Throughout his adult life John F. Kennedy was famously detached. In his decision to marry; When his infant son Patrick died; In his affairs with other women; In his run for the presidency; With his book Profiles in Courage; In his speeches.
JFK was playing a part in a script written by someone else. He married because his father told him a bachelor could not become president; carried on as if he was not married; ran for the presidency because his father told him to; "wrote" Profiles in Courage because his father told him it would give him gravitas with intellectuals; had a ghost-writer for the book; had Ted Sorenson write his speeches.
None of it detracts, for me, from his quality. He delivered those lines; he co-wrote that book; he won the election because of who he was. Not because of his father or Sorenson or anybody else.
"He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply." -John Buchan.
Those lines were quoted many times as applicable to JFK by his admirers. "Read Pilgrim's Way" if you want to know me he told Jacqueline Bouvier and others.
He was detached.
JFK was outside himself sometimes. He was both observer and actor. He played many parts and played them like a virtuoso. His mental quickness allowed him to play multiple roles at the same time.
JFK was famous for his humor. He had a quick, dry wit. In the middle of press conferences, when the opportunity presented, he could turn a question in his mind rapidly and deliver a dry, humorous response that would light up the press room. Sometimes, he was too quick for the journalists, who took a split second to recognize what the president was doing. Go to 4:28 of this video and watch and listen to May Craig's question, the president's answer and then the split second it takes for it to sink in. This is a still as he calls on Miss Craig: all president.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXDLLUOxmsY
JFK was playing a part in a script written by someone else. He married because his father told him a bachelor could not become president; carried on as if he was not married; ran for the presidency because his father told him to; "wrote" Profiles in Courage because his father told him it would give him gravitas with intellectuals; had a ghost-writer for the book; had Ted Sorenson write his speeches.
None of it detracts, for me, from his quality. He delivered those lines; he co-wrote that book; he won the election because of who he was. Not because of his father or Sorenson or anybody else.
"He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply." -John Buchan.
Those lines were quoted many times as applicable to JFK by his admirers. "Read Pilgrim's Way" if you want to know me he told Jacqueline Bouvier and others.
He was detached.
JFK was outside himself sometimes. He was both observer and actor. He played many parts and played them like a virtuoso. His mental quickness allowed him to play multiple roles at the same time.
JFK was famous for his humor. He had a quick, dry wit. In the middle of press conferences, when the opportunity presented, he could turn a question in his mind rapidly and deliver a dry, humorous response that would light up the press room. Sometimes, he was too quick for the journalists, who took a split second to recognize what the president was doing. Go to 4:28 of this video and watch and listen to May Craig's question, the president's answer and then the split second it takes for it to sink in. This is a still as he calls on Miss Craig: all president.
He is both observer and actor there. He takes the question as sober president--The question is long. It gives him time.--and he is not in that room as he formulates his reply, he is outside himself. The answer that he gives is intentionally legalistic, "substantial effect on interstate commerce" was the legal standard, and he exposes the lack of human feeling in the legal standard with a mock serious recitation that exposes its humor.
John Kennedy is looking from outside there, down upon himself in the role of president of the United States, and he sees the humorously absurd in the question and in his reply. He immediately tries to take another question and then as it sinks in inside the pressroom JFK, now as POTUS, slightly turns away to hide his own laughter as the room convulses. "Thank you," he tells his "audience," for getting the joke.
On September 12, 1962 John F. Kennedy went to Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas to deliver as president of the United States his call for the nation to go to the moon. The speech as written by Ted Sorensen is magnificent, stunning, and President Kennedy delivered it with inspirational vigor.
It was also hot as hell in Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas that day. Sixteen minutes into his eighteen minute speech John Kennedy was not there. He might as well have been on the moon. And from his cool spot on high John Kennedy was looking down upon poor President Kennedy sweltering:
But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw
He delivers his improvised punch line without missing a beat--no change in intonation, the same familiar body language, no semblance of a smile.
We can never really know our public figures from the public roles that they play. That is why tell-alls are so popular. John F. Kennedy was unusual in the degree to which he inserted the real him into his public performances. That is the real John F. Kennedy you see in those clips--and in the tell-alls: witty, extraordinarily intelligent, modest, confident, fun-loving, care-free, not self-serious or too serious about himself or anybody or anything else, careless, cool, composed, detached.
John Kennedy is looking from outside there, down upon himself in the role of president of the United States, and he sees the humorously absurd in the question and in his reply. He immediately tries to take another question and then as it sinks in inside the pressroom JFK, now as POTUS, slightly turns away to hide his own laughter as the room convulses. "Thank you," he tells his "audience," for getting the joke.
On September 12, 1962 John F. Kennedy went to Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas to deliver as president of the United States his call for the nation to go to the moon. The speech as written by Ted Sorensen is magnificent, stunning, and President Kennedy delivered it with inspirational vigor.
It was also hot as hell in Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas that day. Sixteen minutes into his eighteen minute speech John Kennedy was not there. He might as well have been on the moon. And from his cool spot on high John Kennedy was looking down upon poor President Kennedy sweltering:
But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw
He delivers his improvised punch line without missing a beat--no change in intonation, the same familiar body language, no semblance of a smile.
We can never really know our public figures from the public roles that they play. That is why tell-alls are so popular. John F. Kennedy was unusual in the degree to which he inserted the real him into his public performances. That is the real John F. Kennedy you see in those clips--and in the tell-alls: witty, extraordinarily intelligent, modest, confident, fun-loving, care-free, not self-serious or too serious about himself or anybody or anything else, careless, cool, composed, detached.
