Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (31 page)

Woke up reporters at two in the morning.

Bobby was talking about how awful J. Edgar Hoover's been since Jack died and the way he curries favor with Lyndon Johnson by sending him all these awful reports about everyone. Bobby said that he'd always, you know, tried to deal so nicely with Hoover and whenever anything—anything the FBI ever did well, it was fine with him if Hoover took credit for it and anything the FBI ever did badly, you know, Bobby would take credit for it. And that was all the FBI, not Bobby, who sent those people in—which was what really caused an awful lot of the bitterness against Jack, wasn't it?

Yes. Yeah. Sort of sounds like—

I mean, I can't remember who they wrote up, or what reporter they would be waking up right now. But I remember Jack being upset at that.

Arthur Goldberg played an active role in this steel thing and Ted Sorensen, I suppose, I imagine. But the President was really—

It seems to me mostly Jack on the phone and Clark Clifford. But I suppose all the rest went on in the office—I don't know.

Would you say that this—he was madder over this than anything else, on any other occasion in the administration?

I think just after Roger Blough came in his office and told him that—you know, a flare. And as I say, the second closest thing I've seen to it is sometimes after the Germans have done one more damn irritating but relatively minor thing. Yes, I would say the steel thing. And then it changed from madness—I mean, all the time he was acting in the crisis, he wasn't acting out of madness and temper. Then it was just trying to see how you could—then he was working it like a chess board. Well, I guess you just don't do that.

How about Governor Barnett in Mississippi? Was he mad then or was he more—I suppose he was less—he felt betrayed by Blough. He had no reason, I guess, to expect Barnett to act differently from the way he did.
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Well, you see, Barnett—it was just so hopeless. And you knew the man was an inferior, welshing person to begin with. There was never rage there, it was—oh, I don't know, just hopeless. And you know what I can remember? I was in Newport in bed and he called me—it was that night—and at five o'clock in the morning, the phone rang and I guess he'd just gone back to the White House after staying up all night and, you know, I was so touched that he called me because he just wanted to talk, and he'd said, "Oh, my God!" You wouldn't realize what it had been like and I guess when, you know, the tear gas started to run out and the troops that were meant to get there in an hour were still four hours away. And I guess that was just one of the worst nights of his whole life.

Was the civil rights thing something he talked much about?

You know, it was over such a long period of time, and there were always—all the Barnetts and then the Wallaces,
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and I mean one sort of awful problem after another, and first thinking that Little Rock had been so badly handled, I guess he thought, and then you see him presented with an almost worse Little Rock
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—Oxford and—oh, yeah, and then with—

What did he think of the Negro leaders? Martin Luther King, for example? Did he ever mention—

Well, I don't think—I don't know what he—well, I do know what he thought of him later. Well, he said what an incredible speaker he was during that freedom march thing and—and he acknowledged that having made that call during the campaign got them—Then he told me of a tape that the FBI had of Martin Luther King when he was here for the freedom march. And he said this with no bitterness or anything, how he was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel, and everything.
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Martin Luther King?

Oh, yeah. At first he said, oh, well, you know—and I said, "Oh, but Jack, that's so terrible. I mean, that man is, you know, such a phony then." No, this wasn't—this was when it was just one girl, they had the conversation. And Jack said, "Oh, well"—you know, he would never judge anyone in any sort of way—oh, well, you know—he never really said anything against Martin Luther King. Since then, Bobby's told me of the tapes of these orgies they have and how Martin Luther King made fun of Jack's funeral.

Oh no.

He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and said that he was drunk at it. And things about they almost dropped the coffin and—well, I mean Martin Luther King is really a tricky person. But I wouldn't know—he never said anything against Martin Luther King to me, so I don't know. Bobby would be the one to find out what he ever really thought of him in that way. But Bobby told me later. I just can't see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man's terrible. I know at the time of the freedom march when they all came in his office, well, he was always—I think he was touched by Philip Randolph.
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Philip Randolph's very impressive. He's an older man and has great dignity.

Yeah, and all that and he was very worried about that freedom march. It turned out all right, I guess.

Worried that it might lead to violence?

Well, yes, everyone was worried, weren't they? And—but you know, civil rights just—well, that was just something that was always there, wasn't it? And then I remember he got mad at—When we were in Texas in November, he was mad to me about Lyndon because he said, "Lyndon's trying so hard to show everyone that he's a real liberal." That he'd done something down there and made some speech which had just caused infinitely more trouble, and then got all the South mad or something and then Lyndon was trying to make the—I don't know who—like him. The northern liberals, I guess. And he said, "If he'd just, you know, not tried so hard to do what was best for Lyndon Johnson, I mean, this whole problem would have been made so much easier." But I forget exactly which speech that was. You could find that out.
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The—one of the other things in the autumn of 1962, of course, there was a political campaign and there was also—the biggest thing was the Cuban Missile Crisis. How early were you—did you—were you told about the missiles?

I can't remember if people knew about missiles when Jack went away on that speaking trip. Did they?

They did, yeah.

Everybody knew?

No.

Just a few special people.

Yeah.

Was it ever in the papers then?

It had not—it was not in the papers. He went over the—the news arrived on a Tuesday and then the small—very small group knew. And he went away, remember, on the Thursday or Friday—on the Friday—and then came back on the Saturday, and then gave his speech on the Monday following.
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Well, I can't remember if I knew before, or if I—I'm sure I would have known if he was worried or something. But I can remember so well, I'd just gotten down to Glen Ora with the children and it was either—was it a Friday afternoon or Saturday afternoon?

Saturday afternoon.

Whenever he made up his mind to come back.

Saturday afternoon.

And you'd just sort of gotten there, and I was lying in the sun and it was so nice to be there, and this call came through from Jack and he said, "I'm coming back to Washington this afternoon. Why don't you come back there?" And there—you know, usually he would be coming down or I thought he'd be away for the weekend, or he would be coming down on a Saturday or I would have said, "Well, why don't you come down here?" or something. But there was just something funny in his voice and he never asked me to do—I mean, he knew that those weekends—and away from the tension of the White House—were so good for me, and he'd encourage you to do it. It was just so unlike him, having known you'd just gotten down there with two rather whiny children, who you'd have to wake up from their naps and get back. But I could tell from his voice something was wrong, so I didn't even ask. I said, sort of, "Why?" And he said, "Well, never mind. Why don't you just come back to Washington?" So you woke them up from their naps and we got back there, I suppose, around six or something. And then I guess he told me. I think that must have been when. But I just knew, whenever he asks, or I thought whenever you're married to someone and they ask something—yeah, that's the whole point of being married—you just must sense trouble in their voice and mustn't ask why. And so we came right back. And then, those days were—well, I forget how many there were—were they eleven, ten something? But from then on, it seemed there was no waking or sleeping, and I just don't know which day was which. But I know that Jack—oh, he'd said something—I know he told me right away and some people had said for their wives to go away and Mrs. Phyllis Dillon told me later that Douglas had taken her for a walk and told her what was happening, and suggested she go to Hobe Sound or somewhere. I don't know if she did or not. And I remember saying—well, I knew if anything happened, we'd all be evacuated to Camp David or something. And I don't know if he said anything about that to me. I don't think he—but I said, "Please don't send me away to Camp David"—you know, me and the children. "Please don't send me anywhere. If anything happens, we're all going to stay right here with you." And, you know—and I said, "Even if there's not room in the bomb shelter in the White House"—which I'd seen. I said, "Please, then I just want to be on the lawn when it happens—you know—but I just want to be with you, and I want to die with you, and the children do too—than live without you." So he said he—he wouldn't send me away. And he didn't really want to send me away, either.
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What was his mood when he told you?

Well, it wasn't—you know, it wasn't exactly sort of "sit down, I have something to tell you." It was so much going on and then the thing—and then as the time went on, it turned out—well, you know—oh, the awful fluke of a couple of days. Like one day, they took pictures and there was nothing there. Then the next day was foggy. And then McCone, when—McCone had just gotten married again and had gone off on a honeymoon. Well, now that was one of the real problems. Then he'd stopped—all—there was something rather tricky there that, him being out of town on his honeymoon, didn't order another flight or didn't something, so you would have known a couple of days sooner.
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There's something there where McCone, who was—I don't know whether to blame McCone—I mean, he could have postponed his honeymoon a bit, or whether it was just a hapless accident, but that was responsible for a delay. And then when those pictures came through and they knew then. Well then, as I say, there was no day or night because I can remember one night, Jack was lying on his bed in his room, and it was really late, and I came in in my nightgown. I thought he was talking on the phone. I'd been in and out of there all evening. And suddenly, I saw him waving me away—Get out, get out!—I'd already run over to his bed, and it was because Bundy was in the room. And poor Puritan Bundy, to see a woman running in in her nightgown! He threw both hands over his eyes. And he was talking on another phone to someone. Well, then I got out of the room and waited for Jack in my room, and whether he came to bed at two, three, four, I don't know. And then another night, I remember Bundy at the foot of both of our beds, you know, waking Jack up for something. And Jack would go into his own room and then talk on the phone maybe until, say, from five to six to seven. And then he might come back and sleep for two hours and go to his office, or—as I say, there was no day or night. And, well, that's the time I've been the closest to him, and I never left the house or saw the children, and when he came home, if it was for sleep or for a nap, I would sleep with him. And I'd walk by his office all the time, and sometimes he would take me out—it was funny—for a walk around the lawn, a couple of times. You know, he didn't very often do that. We just sort of walked quietly, then go back in. It was just this vigil. And then I remember another morning—it must have been a weekend morning—when all—there was a meeting in the Oval Room and everybody had come in one car so that the press wouldn't get suspicious. And Bobby came in in a convertible and riding clothes. And so, you know, and I was there—so—and then I went in the Treaty Room, where I—well, just to fiddle through some mail or something, but I could hear them talking through the door. And I went up and listened and eavesdropped. And I guess that was at a rather vital time, because I could hear McNamara saying something, "I think we should do this, that, this, that." No—McNamara summing up something and then Gilpatric giving some summary and then a lot of ques—and then I thought, well, I mustn't listen, and I went away.

Did the President comment at all on the question of whether there should be a raid to knock the bases out or blockade or what? I mean, you mentioned Mac Bundy's—

Well, that I all knew later and that was never told to me until much, much later. And the thing was—no, at the time, you know, at the time he—well, it was just so—he really wasn't sort of asking me. But then I remember he did tell me about this crazy telegram that came through from Khrushchev one night. Very warlike. I guess he'd sent the nice one first where he looked like he would—Khrushchev had—where he might dismantle, and then this crazy one came through in the middle of the night. Well, I remember Jack being really upset about that and telling me and then deciding that they would just answer the first, and being in on that.
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I also remember him telling me about Gromyko, which was very early in it.