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The Free Speech Movement and the Heroic Moment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

James A. Hijiya
James A. Hijiya
Affiliation:
James A. Hijiya is Associate Professor of History, Southeastern Massachusetts University, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts 02747U.S.A. For critical suggestions which were always plentiful, usually sensible, and occasionally followed, the author thanks Professor Richard Abrams of Berkeley; Professors Betty Mitchell and John Werly of Southeastern Massachusetts University; and seminar students Barry Wetmore and Deborah Wright.
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Extract

In 1960, on the edge of a new decade, Norman Mailer thought he might have seen a superman coming to the supermarket. The supermarket was the U.S. presidential election; the possible superman, disguised as an orthodox candidate of a mainstream political party, was John F. Kennedy. Despite the conventionality of his politics, Kennedy had “the eyes of a mountaineer” and the “cool grace” of a hipster. Ever since a Japanese destroyer rammed his PT boat and left him swimming for life on the vast Pacific, Kennedy had “the remote and private air of a man who has traversed some lonely terrain of experience, of loss and gain, of nearness to death, which leaves him isolated from the mass of others.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 1988 , pp. 43 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

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75 When I spoke with her on 3 Oct. 1984, she requested that I not publish her name.

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