The John F. Kennedy Library stands atop a peninsula jutting into the gray waters of Boston Harbor. Visitors exit this memorial for the 35th president pondering the current national election and feeling the weight of history.

An apt topic for those who just have examined exhibits on Kennedy’s biography, the 1960 presidential race, his inaugural speech, and his administration is which candidate most captures the Kennedy spirit. Given that Kennedy’s brother, Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, and his daughter, Caroline Kennedy, have endorsed Barack Obama, it’s not surprising that some visitors who have visited the memorial think the same way. Mr. Obama turns to a famous line from Kennedy’s inauguration in justifying his openness to meeting the likes of the leaders of Syria, North Korea, and Iran. Indeed, a visitor to the library sees Kennedy deliver the line, “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate” in an exhibit on his inaugural address.

Yet a careful visit to the Kennedy Library and its exhibits divulges a far different leader than the one Mr. Obama and his disciples have come to fetishize. The mists of time have obscured the toughness of Kennedy and his era.

There are, of course, the stylistic similarities, such as youth and the gift for the written and spoken word. Mr. Obama, at 46, is more than three years older than Kennedy, who was 42 in 1960. Kennedy, like Mr. Obama, had his celebrity endorsers; Frank Sinatra, who recorded a special version of “High Hopes” for Kennedy, flexed far more cultural muscle than one of the band members of the pop group the Black Eyed Peas, Will.I. Am, who recently made two Internet music videos for his candidate. But celebrity endorsements were more novel in that earlier time.

Both Kennedy and Mr. Obama also gained fame as writers. The junior senator is the author of two bestselling autobiographical books and Kennedy wrote two successful historical books, “Why England Slept” and “Profiles in Courage.”

Here the similarities cease. Kennedy came of age in a time of war. Rather than penning a search for self and family identity as Mr. Obama did in his books, Kennedy’s work examined the reasons Great Britain failed to adequately challenge Nazi Germany in the years leading up to World War II, and represented a hawkish declaration of independence from his own father, Joseph P. Kennedy, who was, at best, a defeatist in the face of Hitler.

Central to Kennedy’s electoral appeal, unlike Mr. Obama’s, was his war record. Visitors of the Kennedy memorial learn about Kennedy’s time commanding PT 109. Henry Fonda, speaking in a television advertisement for Kennedy on display, alluded to his naval record and likened him to a prior tough-minded Democratic president, Franklin Roosevelt. “FDR, a man who loved the sea. John F. Kennedy, another man of the sea … His hand will be a strong hand on the ship of state,” Fonda told viewers.

Further into the exhibit, visitors get to see a diorama of Kennedy’s ship, which was sunk by the Japanese, see his military decorations, read the citation of his military decorations, a Purple Heart and the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and read his citation for the latter medal. “Kennedy unhesitatingly braced the difficult hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he succeeded in getting his crew ashore,” the secretary of the Navy, James Forestal, wrote, describing Kennedy’s actions.

During the presidential campaign, Kennedy ran to the right of Nixon on defense and foreign policy, arguing that Eisenhower had not done enough to challenge Soviet Communism. “I will not cut our present commitment to the cause of freedom anywhere in the world,” Kennedy vowed in a speech to an American Legion meeting in Miami in 1960. “I have never believed in retreating under fire.”

No, Mr. Obama is not the candidate most like candidate Kennedy in 1960. Interestingly, one of the current candidates, like Kennedy, was commissioned as a naval officer, awarded the Purple Heart, and decorated, in part, for seeking to help his comrades. This candidate promises to continue to the fight for freedom around the world and campaigns against retreating from our enemies. Despite current notions of which candidate is most like Kennedy, that person is John McCain.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.