Talk:John F. Kennedy

False HSCA report

This isn't true:

• The FBI, the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, with the HSCA allowing for the possibility of conspiracy based on disputed acoustic evidence

That language intentionally obscures the gravity of the HSCA's actual report:

• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy
• Agencies and departments of the U.S. Government performed with varying degrees of competency in the fulfillment of their duties. President John F. Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A thorough and reliable investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination was conducted. The investigation into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate. The conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good faith, but presented in a fashion that was too definitive

--Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy page has a good description:

• Contrary to the Warren Commission, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979 concluded that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The HSCA found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. While agreeing with the Commission that Oswald fired all the shots which caused the wounds to Kennedy and Governor Connally, it stated that there were at least four shots fired and that there was a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President.

Please fix this. 00099a99000 (talk) 17:24, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor correction

The Bay of Pigs section says:

but with no covert help from the United States

I think that the correct wording would be:

but with no overt help from the United States

The original plan was to invade with no overt help from the United States, but with lots of covert help from the United States.

Banjohunter (talk) 21:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies.[186]

The link provided does not support the claim that he wished to expand or alter the countries of origin of immigrants to the United States — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.164.33.162 (talk) 02:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not the best sourcing for the statement. Actually, the previous footnote (185, NPR) does a better job, but Ted Kennedy could be viewed as a somewhat less than completely neutral opinion.

The campaign press release at 186 is vague on the subject and seems to contain non sequiturs. The statements:

Senator John F. Kennedy today pledged that "high priority" would be given by a Democratic administration to the platform plank calling for amendments to the immigration and naturalization laws to ban discrimination based on national origin.

and:

The U.S. Congress, under Democratic leadership, has taken the initial steps toward liberalizing changes in immigration law, Senator Kennedy told the group.

seem to support the article's statement, but each is followed by JFK quotes related to the rights of naturalized citizens, not liberalization of naturalization laws themselves. Overall, I'd say the article content is probably accurate, but could use better backup. Fat&Happy (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thich Quang Duc

Thich Quang Duc burned himself protesting sweet Kennedy. Should be mentioned. At least as a "see also".--76.31.238.174 (talk) 05:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

JFK's 1962 award to John Glenn

Do we need to discuss this? Why is my short narrative about JFK awarding John Glenn the NASA service medal 1n 1962 being removed by Sunray? Are other editors in favor of this decision?--Ourhistory153 (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Note you even have a image of a picture of this event at Hanger S. --Ourhistory153 (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

As far as Kennedy's life goes, it seems pretty trivial. (Exactly where is the image of a picture of this event?) Fat&Happy (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Have to agree with Fat&Happy on this. You could try and add the very minor point to John Glenn's article. Kierzek (talk) 19:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with Fat&Happy about this. The information is not really about Kennedy (who is, after all the subject of the article); it reveals nothing interesting or illuminating about him. If we were to put a line into the article about everyone notable who received an honour from Kennedy, the article would swell to hundreds of pages. Our goal in Wikipedia is to provide information that gives and overview of the particular subject. Simply cataloging information is not what we are about. Sunray (talk) 22:21, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Conversion to {sfn} Harvard style citations

I would like to convert this article to having {{sfn}} templates for its citations. I am in favour of the sfn and harv templates, because when used in conjunction with the script available at User:Ucucha/HarvErrors, citation errors are easily detectable. The kind of errors that can be spotted include citations that do not point to any of the books in the bibliography, and citations that point to different editions than the one shown in the bibliography. Pagination is often not the same between various editions of a book, so it is important, for verifiability, to know which edition was used. The script also detects books listed in the bibliography that are not actually cited. These can be moved to a "further reading" section. Another good reason to use citation templates is because then the material is viewable by bots. Citations not in templates are invisible to bots. Bots can help us in several ways, including adding missing authors, adding DOIs, and adding PMIDs. A further advantage to sfn templates is that the citations then become clickable links down to the books which are referenced. Some people do not like then for this reason as the citations then become blue instead of black. I am not necessarily a fan of blue, but I think the clickable links are of value to the reader. Any discussion on this proposed change is welcome. We have room for more templates on the page, as the data is as follows:

NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 85804/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1240077/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 696404/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 20/500

-- Dianna (talk) 02:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It will take a lot of time but is worth it in the end. Kierzek (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

A conditional "Yes" vote.

The only concern I have is related to a situation I believe you're aware of; the Barack Obama page. I'm not Wiki-technical enough to have more than a conceptual understanding of the numbers posted. Is "Template argument size" the only real concern about templates? From all the discussions at the Obama page, it seemed the problems were being blamed on actual number of (either different or total) templates used, not data volume. Is there any chance of having similar problems of unexpanded templates occur here?

If that's not a valid concern, I say it will definitely be worth it. Fat&Happy (talk) 04:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I am pretty certain part of the problem on the Obama page is not just the template load but the sheer number of different sources. Citing the same book 50 times is not as burdensome as citing 50 different websites. A cite web template is a more complex template than an sfn and thus is more burdensome. Obama has four navboxes at the bottom and Kennedy only has two. Obama is not actually broken at the moment; it is at 2022558 out of 2048000. You might like to have a look at Adolf Hitler, which I successfully converted. It's a question of keeping an eye on things and not adding th cite web templates to the internet sources until we are sure that we have room for them. Remember that the vast majority of our readers are not logged in, and thus are served a cached version of the page. This means the only people suffering poorer load times due to big article size are those of us who are logged in.

I hope to eliminate some of the web citations and source to books; as Kennedy has been dead for many years, we should not have to rely on web pages for information. We also need to cut down the size of the article by a couple thousand words (we are at 13,000 and should target in the 10,000 to 11,000 range). Presumably some sources will be cut along with any content that is pruned away. -- Dianna (talk) 04:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I sort of guessed you had that covered, but figured it doesn't hurt to ask. Fat&Happy (talk) 05:15, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Extra-marital relationships

This section needs to be tidyied up.

One error (?) is the statement that "corroborated reports allege, but others deny, that Kennedy had affairs with a number of women". If there is corroberation, presumably the alleged affair must be regarded as true. It is far harder to prove affairs did not occur, so how much weight can be given to reports denying a particular affair? This introduction implies there is doubt that Kennedy had extra-marital affairs. Isn't it actually the case that he is known to had numerous affairs, the only questions being with which women? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 05:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

This article is in the process of being tidied up right now. There is no doubt that Kennedy had numerous extramarital affairs, and I have reworked the content to reflect that. Thank you for your note. --Dianna (talk) 06:06, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Ireland

I have removed the section on the visit to Ireland, as most of the material in the section does not appear in the quoted sources. I am open to discussion on this, or to reinsertion of the content when better sources can be found. -- Dianna (talk) 03:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Appeasement in Munich

I understood - I believe from an NPR interview - that Appeasement in Munich was originally in favor of appeasment (as was his father's policy), and was only re-written with the opposite emphasis after war broke out, and the former conclusion would be seen as anti-patriotic. Anyone familiar with this claim?

MarkBul (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Dallek (2003) has an analysis on pp. 61–66. He says the original thesis defended Baldwin and Chamberlain and blamed short-sighted politicians and the general public's opposition to increased taxes for the appeasement policy at Munich. Later the manuscript was revised for publication as Why England Slept to be more balanced, de-emphasising the role of the public and democracy as a whole, and giving recommendations for national security. So nowhere does Dallek say the thesis was "for" or "against" appeasement, but rather an analysis of why it happened. --Dianna (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

A July 1945 letter certifying that Kennedy was in Europe on special assignment for Hearst Newspapers.

At the end of the section on John F. Kennedy#Military service, please add a thumbnail of the photograph at right, as well as the following:

In April 1945, Kennedy's father, a friend of William Randolph Hearst, arranged for his son to obtain a position as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers; the assignment kept Kennedy's name in the public eye and "expose[d] him to journalism as a possible career."

Reference

<ref>{{cite book| title= John F. Kennedy: A Biography | first= Michael |last= O'Brien | year= 2006 | isbn= 0312357451 | publisher= Macmillan | page= 180 | quote= In April, through his friend William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy secured Jack a temporary assignment as a Hearst reporter. The position would give Jack something stimulating to do, keep him name before the public, probably grant him credentials to travel in Europe, and expose him to journalism as a possible career| url= http://books.google.com/books?id=fxzd__gA_I4C&pg=PA180 | accessdate=2012-02-27}}</ref>

Thanks in advance. 67.101.7.48 (talk) 03:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. He worked as a correspondent for the month of May 1945, covering the Potsdam conference and other events in Europe at the time (Dallek, p. 104). I am not sure this episode is important enough to include, as the article is over-sized already, by some 2000 words. What do other editors think? --Dianna (talk) 04:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If you have concern about the article's length, instead of omitting those 30 or 40 words about his father's help during his transition from the military to politics, I'd suggest following WP:SS and WP:PRESERVE and shorten by hundreds of words the eight or more long sections on topics that already have separate articles, such as 1960 presidential election, Image, social life and family and Southeast Asia. 67.101.5.35 (talk) (a.k.a. 67.101.7.48) 07:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That kind of stuff will be done too, in prep for a GA bid. The target is 10000 words. I am going ahead with the addition and have confirmed by a preview on Amazon.ca that the material appears on Page 180 of the edition of O'Brien we are already sourcing in the article. --Dianna (talk) 17:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

number of electoral votes in 1960

I have found: "in the Electoral College he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Another 14 electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia." We need to review the number of electoral votes; I heard that Harry Byrd received 15 electoral votes. What YOU currently have here is accounting for 303 + 219 + 14, which is only 536. There were 537 electoral votes in 1960.

In 1956 (and for many presidential elections before 1956), there were 531 electoral votes (96 Senators, 435 Representatives; remember there were 48 states then; D.C. did not have electoral votes until 1964). By 1960, Alaska and Hawaii had been admitted, so they sent a total of 4 Senators, and were alotted 1 Representative each; the U.S. House was temporarily expanded to 437 members so that the apportionment based on 1950 census would not be disturbed. Effective 3 Jan. 1963, the U.S. House went back to 435 members. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 21:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I have just read the wikipedia entry about 1960 presidential election. It says that a "faithless" elector from Oklahoma voted for Byrd, so that would be the 15th electoral vote for Byrd. Could someone please account for that in this article (about John F. Kennedy)? I don't have it front of me who carried Oklahoma in 1960. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia entry is unsourced and cannot be considered a reliable source in any event. I found a source that shows six Alabama and eight Mississippi and one Oklahoma for a total of 15 for Byrd. I will use this citation to improve both articles. Thanks for your help. --Dianna (talk) 00:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 3 March 2012

Yes hello, I would like to request the pronunciation of President Kennedy's full name from the audio option have another voice or a voice over of what it is now. It's not the fact that it is in a Indian/Arabic accent that bothers me, though it is a American President.... It's the fact that his middle name Fitzgerald and his last name Kennedy are to heavy on the accent. I don't want to nit pick but if this could be voiced over in a standard American or a North Eastern accent like his origin I would be very happy. And I would be happy to do it if needed I am from Boston and it would be a honor to edit the Presidents page. Username -Dreaelordfrips -Dan

Dreadlordfrips (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to change here - you didn't uploaded a new file, so we simply can't use another file because we have no other right now! mabdul 12:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

"Church - State - and the Unspoken Speech"

I have twice removed content under the section header "Church - State - and the Unspoken Speech", added by CIC7. The first time it was added, it was completely unsourced, and the second time, one source had been added. Regardless of sourcing, I feel this 514-word passage gives undue weight to an incident that is unimportant in the context of the presidency of JFK. I don't think the inclusion of the material is warranted, and am posting here for further discussion. -- Dianna (talk) 23:08, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Im sorry, I had added one source and saved it, I should have finished all my sources. This source was the location of the information about the interviews between Kennedy and Billy Graham. I was in the process of adding more sources when I was stopped. I was adding the source of the text of the speech that Kennedy intended to deliver at the Dallas Trade Mart and J. Vernon McGee's sermon about Jack Kennedy's interviews with Billy Graham which confirmed Kennedy's interest in the Second Coming of Jesus and the scriptures. Confirming that this was something that was known by other ministers outside the Graham circle but apparently not to the general public, even to this day. It appears to me, and I think I understand the policy on bias, that although the interviews with Graham are not well known, they and the speech he intended to deliver in Dallas are historical facts. And although Kennedy started his Presidency assuring the public that he felt that no president should be under the influence of any cleric he felt that he and any citizen of the United States were free to use whatever information they wanted. I feel that in light of the recent comments of candidate Rick Santorum the issue has some current relevance. But more than that, I think this shows another side of Kennedy, one that has not been well known. Apparently people are comfortable with the image of Kennedy as the King of Camelot, Lothario in Chief, UFO believer and LSD taker. Apparently there another side to him. I am trying to document two sources for it. It is a historical fact and the last line of the Dallas speech, the unspoken speech...I request that you let me include Church - State - and the Unspoken Speech so I can finish my references and the public can add to it.CIC7 —Preceding undated comment added 00:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC).

I must agree with Diannaa but for the part: When Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas he had a speech in his pocket that he intended to deliver at the Dallas Trade Mart. It addressed the challenges that the United States faced in the 1960's. We were not going to back down from the challenges, although our military and scientific options were limited. Nuclear weapons were of no use against guerilla warfare or internal subversion. (cite needed, ofcourse) Kierzek (talk) 03:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

File:John F Kennedy Official Portrait.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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