President John F. Kennedy was a man in the spotlight of the American public. He started his campaign that way, taking advantage of both his youth and the emergence of television and winning over the hearts of the people. As he won hearts, he also won votes, and in 1960 he just slid into office, beating Nixon by a perfectly styled hair. Once President, he and his family remained in the public eye, becoming popular in much the same way movie stars of the time were. They influenced even fashion and the arts, and eventually the family in the White House came to be known to America as Camelot. They were the seemingly perfect balance of politician and celebrity.

But not all was perfect in the Kennedy family—John suffered from two endocrine diseases, was often on medication, and had at least one extramarital affair. None of this, though, was discovered until after his death. And with his death came a whole new set of questions. The official story became that he was killed by “The Lone Gunman”, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was then killed by another man working alone, Jack Ruby. But the abundance of facts available about Kennedy’s assassination has lead to hundreds of questions and conspiracies about his killers, their technique, and their motives, despite all official reports meant to explain what happened that day.

John F. Kennedy’s very public life and death, and the discoveries and conspiracies that came to be after his death, prove that no matter how much information we think we have, we can never really know the truth about a famous person, much less a “Legendary American”.

Camelot presented to the American people the image of a perfect family life in the White House. John F. Kennedy had his gorgeous wife and kids by his side through his campaign and Presidency, supporting him and then becoming famous in their own way.  Jackie Kennedy had two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, and had a handsome, rich, and successful husband. She was seen as an icon around the country, creating new fashion trends and signaling new trends in the arts and thus creating interest in the general public.

But not all was what it seemed. Camelot was crumbling on the inside. J.F.K. was suffering from both Addison’s disease and hypothyroidism, and depending on three doctors (one of which was known for his controversial treatments) to help with his pain and other symptoms. Jackie lost her new born son just a few months before her husband died, the second she lost. And the medication that John was on made him especially… virile, as doctors at the time put it. So, as is often corroborated, it was later discovered that he engaged in extramarital affairs with several famous women.

Despite the presence that the family exuded to the public, and all that America knew about the family, with the constant media presence they allowed in their lives, no one actually knew what was happening in their lives. No one knew the pain they were experiencing until after they died, and we still don’t entirely know the extent to which the disease and medication affected Kennedy in regards to his political life and decisions.

Nowhere is this lack of insight into this seemingly transparent life more evident than in regards to Kennedy’s death. Due to the publicity of his death, with the Zapruder film catching it in its entirety and every television and radio station mourning his death in the weeks following the assassination. Then when doubt came into the picture, once Lee Harvey Oswald was killed as well, the Warren commission’s investigation was supposed to end all questions with a thorough explanation on what happened that day. And yet the commission had so much differing information about the characters involved that day and so many conflicting depictions of the event that their explanation could not cover every single thing that happened that day. So only more questions were raised, especially considering the connections that each of the people in the case—Kennedy and his brother, Robert, had been rooting out mob bosses, and Oswald supposedly had mob connections, there were suspicions that Kennedy was the target of Cuban exiles after his failed Bay of Pigs invasion, even Lyndon B. Johnson and the Secret Service were considered possible backers of the assassination.

Several more commissions looked into the assassination and came to approximately the same conclusions that the Warren Commission had, until finally the records were sealed for the next thirty years.

So despite all the publicity, how much information the public was given about the assassination— 60,000 documents involving the assassination were gathered and unsealed from 1992 to 1998 by the Assassination Records Review Board so that the public could draw their own conclusions— we still don’t know for sure what went down on that fateful day in November 1963.

Even in the age of television and celebrities constantly in the public eye, we still can’t separate myth from fact when it comes to public figures. Even in death they remain a mystery to the public at large, never to be known fully by the millions that thought they loved them. No matter how much people think they share with the public, a person (because that’s all a celebrity is, behind all those cameras) still has a private self, one they don’t want to share with the world, and that private self may never come to light.

We can never truly know what another person’s life is like, never truly establish what is a part of their legend as opposed to their history. Public figures reveal this better than anyone else, and the Kennedy family and legacy is a prime example. Myth will always blur the lines of truth.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Jessica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.