Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (54 page)

51
. Rowland Evans of the
New York Herald Tribune
, Hugh Sidey (1927–2005) of
Time,
and William Lawrence (1916–1972) of the
New York Times
and later ABC News.

52
. R
ALPH
de T
OLEDANO
(1916–2007) was a founder of the conservative William F. Buckley's
National Review
who was close to Nixon.

53
. Sick of criticism by the New York paper, the goal of which—he suspected—was to boom Nelson Rockefeller for 1964, Kennedy cancelled his subscription, causing a momentary Washington cause célèbre.

54
. In the early 1960s, such a practice, routine for modern presidents, seemed so new that at a press conference, JFK was once asked about his efforts to "manage the news."

55
. As a girl touring the White House in 1940, Jackie was disappointed that there was no guidebook available.

56
. JFK preferred hats to scarves.

57
. Eager to preserve her children's privacy, Jacqueline was horrified when Salinger once told a reporter about one of their pets, a beer-loving rabbit called Zsa Zsa.

58
. R
ALPH
D
UNGAN
(1923– ) and Myer Feldman (1914–2007) were both White House staff members.

59
. She refers here especially to the turf-conscious Ken O'Donnell, who disliked Sorensen and Schlesinger. One sign of JFK's ability to keep all of these disparate factions working together is the fact that he never had a chief of staff. Always wary of finding himself on the "leading strings" of an aide, he had all top members of his staff report directly to him.

60
. While living in the White House, Caroline attended a school established by her mother in the White House solarium. Most of her fellow students were children of administration officials.

61
. G
EORGE
B
URKLEY
(1902–1991) was a navy admiral and served as the President's primary physician after Dr. Travell was removed from his case (in keeping with JFK's compact with Dr. Kraus), although Travell publicly retained her official title.

62
. After damaging his back in the Ottawa tree planting, JFK once privately forecast that John would be able to lift him before he could ever expect to lift his son.

63
.
The First Family
by the nightclub comedian Vaughn Meader was the fastest-selling record in history, selling an astonishing 7.5 million copies. As Kennedy told a press conference, he thought Meader's impersonation of him sounded "more like Teddy than it did me."

64
. B
ONNIE
A
NGELO
(1924– ) covered Mrs. Kennedy as First Lady for
Time
magazine.

65
. In 1962,
My Daddy Is President
, by the seven-year-old "Little Jo Ann" Morse, sung in baby talk with a bossa nova beat, was a 45-rpm jukebox favorite. Among the lyrics: "No matter what I do, it makes a news event. / 'Cause my Daddy is the President."

66
. N
ICHOLAS
K
ATZENBACH
(1922– ), who was imprisoned by the Italians and Germans as a prisoner of war for two years during World War II, served as RFK's deputy, and under President Johnson, as his successor.

67
. It was ultimately LBJ who established "Volunteers in Service to America" (VISTA) in 1964 as part of his "War on Poverty"—another program that adapted some of the ideas JFK was considering at the time of his death. Worried that his proposed tax cuts would do little to help the jobless and poor, Kennedy had wanted to help poor families like those who had so affected him while campaigning in West Virginia in 1960. Told about this, the new President Johnson seized the notion with both hands. In January 1964, during his first State of the Union message, a speech written largely by Sorensen, Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America."

68
. And in 1964, President Johnson was the one who posed for pictures with poor families in Appalachia.

69
. A planned trip to Japan by Eisenhower in June 1960 was cancelled just before his planned arrival because of anti-American riots.

70
. B
ARRY
G
OLDWATER
(1909–1998) was Republican senator from Arizona and the most prominent conservative of the day. JFK had met Goldwater before World War II when he went to an outdoor work camp near Phoenix, and they remained warm and jocular friends for the rest of their lives. Kennedy presumed that voters would find the Arizonan so extreme that, if nominated, he would lose to Kennedy in a landslide in 1964 (as Goldwater ultimately did to LBJ). Goldwater later insisted that JFK had agreed, if they should be the two presidential candidates in 1964, to fly around the country and debate together, almost like Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858. There is no doubt that when Goldwater raised the idea, the President responded pleasantly, but it does not seem likely that in 1964, the competitive JFK, eager for the biggest victory possible, would have so gingerly offered so weak a challenger as Goldwater the benefit of being seen all over the country arguing with the President as an equal. Kennedy had, however, committed himself to face his 1964 opponent in televised debates like those of 1960 with Nixon.

71
. G
EORGE
R
OMNEY
(1907–1995) was president of American Motors before his election as Republican governor of Michigan in 1962. RFK later recalled in a 1964 oral history conversation that for a time, Romney was the opponent his brother "feared the most. . . . He thought he had this appeal to . . . God and country. . . . He spoke well, looked well. He perhaps would cause some trouble in the South, where we were in trouble anyway [over civil rights]. . . . That's why . . . we never talked about Romney."

72
. N
ELSON
R
OCKEFELLER
(1908–1979) was elected governor of New York in 1958. Two years later, he seriously considered challenging Nixon, whom he loathed, in the 1960 Republican primaries but decided to stay out. JFK had worried that Rockefeller might be a strong opponent when he ran for reelection; however, he divorced his wife and in May 1963 remarried a younger woman, which at the time was a mortal sin in presidential politics.

73
. After the 1960 campaign, JFK told Bradlee that Nixon was "mentally unsound" and "sick, sick, sick." When Nixon was defeated in 1962 for governor of California, Kennedy called the victor, Edmund "Pat" Brown (1905–1996)—the President's hidden tape machine was on—and marveled at how the loser had told reporters in Los Angeles that they wouldn't have Nixon "to kick around anymore" because it was his "last press conference." JFK explained to Brown, "You reduced him to the nuthouse." Brown agreed: "I really think he's psychotic. He's an able man, but he's nuts."

74
. W
ILLIAM
S
CRANTON
(1917– ) was a moderate Republican congressman when elected Pennsylvania governor in 1962.

75
. Referring to the relaxation between Washington and Moscow that began after the missile crisis and ripened with the test ban treaty of the summer of 1963.

76
. JFK pursued a frequent private correspondence with the Soviet leader, which Bundy puckishly called "the pen-pal letters."

77
. In 1963, the Senate Permanent Investigations Committee examined the award to General Dynamics of a $6.5 billion contract, the most lucrative such mandate in American history, to build a new TFX fighter plane. Before his appointment as McNamara's deputy, Gilpatric had been counsel to General Dynamics and was criticized for participating in the TFX decision. Although in March 1963 Gilpatric had announced his return to the law, he remained at the Pentagon until January 1964 in an effort to clear his name.

78
. T
IMOTHY
R
EARDON
(1915–1993) was JFK's administrative assistant in the House and Senate and a special assistant in the White House.

I
NDEX