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Albert E. Burke: Difference between revisions
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Although Nixon carried Dallas County by a landslide, Texas went for the Kennedy-Johnson. (Johnson also beat Tower in the senatorial race, although Tower would win the subsequent special election.) It was the closest presidential election in the nation’s history, and it was decided that day in the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel. People said afterward that they were not voting for Kennedy so much as they were voting against Dallas. | Although Nixon carried Dallas County by a landslide, Texas went for the Kennedy-Johnson. (Johnson also beat Tower in the senatorial race, although Tower would win the subsequent special election.) It was the closest presidential election in the nation’s history, and it was decided that day in the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel. People said afterward that they were not voting for Kennedy so much as they were voting against Dallas. | ||
Against us. For the first time people in the city learned about guilt by association. Until then Dallas had had very little national identity, but we found ourselves now with a new municipal image: a city of the angry nouveau riche, smug, doctrinaire, belligerent, a city with a taste for political violence. Many Dallasites were shocked to see our city represented that way, but it had little effect on the way we thought of ourselves. ... | Against us. For the first time people in the city learned about guilt by association. Until then Dallas had had very little national identity, but we found ourselves now with a new municipal image: a city of the angry nouveau riche, smug, doctrinaire, belligerent, a city with a taste for political violence. Many Dallasites were shocked to see our city represented that way, but it had little effect on the way we thought of ourselves. ... | ||
There was, in fact, a chip of defiance on the city’s shoulder, encouraged by the ''Dallas Morning News''. The ''News'' is the oldest business institution in the state, having been founded in 1842 when Texas was still a republic and Dallas little more than a heady presumption. Under George B. Dealey the ''News'' had been a progressive newspaper, leading the scourge that drove the Ku Klux Klan out of Texas. The name “Dealey” would become famous because of the queer, fan-shaped park known as Dealey Plaza, directly across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, where a bronze statue of G.B. Dealey stares at the now magnificent skyline of downtown Dallas. Many citizens believe it is perfectly appropriate that Dealey’s name should be irrevocably tied to the assassination, even though it is his son they blame. ... | |||
<mark>E.M. "Ted" Dealey</mark>, the son, succeeded his father as publisher of the ''[Dallas Morning] News'', and in his hands it became the <mark>most strident, red-baiting daily paper in the country</mark>, excepting only occasionally William Leob's ''Union-Leader'', in Manchester, New Hampshire. <mark>Like many intensely conservative people, he found his paragon in the movies and politics of John Wayne</mark>. As a matter of fact, <mark>reading the ''News'' each morning was like watching a brawl in a saloon</mark>, in which the newspaper's <mark>editorials flattened the "socialists" (read: Democrats), the "perverts and subversives" (liberal Democrats), the "Judicial Kremlin" (the U.S. Supreme Court), and virtually every representative of the federal government '''whose views differed''' from those of Ted Dealey</mark>. Immediately after the election the ''News'''s principal object of contempt became President John F Kennedy, who the paper suggested was a crook, a communist sympathizer, a thief, and "fifty times a fool". | <mark>E.M. "Ted" Dealey</mark>, the son, succeeded his father as publisher of the ''[Dallas Morning] News'', and in his hands it became the <mark>most strident, red-baiting daily paper in the country</mark>, excepting only occasionally William Leob's ''Union-Leader'', in Manchester, New Hampshire. <mark>Like many intensely conservative people, he found his paragon in the movies and politics of John Wayne</mark>. As a matter of fact, <mark>reading the ''News'' each morning was like watching a brawl in a saloon</mark>, in which the newspaper's <mark>editorials flattened the "socialists" (read: Democrats), the "perverts and subversives" (liberal Democrats), the "Judicial Kremlin" (the U.S. Supreme Court), and virtually every representative of the federal government '''whose views differed''' from those of Ted Dealey</mark>. Immediately after the election the ''News'''s principal object of contempt became President John F Kennedy, who the paper suggested was a crook, a communist sympathizer, a thief, and "fifty times a fool". | ||
Ted Dealey went to the White House in the fall of 1961 with a group of Texas publishers to meet the man he had maligned so frequently in his newspaper. He used the occasion to attack Kennedy in person. "We can annihilate Russia and should make that clear to the Soviet government", he advised the president, to the discomfort of his colleagues in the room. He accused Kennedy and his administration of being <mark>weak sisters</mark> (a favorite Dealey phrase). "We need <mark>a man on horseback</mark> to lead this nation", he concluded "and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are <mark>riding Caroline's tricycle</mark>". ... | Ted Dealey went to the White House in the fall of 1961 with a group of Texas publishers to meet the man he had maligned so frequently in his newspaper. He used the occasion to attack Kennedy in person. "We can annihilate Russia and should make that clear to the Soviet government", he advised the president, to the discomfort of his colleagues in the room. He accused Kennedy and his administration of being <mark>weak sisters</mark> (a favorite Dealey phrase). "We need <mark>a man on horseback</mark> to lead this nation", he concluded "and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are <mark>riding Caroline's tricycle</mark>". ... | ||