American Media and the Kennedy Administration worked
hand-in-glove to create the Society-of-the-Spectable image of glamorous
Camelot. Further, even
moreso than in the case of the crippled FDR, the media scrupulously hid JFK’s health-problems
from the public -- much worse, as he took office, than FDR had at the beginning
of his first term: Had the public been aware of the many physical
liabilities they were electing (cf. historian Robert Dallek’s 2002 book, re
just how severe these were), that squeaky-close 1960 election might well have
broken the other way.
Equally indulgent and gingerly was the media approach to
Kennedy’s many flagrant affairs while occupying the Oval Office. Yet for all that, they didn’t get a pass from POTUS:
Kennedy … was angry again … He
picked up the phone and got Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission. “Did
you see that goddamn thing on Huntley-Brinkley? I thought they were supposed to be our friends. I
want you to do something about that.
You do something about that.”
-- Richard Reeves, President
Kennedy: Profile of Power
(1993), p. 300
(That final implied threat, and its prose style,
incidentally recalls that of Mafia dons.)
“The fucking Herald Tribune is at it again,” Kennedy said that morning in an
angry telephone call to his press secretary. Then he canceled the twenty-two Trib subscriptions that
came to the White House each morning.
-- Richard Reeves, President
Kennedy: Profile of Power
(1993), p. 300
(One suspects, incidentally, that that last fit of pique,
meant only that some hapless aide would have to drag himself early out of bed
each morning, and drive off to a newsstand, to purchase 22 copies.)
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