And there you have it, SK, the important observations Harry made of JFK's presidency.
Like Carter, he attempted to reverse a foreign coup, but in Cuba, not Iran. Like Obama, sent guys kill an enemy leader (Kennedy failed w/Castro; Obama succeeded w/Bin Laden.)
Unlike Bush, he didn't just say "he didn't really care where he was."
Unlike Reagan, he didn't invade a medical school and tell everybody what a BAMF he is (or send Marines to sit in barracks as a target, also a Reagan tactic.)
He'd be squarely in his own party today, the Democrats, despite the usual rightist claims that all good things were "really" republican (ditto FDR.) It's the righties that have been all "oooooh the war is so terrible" the last couple years, after all. (love it or leave it, hippies.)
As to his record of accomplishment: Well, we didn't all die, right? Other than that, meh. Two years, yanno? But he galvanized the country and passed the word that everybody didn't think like the "old men" of the day about things like civil rights -- i.e., he provided a visual and emotional cue that the young are by nature not wrong and bad. That ballooned in a variety of ways after his death. LBJ on his own would not have been LBJ on his mission to continue JFK's work.
A very interesting time, and a mixed bag -- both the times and the individual.
PFnV