JFK

by Fredrik Logevall

  49. This is a theme in Craig and Logevall, America’s Cold War.

  50. Speech transcript, February 1, 1953, box 893, JFK Pre-Pres; Nye, Soft Power.

  51. Gullion OH, JFKL; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 193.

  52. Logevall, Embers, 342–47.

  53. L. P. Marvin to Priscilla Johnson, April 17, 1953, box 481, JFK Pre-Pres; Priscilla Johnson to JFK, April 23, 1953, box 481, JFK Pre-Pres; JFK to John Foster Dulles, May 7, 1953, box 481, JFK Pre-Pres.

  54. Logevall, Embers, chap. 14; JFK, Amendment to Mutual Security Act of 1951, July 1, 1953, Compilation of JFK Speeches, JFKL; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 186.

  55. NYT, July 2, 1953.

  56. According to some accounts, the proposal came immediately before she left for London. See, e.g., Spoto, Jacqueline, 97–98. Yet another theory has Jack proposing at Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown on the evening of June 24, but this seems unlikely, given that the formal press announcement was issued that day and the story was in the next morning’s papers. More likely is that the couple celebrated their engagement at Martin’s, a place they were known to frequent. WP, June 23, 2015.

  57. The letter, to Joseph Leonard, an Irish priest with whom she exchanged regular letters over a period of fourteen years, is quoted in WP, May 13, 2014.

  58. David Pitts, a perspicacious observer of the Jack-Lem relationship, concludes that Lem found it relatively easy to adjust to the marriage. Pitts, Jack and Lem, 137. See also KLB OH, JFKL.

  59. Spalding quoted in Andersen, Jack and Jackie: Portrait, 104; and in Klein, All Too Human, 139–40. See also Bradford, America’s Queen, 64.

  60. Leaming, Untold, 34; Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy, 9.

  61. Klein, All Too Human, 146–47; Martin, Hero for Our Time, 74.

  62. To Father Leonard she sent a telegram: “Announcing Engagement to Jack Kennedy Tomorrow Letter Follows So Happy Love—Jacqueline.” Irish Times, May 13, 2014.

  63. David Powers extended OH, box 9, DFPP; Andersen, Jack and Jackie, 119; Paul F. Healy, “The Senate’s Gay Young Bachelor,” SEP, June 13, 1953.

  64. Jacqueline Bouvier to RK, June 29, 1953, box 4, JPKP.

  65. New York Daily News, June 25, 1953; Boston Herald, June 25, 1953; NYT, June 25, 1953.

  66. Leamer, Kennedy Men, 317.

  67. Lincoln, Twelve Years, 25; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 266.

  68. JPK to Macdonald, July 22, 1953, box 4, JPKP, JFKL; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 317.

  69. Von Post’s account, which contains implausibly exact dialogue and other dubious-sounding details, is in her brief memoir, Love, Jack, 19–33.

  70. Von Post, Love, Jack, 33; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 319.

  71. McNamara, Eunice, 137; Bradford, America’s Queen, 69–70. A few weeks before the wedding, Jack hosted an engagement reception in his sister’s honor at his Washington residence. Among those in attendance: Vice President Richard Nixon and Democratic senators Stuart Symington, George Smathers, and Albert Gore. BG, April 30, 1953.

  72. Fay, Pleasure of His Company, 154–55.

  73. Martin, Hero for Our Time, 80.

  74. Bradford, America’s Queen, 71; Parmet, Jack, 261.

  75. NYT, September 13, 1953.

  76. Providence Sunday Journal, September 13, 1953, quoted in Bradford, America’s Queen, 73.

  77. NYT, September 13, 1953.

  78. Janet Auchincloss OH, JFKL.

  79. Quoted in Hunt and Batcher, Kennedy Wives, 152.

  80. Fay, Pleasure of His Company, 141, 143.

  81. Hess, America’s Political Dynasties, 506.

  82. The full poem is in box 20, JPKP, JFKL.

  83. Anderson, Jack and Jackie, 131.

  84. Adler, America’s First Ladies, 135.

  85. Parmet, Jack, 296–97. The excerpt read: “Whether I am on the winning side or the losing side is not the point with me; it is being on the side where my sympathies lie that matters, and I am ready to see it through to the end. Success in life means doing that thing than which nothing else conceivable seems more noble or satisfying or remunerative, and this enviable state I can truly say that I enjoy, for had I the choice I would be nowhere else in the world than where I am.”

  86. Anderson, Jack and Jackie, 133.

  87. David Ormsby-Gore OH, JFKL.

  88. Martin, Hero for Our Time, 95.

  89. Quoted in Smith, Grace and Power, 7.

  90. Anderson, Jack and Jackie, 139. Tip O’Neill was fascinated by the steady improvement in the speechmaking. In time, he said, Kennedy turned into a “beautiful talker.” Thomas “Tip” O’Neill OH, TOP.

  CHAPTER 20: DARK DAYS

  1. Though some accounts claim that McCarthy was godfather to their oldest child, Kathleen, her actual godfather was Daniel Walsh, a professor at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, Ethel’s alma mater. Tye, Bobby, 46. In Ethel’s view, McCarthy was “just plain fun….He didn’t rant and roar, he was a normal guy.” Tye, Bobby, 35.

  2. See Betty Beale’s column in the Washington Evening Star, September 30, 1953. I thank Larry Tye for this citation. For Robert’s role on the subcommittee and his relationship with McCarthy in this period, see Tye, Bobby, 24–36; and Thomas, Robert Kennedy, 64–68.

  3. Sorensen, Kennedy, 59; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 272.

  4. Sorensen, Counselor, 145.

  5. O’Neill, Man of the House, 90.

  6. Logevall, Embers, 341–52, 365–66, 398–402.

  7. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Senator Gravel Edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), vol. I: 591–92; Cole, Conflict in Indo-China, 171.

  8. Speech transcript, January 21, 1954, box 893, JFK Pre-Pres.

  9. Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, “Preparation of Department of Defense Views Regarding Negotiations on Indochina for the Forthcoming Geneva Conference,” March 12, 1954, Pentagon Papers (Gravel ed.), vol. I: 449–50.

  10. Memorandum of Discussion, 192nd Meeting of the NSC, April 6, 1954, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), vol. XIII, part 1, 1261.

  11. Quoted in McMahon, Major Problems in the History, 121. See also Adams, Firsthand Report, 120.

  12. Fredrik Logevall, “We Might Give Them a Few,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 21, 2016; Prados, Operation Vulture.

  13. Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., 4671–74. Evidently proud of his intervention, Kennedy sent a copy of his April 6 remarks to his party’s titular head, Adlai Stevenson. JFK to Stevenson, April 12, 1954, box 47, AES; William McCormack Blair Jr. to JFK, April 14, 1954, box 47, AES.

  14. Quoted in Fite, Richard B. Russell, 359.

  15. Mann, Grand Delusion, 153.

  16. Atlanta Constitution, April 21, 1954; speech transcripts, May 11, 1954, and May 28, 1954, box 647, JFK Pre-Pres; Parmet, Jack, 285–86.

  17. Logevall, Embers, 481ff.

  18. See the voluminous file of letters, many of them from outside Massachusetts, in box 647, JFK Pre-Pres.

  19. Brooklyn Eagle, April 26, 1954; NYT, April 8, 1954. Lippmann’s column ran under the title “Kennedy Destroys False Hopes.” BG, April 12, 1954.

  20. Quoted in Sorensen, Kennedy, 37.

  21. To her Irish friend Father Leonard, she wrote in 1954, “I love being married much more than I did even in the beginning.” Quoted in WP, May 13, 2014.

  22. Evelyn Lincoln, “My Twelve Years with Kennedy,” SEP, August 15, 1965; KLB OH, JFKL. “Violent” is in Dallek, Unfinished Life, 194.

  23. Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy, 11.

  24. Bradford, American Queen, 94–95.

  25. Von Post, Love, Jack, 37ff.

  26. Quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 139.

  27. Irwin Ross of the
New York Post was in Kennedy’s Senate office when McCarthy called him to ask how he planned to vote on Conant’s nomination. Kennedy replied that he would vote in favor. After they hung up, Ross asked Kennedy what he thought of McCarthy. “Not very much. But I get along with him.” Recalling the episode three years later, Kennedy suggested that the criticism of him for his handling of the Wisconsin man was unfair. “How many senators spoke out against McCarthy in states where it would have hurt them?” Ross described the encounter in an article three years later. New York Post, July 30, 1956.

  28. Boston Post quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 143.

  29. Parmet, Jack, 302; Hitchcock, Age of Eisenhower, 145. Speaking with extreme care, Eisenhower said in early March, “There are problems facing this nation today of vital importance. They are both foreign and domestic in character….I regard it as unfortunate when we are diverted from these grave problems—of which one is vigilance against any kind of internal subversion—through disregard of the standards of fair play recognized by the American people.” Time, March 15, 1954.

  30. Nichols, Ike and McCarthy; Frank, Ike and Dick, 82.

  31. Matthews, Jack Kennedy, 177. In mid-August, the Ambassador insisted to some “pontificating,” disdainful British dinner companions that McCarthy remained the strongest man in America next to Eisenhower, and asked them what they had against him. He then replayed the encounter with obvious relish in a letter to Bobby. JPK to RFK, August 15, 1954, box 4, JPKP.

  32. Time, June 14, 1954; Parmet, Jack, 303–4.

  33. McCarthy, Remarkable Kennedys, 150; Parmet, Jack, 308–9; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 196.

  34. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 774.

  35. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 196.

  36. Sorensen, Counselor, 127–28; Nelson, John William McCormack, 497.

  37. Time, October 25, 1954; Burns, John Kennedy, 147–48; Matthews, Jack Kennedy, 184–87.

  38. O’Brien, No Final Victories, 44 ; James A. Nichols, M.D., et al., “Management of Adrenocortical Insufficiency During Surgery,” Archives of Surgery (November 1955): 737–40.

  39. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 774–75.

  40. Arthur Krock OH, JFKL.

  41. BG, November 6, 1954; Time, November 22, 1954.

  42. Senator Prescott Bush (R-CT) offered one of the more eloquent arguments for censure: McCarthy, he declared, had “caused dangerous divisions among the American people because of his attitude and the attitude he has encouraged among his followers: that there can be no honest differences of opinion with him. Either you must follow Senator McCarthy blindly, not daring to express any doubts or disagreements about any of his actions, or, in his eyes, you must be a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a fool who has been duped by the Communist line.” Time, December 13, 1954.

  43. Sorensen, Counselor, 154.

  44. BP, December 2, 1954, quoted in Parmet, Jack, 310–11. Parmet rejects the suggestion that Kennedy used his illness to avoid casting a vote (308).

  45. Charles Spalding OH, JFKL.

  46. Tye, Bobby, 48; Nasaw, Patriarch, 685.

  47. Heymann, Woman Named Jackie, 170–71; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 282.

  48. Grace de Monaco OH, JFKL. For differing accounts of what occurred, and who issued the invitation, see, e.g., Bradford, America’s Queen, 98; and Andersen, Jack and Jackie, 145.

  49. Priscilla Johnson McMillan interview with author, September 17, 2018, Cambridge, MA.

  50. Kelley, Jackie Oh!, 143; Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy, 13; RK, Times to Remember, 353.

  51. Agar, Time for Greatness; Parmet, Jack, 324–25.

  52. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 221; Whalen, Founding Father, 442; Peter Lawford OH, JFKL.

  53. Quoted in Adler, Eloquent, 39. See also Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 16.

  54. Powers, too, would read aloud to Kennedy on his visits to Palm Beach. “I would think he had fallen asleep, and I’d stop reading,” Powers remembered. “He would open his eyes and tell me to keep going. When I came to a line that he liked, he would stop me and tell me to read it again.” O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 101. See also Perry, Jacqueline Kennedy, 44–45.

  55. Sorensen, Kennedy, 67; Sorensen, Counselor, 146.

  56. Quoted in Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 101.

  57. TS to JFK, February 4, 1955, box 7, TSP; TS to JFK, February 14, 1955, box 7, TSP.

  58. TS to JFK, February 14, 1955, box 7, TSP.

  59. Parmet, Jack, 328. See also Kennedy’s January 28, 1955 letter to Cass Canfield, the president of Harper and Brothers, in Sandler, Letters, 46–47.

  60. Davids made an especially valuable contribution, in the form of memos he submitted on the individual senators being considered for inclusion, and on the overall organization. See TS to JFK, February 28, 1955, box 7, TSP.

  61. Lamar quoted in Lemann, Redemption, 151. On Reconstruction, a standard account is Foner, Reconstruction. See also Bryant, Bystander, 48–49; and James Oakes, “An Unfinished Revolution,” New York Review of Books, December 9, 2019.

  62. JFK, Profiles, 4–5, 10.

  63. JFK, Profiles, 18.

  64. JFK, Profiles, 18.

  65. JFK, Profiles, 222–23; Parmet, Jack, 322.

  66. JFK, Profiles, 265, 222. For a contemporary examination of some of these themes, see Wilentz, Politicians and the Egalitarians; and see Charles Edel, “Why Is Political Courage So Rare?” Washington Post, March 12, 2018.

  67. JFK, Profiles, 222.

  68. David Ormsby-Gore OH, JFKL.

  69. JFK to Eunice Shriver, July 26, 1955, printed in JFK, Profiles, “PS” section, p. 15; Parmet, Jack, 326.

  70. TS to JFK, July 17, 1955, box 7, TSP; Schlesinger, Letters, 108–9, 112–18; JFK to Thomas, August 1, 1955, box 31, Profiles in Courage file, JFKL. Nevins, according to Sorensen, was “tremendously enthusiastic about the book, writing Mr. Canfield that he believes it will be extremely influential and well received, and that it adds still further to the stature of a Senator he has long admired.” TS to JFK, August 12, 1955, box 7, TSP.

  71. BG, May 24, 1955; Burns, John Kennedy, 169. This is now the Russell Senate Office Building.

  72. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 283. On May 24, Kennedy received a warm welcome from colleagues on the Senate floor. See NYT, May 25, 1955.

  73. Assumption College Commencement Address, June 3, 1955, box 12, Senate Files, JFK Pre-Pres.

  74. O’Donnell, Irish Brotherhood, 140–43; Damore, Cape Cod Years, 145–46. See also Frank Morrissey to JPK, June 28, 1955, box 231, JPKP.

  75. O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 103–4; Sorensen, Counselor, 145; Joseph Alsop OH, JFKL.

  76. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 225.

  CHAPTER 21: RISING STAR

  1. Hitchcock, Age of Eisenhower, 280–85; Smith, Eisenhower, 674–79. A detailed account is Lasby, Eisenhower’s Heart Attack.

  2. Frank, Ike and Dick, 113.

  3. NYT, August 29, 1955; Smith, Eisenhower, 670–71.

  4. Hagerty, Diary, 240–46; Farrell, Richard Nixon, 239–40. To Dulles as well, Eisenhower voiced doubts that Nixon was presidential material. Frank, Ike and Dick, 125.

  5. NYT, October 30, 1955.

  6. TS to JFK, September 12, 1955, box 7, TSP. Sorensen may have been referring partly to a front-page article in The Boston Globe by Jim Colbert, which noted that “party leaders in the South have already been sounded about [Kennedy] and have declared that the Junior Senator from Massachusetts would be acceptable to them. Many Massachusetts Democrats who are not enthusiastic about Stevenson would be forced to revise their views if Kennedy were his running mate…Stevenson and Kennedy are far closer than is generally realized.” Colbert added that Stevenson himself had encouraged the reports. See Lasky, J.F.K., 175. In the letter, Sorensen also updated Kennedy
on the status of Profiles in Courage, noting that the production process was running smoothly and that all of the senator’s corrections had been incorporated. In an earlier letter to Teddy, the Ambassador had indicated how he expected Kennedy men to behave, even married ones: “I haven’t seen all those beautiful girls that everybody talks about being here in the South of France, but maybe when Jack arrives here next week he’ll find them.” JPK to EMK, August 15, 1955, box 4, JPKP.

  7. JPK to Edward Kennedy, September 3, 1955, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 670–71.

  8. Bradford, America’s Queen, 103.

  9. Von Post, Dear Jack, 54–59.

  10. Von Post, Dear Jack, 63–64.

  11. Von Post, Dear Jack, 68, 85.

  12. Bradford, America’s Queen, 105.

  13. Andersen, Jack and Jackie, 154; Spoto, Jacqueline, 117.

  14. Von Post, Dear Jack, 103.

  15. Von Post, Dear Jack, 109; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 349.

  16. Janet Travell OH, JFKL; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 212–13; Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 17.

  17. Janet Auchincloss OH, JFKL; Spoto, Jacqueline, 118.

  18. Hitchcock, Age of Eisenhower, 284–85; NYT, October 16, 1955; WP, November 12, 1955.

  19. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 490–91; Caro, Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 3, 646–47.

  20. Stevenson quoted in Henry, Eleanor Roosevelt, 59. In October, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. told Stevenson that Harriman constituted the biggest threat to his nomination. “Bosses and Truman are against you; only voters are for you. But the bosses and Truman are less important than they were [in 1952]….I think you should play boldly and from strength.” Schlesinger Jr. to Stevenson, October 10, 1955, box P-23, AMSP.

  21. See the warm letters and telegrams between them in box 47, AES. In later years, the relationship would become more fraught, a matter to be explored in volume 2 of this work.

  22. See, e.g., C. R. Owens, “Politics & Politicians: Kennedy Views as ‘Favorite Son at Chicago Parley,’ ” BG, November 20, 1955. The article said that although Kennedy would almost certainly not be the nominee, there had been talk of him for the vice presidential slot. See also Martin and Plaut, Front Runner, 27.