The Oratory of John Kerry

Abstract

‘He looks like a Kennedy … and he talks exactly like a Kennedy’ (Miller Center 1998a). All the President’s men knew that the Kennedy name was political catnip for Richard Nixon. So when H.R. Haldeman, his Chief of Staff, made this comparison in the Oval Office on 23 April 1971, the day after John Forbes Kerry had appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to argue the case for ending the Vietnam War, the President’s response was predictable. Charles Colson, Nixon’s ‘hatchet man’, took on the assignment of discrediting Kerry. What Haldeman, Nixon, and Colson could not have foreseen, however, was that the critic they championed then would re-emerge 33 years later, during the fractious 2004 presidential election campaign, still determined to damage Kerry’s rhetorical appeal by casting doubt on his authenticity, his character, and his conduct.