John Fitzgerald Kennedy, beyond the myth

JFK, Made in America

Available on France Culture listening platforms

November 22, 1963. This date is engraved in the memory of Americans as that of a fatal day. The flickering images of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy sixty years ago in Dallas, Texas have passed on to posterity. This crime still today surrounded by a halo of mystery has almost eclipsed memories of his mandate. Of JFK, there remains above all his death.

The new opus of the “Great crossings” of France Culture lingers precisely on the man that was John Fitzgerald Kennedy and on his shadowy part, beyond the myth. The dashing young man all smiles on television isn’t really, plagued by Addison’s disease which has plagued him since childhood and forced him to take steroids and amphetamines.

But the myth is on as JFK becomes a WWII hero. A film is even shot on him. Twenty years later, the handsome Kennedy confronts the pale Nixon. “Superman is coming to the supermarket,” writes journalist Norman Mailer in Esquire magazine about the Democratic candidate.

Lee Harvey Oswald, le « loser »

The five one-hour episodes of this documentary series brilliantly explore the off-screen of his life by portraying his loved ones, his wife Jackie, of course, as well as Joseph, his unfaithful mafia father, a failed ambassador who transferred his political ambitions to his nine sons. The context of the time is reconstructed by historians, writers and journalists, but also anonymous people, recalling the memory of their meeting with this charismatic president.

In common thread, lurking in the shadows, his murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald… The podcast follows in parallel the adventures of this former Marxist marine, suffering from personality disorders with a schizoid tendency. Like a historical thriller that keeps the listener spellbound, this documentary series meticulously recounts his passage to the act, by featuring the unpublished reading of his diaries or letters from his mother, Marguerite.

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