No Camelot Without Avalon

I was six years old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. My only personal memories of it are being disappointed that Saturday morning cartoons were preempted, and the interminable dismal gray funeral procession broadcast on black-and-white TV.

My appreciation for Kennedy grew when I learned that he was the one who launched the Apollo program to put men on the moon: I was extremely interested in the space program as a child. It was ironic that the man Kennedy beat in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon, was the president who spoke to the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon, and the president whose signature is on the plaque on the lunar module's descent stage, which now stands on the Sea of Tranquility, and should still be there in a million years.

It's hard not to compare the legacies of those two men: Kennedy was cut down in his prime after averting nuclear apocalypse, a president who aimed for the stars, transformed civil rights from a legal issue to a moral one, and implored us to ask what we can do for our country. Nixon won election in 1968 by promising to extract us from the war in Vietnam, but instead escalated it. He committed crimes and coverups in a reelection campaign he was already winning handily, disgracing himself and wounding the country all over again, almost as badly as Oswald did in 1963.

I have never been one to idolize political leaders, or sports figures, or scientists, or writers, or religious figures. I owe that to Richard Nixon, who resigned when I was 16. The Watergate scandal showed unambiguously that the president of the United States was just an ordinary man: as mean-spirited, bigoted, selfish and profane as any stevedore. Yet even Nixon accomplished some great things -- the EPA, détente with the USSR, and normalizing relations with China.

And so I've never been able to idolize Kennedy. In the years since his death we've found out that he was a womanizer, had terrible physical ailments, and relied on a battery of drugs to get through pain, disease and depression. He weathered political scandals, such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, that motivated his political enemies to distribute a "Wanted for Treason" poster in Dallas just before the assassination. Some even say the moonshot was just a political ploy, a sop for LBJ's Texas.

Yet there's no doubt that the image of the Kennedy family in the White House had a profound effect on the American psyche: after centuries of geezers we had a handsome young president with a pretty wife and cute kids. The country seemed new and fresh and full of hope again. We were a vigorous young nation fighting a world full of crusty, fat old commies. And then it was all smashed in a horrible way, and the country's heart broke.

It was only after Kennedy's death that the "Camelot" comparison was drawn. In an interview for Life magazine, Jackie Kennedy said, “There will be great presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot.”

That article solidified the nostalgic notion in the public mind that the Kennedy administration was a special, magical time. But the very idea that there are great kings and great presidents is the source of many of our problems.

Because there is no magic. There are no great men. There are only flawed men who accomplish great things. And only with the help of countless others. When we idolize and fawn over those who inspire us -- politicians, rock stars, actors -- it gives them delusions of grandeur, allowing them to excuse their pecadilloes and setting them up for an even greater fall.

If Kennedy had not been borne to Avalon he wouldn't be viewed with the same reverence he is today. His problems would have eventually caught up with him, and the most important accomplishment of his administration -- the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- might not have even passed without Johnson using the hammer of the assassination to convince enough Southern Democrats to vote for it.

If you think that sounds cynical and hopeless, you miss the point. The marvelous thing about humanity is that we can still accomplish great things, despite our flaws.

If we actually needed perfection and great men, then our situation would be truly hopeless.