Brendan O'Healaigh- Why Did JFK Record Himself?
I find it
extremely intriguing that presidents such as Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
made secret tapes of their daily conversations ranging from the mundane
to the extraordinary. These tapes were made (to my knowledge) to hold
other politicians to their word and for memoirs that presidents would
write later down the road. This aspect is what makes the tapes so
interesting: they reveal everything because nothing was meant to be
hidden or screened in anyway.
Out of the three presidents that
taped their phone conversations, I find John Kennedy's the most
interesting. There are several reasons for this. Kennedy was the first
president to start this "precedent;" a forerunner of sorts. John had a
brilliant political mind and his idea to hold other politicians to their
word by taping them was groundbreaking. This very practice of taping
conversations was what allowed him to resolve the crisis in Mississippi
involving Meredith's enrollment in "sacred" Ole' Miss. By threatening to
release tapes of Kennedy and Barnett's negotiating, John was able to
persuade Ross into helping him resolve the conflict without excessive
bloodshed.
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