Word: wecter
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Dates: during 1966-1966
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...classic heroes, in the words of U.C.L.A.'s late Historian Dixon Wecter, "were taller by a head than any of their tribesmen, could cut iron with their swords, throw the bar farther or wind the horn louder than their fellows-Achilles and Ulysses, Siegfried and Roland, Beowulf and Richard the Lionhearted." Their latter-day American equivalents might be Douglas MacArthur, reconquering the Pacific, true to his vow, "I shall return," and Ike Eisenhower, commanding the massed D-day armies or winning his sweeping 1952 election victory. But it is difficult to imagine Beowulf getting only ten nominating votes...
...impressed with a born-in-a-log-cabin background. Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were born to wealth and flaunted shamelessly expensive tastes (while no one was much interested in Nixon's poorboy origin). Roosevelt demonstrated a characteristic of the classic hero, who, according to Historian Wecter, "envisages his era as a crisis, a drama of good versus evil, and himself as the man of destiny. In a sense, he must be a hero to himself before he can command that worship in others." Kennedy's record is mixed, and the assassin's bullet...