by Gus Russo
Channel One: Jack Anderson
Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson was a close personal friend of Rosselli’s lawyer, Edward Morgan. Anderson, along with his boss, Drew Pearson, wrote the weekly “investigative” news column entitled Washington Merry-Go-Round, and this was the kind of political intrigue that kept the syndicated column revolving.
In January 1967, Morgan forwarded to the columnists the first details from his (unnamed) source. He told them that Bobby Kennedy had supervised assassination plots against Fidel Castro that resulted in retaliation against his brother on November 22, 1963. According to Rosselli, as passed along to Anderson and Pearson, an underworld figure, “planted” close to Castro, gained Castro’s confidence during the early 1960s. Allegedly this “plant” was present when Castro learned of the administration’s plotting. According to the same source, Castro became infuriated and remarked, “If this is the way they play the game, I will play the same way.”5 Before publishing the material, columnist Pearson sought counsel from a couple of close friends, Earl Warren and President Lyndon Johnson.
Warren advised Pearson to report the information to the authorities (as he himself would later do to the Church Committee). On January 31, 1967, Warren took the initiative and contacted Secret Service Director James Rowley. Rowley would later testify:
The way he [Warren] approached it, was that he said he thought this was serious enough and so forth, but he wanted to get it off his hands. He felt that he had to—that it had to be told to somebody, and that the Warren Commission was finished, and he wanted the thing pursued.6
During the Kennedys’ anti-Castro plotting, Johnson had been kept out of the loop, able only to obtain rumors of the policymaking. After the assassination, past Kennedy policies were apparently kept from President Johnson. His knowledge of possible Cuban complicity in the assassination, and the reports given him by McCone and others after November 22, are not known to this day. Now, in 1967, he finally learned the details of the Kennedy plots during a meeting with Pearson. Afterward, according to Johnson phone tapes released in 1996, the president called Attorney General Ramsey Clark, exclaiming:
It’s incredible! . . .They have a man that was. . . instructed by the CIA and the attorney general [Robert Kennedy] to assassinate Castro after the Bay of Pigs. . . . So he [Castro] tortured [the would-be assassins] and they told him all about it. [Castro] called Oswald and a group in and told them. . . Go. . . get the job done.”
For Lyndon Johnson, the opportunity to embarrass Robert Kennedy couldn’t have come at a better time. In the early 1960s, the enmity between Johnson and RFK was legendary, ameliorated briefly by their mutual desire for a limited investigation of President Kennedy’s death. Bobby’s motive had been personal— to protect his brother’s name and the family legacy. Johnson’s rationale had been patriotic—he wanted to avert a catastrophic war. It was a fragile coalition at best, and by January 1967, it had totally disintegrated.
“That Little Shitass” vs. “That Cornponed Bastard”
“You Johnson people are running a stinking damned campaign, and you’re gonna get yours when the time comes.”
—Robert Kennedy, to Bobby Baker at the 1960 Democratic National Convention7
Originally, Johnson aimed his anti-Kennedy vitriol directly at John Kennedy, his chief rival for the 1960 Democratic nomination for president. Referring to his inexperienced opponent as “young Jack” or “the boy,” Johnson went out of his way to allude to JFK’s health problems and privileged background. Though Kennedy’s sickly youth and bouts with Addison’s disease were widely known in Washington circles, they did not become public knowledge until years later. It wasn’t because Johnson didn’t try.
Johnson’s “enmity and hostility” towards Kennedy dominated an interview that Peter Lisagor, of the Chicago Daily News, conducted of LBJ. Lisagor wrote, “He referred to Kennedy as a ‘little scrawny fellow with rickets’ and other diseases. ‘Have you ever seen his ankles?’ Johnson asked. Making a small circle with his fingers, he noted, ‘They’re about so round.’”8
That was just the beginning. Johnson became known to journalists for the viciousness of his attacks. He told President Eisenhower that Kennedy was “dangerous,” alleging that “old Joe Kennedy” would run the country if Jack were elected. At the Democratic National Convention, Johnson had his campaign manager India Edwards spread rumors of Kennedy’s impending death from Addison’s disease. Johnson also attacked Kennedy’s Catholicism, saying, “I wouldn’t be caught dead running on a ticket with that goddamned Roman Catholic.”9
Perhaps the lowest blow—and the one that Bobby never forgave him for— was his reference to Papa Joe’s isolationist stance during World War II. While scrambling for last-minute votes from convention delegates, Johnson told one state delegation, “I wasn’t any Chamberlain-umbrella policy man. I never thought Hitler was right.”
When the remark filtered back to him, Bobby hit the ceiling. Encountering Johnson aide Bobby Baker, he became utterly livid:
You’ve got your nerve. . . Lyndon Johnson has compared my father to the Nazis, and John Connally and India Edwards lied in saying my brother is dying of Addison’s disease. You Johnson people are running a stinking damned campaign, and you’re gonna get yours when the time comes.10
Kennedy aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled, “I’ve seen Bobby mad, but never as mad as the day he heard what Johnson said about his father.” Bobby was overheard remarking that he would rather lose the election than have “that cornponed bastard” on the ticket.
Nonetheless, a truce was eventually arranged, and, for a complex variety of political reasons, Johnson was offered the vice-presidential spot. After Johnson’s acceptance, the Kennedy camp, according to Bobby, realized its huge mistake in making the offer. Bobby made a trip to Johnson’s suite to thank him for accepting. However, he later recalled, he wanted LBJ to reconsider. Tears came to Johnson’s eyes, but, in a move that shocked Bobby, Johnson stood firm. “I want to be Vice-President. I’ll fight for it,” affirmed Johnson. After Bobby left, Johnson and his camp were furious. RFK had already earned a terrible reputation on Capitol Hill, but it was on that night that Johnson’s favorite nickname for him finally crystallized—“that little shit-ass.”
Although Johnson grew to resent his isolation as Vice-President, he didn’t blame John Kennedy for excluding him from important meetings. According to Johnson’s Press Secretary, George Reedy, “he blamed it on Bobby.” When the press first jumped on the Bobby Baker scandalwagon in 1962, Johnson was certain that Bobby Kennedy was leaking the information that got the coverage started. Johnson’s paranoia reached such a height that he believed “that little son of a bitch” had wiretapped his telephone, not only during Kennedy’s term, but during his own presidency!
After his brother took office, Bobby’s dislike of Johnson similarly deepened to loathing. “He tells so many lies,” Bobby said of Johnson, “that he convinces himself after a while he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize the difference between truth and falsehood.”11 Bobby described Johnson as “mean, bitter, vicious—an animal in many ways.” Just prior to the Dallas trip in the fall of 1963, Bobby’s aides gave the Attorney General a voodoo doll made in Johnson’s likeness.
There is no shortage of Washington anecdotes highlighting the RFK-LBJ feud. Some are tinged with humor. At the end of 1966, for example, Johnson was sitting in the private box of Washington Redskins owner Edward Bennett Williams. According to Williams’ biographer Evan Thomas: “As Williams and LBJ watched the game, Robert Kennedy knocked on the door of the box to get in. ‘Let him pound,’ ordered the President. Williams had to apologize [to Kennedy] the next day.”12
In 1964, political expediency again became the great arbiter. In spite of his hatred of the new President, Bobby deduced that the vice-presidency offered him the best stepping-stone to the presidency itself. Although he never said it publicly, friends were convinced that Kennedy wanted to be the vice-presidential nominee. With the co
operation of Bobby’s aides, pressure was applied to Johnson to offer his VP spot in 1964 to Bobby. The press started referring to Johnson as merely a “caretaker” while the heir apparent, Bobby, was waiting in the wings to assume his rightful place in the Oval Office.
For Johnson, the idea of any Kennedy on the ticket—and especially Bobby—was practically unthinkable. Johnson feared the obvious—with John Kennedy now assuming martyr status, Johnson would never be able to crawl out from beneath the long Kennedy shadow. Johnson possessed too much pride for that. He had long dreamt of a Johnson presidency, not a Johnson-Kennedy presidency. In addition, his ego dictated that he could win the presidency on his own, and he wanted to prove it. He told presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, “With Bobby on the ticket, I’d never know if I could be elected on my own.” When polls showed that Bobby was a potential political liability, especially in the South, Johnson was elated. “I don’t need that little runt to win,” Johnson said. “I can take anybody I damn please.”13
The Democratic National Convention was to be held at the end of August 1964 in Atlantic City. Up until the last minute, Kennedy partisans continued pressuring Johnson. The irony surely was not lost on Johnson: after Bobby’s performance at the convention in 1960, and many months of rumors of a “Dump Johnson” movement in the last year of JFK’s presidency (largely circulated by Bobby’s faction), it was payback time.
Johnson called a July 29 summit meeting with Bobby in the Oval Office. Instead of the usual fireside chat, Johnson stayed behind the imperious Presidential desk and informed the crestfallen Attorney General that for “political” reasons, Bobby was unacceptable as Vice-President. In a single session, Johnson thus commenced and concluded his own “Dump Bobby” movement. Johnson remembered Kennedy as saying, “I’m sorry that you have reached this conclusion, because I think I could have been of help to you.”14
Johnson’s worries were not entirely over. He knew that Bobby was going to address the convention before the showing of a filmed tribute to his slain brother. It was bound to be emotional, and custom-tailored to ignite a groundswell of floor support for “the heir apparent.” He expected a Kennedyled attempt to take over the convention.
Figuring he needed some additional security, Johnson turned to an old Bobby Kennedy nemesis—J. Edgar Hoover—for assistance. The Director only too willingly provided it. He dispatched aide Cartha DeLoach and an FBI team of thirty agents and wiretappers to Atlantic City—the convention site. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. chronicled the event:
The ostensible purpose was to gather intelligence “concerning matters of strife, violence, etc.” The real purpose, according to William Sullivan of the FBI, was to gather political information useful to President Johnson, “particularly in bottling up Robert Kennedy—that is, in reporting on the activities of Bobby Kennedy. . . . DeLoach instructed. . . that the FBI squad was not to be disclosed to the Secret Service, and especially not to the Attorney General.”15
DeLoach instructed Bobby’s personal FBI escort to abandon the Attorney General if his faction tried to overtake the convention. DeLoach explained, “If he does that and he’s got an FBI agent by his side, the President will not be too happy, so you’re to immediately leave Atlantic City.”16
As it turned out, Bobby’s partisans did not attempt to storm the convention. Nonetheless, when Bobby reached the podium to give a two-minute introduction to a film paying tribute to John Kennedy, the convention gave him a 22-minute ovation that left his eyes filled with tears.
Three months later, Robert Kennedy quietly left the Johnson administration, and ran successfully for the Democratic Senatorial seat from New York— despite the opposition of Lisa Howard, Gore Vidal, and “Democrats for Keating.” Over the next four years, Kennedy distanced himself from Johnson, and began quietly courting the eastern press, referring frequently to his now-sainted brother. People began referring to Bobby as a one man “government-in-exile.” Johnson’s camp was not oblivious to the goings-on. “It’s impossible to separate the living Kennedys from the Kennedy legend,” one aide stated. “I think Kennedy will be regarded for many years as the Pericles of a Golden Age. He wasn’t Pericles and the age wasn’t golden, but that doesn’t matter—it’s caught hold.”17 And it affected Johnson. The president would make public appearances, only to be greeted by “Where’s Bobby?” placards.
Kennedy became increasingly critical of Johnson’s Vietnam policies, placing the President in a delicate quandary. Knowing he needed the support of the Kennedy liberals in 1968, when he planned to run for another presidential term, LBJ had to bite his tongue when word of Bobby’s criticisms reached him. However, Bobby became involved in two episodes in 1966 that pushed Johnson over the edge.
In late 1966, William Manchester, chosen by the Kennedy family to be the official chronicler of Camelot and its tragic end, was granted exclusive access to Kennedy family members, including Jackie and other members of the inner circle. Bobby and Jackie were to retain final editorial control over Manchester’s book. In his role as the Kennedy in charge of “damage control,” Robert Kennedy was once again putting out brush fires.
When Bobby and Jackie read Manchester’s manuscript, they were appalled by its intensely personal nature—and very upset that it didn’t always further the “Kennedy myth.” Indeed, it made the Kennedys appear human. They smoked, they had aches and pains, and they even complained occasionally. Bobby and Jackie were so upset with Manchester’s draft that they threatened a lawsuit to halt its publication. Manchester, completely surprised that they would attempt to censor his work merely to protect Bobby Kennedy’s reputation and political interests, carried on his side of the battle in public. The Kennedys were seen to be what they hadn’t seemed before—mean-spirited and manipulative: “For the first time since the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy’s stature was diminished,” one historian noted. “A February [1967] Harris poll indicated that 20 percent of the public ‘thought less’ of Robert Kennedy because of the controversy.”18
Although the rancorous episode ended when Manchester agreed to excise 1600 “offensive” words, the material left in the book took Lyndon Johnson to the brink with Bobby Kennedy.19
In December 1966, Johnson was given an advance copy of Manchester’s book, The Death of A President The Kennedys, it turned out, had no objections about Manchester’s downright salacious portrayal of Johnson. The book portrayed the new president so negatively that even Kennedy loyalists feared accusations of character assassination. Manchester depicted Johnson as a power-hungry, insensitive hillbilly. In private, Johnson hit the roof, telling Nick Katzenbach on December 15, “Ninety-five percent of Manchester’s book is completely fabricated. It makes Bobby look like a hero and me look like a son-of-a-bitch.” When Jackie sent him a hand-written apology, the president responded icily.
Satisfied that the controversy had raised the veil of truth behind the Kennedy personae, Johnson said nothing publicly. Some in the press called this silence one of LBJ’s finest moments. Nonetheless, it was obvious that no one’s pride, least of all Johnson’s, could take another hit without fighting back. When the next hit came one month later, coincidentally at the same time as Rosselli’s leaks to Drew Pearson’s and Jack Anderson’s Washington Merry-Go-Round, Johnson was ready to act—and had the material to do so.
In January 1967, while on a trip to Europe, Bobby Kennedy double-torpedoed Johnson. First, while answering questions at Oxford University, Kennedy expressed “grave reservations” about LBJ’s renewed bombing of North Vietnam. The remark was perceived in Washington as irresponsible. Next, Bobby met with the North Vietnamese peace delegation in Paris. He told the members he would relay their new peace terms to Washington. Because the Paris negotiations had not yet begun, Bobby was seen as presumptuous—as trying to force Johnson’s hand for his own political gain. Johnson would bite his tongue no more.
The final confrontation with Bobby came on February 6, 1967, in the Oval Office, and, because it had percolated for what seemed
like forever, it was quite a doozy by all accounts. The combatants arrived bristling and exited screaming. Johnson blamed Kennedy for leaks to the press. Bobby denied responsibility, telling the president that the leaks had come “from your State Department.”20 To that, Johnson screamed, “It’s not my State Department, goddamnit. It’s your State Department!”21 (Upon taking office after the shock and trauma of JFK’s assassination, Johnson refrained from the traditional “purge” of administration officials, citing the public’s need for a smooth transition after the trauma of Dallas. He was later to regret keeping the holdovers, blaming Kennedy administration officials, among other things, for encouraging him to escalate American involvement in Vietnam.22)
Johnson next lectured Kennedy about his unilateral call for negotiations, claiming that the military could end the Vietnam war by the summer. Johnson bellowed, “I’ll destroy you and everyone of your dove friends in six months. You’ll be dead politically in six months.” Johnson informed the recent convert to existentialism that RFK was, in fact, prolonging the war. He roared, “The blood of American boys will be on your hands. I never want to hear your views on Vietnam again. I never want to see you again!” After an hour and twenty minutes of confrontation, the equally enraged Bobby reportedly called the President a “son-of-a-bitch.” He then got up and left the room, saying, “I don’t have to sit here and take that shit.”23
Twelve days later, Johnson put the White House’s full weight behind an investigation into Johnny Rosselli’s allegations that Bobby Kennedy had gotten his brother killed.
On February 18, 1967, LBJ informed Attorney General Ramsey Clark of the Pearson/Rosselli story, and ordered him to investigate it. In a March conversation with Texas Governor Connally, who had also picked up the story, Johnson said, “It’s pretty hard to see how we would know exactly what Castro did. . . . We will look into it. . . . I think it’s something we have to be aware of and watch.”24 When Clark reported back, Johnson, desperate for dirt on Bobby, was not happy with the half-hearted investigation. Johnson later told writer Leo Janos:
