The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

POLITICAL TELLS
publicity he could out of his early days as a football player.
There are even photographs of the young Nixon playing
American football without a helmet - a practice which, his
critics reckoned, explained some of his peculiar political
decisions in later life. John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy
were brought up in a family that believed in the virtues of
team games, although JFK found it difficult to take part
after he'd injured his back during the Second World War.
Once, when he was addressing a group of sports coaches,
Bobby Kennedy announced that, 'Except for war, there is
nothing in American life - nothing - which trains a boy
better for life than football.'
Symbolically, the fitness of the US President is very
important. One need only think of the time when
President Jimmy Carter went jogging with his aides and
collapsed from exhaustion. The famous photograph of
Carter, with his legs buckled underneath him and a vacant
look on his face, sent a reverberating shudder round the
country. It was this revelation of his vulnerability, coupled
with the failed attempt to rescue the US hostages in Iran,
which led to the freefall in Carter's popularity, and to his
eventual defeat by Ronald Reagan. Photographs, and their
ability to engrave an image on people's minds, play a
critical role in the public image of politicians. For
example, when George W. Bush nearly choked on a
pretzel it was fairly easy to dismiss the incident as a joke.
However, had a photographer been present to record the
event, we might have been exposed to a very undignified
spectacle (definitely not what one expects from the leader
of the western world!) and Bush's reputation could have
been irreparably damaged.
129