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Albert E. Burke: Difference between revisions
→JFK Assassination
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No, it was not just Dallas, but my hometown was already gaining the reputation of being the <mark>capital of this '''new world'''</mark>. ... | No, it was not just Dallas, but my hometown was already gaining the reputation of being the <mark>capital of this '''new world'''</mark>. ... | ||
What was more surprising was that the sign carriers and catcallers were for the most part well-groomed women from some of the finest homes in the city, and yet as soon as the Johnsons waded into Commerce Street the women in red, white, and blue began to <mark>curse</mark> them and to <mark>spit</mark>. (Later, some members of the “<mark>Mink Coat Mob</mark>,” as they came to be known, claimed that they were not spitting, exactly—they were frothing.) | What was more surprising was that the sign carriers and catcallers were for the most part well-groomed women from some of the finest homes in the city, and yet as soon as the Johnsons waded into Commerce Street the women in red, white, and blue began to <mark>curse</mark> them and to <mark>spit</mark>. (Later, some members of the “<mark>Mink Coat Mob</mark>,” as they came to be known, claimed that they were not spitting, exactly—they were frothing.) | ||
Why? What accounted for the <mark>hostility</mark> (or to use her word, indignation) of the <mark>fashionable and affluent</mark> Dallas woman? In part she was simply a prisoner of her age: a women of <mark>unfocused ambition, intensely competitive</mark> but unemployed (the working wife was still a signal of economic desperation), <mark>lonely at home</mark> and given to <mark>causes</mark>. She may have been financially secure, but she was deeply troubled by some <mark>unnamed fear that her castle was built of sand and the coming tide would wash away her American dreams [fairy tale]</mark>. She named the tide International Communism, or <mark>Creeping Socialism</mark>. When Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev boasted to the West, “We will bury you,” the conservative Dallas woman believed him. Earlier that autumn Khrushchev had come to the United Nations and pounded on the table with his shoe—a gesture of such swaggering boorishness that it justified every qualm the Dallas woman felt about Russia, the United Nations, and American foreign policy. She worried about the missile gap and the spread of communism to Cuba. Moreover, people in her own country were talking enthusiastically about social change—Kennedy was already speaking of the “the revolutionary sixties”—and the Dallas woman knew those changes would come at her expense. She worried about the erosion of liberty caused by recent Supreme Court decisions (often delivered by <mark>Chief Justice Earl Warren</mark>, who was the <mark>creeping socialist personified</mark>). The court was <mark>taking rights away from the Dallas woman and awarding them to pornographers, criminals, atheists, communists, and Negroes</mark>. The Dallas woman felt herself to be under attack at home and abroad. ... | Why? What accounted for the <mark>hostility</mark> (or to use her word, indignation) of the <mark>fashionable and affluent</mark> Dallas woman? In part she was simply a prisoner of her age: a women of <mark>unfocused ambition, intensely competitive</mark> but unemployed (the working wife was still a signal of economic desperation), <mark>lonely at home</mark> and given to <mark>causes</mark>. She may have been financially secure, but she was deeply troubled by some <mark>unnamed fear that her castle was built of sand and the coming tide would wash away her American dreams [fairy tale]</mark>. She named the tide International Communism, or '''<mark>Creeping Socialism</mark>'''. When Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev boasted to the West, “We will bury you,” the conservative Dallas woman believed him. Earlier that autumn Khrushchev had come to the United Nations and pounded on the table with his shoe—a gesture of such swaggering boorishness that it justified every qualm the Dallas woman felt about Russia, the United Nations, and American foreign policy. She worried about the missile gap and the spread of communism to Cuba. Moreover, people in her own country were talking enthusiastically about social change—Kennedy was already speaking of the “the revolutionary sixties”—and the Dallas woman knew those changes would come at her expense. She worried about the erosion of liberty caused by recent Supreme Court decisions (often delivered by <mark>Chief Justice Earl Warren</mark>, who was the <mark>creeping socialist personified</mark>). The court was <mark>taking rights away from the Dallas woman and awarding them to pornographers, criminals, atheists, communists, and Negroes</mark>. The Dallas woman felt herself to be under attack at home and abroad. ... | ||
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 <mark>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.</mark> | 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 <mark>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.</mark> | ||
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 <mark>city of the angry nouveau riche, smug, doctrinaire, belligerent, a city with a taste for political violence</mark>. Many Dallasites were shocked to see our city represented that way, but it had <mark>little effect on the way we thought of ourselves</mark>. ... | 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 <mark>city of the angry nouveau riche, smug, doctrinaire, belligerent, a city with a taste for political violence</mark>. Many Dallasites were shocked to see our city represented that way, but it had <mark>little effect on the way we thought of ourselves</mark>. ... | ||
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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> [e.g. Johnson?] 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> [e.g. Johnson?] to lead this nation", he concluded "and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are <mark>riding Caroline's tricycle</mark>". ... | ||
Kennedy was still thinking of his encounter with Dealey when he spoke later that year of <mark>people who “call for ‘a man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court, in our treatment of water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, socialism with communism.</mark>” With his prescient political eye <mark>Kennedy saw that the '''new world''' [of which Dallas is the "capitol"] was being created</mark>, and it stood <mark>opposed to everything he represented</mark>: East Coast liberalism, mainstream Democratic party politics, Ivy League learning, the <mark>customary restraints of educated society</mark>. Although Kennedy was popularly understood as a man of his time, a thoroughly modern president, <mark>in many ways he was the last of the traditionalists</mark>. He called his administration the <mark>New Frontier, but his successors—Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan—would show that the real frontier in American politics lay for away in the '''new world'''</mark>. | Kennedy was still thinking of his encounter with Dealey when he spoke later that year of <mark>people who “call for ‘a man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court, in our treatment of water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, socialism with communism.</mark>” With his prescient political eye <mark>Kennedy saw that the '''new world''' [of which Dallas is the "capitol"] was being created</mark>, and it stood <mark>opposed to everything he represented</mark>: East Coast liberalism, mainstream Democratic party politics, Ivy League learning, the <mark>customary restraints of educated society</mark>. Although Kennedy was popularly understood as a man of his time, a thoroughly modern president, <mark>in many ways he was the last of the traditionalists</mark>. He called his administration the <mark>New Frontier, but his successors—Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan—would show that the real frontier in American politics lay for away in the '''new world'''</mark>. | ||
During his presidency the atmosphere in Dallas approached hysteria. “The historical conservatism of the city,” wrote Dallas’ most prominent merchant, Stanley Marcus, “had been fanned to a raging fire by the combination of a number of elements: the far right daily radio ‘Facts Forum’ program by Dan Smoot sponsored by the ultraconservative wealthiest man in town, H. L. Hunt; the John Birch Society; the oil industry’s hysterical concern for the preservation of what they considered a biblical guarantee of their depletion allowance; the ‘National Indignation League’ founded by a local garageman, Frank McGeehee, in protest of the air force’s training of some Yugoslavian pilots at a nearby air base; the consistently one-sided attacks on the administration by the ''Dallas Morning News'' and the semi-acquiescent editorial policy of the ''Times Herald'', which had previously been a middle-of-the-road, fair newspaper. For the lack of courageous firemen in the business and intellectual segments of the community, the fire raged on.” ... | During his presidency the atmosphere in Dallas approached <mark>hysteria. “The historical conservatism of the city,” wrote Dallas’ most prominent merchant, Stanley Marcus, “had been fanned to a raging fire by the combination of a number of elements: the far right daily radio ‘Facts Forum’ program by Dan Smoot sponsored by the ultraconservative wealthiest man in town, H. L. Hunt; the John Birch Society; the oil industry’s hysterical concern for the preservation of what they considered a biblical guarantee of their depletion allowance; the ‘National Indignation League’ founded by a local garageman, Frank McGeehee, in protest of the air force’s training of some Yugoslavian pilots at a nearby air base; the consistently one-sided attacks on the administration by the ''Dallas Morning News'' and the semi-acquiescent editorial policy of the ''Times Herald'', which had previously been a middle-of-the-road, fair newspaper.</mark> For the lack of courageous firemen in the business and intellectual segments of the community, the fire raged on.” ... | ||
Dallas was gaining notice. The leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell, opined that Dallas had “the most patriotic, pro-American people of any city in the country.” The compliment may have embarrassed a few, considering its source, but we believed that about ourselves. To the radical conservatives, Dallas had become a kind of shrine, a Camelot of the right. ... | Dallas was gaining notice. The <mark>leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell</mark>, opined that Dallas had “the most <mark>patriotic, pro-American</mark> people of any city in the country.” <mark>The compliment may have embarrassed a few, considering its source, but we believed that about ourselves. To the radical conservatives, Dallas had become a kind of shrine, a Camelot of the right</mark>. ... | ||
The mob immediately closed him in [Adlai Stevenson]. The hysterical woman, who was the wife of an insurance executive, brought her placard down on Stevenson’s head. A college student spat upon him. When the policeman finally rescued him, Stevenson wiped the spit off his face with a handkerchief and asked aloud, | The mob immediately closed him in [Adlai Stevenson]. The hysterical woman, who was the wife of an insurance executive, brought her placard down on Stevenson’s head. A college student <mark>spat</mark> upon him. When the policeman finally rescued him, Stevenson wiped the spit off his face with a handkerchief and asked aloud, “<mark>Are these human beings or are these animals?</mark>” ... | ||
[Then as now, no matter how much things change, they still remain the same. Read on; it only gets "better".] | [Then as now, no matter how much things change, they still remain the same. Read on; it only gets "better".] | ||