John F Kennedy (JFK) and the freedom of the free world

John F Kennedy (JFK) was the torchbearer of the free world at the height of the Cold War. The New York Times hailed him as someone who “reasserted American leadership of the free world”. When JFK visited the Berlin Wall for the first time on June 23, 1963, he said, “There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the communist world.” JFK paused and then added, “Lassen sie nach Berlin kommen!” (“Let them come to Berlin!”) What did freedom mean to JFK? I got a glimpse of it when I read the then New York Times bestseller, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. Some of the claims made in the book are disputed. However, the broad tone is not. Here is what I gathered from the book about what freedom meant to JFK:

• Freedom to manipulate elections: Chapter ten is titled ‘The stolen election’. Hersh argues that JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, contracted with Chicago mafia leader Sam Giancana and got help from the organized crime syndicate to manipulate the election, especially in Illinois and West Virginia. It involved vote fraud and vote buying. Not all historians agree on whether the Kennedys had a deal with organized crime. However, most agree that there was localized vote fraud. But then the fraud might have been there on both the Democratic and Republican sides. And perhaps vote fraud has been a part of the democratic election process from the beginning. In Hersh’s words, “Money bought Joseph P. Kennedy enormous personal freedom, and bought his son the presidency.” My takeaway is that the Kennedys had the means to manipulate the election, and they exercised it.

• Freedom to overthrow and kill foreign leaders and civilians: Hersh and most historians agree that JFK approved and sustained intense covert efforts to remove Fidel Castro from power, including operations that explicitly involved assassination. The first major operation, the Bay of Pigs, was a major disaster. The CIA recruited and trained 1400 Cuban exiles in Florida for attacking and overthrowing Fidel Castro. On April 17, 1961, the CIA-recruited army made an amphibious landing at the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba’s south coast. The expectation was that there would be widespread revolt against the Castro regime. Instead, two days of fierce fighting resulted in 114 deaths, and 1200 from the exile army were captured. Hersh quotes Kennedy saying, “If we have to get rid of these…men, it is much better to dump them in Cuba than in the United States, especially if that is where they want to go.

Another major overthrow operation supported by the JFK government was to outlive not only JFK, but would consume three more US presidents and eight successive military governments in South Vietnam. JFK approved US support for a coup against Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu in 1963. Ironically, it was JFK who had strongly armed and supported Diem during the early part of his tenure. American troops in Vietnam went from 900 in 1961 to 16,000 in 1963. They were officially classified as “advisors”, though many were involved in combat-related operations. With US support, Diem was expected to fight against communist-backed opposition; instead, he started fighting Buddhist and other independent political groups. On November 2, 1963, Diem and Nhu were seized by General Minh’s troops in a Roman Catholic church, blindfolded, and executed by gunshots to the back of the head. “Americans are gratified by a sense of joy that they find in Saigon,” the New York Times commented in an editorial on November 4. While the number of people (civilians + military) killed during the coup was small (less than 50), over the years, the Vietnam War would cost the lives of close to 3 million Vietnamese (military + civilians) and over 50,000 US soldiers. 

• Freedom to use women like painkillers: “You know, I get a migraine headache if I don’t get a strange piece of ass every day,” JFK is quoted as saying in the book. Whether true or not, historians agree that JFK was extraordinarily promiscuous and compulsive in his pursuit of women. JFK’s partners included women from the glamour world, such as Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner, who was also a friend of Mafia don Sam Giancana. But they also included a nineteen-year-old White House intern (who published her memoir in 2012), and numerous others whose names JFK couldn’t remember. So, he would say, ‘Hello, kid. How are you?’ One of his lovers recalls in the book, “I was just thrilled. Here is this handsome older man. He’s interested in me. But in retrospect, it’s really sad. I was just another girl. There was a compartment for girls, and once you were in the sex compartment, you weren’t a person anymore. I got declassed and depersonalized.”

So, what did freedom mean to JFK? Was it about using money, power, and position to fulfil one’s desires? Was it about changing the world to match your desired image, one in which there is no communism and the US is ruling the world? Perhaps, it was all of this. Daniel Kahneman says in ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, “We can be blind to the obvious, and we can be blind to our blindness.” Whether JFK was blind to his obvious biases, I don’t know. From his actions, he appeared to be a prisoner of his biases, yet he successfully managed his image as a hardworking chief executive and an attentive husband. But then, who is not a prisoner of his biases?

Learnings from Khushi Chandak on her electrochrome-based startup journey

Khushi Chandak was a second-year Electrical Engineering student when she attended my course "Managing technological innovation" in Spring 2025 at Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship (DSSE) at IIT Bombay. After the first or second class, she told me she had a startup on sustainable e-ink displays. I was surprised. In the second year of B.Tech., you don't start a company on display technology. I would have been less surprised if Khushi had said her company was into JEE mentoring marketplace or genAI-based animation. Anyway, she was absent for most of the course. Then I bumped into her this Spring when I was back on campus teaching the same half-semester course. I was curious about her startup journey, and she readily agreed to share it with the class.

"Imagine these class walls are made of glass, and with a tap of the switch, I can make it opaque or change its tint. Power consumption is an issue in commercial buildings with a high window-to-wall ratio. A tint can reduce sunlight entering the building and make it more power efficient." - This is how Khushi started her talk. We were curious now.

Here are the key points from Khushi's startup journey:

• Finding the right technology & experts: It began at the start of Khushi's second year, when she and her co-founder thought they could make eyeglasses in which a tap could change the lens color. The idea was selected for the IDEAS program run by DSSE, where selected teams go through customer and technology discovery over six months with the help of mentors. While researching, they realized that they needed to use electrochrome technology, in which material properties like color change with electricity. They found that IIT Bombay has a faculty working on the technology. They approached the professor for advice, and the discussion led to the professor joining them as a co-founder. This was a turning point.

• The danger of attachment to an idea: Khushi and her friend met between 100 and 150 people - potential customers and opticians, local vendors, as well as branded ones like Lenskart and luxury brands. They tried to find out if the idea is interesting and how much people would pay. They also started building a prototype and realized that 500 ml chemical costs Rs 35,000. Working on the prototype during Dec '24-Jan '25, they realized the glasses won't sell below Rs 20K. Then they reached out to experts working on electrochrome technology, mostly within India, but a few outside India. Three research groups were working on it in India. But the technology had not scaled like battery technology.

But the team decided to go ahead with prototyping plans. They were able to demo small glass prototypes changing colors. For three months, two of them were working late nights, with 2-3 hours of sleep. Their project got selected at an IIT Madras competition in the top 25 out of 200 applications. Here, they got a strong negative feedback and were convinced that the product won't sell. One month was spent in frustration, but finally, there was an acceptance, and they decided to pivot. "Don't get too attached to the idea," Khushi said.

• Learning to fail fast: They decided to work on flexible plastic sheets. In two weeks, they realized this idea is not viable. The market for e-paper displays was still in its infancy in India. This was faster. What next? Then they looked at buildings with high glass facades and with openings for natural light. They talked to architects and builders. The market looked promising. However, they realized they needed to move from a 5cm x 5cm prototype to a 4 ft x 6 ft window. This would take 4 to 6 years and significant capital before they reach the market with a product.

They incorporated the company in May 2025 and received multiple grants. They could demonstrate a 5 cm x 5 cm display for 5K cycles, perhaps a first time in India for the type of electrochromic technology they were working on. However, at this juncture, the girls asked if they are ready to make a long term commitment to this venture and decided to back out.  

• Productizing small wins: Looking back, Khushi felt they could have considered productizing the small glasses they had prototyped, perhaps as part of a larger painting, such as a Varli painting.

Despite the setback, Khushi and her co-founder are still together, looking for their next idea. Khushi, who made the presentation in my class last January, was definitely more mature and more confident than the Khushi I met a year ago. While she had put in a lot of effort for the venture, she had been wise enough not to borrow money or dip into her savings. Wishing her the best in her journey ahead.