Abstract

Accepting the Democratic nomination for president in July 1960, John F. Kennedy exhorted his fellow Americans to join him in a mission of national sacrifice on the ‘New Frontier’. This article will explore the influence of frontier mythology on the foreign policy rhetoric of the Kennedy administration. It will show how the prevalence of the Western in U.S. popular culture led Kennedy and his advisers to carefully construct a meaningful Cold War discourse, one which attempted to situate the administration’s foreign policy within a heroic narrative of westward expansion. Yet this rhetorical strategy proved something of a double-edged sword; at key moments during his presidency, Kennedy found his ‘New Frontier’ rhetoric being turned against him by critics of his foreign policy. Led by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, these opponents accused the president of deviating from the mythic narratives he appealed to in his speeches, charging that the ‘New Frontier’ was but a pale imitation of the old. By exploring this contest over frontier mythology and its interaction with U.S. foreign policy, this article seeks to add a new dimension to the recent ‘narrative turn’ in international history.

摘要

1960 年 7 月接受民主党总统提名后，约翰·F·肯尼迪劝告他的美国同胞与他一起在“新边疆”上为民族牺牲。本文将探讨边疆神话对肯尼迪政府外交政策修辞的影响。它将展示西方在美国流行文化中的盛行如何引导肯尼迪及其顾问精心构建有意义的冷战话语，试图将政府的外交政策置于向西扩张的英雄叙事中。然而，这种修辞策略证明是一把双刃剑。在他担任总统期间的关键时刻，肯尼迪发现他的“新边疆”言论遭到批评其外交政策的人的反对。由亚利桑那州参议员巴里戈德沃特领导，这些反对者指责总统偏离了他在演讲中呼吁的神话叙事，指责“新边疆”只是对旧边疆的苍白模仿。通过探索这场关于边境神话的较量及其与美国外交政策的互动，本文试图为最近的国际历史“叙事转向”增添一个新的维度。