A Thousand Days, in so many words :: Essays Papers

A Thousand Days, in so many words Any writer presented with the daunting task of chronicling such an emotional double as John F. Kennedy, while being personally and professionally involved in his administration is bound to either fail miserably or take by and by brilliantly. Schlesinger seems to have done both. While setting out to impart the happenings, demeanors, exchanges, and truths regarding the period Kennedy was in office, Schlesinger alternates between objective analysis and outright apology (Document, 55). This lends the books attempt to report and editorialize the events of Kennedys administration through personal observations to become overly sympathetic and occasionally lends a sense of personal purge to the work. In fact, Schlesinger himself notes as such in the opening pages This work is not a comprehensive history of the Kennedy presidency. It is a memoir by one who served in the White House during the Kennedy year (ix). However, in the opinion of Graber this was seen as one of the best analyses of the Kennedy White House of the 90 or so which came out after the assassination in Dallas (1). This fact that the causality was an integral piece of the events he is recording allows for much direct quotation of the subject and those around him. Likewise he depends upon memory, interviews, or conjecture to complete some dialogue or moments where he was not present. While not unusual in the research of a chronicle, several(prenominal) critics found that this inability of Schlesinger to remove himself from his subject leads to a tendency to magnify his own role in the shaping of policies and the making of decisions (Graber, 55). However, this is not to say that the author does not use primary examples of the presidents statements to support his account. In dealing with the Berlin imbalance Kruschev was causing the administration, Kennedy is quoted as saying, I think we need to pull a face less and be tougher lending credibility t o the remainder of the account and Kennedys role in it (406). This use of direct quotes lends an air of presence to the text that energy otherwise be lacking as well as allowing a more solid character reference to be built in the sagaciousness of the reader, and for that the book gains strength.