Talk:Presidential transition of John F. Kennedy/GA2

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 03:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think this one has been waiting long enough. I'll work on a review over the next few days. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The initial review is complete. Most of the current issues with this article are related to structure and prose. It's a bit disorganized, and some copyediting is needed. The other aspects are pretty good, with only a few minor things that need to be addressed. For posterity, I've also looked at GA1, and I don't think there's anything pressing from that review which still needs to be addressed. None of the issues are insurmountable, and I'll put the article on hold so that the issues can be addressed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:38, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written

General issues:

• It might be worth restructuring some of the paragraphs so that sentences about the same topic are grouped together. Look at the largest paragraph in "Pre-election actions". The topic of each sentence is, respectively: Clifford-Brookings-group-group-Henry-Brookings-Kendall-Brookings&Clifford-Eisenhower&Nixon-Clifford. The final paragraph in that section is better, where each sentence follows the last and it stays focused on the same topic (except for the last sentence about Nitze, which would probably fit better in a paragraph about the advisory group). The sections "other developments" and "selection of appointees" have similar problems with organization and structure.
• Related to the above, this article leans a bit too closely toward short, choppy sentences that don't always flow neatly into each other. It doesn't need extensive rewriting, but it's something to watch.
• The lead could be cleaned up a bit. It seems like the lead is trying to present details rather than give a broad summary of the body.
• There are a few short paragraphs that are only one or two sentences long. If possible, these should be integrated into larger paragraphs.
• Most of the article falls into the "Official transition" section, which sort of defeats the purpose of having sections. The organization of the transition and the actions of the transition might be better off in separate sections. Appointees could also be its own section, with the long list at the bottom given its own subsection. But this is just one example of how it might be organized.
• The subsection "Organization of the transition effort" reads like a prosified list, though I'm not sure if there's an easy solution for this.
• The "other developments" section suffers severely from
  WP:PROSELINE
  and its nature as an "other" section makes it feel unfocused. This needs to be rewritten to present more of a narrative rather than a list of things that happened. I'll review it for criterion one after it's closer to what's necessary for GA. A few possible ideas to organize it: The two paragraphs about Eisenhower could be move to Eisenhower's section. Lyndon B Johnson or Jackie Kennedy could also get their own sections if there's enough information about either of them. If Johnson doesn't warrant his own section, then maybe Kennedy/Johnson dealing with the Senate could be its own section.

Textual issues:

• The Brookings Institution discreet established – Supposed to be "discreetly"?
• The group's members overall had strong experience in managerial skills and domestic and foreign policy. – This reads as puffery. This is especially a problem with its sourcing, which I've elaborated on below.
• the Brookings Institution was conducting this review presidential transitions – Is there a word missing here?
• the northern hemisphere's Summer of 1960 – No need to specify the hemisphere, that can be assumed for an article about the United States. Perhaps "mid-1960" would be better?
• Kennedy, arguably, did not become president-elect of the United States until November 9, 1960, the day after the election. – This sentence editorializes a bit. It would be preferable to just plainly state what happened.
• He also suggested that Kennedy's representatives the White House budget office – Missing word?
• as well as Kennedy's representatives meet with the secretary of state for foreign policy updates — Missing word?
• at the time Kennedy was elected than they later developed to be – Clunky wording
• transition operations out largely of his personal residence – Clunky wording
• He also held transition planning meetings at his home as well as other locations in Washington – Avoid using "also" and "as well as" in the same sentence.
• Kennedy's personal "offices" –
  MOS:SCAREQUOTES
• None of the transition workers received financial compensation. The transition relied on volunteer staffers. – Saying volunteer and unpaid is redundant. This should be combined into a single sentence.
• They also happened to largely be relatively young, but were also experienced in Washington, D.C. politics – Uses "also" twice in the same sentence.
• Pierre Salinger was assigned to be the head of the transition's press team (the press secretary) – If he was the press secretary, can't the article just say that he was assigned to be the press secretary?
• Kennedy's transition effort had to request funding from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in order to pay its expenses. The DNC provided most of the funding for the transition. – Having both of these sentences feels redundant.
• After this meeting, further actions Clifford and Persons would each undertake in the transition – Clunky wording
• with Persons, with Clifford – Avoid using "with" twice in a row like this.
• after the two's November 14 meeting – I'm not sure if "the two" should be made possessive; "two's" could probably be dropped without losing the sentence's meaning.
• including some delivered directly from Richard M. Bissell Jr. and Allen Dulles (Director of Central Intelligence). – Who is Richard M. Bissell?
• understood the costs of a poorly managed transition, and, overall, sought to play a role in making Kennedy's transition run smoothly. – This sentence might read more clearly if "overall" is dropped.
• a one-on-one meeting with one another – Redundant.
• and White House Press Secretary James Hagerty and – Having "and" appear twice like this make the sentence read awkwardly.
• he particularly hoped to further discuss – Would any meaning be lost if this was condensed to "he hoped to discuss"?
• Per later recounting by some officials involved, Eisenhower, in the waning days of his presidency, invited Kennedy to play a role in decision-making on significant issues – Clunky wording.
• Does Cabinet need to be capitalized?
• The name Kennedy appears too frequently in the "selection of appointees" section where "he" would be preferable.
• Dawson would have made history as the first black Cabinet secretary – "made history" is redundant to "first".
• many correspondence were sent – Is "correspondence" supposed to be plural?
• President-Johnson and his staff – Who is "President-Johnson"?
• As indicated by Morris – The quote is redundant to this sentence.
• Despite concerns about nepotism, Kennedy's father successfully demanded that Robert F. Kennedy be chosen for attorney general. – The article has already identified RFK as attorney general by this point. Ideally, all of the info about RFK should be put in the same place. I'd also suggest finding more info about the Kennedy family's involvement in the process, but there's currently enough for GA.
• In his White House staff, Kennedy did not choose a formal White House chief of staff, instead, preferring the idea of, in effect, acting as his own chief of staff. – This sentence has five commas and two "chief of staff"s. Both of those should be reduced.

Verifiable with no original research

Reliability:

• The Brookings articles appear to be about Brookings itself. It might be best to avoid these. They're especially unhelpful for statements about its own involvement, as it can't provide independent weight.
• History.com is not a reliable source.
• Biography.com isn't the best source. I see it's only used once and it's coupled with another source. Can the source that it's paired with stand on its own?
• There's heavy reliance on contemporary newspaper articles. While this isn't a major issue, secondary sources should always be preferred. They're better at providing independent analysis and weight.

Spotchecks:

• Brauer (1986) – Checked all four uses, three are good. many even more so experienced than their counterparts in past transitions seems like
  close paraphrasing
  in that it basically restates the same idea in the same way as the source. I like that this source provides some retrospective analysis from the author. There seems to be a lot of good info in this book that could be added if you're ever looking to take this article further. One example is that on p.65 it says that Clifford and Neustadt barred themselves from accepting jobs from Kennedy to avoid a conflict of interest, which might be worth considering for inclusion.
• [1] "Push to East Presidential Transition" – All three uses are good. You could probably get more out of this source as well. It talks about the historic nature of the transition preparations and about how Brookings took the initiative to make this happen, neither of which are given attention in the article.
• [5] "Transition Expenditures: General Accounting Office Audit (2)" – All five uses are good. It's not required, but it would be a good idea to add the page number (12–13) to the citation. This source likewise suggests that Brookings was a leader in this process rather than just a participant, which I did not gather from the article.
• [20] "Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, eminent economist, dead at 94" – Good.
• [42] "Kennedy Florida Vacation" – Good.
• [65] "Kennedy Cabinet Built on Broad Dimensions" – All three uses are good. I notice this source says Republicans were worried that the appointment of Dillon as secretary of the treasury would hamper their attacks on Kennedy's economic policy, which is another reason in addition to the one mentioned in the article.

Spotchecks look great. My only takeaway is that there's a lot more to write about should you or anyone else ever choose to do so.

Broad in its coverage

• There's not much about how the transition affected Kennedy's inauguration and presidency. The actual transition of power itself surely warrants some coverage, and the actions/decisions made during the transition period presumably had some direct effect on the first days of his presidency.
• I mentioned this above, but did you come across more coverage of Lyndon B. Johnson or Jackie Kennedy while going over the sources? I think that information would be relevant if it exists.
• James E. Webb was also involved in the transition – Without any context to explain relevance, this seems like a minor detail.
• There's a lot of detail about the history of Cuba-US relations under "intelligence briefings for the president elect". We only need to cover what's directly relevant to the briefings themselves. Readers can view the relevant pages if they want more of this back story (and on that note, linking Cuba–United States relations might be helpful).

Neutral

Article is neutral. Nothing is presented positively or negatively (except one minor instance of puffery that's addressed above). No ideas or opinions are given undue weight.

Stable

Article is stable. No recent conflicts in the edit history or on the talk page.

Illustrated

All images are public domain as works of the U.S. federal government. Images are relevant and high quality, and the captions are sufficient. As a suggestion, an image of Kennedy with some of his appointees, such as a cabinet photo, would be a nice touch for the appointees section if you're interested in adding more images.

Discussion

@Thebiguglyalien "Kennedy, arguably, did not become president-elect of the United States until November 9, 1960, the day after the election" is not editorialism. It is a point of some debate as to when a candidate becomes president-elect. Is it when the first correct projection of victory comes in from a reliable source? Is it when there is a consensus from multiple sources that they are the projected winner? SecretName101 (talk) 01:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If there's debate, then the article shouldn't pick a "side" of that debate. It would be better to just describe the sequence of events without saying that one stance is "arguably" correct. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Additionally, unpaid volunteer is actually a meaningful distinction. Paid volunteers are a thing too, they are also called compensated volunteers", such volunteers receive some form of compensation for volunteer work such as a stipend, but are not considered salaried workers. SecretName101 (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe say that the people involved were "unpaid volunteers" so that unpaid and volunteer don't each take up their own sentence. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Pierre Salinger was assigned to be the head of the transition's press team (the press secretary)". Press secretary is often a titled role, but it's not clear in the sources I found that he held that as a formal title. Instead, it seems likely he played the same function as a de-facto press secretary, but not officially held that as a titled role. SecretName101 (talk) 02:05, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We should just use what the sources say. If they call him press secretary, then that's what we call him. If that's not what they call him, then the title shouldn't appear in the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Cabinet does need capitalization from my understanding. SecretName101 (talk) 02:09, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that you're correct here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As for the question of coverage of Jackie Kennedy or LBJ, incoming First Ladies (with the exception of Hillary Clinton) often don't play much a role in a transition other than meeting with the outgoing first lady (with the exception of Jill Biden, who the outgoing first lady refused to meet with), and Jackie was either at late-term pregnancy or recuperating from a Caesarean section for a good part of the transition. As for LBJ, I feel I found a provided a decent-enough amount of info on him for what could be expected. Vice presidents generally didn't play a key role in transitions. If you read the article I created on Nixon's transition, Angew spent that transition vacationing, golfing, and spectating football games. SecretName101 (talk) 02:36, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guess vice president and first lady aren't exactly demanding roles when compared to the presidency. And it looks like you made a section for their Senate resignations, so LBJ doesn't really need his own section anyway. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As for the Cuba matter, the previous GA review urged for more context to be provided on the what the the heck situation going on with Cuba was about, hence why there is an explanation. SecretName101 (talk) 02:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that, but I think the context should stay within what's immediately relevant to Kennedy's transition. I see you've edited that part. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Thebiguglyalien I'm wondering if you could take a quick glimpse at the current state of the article/changes made and give feedback on what (at a glimpse) still stands out as needing more attention. SecretName101 (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's looking good so far. Sourcing and coverage issues have been taken care of, so I've marked them as passed. I suggest going through the list of items for criterion one above to see what still needs to be addressed. The structure of the article is still a little disorganized, with a bunch of miscellaneous subsections (including some rather long ones) placed under a single "official transition" section. You might also consider reading some parts of the article aloud to get an idea of what flows well, as some of it is a bit wordy and it needs some copyediting for concision. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:00, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SecretName101 Checking in as it's been a week since the last activity. Some of the items listed under criterion 1 above have not been addressed, and the article still needs some structuring and general copyediting. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Thebiguglyalien sorry, you did not ping me so I received no notice of your reply earlier. Will look at and address your reply when I have a chance SecretName101 (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

busy in the immediate moment, but will implement changes soon. SecretName101 (talk) 03:42, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have made some revisions, if more are needed will do. SecretName101 (talk) 17:52, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks good, and I think the ce issues have been addressed. I'll designate it as GA. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]