Was JFK a "liberal hawk"

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Well? I would say no, due to his support of disarmant. However, he was certainly the most hawkish of his family.

Edit: I mean like Joe Lieberman, I understand him being a Cold War Warrior.

[Fuzzy Bear]

All in all, yes.

Many anti-war liberals believe that JFK was assassinated because he would not allow his Generals to deepen their involvement in Vietnam.  This is the stuff of the movie JFK, and it may well be the case, but it's certainly not firmly established.

After all, JFK, who loathed LBJ and was considering dumping him over the emerging Bobby Baker scandal in the mid-1960s, was likely to pick as LBJ's replacement Sen. George Smathers (D-FL), his best man at his wedding, the guy who introduced Nixon to Bebe Rebozo, the guy who sold Nixon his Key Biscayne residence, and a guy who signed the Southern Manifesto.  JFK was a good President, but he has been enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to use the words of his brother, Ted, at RFK's funeral.  Most liberals here would likely view JFK as a disappointment had he lived and served a full two (2) terms.

[Cassandra]

He certainly was not shy about using the CIA to overthrow foreign governments (Cuba, Iraq, and Vietnam just off the top of my head). That certainly seems hawkish to me. I guess in the context of early Cold War mania he might not seem like a hawk when compared to someone like General LeMay or the CIA's James Angleton, who wanted preemptive war with the Soviet Union while the US still held an overwhelming military advantage. But in the modern context, how could he be anything other than a hawk?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yes, all the programs in the Great Society that Johnson passed was endorsed by Kennedy, he was gonna have Johnson pass thru Congress anyways, after he won 1964, but Cali would have flipped towards Kennedy, Johnson made Kennedy go to Dallas and Robert told Johnson to campaign in Cali, which John lost barely to a better Nixon.

That's why Robert campaigned in Cali not TX in 1968 but they were waiting for him too

[Mr. Smith]

Nope.

He was definitely a hawk, but a liberal?...I'm not so sure ...

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Nope.

He was definitely a hawk, but a liberal?...I'm not so sure ...

Kennedy was known to support Civil rights, the reason why people assume he isnt liberal is that his legacy was cut short and Johnson passed Medicaid a s Medicare, and Civil Rights,  those too were Kennedys legacy.

That's why Hoover didnt go out of way to protect the Civil Rights leaders after they were killed, but the FBI quickly found all of the assassins

[Alben Barkley]

Overall yes but I am not certain if he would have escalated Vietnam the way Johnson did if he had lived. The views of his brothers on the war make me think perhaps not.