In the tsunami of stories about the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, no one yet has observed that JFK was one of the first and finest examples of manipulation of the mass media to elect a major candidate.
In 1956, Kennedy was a back-bench Senator known for little
else than being the son of a rich man and the right-wing alternative to a
moderate Tennessean as Adlai Stevenson’s running mate. Then his family launched
an incessant public relations program based on the question, “Can a Catholic be
elected president?” It seemed as if every month some national magazine or
prestigious newspaper was asking the question and answering mostly in the
affirmative. In launching this PR
campaign, the Kennedy family had one very large advantage: the family business
was the largest advertiser in the mass media in the 1950s.
After the first debate with Richard Nixon, the Kennedy PR
machine shifted into fifth gear to focus the media conversation not on what was
said, but on how they said it and what they looked like. It was certainly the first time that issues—real
or fabricated—took a back seat to style in discussing a major election.
Likeability, that ineffable essence that the media later told us Bush II had
and Al Gore did not, became a factor and the news media made sure we liked JFK
a lot more than we did RMN. Of course, they had some help from Tricky Dick
himself!
Fifty years after his assassination, the Kennedy legend is
mostly built on myths, the most significant and mendacious of which is that he
was a liberal or a progressive. Kennedy came from a dark past: His father
sympathized with the Nazis. His younger brother was a lawyer for Joseph
McCarthy.
As president, Kennedy tended to favor the right-wing. He
called for decreasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations and for an increase
in military spending. The two fiascos of his Administration—the Bay of Pigs
invasion and the assassination of the head of the South Vietnamese
government—were both examples of American imperialism and militarism. Both decisions came back to haunt our country
for years, like the equally foolish decision to invade Iraq decades later.
In retrospect, Kennedy’s civil rights record was shabby. Yes
he was hobbled by his inability to manage Congress, but reviews of his
administration’s actions in such books as Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters suggest that Kennedy was always looking for an
excuse to declare failure in Democratic attempts to pass civil rights
legislation. Other books suggest that in
finally passing civil rights and anti-poverty legislation, violence at the
marches and riots in the inner cities moved Congress and the American people
far more than did fulfilling the legacy of a martyred president.
Although Kennedy was born 30 years too early to be part of
the Baby Boom generation, the fact that he was America’s youngest president
when the Baby Boomers were reaching their teens did make it easy for Kennedy to
become a symbol of a new, younger America. His public lifestyle and his
rhetoric did seem to symbolize that youthful time, but his political actions
did not represent youthful rebellion and idealism, but rather immature
adventurism in foreign affairs and a middle-aged willingness to live with the
status quo in everything else.
Part of the Kennedy myth is his personal glamour and
elegance—but it was the glamour of rich folks spending their money on expensive
stuff. The glamour was also part of the Kennedy PR machine, as exemplified by the
first lady’s televised tour of the White House. I do, however, appreciate the
fact that until Obama, Kennedy was our last president to cherish urban and
urbane values. Between these two, all our presidents have wanted to be seen flipping
sausages at a barbecue pit or
chopping wood.
I do not believe someone’s personal life should enter into
an accounting of his or her public legacy. I don’t care one way or another that
Kennedy is reported to have bedded dozens if not hundreds of women. It has
nothing to do with his ability to perform as president or his public legacy,
unless the sex were not consensual or there were something else he did that
indicated poor judgment or unacceptable behavior—underage women, hypocritically
advocating celibacy while whoring around, sexual harassment or rape, for
example. That Kennedy once forced a White House intern with whom he was having
an affair to publicly felate a Secret Service agent does not speak well of the
man.
It probably helps Kennedy’s legacy that no president has
died in office since he did. I remember many older family members telling me
how heart broken they were when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office. It
occurred 18 years before Kennedy was assassinated and 22 years after Warren G.
Harding died in office. It’s now been 50 years and, thank goodness, no one has
supplanted Kennedy as “the president I remember dying in office.” The violence of the assassination heightens
the sadness and sense of tragedy surrounding Kennedy, as well it should. That there are so many photographs and moving
images of Kennedy makes it easy for even those born long after him to know him,
or at least know his myths.
The persistent rumors of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK also
contribute to his high visibility. In fact, most of the Kennedy myth has little
to do with the public man. Just think of the ways that his life and death are
being covered these past few weeks:
- The details of the assassination
- The conspiracy theories
- His wealth and glamour
- His sex life (helped by the fact that one of his paramours was a third-rate actress who had a habit of bedding famous and powerful men and after her death became another mass media martyr)
- The excitement of the New Frontier
- The sad fact that he didn’t have time to work on his political agenda.
Of course, there are a few stories of substance as well,
mostly discussions of whether Kennedy would have escalated the war in Viet Nam.
Typically, left-wingers say no and right-wingers say yes. In this case, the
right is most certainly closer to the truth, based on all of Kennedy’s actions
as president.
Like most public myths, Kennedy is a vessel into which we
can pour whatever beliefs we want. Some see him as right-wing, left-wing, cold
warrior, dove, hawk, symbol of a more optimistic time, glamour god, sex symbol,
sex pervert, leader of youth, friend to minorities, whatever you want.
My take on Kennedy is that he was a rich guy whose family
spent a lot of money helping him obtain an office for which he was less than
qualified. His politics reflected the
views of large corporations of his time, from lowering taxes on the wealthy to
pursuing an aggressive imperialism throughout the world (For more on how large
corporations controlled Kennedy, read G. William Domhoff’s recent The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy). He
basically cared about power and his social class. That he is beloved as one of our greatest
presidents of all time is just another proof of the power of rich folk to
manipulate the news media.
No comments:
Post a Comment