Killing Kennedy

.”
    With that cryptic message in their possession, the natives paddle away.
    *   *   *
    Night falls. Rain pours down. Kennedy and Ross sleep under a bush. Their arms and legs are swollen from bug bites and reef scratches. The islanders have shown them where yet another canoe is hidden on Naru, and Kennedy insists to Ross that they paddle back into the open sea one more time in search of a PT.
    Only now the Pacific isn’t placid. The rain turns torrential. The seas are six feet high. Kennedy gives the order to turn back, only to have the canoe capsize. The two men cling to their overturned boat, kicking as hard as they can to guide it toward land. Giant waves now pound against the reef. Kennedy is torn from the canoe. The sea’s force holds him under and spins him around. Yet again he believes he is near death. But just when it seems all is lost, he comes up for air. He battles his way onto the reef. Ross is nearby, alive. As the rain pours down, they pick their way across the sharp coral and onto the beach, once again slicing open their feet and legs. This time there are no thoughts of barracuda, only survival. Too exhausted to care about being seen by the Japanese, they collapse onto the sand and sleep.
    John Kennedy is out of solutions. He has done all he can to save his men. There is nothing more he can do.
    As if in a mirage, Kennedy wakes up to see four natives standing over him. The sun is rising. Ross’s limbs are horribly disfigured from his coral wounds, with one arm swollen to the size of a football. Kennedy’s own body is beginning to suffer from infection.
    “I have a letter for you, sir,” one of the natives says in perfect English.
    An incredulous Kennedy sits up and reads the note. The natives have taken his coconut to a New Zealand infantry detachment hidden nearby. The note is from the officer in charge. Kennedy, it says, should allow the islanders to paddle him to safety.
    So it is that John F. Kennedy is placed in the bottom of a canoe, covered in palm fronds to hide him from Japanese aircraft, and paddled to a hidden location on New Georgia Island. When the canoe arrives at the water’s edge, a young New Zealander steps from the jungle. Kennedy comes out from under his hiding place and climbs out of the canoe. “How do you do?” the New Zealander asks formally. “I’m Lieutenant Wincote.” He pronounces his rank the British way: LEFF -tenant.
    “Hello. I’m Kennedy.” The two men shake hands. Wincote nods toward the jungle. “Come up to my tent and have a cup of tea.”
    Kennedy and his men are soon rescued by the U.S. Navy. And thus the saga of PT-109 comes to an end, even as the legend of PT-109 is born.
    *   *   *
    There is another incident that influences John Kennedy’s journey to the Oval Office. Kennedy’s older brother, Joe, is not as lucky about cheating death. The experimental Liberator bomber in which he is flying explodes over England on August 12, 1944. There is no body to bury and no memento of the tragedy to place on JFK’s desk. But that explosion marked the moment when John F. Kennedy became a politician and began the journey into the powerful office in which he now sits.
    *   *   *
    Less than six months after the war ends, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of ten candidates running in the Democratic primary of Boston’s Eleventh Congressional District. The veteran politicians and ward bosses of the deeply partisan city don’t give him a chance of winning. But JFK studies each ward in the district, reveling in his role as the underdog. He recruits a well-connected fellow World War II veteran named Dave Powers to help run his campaign. Powers, a rising political star in his own right, is at first reluctant to help the skinny young man who introduces himself by saying, “My name is Jack Kennedy. I’m a candidate for Congress.”
    But then Powers watches in awe as Kennedy stands before a packed Legion hall on a cold Saturday night in January 1946 and gives a dazzling campaign speech. The occasion is a meeting of Gold Star Mothers, women who have lost sons in World War II. Kennedy speaks for only ten minutes, telling the assembled ladies why he wants to run for office. The audience cannot see that his hands shake anxiously. But they hear his well-chosen words as he reminds them of his own war record and explains why their sons’ sacrifice was so meaningful, speaking in an honest, sincere voice about their bravery.
    Then Kennedy pauses before