At long last the deep thinkers are beginning to catch up with the reality of John Kennedy. Until now they’ve swallowed the media hype on Saint Jack with all the gusto of the boys at McCloskey’s Bar swilling beer.

Your survey on inflated reputations found eight intellectuals naming Kennedy, double the amount for Reagan, and more than double those for Wilson and Truman (three each).

But the late bloomers still didn’t mention the real stinking stuff: the theft of the election itself via the Democratic party machines in Chicago and Texas; the goon squads intimidating voters in both the primaries and the general election; the Pulitzer Prize for a book he didn’t write; the relationship with the Mafia via Judith Campbell; the turning of the White House into a wayside brothel.

All that will have to await a future generation of historians with tougher stomachs than the present bunch.