Blood and Glass

What might the world be like today had President John F. Kennedy lived to be reelected? And is human nature a universal condition or one that changes with the society of its time? The profiles of four English royal leaders in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and a 1960s American president each provide a clue. Each one acted on an idea far from the mainstream of their time, one that helped in time to form the foundation for future development. Was there any loss of understanding of the other age because of a fundamental change to human nature? Would JFK have been counted among those leaders who acted, on the major issue for his presidency, the Vietnam war, contrary to the prevailing advice and expectations, bringing about social and political change in the world? Or would he have accepted and acted on the majority cold war military advice to provide U.S. combat troops to save South Vietnam and Asia from falling into the communist sphere like dominoes. The full meaning of President Kennedy's decision and death is explored in this book, proving that those who forget the past are likely doomed to repeat it. The corollary to that aphorism of essayist George Santayana is that those who do not want to repeat the past's mistakes must have done the hard mental work of understanding what the lessons of history are, refusing to shy away from hard truths and rejecting the fantasies of imagined 'deep state' conspiracies....