John F. Kennedy was not really the liberal he was made out to be, and would have been a pro-life president had he lived, says Ira Stoll, author of the provocative new book "
JFK: Conservative."
"He was on the record during the 1960 presidential campaign. Somebody asked him about population control, which was a big issue at the time, and he said that in Japan they enforced abortion, and he said most Americans would find that repugnant," Stoll told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
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"That combined with . . . appointing the dissenting justice in Roe vs. Wade make a pretty good case that he would have been pro-life. He was in favor of the death penalty . . . he was much less liberal than a lot of people would think today."
Stoll, editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com and former managing editor of the New York Sun, says liberals made the case that at the end of his life, Kennedy turned left on the Cold War.
"They point to an American University speech, which was sort of dovish, although they edited out the hawkish lines of the speech in their books," Stoll said.
"My book restores those lines, and it points out that after he gave the dovish speech, he went to Berlin and said anyone who thinks we can work with the communists, let them come to Berlin. And he said those words right from his heart, and he believed it."
Stoll disagrees with those who insist Kennedy would not have escalated the Vietnam War had he not been assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
"He did escalate the Vietnam War during the three years of his presidency. You can go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington [and] see the list of names. In each year, 1961, 1962, 1963, it gets bigger, and he sent more troops there," Stoll said.
"This claim that he would've withdrawn from Vietnam only started getting made in the 1970s after the war had turned sour. When his advisers were asked in 1964 if he had planned to withdraw, they said no."
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