{"id":453,"date":"2012-04-12T11:08:56","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T10:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/leggett\/?p=453"},"modified":"2012-10-04T15:07:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T14:07:10","slug":"profile-of-an-orator-john-f-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/leggett\/2012\/04\/12\/profile-of-an-orator-john-f-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile of an Orator: John F. Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This essay is a profile of John Kennedy as an orator and on his communication skills in general. It is not a political biography.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher who were conviction speakers with ideological messages, John Kennedy\u2019s platform was more inspiring, pragmatic and liberal. His Inaugural Address and his speech at the Berlin Wall are examples of this. He was a man of his time, and his style suited this epoch of the mass media. Following the dull post war years of the Eisenhower administration, he brought a new spirit to the body politic. Kennedy\u2019s attractive non-verbal style did much to endear him to his audiences.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Picture from Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

When President Kennedy rose to make his speech on that blustering day at the end of June in 1963 in Berlin, the multitude waited, as did television audiences round the world, in some anticipation, for the President\u2019s speech. What they got was what they had hoped for, a stimulating and inspirational speech. He ended this memorable speech in the following way:<\/p>\n

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we look — can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026 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.”[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What, in fact, Kennedy did here was to articulateAmerica\u2019s leadership to the peoples ofWest Berlin,West Germanyand, indeed, the rest ofEurope. Jack Kennedy\u2019s communication style was that of an orator, and he didn\u2019t let his audience down.<\/p>\n

A reluctant Kennedy enters politics<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Jack Kennedy set out on this campaign, he was a very young-looking 29 year old, not very healthy, somewhat cold, and aloof from his own party people, and, more interesting for us, not a very confident public speaker. People, even from his own party, asked what this privileged son of a multimillionaire had to offer the people from the Eleventh District inBoston. He certainly didn\u2019t have a reputation for hard work and showed no signs of being especially good at communication either from the podium or at an interpersonal level, where he was constantly accused of being indifferent to people. His opponents also openly accused him of using his father\u2019s money to buy his Congressional seat. Certainly there was a degree of truth in this accusation, although many of his opponents either inherited their money, like Cabot Lodge, or simply married it, like Lyndon Johnson.<\/p>\n

A stiff and wooden speaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a nutshell, according to author Robert Dallek, Jack Kennedy was a hopeless public speaker in the years running up to his electoral success in 1946.[3]<\/a> \u201cStiff and wooden were the words most often used to describe his oratory\u201d, writes Dallek. He spoke in a high-pitched voice with no trace of humour and never diversifying from the text in front of him. It was boring. He was like a young teacher on his first teaching practice.<\/p>\n

Also, he appeared uneasy speaking to people he didn\u2019t know in one-to-one situations. One commentator said that \u201cyou had to lead him by the hand\u201d when mixing with the general public as otherwise he would just disappear. He certainly wasn\u2019t a mingler and appeared cold and distant. One could say he was a very apolitical candidate running for Congress.<\/p>\n

One problem he had, of course, was his health. A more sedate lifestyle must have seemed more attractive to him. Kennedy once said that \u201cI would rather go somewhere with my familiars or sit alone somewhere and read a book\u201d<\/em>.[4]<\/a> At this stage of his political career, he appeared the opposite to his grandfather, Honey Fitzgerald, the former Mayor of Boston, who loved mingling with people, loved public speaking, and loved being involved in the day-to-day politics of the city.<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s acceptance of feedback<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Kennedy did make the necessary changes in his behaviour. He began to rehearse his speeches with his sisters, and sit with his father late into the evenings evaluating his day\u2019s performance. In fact, there is one story told about how one of his sisters used to learn his speeches off by heart so she could prompt him if his memory let him down. According to Robert Dallek, Jack Kennedy\u2019s father was very positive about Jack\u2019s performances as a speaker but also made him aware of his shortcomings.[5]<\/a> This support gave Kennedy both a lot of self-confidence and the will to fix his shortcomings. For example, Dallek gives the circumstances of a particular speech when Jack complained that he felt he had been boring, and his father immediately assured him that he was greatly improving day by day. This feedback was constant.<\/p>\n

His behaviour changed in other ways too, in that he began to do what most politicians running for election would call a decent day\u2019s work. At seven every morning he was now to be found at factory gates introducing himself to people going to work. He then moved on to radio talk shows and visits to businesses and other public places. He kept this pace up throughout the day, usually ending his campaign each evening by attending one or more of the social events organized by his sisters with various women\u2019s groups. Kennedy was now turning in a fourteen hour day, something which very few people expected, given his track record as a laid-back newspaperman with the Chicago Herald.<\/p>\n

The 1946 Congressional elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nationally, the tidal wave was in favour of the Republicans, although Harry Truman, a Democrat, was in the White House. Even in Massachusetts the Democrats were to lose their US senate seat and the governorship. In all, the Republicans gained 55 seats in the House and 12 Senate seats.<\/p>\n

But the Eleventh Congressional District was an exception; it went to the Democrats. The 29 year old Jack Kennedy beat his Republican opponent by over 43,000 votes. He received 69,093 votes and his opponent 26,002 votes. It was a clear victory that went against the national trends and showed much about how Kennedy had made the change in his work habits and was accepting his life as a politician. In the following election, Kennedy increased the size of his majority by more than 25,000.\u00a0 Kennedy\u2019s adversaries will stress his laid back attitude and his lack of legislative initiatives while in the House, but it is hard to accept this as a lack of interest in politics when one looks at his increased majorities.<\/p>\n

The Senate election of 1952<\/strong><\/p>\n

After six years in the House, the options for Kennedy in 1952 were to stay on as a congressman, as most people seemingly expected, run for the governorship of Massachusetts, run for the Mayor of Boston, or to run for the Senate. It was election year, and a decision had to be made. He was now politically ambitious and ready to take calculated risks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The current governor of Massachusetts, Paul Dever, toyed with the idea of running against the sitting Republican senator, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., but remained uncertain that he could beat him. Jack Kennedy had no such feelings, so when the governor decided not to seek nomination, the way was open for Kennedy to run for the Senate against this highly respected incumbent senator. The fight for the senate seat was tough and evenly balanced, as Lodge brought in many of the big Republican names from Washington to support him, such as Dwight Eisenhower, the war hero and Presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

Stephen Graubard wrote on the subject of Eisenhower\u2019s appeal for support for Lodge: [6]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEisenhower, traveling to Boston on election eve to help Lodge, urged the crowd in the Boston Garden and the larger audience that heard him on radio to reelect the man who had first recommended him to \u2018undertake this great crusade\u2019, characterizing him \u2018as a man of courage and conviction, a vigorous opponent of the menace of Godless Communism\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As in 1946, when the tidal wave had favored the Republicans, Kennedy beat the incumbent Republican senator. He had an impressive majority of 70,000 votes. It was impressive because Dwight Eisenhower, running for the presidency, trounced his Democratic presidential rival, Adlai Stevenson, in Massachusetts, by over 200,000 votes. The Republicans even took the governorship of the state from the Democratic incumbent, Paul Dever. But all was not successful for Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s failure to secure the vice-presidency ticket<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the Senate, Kennedy supported Adlai Stevenson\u2019s democratic candidature for the 1956 election to run against serving President, Dwight Eisenhower. However, Kennedy also saw this as an opportunity to seek the vice presidency for himself. He took the risk without making the preparations. He let his name go forward to the Democratic convention, hoping that his popularity and relationship with Stevenson would win the day.\u00a0 What he did not calculate was Stevenson\u2019s personal feelings towards Kennedy.<\/p>\n

During these years, Kennedy had been slowly emerging as a popular speaker especially on television. He was generally liked by audiences, so it is little wonder that Stevenson should use Kennedy\u2019s popularity to support his nomination. He asked Kennedy to make his nomination speech, a speech which Kennedy gladly made, apparently thinking that Stevenson would support his Vice Presidency bid.\u00a0 In this speech to the National Convention we see a glimpse of what was to come in his mastery of the language of \u2018feeling\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n