JFK was very overrated as President. He's revered in large part because he was the first of the World War 2 generation to serve as President. He communicated himself well and was very charming which gave him a much higher rating among contemporary historians. It helped that he was President during a very important period in American history, the Cold War was peaking in 1961 as Kennedy took office. JFK's tragic death forever enshrined him in history although he probably didn't deserve this so much. It is unfair to judge him completely however because much of his agenda hadn't been fully carried out by the time of his death. However, considering what he did as President, it is fair to say that clearly he doesn't deserve to be ranked among the top Presidents. In many ways Kennedy represents the America of the 1950's and 1960's: clean cut, idealistic, vigorous. That's why people liked him. His record deserves to be examined more closely. On the foreign policy front, the biggest mistake he made was not providing air cover for the Cuban fighters during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA deserved much of the blame for the failure, but it was Kennedy's belated approval of air cover that created the mess. He blew our cover, exposing America's role in the invasion, plus the aircover that he approved of was insufficient at any rate. It was a total loss for us. His failure there along with his weak performance him Vienna in his first summit with Nikita Khrushchev caused the Soviets to build up their forces in Berlin and it lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We came unnecessarily close to nuclear war with the Russians because Khrushchev believed that Kennedy was weak. Luckily he was able to deflect the threat by means of a naval blockade and economic sanctions. If the blockade had failed, the US could have escalated the response, thus we wouldn't have been viewed as the aggressor. In the final analysis, Kennedy's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis saved his reputation. Really we came out with the upper hand in that situation: the missiles that we had to remove from Turkey in return for Soviet departure from Cuba were outdated at any rate. This lead up to detente with the Russians, it was realized that a nuclear exchange would not be mutually beneficial for either country. America came out on top and Khrushchev was discredited, but at the end of the day, we became overconfident and that lead to our hubris in Vietnam. The Soviets however did end up achieving nuclear parity in the late 1960's, which caused the end of detente during the Carter Presidency and greater tension. The most important foreign policy development of Kennedy's last year was the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which banned atmospheric testing of atomic weaponry; the only nuclear power which didn't sign on was France, which still occasionally tests its nukes. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress was a farsighted plan designed to resolve structural problems with Latin America's political economy; it addressed the gross inequalities in that regions socio-economic system without resorting to socialism. Problem was that the specter of Castro in Cuba weakened its appeal in the region and ultimately it was dissolved in 1973. Although today such a program would help out Latin America, the Alliance for Peace got lost in other priorities, most notably Vietnam. It can be argued that Kennedy wouldn't have escalated that conflict had he remained in office, but looking at his actions before his death, it was becoming apparent that we were becoming more involved in their domestic politics, namely the assassination of Diem, which was the event that signaled greater American involvement in the region. Domestically, Kennedy didn't do anything really significant. Key to his New Frontier program was a tax cut along with progress in civil rights. He acted on neither in large part because Southern Democrats didn't fully trust him. Much of his program was passed only after his death and Lyndon Johnson's talented legislative manuvers. The release of his medical records in recent years seems to indicate that Kennedy had much less viga than he let on. Most disturbing was the revelation that Kennedy used a doctor named Max Jacobson to acquire speed to help him cope with his Addisons disease and back pain. With the passage of time, Kennedy's Presidency has been examined far more closely. Whatever the verdict, his youthfulness and idealism endeared himself to a generation of Americans. Still he is far less talented than most of his acolytes give him credit for.