Ideological Patriot, Conservative, Liberal, Activist

Introduction

The solemn event begins best observed and compared to similar episodes in history…“His tenure begins not with a religious ceremony symbolizing the church’s approval, but with the swearing of a legal oath, thirty-five words written very specifically into the Constitution–along with the four words ad-libbed by George Washington in 1789, ‘so help me God.’ The ceremony that ‘makes a president’ lasts only about six minutes, while six hours were required to fasten the crown upon the Czar of Russia and to place the scepter in his hand.“ (Widmer, 2005, p.74)

In his Presidential Inaugural Address of 1960, The 35^th President of the United States and the youngest ever to hold the office, John F. Kennedy cautioned to his audience, both domestic and abroad, that foreign policy changes would be intricate to achieve and deliberate in coming: “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.” (Harper, 1988, p.12)

Context

Starting with his 1960 inaugural address, Kennedy embarked on a methodical campaign to communicate an apocalyptic, crisis-oriented global view to the American people. “A second prominent issue that occupied the president was the concern with his presidential ethos and American prestige in general.” (Kiewe, 1994, p.49)  The 1957 version of the young Senator Kennedy may have been reshaped, and by some account, accused of abandoning his liberal roots in order to satisfy his presidential ambitions.

Kennedy was clearly expected to be firmly entrenched among the liberals of the Democratic Party, even though the requirement of some conservative support was evident to “get along.” However, his position on most domestic issues and policies was decidedly liberal.  The foreign policy positions were of another matter.  His inaugural speech gave rise and some insight to his true intent.  Consequently, the contradictory image of Senator Kennedy entitled in this piece is somewhat confirmed in his speech and actions.

Kennedy’s Inaugural Address supported the thesis that his presidency was a dramatic move away from the complacency and doldrums of the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential years of the late 1950’s.  The Inaugural Address set the tone and direction of future American foreign policy. To many, Kennedy’s election appeared to be the impetus to set in motion the rhetoric of an aggressive, non-compromising administration.  The themes of the cold war, militarily oriented, dynamic, and expensive reverberated throughout the address.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

America, in Kennedy’s foreign policy mantra, was destined to play a major role in shaping the world’s fate.  The foundation of America’s global agenda meant this chosen position would be supported by unlimited commitments. The mechanism for achieving this end would be a proliferation of new arms and defense policy.

Accepting on face value, the proposition put forth in the text, then the Inaugural speech accurately reflected Kennedy’s intention; the language was unqualifiedly activist terms and global thinking.

In comparison to past Inaugural addresses of American presidents, few rest on a more activist philosophy than Kennedy’s.  On a biblical scale, Kennedy used the English language as a tool to conjure up vital images that would inspire.

 “Against the four horsemen of the apocalypse–tyranny, poverty, disease, and war–“a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West” was to be forged to “assure a more fruitful life for all mankind.” “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger,” the thirty-fifth president proclaimed. “I do not shrink from this responsibility. I welcome it.”

Kennedy felt confident that the American people and audience wanted to share a common destiny.   He extolled the need for the United States to stand for “defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.”  Defending freedom in this case was realized by increasing foreign aid commitments and engaging in an aggressive arms policy.

            Method

As in his Inaugural address, Kennedy was acutely aware that the American populace had to be directed along in order to support his multiple programs.  Typical, traditional liberal program which would require increasing of taxes, a front line active position on the military draft, and the clear call for American involvement in foreign states. The Inaugural Address was thus framed in the rhetoric of events to come.

In a follow up, his State of the Union address, confirmed his Inaugural preamble: “No man entering upon this office . . . could fail to be staggered upon learning . . . the harsh enormity of the trials through which we must pass in the next four years. Each day the crises multiply. Each day their solution grows more difficult. Each day we grow nearer the hour of maximum danger. And in conclusion: “Our problems are critical. The tide is unfavorable. The news will be worse before it is better. . . . we should prepare ourselves now for the worst. There will be further setbacks before the tide is turned.”  (Schwab, 1974, p. 105)

The foundation of Kennedy’s activism consisted both philosophical and personal training. “Philosophically, he proclaimed his activism in his Inaugural address. We have it on the authority of his special counsel, Theodore C. Sorensen, that “the principal architect of the Inaugural Address was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” Yet we know that drafts for the address were solicited from strong activists such as John Kenneth Galbraith and Chester Bowles.”  (Harper, 1988, p.25)

Additionally, Kennedy wanted to inform his audiences that what he was envisioning for his presidency and the nation would not “be finished in a hundred days or a thousand.” “Kennedy also wanted all the “I” pronouns in the speech changed to “we.” Kennedy wanted his inaugural to be brief, which had the effect of distinguishing it from its predecessors in that such brevity had been reserved traditionally for second Inaugural address.” (Goldzwig et al, 1995, p.41)

            Analysis

John Kennedy genuinely believed that God intended human beings to be liberated from natural and man-made oppressions and tyranny, and the United States of America because of its prosperous global position, had the responsibility, power and the duty to promote that cause. “In his address, perhaps one of the best half-dozen expressions of American values, the young President rephrased the American mission of the apocalypse by pointing out that the inauguration symbolized.“(Fuchs, 1967, 220)

Kennedy also displayed growing belief in limited power exercised within a limited peace. Clearly in line his Catholic background. His beliefs saw the collapse of civilization of the world if government did not take on the task.  “To be as much as possible a dike against sin rather than an instrument of it was a axiom Kennedy brought with him into the political area, …less as a means of saving the world than of keeping it from getting worse…he loved to quote Lord Morley’s maxim ‘Politics is one long second best, where the choice often lies between two blunders.'” (Novak, Choosing Our King, p. 270.)

Kennedy was masterfully able to use the specific brand of political rhetoric that creates the environment of democratically elected reality within which evokes political debate initiating political action. As one of the most memorable inaugural addresses, Kennedy’s rhetorical target, young Americans, was to build a populace swell on truculence and pathos. Clearly, standing at the steps of the United States Capitol as the President of the United States, no other vision could is more powerful. “In national affairs presidents establish the terms of discourse. Presidents speak with an authority, especially in foreign affairs, that no senator or representative or citizen can match.” (Windt Jr., 1990, p.3)

Thus, private charisma represents a leader’s charisma as perceived by a narrower band of followers, all of whom have both direct contact and relationships with the leader. Close followers would have a great deal of individuating information about presidents, which could overwhelm any information gleaned from speeches. In contrast, public charisma represents a leader’s charisma as perceived by a broader audience of followers, the vast majority of whom never meet their leader. (Brower et al, 2001, p. 527)

Finally to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

Although Kennedy accepted the historical premises of the cold war, (since the end of the second war 1945 with the Soviet Union), premises which were rooted in the containment policy, (preventing the spread communism ideology) to current and the domino theory established by war time President Harry Truman.  Kennedy’s belief was based on the ideal that the United States was the hope of mankind and was in a position to halt this advance of the Soviet Union and China and their quest to dominate the world.

Kennedy openly acknowledged in his Inaugural Address the threat of thermonuclear war. The choice was between maintaining the present course of nuclear stockpiling or seeking cooperative ventures toward peaceful solutions. Consistently, these choices influenced Kennedy’s other speeches on nuclear age issues. His most quoted words, “Let us never negotiate out of fear.

But let us never fear to negotiate,” indicated that he would seek to alleviate international tensions in a peaceful fashion. Affirming that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God,” Kennedy pledged to defend freedom at all costs in an unlimited holy war, saying “we shall pay any price to assure the survival and success of liberty.” While asserting that “each generation has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty,” as evidenced by the graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surrounding the globe.

Pledge is one of those politically evocative words that became popular during Kennedy speech as an inflated description of the making of hard decisions. And Pledge is a singular word that Kennedy used repeatedly to describe and give meaning to selected goals for his administration.   But Pledge is only a word, a descriptive word applied to an event or series of events to give them meaning. Events rarely carry their own meaning with them. People use words to apply meaning to events.

Critics of the Inaugural Address indicated that the young president spent the entire campaign arguing that the national government was not doing enough for people and should do more, such as provide medical care for the aged, increase the minimum wage, act against poverty in America, and assure civil rights for blacks, but failed to underscore or address those domestic points in his speech.  Kennedy’s Inaugural Address was devoted almost entirely to foreign affairs, underscoring the perilous Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union.

In C. Martindale’s 1988 Psychological Approaches to the Study of Literary Narratives, psychoanalytical account rests on assumptions about artists’ or writers’ thought processes, but in the case of the U.S. presidents, a more parsimonious account would begin, instead, with the impact of their rhetoric on their audiences. “The earlier-demonstrated empirical differences in the imagery and concreteness,” (Friendly et al., 1982) Image-based words versus concept-based words provides a solid grounding for this account, because there is ample research in cognitive, perceptual, and social psychology on the impact of imagery and concreteness on social information processing.

Kennedy claimed in his Inaugural Address that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” But his actions in foreign policy portrayed a man overly concerned with the events of the 1930’s. Being steeped in containment, accepting the domino theory ipso facto in all situations, caused Kennedy to act as he thought others should have acted against Hitler.

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. . . .

Kennedy concluded by saying that “we labor on–not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

From the other side of the world, the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev, who permitted an unedited transcript of the speech to appear in Soviet newspapers, later said…”it was the best speech any American President had given since Franklin Roosevelt. And, in fact, it was one of the few Kennedy attempts to move away from the rhetoric of the cold war.” (Schwab, 1974, p. 126)

Factually, John F. Kennedy was the youngest man and the only Catholic ever elected to the U.S. presidency. He served his approximately prophetic “thousand days,” but in that brief period his Inaugural Address engaged and energized a nation.  The speech gave the citizens of the United States the feeling that anything was possible if they applied themselves in a collective.

Kennedy’s rhetoric summoned each citizen to face the opportunity and challenge of the new decade. It was to be “a time of quite extraordinary transformation of national values and purposes–a transformation so far-reaching as to make the America of the sixties a considerably different society from the America of the fifties.” By focusing our inquiry on some of the public rhetoric of John F. Kennedy we offer herein a partial, but nonetheless important, insight into how such a transformation was initiated, if not realized. The symbolism of the Kennedy era–with its images of wealth, youth, vigor, idealism, pragmatism, and steely determination–was a product of both words and deeds.” (Goldzwig et al, 1995, p.3)

            Conclusion

From his address, the most memorable phrase, Kennedy urged Americans not to ask what their country could do for them but to ask what they could do for their country.  Kennedy’s speeches repeatedly called for action to fulfill America’s destiny. “Kennedy not only called for action; he epitomized it. His whirlwind of activity–executive orders, legislative proposals, and trips to Vienna and Berlin–put him constantly on the front pages and left an indelible impression of energy and achievement, even when achievement was more apparent than real.   Kennedy concluded his Inaugural Address on this note: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”  (Fuchs, 1967, 218)

 “In the United States a presidential inauguration is a last vestige of earlier times when monarchs assumed the throne. In the modern American democracy, the ceremony, pomp and circumstance of ritual investiture is occasioned by the single Constitutional requirement that the president recite the 35-word oath of Inaugural Addresses can be seen as both closing and opening statements. They are often efforts to heal any wounds brought on by a long divisive campaign. They attempt to bring closure by evoking unity and commonality through traditional values, which are employed as assurances of continuity.” (Goldzwig et al, 1995, p.34)

Kennedy’s Inaugural, the first by a president born in the twentieth century, was also the first to discuss the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the first since Franklin Roosevelt’s First and Second Inaugurals, to become a model of excellence for future ones.  Kennedy reexamined international developments in terms of American ideology and nuclear politics, making carefully crafted thematic statements that would lead the way to nuclear containment and the reduction of world tensions.

In essence, Kennedy’s address served as a formal and stylistic statement of American democratic principles in a new age and a transition to a new decade.  It was John Kennedy’s greatest platform for political rejuvenation and renewal of American democracy worldwide.

Reference(s)

Ted Widmer, 2005, So Help Me God: What All Fifty-Four Inaugural Addresses, Taken as One Long Book, Tell Us about American History. Magazine Title: American Scholar. Volume: 74. Issue: 1. Publication Date: Winter. Page Number: 29+.

Paul Harper, Joann P. Krieg, 1988, John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: New York. Page Number: 12.

Peter Schwab, J. Lee Shneidman, 1974, John F. Kennedy. Publisher: Twayne Publishers. Place of Publication: Boston. Page Number: 105.

Theodore Otto Windt Jr., 1990, Presidents and Protesters: Political Rhetoric in the 1960s. Publisher: University of Alabama Press. Place of Publication: Tuscaloosa, AL. Page Number: 3.

Holly H. Brower, Cynthia G. Emrich, Jack M. Feldman, Howard Garland, 2001, Article Title: Images in Words: Presidential Rhetoric, Charisma, and Greatness. Journal Title: Administrative Science Quarterly. Volume: 46. Issue: 3. Page Number: 527+. COPYRIGHT 2001 Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School;

Steven R. Goldzwig, George N. Dionisopoulos ,1995, In a Perilous Hour: The Public Address of John F. Kennedy. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Page Number: 34, 3

Lawrence H. Fuchs, 1967, John F. Kennedy and American Catholicism. Publisher: Meredith Press. Place of Publication: New York. Page Number: 218.

Amos Kiewe, 1994, The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric. Publisher: Praeger Publishers. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Page Number: 49.