Kennedy in Libra: Tracing a Silhouette's Outline

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy has only one real appearance in Libra, but despite that, he holds a powerful presence in the narrative. John was the first president to readily make good use of the medium of television to communicate with the public, often through his live press conferences, and accordingly in Libra much of the populace is presented as having opinions on him (“John F. Kennedy and the Press”).
    
A certain fraction of the women in the novel are portrayed as being attracted to Kennedy: for example, Brenda Jean Sensibaugh, a stripper at Jack Ruby’s nightclub, has a discussion with another stripper on which of the Kennedy brothers they would rather have sex with Similarly, Marina also fantasizes at one point that she is making love to Kennedy instead of Lee, the narration describing his presence floating  out of the radio and the television. Marina wonders what it must be like “To know you are the subject of a thousand longings.” (p. 324, DeLillo) This indicates a general sense of desire for Kennedy among some women at the time. Marina is also generally interested in the Kennedys and gets Lee to translate magazine articles on them for her. 

In a microcosm of his general egotism and misplaced self-importance, Lee compares himself to Kennedy, a politician who he quite likes. Kennedy also influences his reading choices (Lee tries to pick out books Kennedy has also read) and is likewise seemingly dyslexic. Lee riffles through what he knows about Kennedy’s life looking for similarities. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Likewise, while Lee compares himself to John F. Kennedy, the narrative observes that Marina “was pregnant like Mrs Kennedy” (p323 DeLillo). It is likely these similarities that Lee finds that serve as a safeguard against him shooting Kennedy, at least at first.

However, Kennedy is also the subject of much of the South’s ire, as someone who is leaning towards integration. Dallas in particular is noted to not like him much, and Kennedy himself calls it “ ‘nut country.’” (p.393 ) When Kennedy arrives, it is to a fervor that the narration compares to violence. This hatred is also harbored towards him by those who don’t like his Castro policy, either feeling betrayed at the Bay of Pigs, or by his deciding to be less outwardly anti-Castro. Kennedy is also noted to have an ads run against him by none other than Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, the head of the Warren Commission. The choice to mention this and ensure the reader connects the dots between ad-buyer Warren and Warren Commission Warren also serves to make the reader remember than even something as seemingly omniscient as the Warren Commission may have its biases, casting its ultimate ruling—which the book proposes a counter-theory to—into question.

When Kennedy does appear, his is waved, he is cheered. One is prepared for him to be presented as more icon than human, but he is humanized: his is the figure whom all the people cheer for, but he is also the man who fears his people, who seek to impress them, who is undergoing treatment for Addison’s disease. This is an important feature in a work that has been He is referred to as Kennedy, or Jack, or Lancer, by, but not John. Jack is most often affectionate, as when people call out to him when he first arrives at Dallas, but it does not have to be; he is also called this by T-Jay Mackey and David Ferrie, both of whom are complicit in his assassination. In contrast, Win Everett principally thinks of him as Lancer, likely to distance himself from the idea that it is a real person and a president whose life his is putting under the (he thinks false, at first) pretense of threat. 

Works Cited:

 1)“John F. Kennedy and the Press,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, last updated November 07, 2024, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/john-f-kennedy-and-the-press,  accessed December 16th 2025. 

2) Delillo, Don. Libra. London, Penguin Books, 1988, accessed December 17th 2025