JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President

by Thurston Clarke

  Kennedy decided to send his Harvard roommate Torbert (“Torby”) Macdonald to Saigon to warn Diem that a coup was imminent and his life might be in danger. Following Kennedy’s script, Macdonald told Diem, “They’re going to kill you. You’ve got to get out of there temporarily to seek refuge in the American embassy and you must get rid of your sister-in-law [Madame Nhu] and your brother [Nhu].” After he returned, Macdonald told Kennedy, “He just won’t do it. He’s too stubborn.”

  • • •

  DURING A TWO-HOUR CONFERENCE with House leaders and ranking members of the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Kennedy tried to hammer out a compromise civil rights bill satisfactory to moderate Republicans and liberals. The House minority leader, Charles Halleck of Indiana, was the key to any deal, and Kennedy had convened the meeting to discover what he would accept. Halleck complained to Kennedy that liberals on the Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, had loaded the bill with provisions “way beyond anything you asked, and way beyond anything we ought to do,” with the result that moderate Republicans such as himself risked being targeted as “goats” for emasculating the bill.

  “We’re the goats,” Kennedy said, reminding him that liberals and civil rights leaders had criticized his original bill for being too cautious.

  Halleck said he had been courageous to introduce the bill. He flattered Halleck in return, and within two hours they had sketched out a compromise. After the others left, Halleck told Kennedy, “The colored vote in my district doesn’t amount to a bottle of cold piss.” He wanted to pass a civil rights bill anyway because whenever he went to Warm Springs, the Georgia resort made famous by FDR, none of the restaurants would serve his Negro driver. “Once in a while, a guy does something because it’s right,” he explained.

  On Wednesday evening Kennedy invited the Bradlees to their second dinner in a row. By the time he joined them, Jackie had put on a dress from King Hassan and was imitating the bumps and grinds of a Moroccan dancer. She complained that Bishop was “prying awfully deep,” even trying to get her maid to reveal what she wore to bed and who slept where. “Never mind,” he said. Bishop was writing a lead story, “and the way things are going for us right now, we can use anything we can get. Anyway, we have the right of clearance. . . . That’s a great thing—that right of clearance.”

  He mentioned that the Washington Post had run a photograph of Bobby Baker’s house, and Bradlee said he understood that when the photographer rang the bell, two women in evening dresses had opened the door.

  “Did they get their pictures?” he asked.

  While walking to the White House theater to watch the new James Bond movie, From Russia with Love, they discussed who he wanted to succeed him in 1968. After everyone had vetoed Johnson, Jackie asked, “Well, who then?”

  “It was going to be Franklin [Roosevelt],” he said mischievously, “until you and Onassis fixed that.”

  He seldom sat through an entire film, but he watched this one to the end. Bradlee thought he liked the cool sex and brutality. As they were leaving, he announced that he and Jackie were going to take a holiday out West the following summer. He was thinking of Montana, where he had received such a good reception, but not Wyoming, too many “cold bastards” there.

  At a meeting on Thursday with Rusk, Taylor, and Gilpatric, he approved a schedule for redeploying U.S. forces from Europe that was in line with Rusk’s assurances to Gromyko during their secret walk. He agreed to a reduction of 30,000 troops from U.S. logistical forces in Europe, 10 percent from headquarters staff, and the return, with the minimum explanation possible, of units sent to bolster U.S. forces during the 1961 Berlin crisis. A National Security Action Memorandum summarizing his decisions stated that the “possible redeployment of U.S. forces under consideration within the government should not be discussed publically nor with our allies until a decision has been made and politico-military plan for action approved. Even then, whenever possible[,] action of low visibility should be taken without public announcement.”

  He took another step toward reducing cold war tensions during a Thursday meeting with Jean Daniel, the noted French journalist who edited the Socialist newsweekly L’Observateur. After Attwood learned that Daniel would be traveling to Cuba in early November and hoped to interview Fidel Castro, he had asked Bradlee to persuade Kennedy to see him before he left. They met alone in the Oval Office for thirty minutes. Kennedy did not activate the hidden microphone, but Daniel took what he called “very specific” notes.

  Kennedy began by saying that he had decided that worrying about the state of Franco-American relations was a waste of time, and that General de Gaulle’s “rather incomprehensible” strategy required a certain amount of tension with the United States—tension that de Gaulle needed, he added facetiously, “to restore to Europe the desire to think for itself and renounce its torpid dependence on American dollar aid and political guidance!”

  Daniel asked what he expected from de Gaulle’s visit this winter. “Absolutely nothing!” he said, smiling. But he was looking forward to it anyway because de Gaulle was a “historic figure,” and perhaps “the strangest great man of our time.”

  During a break from negotiations over the Panama Canal with President Roberto Remon, Kennedy had told Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Carl Kaysen that he felt the talks were going badly: “He says we’ve been screwing them all these years, and I agree.” He apparently felt the same way about pre-Castro Cuba. Knowing that Daniel was certain to repeat his remarks to Castro, he now delivered an extraordinary denunciation of America’s earlier Cuban policies:

  I believe there is no country in the world, including all the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. . . . I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

  He paused, and after noting Daniel’s amazement continued:

  But it is also clear that the problem has ceased to be a human one, and has become international—that is, it has become a Soviet problem. I am the President of the United States and not a socialist; I am the President of a free nation which has certain responsibilities in the Free World. I know that Castro betrayed the promises made in the Sierra Maestra, and that he has agreed to be a Soviet agent in Latin America. I know that through his fault—either his “will to independence,” his madness or communism—the world was on the verge of nuclear war in October 1962.

  Referring to Castro’s recklessness during that crisis, he said, “I must say, I don’t even know if he realizes this or even cares about it,” adding, “You can tell me whether he does when you come back.” Speaking as much to Castro as Daniel, he warned that Latin American nations “are not going to attain justice and progress . . . by going from economic oppression to a Marxist dictatorship which Castro himself denounced a few years ago.” Then he held out the carrot, saying, “The United States now has the possibility of doing as much good in Latin America as it has done wrong in the past; I would even say that we alone [i.e., not the Soviet Union] have this power—on the essential condition that communism does not take over there.”

  He rose, signaling that the conversation was over. Before leaving, Daniel posed two questions, both obvious negotiating po
ints that Castro would want answered.

  Could the United States tolerate “economic collectivism”? he asked. In other words, did Castro have to renounce communism as well as subversion?

  “What about Sekou Toure [the Marxist leader of Guinea]? And Tito? I received Marshal Tito three days ago and our discussions were most positive.”

  Daniel inquired about the American economic blockade. Kennedy said it would continue as long as Castro was attempting to subvert other Latin American nations. The deal he was proposing was clear: if Castro stopped trying to export communism to other nations and became the Tito of the Caribbean, then like Tito he could receive U.S. recognition and aid. As they parted, Kennedy said he wanted a report when Daniel returned from Havana, adding, “Castro’s reactions interest me.”

  • • •

  ON THURSDAY, BISHOP ANNOUNCED that he had collected enough anecdotes and observations for a small book. He and Kelly would fly to Aruba and while closeted in a hotel finish the article and book in a couple of weeks. He would send Kennedy a carbon copy so he could correct factual errors and identify any observations that he found “hurtful and unfair.” If Bishop agreed, he would remove or change them.

  “If it gets here before Jackie and I leave for Texas, I’ll take it with me,” Kennedy said. Bishop was perplexed by his urgency, writing later, “For a reason beyond my divination, he was eager for the little book.” But Kennedy’s motives were not hard to divine. Bishop had written a laudatory article about Eisenhower and he wanted no less for himself. Anticipating correctly that the book would be flattering, he wanted it published as soon as possible as an antidote to Lasky’s venomous tome. Before Bishop left, he questioned him closely about his best-selling book, The Day Lincoln Was Shot. “My feelings about assassination are identical with Mr. Lincoln’s,” he said. “Anyone who wants to exchange his life for mine can take it. They just can’t protect [me] that much.” Bishop thought he “seemed fascinated, in a melancholy way, with the succession of events of that day which had led to the assassination.”

  Kennedy woke Friday to front-page articles reporting that Dallas had been flooded with handbills carrying his photograph and captioned “Wanted for Treason,” and that protestors had heckled and attacked Adlai Stevenson when he delivered a speech at an event in the Dallas Municipal Auditorium celebrating United Nations Day—not that surprising a reaction in a state whose legislature had passed a law that made flying the United Nations flag a criminal offense.

  Stevenson had celebrated the new spirit of détente in his speech, saying, “We may be moving into a new era,” and calling the atmosphere in the United Nations the best since its founding. There were loud catcalls and boos, and fistfights between hecklers and supporters. “They fear to hope,” he said of his opponents. “And if anything, this eighteenth anniversary of the United Nations is an occasion that offers hope.” An angry crowd surrounded him as he was leaving. Two men spat in his face and the wife of an insurance executive smacked him over the head with a sign proclaiming “If You Seek Peace, Ask Jesus.” “We are patriots,” she explained. “I just can’t understand all these liberals and their ideas.” She later blamed “a group of Negroes” for pushing her toward Stevenson.

  Kennedy asked Schlesinger to call Stevenson and congratulate him for keeping his cool. Schlesinger was close to Stevenson, but the fact that Kennedy did not make the call himself was more evidence of their complicated relationship. Stevenson tried making light of the confrontation but finally said, “You know, there was something very ugly and frightening about the atmosphere. Later, I talked with some of the leading people out there. They wondered whether the President should go to Dallas, and so do I.” Knowing Kennedy would dismiss any warning about physical danger, particularly one emanating from Stevenson, Schlesinger decided against relaying it.

  As Kennedy was reading about these events in Dallas, a bomb threat delayed Tito’s departure for Europe on the Rotterdam. Tito had previously complained to the chief of protocol, Angier Biddle Duke, about the placards carried by pickets outside the Waldorf-Astoria calling him a “Murderer” and “Red Pig.” As he and Duke were driving to the pier, Duke spread out the Herald Tribune, pointed to a photograph of Stevenson being assaulted in Dallas, and said it proved there had been nothing special in Tito’s treatment, adding, “This is how we treat our own distinguished national leaders.”

  Later on Friday, Kennedy received a cable from Lodge responding to his concerns that the coup might fail. Lodge reported that the generals were “seriously attempting to effect a change in the government,” and argued against thwarting them because it was “at least an even bet that the next government would not bungle and stumble as the present one has.”

  Sending a Republican to Saigon, particularly one this headstrong and self-assured, must have again seemed less clever than it had last summer. In a cable signed by Bundy, Kennedy told Lodge, “We are particularly concerned about hazard that an unsuccessful coup . . . will be laid at our door by public opinion almost everywhere. Therefore . . . we would like to have option of judging and warning on any plan with poor prospects of success. We recognize that this is a tall order, but President wants you to know of our concern.”

  During a morning meeting with his foreign policy advisers, Kennedy doodled “Lodge,” “Coup,” and “Degree of Correctness” three times down the page. After attending a White House luncheon for Radio Free Europe, he spent the afternoon upstairs, writing and circling “coup,” “press problems,” and “coup plans.”

  Jackie’s dressmaker Oleg Cassini had told Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that he believed the Kennedys had acquired something the British had lost, “a casual sort of grandeur about the evenings, always at the end of the day’s business, the promise of parties, the pretty women and music and beautiful clothes and champagne.” Being invited to one of their casual White House dinners was a coveted honor, and the fact that Britain’s ambassador, David Ormsby-Gore, was such a frequent guest grated on the French ambassador, Hervé Alphand. Jackie finally invited him and his wife to dinner on Friday evening because she thought he was about to explode.

  Her fondness for French history, culture, and cuisine did not, surprisingly, encompass the French people. She considered them “really not very nice” and could not think of a single French person she liked, except for a few “very simple” ones. Aside from the nonsimple Alphands, she also invited the Roosevelts and Princess Galitzine. Kennedy arrived for the evening in high spirits because William McCulloch, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, had just announced that he would send the compromise civil rights bill to the House floor. He liked to tease when he was in a good mood. He told Alphand he was wearing the same shirt he had just seen on Ambassador Ormsby-Gore, and kidded Roosevelt about their recent weight-loss competition. After dinner, he offered Alphand the same analysis of Franco-American relations he had given Daniel, telling him that de Gaulle needed to provoke “an atmosphere of tension” to pursue his policy of independence. “Certainly not, Mr. President!” Alphand exclaimed indignantly. Surely a “free and responsible ally” was preferable to “an obedient servant.”

  Jackie told Alphand that the French author André Malraux had sent her a fine piece of jewelry to honor the birth of her third child, and although she had been happy to receive it, she hoped he would agree to take it back. Alphand noticed that mentioning Patrick had almost brought her to tears. He wrote in his diary that she remained gripped by “une profonde et grande emotion.” He also noted that he had heard rumors of Kennedy’s womanizing. “The President’s desires were difficult to satisfy,” he wrote, and raised fears of scandal, which might happen “because he does not take sufficient precautions in this Puritan country.”

  The Roosevelts mentioned the attack on Stevenson in Dallas and urged Jackie to be careful. She said she wished she could take a “pass” on the trip but Jack wanted her there. The next day, she told the Secret Service agent Cli
nt Hill that the Roosevelts had tried to talk her out of going to Dallas, and asked his opinion. He thought she was fishing for an excuse to back out of the trip and joked that she wanted to avoid going to the Johnsons’ ranch. “Well, that is rather frightening in and of itself,” she admitted before turning serious and asking, “Do you think the climate in Dallas is so hostile . . . so hostile to the President that the people could mistreat us like they did Adlai?” Hill said there had been no more threats against her husband in Dallas than anywhere else in the South, a remark that was less reassuring then he meant it to be.

  Saturday, October 26–Sunday, October 27

  AMHERST AND ATOKA

  Kennedy criticized the speech that Sorensen had written for him to deliver at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Robert Frost Library at Amherst as “thin and stale,” and asked Schlesinger to revise it with an eye to including the “poetry and power” theme of Frost’s Inauguration Day poem. He liked Schlesinger’s version better—despite complaining that some of it “sounded too much like Adlai”—and invited him to fly to Amherst so they could revise it on the plane

  He probably cared more about the Amherst speech than any other he delivered that fall. Its theme was the importance of the arts in the life of a great nation, a concept he had championed not only because of Jackie’s interest in the arts but because he believed that like sports, military power, economic strength, and scientific achievement, the arts were a barometer of national excellence, and flourished under a great leader. To promote them he had made a big production of choosing new volumes for the White House library; woven poetry and excerpts from literature into his speeches; invited artists, writers, and classical musicians to the White House; proposed a national cultural center in Washington (the future John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); and established the Presidential Medal of Freedom for “especially meritorious contribution to . . . cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” designing the award himself and nominating its first twenty-two recipients. There was a resulting boom in museum attendance and interest in the arts, leading the historian and critic Lewis Mumford to praise him as “the first American president to give art, literature, and music a place of dignity and honor in American life.”