10-11-2008, 04:57 PM
In the immediate post-election period, journalist, bloggers, politicians,and pundits have offered speculations on how -- and even if -- President Barack Obama will keep his campaign promises.
None, to my knowledge, have referenced the manner in which John F. Kennedy set out to acknowledge and keep the promises he made during the presidential campaign of 1960.
In his essay The 81 Promises: Contexts of the Crime, George Michael Evica chronicled how President-elect Kennedy " ... almost immediately [ordered his campaign staff] to [check] every statement and speech he had made during his run for the office. By December, 1960, the staff established that [JFK] had made a total of 81 specific promises."
A reading of Professor Evica's analysis may be of significant value to President-elect Obama. I am pleased to post a portion of its introduction on the Deep Politics Forum.
Richard Goodwin, a member of the [Kennedy] transition team given the job of making sense of Kennedy's 81 promises, received his assignment: " ... to help set up a series of task forces, committees of experts on a wide range of issues ... to make policy recommendations to the new president."
The 81 promises ... were included in the task force agenda. No fewer than twelve, possibly as many as fourteen, policy groups were established to examine the 81 promises, to distill their essence, and to report to the president-elect.
The task forces (apparently one of the groups was made up of a single member, but the others had memberships ranging from six to twenty-four) deliberated, then drafted and completed their reports. Those task force documents were then presented to John F. Kennedy (and subsequently published in 1961).
I [Evica] have found the printed versions of eleven of the reports of the task forces; if at least one other report was developed, as I believe it was, it so far is missing. Ironically, the description of that task force's job to recommend the Latin American policy of the future JFK administration (its importance underscored during JFK's one thousand days by the birth of the Alliance for Progress, developments in Cuba, the Bay of Pigs failure, and the Cuban Missile Crisis) was recollected by the key person who helped organize the task forces, and in particular, to organize and implement the Latin American task force to which he finally attached himself: Richard Goodwin.
He wrote that " ... members of the [Latin American] task force ... [for example] went on to serve in responsible positions as ambassadors, administrators, even assistant secretaries ... "
The recommendations and goals set by the task force reports can only be briefly summarized here, but the impact, first of the 81 promises during JFK's successful campaign, followed by the dozen task force reports in 1961, was stunning. Not since FDR did a president promise so much with so much determination and the support of so much impressive expertise. The structure of power and profit: banking, covert intelligence, the mega-corporations, the military, the arch-conservative Congress, and theh power structure's facilitators in corrupt labor, organized crime, and corrupt law enforcement, could only register grumbling complaint.
Shortly before his passing, Professor Evica promised to expand his essay into a more detailed and significantly lengthier document, Beyond the 81 Promises. I have located his research materials and notes, and I shall endeavor to complete the project for publication.
For a comprehensive list of Obama's promises see:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/campaigns..._obama.htm
For a representative sampling of speculations on how Obama might -- or might not -- keep his promises, see:
"Obama has promises to keep, but which ones first?"
Ohio.com
http://www.ohio.com/news/nation/34162789.html
"Obama's Campaign Promises Could Become a Burden in His Presidency"
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/05/...-promises/
"Can Obama Keep His Campaign Promises?"
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/can-ob...IDLRVNWS05
None, to my knowledge, have referenced the manner in which John F. Kennedy set out to acknowledge and keep the promises he made during the presidential campaign of 1960.
In his essay The 81 Promises: Contexts of the Crime, George Michael Evica chronicled how President-elect Kennedy " ... almost immediately [ordered his campaign staff] to [check] every statement and speech he had made during his run for the office. By December, 1960, the staff established that [JFK] had made a total of 81 specific promises."
A reading of Professor Evica's analysis may be of significant value to President-elect Obama. I am pleased to post a portion of its introduction on the Deep Politics Forum.
Richard Goodwin, a member of the [Kennedy] transition team given the job of making sense of Kennedy's 81 promises, received his assignment: " ... to help set up a series of task forces, committees of experts on a wide range of issues ... to make policy recommendations to the new president."
The 81 promises ... were included in the task force agenda. No fewer than twelve, possibly as many as fourteen, policy groups were established to examine the 81 promises, to distill their essence, and to report to the president-elect.
The task forces (apparently one of the groups was made up of a single member, but the others had memberships ranging from six to twenty-four) deliberated, then drafted and completed their reports. Those task force documents were then presented to John F. Kennedy (and subsequently published in 1961).
I [Evica] have found the printed versions of eleven of the reports of the task forces; if at least one other report was developed, as I believe it was, it so far is missing. Ironically, the description of that task force's job to recommend the Latin American policy of the future JFK administration (its importance underscored during JFK's one thousand days by the birth of the Alliance for Progress, developments in Cuba, the Bay of Pigs failure, and the Cuban Missile Crisis) was recollected by the key person who helped organize the task forces, and in particular, to organize and implement the Latin American task force to which he finally attached himself: Richard Goodwin.
He wrote that " ... members of the [Latin American] task force ... [for example] went on to serve in responsible positions as ambassadors, administrators, even assistant secretaries ... "
The recommendations and goals set by the task force reports can only be briefly summarized here, but the impact, first of the 81 promises during JFK's successful campaign, followed by the dozen task force reports in 1961, was stunning. Not since FDR did a president promise so much with so much determination and the support of so much impressive expertise. The structure of power and profit: banking, covert intelligence, the mega-corporations, the military, the arch-conservative Congress, and theh power structure's facilitators in corrupt labor, organized crime, and corrupt law enforcement, could only register grumbling complaint.
Shortly before his passing, Professor Evica promised to expand his essay into a more detailed and significantly lengthier document, Beyond the 81 Promises. I have located his research materials and notes, and I shall endeavor to complete the project for publication.
For a comprehensive list of Obama's promises see:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/campaigns..._obama.htm
For a representative sampling of speculations on how Obama might -- or might not -- keep his promises, see:
"Obama has promises to keep, but which ones first?"
Ohio.com
http://www.ohio.com/news/nation/34162789.html
"Obama's Campaign Promises Could Become a Burden in His Presidency"
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/05/...-promises/
"Can Obama Keep His Campaign Promises?"
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/can-ob...IDLRVNWS05
