sorensen, is still not given the full credit he deserves for his excellent speeches, Giglio asserts.

Giglio said Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, set men's and women's fashion trends while they were in the White House. "Overall, America in the early 1960s was a time of optimism," he continued. "We perceived ourselves as moving in the right direction as a nation. He made us feel good about ourselves."

Giglio said Kennedy also sought - like no other American president since - to motivate America's youth to serve their country in new organizations like the Peace Corps.

Americans also admired Kennedy because he took the blame when he, or someone in his administration, made a mistake, the historian said.

"What most people do not know is that every day of his life in the White House was filled with physical pain," said Giglio. "In addition to his well-known back problem, Kennedy also suffered from chronic colitis and prostatitis, and Addison's Disease. He took medication and painkillers each day for these ailments. In fact, Kennedy actually received his Navy medical discharge not from his back injury but for the chronic colitis.

"It is remarkable that with all of this constant pain, which sometimes forced him to use crutches, Kennedy was still able to display his sense of humor and outgoing personality to the public."

As far as the presidency is concerned, Giglio said historians rate Kennedy as an "above average," first-term president. "He gets high marks in both domestic and foreign policy programs, even though there were some setbacks," said Giglio. "Over all, the country was better off economically in 1963 with a growth rate of five percent than it was in January 1961, with an economic growth rate of only 1.5 percent. There was virtually no inflation in 1963; wages were going up, and it was really a good time for most, although certainly not all, Americans."

Giglio said Kennedy's farm program, often overlooked by historians and economists, was very successful, with surpluses at their lowest levels and high market prices for farmers.

Gigilo said Kennedy was working on passage of the Civil Rights Bill that was later approved during the Johnson Administration.

"John Kennedy was probably the most pro-business president we have had," he continued. "And he took a lot of heat from old-line Democrats over his pro-business position."

Giglio says if Kennedy had not been murdered in Dallas in late November 1963, he would have gone on to defeat Sen. Barry Goldwater in a landslide election. "Absolutely. There is no question in my mind," he said. "Kennedy wanted a mandate from the people in his second term, a mandate he didn't get when he beat Nixon by a very small margin in 1960."

Giglio said Kennedy also got good marks in his foreign policy program.

"Kennedy was able to resolve several world crisis he inherited from the Eisenhower administration including Laos, the Belgium Congo war for independence and Soviet influence in Africa, the Berlin Crisis, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. "In all, Kennedy was a fantastic crisis manager, both domestic and foreign."

But Giglio said Kennedy was not the perfect man that some have made him out to be. "He had character flaws like all of us and the most serious was his `womanizing' in the White House," said Gigilo. "But keep in mind John Kennedy was not the first, nor the only American president, to have extra-marital affairs while in office. And you should not condemn him for this flaw without trying to understand his relationship with his father, Joseph, and his mother, Rose."

Giglio said Kennedy's temper, coupled with the salty language he picked up in the Navy, would flare up when he was provoked, but he rarely carried a grudge toward anyone on the White House staff.

Giglio said new revelations have now shown that Kennedy could have done a better job to avoid the Cuban Missile Crisis and other crisis that he was forced to deal with.

Giglio said the murder of John Kennedy had an immediate, and long-term impact on the country that is still felt today. "Right after his assassination, came the murders of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X. Over the long term, the good feelings of the early 1960s gave way to the turbulence and disillusionment of the late 1960s and 1970s," he said. "Many perceived the political system was not working so they took the law in their own hands. We see that today in Los Angeles. Today, we feel less sure of ourselves than we did during the Kennedy years."

Giglio said the movie, "JFK" is an important film because it makes people think and question, even though it is not historically accurate. "There have been eight investigations into his death, and all of them were flawed. In any case we still do not have all of the documentation in connection with Kennedy, Oswald and others associated with the investigation. We need to know more about how the Warren Commission and the House Commission operated.

Although Giglio does not believe the CIA was directly implicated in Kennedy's death, he says Americans do need to know in what way the CIA was involved so the same thing does not happen in the future.

"Also, we are all seekers of truth. For any murder investigation, and this is an assassination of a president, there is an on-going investigation until there is some resolution. Why should this be any different? The Kennedy murder is still wide open," he said.

Giglio said the JFK movie is an excellent teaching aid when used with recently published books on the Kennedy Assassination issue.