The night before his tragic death, President Kennedy took his wife, Jacqueline, by the hand and walked her to the dance floor amid hundreds of admiring eyes at the League of United Latin American Citizens national convention banquet. Only a short time before, many of those stopping to watch had criticized the president for not having kept his promises to the Mexican American community. They had come out in unprecedented numbers to support his 1960 campaign and expected something in return.

Kennedy's campaign stops in Texas were meant to shore up support from this important constituency, and he quickly found that they were ready to rally around him even though they had ferociously criticized his administration for the last two years. Why the change? For the Mexican American political class, there were unique issues that made it so, but it also reflected their belief in the Kennedy mystique: a political ambiance that grew out of his assassination and might be defined as the construction of an aura of what people saw, what they hoped they saw, and what his closest advisors and family members told people they saw during the Kennedy years.

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy is Stephen F. Knott's attempt to reconcile his present positive views of the Kennedy administration with what were once unfavorable views resulting from his work at