White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters
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“I think you’ve got”: Moos Columbia OH, 35.
“give a ‘farewell address’”: Brinkley, “Eisenhower.”
“will be remembered”: Walter Lippmann, “Eisenhower’s Farewell Warning,” Washington Post, January 19, 1961.
“There is an interesting development”: Bryce Harlow memo for Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, March 17, 1961, “Harlow, Bryce, 1961 (3)” folder, Eisenhower Papers, Post-Presidential, Dwight Eisenhower Library.
4. THE AGE OF SORENSEN
The two quiet…nature of the position: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 11–12.
“not a Harvard man”: William Lee Miller, “Ted Sorensen of Nebraska,” The Reporter, February 13, 1964.
Sorensen’s father: “First Man Out,” Time, January 24, 1964.
His mother: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (New York: Back Bay Books, 2003), 179–80.
The couple had met: Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 (New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), 126.
Young Ted: Aleksandr Fursenko, and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 322.
“that mid-western Unitarianism”: Miller, “Ted Sorensen of Nebraska.”
Ted’s older brother: Ibid.
C. A. Sorensen offered his son: “Two for the New Show,” Time, November 21, 1960.
He had a fierce commitment: Miller, “Ted Sorensen of Nebraska.”
“I arrived in Washington”: Don Walton, “A Life in the Arena,” Lincoln Journal Star, September 25, 2005.
“Jack wouldn’t hire”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 11.
“You couldn’t write speeches”: Ibid., 31.
By 1954, Sorensen was: Ibid., 59.
Sorensen built up a card file: “Kennedy’s Top Adviser,” New York Times, July 5, 1960.
“Those three and a half years”: Author interview with Theodore C. Sorensen,
“When Jack is wounded”: “Kennedy’s Top Adviser.”
“my intellectual blood bank”: Richard J. Tofel, Sounding the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005), 16.
“self-sufficient, taut”: Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 71.
“Even to this day”: Author interview with Richard N. Goodwin.
“Abrupt, cold, short”: Walton, “A Life in the Arena.”
“Underneath the appearance”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 208.
The abstemious Sorensen: Thurston Clarke, Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2005), 66.
Sorensen even picked up: Sorensen, Kennedy, 30.
“Of Sorensen and Kennedy”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 208.
“Make it the shortest”: Sorensen handwritten notes, undated, “Memoranda, Speech materials + correspondence, 12/10/60–5/23/61 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
“My conclusion”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 240.
As JFK’s closest adviser: Ibid., 229–30.
They chatted: Author interview with Myer Feldman.
emerging after three hours: Clarke, Ask Not, 26.
Feldman read it: Ibid., 26–27.
a “stream of thoughts”: Tofel, Sounding, 41.
In 2006, Feldman: Author interview with Feldman.
“The President-Elect has asked”: Telegram, Ted Sorensen to Dr. Allan Nevins et al., December 23, 1960, “Inaugural Address, 1/20/61, Memoranda, Speech materials + correspondence, 12/10/60–5/23/61 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, Box 62, JFK Library.
He got at least five: Tofel, Sounding, 50.
On the down side: Sorensen, Kennedy, 234; Tofel, Sounding, 51.
The president-elect flew: The account of the flight to Palm Beach comes from Evelyn Lincoln, My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy (New York: David McKay Co., 1965), 219; Clarke, Ask Not, 27–37; Tofel, Sounding, 64–66.
“So let the word”: All quotations from six-page draft are from “Inaugural Address, 1/20/61” folder, President’s Office Files, Papers of President Kennedy, JFK Library.
Sorensen borrowed liberally: Tofel, Sounding, 61–62.
Using Sorensen’s draft: Ibid., 64. Tofel’s book also contains the first published transcription of Evelyn Kennedy’s shorthand notes of Kennedy’s dictation. 107 Like other timeless sentiments: Clarke, Ask Not, 78.
He had tried different riffs: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 4n; Sorensen, Kennedy, 241.
The inaugural address had other: Sorensen, Kennedy, 241.
“It isn’t all that important”: Author interview with Sorensen.
Kennedy spent a week: Clarke, Ask Not, 38.
He scribbled: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 162; Clarke, Ask Not, 42–43.
On the evening of January 11: Ernest Gruening telegram to John F. Kennedy, January 11, 1961, “Inaugural Address, 1/20/61, Memoranda, Speech materials + correspondence, 12/10/60–5/23/61 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
Once in the air: Hugh Sidey, “He Asked Me to Listen to the Debate,” Time, November 14, 1983.
“It’s tough”: As quoted at Tofel, Sounding, 69, and Clarke Ask Not, 95–96.
Sidey was stunned: Clarke, Ask Not, 95.
Lippmann, lunching with Sorensen: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 163.
Civil rights aides: Undated “CHANGES IN INAUGURAL SPEECH—TO BE READ AND APPROVED BY SENATOR,” “Inaugural Address, 1/20/61” folder, President’s Office Files, Papers of President Kennedy, JFK Library; for authorship of suggestions, see Tofel, Sounding, 74.
Asked forty-five years later: Author interview with Sorensen.
the marble pillars: “A Brief Construction History of the Capitol,” Office of the Architect of the Capitol, www.aoc.gov/cc/capitol/capitol_construction.cfm.
“Someone—was it Falkland?”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 62.
“could do as well for him”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 690.
“Words were regarded”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 60–61.
“The inaugural was a special occasion”: Author interview with Sorensen.
He felt that his voice: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 690.
“JFK used to tease me”: Author interview with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
“when the form of words”: Author interview with Feldman.
“not solely for reasons”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 61.
“He believed in retaining”: Ibid., 511.
As an editor: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 690.
Schlesinger gave him a draft: Author interview with Schlesinger; marked-up draft of Nobel Prize Winners Dinner remarks, “Remarks for the President; Remarks at Nobel Prize Winners Dinner, 4/29/62” folder, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Papers, JFK Library.
“They all have a point”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Journal, March 16, 1961.
“Active government”: Arthur Schlesinger memorandum for the president, March 16, 1961, “Schlesinger, Arthur M., 3/61–4/61” folder, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, JFK Library.
“All this shows”: Arthur Schlesinger memorandum for the president, November 21, 1961, “Future Presidential Speeches 1962, memoranda, 10/19/61–3/31/62” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
“I know that everyone”: Theodore C. Sorensen JFK Library oral history interview, April 6, 1964, 1.
“In one stroke”: Schlesinger journal, June 7, 1961.
JFK decided to use: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 474.
“If we don’t want Russia”: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell, 97.
This was not uncommon: Sorensen, Kennedy, 550–51.
It was, he once explained: Schlesinger journal, September 16, 1961.<
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“The boldness and strength”: Sorensen JFK Library OH, 48.
A Philadelphia native: Douglas Martin, “Myer Feldman, 92, Adviser to President Kennedy, Dies,” New York Times, March 3, 2007.
He met Kennedy: Author interview with Feldman.
Feldman directed research: Sorensen, Kennedy, 176.
“Ted Sorensen and I”: Author interview with Feldman.
“the White House’s anonymous”: Quoted in Martin, “Myer Feldman, 92, Adviser.”
In the late 1950s: Goodwin, Remembering, 43–63.
“I wish you”: Ibid., 65.
Goodwin had been the latest: Sorensen, Kennedy 117.
“Some, especially in those early”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 193.
Goodwin, riding: Goodwin, Remembering, 108–09.
Alianza was fine: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 193–94; Goodwin, Remembering, 108–09.
(later, at the insistence): Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 194.
“I learned a lot from Ted”: Goodwin, Remembering, 71.
“Goodwin and Sorensen did not get along”: Author interview with Feldman.
When, just before the administration: Goodwin, Remembering, 138–39.
He was interested neither: Ibid., 139.
“You know how we do things”: Ibid.
“I was saddened”: Ibid., 211.
“Kennedy seemed very sincere”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Life in the 20th Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917–1950 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 378.
(After which he had received): Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 285.
“Arthur has minimal”: Joseph Kraft, “Kennedy’s Working Staff” Harper’s Magazine (February 1963).
In 1952, Stevenson had dispatched: Author interview with Schlesinger.
Rosenman thought the speeches: Samuel Rosenman oral history interview, Columbia University, 1960, FDR Library, 182.
“I learned a lesson”: Author interview with Schlesinger.
“As usual, I was overwhelmed”: Schlesinger journal, September 22, 1962.
After a meeting…“when he sees that”: Schlesinger journal, January 14, 1962.
Kennedy used the “weave”…“That’s what I am doing now”: Schlesinger journal, March 31, 1962; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 614–15.
Walter Lippman told Bundy: Schlesinger journal, March 31, 1962.
At the Justice Department: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 6.
Cuba was also a public: Sorensen, Kennedy, 668; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 798–99.
In addition, Khrushchev: Sorensen, Kennedy, 667.
“what we’re going to do anyway”: Ernest R. May, and Philip D. Zelikow, eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1997), 71.
“Each of us changed”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 680.
“Having some pride”: Sorensen JFK Library OH, 51.
“inescapable commitment”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 454.
“I had to admit”: Sorensen JFK Library OH, 51.
“Inasmuch as no one”: Laurence Chang and Peter Kornbluh, eds., The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader (New York: New Press, 1992), 133.
“This morning”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 454.
That night the Ex Comm: Sorensen, Kennedy, 692.
He retired to his office: Ibid.
“combination of my legal background”: Author interview with Sorensen.
“As the concrete answers”…writing a draft: Sorensen, Kennedy, 692–93.
The group debated: May and Zelikow, eds., Kennedy Tapes, 195.
“Is this a ‘nuclear quarantine’”: Tentative agenda of NSC meeting, October 21, 1962, “Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba—10/22/62” folder, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, JFK Library.
Rusk questioned: May and Zelikow, eds., Kennedy Tapes, 209.
A passage that acknowledged: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 484n.
“someday go”: Ibid., 485n.
“appropriate action”: 10/21/62 TCS—3rd Draft of Kennedy speech to nation, “Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba—10/22/62” folder, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, JFK Library.
“Do not become”: Ibid.
“The Russians are going to make”: May and Zelikow, eds., Kennedy Tapes, 225.
“From the start”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 470.
JFK and his advisers: May and Zelikow, eds., Kennedy Tapes, 225.
Five minutes before: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 482–83.
“You can tell the president”: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 511.
“What do I tell them?”: Ibid., 476–77.
“the most important speech”: Ibid., 511–12.
He also dug up material: Sorensen, Kennedy, 730.
seventeen typed pages: TCS—6/6/63 AU Notes, “American University Commencement 6/10/63; 6/6/63–7/12/63 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
“The clamor of conflicting”: “American University Notes,” June 6, 1963, “American University Commencement 6/10/63; 6/6/63–7/12/63 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
“a small but select”: McGeorge Bundy, Memorandum for the record, dictated June 13, 7:30 p.m., “[McGB memoranda for the record, July 1963–December, 1962, 1963: July–February]” folder, McGeorge Bundy Personal Papers, JFK Library.
Not in the loop: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 618; Sorensen, Kennedy, 730.
“did not want [his] new policy”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 730–31.
“was evidently to take”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 418.
“I suppose that”: Schlesinger journal, June 16, 1963.
Though the president had discussed: Sorensen JFK Library OH, 73.
“Public cant”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 621.
Ten days later: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 910.
The Western European reaction: United States Information Agency memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, June 12, 1963, “American University Commencement 6/10/63; 6/6/63–7/12/63 + Undated” folder, Theodore C. Sorensen Papers, JFK Library.
Schlesinger later asked: Schlesinger journal, July 28, 1963.
The criticism that Schlesinger: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 714.
“It is clear”: Schlesinger journal, August 6, 1962.
The relationship between leadership: Sorensen, Kennedy, 494.
“I must confess”: Schlesinger journal, May 8, 1963.
“People forget this”: Schlesinger journal, October 17, 1961.
JFK liked to quote: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 720.
Even before the Birmingham confrontation: Reeves, Profile, 515–16; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 603; Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 175–76.
In fact, there was no draft: Sorensen, Kennedy, 495.
“We better give”: Author interview with Sorensen.
“C’mon Burke”: Reeves, Profile, 521.
At 7:40 pm: Guthman and Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy, 200. 136 “For the first time”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 495.
“The speech was good”: Guthman and Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy, 200–1.
“Yes—and look”: Schlesinger journal, June 16, 1963.
“He is deeply”: Ibid.
He had honed the skill: Sorensen, Kennedy, 331.
“text deviate”: Ibid., 186.
For the only time: Sorensen, Kennedy, 526.
In West Berlin, 300,000: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 275.
Almost two years later: Arthur J. Olsen, “President Hailed by Over a Million in Visit to Berlin,” New York Times, June 27, 1963.
Before JFK left Washington: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 605.
“What was the proud boast”
: Reeves, Profile, citing O’Donnell’s Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye, at 739, n 536.
“So there we were”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 605.
“Ish bin ein”: Handwritten notes for the speech, “Remarks at the Signing of the Golden Book at Rudolph Wildeplatz, Berlin, Germany, 6/26/63” folder, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, JFK Library.
West Berlin mayor: Gerald Strober and Deborah Strober, eds., “Let Us Begin Anew”: An Oral History of the Kennedy Presidency (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 371; Willy Brandt, People and Politics: The Years 1960–1975 (New York: Little, Brown, 1978), 73.
“You think this is any good?”: Reeves, Profile, 535.
“I think that went”: Lochner at www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/09/reflections/.
“If I told them…another Hitler?”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 624–25.
“Fortunately the crowd”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 606n.
“to be opened”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 601.
Around 10:45 am: Ibid., 749.
“It’s easier for Kennedy”: “Kennedy a ‘Puppet’ in 1960, Nixon says, New York Times, June 19, 1962.
“Along with so many others”: As quoted in Clarke, Ask Not, 8.
“Sorensen knew Kennedy’s mind”: Author interview with Feldman.
“I always felt”: Author interview with Goodwin.
“A few days before”: Schlesinger journal, March 27, 1964.
“I maintain”: Author interview with Sorensen.
“If I was writing a speech”: Author interview with Goodwin.
5. “NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL A NEWS LEAD”
“The president is dead”: Jack Valenti LBJ Library oral history interview, October 18, 1969, LBJ Library, 6. This account differs slightly from Valenti’s recollection in his White House memoir A Very Human President and his autobiography, This Time, This Place, where he has Cliff Alexander saying, “The vice-president wants you and wants you now. I’ve been looking for you,” then adding softly, after a hesitation, “The president is dead, you know.”
Cliff Carter and Valenti: Valenti OH interview, and from Jack Valenti, A Very Human President (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 31–35.
At 12:42…“to have been wounded”: “L.B.J.’s Young Man ‘In Charge of Everything,’” Time, October 29, 1965; on the club not being integrated, see Lauren Reinlie, “New Campus Club Caters to Faculty, Staff,” Daily Texan, October 17, 2002, and E. Ernest Goldstein LBJ Library oral history interview, December 9, 1968, LBJ Library, 16–17.