Going public where? Remember that the self censorship of the media back then was intense. JFK had a huge cult of personality, which outlived him. Every public school had pictures of him well into the 1970s. Not bad for a president whose accomplishments were minor at best.
Even though it was very limited “public” knowledge, the Kennedy family did not admit to any of his health problems until the 1980s. The media certainly didn’t, beyond back pain.
JFK might have had Addison’s disease as early as 1946, and it is now known that at first, he was only given a year to live. So he obviously intended to keep going until he died. A later diagnosis was that he wouldn’t live past 45, and he has passed that age as well.
So if asked to resign for health reasons, he would have refused. And if he ran for reelection, he probably would have been reelected.
An unanswered question is why LBJ retained JFK’s cabinet, though their was tremendous mutual hatred between him and them. It implies that they had very powerful persuasion at their command.
“JFK had a huge cult of personality, which outlived him. Every public school had pictures of him well into the 1970s. Not bad for a president whose accomplishments were minor at best.”
Of course you realize this is so because he was martyred. The same thing happened to Lincoln: widely despised in his own time, beloved by history.
“So if asked to resign for health reasons, he would have refused”
We need not ask the president to resign, if he was in fact insane, as you implied he would have become.
Not really. Obama is using old Clinton cronies, and he and the Clintons are at much greater odds than Johnson and Kennedy were. It’s not as if Johnson could have gotten away with piling on a bunch of good old boys from Texas. There’s a lot to be said for continuity after a shock to the body politic.
“Going public where? Remember that the self censorship of the media back then was intense.”
Be that as it may, those in the know that wanted him dead, as you imply, could have at least tried leaking the story to Kennedy’s opponents before taking the huge step of assassinating him.