John F Kennedy made ominous legacy prediction a year before assassination, says Robert Dallek
The president made the ominous prediction following the Cuban Missile Crisis, after he had successfully negotiated the peaceful withdrawal of Russian missiles from the island with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, in November 1962.
"(JFK) said to Mrs Kennedy after his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis: 'If anyone's going to kill me, it should happen now,"' said Professor Robert Dallek, who has examined unreleased audio interviews with Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady.
Kennedy was shot dead on November 22, 1963 in Dallas.
Prof Dallek said Kennedy had previously been told by the historian David Herbert Donald that Abraham Lincoln's reputation may not have been as great had he lived long enough to become embroiled in domestic politics.
"At that lecture, Kennedy asked Professor Donald if Lincoln had lived, would his reputation be as great as it currently is in the United States? And predictably, Donald said probably not because he would have had to have wrestled with the problems of reconstruction, the post Civil War era," he said.