Promises, Promises

W. J. Rorabaugh. Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xxiii + 317 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $29.00.

"It was a promising time." So begins W. J. Rorabaugh's captivating account of the early 1960s in the United States—an era, the author maintains, that must be understood as "a crucial formative period" between the so-called "fabulous fifties" and the turbulent years that followed the Kennedy assassination. Throughout Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties, Rorabaugh demonstrates that "promising" is a particularly apt term to describe the politics, culture, and social relations of this transitional period of recent U.S. history. Unlike the placid and cautious fifties that preceded it or the tumultuous years of the later sixties, this "in-between time" was characterized by an insistent optimism, an increasing restlessness, a hopeful confidence that major problems could be solved, and an ultimately unrealistic conviction that government could solve them quickly. In six penetrating chapters that explore topics as diverse as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the courtship of Allard Lowenstein and Barbara Boggs, and the painting of Andy Warhol, Rorabaugh skillfully reconstructs the mood of this "promising time" and reveals the interrelated nature of its political, social, and cultural aspects. All the while, he also makes a compelling case for the period's broader significance.

In a comprehensive and tightly written introduction sure to gain him the appreciation of graduate students likely to see this book on their qualifying exam reading lists, Rorabaugh methodically lays out his main themes and central arguments. Taking up at the outset the appropriateness of using the word "promising" to describe the era, the author explains that the term had two distinct meanings. First, it connoted hope, optimism, and the fulfillment of promises—of "continued peace and prosperity" and "major new government initiatives to improve the quality of life." The second definition proved more problematic, for it was about making promises, many of which could not be kept. So optimistic were Americans of the early sixties—so "hooked on hope"—that they "sought more than could be obtained" and proposed plans that "bore little relationship to goals that could actually be accomplished" (pp. x-xi). The gaps between hopes and realities, if recognized at all, were facilely explained as "problems about to be solved quickly." As had happened in previous "intensely hopeful periods," however, the distance between hope and experience ultimately produced disappointment as the "promising time" gave way to the frustration and anger that marked the second half of the decade (p. xii). Ironically, as Rorabaugh notes, "strident insistence upon a 'promising' future inhibited discussion of darker truths that Americans wished to ignore" and indeed "may have been an attempt to hide undercurrents of anxiety and doubt" (p. xiii).

Though such discussions may not have occurred in public, Rorabaugh's extensive archival research in personal correspondence reveals that many Americans were more forthcoming in letters not intended for publication. Their primary concerns were the Cold War and race. In franker moments, many abandoned the tough rhetoric of the time and admitted to family and friends their fear of nuclear war—a concern many hesitated to state publicly lest they be tagged a communist sympathizer. Similarly, while public discussion stressed "support for abstract rights in opaque ways," in private, many white Americans expressed bewilderment at the demands of blacks and a fearful uncertainty about how race relations might change in the future (p. xiv). On the other hand, Rorabaugh also indicates that the line between public expression and private thought began to blur during the early sixties. The Beat writers, pop artists, and others in avant-garde circles ridiculed the hypocrisy of mainstream society and celebrated frankness and candor. Though perhaps increasing honesty, their behavior also put off many Americans who feared the coarsening of public discourse and the resulting social disharmony.

Having established his period as a "promising time" that featured both a tension between public and private and a tentative willingness to...