Kat Lewin
1) How does each scene develop?
2) How does this whole essay develop?
Considedr what the argument of the essay is.
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1) All three scenes start by establishing the ascent of the presidents, then establishes a crisis situation for them to deal with – it goes from the general to the specific. The Kennedy section focuses explicitly on the historical context of the tapes; the LBJ segment is about evenly divided between the political and the personal; the Nixon section – um, obviously – is focused on his personal failure.
2) The essay develops by developing from the political aspects of the presidential calls to the personal. In this way, the points progress, showing how the presidency, which is commonly considered to be a purely political position, has a more human element. This is established through the political nature of Kennedy’s phone interactions gradually giving way to the heartfelt emotional Nixon tapes.
However, the phone tapes also act as characters in the Kennedy and Nixon segments: they offer political leverage to the presidents.
Kennedy: Phone plays dual role of communicating episode of the civil rights movement and also playing a key role within the episode (allowing Kennedy to blackmail Barnett). Although Kennedy was excessively tactful during his phone conversations, he is able to get his way by massively utilizing the element. The piece increasingly shows his political machinations.
LBJ: Uses the phone for both political and personal machinations: he keeps Jackie Kennedy close to the White House as a symbol, and also works with Martin Luther King, Jr., to attempt to get his way in terms of Civil Rights. The tapes show LBJ’s power in a way that the public didn’t grok before the tapes: he was played as a big, bumbling cowboy, but throughout the segment shows increasing ability to manipulate his way into happy political ends.
Nixon: