Chris Matthews Complete Library E-book Box Set: Tip and the Gipper, Jack Kennedy, Hardball, Kennedy & Nixon, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, and American

by Matthews, Chris

  An extremely powerful resource for this book is the extraordinary collection of taped interviews with Kenneth O’Donnell made available to me by his daughter Helen. I refer to his sourcing as KOD. He was Jack Kennedy’s political strategist from the first Senate race in 1952 to the end. He offers a colorful account that gives this book a spine and spring it would not have otherwise. His leads a long list of oral histories (abbreviated herein as “OH”), most of them archived at the John F. Kennedy Library, that cover the man’s life from his teenage years onward.

  The key documents exhibited in this volume include a binder of chapel notes kept by George St. John, who was headmaster in the years Jack Kennedy attended Choate. Also vital to me are the scribbled and typed notes Theodore H. White kept of his historic interview with Jacqueline Kennedy on the night of November 29, 1963.

  A far more expansive source for me is the collection of great books written about John F. Kennedy, works I have come to respect enormously. Each section of this book relies on these remarkable efforts that have come before. Together they provide a scaffold for the new material I have been able to assemble and develop. I want to give full credit to the part these earlier works, some of them truly majestic, played in building the story of Jack Kennedy’s rise from rich kid to national hero.

  • • • •

  CHAPTER ONE: SECOND SON

  The greatest achievement in chronicling Jack’s younger years is JFK: Reckless Youth (New York: Random House, 1992) by Nigel Hamilton. It is a treasure trove of research up to and including his first political race. He did more than anyone to unearth the great story of Jack and his “Muckers Club” at Choate.

  There were two other valued sources for this early chapter. The first is Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), which reveals Jack Kennedy’s medical history. The second is David Pitts’s equally revealing Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008), which tells the wondrous story of Kennedy’s friendship with LeMoyne Billings, his Choate roommate and lifelong companion. I have relied here as before on Herbert Parmet’s Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (New York: Dial Press, 1980). Barbara Leaming alerted me in Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006) to the power of Winston Churchill in young Jack’s imagination and ambition.

  • • • •

  Joseph Kennedy’s handsome eldest boy: Parmet, p. 31.

  Jack Kennedy, almost as soon as he got to Choate: Examples of JFK’s early, wry sense of humor appear in Hamilton, pp. 83–84, 93.

  What happened to Jack when: Robert Kennedy’s recollection of his brother’s illnesses appears in his foreword to the 1964 edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage (New York: Harper, 1956), p. 8.

  So it was in the sickbed: Reading King Arthur and Sir Walter Scott, Leaming, p. 17.

  Leukemia was one of the grim possibilities: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 77.

  “Ratface”: Joan Meyers, ed., John Fitzgerald Kennedy—As We Remember Him (New York: Atheneum, 1965), p. 15.

  “Gee, you’re a great mother”: Rose Kennedy, Times to Remember (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), p. 93. Francis Kellogg, a classmate of Jack’s, responded to a Choate class survey and wrote: “I remember clearly one thing which surprised me during my four years at Choate: to the best of my knowledge, I do not believe Jack was ever visited during those four years by either his mother or father.”

  Chilly and restrictive: Choate’s English influence, Parmet, p. 29.

  Perhaps because he suddenly: JFK’s going to church, Hamilton, p. 146.

  At night, he knelt next to his bed: David Michaelis, The Best of Friends: Profiles of Extraordinary Friendships (New York: Morrow, 1983), p. 137.

  He understood, too: Parmet, p. 33.

  While at the Catholic school: Leaming, p. 21.

  Soon he was getting: Ralph “Rip” Horton, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.

  There would come over his face: Maurice A. Shea, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.

  Lem was a big kid: Pitts, p. 8.

  With all the strength of: Kennedy and Billings meeting at the Brief, Michaelis, p. 132.

  He would confide in Lem: LeMoyne Billings, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.

  Jack was willing to divulge: Lem’s family background, Pitts, p. 9.

  “God, what a beating I’m taking”: Hamilton, p. 111.

  As Joseph Kennedy, Sr., wryly observed: “As Dad liked to say, with some exasperation, Lem Billings and his battered suitcase arrived that day and never really left . . . ” This is taken from Edward Kennedy’s published eulogy, May 30, 1981.

  Next came Ralph: Parmet, p. 34.

  The rest followed: Shea OH.

  Yet there is another: Story of the “Muckers Club,” Hamilton, pp. 122–32.

  Troublemaking by kids: Public Enemies Number One and Two, Michaelis, pp. 131–32.

  Strategically astute: Muckers as “wheels,” Class of 1935 survey conducted in 1985, courtesy of Choate Rosemary Hall Archives. Robert Beach, a classmate of Kennedy’s, recalled in a class survey that “the main thesis was that we were such ‘wheels’ your father couldn’t kick us out.”

  Jack, Lem, and one of the girls: The barn story, Michaelis, pp. 138–40.

  Jack wanted “Most Likely to Succeed”: Shea OH.

  In this long-ago microcosm: Tip O’Neill with William Novak, Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O’Neill (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 76.

  Headmaster George St. John kept a number of loose-leaf binders over the years containing selected choral hymns and sermon notes. Choate archivist Judy Donald allowed me to study and copy from an early page in the binder that contained the essay written by Dean LeBaron Russell Briggs of Harvard, who was St. John’s mentor and lifelong hero. It’s from this essay, marked “Dean Briggs Essay,” that St. John would recite the “Ask not” lines once or twice a year (more on this in Chapter Thirteen notes).

  Tom Hawks, a bank president, was a ’35 classmate of Jack’s. He wrote in a class survey taken in 1985 how angry he was at hearing those familiar words in Jack’s January 20, 1961, inaugural address. “What bugged me most was the way he plagiarized (the Head) in his inaugural address. I boil every time I hear the ‘ask not’ exhortation as being original with Jack. Time and again we all heard the Head say that to the whole Choate family. Jack did not even have the decency to give him credit—and now it is engraved in marble at his final resting place.”

  CHAPTER TWO: THE TWO JACKS

  The blood-count roulette: Kennedy’s health diminished at Princeton, Hamilton, pp. 144–45.

  Back he went to: JFK’s stay at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Pitts, p. 45.

  he spent the remainder: Parmet, p. 43.

  Interestingly, he followed: Ibid., p. 159.

  Jack’s new friend was: Jack and Torby as friends and roommates, Torbert Macdonald, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.

  Now at Harvard: JFK placed poorly in Harvard freshman student election, Rose Kennedy, p. 186.

  But then he chalked up: Chairman of the Smoker, Macdonald OH.

  “It was a leadership activity at Harvard”: Said Harvard classmate Jimmy Rousmaniere about the Smoker, Parmet, p. 50.

  During his sophomore: Besting Joe Sr. by being accepted to Spee Club, Hamilton, pp. 205–9.

  Demonstrating what we might: Joe Sr.’s group of Boston friends as described by Ralph Pope in ibid., p. 207.

  According to Joe’s tutor: John Kenneth Galbraith said Joe Sr. was “slightly humorless,” ibid., p. 165.

  And more than that: Observations of JFK’s inquisitive mind at Harvard, Parmet, p. 49.

  As Jack started to make: Meeting Lem Billings at the Stork Club, Pitts, p. 48.

  Only in his “Gov”: Initially only serious about government classes, Hamilton, p. 175.

  Before an i
njury sidelined him: Macdonald practices throwing passes with JFK, Parmet, p. 45.

  After spending Jack’s freshman year: Pitts, p. 65.

  Jack showed himself willing: Ibid., p. 54.

  “Hi yah, Hitler!”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 51.

  His friend even snuck Jack: Description of Macdonald trying to keep JFK in shape for the swim team is detailed in Parmet, p. 47.

  Jack knew the valor Britain: As late as May of 1963, Jack Kennedy recited verbatim Churchill’s lines about Raymond Asquith, surprising Asquith’s sister, Violet Bonham Carter, Leaming, pp. 431–32.

  Even in front of them: “decadent,” ibid., p. 57.

  When the Nazis invaded: Macdonald OH.

  “I don’t think he really”: Macdonald on JFK, Hamilton, p. 242.

  “The failure to build up”: Parmet, p. 68.

  “I do not believe necessarily”: John F. Kennedy, Why England Slept (New York: W. Funk, 1940), p. xxiii.

  Why England Slept: On donating the British royalties, Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005), p. 105.

  “Democracy is finished in England”: Joseph P. Kennedy quote, Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 33.

  “He loved his youth”: John Buchan, Pilgrim’s Way: An Autobiography (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1984), p. 60.

  CHAPTER THREE: SKIPPER

  In this chapter I have relied on the accounts of Jack’s navy exploits in Robert Donovan’s PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), p. 39.

  Look back at Raymond Asquith: On the life and death of Asquith, Buchan, pp. 49–60.

  Jack and Lem Billings were: Pitts, p. 83.

  In fact, the navy had turned: For a chronology of JFK’s struggles to enter the military, the intervention of Joe Sr.’s former London attaché, Captain Alan Kirk, and his entry into Naval Intelligence, Hamilton, pp. 405–6.

  His specific distraction: Inga Arvad’s background, Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), pp. 729–30.

  “Her conversation was miles”: Hamilton, pp. 684–85.

  “He had the charm that makes birds”: Leaming, pp. 122–23.

  Struck by the beautiful: Goodwin, pp. 731–32.

  They maintained surveillance: FBI surveillance on Inga Arvad, Pitts, p. 85.

  Hoover’s agents bugged: Pitts, pp. 85–86.

  “They shagged my ass back down”: Geoffrey Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 98.

  Now, more than ever: Goodwin, p. 734. “He had become disgusted with the desk jobs . . . and as an awful lot of the fellows that he knows are in active service, and particularly with you in fleet service, he feels that at least he ought to be trying to do something.”

  “If you can find something you really believe in”: Inga wrote to Jack, Leaming, p. 131.

  “I want to go over”: Author interview with Paul Ferber.

  “I have applied for torpedo boat school”: Pitts, pp. 95–96.

  Bulkeley was looking: The makeup of the PT officers, Goodwin p. 747.

  He and Joe had: Harvard intercollegiate sailing team, O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, p. 80.

  After they completed: JFK orders to stay stateside, Goodwin, p. 749.

  This time, political rescue: Senator David I. Walsh, Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 89.

  Even going at half speed: Goodwin, p. 748.

  “I’m rather glad to be on my way”: Jack letter to Lem, Pitts, p. 96.

  “I had been praising the lord”: Ibid., pp. 96–97.

  Lieutenant (JG) Kennedy found: United with fellow officers in South Pacific, Hamilton, p. 534.

  “Do you realize that if what you did”: Red Fay quote, ibid., p. 516.

  One day Bill Battle: Visiting the chaplain, William Battle, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.

  “Jack was a big letter writer”: Johnny Iles quote, Goodwin, p. 751.

  But Jack would join other: Account of going to church near Sesape Island, Donovan, p. 39.

  “Getting out every night on patrol”: Letter from JFK to parents, Goodwin, p. 752.

  “That laugh of his”: Red Fay quote, Hamilton, p. 629.

  “There was an aura around him”: Jim Reed quote, ibid., p. 544.

  “Get acquainted with this damn war”: JFK to Johnny Iles, ibid., p. 518.

  “Just had an inspection by an Admiral”: Letter to Inga, Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 93.

  “His back was troubling him, he wasn’t well”: Jim Reed quote, Hamilton, p. 629.

  Jack Kennedy often slept with a plywood board: Johnny Iles quote, ibid., p. 518.

  In another officer’s: Recalling Jack’s corset, Joan and Clay Blair, Jr., The Search for JFK (New York: Putnam, 1974), pp. 179–81.

  “I’ve been shafted”: Dick Keresey quote, Kennedy Library Panel, June 27, 2005.

  “What’s the purpose of having the conflict”: Red Fay recalled, Hamilton, p. 629.

  “We’d sit in a corner and I’d recall”: Blair, p. 191.

  “He had a way of really picking”: Goodwin, p. 752.

  “He loved sitting around talking”: Hamilton, p. 543.

  There were twelve crewmen: Description of Jack’s command vessel, thirteen men including JFK on PT-109, Donovan, p. 128.

  “Lenny, look at this”: JFK tells executive officer, ibid., p. 210.

  “Sound general quarters!”: JFK quote, ibid., p. 212.

  “Who’s aboard?”: JFK quote, Goodwin, p. 758.

  “You go on”: Pappy McMahon quote, Hamilton, p. 578.

  When dawn came: Goodwin, p. 759.

  Each man was well aware: Japanese treatment of prisoners, Donovan, p. 160.

  “There’s nothing in the book”: Maguire account, ibid., p. 158.

  Their skipper’s solution: Ibid., p. 162.

  “The rest of you can swim together”: Ibid., p. 162.

  As McMahon floated on his back: McMahon’s account of JFK saving his life, ibid., p. 166.

  Plum Pudding Island: Ross description, Hamilton, p. 582.

  And when he went to stand: Vomiting source, Donovan, p. 165.

  “George Ross has lost his life”: Red Fay’s prematurely eulogizing JFK, ibid., pp. 169–70.

  “The next morning we heard”: Jim Reed quote, Hamilton, pp. 575–76.

  “How are we going to”: JFK quote, Donovan, p. 170.

  Hanging his .38 pistol: Going on patrol, ibid., p. 172.

  Kennedy reached his destination: Out on patrol, ibid., p. 177.

  He arrived at noontime: Ibid., p. 177.

  “Barney, you try it tonight”: Ibid., p. 177.

  The day after that: Ibid., p. 181.

  There, they came upon: Finding canoe, water, crackers, Goodwin, p. 760.

  Exhausted, Ross fell asleep: Hamilton, pp. 587–88.

  This time he was greeted: Donovan, p. 191.

  NAURO ISL NATIVE: Goodwin, p. 760.

  “On His Majesty’s Service”: Ibid., p. 761.

  “As a captain”: Dick Keresey quote, Keresey, “Farthest Forward,” American Heritage 49, no. 4 (July/August 1998).

  Jack had his own account: Letter to Inga, Hamilton, pp. 616–17.

  “proven himself on foreign soil”: Hometown booster quote, Red Fay, The Pleasure of His Company (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), pp. 156–57.

  “On the bright side”: Letter from JFK to his parents, Hamilton, p. 611.

  “We have been having a difficult time”: Letter from JFK to Lem, Pitts, p. 99.

  At the same time he got off a letter: Jack letter to Lem’s mother, ibid.

  Before leaving the South Pacific: Describe getting crew members back to States, Hamilton, p. 646.

  “chronic disc disease”: Thomas Fleming, “John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 Disaster,” Military History Quarterly, February 8, 2011.

  “His skin had turned yellow”: Macdonald description, Hamilton, p. 655.

 
“extremely heroic conduct”: Parmet, p. 121.

  “That wound was a savage wound”: Ibid., p. 122.

  “I’ll never forget Jack sitting”: Spalding quote, Hamilton, p. 640.

  That August, Joe Jr. was killed: Ibid., pp. 659–60.

  Jack, up at Hyannis Port: Ibid., p. 662.

  “clenching and unclenching his fists”: Ibid., p. 660.

  A month later, another terrible: Leaming, pp. 161–62.

  “greatest campaign manager”: Author interview with Billy Sutton.

  CHAPTER FOUR: War Hero

  This chapter benefits from a diary Jack Kennedy kept of his travels through Europe in 1945 and the early weeks of his race for Congress. It was published and edited by Deirdre Henderson as Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy, Summer 1945 (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995). The jotted-down notes contained here are priceless clues to Jack’s postwar thinking, also a wonderful clue to his studious approach to his new career in politics. I cite it as Diary.

  The topic is Jack Kennedy’s first race for Congress. Here again, as in preceding chapters, I have relied on Nigel Hamilton’s remarkable reporting.

  • • • •

  “It was written all over the sky”: Hamilton, p. 543.

  “I think there was probably a serious side to Kennedy”: Ibid., p. 623.

  All of the other old troubles continued: Parmet, p. 151.

  Curley, now, was about to abandon: Joe Sr. used former Boston police chief Joseph Timilty as his go-between, Hamilton, p. 674.

  His father wrangled him a job: Parmet, p. 131.

  “from the point of view of the ordinary GI”: Diary, p. 85.

  “I’m not talking about Bohlen”: Author interview with Paul Fay.

  “We must face the truth that the people”: JFK letter to war buddies, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 88.

  “Either wittingly or unwittingly”: Hamilton, p. 703.

  “He asked every sort of question”: Barbara Ward Jackson, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.