cover image The Kennedy Persuasion: The Politics of Style Since JFK

The Kennedy Persuasion: The Politics of Style Since JFK

Paul R. Henggeler. Ivan R. Dee Publisher, $27.5 (335pp) ISBN 978-1-56663-078-8

Since John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, U.S. presidents and presidential candidates have laid claim to his mantle by emulating his youthful, telegenic image and style, asserts Henggeler, assistant professor of history at the Univ. of Texas. Lyndon Johnson, an old-style wheeler-dealer overshadowed by the Camelot myth, invoked JFK's legacy to promote major domestic reforms and to justify America's commitment to fighting communism overseas. Nixon, resentful of Kennedy for defeating him in 1960, tried to copy his vigor, warmth and intellectual abilities while attempting as president to destroy Kennedy's reputation. Ford, Carter and Reagan also played upon the public's memories of Kennedy. Clinton, who identifies with his hero, JFK, openly articulates the imagined viewpoints of the martyred Kennedy brothers. Henggeler has drawn on presidential papers and his interviews with Gerald Ford, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis and Geraldine Ferraro to produce a witty and trenchant deconstruction of the Kennedy mystique and its appropriation by politicians who counterproductively tie contemporary debate to a mythic past. (Apr.)