This insight requires an explanation. While the emphasis is obviously on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas on 23 November 1963 and its aftermath, Dr Worrall believes to fully understand Kennedy’s presidency, it needs to be seen in the context also of his vice-president and successor Lyndon Baines Johnson. Hence the title.

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The 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death has led to a flood of remembrances of the kind "Where were you when you first heard of JFK's death?" The last time this happened in the US was when Roosevelt died in 1945.

The significance of JFK's life and death lies only partly in the manner in which he died. Related to his assassination, and even more important, was what followed from that. Of the several American political family dynasties the Kennedy dynasty was the most extraordinary, and it survived what happened in Dallas. Robert Kennedy continued his career until his assassination in 1967. Edward Kennedy went on to be a highly venerated Senator and doyen of the Democratic Party until his death in 2009. And Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, was recently appointed US Ambassador to Japan.

What ended in Dallas was not the dynasty but Camelot. JFK, with his clannish Irish Catholic background, his glamorous wife Jackie, his youthful charm and boyish good looks, and an adoring media, was at the heart of Camelot. It was the song that he apparently played every night before going to bed: "Don't let it be forgot, that over there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot!"  Incidentally, the whole idea of Camelot was Jackie's. She was concerned at how the Kennedys would be portrayed after they left office. History, she believed, is written by old men looking back pessimistically. And so she adopted the Broadway musical of that name which began playing in 1960. Because of Kennedy the album broke all record sales in the US.

I was a PhD student at Cornell University in upper New York State at the time and I can remember as though it were yesterday a call from a fellow South African, Dudley Kessell, who now lives in Israel. "Denis, they have killed Kennedy! This f..... mad country". I remember Dudley as a very compassionate person with a strong commitment to human and democratic values and behind his grief and anger was the assumption that right-wingers had done it - which, given the strong prejudice among Northern liberals towards Southerners was to be expected.

I got to a television set in time to see Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office in the president's plane on St Andrews Air Force Base. Jackie and brother Bobby stood next to the judge. Aside from the death of a husband and a brother, Bobby's body language said it all: this was the end of the Kennedy era, a beautiful life ended by some "redneck" and now to be succeeded by a man so different in background, manners and presence.

JFK's performance as president was patchy. Good in international relations, at a time when only two countries counted (The US and The Soviet Union). Kennedy charmed nations in between - the same charm that he brought to a divided Berlin with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner!" But his domestic performance was something else. He failed, where a president has to succeed, in getting Congress behind his policies. At a time when race and racial issues were high on the American agenda, he failed to get critical civil rights legislation through Congress. It was left to Lyndon Johnson, the Southerner, to pass this legislation and laws relating to health and taxes.

Both politicians had the same style - they were consensus politicians rather than conflict politicians. But there were fundamental differences which I think reflected the way they went into politics. JFK's entry into politics was a gilded one. The product of top schools and Harvard, with an influential and wealthy father at the centre of things as a politically appointed US ambassador to the UK - the highest post in the American diplomatic service - who very much wished his son to go into politics. JFK had all the connections.

By contrast LBJ was born in a small farmhouse in Texas, went to an insignificant Teachers College, and went on to be a secondary school teacher.  In contrast to JFK's gilded entry to politics, this man had to climb every greasy pole to get to the top.

Incidentally, Johnson mentioned teaching Mexicans in this school and later said that he would never forget the faces of the boys and girls in that little school, realising that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor “And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation would never close a door to knowledge”. This explains LBJ’s life-long promotion of education.

LBJ could not have delivered Kennedy speeches of the kind: “Ask not what your country can do for you etc etc. But on the other hand, Kennedy could never have spoken as LBJ did in the midst of the Selma racial riots when, cutting deep into his Southern folk, he said: “You have not heard a Democratic speech in 30 years because all you hear at election time is “Nigra, Nigra, Nigra”.. I speak tonight of the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy…In Selma long-suffering men and women peacefully protest at the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted, one good man, a man of God, was killed…the issue for equal rights for American Negroes is an issue of such profound importance.  Even if we defeated every enemy, doubled our wealth and reached the stars but not resolved this issue, we will have failed as a people and as a nation”.
I have vivid memories of Johnson making his first statement to Congress. It was written by Ted Sorenson, who was Kennedy's main speechwriter and was typically Sorenson except for one sentence. Somewhere near the middle of the speech, LBJ dramatically paused, gained the attention of every single member of Congress, and said in a strong Southern sing-song drawl: "I've been in Congress for 24 years. I’ve got congress in the marra o mah bones!” The response was tumultuous. It is no wonder that he got congress to pass all JFK’s sidelined legislation - some of it (like the voting act) historic.

Johnson, of course, came to a sticky end on Vietnam. But it is often forgotten that it was JFK who took the decision to involve the US in Vietnam and by the time Johnson had assumed office as President there already were 22 000 US soldiers (advisors) in Vietnam.