Obama outdoor speech echoes JFK's 1960 move

DENVER -- Barack Obama's decision to move his nomination acceptance speech from an indoor arena to an outdoor stadium may be a smart effort to tap the Kennedy mystique, open up the convention and generally stir things up.

But almost a half-century later, it remains unclear whether the precedent that helped inspire the move — John F. Kennedy's "New Frontier" convention acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960 — was itself a success, or even a good idea.

Those who were there and those who have studied it disagree on details. Was Kennedy bothered by the setting sun? Distracted by hovering helicopters? Visibly exhausted? Even attendance estimates vary from 50,000 to 80,000.

Kennedy's speech was the first time he referred to the New Frontier, which became the label for his administration's agenda, and its themes were much like those Obama strikes in his campaign.

Kennedy asked his audience not to vote on an irrelevant personal characteristic (his Roman Catholicism); he proclaimed the need for change, saying, "The old era is ending;" and he was part of "a new generation … not blinded by the old hates and fears and rivalries."

In the signature passage, he said: "We stand today at the edge of a New Frontier — the frontier of the 1960s — the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and unfilled threats. … The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises; it is a set of challenges."

Looking back, "The decision to move the speech outdoors was brilliant, as was Obama's this year," says Theodore Sorensen, who drafted Kennedy's speech and supports Obama. "Kennedy's physical presence was electrifying, and so is Obama's. A big outdoor audience maximizes their presence."

Last-minute agreement

The decision to move the 1960 speech out of the Sports Arena convention hall was made not days or weeks before the convention, but only after it started.

Most of those in on the decision — including Robert Kennedy, his brother's campaign manager — are dead. But one of this year's California delegates, Rosalind Wyman, was at the table. She was a 29-year-old Los Angeles City Council member. She says she fought hard to move the speech to give more people a chance to attend.

Robert Kennedy was skeptical. The Coliseum, which seats more than 100,000, could make a big crowd look small. When Wyman said they could use half the stadium, Kennedy acceded.

The afternoon of the speech John Kennedy rode into the stadium in an open black convertible and walked to the stage through a phalanx of "Golden Girl" convention hostesses.

Exactly what happened next is a matter of interpretation. (Grainy footage can be viewed online.) Ben Barnes, then a young Texas state legislator, says Kennedy looked tired; Moreen Blum, a local volunteer, says he looked alert. To Sorensen, sitting farther back, it seemed the sun was giving Kennedy trouble.

All agree that Kennedy rose to the occasion. Toward the end the audience cheered line by line, as Kennedy asked, "Give me your help. Give me your hand, your voice and your vote!"

Wyman can still hear it: "How could you forget that roar?"

Sorensen says that judging from polls and mail, the speech gave Kennedy a crucial lift in a close election.

Not everyone was impressed. Theodore H. White, in The Making of the President 1960 described Kennedy's face as "tired and haggard," his voice as "high and sad."

Watching in Washington, Republican candidate Richard Nixon thought Kennedy did poorly — so poorly Nixon was convinced the senator would be no match for him on television. As a result, White suggests, Nixon took an unwarranted confidence into the candidates' pivotal debates that year.

Another young senator

The speech had another effect not apparent at the time. For years, unknown to the public, Kennedy had taken steroids for Addison's disease. After the Coliseum speech, Robert Dallek writes in his biography An Unfinished Life, Kennedy's "disappointing performance convinced him in the future to increase the amounts of steroids he normally took whenever he faced a stress of giving a major speech or press conference."

Almost a half-century later, how will an outdoor venue work for another young senator talking change?

"What I saw at the time was a young man with good ideas, and ideas were what was needed," says Blum, now 78. Her framed tickets hang on her wall. "Now I see the same thing in Obama."

Barnes, who became lieutenant governor of Texas, likes the choice of a pro football stadium: "He's got to connect with the Wal-Mart voter, and the guy who shops at Wal-Mart is used to watching that stadium on Sunday."

As for what really happened at the Coliseum, you had to be there. But some who were are a little unclear, too.

News accounts say that Sen. Lyndon Johnson's 16-year-old daughter Lynda Bird was introduced to the crowd and gave a big wave. Today she recalls nothing about the speech — not even that it was outdoors. "The memory," she says, "is an unfaithful messenger."