"A good man"

 

A close friend of JKF Jr.'s, John Perry Barlow, a Wyoming rancher and Grateful Dead lyricist, recounts a conversation they had when John was at Brown University.

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“He called me once and said, ‘It seems like it would be a cakewalk for me because everyone expects me to a great man. But it does seem to me, as I read these biographies of great men through history, they were not particularly great at home...I think it would be a much more interesting challenge to see if I could make myself into a good man.’ Barlow recalls.

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Two weeks before the plane crash on July 16, 1999, alongside wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, JFK Jr. and Barlow revisited that long ago conversation.

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At one point, I said ‘Do you remember that conversation we had when you were in college about you becoming a good man?’ Barlow recounts. He said ‘Of course I do. I think about that conversation frequently,’ Barlow recalls him saying.

Barlow says he then told him, 'you’ve become that person I aspired that you would be. You’ve been graceful and kind and good.'

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After a long pause, John responded: 'I am very proud you are proud of me.'"

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Political future

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JFK Jr. often was asked if and when he would be running for office. He was extremely popular (labeled "the Sexiest Man Alive") and was a shoo in for any political office if he decided to run.

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He had said that his father encouraged all Americans, men and women, regardless of what may be their chosen profession, to consider giving some of their life to the field of politics.

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Sexiest man alive

 

“People” magazine famously crowned Kennedy the “Sexiest Man Alive" in 1988. Some thirty plus years later, the JFK Jr. issue remains the best-selling Sexiest Man Alive cover in the magazine’s history.