They Don't Know Jack
In 1962, the writer William
Manchester published Portrait of a President , a book so gushing in its
praise of John F. Kennedy, so slack-jawed in awe, that the White House
distributed copies as souvenirs. Today, Kennedy scholars and debunkers can
share a collective smirk at Manchester's naiveté, confident that 35 years and
500 books (by the Kennedy Library's rough count) have taught us all a thing or
two; that our understanding of JFK, like the Kennedy literature itself, is
rich, complex, ever expanding. The latest additions, however, rattle that
confidence. Traditionally, Kennedy books have ranged from apologist to
revisionist. The current vogue is reductivist: JFK, we are now told, was a
fairly simple fellow. Recent releases portray him as hero or hedonist, romantic
or reprobate--but never as all these things at once.
First,
regrettably and inescapably, there is Seymour Hersh's The
Dark Side
of Camelot , a Portrait for Kennedy-haters. The significance of the
investigative reporter's book lies neither in its revelations (which are few)
nor its hype (which is considerable, and has stirred up waves of attackers and
defenders, including
Slate
's Jacob
Weisberg). Rather, Dark Side 's significance lies in the countermyth
that Hersh constructs to displace Camelot--an anti-Camelot in which every
public virtue conceals a private vice. Hersh's JFK is not shrewd, he is
"fanatical"; he is not coolheaded, he is impulsive; he is not suave, he is
sleazy. Hersh reconciles any contradictions in Kennedy's character by
eradicating them. At the swimming pool, JFK grabs a woman's backside; in the
situation room, he flirts with nuclear holocaust. Reckless at play, reckless at
work, JFK is just a bad man with a nice smile that made travesties appear to be
triumphs.
For every bitter revisionist, however, there is an equally
ardent admirer. In Love, Jack , Gunilla von Post's slight memoir of a
brief affair during the 1950s, JFK again has a winning grin, both
"incandescent" and "offhand." (It fades only when he thinks of Jackie.) But in
Kennedy's soul, where Hersh sees darkness, von Post, a stunning Swedish
aristocrat, perceives only light. "This wasn't a man who simply needed a woman
to satisfy his cravings and would then go on to something else," she explains
as Kennedy embarks upon another transatlantic booty call. A philanderer,
perhaps, but hardly a cad. Von Post's JFK even "[makes] love with a surprising
innocence." He swoons, he sighs, he weeps. He looks toward the heavens and
proclaims, "The stars , Gunilla. The stars !"
John
Hellmann, a professor of English at Ohio State University, has little interest
in the debate over Kennedy's character. Hellmann's focus is instead on the
Kennedy "image" and its importance to the man's historical reputation. In
The Kennedy Obsession , Hellmann conducts a close reading of young Jack's
personal library: the adventures of Ivanhoe and The Young
Melbourne ; the steely, masculine prose of Ernest Hemingway. In reading
these books, Hellmann claims, Kennedy was shrewdly incorporating the
archetypes--the lonely hero, the sensitive rebel--that would later compose his
public persona. Hellmann sees no distinction between Kennedy's image and his
actual achievement; for Hellmann, the image is the achievement. This is
a helpful insight: All pols engage in what the author calls "creative
self-making." But Hellmann's Kennedy is too self-aware to be believable. The
reader's mind rebels at the notion of JFK and Ted Sorensen discussing
"self-presentation" or, more ominously, "liminal marginality." This isn't
politics. This is what lit crits talk about when they talk about politics.
Individually, none of these books tells us much
about John F. Kennedy that we didn't already know. None, not even Hersh's best
seller, will greatly alter Kennedy's reputation. Considered together, though,
they underscore a truth about JFK: that he can't be reduced to a type. Suave
and sleazy, cool and reckless--these contradictions raise
important and troubling questions about his presidency. How could a man so
dissolute in his private life display such discipline in his public role? If
Kennedy was so quickly bored by others--his anonymous lover in Dark Side
is not the first to recall his relentless tapping of feet, of fingers, of
teeth--how did he endure interminable briefings on border disputes in North
Africa? If one accepts (as one must, increasingly) the portrait of JFK as
almost absurdly careless, how does one explain his mastery of the televised
press conference? This was a controversial innovation during the Cold War, when
a "live" gaffe might spark an international incident. Yet Kennedy conquered the
new medium, and not just with his winsome smile and quick wit; his preparation
was unmatched by any but the most thorough reporter.
These paradoxes are
puzzling, which explains the temptation to ignore or deny them. It is hard to
believe that any man, particularly a public figure, could embody such
contradictory traits without self-destructing. Perhaps given more than a
thousand days, Kennedy would have self-destructed. But his record in office
demonstrates growth, not decay. The Kennedy Bildungsroman --his
coming-of-age, from fumbling the Bay of Pigs invasion to resolving the Cuban
missile crisis--is a tired tale, but newly validated by The
Kennedy
Tapes , Ernest May and Philip Zelikow's edition of the transcripts of those
crucial ExComm meetings of October 1962. Whatever goings-on are going on in the
executive mansion of the White House, Kennedy's brilliant Cabinet Room
performance underscores his ability to "compartmentalize his life," as Hersh
nicely puts it in his first chapter (before denying it in the rest of his
book). The most interesting recent portraits of JFK--Richard Reeves' masterly
President Kennedy: Profile of Power and Nigel Hamilton's flawed JFK,
Reckless Youth --confront the dualities in his character. If they do not
explain them, at least they acknowledge them, which is more than this current
crop of books can boast.
In the end, it is not the
authors who know Kennedy best. It is his public. The Camelot myth crumbled long
ago under the strain of molls, mob money, election fraud, and foreign
adventurism, and it is precisely this sordid mix--sex, glamour, power--that
accounts for much of Kennedy's enduring appeal. For some Americans, JFK remains
the anointed apostle of the New Frontier. But it's not because Kennedy passed a
nuclear test-ban treaty or founded the Peace Corps that 39 percent of
Americans, according to a 1991 poll, consider him our greatest president. For
most of us, Kennedy is a lovable rogue. His broad smile, neither purely
romantic nor wholly cynical, tells the story: This is a man who breaks the
rules and is attractive, wealthy, and smart enough to get away with it. In his
audacity, John Kennedy is utterly American, and simply irresistible.
