This is so opposite to the view that we were all taught in North America (namely that Kennedy's statement was a gaffe that made him a laughingstock) that I wond

This is so opposite to the view that we were all taught in North America (namely that Kennedy's statement was a gaffe that made him a laughingstock) that I wonder how the misconception even arose. No one ignorant of German would have come up with the idea that JFK said he was a jelly doughnut, but from what you guys are saying, no one who knows German would have thought that either. Perhaps it was clever Soviet disinformatsia!