John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Difference

In The Presidential Difference, Fred Greenstein examines seven different aspects of presidential effectiveness: Public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. These are organized around the thesis that a president’s personality and the circumstances surrounding his life shape the way he acts.

Public Communication. Greenstein’s first category deals with the President’s ability to reach out to the public, to present a positive image and clearly, convincingly communicate the voice of the nation. It requires skill in elocution and rhetoric. This was one of Kennedy’s strongest talents. He is renowned for such speeches as his inaugural, in which he urged the American people, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” and to the world; “ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate” (Schlesinger 4).

Kennedy maintained a strong appeal with the American public, despite the many failings of his administration. “One powerful explanation for Kennedy’s success,” writes Thomas Reeves in his revisionist biography A Question of Character, “was the personal image he was able to communicate throughout the campaign. JFK, in person, in the media, in campaign literature, and even on millions of campaign signs and buttons, appeared to have extraordinary intelligence and sterling character” (Reeves 215). A. M. Schlesinger, Jr. portrayed him in campaign propaganda as “a man of principle, consistency, and self-confidence. . . ‘an exceptionally cerebral figure,’ ‘a committed liberal’ who admired intellectuals and would turn to them for advice” (Reeves 215). He was perhaps the first modern president to make effective use of the power of celebrity.

Greenstein criticizes Kennedy for insensitivity to the way his speeches were understood by those outside the United States; particularly in the Soviet Union. However, at this time no one in the West really understood the fragile nature of the Soviet/Chinese relationship. The Soviets may have been responding to Maoist criticism by their hard-line stance, but Kennedy could not have known this at the time. The Communist countries were viewed by outsiders as an internally consistent bloc. It was not until Kissinger visited China in 1972—ten years later—that the United States began to recognize and take diplomatic advantage of the tension between the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of China. It also seems inconsistent that Greenstein does not criticize Reagan, who used stronger anti-Soviet rhetoric than Kennedy. Generally we view Reagan’s speeches as positive.

Organizational Capacity. Key to presidential effectiveness is the way the president structures the decision-making process. Some presidents, such as FDR, sought to expand their own influence by involving themselves in the minutiae of everyday decisions, meeting with their many subordinates in one-on-one meetings; others, such as Reagan, gave their subordinates much more freedom of action, weighing in only on matters of particular importance or when they saw a need for clear visionary direction. There is not one valid style of Presidential leadership, although some styles seem to be more effective than others. But for any style, there are a few indispensable qualities. A useful and accurate information flow cannot be maintained without the ability for subordinates to speak their mind about issues. Diversity of thought in the White House can never be regarded too highly. When a President deliberately excludes a Cabinet member from the decision-making process, one can be sure that he has something to say pursuant to the situation and the reason he has been excused is that his opinion strongly opposes that of the President, who is unwilling to listen to internal criticism. This relates to Greenstein’s “emotional intelligence” factor.

Kennedy’s organizational capacity was insufficient, as the botched Cuban invasion clearly shows. It did not have to fail. Had Kennedy worked for consensus and common cause among his advisers, there might have been a different outcome. His informal leadership style may have consolidated decision-making powers in his hands, but it did not mean he was able to make consistent and effective decisions. The Bay of Pigs incident was a dark comedy of errors. According to Victor Lasky, in his book J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth, written three months before Kennedy’s death, and the first critical look at the merits of Kennedy’s presidency:

One of the curious aspects about the lengthy secret debate within the Administration which had preceded Kennedy’s decision was that at no time had the President ever discussed the matter with either [U.N. Ambassador] Adlai Stevenson or [Under-secretary of State] Chester Bowles, who had been billed as Kennedy’s chief foreign policy advisers during the campaign. What made this even more strange is that Kennedy had sent Stevenson on a good-will tour of Latin America, another purpose of which was to obtain first-hand information on what the leaders were thinking down there (Lasky, 518).

Neither was Vice-President Johnson, a seasoned political veteran, consulted. Immediately after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Kennedy Administration began to pass the blame. Kennedy blamed the press for insensitivity to matters of national security—this coming from a president who panicked his aids when he thoughtlessly mentioned classified information in front of a CBS documentary film crew (Lasky 531, 509). Kennedy’s administration attempted to pass the blame off on Eisenhower’s administration, claiming that the plan had been inherited from Eisenhower and carried out exactly as it had been conceived. What really happened was a series of eleventh-hour vacillations and inconsistencies on Kennedy’s part, which doomed the Cuban resistance to failure—not the Eisenhower guidelines, which had stressed the necessity of strong naval and air support (Lasky 517). Two weeks before the planned invasion the CIA painted two American bombers with Cuban insignia and bombed Castro’s airfields. Adlai Stevenson denied—in good faith—that the U.S. had anything to do with it, but no one had any reason to believe the Kennedy line. Then, on the eve of the invasion, Kennedy announced that the U.S. “would not become involved in Cuba,” and cancelled plans to provide U.S. air cover for the invasion. Without cover, the invasion force were sitting ducks for the still-functional Cuban air defense. The invasion was routed. To add insult to injury, for all the time the invasion had been in planning, the Cuban underground resistance was not informed what day it would happen. The United States had the resources to pull off a serious invasion of Cuba, but it required dedication and a realistic assessment. “Whether Kennedy should or should not have approved the invasion attempt is not at issue here,” Lasky writes. “He was President of the United States. Only he could have made the decision . . . But having made an affirmative decision, John F. Kennedy had no alternative but to assure victory. This he failed to do” (Lasky 516).

Political Skill. This category examines the President’s ability to lead his party; to be personable and work effectively with those in government, his advisers and members of his administration, Congress, opposition leaders, interest groups, foreign diplomats and so forth; and to present himself well to the press, and through the press, the public.

Kennedy was a born schmoozer, an excellent rhetorician, and a media idol, as we have observed already under “public communication.” His extraordinary ability to present the image of a powerful, positive president helped to cover for the many political disasters of the three years of his presidency. Greenstein maintains a positive assessment of his political skill. Perhaps the reason for his lack of success in many areas was not a lack of skill, but a deficiency in structure. As Greenstein points out, from the beginning he surrounded himself with politically experienced men, but did not bring them together for discussions. “He eliminated [Eisenhower’s] practice of holding regular official meetings in which top administrative officials argued out their policy differences. Instead, he relied on ad hoc consultations . . .” (Greenstein 67-67). It seems that Kennedy left it to himself to synthesize the experience and wisdom of his advisers. This may account for his weakness in the Bay of Pigs crisis. Instead of bringing all his people to an agreement and carrying it out logically, he took their individual counsels and ended up with a confused, incoherent, and unsuccessful course of action.

Vision. Vision is the ability of a president to present and aim toward clear, well-defined goals. A president with vision decides what must be done and then tries to get it done. The opposite of this quality is a president who reacts to whatever situations that are thrown in his way, but has no policy agenda for his administration. Certainly, the ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances is extremely important, and a President must do both. As much as we profess to look for “vision’ in a President, many of the presidents we usually rate the highest were not too successful in their policy agendas, but showed skill in responding to crisis. Never mind that FDR’s New Deal was ill-conceived and doomed to failure—he was the President who skillfully led the United States in the midst of the greatest war mankind had ever seen.

Greenstein ranks Kennedy low for vision—even though JFK’s speeches are some of the most inspiring of the American political repertoire. His domestic policy agenda was more passive-responsive than active or vigorous. It was style without substance. During the first hundred days of Kennedy’s administration, Lasky writes, “. . . no one can dispute the fact that he appeared to be in perpetual motion. But motion does not necessarily mean progress. It was, in fact, motion largely without movement. Never before had so much public relations effort been expended to convey an impression of great activity” (Lasky 501). Kennedy had the perfect PR machine; good speechwriters, a genius for personal presentation, and a fawning press. “During the first one hundred Kennedy days, there was a flood of speeches, statements, special messages, and legislative requests—close to fifty, spaced properly for maximum press coverage—which conveyed a sense of momentum and constant progress. People felt things were happening under Kennedy, when they really weren’t” (Lasky 501-2). In short, Kennedy projected a visionary enthusiasm without actually accomplishing much.

Cognitive Style. This attribute encompasses the president’s intelligence and his grasp of the “big picture” and the details of policy matters. There is no doubt that Kennedy was very intelligent (although his books may have been largely ghostwritten by his father’s employees). He read a tremendous amount of official communication, and made time to expand his mind with books. He had a pretty solid grasp on the details of any given issue. Of course, he would cram for press conferences in order to give off a knowledgeable air, but it is clear that he knew what was going on in the business of his administration. Whether this enabled him to make rational decisions, we will discuss in a moment.

Emotional Intelligence. This category is strangely named, but it refers simply to the degree to which a president is in control of his emotions and able to make rational, non-compulsive decisions. “Beware the presidential contender who lacks emotional intelligence” (Greenstein 223). To Greenstein, “emotional intelligence” is the most important of all the presidential characteristics. Without this a President is unable to function, because “In its absence all else may turn to ashes” (Ibid.). Whatever other intellectual, political, and inspirational talents and skills a President possesses, he can never use them consistently if he is emotionally unstable—that is, if his actions are governed by his fluctuating moods.

This is an interesting situation. Once we move beyond Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s laudatory memoir of the Camelot years, we discover that Kennedy’s glamorous persona hid a man full of emotional insecurities, a constant womanizer, who was in constant physical pain and had never been really well a day in his life. JFK expected to die young. His body could not handle the incredible stress he put it through. Yet he was so consistent in putting on the famous cheerful and positive Kennedy face that Greenstein wonders if it is perhaps really possible for a president not to let his private life affect his public duties. Maybe the American people, in approving of President Clinton’s job performance while turning up our self-righteous noses at his immorality, were simply remembering how well that reprobate Kennedy seemed to perform in the White House. Never mind his policy failures and the international crises which could have been avoided. But it is to these we must look and wonder if there really was nothing in Kennedy’s emotional makeup which contributed to the way he dealt with the problems of his term. Greenstein’s categories have much to recommend them, but they fall short somewhat when dealing with John F. Kennedy. There is more to be learned from his upbringing, for instance, which Greenstein does not take into account. The definition of “emotional intelligence” ought to be expanded to the person’s psychological tendencies, his personality, his past experiences, his moral strengths and weaknesses, and maybe even his religion.

In her book The Kennedy Neurosis, Nancy Gager Clinch seeks to discover a root cause for the tragic history of the Kennedy family in a pathological psychological predisposition for risk-taking. She writes, “All of the Kennedys were raised within a childhood pattern centering on three negative dynamics: patriarchy, competition, and sexism” (Clinch 13). Patriarchy strongly influenced JFK’s career. He knew his father expected him to pursue the highest office, and he never dared to cross him. Competition was a value ruthlessly drilled into the Kennedy boys by their father, who taught them that Number One was the only acceptable position. JFK, sickly throughout his life, was killing himself with the effort. He expected to die young, but he never considered a rest. Sexism and chauvinism completed this deplorable upbringing. Kennedy’s father ignored his wife and had multiple affairs, and his sons followed his example of objectifying women. JFK was notoriously promiscuous. Clinch takes this power-seeking, competitive “neurosis” of the Kennedy family and seeks to explain their political actions:

America responded strongly to the Kennedy promise partly because that promise seemed to meet a deep national need. But the promise was illusory, and the need is still unmet. The Kennedys possessed the necessary intelligence, energy, and single-minded concentration. But the crucial moral vision—the essence of courage—was repeatedly shown to be missing. Their goal, being a neurotic self-gratification rather than a genuine self-fulfillment, kept them emotionally separated from the people they professed to lead (Clinch 17).

This is an important link between emotional intelligence and vision; the idea that moral rectitude is necessary for visionary leadership. We also may see links between this expanded idea of emotional intelligence and Kennedy’s disorganized style and political purposelessness. He was not driven by vision, but his frantic, self-destructive tendencies.

Every political theorist attempts to explain the world, to bring within the reach of his argument all human experience, and to deny whatever he cannot interpret. But theories are not absolute truth—they are only a framework for managing information, and the world is too expansive to fit into a reductionistic theory. This is why even Greenstein attempts to divorce Kennedy’s public actions from his private life. But if we allow every theory to have its say, we may develop a wider, more balanced, and more accurate view of political realities. The Presidential Difference is an important step in the right direction.