Crafting the JFK Legend: How the Kennedy Story Is Constructed and Retold
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Copyright: The author, Dwynwen Anne Thomas, 2020. Crafting the JFK legend: How the Kennedy story is constructed and retold Dwynwen Anne Thomas Submitted to Swansea University in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swansea University 2020 1 Abstract: This thesis explores how the ambivalently multifarious Kennedy ‘stories’ of JFK as Icon or Myth are constructed and how its ‘telling’ has been profoundly influenced by authorial intent. In contrast with much of the Kennedy literature, that often blurs the two, the thesis therefore works with a strong distinction between ‘Icon’ as having wholly positive connotations and ‘Myth’ as a narrative which either falsifies or negatively debunks any pre-existing positive accounts of its subject matter. My focus on newspaper articles, in particular from The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, arises from the familiarly powerful claim that journalists write ‘the first draft of history’, although the thesis also reaches beyond journalism. Crucial to the argument is E. H. Carr’s historiography and its contention that historical facts are selected and presented according to particular hypotheses utilized by historians of any stripe for their own particular purposes. The thesis uses J. L. Austin’s theory of speech acts to demonstrate how the telling of the Kennedy story has variously employed techniques not only supposedly just to describe his legacy (the locutionary speech act) but also a) to create a legacy (the illocutionary speech act) and b) to influence audience attitudes toward the legacy (the perlocutionary speech act). The malleability of the Kennedy story helps to explain the reason why there remains so many attempts to retell it. The thesis also opens up consideration as to why it is this particular story that so many still want to hear. Declarations and Statements 2 I declare that this work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated, and that other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references and that a bibliography is appended. I give consent for this thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. I confirm that the University’s ethical procedures have been followed and, where appropriate, that ethical approval has been granted. Signature: Date: 30/05/2020 3 Contents Page Chapter One ‘Telling the Kennedy story’ ……………………… 7 Chapter Summary………………………………………….. 8 Literature Review………………………………………….. 10 Why newspapers? Why these newspapers? .......................... 32 Practical Methodology research issues…………………….. 45 Conceptual Methodology…………………………………... 47 Modes of Kennedy oratory………………………………… 55 Chapter Two ‘Telling the story as Icon’ ………………………... 70 Youth ………………………………………………………. 70 Service ……………………………………………………… 72 Intellectualism ……………………………………………… 78 Cultured …………………………………………………….. 81 Forward-thinking …………………………………………… 82 Statesman diplomat …………………………………………. 88 Political acumen: oratory, appearance, media ……………… 95 Chapter Three ‘Telling the story as Myth’ ……………………… 123 Immaturity ………………………………………………….. 151 Egotism ……………………………………………………… 153 Indecision ……………………………………………………. 159 Inaction ………………………………………………………. 162 Superficiality ………………………………………………… 188 Chapter Four ‘Reverberations: how the story continues to be told’ 201 ‘Dark’ reverberations ………………………………………….. 202 ‘Lighter’ reverberations ……………………………………….. 224 ‘Light’ reverberations …………………………………………. 245 Kennedy-determined ‘light’ reverberations …………… 266 Thesis conclusion and research issues raised …………………… 311 Appendix A …………………………………………………………….. 316 Bibliography …………………………………………………………… 317 4 Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the considerable help of the following: my University of Swansea PhD supervisors Dr Steve McVeigh, Dr Matt Wall and Dr Mark Evans; secondly, the Pantyfedwen Trust for its assistance in helping me to overcome the many practical hurdles in producing a text. Thanks must also be expressed to James Roth, Deputy Director of the JFK-Library for providing me with visitor information and Library funding statistics; and James Evans, National Trust Visitor Engagement Officer at Runnymede, who ignored the poor weather to furnish me with visitor data to the whole site as well as Kennedy commemorative material. Thanks too is extended to those former and current JFK Memorial Trust students who gave up their time to enlighten me as to the rewarding careers procuration of its various scholarships has opened up for them. A particular debt of gratitude must also be paid here to the Trust’s long-serving Secretary, Annie Thomas, whose good-humoured assistance led to us both discovering ‘new frontiers’ to the charity’s considerable London archive. Once again I wish Annie a very happy retirement. Finally, a profound ‘Diolch’ to my family for their unwavering support throughout the course of this work. You know what you mean to me and I dedicate this thesis to you. 5 Note on text US spelling is retained to reflect original source material when invoked. Citations from The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News have been given double quotation marks as have those by Kennedy himself. Single quotation marks have been applied to all other citations. In accordance with thesis regulations, any quotation over two lines is indented and single-spaced. Date of access to website links is bracketed with the most recent consultation. The upper-case ‘President’ form has been used in open text but may differ if in citation. Tweet references follow MLA formatting guidelines. Unlike the text, footnotes have not been margin-justified to avoid the untidiness of web-link dislocation such justification can cause here. The appellation ‘Kennedy’ is used throughout the text except where this may confuse given the family penchant for passing on their first names. In these instances, Kennedy is simply identified as ‘JFK’. Likewise, the formal ‘Joseph’ ‘Robert’ and ‘Edward’ is preferred to the more colloquial ‘Old Joe’, ‘Bobby’ and ‘Ted’. 6 Chapter One Telling the Kennedy story Introduction In analyzing how the story of John F. Kennedy can and has been told and why it is still found to be important to tell, this thesis explores how histories can be depicted, produced and recreated. Utilizing the mechanisms of historiography as elucidated by E. H. Carr’s essay ‘The historian and his facts’, the Kennedy personae is argued to demonstrate appositely the intrinsic ambiguity of historical narratives as is evident in its diverse cultivation as both Icon and Myth. This assessment is empowered primarily through newspaper speech-act contribution from The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, that employs linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin’s locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary concepts, to help determine how these versions of history are produced and which version of Kennedy’s story currently prevails. In its account of what is history, the thesis assumes that there are indeed hard objective facts. However, very often such facts are complex, myriad, diffuse and profoundly liable to conflicting uses in history-telling. The ‘Kennedy story’ exemplifies these features to a peculiarly high degree, as can be seen in the multiple ways in which it has been told. The persistent desire to tell and re-tell that story also raises the question as to why exploitation of these interpretative vagaries, in fuelling the ongoing JFK debate, has remained so politically and culturally potent. Encouraged by its Kennedy misappropriation of the Arthurian ‘Camelot’ legend, Myth is identified in terms of its pejorative force, its being the consolidation of disparate, repelling or unsuppressed narratives that inherently bias perception to an understanding and dissemination of that story. In contrast, ‘Icon’ is shown to have positive connotations, its quasi-religious cultivation partly stemming from an ‘exceptionalist’-minded culture perpetually looking for someone to personify its revivifying values, an image that is then embraced for continued conscious manufacture by the Kennedys and, among many outlets, certain influential US newspapers. The thesis concludes with questions as to Kennedy’s continuing relevance and judgement as to the point at which these disparate narratives may be seen to converge. This is achieved further to ongoing assessment as to what has endured and the complex 7 issues these may in turn raise for future research into the dissemination, receipt and utilization of language in producing the next version of a particular history. Chapter Summary Further to a Literature Review section divided into primary and secondary works, the remainder of this opening chapter will discuss both the practical and conceptual methodologies employed to map the Kennedy story. The analysis is conducted through snapshot newspaper extracts yielded mainly by milestone articles – ‘milestone’ in terms of the revealingly significant emphasis given to the assassination’s commemoration - from The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News respectively. To contextualize and substantiate this overview, I apply E. H. Carr’s contentions as to how historical narratives can be constructed. The rest of Chapter One performs two tasks: first, an analysis of Kennedy’s own rhetorical style, centred on his oratorical apparatus. Second, presentation