In the thousand days of his presidency—a reign marked by such solid achievements as the establishment of the Peace Corps and the launch of America’s race to the moon, not to mention victory in a nail-biting war of nerves with the Russians—Kennedy all but weaponized the medium that had helped elect him. Under Kennedy, presidential news conferences became not “experiments” but events. In a way, they came to overshadow his accomplishments. Not even FDR could have made (or would have wanted to make) such a claim.
