Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (34 page)

W
e ended up last time talking about the Cuban crisis, and the next event of great interest was the problem with the British over Skybolt. You remember, in December the President went to Bermuda and then afterwards, did Macmillan come back to Florida, I think, for a day?

I don't think so. Once they met at Key West. That was the very beginning.

That was the very beginning.

No, I don't think Macmillan did—

Oh, David Ormsby-Gore came back and Randolph Churchill, but not Macmillan.

Is this the Skybolt time?

Yeah.

That was at Nassau.
¹

PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PRIME MINISTER MACMILLAN IN NASSAU, DECEMBER 1962
Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

The—the meeting was at Nassau.

Yeah.

After Nassau, I think David and Randolph came and spent a day, didn't they, at Palm Beach?

That's right. And is that what you want me to tell about?

Yeah.

First, they met in Nassau because Jack told David to tell Macmillan he wouldn't meet in Bermuda again because there was no—in the governor general's house there was no hot water for the bath.
[Both laugh]
So they met at Nassau. Then I don't think Jack saw Randolph Churchill—not until later. But I remember the next day, sitting out, when Godfrey McHugh came running in with a dispatch that whatever company it is that shot Skybolt and saying, "Look what wonderful news, Mr. President!" And I said—I told you before about him saying, "Goddamn it, Godfrey!" It was just too awful to be true. And then he got on the phone and tracked everyone down and Gilpatric said he didn't know, and McNamara was away. I don't know if you've read Dick Neustadt's thing on Skybolt, have you?

I haven't.

Well, Jack gave me that about Novemb—on November
20
and said, this is the—usually he never brought anything home—and he said, "This is the most fascinating reading," and he said, "Read it." And so I took it to Texas with me. It's been in my briefcase ever since. I've never read it. But anyway, it explains all the little hitches back and forth.

Well, you think the President was deeply concerned?

Oh, he was just crushed because Nassau had gone so beautifully and Macmillan had—Macmillan was really in trouble at home, I guess, and whatever they'd worked out was Polaris—hadn't been quite what he wanted but together they'd both done the best they could to get something that would be all right for them. And I remember David's face. He just looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and Jack saying, "Ugh, you know, what are we going to do?" And he felt as if he betrayed the prime minister. So David went in another room, carrying his little red dispatch box, and talked on the phone to Macmillan and they made up what their announcement would be. But they were both just sick about it. I think Jack always felt that contributed so to Macmillan's troubles. And as he said, it's always some third person down the line somewhere whose fault it is. It turns out on that thing, which he just explained to me briefly, it's Thorneycroft, who Jack always did think was stupid, doing some little thing and someone not being there when someone called, I don't know.

Do you remember anything about the President's mood, before he went to Nassau?

Well, not exactly. What would it have been? Well, some anticipation.

Yes, and concern, because it did weaken Macmillan's political position. And I think the actual solution was worked out by the President and Mac Bundy and David on the plane down to Nassau.

And I remember Jack being really mad, either talking to me on the phone from Nassau or telling me before. He hated Diefenbaker, and Diefenbaker had made some snotty condition that he had to come down there and have lunch with him one day, or something. He was mad about that. But, you know, they had a good time, always, he and Macmillan—I mean, sort of it was rather wry laughter. You know, they always managed to have their jokes, even though they were tinged with despair a bit. But that was too bad, that whole thing.

Actually, the problem of the testing of Skybolt, although it was a big thing then, didn't have the effect that everyone feared and—it did for about a week, but I think it was so well handled that it—

Well, maybe here, but it really caused trouble for Macmillan at home, didn't it?

Well, to some degree—for a time. But Labour didn't want Skybolt either, so they weren't in a position to exploit it for themselves.

I see. And then I remember Randolph Churchill, when Jack went to Washington, came over. Well, he was so pro-Jack in all of—that was very nice. I don't think he saw Jack that time. Maybe he did.

Yes, he came to Washington thereafter, and was very proud of the fact that he'd written the one pro-Nassau piece to appear in the British press.

That's right.

The next big thing was de Gaulle's veto of British entrance into the Common Market.
²
The President was rather fascinated by de Gaulle, wasn't he? As a historical phenomenon?

Well, of course, he was always interested in him, but really it was more Churchill. And I think probably because I read, or said I did, de Gaulle's memoirs and because he used a sentence from one of them when he announced for the presidency—"I've always had a certain image of America"—that's taken from the opening line of de Gaulle's—"I've always had a certain image of France." Just that. But he saw—he used to talk to me about de Gaulle so realistically. You know, that
that
man was just consumed really with grudges, and he'd explain of how he'd never forgotten the slights of the last world war, or practically, that we didn't come earlier into the first world war. When everybody that he was dealing with then is dead, and everything, and he just—he was nice about it. He never got mad the way he did about the Germans or anything. But he just seemed to have such distaste for someone who was so spiteful. I remember he asked him, in Paris and he was very interested, who he got along with best—Churchill or Roosevelt. And de Gaulle said, "With Churchill I was always in disagreement but we always reached an accord. With Roosevelt I was always in agreement but we never had an accord"—or some lovely little French wordplay—but, you know, so when de Gaulle did that, well, I wouldn't be surprised if Jack almost expected it. And I remember one time later—oh, I was having to answer a letter to Malraux or something—when Malraux came over for the
Mona Lisa
,
³
which was way after that, I think. He came for dinner one night alone, afterwards, and Jack said he purposely wasn't going to talk to him about all this—you know, France and England and everything, the kind of thing that Hervé was always so frantic about. He talked to him only about Red China. Bundy could tell you that conversation. He said, "Why are all of you worrying about this and that and your
force de frappe
and all?
⁴
You know, you should just think of Red China and what's going to happen when they get loose." And Malraux was rather impressed. But—and later on that spring I had to answer a letter—or else it was about coming back from Morocco, when I'd said I wouldn't land in Paris, or something.
⁵
I just never wanted to go near the French again. But there was no way to get home without doing it. And Jack said, "No, no, you mustn't be like that. Don't you see you're the one avenue that's open, and they think I'm a so-and-so but they think you're nice because you like France. And you must always leave an avenue open and you mustn't—" Again that thing of conciliation always. You know, he said, "What's the point of you getting mad at them too and writing Malraux an insulting letter?" But he was just so—it was just so un-Christian of de Gaulle, and Jack gave so much and that spiteful man gave so little. And I think he sort of saw that in the long run, de Gaulle would do all of this work for "
la Gloire
" and everything, and he'd really be remembered as—well, the man who, with Castro and Red China, didn't sign the test ban treaty. Like he used to say about Nehru sometimes, "Isn't it sad? This man did so much for independence and everything, but he stayed around too long and now it's all going, bit by bit, and he's botching up things." And, you know, Nehru's image really did change a lot in his last years because Nehru got to be awfully sanctimonious—I mean, the difference between Hungary and Goa and all of that.
⁶
What was the thing Jack had about that? A very good expression. Something about, "It's like the town preacher being caught in the whorehouse." You asked me about him and Nehru the other day—he had that sort of feeling about him. And also, what I forgot to tell you about Nehru—it was so funny, Nehru wanting to come on this very private visit but because there weren't any crowds purposely arranged, out of desperation, the man went to Disneyland, which seemed so unlike Nehru, but there'd be a lot of children who'd yell, "Cha-cha Nehru
Zindabad!"
I mean, this funny thing of ego. So he thought that that was de Gaulle's horrible failure, and I don't think he did think much of him.

Were there any Frenchmen whom he liked and trusted, particularly?

Only one I know is Segonzac.
⁷

Not Hervé.

No, Hervé amu—I mean, Hervé's whole sort of way of life and his desperation about David Gore—I mean, he always tried to be so nice to Hervé and sometimes he'd say, "We should ask him to dinner because he's about to explode again." But no, you know, basically he didn't like the French, and I loathe the French. There's not one French person I can think of except—maybe two very simple people. Maybe Boudin,
⁸
who's so un-French. You know, they're really not very nice. They're all for themselves.

How did the President and Malraux—how did that work?

Well, Malraux would talk brilliantly and so would Jack, and Bundy would always be there. So, you know, it was a wonderful exchange, but Malraux sort of off in a marvelous fog or— It was very interesting and they never, you know, really got into policy or all that. Well, he was interested in Malraux, but he saw that de Gaulle treated him like Muggsy O'Leary—not as well.
⁹
So, you know, no one—that was the thing—no one spoke for de Gaulle. There was no point giving really Malraux any messages, but—

But he wasn't astonished by de Gaulle then. He rather expected that de Gaulle would have a headstrong—

Well, maybe he was a little astonished in the beginning because he really tried hard and went over backwards. But, well, maybe he was a little astonished, but then he got to see that it was this classic pattern and it just wasn't going to get any better. And he was really irritated, I told you before, at what de Gaulle said after Cuba.
¹⁰
And that's another time that I think there was some sincere irritation that that proved we'd never defend Europe. I mean, just a damn troublemaker that man was!