With JFK’s Centenary Here, 35th President Appears Stranded in a Bygone Era By Warren Kozak
http://www.nysun.com/national/with-jfks-centenary-here-35th-president-appears/89986/
A former news anchor, who was a cub reporter for the AP back the early 1960s, tells a story: One night, he was assigned to wait at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, where President John F. Kennedy was staying, and report back to his desk when the president returned for the night. This was done with a dime in a phone booth.
While waiting, the cub joined the other reporters and some off-duty secret service agents for a drink at the bar. Everyone was laughing about the code names the agents used for Kennedy’s different girlfriends. He says it is inconceivable that reporters and agents could have that conversation today, and even if he wanted to write about it back then, which he didn’t, his editor never would have allowed it.
What different times.
It’s not just this story that makes Kennedy, who would have been 100 years old next week, distinctly part of a by-gone era. His images on YouTube are mostly grainy black-and-whites. The majority of Americans today were not even born until well after his administration ended abruptly in November, 1963. Washington, the Executive Branch, the press and technology have changed so much, it’s hard to even remember.
Kennedy has been labeled the first “television president.” He was not. That was Truman, while Eisenhower presided over television’s exponential growth in the 1950s. The Kennedy reference refers to the fact that he was simply younger and more photogenic than his two grandfatherly predecessors.
Compared to today, Kennedy actually wasn’t even on television all that much — there weren’t many opportunities. All-news, 24-hour cable channels didn’t arrive until 1980. With no cable and antiquated technology, there were only three networks back then. Their major evening news shows ran just 15 minutes, five nights a week (as if there were no news over the weekend).
The Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company expanded to the present half-hour format just two months before Kennedy’s death. In Donald Trump’s first four months in office, he has probably surpassed all the television time of Kennedy during his entire presidency.
“Sir,” was the most common honorific used by reporters when addressing the president. There was greater respect for the office. Knowing certain secrets were kept, it was easier for Kennedy to be more forthright, as well.
In an interview with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley of NBC News in September 1963, Kennedy was caught off guard when Brinkley informed him that Harry Truman had criticized his proposed tax cuts that morning. “What did he say?” Kennedy asked Brinkley, genuinely surprised.
Instead of sounding defensive or upset that his staff hadn’t warned him, Kennedy laughed. “They catch him on those morning walks …” and Kennedy just shakes his head, smiling, as if to continue “the old man will say damn near anything,” showing a sense of humor and self-confidence at the same time.
In 1960, Kennedy was asked by Time magazine correspondent, Hugh Sidey, if he really understood how average Americans suffered in the 1930s. Kennedy admitted, “[I] really did not learn about the Depression until I read about it at Harvard. We had bigger houses, more servants and traveled more,” with no shame in his lack of awareness or his privilege.
There were no highly paid political consultants to tell Kennedy what to say, how to say it or what color tie to wear. That would come with Richard Nixon’s reemergence in 1968. Chances are, Kennedy wouldn’t have listened, anyway.
It’s because of today’s overexposure, that politicians understand their every little breath is recorded and they are more guarded. Even the daily White House press briefing, once the exclusive club of reporters (mostly male), can now be watched live on your telephone.
The budget for the White House staff was 13 million dollars in 1963. It is 709 million in 2017. The number of secret service agents has expanded exponentially and there are more jets available for officials than small countries have in total. When Vice President Lyndon Johnson went to Dallas for that fateful weekend in the tranquil fall of 1963, he flew commercial.
His home telephone number was listed in the D.C. public phone book. Americans never imagined the person “one heartbeat away” really was one heartbeat away. We have since learned otherwise.
Those who did not live through the trauma of Kennedy’s assassination might not understand the demarcation in time it created. There is an America before and an America after November 22, 1963. To them, the date is no different than April 12th (Lincoln) or December 7th (Pearl Harbor). In other words, it means nothing.
For those who do have memory, there is more than a little sadness.
I like the way Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it on hearing the news: “I don’t think there is any point in being Irish If you don’t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought we had a little more time.”
John F. Kennedy is, forever, stuck in time, with that wistful smile, waving goodbye from the open car, moving on.
Mr. Kozak is the author of “LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay,” which was brought out in 2009 by Regnery.
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