American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Arthur Schlesinger wrote in his daybook that “JFK accomplished an Americanization of the world far deeper and subtler than anything JFD [John Foster Dulles] ever dreamed of—not a world Americanized in the sense of adopting the platitudes and pomposities of free enterprise—but a world Americanized in the perceptions and rhythms of life. JFK conquered the [dreams] of [youth]; he penetrated the world as jazz penetrated it, as Bogart and J. D. Salinger and Faulkner penetrated it; not the world of the chancelleries, but the underground world of fantasy and hope.” Schlesinger added ominously, “But if Kennedy’s presidency gave rise to dreams, it also triggered fear and reaction. To the Cold War establishment and other bastions of the old guard, JFK was not a charismatic symbol of change, he was a stark threat.”