that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in
our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by
the awful grace of God.
—Aeschylus
John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected to the White House, understood how incredibly close the race had been. He also recognized the meaning of his slender margin, a victory that was far from a mandate. Both he and his rival had sought to show the strength and the will with which they would confront the Soviets. Now that he’d triumphed, little, really, had changed. Except that now the task was at hand.
A critical first endeavor involved the reassurance of two important government officials: both J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles—the FBI and CIA directors, respectively—had to be told their jobs were safe. To have done otherwise would have unsettled the country. Therefore, urgent phone calls were placed to each man in the earliest hours of the interregnum. For JFK, retaining Hoover offered the premium of putting a lid on, among other prospects, the troublesome “Inga Binga” material in his files.
President-elect Kennedy put a pair of Republicans in top cabinet posts, naming Douglas Dillon, who’d been Eisenhower’s undersecretary of state, to run the Treasury Department and placing the Ford Motor Company president, Robert McNamara, at Defense. The clubby Dillon, with his old-money connections, appealed to Kennedy the man. McNamara, showing no lack of toughness, made a point, when they discussed the job, of asking Jack whether he’d written Profiles in Courage himself. An air corps lieutenant colonel by the end of World War II, McNamara had a Harvard MBA and at Ford had been one of the famous “Whiz Kids,” a group of ten returning veterans who came in and revitalized the company.
Looking to the liberal faction, which he needed both to acknowledge and include, the president tapped Adlai Stevenson to be his United Nations ambassador, Walter Heller as chief economic advisor, and Arthur Schlesinger as all-around Renaissance man.
Now, as always, concessions needed to be made to the senior Kennedy. It was, after all, the tribute Joe’s money and support deserved. Since his sons’ futures were of the utmost importance to him, posts for both younger Kennedy brothers were part of the bargain: Bobby would be attorney general, Ted would get Jack’s senate seat once he turned the required age of thirty.
Jack laughed with Ben Bradlee at the absurdity of the youngest president ever elected picking his brother, eight years younger than he, as attorney general. When Bradlee asked him how he planned to deliver the news to the press, his probable course of action had a familiar ring. Kennedy said, “I think I’ll open the front door of the Georgetown house some morning around two a.m., look up and down the street, and if there’s no one there, I’ll whisper, ‘It’s Bobby.’ “ There was no getting around the appointment for what it was: sheer, unadulterated nepotism.
“I think he hadn’t really thought about how to run the government until he got elected,” Ken O’Donnell said. “He was a very single-minded person. Politically, each battle he fought one at a time. There were very few things that were clear when he was elected.”
Kennedy’s “spokes of the wheel” approach had been championed by the presidential scholar Richard Neustadt, but such an organizational principle, in fact, followed his natural inclination. Unlike the former army officer Eisenhower, who appointed a strong chief of staff to run his agenda and team, Kennedy refused to have anyone between him and his advisors. Shrewdly, he set up two doors to the Oval Office, one manned by O’Donnell, the other by his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. This system worked well: cabinet members had to fight their way past O’Donnell, while pals could whiz past Lincoln.
There was little camaraderie among Jack’s chosen men, and several ongoing rivalries. O’Donnell resented the partnership Sorensen assumed with Jack. Ben Bradlee, the Washington sophisticate, failed to see the appeal of Lem or Red. Bobby, meanwhile, resented how much his brother reached out to Torby. As couples, the Bradlees and the Bartletts hardly ever saw each other for the simple reason that as couple-to-couple friends to Jack and Jackie, to invite them at the same time would create a redundancy. Thus, they were asked over on different nights. Together, of course, all of them had a purpose, to keep Jack company, to ensure that he was never alone, never bored, never stuck.
Harris Wofford, Kennedy’s civil rights advisor, described insightfully how he and the others fit in. “The president-elect was a complex political leader in a complex situation. He was not anyone’s man—not Stevenson’s or Bowles’s, and not Mayor Daley’s or John Bailey’s, not the Civil Rights Section’s, and not the Southern senators’; not his father’s and not Bobby’s. He had one foot in the Cold War and one foot in a new world he saw coming; one hand in the old politics he’d begun to master, one in the new politics that his campaign had invoked.”
Kennedy picked Clark Clifford, who’d been President Truman’s counselor, to be his liaison with the outgoing Eisenhower staff. An astute observer of men and power, Clifford recognized early on John Kennedy’s ability to detach himself from himself. You’d see him sitting at meetings, Clifford once told me, and you could almost imagine JFK’s spirit assuming a form of its own and rising up, the better to look down on the group and assess its various members’ motives and agendas. It was the same uncanny detachment Chuck Spalding had seen in Jack on his wedding day.
Not all the people in the U.S. government, even at the top, owe their positions to the president. This remains one of the challenges of being chief executive in the American system. The reality of that limited control over people dawns eventually, if not right away. There’s also the need to lay down clear presidential orders.
Take the time JFK and his aides gathered around a swimming pool in Palm Beach, with dark-suited agents wearing sunglasses crouched protectively around them. JFK told O’Donnell, the White House official he’d personally posted to oversee the Secret Service, to have the agents back off. He wanted them to change to sports shirts and lose the fighting stance. “Nobody’s going to shoot me, so tell them to sit down and relax a bit.”
More than one Kennedy friend commented how happy he seemed in those days, making decisions while enjoying the Florida weather and waiting for Inauguration Day. Feeling buoyed up as he did—so thrilled and excited about his new circumstances, and proud to have pulled off what he had—he determined to stay fit as president. Said Charlie Bartlett: “I remember he told me, ‘From now on I’m really going to take care of myself.’ “ Bartlett also heard him make a different sort of commitment to the future. It had to do with his marriage. “ ‘I’m going to keep the White House white.’ He said it right out there on that terrace.”
Kennedy and Ted Sorensen had been devoting a good deal of that Palm Beach time to writing Jack’s inaugural address. Composed in the tropical air, it was delivered on January 20, 1961, when the Washington temperature hovered in the low twenties and eight inches of snow had fallen that morning.
Given the ongoing challenge of the United States–USSR relationship and its immense significance in the election, that theme would command the heart of the speech. Its focus was on strength—not as a prelude to war, but as an instrument for peace. “Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.”
The Churchillian notion of peace through strength had echoed throughout Jack’s adult life. “We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.” America would arm not to fight, but to parlay its power into protection. “Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversaries, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.”
Those decisive phrases have not lost their resonance. “Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms—and bring the absol
ute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.”
The one domestic policy reference would be Kennedy’s commitment to “human rights” at home as well as abroad. At the end came the words that passed into the world’s consciousness: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
To some who’d once been at Choate and paid attention in chapel to the words of Headmaster St. John, a lightbulb flickered. The irony is that Jack Kennedy, the Mucker now grown up, was appropriating the very rallying cry from which he’d felt so alienated as a rebellious student.
The act of asking, in fact, marked the passage of John Kennedy through his public life. Most politicians make promises. They tell people what they will do for them, dangling the prospect of jobs, or government spending, with elections and “pork” irrevocably intertwined. That approach was certainly politics-as-usual for Lyndon Johnson, who always sought ways to find a person’s “button”—that thing he wanted, or feared—that would put him in his power. Kennedy was never like that. From the very start, he called on people to come out, to join, to be active, to be part of something larger than themselves. At the beginning, when Jack was little known, it had been a necessity, but it evolved into a grander vision, one that changed lives exactly as George St. John once had preached.
In Moscow, the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, had been sounding a different call to arms, in his case a boastful one. The progress of the international Communist cause, he’d told his countrymen on January 6, had “greatly exceeded the boldest and most optimistic predictions and expectations.” Encouraging “wars of liberation” such as the one under way in South Vietnam, he then emphasized the crucial position of Berlin in the struggle being waged against Marxism’s enemies. “The positions of the USA, Britain, and France have proved to be especially vulnerable in West Berlin. These powers . . . cannot fail to realize that sooner or later the occupation regime in that city must be ended. It is necessary to go ahead with bringing the aggressive-minded imperialists to their sense, and compelling them to reckon with the real situation. And would they balk, then we will take resolute measures. We will sign a peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic.”
Once he’d heard those declarations, Jack Kennedy’s sense of purpose—mission, really—was focused on their possible consequences. Did Khrushchev actually intend to sign a treaty with East Germany that would throw the USA, Britain, and France out of West Berlin, where they’d governed as allies since 1945? According to Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy couldn’t stop reading and re-reading those words. Did they mean war? And would the United States be forced to escalate to nuclear war if the Soviets made good on their threat? Could an American president let the Communists grab West Berlin, the very symbol of Cold War defiance?
This is the specter Jack Kennedy was forced to contemplate in those early days of his presidency: the real chance that he alone would have to choose between nuclear war over Berlin or a historic capitulation to a European aggressor, a second “Munich.” Somehow he was able to greatly enjoy these early weeks after the inauguration. Living, as he did, in compartments, he didn’t let the worry show. He found comfort where he had since youth, in the close company of old friends.
During those early weeks after they’d moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Bartletts came to visit and the First Couple took them on a stroll down the streets surrounding the White House. Escaping through the guard gates was a way of testing his freedom. That night both Jack and Jackie spoke of their commitment to saving the buildings surrounding Lafayette Park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue. The Eisenhower administration had considered leveling the historic townhouses to put up government office buildings. They also mentioned their desire to restore the White House itself. When they found their way up to the ornate Indian Treaty Room in the Old Executive Building, Kennedy practiced using the microphone used by Ike during press conferences. Charlie sat in the back, listening to how the new president sounded from there. The brand-new president was having fun in his discovered world and sharing it with a beloved pal. He wasn’t letting his hidden dread affect the occasion. As Chuck Spalding once told me, even amid crisis, “Jack’s attitude made you feel like you were at a fair or something.”
Lem Billings arrived on Friday and stayed a week. He was the Kennedys’ first houseguest and their most frequent. Soon he’d have his own room, and would show up unannounced and stay as long as he liked. He was never issued a White House pass, but the Secret Service agents all knew him. He joined the couple, too, on weekends at Glen Ora, their retreat in the Virginia horse country. Often, Jackie was the one inviting him. She wanted Jack to have someone to hang out with when she was out riding. The presence of Jack’s old Choate roommate ensured there’d always be company to lighten the mood.
Lem never took for granted Jack’s friendship, cherished it, and was always there for him. “Jack was the closest person to me in the world for thirty years,” he said, and no one doubted it. Still, even he found it difficult to explain Jack’s enduring loyalty. “I’ve often wondered why, you know, all through the years, we continued to be such close friends, because I never kept up on politics and all the things that interested him. What he really wanted to do, on weekends, was to get away from anything that had to do with the White House.”
In fact, escaping the White House even on weeknights appealed greatly to its new occupant. One time he had Red Fay buy tickets ahead of time for Spartacus, allowing them to slip into the nearby movie theater unnoticed once the lights were down. Fay never forgot an incident that occurred a few nights later, walking across Lafayette Park. A fellow standing in the shadows caught the attention of the Secret Service agents, who checked him out by shining their flashlights at him. “What would you do now if that man over there pulled a gun?” Kennedy suddenly asked his buddy from the PT boat days. “What would you do to help your old pal?”
As they walked on, they began talking about assassination, the word itself rather antiquated, given that there’d been none since McKinley. “You know, this really isn’t my job, to worry about my life,” Kennedy said. “That’s the job of the Secret Service. If I worry about that, I’m not going to be able to do my own job. So I have just really removed that from my mind. That’s theirs to take care of. That’s one of the unpleasant parts about the job, but that’s part of the job.”
Fay had moved from California to work at the Navy Department. Once he was on the federal payroll, Jack teased him. “ Listen, Red head, he’d say, I didn’t put you over there to be the brightest man that ever held the job of Undersecretary.” He said that he wanted him there for his honest judgment about what he saw. But, clearly, the president wanted Fay’s company as well. Jack had arranged for another PT buddy, Jim Reed, to be made assistant secretary of the treasury, and for Rip Horton to go to the Army Department. “The presidency is not a good place to make new friends,” Jack said. “I’m going to keep my old friends.”
The Peace Corps—once an idea that seemed, spontaneously, to create itself—was now in the process of becoming a reality. Not sure exactly how the logistics of the visionary but also highly practical project might work, Kennedy put it in the hands of Sargent Shriver. As the founding director, Shriver got it off the ground, with the first volunteers overseas by the end of the year in countries such as Ghana and Tanganyika, Colombia and Ecuador. “The president is counting on you,” he told one early group on the eve of their departure. “It’s up to you to prove that the concepts and ideals of the American Revolution are still alive. Foreigners think we’re fat, dumb, and happy over here. They don’t think we’ve got the stuff to make personal sacrifices for our way of life. You must show them.”
But then, Washington bureaucratic jealousy threatened the enterp
rise. Shriver sought help from Vice President Johnson, named by JFK to chair the advisory council. “You put the Peace Corps into the Foreign Service,” he told Shriver, “and they’ll put striped pants on your people when all you’ll want them to have is a knapsack and a tool kit and a lot of imagination. And they’ll give you a hundred and one reasons why it won’t work every time you want to do something different. If you want the Peace Corps to work, friends, you’ll keep it away from the folks downtown who want it to be just another box in an organizational chart.”
Like a high priest in cowboy boots, Johnson knew the secrets of life and death in the capital. Thanks to him, the Peace Corps remained independent.
Having first talked about it when she entered the White House, Jackie Kennedy now wanted to start making good on her desire to redecorate the Executive Mansion. To help her, she asked her friend Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, married to the Pittsburgh banking heir and philanthropist Paul Mellon, whose high-patrician style she admired. According to Bunny, “When he became president, Jackie changed—she became just as royal as could be. She said, ‘Will you come now? Jack’s president. Will you come now and help me fix up this house? It’s terrible. And don’t call me “First Lady” ever, because I just work here. This is a job. I’ve got to do it for Jack.’ “
But in addition to her work with Jackie on the public and private rooms, Bunny Mellon made another singular and lasting contribution to the Kennedy-era White House. In this case, it was Jack himself who asked for her expert knowledge. Knowing her to be a celebrated garden designer and horticulturalist, he requested that she renovate the Rose Garden, which he could see from his Oval Office window and called “a mess.”
Established in 1913 by Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, it continues to this day to be the scene of ceremonial events. The layout Bunny Mellon created for JFK, often following his specific instructions, comprises the admired Rose Garden layout still seen today.
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