CAMELOT: Exploring the Link Between JFK and King Arthur

by Ciara Garcha

Edited by Louie Lu BR'23 and Esther Reichek BR'23

“For one brief shining moment…(there) was…Camelot- and it will never be that way again”.1 Reflecting on her husband’s presidency only seven days after his assassination, Jackie Kennedy conjured up an image of the Kennedy Presidency (1961-63) that would transfix people for generations. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) had been president for only 1,000 days before his assassination; however, that brief period of political history was elevated by his wife into something of glittering national mythology. Jackie Kennedy compared her husband’s presidency to “Camelot,” the mythical land variously described as the legendary King Arthur’s capital or kingdom,2 casting her husband as the legendary king himself. In drawing this line between JFK and Camelot, Jackie Kennedy blurred the boundary between myth and reality, fact and fiction.

Camelot and King Arthur continue to be synonymous with JFK and his short administration. As The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2013, “one word continues to resonate (with JFK) above all: Camelot”.3 Jackie Kennedy’s Camelot myth of a romantic young president surrounded by a noble beautiful court seems to have taken hold in the public imagination. Research conducted around the turn of the century found JFK to be one of the American public’s most admired figures of the century.4 A 2021 poll of 3,000 US citizens by YouGov revealed him to be the second most popular president of all time – behind only Abraham Lincoln and above the first president, George Washington– with a 73% approval rating.5

In spite of revisionism and criticism of his presidency from the 1980s onwards, JFK continues to be a towering figure in American history and the national self-image. The association between the young president and King Arthur seems of vital importance in the elevation and reverence of JFK and his White House. In interrogating this link, we must separate the line between myth and reality. Taking the moment the myth was created, following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, as a starting point, this essay will unspool the link between the young president and the mythical king. Reflecting on JFK’s brief administration and the Kennedy White House and the ‘court’ that assembled around him, the essay will draw parallels between the mythology around King Arthur and the romantic haze that continues to exist around Kennedy. The role played by Jackie Kennedy in creating the Camelot myth a matter of days after her husband’s death will also be interrogated, recognising her active and crucial role in shaping the romanticised view of her husband that shaped historic and cultural memory. The continued symbolism of the Kennedy presidency will be compared to that of the mythical ‘once and future king’, examining the role that both figures play in the collective memory and consciousness. Different texts and versions of the Arthurian legend will facilitate this comparison and interrogate John F. Kennedy’s epitaph as ‘The USA’s King Arthur’.

King Arthur: Fact and Fiction

Writing in 1911, William Lewis Jones posited that if King Arthur were real, he must have “flourished” during the period between the first Saxon invasion and the middle of the sixth century.6 More recent scholarship has agreed with this assessment, locating candidates for Arthur in the late fifth century,7 and in the Welsh poetic collection, Y Gododdín, written between the mid-sixth and mid-seventh century.8 In his exploration of Arthur’s existence, Higham highlights Gildas’ De Excidio, as one of the few extended contemporary texts available from the sub-Roman period in which Arthur was believed to have existed.9 A sermon recording the moral wrongdoings of his contemporaries,10 the text offers a limited window into 6th century Britain (its precise date of origin is disputed).11 But, as Higham ultimately concludes, “Arthur is neither named…nor alluded to” at any point in the text.12 This is highly significant in terms of whether King Arthur actually existed. The absence of King Arthur13 in “the only near-contemporary account available”, casts doubt on his existence as a real person and a real king.

When Jackie Kennedy made this allusion just days after her husband’s death, it seems unlikely that she had thought about the reality of Arthur, the man. Rather, she seems to have been referring to the rich legendary and mythical tradition that had grown around King Arthur, principally in the British Isles, but elsewhere too. The Historia Brittonum, dated to around the ninth century,14 makes a significant contribution in establishing the character of King Arthur as the stuff of epic and legend.15 Higham writes that the text is “difficult to pin down”,16 owing to a lack of clarity over its authorship and its nature as a ‘living’ text, altered by writers over the centuries.17 David Dumville argues the author was a “synchronising historian”, who engaged in pulling together different events, stories and legends to “provide a discontinuous and not entirely coherent attempt at an interpretation of fifth-century British history”.18 The author interwove information from the few existing sources on this period of history,19 (likely including Gildas’ text),20 with his own imagination, to produce a narrative that blurred fact and fiction. Hence, in the Historia we find the idea, character, and hero of Arthur integrated into the narrative of English history. In J.A. Giles’ English translation of the Historia Brittonum, Arthur makes his first appearance in battle, leading the Britons against the invading Saxons.21

“Then it was that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander and was as often conqueror”.22

Many of the traits generally associated with the image of the mythical King Arthur, as a loved and respected yet fearsome leader are consequently established in the Historia.

Record of King Arthur’s life and legend is found perhaps most famously in the work of 12th century scholar, Geoffrey of Monmouth. Writing at Oxford in the 1130s,23 Geoffrey cast Arthur as a central figure in his History of the Kings of Britain, thereby strengthening the figure of Arthur in British history – in spite of the limited historical evidence for his actual existence. In Geoffrey’s work, many of the traits and legends we would now consider to be Arthurian – pertaining to King Arthur and the legends that have emerged around him – are established. When Geoffrey’s Arthur takes the throne, he is only fifteen years old,24 but the boy is described as “a youth of such unparalleled courage and generosity”.25 Bravery is another feature that runs throughout Geoffrey’s characterisation of the king. A “man of undaunted courage”,26 the text details Arthur’s exploits at length, describing how he “slays a giant”,27 leads his armies into battle time and time again, and takes on multiple threats, as “no country was able to withstand him”.28 Perhaps most importantly, Geoffrey’s Arthur is loved. After subduing neighbouring princes, Geoffrey describes how Arthur is “celebrated all over the world” and “beloved by all people”.29 Under his rule, Britain experiences an unrivalled “golden age”.30

Geoffrey’s account of Arthur’s reign and life ultimately concludes with him dying in battle, by the hand of his own nephew.31 Betrayed by his sister’s son, Mordred,32 who “had by tyrannical and treasonable practices set the crown upon his head,”33 Arthur faces him in what turns out to be his final battle. He succeeds in killing “the wicked traitor himself”,34 but is “mortally wounded”35 and is carried to “the isle of Avallon36” where he dies.37 Arthur’s death comes not long after he subdued an invasion by the Romans, as he was “on his march towards Rome”.38 Thus Arthur is killed in the middle of a campaign that could have added to his greatness and prestige. He seems to have been prematurely cut down and betrayed by one of his own.

Medieval romances39 and subsequent works went on to embellish Geoffrey’s telling of Arthur’s story, adding and altering characters, settings and details. Yet, over the centuries, various characteristics established by both the Historia Brittonum and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain have remained and these texts, especially Geoffrey’s work, remain central to the development of the Arthurian legend – what we may term ‘founding texts’. Popular perceptions of Arthur expressed in film, literature and the media, still identify him as valiant, noble and, crucially, being killed prematurely whilst on the cusp of greatness or further greatness. In addition to on-going fascination with the mythical King himself, the legend is recognised as comprising a significant part of the British self-image. As a culture commentator for The Guardian wrote in 2016, “The British may have invented Arthur, but Arthur in turn legitimated the idea of Britain as a great nation…Arthur is woven into the landscape and identity of Britain”.40

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new”41

To unpick the Kennedy King Arthur myth it seems necessary to start at the moment this myth was born, some days after JFK had been killed and his presidency terminated. As America reeled from the death of its 35th President, Jackie Kennedy told journalist Theodore H. White that “Jack”, as she affectionately called her husband, loved listening to the record from the Broadway musical, Camelot, before reflecting that “there’ll be great presidents again…but there’ll never be another Camelot again”.42 The “Epilogue”43 to the slain president ends with repetition of this line: “for one brief shining moment there was Camelot”.44

It is significant that the Camelot comparison starts with Kennedy’s death. Indeed, there seem to be three distinct strands tangled up in Jackie Kennedy’s analogy of her husband’s presidency. The first is perhaps a natural response to shocking and unexpected death. The president was only 46 when he was driving around Dallas, waving and beaming at the crowds, with his wife by his side, when two bullets struck and killed him. Kennedy remains the youngest president to ever have taken the office and as such his death in office is even more shocking, when his youth is considered. The aphorism, “where were you when JFK was killed?” highlights the young president’s murder as a shocking and memorable event.

Secondly, Kennedy’s death saw him and his figure elevated to an untouchable, legendary status almost immediately. Alfred Tennyson’s 1842 poem, Le Morte d’Arthur,45 follows Sir Bedivere, one of Arthur’s most loyal knights, as he mourns the loss of the greatness of the Arthurian court to the dying King Arthur himself.

“‘Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole Round Table is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.’”46

Sir Bedivere articulates a profound sense of grief, reflecting on how, with the imminent death of King Arthur, something great and something “noble”, “mighty” and beautiful would be lost. He tells his king that every morning brought the feeling something magical could be achieved and that such an era of hope and brightness had never existed since the days of ancient legend. However, Bedivere also reflects on the abrupt end of this period: the Round Table of Arthur’s greatest and most noble knights is disbanded; the world has darkened around him; a new and unrecognisable order is taking hold. In his reply to Bedivere, Arthur tells him “the old order changeth, yielding place to new”47 with his final few breaths.

Kennedy’s life and presidency was elevated and honoured almost immediately after his death, as eulogies and tributes took on the same language and themes as those articulated by Sir Bedivere. UK Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan commented that Kennedy embodied “all the hopes and aspirations of this new world”,48 casting a romantic image of the murdered president shrouded in hope and optimism. Friend and aide to the president, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described the Kennedy White House as a “golden interlude”.49 The idea that the Kennedy presidency was somehow fundamentally different is clearly articulated in these tributes. Just as Bedivere bemoaned that “such times have been not since the light that led/The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh”, in America’s long history, Schlesinger claims that there had never been anything like the Kennedy administration, carving the brief three year period out from the bleak norm.

In many ways, Jackie Kennedy and the other members of JFK’s ‘court’ who publicly grieved his loss can be seen as acting as Sir Bedivere did in the stanza of Tennyson’s poem. They were similarly left “companionless”, mourning the loss of their glittering king, who was seen as presiding over a period of nobility, in which the potential to achieve greatness was a daily reality. Indeed, literary critics have speculated that Tennyson could have chosen to focus on the figure left behind by the death of the legendary king, after he experienced his own loss when his close friend Arthur Hallam died.50 From this point of view, Jackie Kennedy, the grieving widow, maps onto the lonesome figure of Sir Bedivere. In her so-called ‘Camelot’ interview, Jackie admits that though there will be “great Presidents again” and that “the Johnson’s are wonderful”,51 there will never be another Camelot. This echoes the sentiment of Sir Bedivere’s reflection that “the days darken round me…among new men, strange faces, other minds”. Jackie Kennedy recognises in a very similar manner that there are “new men…faces…minds” in power, but things have now “darken(ed)” and will never again reach the same light that existed under her husband.

Contrary to these complementary and flattering eulogies, revisionist historiography of JFK has, however, established that the Kennedy White House had a dark side. Biographer Michael Hogan argues that Americans simply “don’t hear” about Kennedy’s scandalous behaviour, including the “wild…parties” held “on the second floor of the White House”.52 Despite the emergence of allegations and concerns, they have done little to dent the collective image of President Kennedy, expressed in the days following his assassination and clearly maintained thereafter. Caitlin Flanagan claims that JFK is “more important”53 to Americans than any accusation. She goes on to write, “the hope still lives. And the dream will never die”.54 This comment illustrates the staying power of the image of Kennedy and his administration established in the immediate aftermath of his death, despite subsequent revelation and criticism.

As Alan Brinkley describes, on the morning of 22nd November 1963, Kennedy woke up a president, but “by the evening…he became a legend”.55 Kennedy’s death was greeted by an international outpouring of grief about the brutal death of a young leader. Some 250,000 went to see Kennedy’s body as it lay in state in Washington D.C.,56 a clear expression of domestic grief and the immediate elevation of the young president. In the UK, a memorial service was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral,57 whilst Football League players also wore black armbands in memory of the dead (foreign) president.58 Kennedy was also grieved in his ancestral homeland of Ireland,59 and in Liberia, which held 30 days of national mourning.60

This is quite out of step with the attitudes that Kennedy faced during his lifetime, when, as a democratically elected politician, he was far from “universal(ly) love(d)” as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Arthur was.61 In most versions of the Arthurian legend, the young king earns such respect and support through doing battle with challengers62 and winning over his critics and threats at the point of a sword.63 JFK, however, had to earn support at the polling booth, in what was one of the most closely contested presidential elections in history. His victory at the 1960 election was the closest in history. JFK only narrowly beat Republican nominee and his predecessor President Eisenhower’s Vice-President, Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy won the presidency by just over 112,000 votes out of a total of 68 million cast,64 winning less than 50% of the vote.65 Kennedy’s Catholicism, youth and inexperience, as well as credible opposition from Vice President Nixon all proved significant hindrances for his candidacy, resulting in a close race and the narrowest of victories in 1960. The idea of Kennedy as a “golden” leader that spoke to the “hopes” of the world seems debatable when the more limited popularity Kennedy earned within his lifetime is considered. Interestingly, there is also evidence to suggest that Kennedy also anticipated a tough re-election campaign in 1964, underlining the fact that he was not enjoying “universal love”66 only days and months before his death. Recordings from Kennedy’s meetings with his political advisors shortly before his death reveal that the president was genuinely concerned about his chances of being re-elected, lamenting the lot of the “average guy” who he felt the party was failing to connect with.67 In a separate call to his brother and Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, in March 1963, the pair discussed the president’s declining lead in opinion polls.68

And yet, only a matter of months after JFK fretted about his re-election and his popularity amongst the public declined, he was being heralded as a “golden” leader, a global icon and mourned across the world. This is a swift turn-around in terms of his popularity and reputation that is integral to the Arthurian comparisons. Kennedy’s death was greeted by almost immediate elevation of his life, as if his victory by the slimmest of margins and his troubles with voters were instantaneously sponged away the moment the bullets hit him.

Linked to the elevation of Kennedy’s sudden death is the final and important strand of the Arthur image portrayed in White’s “Epilogue”. The idea of prematurity in Kennedy’s death and that he was on the cusp of, or was just beginning to achieve, greatness are themes that run throughout the Kennedy-Arthurian myth. As William H. Chafe writes, the young president’s death was greeted by a sense of “unrealised possibility”,69 which left people asking ‘what if?’ The question of what more the young president could have achieved had he lived has tantalised generations, leaving the Kennedy president as an almost unfinished episode of history.

To take an example, the issue of civil rights illustrates this sense of unfulfilled greatness and potential attached to JFK. Though widely remembered as a civil rights hero,70 the president seems to have been slow and hesitant in fully committing to supporting the issue of Black civil rights. Critics of Kennedy’s Civil Rights record point to his failure to advance the cause first as Senator for Massachusetts and then in the early stages of his presidency. In the Senate, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act,71 revealing an early record far from heroic on the issue. In the early years of his presidency, Kennedy still seems to have been somewhat ambivalent to the cause of Black American Civil Rights. Beth Bailey and David Faber argue that Kennedy was “hesitant”72 to support the movement in the early years of his presidency, conscious of his need to maintain support from the segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress. Initially, Kennedy seems to have avoided acting decisively on this matter and where he did act, the measures he passed were undoubtedly diluted and hesitant. Executive Order 11063 (1962), for example, banned discrimination in the sale or rental of federal housing and federally funded housing.73 However several civil rights leaders were dissatisfied with this measure,74 given that it only narrowly applied to particular housing and was not a universally applicable anti-discrimination measure. Such partial and incomplete civil rights measures were typical of the early Kennedy presidency.

Kennedy’s attitude and commitment to the cause of Black civil rights changed towards the end of his presidency, in its final few months. In June 1963, disturbing scenes from Birmingham, Alabama were broadcast across the world. Showing police dogs attacking children, water cannons unleashed on nonviolent protesters and sheer brutality against Black demonstrators, Kennedy told Americans, “a great change is at hand”.75 In an historic, landmark televised speech, Kennedy fully committed himself to supporting civil rights and asked Americans to do the same, stating that he would ask Congress, “to make a commitment…that race has no place in American life or law”.76 At the time of his assassination, a Civil Rights Bill was in the Committee stage, working its way through the US Congress on its way to becoming law. Kennedy’s hope for the passage of civil rights legislation in Congress was thus quite literally unfulfilled at the time of his death. However, his relatively recent commitment to civil rights led to him being elevated and eulogised as a leader on the civil rights issue. In pursuing the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson – Kennedy’s Vice-President – urged members of Congress that “no memorial…could more eloquently honour President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long”.77 The historical record however shows that Kennedy had not fought “so long” and yet the recent nature of his commitment made it one of the final and most lasting legacies of his presidency.

As William Chafe writes, “only in the final ten months…did he offer the kind of leadership we now attribute to him in mythology”.78 But the late emergence of this leadership seems integral to the mythology surrounding Kennedy, and his elevation to the standard of the mythical king Arthur. In finally committing to and embracing the civil rights agenda, Kennedy was, in a sense, on the cusp of achieving greatness in America and perhaps at the beginning of an era that could have heralded a dramatic change in race relations. The bill working its way through Congress is testament to this rich potential; in overseeing the passage of such monumental legislation (though playing no direct part in the actual legislative process itself) Kennedy could have achieved eminent stature. Similar to Sir Bedivere’s describing how Arthur’s reign brought the chance for greatness to be achieved on a daily basis, Kennedy too seems to have been at the start of an era that could have changed the lives of millions of Black Americans for the better. It is notable that Johnson carried on the struggle for the Civil Rights Act in Kennedy’s name, as an “honour…(to his) memory”.79 In a way, at least in terms of the civil rights issue, Johnson followed through on the greatness that Kennedy was on the cusp of, articulating the idea that the battle was almost won when JFK died. James Retson writes that Kennedy “never reached his meridian: we saw him only as a rising sun”,80 underlining the popular perception that Kennedy was on the way to, but never quite reached his peak. The issue of timing therefore seems absolutely vital in Kennedy posthumously being awarded a legendary Arthurian status.

Only after Kennedy died was the Camelot myth born. The natural nostalgia-laden reflections in the aftermath of his murder combined with the important issue of timing, led JFK to be elevated to something as a legend. Within his lifetime, he undeniably never earned “universal love” (as few modern politicians do) and nor did he win the ‘battle’ over civil rights. However, in recently starting to wage this ‘war’ for civil rights legislation and in committing to the issue just before his death, it served to be one of his enduring legacies, thus facilitating his elevation. Eulogies and tributes paid to Kennedy convey this, playing a vital role in wrapping the presidency in a warm glow.

Kennedy’s Camelot

John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961 was a glamourous and star-laden event. The young president was accompanied by his elegant wife and a host of celebrity guests. Kennedy’s inauguration was likened to a coronation, complete with the pomp and splendour of a royal occasion.81 As Mark White writes, the sheer splendour of this occasion gave rise to the quip that the Kennedy’s were “America’s royal family”.82 In this analogy, the inauguration ceremony was akin to a coronation, during which the eldest surviving son of the wealthy Kennedy family83 succeeded to America’s ‘throne’. Mourning, after his reign had been cut short; it seems significant that Jackie Kennedy chose to allude to “Camelot”, as opposed to King Arthur specifically. Rather, the “Camelot” comparison seems to describe not just her husband (who is implicitly assigned the Arthurian role, as the leader of this ‘court’), but the people he surrounded himself with and the very nature of the era he presided over.

Camelot is actually not an invention of the Historia Brittonum, nor Geoffrey of Monmouth. Its first mention is believed to appear in the Old French poem, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, by Chrétien de Troyes. Focusing mainly on the gallant knight who fights alongside Arthur, until ultimately betraying him by falling for Queen Guinevere, de Troyes connects the name “Camelot” to the ideas of nobility and grandeur.

“King Arthur, one Ascension Day…held a most magnificent court at Camelot, with all the splendour appropriate to the day…In the hall there were many nobles; and the queen was there too and with her, I believe, numerous beautiful and courtly ladies.”84

Camelot is thus often cited as the location of Arthur’s capital and the collective name attributed to its court.

This passage seems apt in the way that it maps on to the popular idea of the Kennedy White House – or rather, the Kennedy “court” in Jackie Kennedy’s analogy. As Mark White outlines, in the popular imagination, the Kennedy court was synonymous with beauty, glamour and style,85 quite in keeping with the “splendour” of Arthur’s court. This was an impression that the Kennedy family carefully curated and fastidiously protected. Improvements in photographic technology and the spread of the television made visual appearance even more significant and JFK harnessed visual representation as a key part of his appeal. As White writes, “more than any other president he succeeded in crafting an image that the American people found seductive”.86 The “splendour” of his inauguration or coronation was merely the latest in a long line of attempts to project a very particular image. JFK, accompanied by his stylish wife, and celebrity friends, very much did seem like the young heir finally assuming America's throne. The regal nature and grandeur of the affair established the idea that the attractive young president would preside over an attractive young White House. Youth, “splendour” and beauty, much like Arthur’s Camelot, would also come to epitomise the Kennedy court.

Proof of Kennedy’s focus – even fixation – on presenting a beautiful, “splendour(ed)” image can be found in an episode recounted by White, in which Kennedy angrily complained about a 1961 portrait of him by Pietro Annigoni.87 The Italian artist had attempted to focus on the stresses and enormity of the office,88 illustrating their effect on the young president, showing him tired, bleary-eyed and worn down. This image certainly markedly contrasted with previous images Kennedy had fed to the press and public: taking steps to conceal the chronic pain he had lived with since he was a boy, presenting himself instead as a bright-eyed handsome young man.89 After Annigoni’s painting appeared on the cover of the January 1962 issue of Time magazine, Kennedy reportedly rang the editor and complained, telling him “you’ve ruined me”.90

The idea of Kennedy as an attractive and stylish symbol man, and later president, was not just about him, but also about the people he surrounded himself with at his presidential ‘court’. Arthur’s court involves a glamourous Queen and “numerous beauty and courtly ladies”: Kennedy’s was no different. Despite his noted marital infidelity,91 JFK projected the image of him as a family man, often appearing alongside his wife. Even after Kennedy’s death and after successive allegations of his extramarital affairs with Hollywood actresses, sex workers and White House staff,92 (including a nineteen year old intern),93 Jackie Kennedy remains a significant part of his enduring visual image and appeal. The cover of a 1959 issue of Life magazine - the same publication to which Jackie gave the ‘Camelot’ interview in the days after her husband’s death - depicted her in a rose pink dress, complete with pearls. Her well-groomed husband watches on lovingly and the two seem to be the picture of the attractive young American couple.

Beyond his “Queen” and the “beautiful…ladies” of his court, Kennedy surrounded himself with similarly handsome and young courtiers, who would carry his flame after his death.94 The idea of Arthur having his iconic Round Table, assembled of the finest and bravest knights,95 arguably has some significant parallels in the Kennedy court. Kennedy’s key appointments included his younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as Attorney General,96 Dean Rusk as Secretary of State,97 and Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense,98 amongst others. As Stephen Graubard writes, “these men were all though exceptionally brilliant and talented”.99 Graubard goes on to argue, “superman surrounded by supermen” was how the media initially viewed and portrayed the Kennedy White House;100 as a place of intellectual wonder, youth and beauty. These exceptional young courtiers played their part in ensuring that a rosy, attractive image of JFK did not fade from view after his death. Presidential aides Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Theodore ‘Ted’ Sorensen both published biographies of the president,101 ensuring that the first wave of historiography and writing about the president was flattering and favourable, perpetuating the Camelot myth during its early years. Sorensen’s biography was published in 1965, as the wounds of the shocking assassination were still fresh and raw. Describing JFK as “an extraordinary man, an extraordinary politician and an extraordinary President”, with “a mind so free of fear and myth and prejudice”,102 Sorensen offered a romantic image of the slain president to comfort them. Decades later McGeorge Bundy (JFK’s National Security Advisor)103 and Robert McNamara amongst others could still be found defending the president and his decisions.104 In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, Robert McNamara absolved Kennedy of blame for the disastrous war in Vietnam,105 even after revisionists interrogated the impact of the president’s decisions to send in the Green Berets and ‘military advisors’ – 16,000 of whom were stationed in Vietnam when he was killed, representing a not insignificant military presence.106 These courtiers, then, served JFK not only in life, but also in death, where they worked to protect and perpetuate the Camelot image Jackie Kennedy had articulated.

After his death, image was indeed a central part of JFK’s enduring legacy and was arguably a substantial contributor to the Camelot myth. Time is another important thread here in the enduring popular perception of Kennedy beyond his death. To successive generations of Americans, JFK is frozen in time as a young, handsome leader, with a glamorous wife by his side and surrounded by a group of stylish, intelligent young courtiers. Queen and courtiers seemed to combine forces after their king’s death to preserve this romantic, yet hazy image.

Jackie Kennedy: Queen, Consort and Creator

On the the 22nd November 1963, Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Kennedy, formerly Jackie Bouvier, wore an elegant pink Chanel suit befitting her role as First Lady. As she rode through Dallas, sitting beside her husband in the presidential motorcade, surviving video footage shows her smiling and waving to the assembled crowds as she had done many times before. But, at 12:30 pm, her vibrant pink suit became soiled with splatters of her husband’s red blood, as two shots rang out, hitting the young President.107 JFK was pronounced dead around 30 minutes later108 and just over two and a half hours after that, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ, was sworn in aboard Air Force One, as the 38th US President.109 Jackie Kennedy stood beside LBJ, still wearing her blood-stained suit, her face a picture of composure given that she had been widowed only hours before. She had reportedly refused to change out of the suit, arguing she wanted them to “see what they’ve done”.110 That pink suit, iconic of the turmoil and bloodshed of that day, now stands in storage at the US National Archives, where it was donated with the instruction that it should not be displayed for a hundred years.111

From her decision to remain wearing the blood-soaked pink suit onwards, Jackie Kennedy’s actions made a significant contribution to shaping the legacy of her husband and the image of him in the popular imagination, after his death. The final image of the Kennedy presidency was not of the growing military commitment in Vietnam112 or shaped by the disastrous failed attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.113 The final image of the Kennedy era was of his blood-splattered shocked widow, standing dignified and composed as LBJ was sworn in and a new reign began.

Though the creator of the Camelot myth and implicitly cast as its queen, Jackie Kennedy’s role in her husband’s legend does not necessarily consistently map onto that of Arthur’s Queen Guinevere. In some more traditional versions of the legend, Queen Guinevere ends her days as a nun,114 living in penance and sorrow before dying alone. Other versions have Guinevere being sentenced to burn at the stake by her husband, on account of her adulterous relationship with one of Arthur’s most noble knights, Sir Lancelot. The irony of course is that it was JFK, not his wife or ‘queen’, who had multiple affairs and his indiscretions were reportedly an accepted part of their relationship.115

Rather, Jackie Kennedy’s devotion to enacting and then protecting the memory of her dead husband is akin to the reaction of Sir Bedivere to the death of his King. In Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the 15th century text that inspired Tennyson’s poem of the same name, Sir Bedivere (also featured in Tennyson’s poem) is depicted as distraught, yet committed to honouring the memory of his slain king after finding his body in a hermitage.

“Alas, said Sir Bedivere, that was my lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel... For from hence will I never go, said Sir Bedivere, by my will, but all the days of my life here to pray for my lord Arthur.”116

Bedivere thus commits to spending the rest of his life honouring his fallen King’s memory. In a similar manner, the Camelot interview, a week after JFK’s assassination, in many ways marked the start of Jackie Kennedy’s long campaign for her husband to be honoured and remembered. The Arthurian allusion gave direction to the nostalgic, romanticised accounts of her husband’s presidency that would follow in the coming years and decades. Framed from her perspective, the interview takes the reader through the fateful events of the 22nd, from the “blinding” sun and the “red roses” she was presented with in Dallas, to her experience “accompanying the body”.117 The article concludes with her reflection that whilst people must respect the new president and first lady, “she does not want them to forget John F. Kennedy or read of him in only dusty or bitter histories”.118 Rather, this statement is followed by a repeated line articulating the way Jackie Kennedy wanted her husband to be remembered, “for one brief shining moment there was Camelot”.119 Jackie Kennedy very deliberately controlled the way her husband was to be remembered and the narrative around him. Her message to America is to remember her husband’s ‘reign’ as a golden, “shining”120 period, equivalent to the stuff of legends. Controlling his image in death, as her husband had attempted to do so carefully in life, Jackie Kennedy transformed JFK’s into something of national mythology, as America reeled from shock.

White discusses Jackie Kennedy’s role in shaping the collective memory of her husband after his death, writing that after his assassination her “foremost” priority was “an intense desire to bolster her late husband’s reputation”.121 Not unlike Sir Bedivere, Jackie Kennedy promptly concerned herself with the honouring and elevation of her husband’s memory. Her campaign for this image of the Kennedy era to be committed to collective memory went beyond the prompt Camelot interview. Life magazine reported in 1963 that Jackie had taken a significant role in planning and shaping the president’s funeral, writing, “Mrs. Kennedy’s decisions shaped all the solemn pageantry”.122 In selecting a location for her husband’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery, Jackie Kennedy was reportedly concerned that it be accessible to the public,123 facilitating the pilgrimage that successive generations would make to his grave. As her decision not to remove the pink suit indicates, the public nature of her loss and America’s grief seems to have been a vital concern for Jackie Kennedy. An eternal flame lit by Jackie Kennedy during the funeral ceremony still burns at the gravesite today.124 She also promptly lobbied her husband’s successor to rename the NASA Space Centre, the Kennedy Space Centre,125 thereby ensuring his name stayed in the collective consciousness and that any successes of the centre could not be disconnected from him. Space travel could thus also be absorbed into the Kennedy legacy.

That the Camelot myth and the much-idealised notion of JFK’s presidency did take hold in the public consciousness is evidenced by the continuing association between the brief presidency and the Arthurian legends. Reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s murder in 2013, The Wall Street Journal wrote, “despite all the less-than-flattering revelations that have emerged about the Kennedy presidency, 50 years later the Camelot metaphor still seems unassailable”.126 As recently as 2010, 85% of Americans approved of Kennedy;127 marking a clear increase in his popularity and the greatness he was afforded within his lifetime, (when less than 50% of the electorate approved of him enough to vote for him.) The idea of John F. Kennedy as one of the greatest presidents has survived waves of revisionist criticism and the Camelot myth still holds.

The Once and Future King

Integral to the idea of King Arthur and repeated throughout successive generations of Arthurian legends, is a messianic prophecy for the future. King Arthur takes on a temporal quality as it is prophesied that he will one day rise again. Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur articulates this prognosis.

“Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu(s) into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.”128

In the final chapter of his 1958 version of the Arthurian legend, Terence H. White describes how many believe Arthur was buried at Glastonbury, under a stone reading, ‘Hic Jacet Arturus Rex, Quondam Rex Que Futurus’, translating as ‘Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future king’.129 Hence the idea that Arthur will one day rise again is an enduring feature of the Arthurian legend, which has earned King Arthur the epithet of “the once and future king”.

The romantic nature of Arthurian mythology as well as the constant promise of King Arthur, “the once and future king” emerging once more has led him to become something of an on-going fixture in British culture and national identity. Stephanie Barczewski explores the importance of King Arthur and the Arthurian legends in national identity in 19th century Britain.130 Around thirteen centuries after he supposedly lived, Barczewski writes, King Arthur was “firmly established” as one of the nation’s heroes.131 Beyond the 19th century, King Arthur continues to be seen as an important national symbol and legacy. A 2002 poll found that King Arthur was considered to be one of the 100 greatest Britons of all time.132 He was placed at number 51 on a list that included diverse figures from Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale and wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Queen singer Freddie Mercury and footballer Bobby Moore.133 This aptly demonstrates the continued importance of Arthur to British national consciousness and self-image. Even after centuries have warped his story and, more recent scholarship has cast doubt on his very existence, Arthur continues to be a fixture of British identity and self-image well into the 21st century and the modern era.

But why the continuing fascination with “the once and future king”? The texts quoted throughout this essay have established some of the traits that Arthur continues to symbolise: bravery, valour, chivalry, honour and more. Though, as Barczewski notes, the figure of Arthur is adaptable and has been adapted to different circumstances and contexts,134 these core features have survived the centuries. Symbolically and culturally, King Arthur continues to be associated with the noblest qualities and, crucially, his story is bound up with that of Britain. Arthur’s Camelot continues to symbolise greatness, nobility, magnificence and honour, but it also symbolises a seemingly glorious period of British history and British strength.

In a similar way, Kennedy can be seen as an important symbol in the US and in much of the public consciousness. Especially in turbulent and divided times, Kennedy and the Camelot myth functioned as a symbol of hope and what could have been. The Vietnam War and the limited impact it had on Kennedy’s legacy illustrate this symbolism and collective nostalgia in action. Though Kennedy allowed the US to become more deeply embroiled in the war in Vietnam, it was his vice-president and successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, whose presidency came to both be defined and scarred by the conflict. JFK significantly escalated the situation that emerged following the withdrawal of French colonial powers and the rupture between the communist north and the capitalist south. In the context of the Cold War, events in Vietnam had the potential to tip the balance of power. As previously noted, Kennedy opted to send the Green berets and ‘military advisors’.135 This still, however, amounted to a fairly minimal commitment, though the president was gradually sucked further into the internal affairs of Vietnam, playing a part in the assassination of leader Ngo Dinh Diem136- only shortly before his own assassination- in the name of fighting communism at home and abroad. As Farber and Bailey argue “his actions in Vietnam set the nation on a path to war”.137

However, Kennedy was killed before the Vietnam War would reach the heights of horror that it did in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The military engagement initiated by Kennedy would drag on until 1975, occupying five different presidents and overshadowing many more. Under Kennedy’s successor, LBJ, military engagement in Vietnam reached new levels, sparking ever more controversy and discontent. By the late 1960s, an estimated half a million US troops were stationed in Vietnam, whilst the draft was introduced back in the US to replenish the depleting army. Many of those sent to fight in Vietnam had no practical combat experience and the average age of soldiers was only 19. The perception that these young men were being forcibly sent abroad to sacrifice themselves abounded. Levels of loss and casualty reached such high levels that President Johnson was both taunted and criticised with the chant, “Hey, hey, LBJ/How many kids did you kill today?”138 The divisive war in Vietnam ultimately ended up costing Johnson his presidency; in 1968 he announced he would not run for a second term, citing divisions over Vietnam and the unpopularity of his policies as his reasons. In the same televised speech that he used to update Americans on the plan in Vietnam, LBJ told the public, “there is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight”139 before stating, “I shall not seek…another term as your president”.140 By the time the war concluded in 1975, 58,000 Americans had been killed; 7 million tons of bombs dropped and over 11 million gallons of the defoliant Agent Orange used by US forces across Vietnam.141 The military engagement initiated by president Kennedy evolved to become one of the US’ longest and costliest (both monetarily and in terms of lives) wars.

Beyond the devastation in terms of lives and casualties, the Vietnam War also soiled the US’s international reputation and damaged its self-image. Max Hastings writes that after World War Two, Americans had believed in their nation’s moral rightness and that the country’s military strength and economic success to many “reflected the will of a Higher Being”.142 Post-1945 America was buoyant, confident and prosperous, acting boldly and bullishly on the world’s stage. However, rumbling discontent over, and the eventual withdrawal from Vietnam dented this self-confidence. Under Johnson, domestic and international dissatisfaction soared, particularly during the 1968 Tet Offensive, when North Vietnamese troops captured and held US bases for a number of days. Globally, affairs in Vietnam also eroded the US’ prestige and moral standing. The chief of the Washington bureau of the London Economist wrote, “The war was a tragedy, which did much damage inside and outside America”.

Within the US, the unpopularity of the draft and the fervent anti-war movement also meant that President Johnson presided over a fractured and restless nation. From the increased military entanglement of the mid-1960s, until the televised scenes of the chaotic withdrawal from Saigon,143 American involvement in Vietnam was highly contested and divisive. As Immerman describes it, Vietnam came to symbolise a loss of “innocence and (the) ethos of exceptionalism”. Kennedy’s presidency then, as the last period before which this international shame took hold, came increasingly to symbolise innocence; and his death, a loss of it. Wartime nostalgia heightened the hazy glow of the Kennedy era and with each US soldier killed, with each number pulled out of the draft, with each mass-anti-war demonstration, the Camelot myth of noble, harmonious politics and dignified moral leadership was increasingly cemented in the popular imagination. Kennedy’s Camelot was the impossible standard by which Johnson and successive presidents were measured against.

In his analysis of JFK’s Vietnam policy, Rethinking Camelot, Noam Chomsky notes that changing opinions of the War also led to attempts to excise Kennedy from the story of US embroilment in Vietnam and the Vietnam War. He highlights that in the first editions of texts and biographies written by his ‘courtiers’ like Schlesinger Jr. and Sorensen. Chomsky writes, “the Camelot memoirists proceeded to revise their earlier versions after Tet, separating JFK (and by implication, themselves) from what had happened”.144 Sorensen’s post-Tet Offensive accounts of the Kennedy era included an assertion that JFK would have taken a drastically different course of action and “would have devoted increasing time…and found an answer”. As Johnson’s approval rating sunk as low as 37%,145 Kennedy’s courtiers insisted that under their King, the country would be in a better, brighter place. Through such assertions and favourable comparisons, the Camelot myth was reinforced and this rosy view of the administration, consolidated.

Timing also seems very important to this strand of JFK-King Arthur comparisons. Kennedy died before many of his decisions and policies could come into fruition. In terms of civil rights, belatedly championing the cause worked to his favour, but his policies in Vietnam – regardless of what his courtiers claimed – could have had dire consequences. Whilst it has been argued earlier that Kennedy died on the cusp of something great in terms of Civil Rights, he could equally have been on the verge of something catastrophic with regards to Vietnam and the Cold War. Kennedy’s administration saw the shambolic Bay of Pigs attempted invasion of Cuba, widely seen as an immense foreign policy failure. Though in other aspects of his foreign policy Kennedy has earned praise, for example in avoiding thermonuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the state of affairs and the global balance of power remained precarious. It is not hard to imagine that tensions could have escalated further with a far more negative outcome. Dying before any of these worse outcomes could come to pass meant that his memory could still represent something better.

At times of deep division and discontent, nostalgia-laden reflections on the brief administration flourished. His presidency and the values superimposed onto it by Jackie Kennedy and his courtiers took on immense symbolic value. Noam Chomsky highlights the correlation between fascination with Kennedy and the Camelot myth, and dissatisfaction in the government. The first wave of texts about Kennedy and his White House in the years after his death coincided with huge outrage and dissatisfaction over Johnson and the Vietnam War, as trust in the government began to steeply decline.146 Chomsky notes another significant wave of fascination with Kennedy’s Camelot in 1992, when public trust in government fell as low as 29%147 and general “gloom about the future” prevailed. In unsettled, dark and divided political periods, the aforementioned innocence and exceptionalism that the Kennedy administration was equated with – fairly or not – JFK and his Camelot reawakened popular fascination. At times when the American self-image was shaken, Kennedy provided a stable and optimistic figure.

Whilst Kennedy may not be the “once and future king” in the literal sense that he will be reborn or will rise again, what he symbolises to many in the US and his place in the nation’s national story and national imagination seems equivalent to King Arthur. Kennedy’s tenure in the White House has, in popular memory, become woven in the US’ story as a period of innocence, hopefulness and optimism. In an analogous way, King Arthur continues to be a cornerstone of British national identity and self-image. Interestingly, key texts in the Arthurian tradition were written at similarly unstable and tumultuous times in Britain’s history.

Writing only generations after the Norman invasion of England in 1066, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain linked King Arthur genealogically to the current ruling family,148 lending them both credibility and prestige. Centuries later, Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, completed around the 1470s embellished this already rich lineage, presenting a courtly romantic ideal, when England was reeling from military defeat abroad in the Hundred Years War and was embroiled in the brutal War of the Roses at home.149 In both cases, the image of Arthur served as an important component in the developing national identity, offering a hopeful alternative to the bloody reality. As demonstrated, Kennedy means the same thing to many in the US. Though acting in vastly different circumstances, appeals to the idea of Kennedy were not dissimilar to generations of appeals to the idea of Arthur.

Many commentators have noted the idea that Britain “needs” King Arthur:150 it needs this mythical legacy of nobility, chivalry and bravery in difficult and alienating times. In much the same way, it seems the US needed and continued to need Kennedy and the idea of Camelot. As its self-image, self-confidence and sense of self-righteousness was challenged, Kennedy’s Camelot provided a glittering memory by which to reassure itself and hope for better. Acting also as an (impossible) standard to hold others up against, nostalgic misremembering of Kennedy could be a potent political tool, allowing Americans to reassure themselves that they could and should be better.

Conclusions

On a cold, bright January day in 1961, the newly-inaugurated President John F. Kennedy told Americans to “ask what you can do for your country” and his “fellow citizens of the world” to “ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man”. It was an inaugural address full of hope and inspirational optimism that hinted of a future, in no way foreshadowing the turbulence that the next three years would hold.

Above all, comparisons between JFK’s presidency and Camelot demonstrate the power of myth. In creating an image of a romantic and optimistic young leader, Jackie Kennedy offered the American people their own King Arthur, a doctored depiction that became embedded in the American psyche. The idea of a young king cut down just before his prime and of a beautiful land that could have been still linger in popular consciousness whenever JFK is discussed and evaluated. The tumult of the succeeding years and decades after his death ensured that his administration would stand out as a divergence from the typically unexciting, older establishment norm. The idea of JFK, arguably more important than the man and president himself, became a potent notion against which America could measure and scrutinise itself.

Timing runs through the different strands of the Kennedy myth. The president’s youth and the idea of this period as one of innocence meant that his premature death was equated with a loss of freshness and the collective ageing of America. After seeing their president brutally slain, the country, to many, seemed changed forever; less hopeful, less optimistically naïve, less romantic. As Schlesinger Jr. wrote, “we’ll never be young again”. Kennedy’s death on the verge of something great – or, as noted possibly on the verge of something awful – meant generations have occupied themselves asking ‘what if?’ His death before any worse fate was to materialise with regards to Vietnam and the Cold War meant that his memory and his name could stand, compared with the misery and bloodshed that followed, as a period of collective aspiration and guiltlessness. King Arthur was an apt and poignant figure for Kennedy to be compared against. Rooted in similar glowing nostalgia, the exact facts generally obscured, this mythical king of Camelot continues to occupy the imagination across the world. In Britain, his symbolism and importance to the national self-image is fascinating; King Arthur – real or not – continues to be viewed as a founding father of sorts, a vestige of some exceptional, gallant, noble ‘Britishness’ that still transfixes a nation and occupies its collective imagination. King Arthur is laden in symbolism and romance and in drawing a line between him and her husband, Jackie Kennedy attached JFK to this long legacy and illustrious tradition.

Decades of revisionism have done little to dent the general esteem and glow which Kennedy and his presidency is steeped in. This aptly demonstrates the power of myth. Ultimately no amount of scandal, criticism and academic debate has yet managed to dislodge this hazy view of Kennedy from public consciousness. He continues to stand as America’s slain king, an emblem of a more innocent, more harmonious, more hopeful time.

Jackie Kennedy told Theodore White, “history made Jack what he was”.151 Yet in many ways, it seems more accurate to say that since his death, mythology has made John F. Kennedy. Whilst the idea of him as a leader representing hope, honour, integrity and romance may be legitimately questioned, the figure of Kennedy continues to loom large in US political history and national consciousness. The collective idea that “for one brief shining moment”152 JFK was king of Camelot does not look set to fade.

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Endnotes

1. Theodore H. White, ‘For President Kennedy’, Life, (December 1963), Boston, Massachusetts, US, John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library, Theodore H. White Personal Papers.

2. Nick J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-Making and History, (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), p.43.

3. ‘Jackie Started the Legend of JFK “Camelot”’, The Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, (22nd November, 2013).

4. Frank Newport, ‘Mother Teresa Voted by American People as the Most Admired Person of the Century’, Gallup, (31st December, 1999).

5. Matthew Smith, ‘The most and least popular US Presidents, according to Americans’, YouGov, (27th July, 2021).

6. William Lewis Jones, King Arthur in History and Legend, (England: The University Press, 1911), p.11.

7. Higham, King Arthur, p.212.

8. Ibid, p.229.

9. Ibid, p.215.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid, p.218.

12. Ibid, p.228.

13. Ibid, p.238.

14. David Dumville, ‘Sub-Roman Britain: History and Legend’, History, Vol.62, No.205, pp.173-192, (Wiley: 1977), p.177.

15. Higham, King Arthur, p.240.

16. Ibid, p.242.

17. Ibid.

18. Dumville, ‘Sub-Roman Britain’, p.177.

19. Higham, King Arthur, p.246.

20. Ibid, p.247.

21. J.A. Giles, History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum), (Champaign, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 1999), p.23.

22. Ibid.

23. Higham, King Arthur, p.46.

24. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of Merlin and King Arthur: The Earliest Version of the Arthurian Legend, (Omo Press: 2014), p.82.

25. Ibid, pp.82-83.

26. Ibid, p.114.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid, p.95.

29. Ibid, p.102.

30. Ibid, p.93.

31. Ibid, p.137.

32. Spelt variously as Modred and Mordred, the character is sometimes described as Arthur’s own son.

33. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of Merlin and King Arthur, p.137.

34. Ibid, p.141.

35. Ibid.

36. Generally spelt as Avalon

37. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of Merlin and King Arthur, p.141.

38. Ibid, p.137.

39. Higham, King Arthur, p.46.

40. Jonathan Jones, ‘King Arthur forged our Britain - English Heritage is right to celebrate him’, The Guardian, (23rd March, 2016).

41. Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1884), p.21.

42. White, ‘For President Kennedy’.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Also published as The Passing of Arthur.

46. Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur, p.21.

47. Ibid.

48. Peter Neville, J.F. Kennedy: A Beginner’s Guide, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2002), p.67.

49. William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War Two, 2nd edn., (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.189.

50. John D. Rosenberg, ‘Tennyson and the Passing of Arthur’, Victorian Poetry, Vol.25, No.3/4, pp.141-150, (Morgantown, West Virginia: West Virginia University, October 1984), pp.146-148.

51. White, “For President Kennedy”.

52. David Boeri, ‘Contemplating Camelot: Thousands of Biographies Reveal an Ever-Changing Image of JFK’, WBUR News, (26 May, 2017).

53. Caitlin Flanagan, ‘Jackie and the Girls: Mrs. Kennedy’s Problem- And Ours’, The Atlantic, (July/August 2012 issue).

54. Ibid.

55. Boeri, ‘Contemplating Camelot’

56. DeNeen L. Brown, ‘The Day John F. Kennedy was Killed: How America Mourned a Fallen President’, The Washington Post, (22 November, 2017)

57. A. Powley, JFK’s Camelot: The Unfolding of a President, (Sparkford: J H Haynes & Co. Ltd, 2013), p.142.

58. Ibid, p.140

59. Dean Ruxton, ‘Death of a President: How the “Irish Times” covered JFK’s assassination’, The Irish Times, (22nd November, 2018).

60. Powley, JFK’s Camelot, p.143

61. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of Merlin and King Arthur, p.83.

62. Ibid, p.98.

63. Ibid, pp.94-95.

64. Beth Bailey, David Farber, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960’s, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p.7.

65. Robert John Greene, America in the Sixties, (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2010), p.27.

66. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of Merlin and King Arthur, p.83.

67. Caroline Kennedy, Ted Widmer, Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy, (Grand Central Publishing 2012), p.283.

68. Ibid, p.71.

69. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, p.215.

70. Ibid, p. 219.

71. Flanagan, ‘Jackie and the Girls’.

72. Bailey, Farber, ‘The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960’s’, p.218.

73. Washington DC, National Archives of the USA, Federal Register: Executive Orders, The provisions of Executive Order 11063 of Nov. 20, 1962.

74. Caroline Cooper, Azmat Khan, ‘JFK: Civil Rights Leader or Bystander?’ Aljazeera America, (25 November, 2013).

75. ‘Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights’, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

76. ‘Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963’, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

77. ‘President Lyndon B. Johnson's Address to a Joint Session of Congress, November 27, 1963’, The Centre for Legislative Archives.

78. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, p.178.

79. ‘President Lyndon B. Johnson's Address to a Joint Session of Congress, November 27, 1963’.

80. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, p.220.

81. Iwan Morgan, Mark White, The Presidential Image: A History from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, (London: IB Tauris & Company Ltd, 2020), p.99.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid, p.94.

84. Chrétien de Troyes, Douglas David Roy Owen (trans.), Arthurian Romances, (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1987), p.185.

85. Morgan, White, The Presidential Image, p.99.

86. Ibid, p.93.

87. Ibid, p.100.

88. Ibid,

89. Ibid, p.96.

90. Ibid, p.99.

91. Ibid, p.104.

92. Ibid.

93. Robert Dallek, John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, 1917-1963, (London: Penguin, 2004), p.714.

94. Stephen Graubard, The Presidents: The Transformation of the American Presidency from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush, (London: Penguin, 2009), p.434.

95. Ibid.

96. Morgan, White, The Presidential Image, p.94.

97. Graubard, The Presidents, p.414.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid, p.415.

101. Ibid, p.434.

102. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965), p.758.

103. Graubard, The Presidents, p.414.

104. Ibid, p.434.

105. The Fog of War

106. Neville, J.F. Kennedy: A Beginner’s Guide, p.53.

107. ‘November 22, 1963: Death of the President’, John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library.

108. Ibid.

109. Ibid.

110. David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p.251.

111. DeNeen L. Brown, ‘Bloodstained pink suit will remain out of the public eye another 50 years’, The Washington Post, 11/20/13.

112. Neville, J.F. Kennedy: A Beginner’s Guide, p.53.

113. R.J. Greene, ‘America in the Sixties’, p.35.

114. Thomas Mallory, Le Morte d’Arthur, (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996), p.794.

115. Morgan, White, The Presidential Image, p.106.

116. Mallory, Le Morte d’Arthur, p.792.

117. White, ‘For President Kennedy’.

118. Ibid.

119. Ibid.

120. Ibid.

121. Morgan, White, The Presidential Image, pp.105-106.

122. Lily Rothman, ‘Jackie Kennedy’s Post-Assassination Interview with Life’, Life; Dora Jane Hamblin, ‘Mrs. Kennedy’s Decisions Shaped All the Solemn Pageantry’, Life, (6th December, 1963).

123. ‘President John Fitzgerald Kennedy Gravesite’, Arlington National Cemetry.

124. Ibid.

125. Morgan, White, The Presidential Image, p.106.

126. Jackie Started the Legend of JFK “Camelot”’

127. A. Dugan, F. Newport, ‘Americans Rate JFK as Top Modern President’.

128. Mallory, Le Morte d’Arthur, p.793.

129. Terence H. White, The Once and Future King, (London: Harper Collins, 2014), p.626.

130. Stephanie Barczewski, Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

131. Ibid, p.14.

132. ‘The Top 100 Great Britons’, Web Archive.

133. Ibid.

134. Barczewski, Myth and National Identity, p.14.

135. Neville, J.F. Kennedy: A Beginner’s Guide, p.53.

136. Max Hastings, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975, (London: William Collins, 2018), p.146.

137. Bailey, Farber, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960’s, p.218.

138. Ibid, p.44.

139. ‘The President’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting his Decision not to Seek Re-election’, The American Presidency Project, University of California Santa Barbara.

140. Ibid.

141. Bailey, Farber, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960’s, p.386.

142. Hastings, Vietnam, p.645.

143. Ibid, p.629.

144. Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot: JFK, The Vietnam War, and US Political Culture, (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books), p.147.

145. Bruce J. Schulman, ‘Lyndon Johnson left office as a deeply unpopular president. So why is he so admired today?’, The Washington Post, (30th March, 2018).

146. ‘Public Trust in Government, 1958-2021’, Pew Research Centre, (17th May, 2021).

147. Ibid.

148. Barczewski, Myth and National Identity, p.15.

149. Ibid, p.16.

150. Jones, ‘King Arthur forged our Britain’.

151. White, ‘For President Kennedy’.

152. Ibid.