Listening In

by Ted Widmer

  JFK: I don’t want you to get discouraged. You may not be conscious of much progress where you sit. But we’ve been [unclear] the United States for the last three months, and in several directions, and we think we’ve made some progress in our relations with the Soviet Union. We may not get the German question disposed of. We may not solve all the matters. But considering some of the difficulties that both our countries face, internally and externally, it seems to me we’ve done pretty well. So I’m rather encouraged, not discouraged. I don’t want you to be discouraged.

  GROMYKO: [unclear] Well, there is improvement …

  JFK: … There’s only a certain tempo that you can move in these matters. We went ahead with the test ban. We’ve made some progress, which for the United States is rather … Do you realize that in the summer of 1961 the Congress unanimously passed resolutions against trade with the Soviets? And now we’re going ahead, we hope, with this very large trade arrangement. That represents, that’s a change in American policy of some proportions. That’s progress. We’re talking about next week going ahead with this matter on the space, we’re talking about getting the civil air agreement settled, we’ve got the communications. I agree, we haven’t settled Berlin, but considering that we’ve got a lot of problems … you’ve got, you taking out some of your troops out of Cuba, so it’s less of a problem for us here. That’s some progress.

  GROMYKO: You are right, Mr. President, there is change in the atmosphere, in the broad sense of this word, information atmosphere, and in more narrow but important one, that is our relations, relations between United States and Soviet Union, concerned. But the program … unsolved problems are unsolved problems.

  [break]

  GROMYKO: Now to formalize officially our understanding of this matter, [unclear] …

  Children: Daddy!

  JFK: Just open the door there, say hello to my daughter and son. Say hello. Come in a minute and say hello. Do you want to say hello to the minister?

  GROMYKO: Hello, hello.

  JFK: Do you want to say hello to John? Do you want to say hello to the ambassador?

  GROMYKO: Well, well, well. They are very popular in our country. [laughter]

  JFK: His chief is the one who sent you Pushinka.8 You know that, the puppies?

  GROMYKO: You do not [unclear] any secrets from them? [laughter] So, Mr. President, I mentioned aggression treaty …

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND CHAIRMAN KHRUSHCHEV AT THE SOVIET EMBASSY IN VIENNA, JUNE 4, 1961. LEFT TO RIGHT: U.S. AMBASSADOR LLEWELLYN THOMPSON, PRESIDENT KENNEDY, CHAIRMAN KHRUSHCHEV, AND SOVIET FOREIGN MINISTER ANDREI GROMYKO

  CALL TO MARSHAL JOSIP BROZ TITO, OCTOBER 24, 1963

  President Kennedy was always eager to work his charm on foreign leaders, particularly when those leaders had shown a disposition to thwart the will of the Soviet Union. When Yugoslavia’s Marshal Josip Broz Tito came to the United States for a visit in the fall of 1963, President Kennedy reached out personally to convey his regards.

  JFK: Hello?

  OPERATOR: Yes, please.

  JFK: Hello?

  UNIDENTIFIED: 2192.

  OPERATOR: Ready.

  JFK: Mr. President?

  TITO:9 Yes, I am …

  JFK: Oh, how are you? This is …

  TITO: I am very good, Mr. President …

  JFK: How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

  TITO: Yes. Much better.

  JFK: I’m very sorry about some of your difficulties in New York.10 And I’m very sorry you didn’t get a chance to get to California and some other parts of the United States.

  TITO: Thank you, thank you. It was not so bad.

  JFK: Well, they always, they boo me in New York, too, sometimes. So, I hope that you have a good trip back, and we were very glad you came to the United States.

  TITO: Thank you, thank you very much.

  JFK: And give my best to Mrs. Tito.

  TITO: Thank you.

  JFK: And as I say, we’ve been glad you’re here, and we want you to come back sometime.

  TITO: Yes.

  JFK: And to see California and Massachusetts and the rest of the United States.

  TITO: Yes, thank you.

  JFK: Good.

  TITO: I hope, but I hope also that I will meet you in Yugoslavia. [laughs]

  JFK: [laughs] All right, fine, good, thank you very much.

  TITO: Bye.

  JFK: Bye-bye.

  MEETING WITH ASIA SPECIALISTS, NOVEMBER 19, 1963

  In early 2012, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library released its final batch of tapes, including meetings from the last week of President Kennedy’s life. In this meeting, held on November 19, he spent an hour talking with Asia specialists about a major trip to the region, with a particular focus on Indonesia and its charismatic but volatile leader, Sukarno. Kennedy displayed fascination with Sukarno and his troubled nation, full of resources and potential, yet held back by roiling internal conflicts. Throughout his life on the public stage, Kennedy had sought new ways to recast the Cold War and the binary logic of the 1950s. A major exchange of visits with Sukarno was designed to be a first step toward this end, and in this meeting Kennedy committed to a sixteen-day journey that would take him to, among other places, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia. Kennedy was well aware that using the full prestige of a presidential visit and his particular popularity was “the most powerful lever we’ve got,” in the words of one of his advisors, and he hoped to use the visit to improve political conditions in Indonesia. Also present at the meeting were the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Howard Jones; the secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, Roger Hilsman; and Michael Forrestal from the National Security Council.

  JFK: Why don’t we proceed. I think we’re pretty well in agreement as far as what we can do on all these matters we’ve discussed. I’d like to go up there, I don’t know if I can go to all the places where Roger’s got me going, I’d like to go, I don’t know if politically …

  JONES: How long would you be thinking of, sir?

  JFK: I don’t think I can be away more than sixteen days.

  JONES: What month, sir?

  JFK: Well, I want to go to Latin America twice, if I can, or at least once. [unclear]. Actually, politically, Latin America is going to be a big part of policy issues. Actually, politically, domestically, the only place that really makes a hell of a thing is Japan, because it’s impressive to Americans. Eisenhower’s difficulties, and so on. So going to Japan and having a successful visit would be very helpful. The Philippines are pretty old hat. But going to see Sukarno, who is not a political asset here, and we got a hell of a reception, and it was well done, and it would make an impression.

  THE OVAL OFFICE, AUGUST 14, 1961

  Apresidency is often defined by its most glorious ceremonial moments. That is certainly the hope of administration officials, in any administration, and an elaborate machinery of pomp and circumstance contributes to that stage-managed effect. Elevated speeches, triumphal processions, and state dinners are only a few of the cogs in that machinery, and remind us that our democracy still retains features from the monarchical system it displaced.

  John F. Kennedy reveled in all of the above, and his charisma infused the ceremonial events with an unusual degree of excitement between 1961 and 1963. That excitement still colors his memory, and many of the most iconic images from that time show him outside, speaking to a huge throng and basking in their attention, in places ranging from the East Portico of the Capitol to Rudolph Wilde Platz in Berlin.

  But the tapes restore some balance by offering a window into the hard work of a presidency—the long indoor meetings, the disagreements, and even worse, the constant agreements, arrived at too quickly, by underlings all too eager to please. “The Burden and the Glory” was a phrase he used in his 1962 State of the Union address, and that title was later given to a book of his speeches. In the excerpts that follow, a very human President Kennedy vents his occasional frust
ration at the burden that lies not far below the surface of the glory.

  And as the private dictation of November 12 indicates, President Kennedy faced real worries as he headed into what promised to be a bruising campaign year. Reelection would validate the New Frontier and give him four more years to consolidate the progress of his first term. Indeed, it would allow him to complete his original campaign promise from 1960 and shape the entire decade along the lines he had first sketched out in his convention speech, creating a time of youthful activism, broader civil and economic rights, and a willingness to confront difficult problems with courage rather than complacency.

  Rejection, on the other hand, would constitute a crippling setback, and place the United States on a very different trajectory. Personally, it would have been devastating as well; John F. Kennedy would have left the White House as a forty-seven-year old man, with no political office, a single term to mull over, and well-chronicled health problems. Writing a memoir based on these recordings might have been one of the few consolations available.

  The events in Dallas removed all of those speculations and gave us a far different history that we are still coming to terms with. The New Frontier did not exactly end; indeed, it is likely that Kennedy’s martyrdom advanced many of the causes he cared about, especially that of Civil Rights. President Lyndon Johnson cited his memory powerfully as he rounded up the votes needed for the great Civil Rights Act of 1964. But those achievements came at a cost, including the departure of much of the South from the Democratic coalition, the rise of a powerful right, and a stridency that has never left our politics since. A tragic entanglement in Vietnam, far deeper than it is likely John F. Kennedy would have permitted, was also pursued by President Johnson, sometimes with the explanation that Kennedy would have made the same decisions, although most of the evidence disputes that theory. Like most theories, it remains subject to interpretation.

  A few fleeting moments from the tapes capture the effort that was building in the fall of 1963 to plan a successful Democratic convention, ward off challenges, and carry through to victory in November 1964. It was in pursuit of this plan that President Kennedy went to Texas, an essential battleground state.

  In the 1960 speech that named the New Frontier, Kennedy cautioned Americans against seeking comfort in “the safe mediocrity of the past,” and he certainly would not have wanted readers to attack the problems of the twenty-first century by repeating the well-worn catchphrases of an earlier generation. But perhaps by asking Americans to deepen their acquaintance with the issues, and to renew their commitment to talk with one another, as the participants in these conversations do so well, these tapes will serve a new purpose that he never intended. That would be a worthy final legacy of John F. Kennedy; not to romanticize his time, but to embrace and engage with our own.

  CALL ABOUT U.S. HOCKEY TEAM, MARCH 13, 1963

  No theater of Cold War competition was too small for Kennedy to take an interest in—for example, the absorbing athletic rivalry that pitted the United States against the Soviet Union, and the many proxy contests in which they and their allies participated. At the very least, it was essential to perform to the utmost of one’s ability; to win, if possible, but if not, to at least show well. Unfortunately, that presidential directive did not reach the U.S. men’s hockey team, who suffered a series of ignominious defeats in the spring of 1963.

  JFK: Dave?

  DAVID HACKETT:1 Yeah.

  JFK: How are you?

  HACKETT: How are you?

  JFK: Dave, I noticed in the paper this morning where the Swedish team beat the American hockey team, 17 to 2.

  HACKETT: Yeah, I saw that.

  JFK: Christ, who are we sending over there? Girls?

  HACKETT: They haven’t won a game.

  JFK: I know it. I mean, who got them up?

  HACKETT: I don’t know. I can check into it.

  JFK: God, we’ve got some pretty good hockey players, haven’t we?

  HACKETT: Yeah. Well, I think. Yeah.

  JFK: I suppose they are all playing on their college teams, are they, or something? I’d like to find out whether it was done … under what … who sort of sponsors it and what kind of players they’ve got, and I think it’s a disgrace to have a team that’s 17 to 2. That’s about as bad as I’ve ever heard, isn’t it?

  HACKETT: And they have been beaten by everybody by a score almost equal to that.

  JFK: So obviously, we shouldn’t send a team unless we send a good one. Will you find out about it and let me know?

  HACKETT: I’ll find out about it and let you know.

  TWO CALLS ABOUT FURNITURE PURCHASE, JULY 25, 1963

  Ever sensitive to public opinion, Kennedy was horrified to open the paper one day and see a photograph of a navy aide standing next to an expensive new naval project—a hospital bedroom that had been built at a base on Cape Cod, to be ready in case Jacqueline Kennedy went into labor with their son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Such an expenditure seems modest today, but Kennedy was irate at the cost and, even worse, the publicity involved.

  JFK: … spent $5,000 for that! Let’s cut their budget another hundred million.

  ARTHUR SYLVESTER:2 Precisely, Mr. President. The last word that they had from me yesterday after my talk to Pierre3 was to keep the photographers out of there and sign ’em out of there.

  JFK: OK.

  SYLVESTER: They went ahead on their own. The funny part about this is, it’s a sidelight which might lighten your day, is that the army, you know, we’re saved from this sort of thing out at Walter Reed. When they saw this yesterday, they are unhappy, if you please.

  JFK: Well then, that’s why the goddamn service, they ought to cut them a billion dollars.

  SYLVESTER: That’s right, exactly.

  JFK: When you think of the waste that goes on.

  SYLVESTER: It is absolute nonsense.

  JFK: Imagine what they’d do if you didn’t just stay on their ass. They were gonna order me three planes instead of one.

  SYLVESTER: Precisely.

  JFK: They’re gonna do all these, that’s the way these guys spend money.

  SYLVESTER: Absolutely.

  JFK: They’re shocked that we don’t. Now the only thing is it would seem to me, that I would like to turn that, I’d like to send that furniture back. Have they paid for it?

  SYLVESTER: I’ll find out, Mr. President.

  JFK: Just on my own. I don’t care what we owe on the store, I’d just like to send that goddamn furniture back. It’s probably worth fifteen hundred, two thousand bucks.

  SYLVESTER: When I asked them yesterday, “Where did the $5,000 go?” from the things they told me, I said it, well, you couldn’t have possibly spent $5,000 on that. They lied about it. Now I’ve gone back to them this morning, said, get the facts, I’m sick of it.

  JFK: Let’s find out. Yeah.

  SYLVESTER: Tell the President at the White House the wrong facts, and let’s get the facts to begin with.

  JFK: Let’s find out how much they spent on this thing. I mean, let’s find out what they spent, where the money came from also.

  SYLVESTER: We’ll get a rundown.

  JFK: Where, if the bills have been paid, because a lot of this stuff we can just ship right back today.

  SYLVESTER: Right, I’ll get right on it.

  JFK: I’d love to send it right back to Jordan Marsh4 in an air force truck this afternoon with that captain on it.

  SYLVESTER: [laughs]

  JFK: [chuckles] Now, what about transferring his ass out of here in about a month? He doesn’t have any sense.

  SYLVESTER: Carlton.

  JFK: For incompetence, not for screwing us.

  SYLVESTER: Exactly. Well, I …

  JFK: And that silly fellow who had his picture taken next to the bed, have him go up to Alaska too. Pierre will be talking to you about that.

  SYLVESTER: Right.

  HOSPITAL ROOM PREPARED FOR JACQUELINE KENNEDY, OTIS AIR FORCE BASE, JULY 1963


  [new call]

  JFK: General?

  GENERAL GODFREY MCHUGH:5 Yes, sir.

  JFK: That air force has caused itself more grief with that silly bastard. Did you see the Post this morning?

  MCHUGH: Yes, sir, I’m …

  JFK: See that fellow’s picture by the bed?

  MCHUGH: Yes, sir.

  JFK: And did you see that furniture they bought from Jordan Marsh? What the hell did they let the reporters in there for? Are they crazy up there? Now you know what that’s gonna do? Any congressman is going to get up and say, “Christ, if they can throw $5,000 away on this, let’s cut ’em another billion dollars.” You just sank the air force budget! You’re crazy up there! Are they crazy? That silly bastard with his picture next to the bed?

  MCHUGH: Sir, I’m appalled but …

  JFK: Well, I’m appalled, too.

  MCHUGH: Yes, sir.

  JFK: Now, the thing is, the thing of the matter is, I’m gonna get that furniture, and I just told Sylvester and you can talk to him. I want to find out if we paid for that furniture because I want it to go back to Jordan Marsh.

  MCHUGH: All right, sir.

  JFK: Then I want, that fellow’s incompetent who had his picture taken next to Mrs. Kennedy’s bed, if that’s what it is. I mean, he’s a silly bastard! I wouldn’t have him running a cathouse! And that Colonel Carlson [sic], who let in Larry Newman and those reporters. Is he crazy, too? Christ, they’re all incompetents! Is that the way they are throwing money around over there? You better look into it, and especially when you told me that they hadn’t spent a cent.