Christopher Hitchens: Years Have Done Kennedy Image No Favours

The Mirror ^ | November 22, 2003 | Christopher Hitchens

[quidnunc]

For my generation, now rapidly becoming grey and paunchy and dazzlingly, nay passionately active against the war with Saddam Hussein, the pictures from Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, were a shared experience.

The common baptism, the loss of innocence, the birth of the media age or anything else you like.

A very short while after this electrifying event, we were able to tune in again and witness the world's first live televised murder, as Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the guts.

The assassination of the assassin: pretty good telly by any standards and also the origin of a raft of conspiracy books and movies, featuring the Grassy Knoll, the "second rifleman", the Mafia, and the argument over the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights moment.

Put it this way: November 22, 1963, was the psychic moment at which "The Sixties" began.

Forty years later, to the day, the only surviving element of the once-potent "Kennedy magic" is the stationing of Maria Shriver by the side of her massive and toothy Republican hubby as he takes the oath as Governor of California.

I may be wrong, but I do not think that the "Camelot" myth has much more life in it. Indeed, when you think about it calmly, it's surprising that a myth taken from a line in a Broadway musical about King Arthur had that much life to it in the first place.

John F. Kennedy and King Arthur both died young, and the death of the young is the essential ingredient of romanticism. But one was an example of chivalry who probably didn't exist and died in battle if he did, while the other was routinely unfaithful to his Guinevere, was shot dead either by a lone nutcase or perhaps a conspiracy of his former Mafia associates, and was responsible for involving the United States in the most ignoble war it ever fought.

Hiostorians have been pitiless with the legend, even as they have sought to cash in on it.

The most recent semi-hagiography (An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek) opens the medical records as never before to show a President hooked on anti-psychotic drugs, heavy-duty painkillers, cortisone and a bushel of "uppers" and "downers" that would not have disgraced a San Francisco hippie commune.

Bloated by Addison's disease, which would certainly have killed him, and unable to shake off the effects of early untreated venereal infection, Kennedy's back-brace for his crippling spinal condition was also what prevented him from ducking when the bullets flew.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

Quote:

Had he lived much longer he would have become even more puffy, poxy, jumpy, sleepless and incontinent. He would also have had to come up with a plausible reason why he should be re-elected — something he couldn't do at the time.

If memory serves, JFK was in Dallas because his chances for re-election looked shaky.

His approval rating was something like 25% while Goldwater's was over 50%.

[cebadams]

An interesting article for you.

[Torie]

Kennedy's numbers at the time, looked about as shaky as Bush's numbers do now. Kennedy would have won reelection handily over Goldwater, absent a total info dump of what we now know about the man. I hate to say it, but Goldwater was unelectable.

[tet68]

and only with a book of reference beside me can I remember which Kennedy flamed out on heroin, which one was convicted of beating a girl to death, which one was hauled in for rape, for drunken driving or whatever.

Hehe.

[Savage Beast]

"a line in a Broadway musical"

That's about the depth of this "myth"--or more precisely, this fiction.

[Burkeman1]

Has anyone been watching the History channel much this week? Can it get anymore ridiculous in Kennedy worship? But then- at least one program did tell the truth about him and Dr. Feelgood- and all the rest of his dirty laundry. But that was only show among many that were simply just propaganda.

[billorites]

Christopher Hitchens doesn't like JFK anymore than he likes Mother Teresa.

I'd find him so much more credible if he didn't take off after absolutely everyone with such a broad brush.

Hint to Chris: Chat up Nancy Reagan, take her to lunch and write a piece declaring her brave and marvelous.

There's mileage in that.

[lambo]

Is there any reason the Mirror article can't be posted here in full? (It's not part of the Post settlement, is it?) It's really good, and worth reading in its entirety.

[speedy]

Concur, Torie. Great as AuH2O was in 1964, the leftist media of the time -- worse than the media of today, by the way, because there was no competition or dissent -- had so villified him, and the sheeple were so frightened that he was going to blow up the world, that JFK probably would have won almost (but not quite) as handily as LBJ eventually did. The Camelot pablum was already being spoonfed to the ignorant well before he was killed.

[D-fendr]

My favorite line:

"There are too damn many of them, and many of them are not much damn good."

[L`enn]

I was young at the time, and even though I am in New York (albeit a conservative area of Upstate) which fogs the issue a great deal, what I saw was Kennedy was a God . The news media glorified him in a day when the media was somewhat trusted, thus "selling" him and the people "buying him". He had 100% of Catholics in his hip pocket which was a huge deal in the East. People had pictures of him on their walls. Like I said that was around here. I'm sure the South was a different story.

It was not until I was older and reading back did I realize his tenure was quite ineffective and actually very bumbling, as Hitchens notes unlike many others. His death kind of "smoothed out" the rough edges.

[cebadams]

The best part is the last paragraphs:

There was a time when the high casualty rate among Kennedys made foolish people talk about a family "curse". On the contrary, the Kennedys were extremely lucky.

In a few decades, they went from being second-class immigrants in Boston to the holding of super-rich family compounds in Palm Beach and New England and Virginia. The family fortune was made illegally during the bootlegging epoch - which I must say I regard as having some redeeming social value - but the ruthlessness and the sense of entitlement is what most strikes the eye.

That and the political opportunism - old Joe, the family patriarch, was pro-Hitler when he thought Germany was on the winning side (and had to be recalled for this reason as American ambassador to London).

Jack and Bobby were both supporters of the foul Senator McCarthy when that looked like a path to advancement. They later tried to take credit for the Civil Rights "March on Washington": a march which was mainly necessary because they had shown no courage in standing up for civil rights. It's a rather mediocre and depressing story and I am not sorry to see it beginning at last to vanish in our rear-view mirror.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Put it this way: November 22, 1963, was the psychic moment at which "The Sixties" began.

Absolutely! It was the moment America had a collective breakdown.

[quidnunc]

lambo wrote: Is there any reason the Mirror article can't be posted here in full?

You mean other than the fact that to do so would be a violation of coyright laws?

(It's not part of thePost settlement, is it?)

No, but it is covered by the aforementioned copyright laws.

It's really good, and worth reading in its entirety.

So all folks have to do is open the link and they can read it, or even download it to their hard drive for future reference.

[ChiMark]

The history channel has lost credibility with me. I'm wasiting for documentaries about the evils of comunism but all they do is re-hash Nazi's. The worst episode was the ugly girl who claimed to be Oswald's mistress.

[Torie]

It all seems like ancient history now doesn't it? What made folks passionate them, have no traction now. Almost nobody cares about the Protestant versus Catholic thing, politicians as father figures and role models are totally passe in this instant info age, and who would have thought that gender politics would have become as salient as it is now, or the racial spoils system, as opposed to the ethnic group spoils system (in which blacks were just one ethnic group, among many)? In many ways, the Kennedy age really does seem so innocent and naive, and in some ways, rather pernicious.

[Burkeman1]

LOL! Their Motto "The History Channel- Where history comes alive day after day." Should be: "The Hitler channel where the Fuhrer comes alive day after day".

Why not do specials on history we don't know about? Soviet Communism would be a good place to start. But what about just places like India? I know squat about that Nations history? How about African History? How about Middle Eastern History- Ottoman empire? South American History?

They have done some good specials once in a while that are really great. But the day to day menu is getting really old.

There seem to be three topics on the History Channel- Civil War, History of the Gun and the Wild West, and WWII. Getting tired.

[Savage Beast]

You are to be congratulated on your resistance to the propaganda--not to mention your ability to think for yourself.

[onyx]

BTTT for reading later this evening.

[Chu Gary]

Yo, Chris, what do you think travels faster, a bullet from a rifle or the sound of the report? How are you going to hear the sound when you're already dead?