JFK: Predicted His Own Death in a fashion

The president made the ominous prediction following the Cuban Missile Crisis, after he had successfully negotiated the peaceful withdrawal 

of Russian missiles from the island with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, in November 1962.

“(JFK) said to Mrs Kennedy after his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis: ‘If anyone’s going to kill me, it should happen now,”‘ said Professor 

Robert Dallek, who has examined unreleased audio interviews with Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady.

Kennedy was shot dead on November 22, 1963 in Dallas.

Prof Dallek said Kennedy had previously been told by the historian David Herbert Donald that Abraham Lincoln’s reputation may not have been 

as great had he lived long enough to become embroiled in domestic politics.

“At that lecture, Kennedy asked Professor Donald if Lincoln had lived, would his reputation be as great as it currently is in the United States? And 

predictably, Donald said probably not because he would have had to have wrestled with the problems of reconstruction, the post Civil War era,” 

he said.

“And Kennedy, remembering that, said to Mrs Kennedy after his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he said if anyone’s going to kill me, it should 

happen now.”

Mrs Kennedy gave a series of seven undisclosed interviews in the early part of 1964, which are set to be released in full in September to mark the 

50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration.