Kennedy's Presidential Research Articles

Historical lessons of the Orion and NERVA projects: Managing public opinion and political uncertainty in space programs

This publication examines the history of Project Orion and NERVA nuclear engine program within the Integrated Program Plan, the technical reasons for their study, their progress, and the political reasons for their cancellation. Whether pulsed or thermal, nuclear propulsion offers the best compromise in efficiency and thrust for the propulsion of future manned missions. Project Orion was born in the mind of Stanislaw Ulam, an atomic physicist who had worked on the Manhattan project. Despite theoretical performances superior to anything conceivable even with current technologies, and despite the mobilisation of some of the most brilliant physicists of the time (Freeman Dyson), the project was killed by the Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water (Moscow, 5 August 1963). The Integrated Program Plan was Wernher von Braun's proposal to the Space Task Group (STG), chaired by Vice President Spiro Agnew, for the continuation of the Apollo program. This plan envisaged a lunar base in the 1970s, and a first manned mission to Mars in the early 1980s. All of this would have been powered by nuclear-powered orbital shuttles, using NERVA, a nuclear engine tested and operational since 1968. Here again, even though it performed better than anything else in the world, even today, the project failed politically. This retrospective publication therefore aims to answer the following question: How can nuclear space programs of today and tomorrow be protected from the uncertainties of this influence?The study of propulsion systems is very often left to engineers, and political and public relations issues to politicians. However, every technology is the result of a political system, and has a strategic impact, which is a subject for social and political sciences. That's why this paper adopts an original approach crossing social sciences through the historical study of decision-making dynamics, and engineering through the study of the technical characteristics of the projects involved. This publication is based on declassified technical reports, testimonies of the personalities of the time, and a document from the archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. History can be the academic bridge between political and technical studies. In a context of resurgence of nuclear propulsion projects throughout the world, such an approach is now necessary both at the historical level and in terms of political decisions making. Indeed, space programs involving nuclear energy are, by nature, at the crossroads of public relations issues very specific to both space and atomic subjects.

The geopolitics of improvised language: President John F. Kennedy’s ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ address

AbstractIt is shortly after 13.00 outside Berlin’s Schöneberg Rathaus (City Hall) on 26 June 1963. A strong breeze tosses the banner which hangs behind a narrow speaker’s platform as some 450,000 people listen expectantly to the figure standing before them. Having already been speaking for just over eight minutes, President John F. Kennedy has reached the closing lines of his address: ‘All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner”.’ Although Kennedy’s ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ address has gained something of an iconic status, few are aware of its improvisational and contentious nature. Crucially, the U.S. President would follow only a quarter of the prepared text during its delivery, and geopolitically frame Berlin in such a manner as to imperil his own foreign policy. Developing insights from the so‐called ‘more‐than‐representational’ turn and informed by materials from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (JFKPL), this paper records both how and why Kennedy elected to stray from the script. More specifically, it examines those agencies – the objects, atmospheres, emotions, and affects – which converged during Kennedy’s address and led him to employ an improvised, geopolitically volatile mode of language.

Hemingway in the Digital Age: Reflections on Teaching, Reading, and Understanding ed. by Laura Godfrey (review)

Reviewed by: Hemingway in the Digital Age: Reflections on Teaching, Reading, and Understanding ed. by Laura Godfrey Wayne Catan Laura Godfrey, ed. Hemingway in the Digital Age: Reflections on Teaching, Reading, and Understanding. Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 2019. 232 p. In this new Teaching Hemingway title, Laura Godfrey of North Idaho College selects essays from top Hemingway scholars who recommend best practices to teach Ernest Hemingway in the digital age. In "Virtual Papa," Lisa Tyler of Sinclair Community College discusses an artful way to conduct online research. First, she warns teachers that in the nascent stages of research students will, most likely, punch up facts that are already known, such as his fishing and hunting prowess, his family's mental health issues, and myriad plays, exhibits, and festivals that take place annually. Tyler points out that this information does not focus on the literary Hemingway. To get to know the literary Hemingway, she suggests several newspaper archives including the Kansas City Star and Toronto Star because both papers: "ransacked their archives and published online every article they could find that Hemingway wrote during his tenure at their organizations" (17). George Plimpton's 1958 The Paris Review interview and Lillian [End Page 213] Ross's 1950 New Yorker article are available online too, providing a glimpse into Hemingway as a writer and as a person. Additionally, Tyler recommends the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library website and The Michigan Hemingway Society site, where students can secure information about his fiction set in Michigan. Michael K. Steinberg and Jordan Cissell discuss their environmental literature class at the University of Alabama in "Beyond the Photographs." When students are asked to "describe the first image of Ernest Hemingway that comes to mind" (22) the answer is most often associated with a picture of Hemingway standing next to a large fish. Interestingly, their students use these photos for research. In fact, they measure the fish and compare them to the size of fish caught today. Students learn that fishing in the 1930s was much different than it is now. For instance, "The size and number of fish Hemingway caught are largely unheard of today in the same waters" (24), and billfish population has drastically declined. The authors do caution that "we cannot and should not suggest that students make quantitative statements about the declines in fish sizes and populations based on a limited number of photographs. However, the photographs can at least demonstrate what existed during Hemingway's Cuban years, illuminating their drastic decline in both size and number" (25). The essay also highlights that Hemingway was not simply a "meat" fisherman – someone who catches and kills large fish for entertainment; he was "cognizant of the pressure that both early sport and commercial fishing were having on certain species" (28). Hemingway was a founding member of the International Game Fish Association and collaborated with scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Because of his knowledge, experience, and love of fishing and the ocean, he was able to write realistically about it. Hemingway scholar Kirk Curnutt, English professor and chair at Troy University, writes about the benefits of using memes and photos as a teaching tool to enliven the classroom in "A Memeable Feast." Curnutt recommends pictures of Hemingway pointing his Tommy gun into the camera lens, and images of Hemingway fan tattoos, which display "how fans publicize their literary passions" (36). This – especially the photo with the Tommy gun – "help[s] break the ice in classrooms by humanizing the author's image" (35). The bottom line for Curnutt is that it is important to be engaging, so do what you have to do to connect with students. He believes the educational value [End Page 214] of Hemingway memes – especially the ones with quotations – are central to Hemingway studies because they demonstrate a basic trait of modernism, and that is they are "reinventing literary expression through experimentation … in other words [they] MAKE IT NEW" (41). Rebecca Johnston, co-vice president of the Florida Hemingway Society, discusses the benefits of using Google Maps and Google Earth to better understand the setting in Hemingway's works. Here's why: although he included autobiographical elements in his...

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life ed. by Michael Katakis

Reviewed by: Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life ed. by Michael Katakis Kirk Curnutt Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life. Edited by Michael Katakis. New York: Scribner's, 2018. 212 pp. Hardback $35.00. Scholars fortunate enough to have visited the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston understand what a treasure trove of material awaits discovery there. Not simply a repository for manuscript drafts and discards and correspondence—as valuable as those are for the simple reason that most of them remain unpublished—the collection also includes photo album upon photo album of images that few have ever flipped through, much less catalogued or requested permission to reproduce in a biography or critical study. Along with a large variety of keepsakes and ephemera, these goodies are hardly the typical flotsam and jetsam that your average pack rat accumulates over time. (It goes without saying that nary a description of the collection exists that does not describe Hemingway as a "notorious" pack rat). Rather, these objects, whether a scrap of paper, a ticket stub, or an expired passport, lend a material immanence to Hemingway's life nearly six decades after his death. Yet not every Hemingway aficionado can make his or her way to Columbia Point. In recent years, the collection has scanned bits and pieces for online access, most notably five volumes of Grace Hall Hemingway's scrapbooks on Ernest covering 1899-1917. Unless one is only interested in the writer's childhood and adolescence, though, the scrapbooks are fun but prefatory. They can only begin to challenge the visual stereotypes that stamp the culture's limited sense of Hemingway's iconicity, whether his beefy brio, that late-stage white Papa beard, or the omnipresent wine bottle. Most of these signifiers come from a handful of widely reprinted photos, from the 1924 image of the emerging author with his hands stuffed in his pockets outside the Paris apartment at 113 Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to Yousuf Karsh's famous 1957 close-up portrait of the literary lion in a turtleneck sweater thick as a Bundt pan around his throat. There is so much more to the man to discover, though. The omnipresence of photos like these are one reason that Michael Katakis's handsomely designed Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life is such a game-changer. Hemingway scholars know Mr. Katakis as the formidable gate-keeper to estate permissions; what they may not know is he is also a talented writer, editor, and historian in his own right, with books on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Native American photography, and expatriation to his credit. As a curatorial guide to the collection, he offers in this coffee-table book an [End Page 134] arresting tour of cornerstone Hemingway moments that feels both fresh and visually intoxicating, punctuated with thoughtful commentary from Hemingway Letters Project director Sandra Spanier, Carol Hemingway, former Kennedy Library director Tom Putnam, as well as "text panels" by Declan Kiely and a preface and afterword respectively from Patrick and Seán Hemingway. Thankfully, Katakis eschews a strictly chronological organization, which can feel stultifying in its familiarity to those who study the biographical arc. Instead, he divides the book into thematic sections ("Beginnings," "Key West, Cuba, and Spain," "Artifacts from a Life," and "Endings") that collectively create the appearance of that crucial modernist device, the collage-like juxtaposition. This strategy—dare I call it cubistic?—emphasizes the contrasts in Hemingway's life and recreates the experience of scouring photo- and scrapbooks, where the randomness at any moment can transport us into the thickness of an associative memory. The verso to the table of contents, for example, features a Spanish Civil War-era Hemingway, looking slightly frazzled and unkempt with the tail of his necktie straying from his sport coat, staring warily off-center of the camera aperture (viii). Set against this photo (which also serves as the book cover) is a small reproduction of the writer's 1944 World War II noncombatant identity card. Even with a thinner hairline and a white beard, ursine but clearly combed, Hemingway appears healthier if not younger in this latter photo, if only because he...

Kennedy’s Propagandists

Well-written and carefully crafted, Murrow’s Cold War blends a biography of Edward R. Murrow with a cogent assessment of Murrow’s tenure as director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) from 1961 to 1964. Tomlin deftly draws upon primary sources from the New York Public Library, the British National Archives, Tufts University, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and online collections. Tomlin begins by discussing the origins of the term public diplomacy and offering a brief overview of the contested history of U.S. propaganda. He sets the stage for Murrow’s assumption of the directorship of USIA and describes the challenges in documenting Murrow’s life. He then offers a cursory and, at times, rather ungenerous appraisal of other scholars’ efforts to document the history of U.S. information and cultural programs in the post–World War II era. In laying out Murrow’s key objectives for USIA, Tomlin contends that the agency had previously made little effort to inspire foreign audiences to embrace “the merits of the American way of life and its policies” (xxxi). It is difficult to discern whether these claims are Murrow’s or Tomlin’s, but whichever the case, the assertion mischaracterizes public diplomacy during the Truman and Eisenhower eras. But Murrow’s professed aim to integrate long-range planning, dynamism, and flexibility into USIA’s strategy was unquestionably a departure from his predecessors’ ad hoc approaches to propaganda messaging.

Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President by Paul H. Santa Cruz

Reviewed by: Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President by Paul H. Santa Cruz Emilie Raymond Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President. By Paul H. Santa Cruz. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. Pp. [xxiv], 363. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-57441-597-1.) Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the Thirty-Fifth President is the first book to analyze how various institutions and individuals have used popular memory of President John F. Kennedy to shape America’s political culture. While the book is somewhat incomplete, Paul H. Santa Cruz, an archivist at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, does launch an important discussion. Santa Cruz emphasizes the “mixed blessing” of JFK’s popular memory, which is considerably more adulatory than scholars’ assessments (p. 130). The public has named JFK one of the top five American presidents, while scholars list him somewhere in the middle. Although the author obviously understands the gap between JFK’s captivating image and his actual record, Santa Cruz wisely refrains from laboring on those differences. Instead, Santa Cruz uses individual case studies of the city of Dallas, Texas, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Robert F. Kennedy to show how the “practical quality” of public memory is often used for political ends (p. 7). Santa Cruz also warns against the possibilities of setting impossible standards and getting “used by” the same memory in the public realm (p. 114). In his discussion of Dallas, Johnson, and Robert Kennedy, Santa Cruz shows the motivations, execution, and results of their efforts to invoke JFK’s memory. Dallas civic leaders remade the city’s image from one of violent extremism tied to the Old South to one that was “moderate, progressive, [and] tolerant” (p. 38). City leaders also launched civic improvements while downplaying JFK’s actual murder in their city. A citizens’ memorial for the president was purposely located away from the site of his death, but public interest in his assassination—fueled in part by conspiracy theories—ultimately led to the establishment of the Sixth Floor Museum. President Johnson used the slain president’s memory to pass legislation, such as a tax cut and a civil rights bill that JFK had already introduced, to solidify his credentials as a liberal Democrat in anticipation of the 1964 election. However, soon after the election, Johnson distanced himself from JFK in order to sell his antipoverty measures and establish his own legacy. Johnson was only moderately successful, especially as growing social turmoil led many to wonder about what would have happened if JFK had lived. Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy used his brother’s memory much more deliberately in selling his political candidacies to the public, but with mixed results. His close working relationship with JFK surely helped Robert win a Senate seat in 1965, but it did not decisively boost his 1968 presidential bid. It possibly even undermined his candidacy, as he argued against his brother’s Vietnam policies and did not connect as well with working-class white voters. [End Page 485] The second half of the book, unfortunately, loses steam. Especially puzzling is the lack of a chapter about Jacqueline Kennedy. Santa Cruz states that her use of the term Camelot, which she introduced to Life magazine within two weeks of JFK’s death, did more than anything else to shape the president’s memory in popular culture. She dramatized JFK’s funeral and burial and played important roles in the construction of the Kennedy Space Center and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. These actions beg for the same kind of analysis as the other case studies. The final chapter, titled “Observations,” asserts that JFK had a positive vision and stirred civic engagement but also sensationalized American politics by contributing to a culture of celebrity. Perhaps Santa Cruz could have achieved a more innovative conclusion by consulting recent scholarship on public memory and on the conflation of Hollywood and politics. Nevertheless, his book provides a good starting point and will be especially useful to scholars interested in public history. Emilie Raymond Virginia Commonwealth University Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical Association

News from The Hemingway Collection

News from The Hemingway Collection Stacey Chandler, Christina Fitzpatrick, and Susan Wrynn New Guide to the Ernest Hemingway Collection Released Stacey Chandler and Christina Fitzpatrick John F. Kennedy Library Archivists at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library have spent over a year updating the guide to the Ernest Hemingway Personal Papers (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/EHPP.aspx?f=1), with the goals of improving organization and access for researchers, as well as integrating the now fully-described Other Materials series into the guide. We are excited to share the results of this work, and we compiled a list of the top ten changes in the new guide. 1. All series in the collection are now listed together. Previously, each series was described in a separate webpage, preventing researchers from searching the entire guide at once. The new version allows for a single keyword search of the entire collection, and may highlight relevant materials in unexpected parts of the collection. For example, a search for “Passos” in this guide reveals material related to John Dos Passos across many series, including Manuscripts, Incoming and Outgoing Correspondence, Other Materials, Periodicals, Scrapbooks, and Books. 2. The new formatting of the guide introduces a streamlined view of the collection by listing the folders in each box, but retains detailed document descriptions that can be viewed when a folder description is expanded. Researchers can expand descriptions by clicking on the plus mark (+) next to each folder title. For example, expanding the folder title “345. Cross Country Snow. Manuscript Fragment” opens this detailed description: “Alternative pages 6–8 for typescript/manuscript #344. Pencil draft begins ‘and drank the wine...’ pp. 6–8. 3pp. See also # 696.” To expand all descriptions simultaneously, researchers can scroll to the heading for “Container List,” then click the plus mark (+) next to “Expand / Collapse All.” [End Page 153] 3. Box numbers and folder titles are now included in the guide, making it easier for researchers to request boxes and locate documents. This also allows researchers to consistently cite every document’s physical location for the benefit of future scholars. 4. Cataloging descriptions have been reviewed for accuracy and updated as necessary, a process that will be ongoing. 5. We have researched unknown authors’ letters filed at the end of Series 3: Incoming Correspondence. The writers of twenty letters have now been identified for the first time. These individuals include artist Ludwig Bemelmans, childhood friends William A. Cordes and Emily Goetzmann, shipmate Charles S. Evans, and Percy Winner of the New York Post. We also found and cataloged additional letters from Guy Fangel, Archibald Crabbe, and Garfield David Merner. 6. Newspaper clippings and other items that were originally enclosed in letters sent to Hemingway have now been individually cataloged in Incoming Correspondence, making them searchable for the first time. The enclosures are cataloged in the same entry as the letters they accompany, preserving the original context. For example, the item previously described as “TLS Ivy Pratt 11 July 1938, London, 1 p., w/2 pp. enclosure” in Box IC06 is now listed as “TLS Ivy Pratt 11 July 1938, London, 1p., w/contract to publish THAHN in Polish, 2pp.” Similarly, researchers can now expand descriptions that include newspaper clippings to reveal information about the clipping. 7. Series 4: Other Materials is fully processed and described for the first time. Collected by Hemingway and documenting his daily life and interests, the series contains subject files on various topics, such as travel, as well as files of specific types of material, such as receipts. Items of interest include book lists, fishing logs and other notebooks, manuscripts by other writers, legal papers, and writings on the Spanish Civil War, World War I, and World War II. In the course of processing the series, we discovered that some materials were not described in previous inventories or photocopied for research use, leading us to believe that some items have never been seen by researchers. This includes materials such as binders, folders, and envelopes [End Page 154] listing word counts and other handwritten Hemingway notes. We encourage researchers to contact the research room before working with this series, so that newly-described items can be photocopied...

Beyond the Eagle's Shadow: New Histories of Latin America's Cold War

Beyond the Eagle's Shadow: New Histories of Latin America's Cold War

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum as a cultural representation of the public memory of the president

Abstract The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a cultural representation of the public memory of the president. The site, located in Boston, Massachusetts, welcomes thousands of visitors each year, and its exhibits aim to enhance their understanding of the Kennedy presidency. This article examines the purposes of the Kennedy Library and Museum and explores its content in order to establish whether the museum provides an accurate representation of John F. Kennedy’s achievements in office. While the approach adopted is principally one of historical enquiry in order to test the content of the museum against the president’s record in office, the range of political issues covered and the focus on a cultural symbol of his rule should make the article accessible to scholars in other disciplines. The article argues that the founders of the Kennedy Library and Museum, who were all close Kennedy associates, were keen to provide a permanent memorial to the president that focused on the idea that his achievements in office outweighed his personal flaws. Reflecting their views and the influence that they have had over the wider public perception of President Kennedy, the Kennedy Library and Museum therefore provides an overwhelmingly positive representation of the president.

News from the Hemingway Collection

News from the Hemingway Collection Susan Wrynn Research Grants The Ernest Hemingway Research Grants resumed in 2014. This year’s winners are Ross Tangedal, a Ph.D candidate at Kent State University; Michael Von Cannon, a Ph.D candidate at Louisiana State University, and Stephanie Gall, an undergraduate student at Wellesley College. The postmark deadline for 2015 grant applications is 1 November 2014; awards will be announced on 15 December. See details at http://www.jfklibrary.org/About-Us/Job-Volunteer-Internships/Research-Grants-and-Fellowships/Ernest-Hemingway-Research-Grants.aspx Museo Ernest Hemingway Collection With support from the Finca Vigía Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum received more than 2,500 digital images from the Finca Vigía Museum in Havana, now available to researchers at the library. These digital facsimiles were taken from the archival holdings still located in Hemingway’s Cuban home. The Archives staff has created a Finding Aid offered online at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/MEHC.aspx On the opening of the material, Tom Putnam, Director of the Kennedy Library said “We are pleased to make available to researchers copies of these materials that provide a unique glimpse into the everyday life of Ernest Hemingway. For a literary figure who is often portrayed as larger than life, this trove of personal ephemera serves to humanize the man and to understand the writer.” PEN Hemingway Awards NoViolet Bulawayo has won the 2014 PEN HemingwayAward for a distinguished first book of fiction for her critically acclaimed We Need New Names (Reagan Arthur Books/Little Brown and Company). Bulawayo will receive a $10,000 prize from the Hemingway Foundation and PEN New England, as [End Page 182] well as a residency in the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. Born in Zimbabwe, Bulawayo’s semi-autobiographical novel chronicles the life of a ten-year old girl in Zimbabwe during its so-called Lost Decade and then her life as a teenager in present-day America. Bulawayo is presently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. The two Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award finalists are Mitchell S. Jackson for The Residue Years (Bloomsbury USA) and Anthony Wallace for The Old Priest (University of Pittsburgh Press). Three writers received honorable mention: Jasmine Beach-Ferrara for Damn Love (Ig Publishing), Kristopher Jansma for The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards (Viking), and Ethan Rutherford for The Peripatetic Coffin (Ecco/HarperCollins). Geraldine Brooks, author of The People of the Book, Caleb’s Crossing, and Year of Wonders, was the featured keynote speaker at the 6 April award ceremony. Australian-born, Ms. Brooks worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. Her novel, March, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. [End Page 183] Susan Wrynn John F. Kennedy Library Copyright © 2014 The Ernest Hemingway Foundation

Digital Archives, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Digital Archives, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Meeting the Challenge from Totalitarianism: The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Global Model for Liberal Development, 1933–1945

Meeting the Challenge from Totalitarianism: The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Global Model for Liberal Development, 1933–1945

Thomas J. Carty.A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign.:A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign

Thomas J. Carty.<i>A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign</i>.:A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Review Article| January 01 2006 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum CARL M. BRAUER CARL M. BRAUER Belmont, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (2006) 28 (3): 194–197. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2006.28.3.194 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation CARL M. BRAUER; John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The Public Historian 1 January 2006; 28 (3): 194–197. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2006.28.3.194 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Public Historian Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2006 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.2006 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

A Catholic in the White House?: Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign

A Catholic in the White House?: Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign

Televising sin: efforts to restrict the televised advertisement of cigarettes and alcohol in the united states, 1950s to 1980s

Near the end of 2001, the National Broadcasting Company announced a departure in its advertising policy: the network would effectively break the taboo against spirits advertising on television by a...

A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign (review)

A in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign. By Thomas J. Carty. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. Pp. viii, 215. $39.95 hardcover.) The author, Thomas J. Carty, assistant professor of history at Springfield College, has provided a timely study of the question of religion and U.S. presidential politics. Focusing on the 1960 campaign and the variety of responses to John Kennedy's brand of Catholicism, Carty provides scholarly context for understanding many of the cultural, political, and religious issues of the period, including historical U.S. anti-Catholicism and the impact of the Cold War on the same. In addition, and just as significantly, his work points to the questions and prejudices that remain in the current American context, despite the widespread popular perception that Kennedy's election finally resolved the Catholic issue. Systematically presented in seven chapters and an epilogue, the book is based on Professor Carty's doctoral dissertation, presented at the University of Connecticut, and as such, it suggests the still-growing interest in Catholic studies within the secular academy. The strength of the work lies in its detailed research and exploration of the political history involved rather than in a deeper analysis of the theological questions. But much of that work was laid out by Donald Pelotte in his study of John Courtney Murray and his theological project (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), to which Carty duly refers in his notes. The first chapter offers a broad summary of the history of the Catholic issue in U.S. politics up to the period of Al Smith's 1928 presidential campaign and might prove especially useful to undergraduates and others who are beginning their study of the topic. In the second chapter Carty focuses on the political careers of the nationally-known Catholics Al Smith, Jim Parley, Joseph Kennedy, and Joseph McCarthy as a prelude for understanding the religious issues of the 1960 campaign. The next three chapters are effective in their analysis of the major differing perspectives and opinions with regard to Kennedy's religion and candidacy. Conservative Protestant opposition, including that of Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Martin Luther King, Sr., and Harry S. Truman is studied first, allowing Carty to show the sometimes surprisingly rapid, though not universal, evolution of thought and public position within these circles. …