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Masters of Chiasmus: John F. Kennedy (Part 2)

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

Kennedy, one of the few American politicians with a genuine fondness for poetry, made these remarks at the 1956 annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, while serving as United States Senator from Massachusetts.

"The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation's greatness. But the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable for they determine whether we use power or power uses us."

Unlike many of the more insecure politicians who preceded and followed him, Kennedy not only believed in dissent, he appeared to welcome it.

This line—from a 1961 speech at the University of Washington—demonstrates something interesting about chiasmus. Whenever two things are necessary for something to occur, it's possible to create a chiastic phrase by using the formula: "A minus B, and B minus A are insufficient; both A and B are necessary."

From a 1961 address to a joint session of Congress, this quote is a sobering reminder of how perilous it felt to live in the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Kennedy went on to say, "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness." He concluded with another chiastic line: "The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."

"Experience has taught us that an agreement to negotiate does not always mean a negotiated agreement."

From a 1962 address at the University of California at Berkeley, Kennedy was hopeful but cautious after announcing that the Americans and Russians had agreed to talk about the joint exploration of space.

This observation on the arms race came during a 1963 radio and television address on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He went on to say: "Yesterday, a shaft of light cut into the darkness. Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. For the first time an agreement has been reached on bringing the forces of nuclear destruction under international control."

This came from a 1963 speech to the Protestant Council of New York City.

John F. Kennedy and Implied Chiasmus

In my Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You book, I introduce a concept called implied chiasmus, which occurs when the words of a popular saying are deliberately reversed. Some examples are Mae West's "A hard man is good to find," Kermit the Frog's "Time's fun when you're having flies," and Ziggy's "A waist is a terrible thing to mind."

If you examine these sayings, you'll notice that each one reverses the words of a popular saying: "A good man is hard to find," "Time flies when you're having fun," and the slogan of the United Negro College Fund, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Implied chiasmus has been favored by wits and wordsmiths for many years, and JFK was no exception. Here are several examples.

Here, Kennedy humorously reverses what people normally talk about—northern efficiency and southern charm.

"To paraphrase the old saying, 'Good news is no news.'"

Quoted in a 1962 issue of Parade magazine, Kennedy reverses the words of the popular saying, "No news is good news."

Kennedy said this in his July 1960 speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president. Referring to Republicans and their presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, he reverses the famous words of Abraham Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity for all."

This completes our look at John F. Kennedy. In our next edition, we'll take a look at another chiastic master, Oscar Wilde.

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