JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President

by Thurston Clarke

  The previous year, during a speech at Rice University, Kennedy had said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” He had then compared the lunar mission to the exceptionalism of the founders of the Plymouth Bay Colony, quoting Governor William Bradford, who had said that “all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be . . . overcome with answerable courage.” Here, rising on this sandy barrier island, was a twentieth-century incarnation of Bradford’s “Shining City on a Hill” and his “answerable courage.” Here, captured in brick and mortar, was the exploring spirit of Lewis and Clark. Here, too, was proof that, as Kennedy had proclaimed in his American University speech, “Man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings,” as well as evidence that he was poised to marry the power of the presidency to the poetry of the stars.

  The Polaris launch combined several things that Kennedy loved—the U.S. Navy, the ocean, and technological wizardry. But despite the handsome windbreaker that he received upon landing on the missile support ship and immediately put on (because it was not a hat), and the missile with “Beat Army” painted on its fuselage shooting dramatically from the water with a great swoosh and an explosion of orange flames, all he wanted to talk about during the flight back to the mainland was the space program. Referring to the Saturn I rocket, he asked Seamans, “Now, I’m not sure I have the facts straight on this. Will you tell me about it again?”

  Seamans ran through the size of its payload and the magnitude of its liftoff thrust.

  “What’s the Soviet capability?” he asked.

  Much less, Seamans said, only 15,000 pounds of usable payload and a thrust capacity of 800,000 pounds as compared with 1.5 million for the Saturn.

  “That’s very important,” he said. “Now be sure the press understands this.” He gave Seamans the name of a reporter he wanted him to brief, and as they parted he reminded him to stress that the United States was about to score an important victory over the Soviet Union. Seamans did as he was told, and a front-page article in the New York Times the next day reported that the president had been “enthralled” by the sight of the Saturn I missile, which was expected to make “space history” the following month by putting the United States ahead of the Soviet Union in the weight of payload sent into orbit.

  Four days before leaving for Cape Canaveral, Kennedy had signed a directive instructing NASA’s Webb “to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the Government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space.” The directive stipulated that discussions with the Soviets should include “cooperation in lunar landing programs,” with a progress report to be on the president’s desk by December 15. But now, having stood in the shadow of the Saturn rocket and flown over the Moonport, Kennedy’s competitive spirit had been revived, and his emotional connection to the space program rekindled, leaving him once again determined to beat the Soviets to the moon.

  Sunday, November 17–Monday, November 18

  PALM BEACH, TAMPA, MIAMI

  As they were driving to the West Palm Beach airport on Monday morning, Kennedy told Torby Macdonald that the weekend had been “really living,” and one he would never forget. The weather had been perfect, windless sunny days followed by clear nights. On Saturday afternoon they had sat on the patio in swimsuits watching the Navy-Duke football game. He had bet on Navy and after winning had insisted that Powers and Macdonald fetch their wallets and pay up. On Saturday evening he sang “September Song” and talked endlessly about von Braun’s prediction that the United States would beat the Russians to the moon. On Sunday they had gathered on the patio to watch the Bears play the Packers, and again he won the wager. The weekend reminded Macdonald of the months before the Second World War, “when there was nothing of moment on anybody’s mind.” The only jarring note came when he and Kennedy were swimming together and began discussing how they both feared being incapacitated by a stroke, as their fathers had been. Macdonald asked Kennedy how he would like to die. “Oh, a gun,” he said. “You never know what’s hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.”

  While Kennedy was enjoying the weekend pleasures of the average middle-aged, middle-class American male, his programs and initiatives were moving forward.

  During a speech at the New York Economic Club, McNamara announced that a major cut in defense spending was “in the works,” calling it “a fundamental strategic shift . . . not just a temporary slash.”

  The Associated Press reported that “the withdrawal of 1000 U.S. servicemen from South Vietnam will start Dec. 3, Major General Charles J. Timmes announced today. The men are to depart by the end of the year, leaving about 15,500 troops in the country.”

  Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Anthony Celebrezze presented the administration’s case for Medicare to the House Ways and Means Committee, describing it as “legislation to provide health care for the elderly under the Social Security program.” It was necessary, he said, because “the best that private insurance has been able to do to solve the dilemma of high costs and low income is to offer either low-cost policies with inadequate protection or more adequate policies that are priced out of reach of most of the aged.” The committee was not expected to vote on Medicare that year, but as the hearing progressed, the prospects for favorable action appeared to be improving.

  Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach announced that the administration was “hopeful” that the civil rights bill would reach the House floor by mid-December and be passed by Christmas. The New York Times editorialized that even if this timetable was not met, its postponement into 1964 “would not necessarily be fatal.”

  Walter Heller received a memorandum from Under Secretary of Agriculture Charles Murphy responding to his request to provide recommendations for “Widening Prosperity,” the new title of the president’s antipoverty program. Murphy wrote that because of the difficulty of “proposing any dramatic new legislative program to attack poverty in a time of tight budgetary restrictions,” he suggested waiting to launch it until the fall of 1964.

  Jim Bishop and Pierre Salinger happened to dine at the same Palm Beach restaurant on Saturday evening. Salinger told Bishop that Kennedy was eager to read his book. It struck Bishop as odd that he should be so insistent on seeing the manuscript but promised to rush it to the White House.

  • • •

  DURING HIS FLIGHT from West Palm Beach to Tampa on Monday morning, Kennedy stopped in the aisle to talk with Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring. Putting a hand on his shoulder, he said, “I have a feeling it’s going to be a great day.”

  Agent Emory Roberts, who was also on Kennedy’s Secret Service detachment, had received a call that morning from Agent Gerald Blaine, who was in Tampa preparing for the president’s visit. Blaine had accompanied Kennedy on the previous summer’s motorcades in Dublin and Rome, and after witnessing crowds in those cities breaking through police lines and engulfing Kennedy’s limousine he was concerned it might happen in Tampa, where he would be riding in the longest motorcade of his presidency—a twenty-eight-mile drive from Al Lopez Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees, through downtown to the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory. Blaine was also worried because Tampa had a large Cuban community with pro- and anti-Castro factions, and because a right-wing fanatic named Joseph Milteer had been recorded telling a police informant that the best way to kill the president would be “from an office building with a high-powered rifle.” The Secret Service had tracked Milteer to Georgia and placed him under surveillance, but the threat had unsettled Blaine enough that he called Roberts to recommend that he and Boring station two agents on the steps flanking the trunk of the president’s limousine. This would put them close enough to protect
him from spectators dashing toward the car, and in a position where they could shield him from the kind of sniper threatened by Milteer.

  Boring seized on his casual encounter with Kennedy on Air Force One to raise this sensitive subject. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Mr. President, we have a very long motorcade, so we’re going to have to stick to a tight time schedule. Two people have made threats against your life and even though we have them in custody, you might want to keep your stops during the motorcade to a minimum.”

  Removing his hand from Boring’s shoulder, Kennedy said, “Floyd, this is a political trip. If I don’t mingle with the people, I couldn’t get elected dog catcher.” He was down the aisle before Boring could suggest positioning agents on the rear steps.

  The Secret Service had not guarded candidates during the 1960 campaign, so Tampa would be the first time that it had protected Kennedy while he was in campaign mode. Not only would he be taking the longest motorcade of his presidency, but he would be making a record number of stops in a single day: arrival and departure ceremonies at MacDill Air Force Base, a visit to the military’s Strike Command headquarters, lunch at the officers’ club at the base, a speech at Al Lopez Field to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight from Tampa to St. Petersburg, another speech to members of the Florida Chamber of Commerce at the armory, and another to the United Steelworkers union at a downtown hotel. Blaine and the agents preparing for the visit had screened the reporters who would be covering him and the dignitaries who would be welcoming, dining, and sharing platforms with him. They had flown his black Lincoln Continental from Washington the night before and would guard it until he climbed inside. They had ordered policemen stationed on overpasses on his route and on catwalks inside the armory, and told the motorcycle policemen to drive straight ahead and run down unauthorized individuals approaching his limousine. They had put agents in the kitchen of the officers’ club who would choose at random which tray of food would be sent to his table, and posted an agent outside the home of a man overheard boasting that the Ku Klux Klan had authorized him to assassinate the president. But they did not have the manpower to run background checks on everyone who would get close to him, nor could they be certain that one of the 25,000 people attending these events would not be armed, perhaps explaining why an off-duty St. Petersburg policeman was able to carry a pistol into the armory while agents were confiscating a Brownie box camera from a fourteen-year-old boy.

  Evelyn Lincoln remembered Kennedy “glowing with good health and confidence” as he disembarked in Tampa. Reporters described him being “relaxed, healthy, and suntanned.” (Since he had been in Florida for only two days, a sun lamp had to have accounted for his deep tan.) He wore three different outfits in Tampa. He arrived in a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie with a small gold stripe, but when he spoke to the Chamber of Commerce at the armory three hours later, he was dressed in a midnight-blue suit with a solid dark blue tie and a white shirt with French cuffs anchored by cufflinks, clothes he presumably considered more suitable for an audience of conservative businessmen. By the time he left for Miami he had changed again. Perhaps wearing clean clothes and fresh shirts every few hours was something that, like a tan, made him feel good.

  He was smiling and relaxed as his motorcade departed Al Lopez Field, and he struck his Secret Service driver, Bill Greer, as excited by how well the trip was going. The Tampa police chief drove the lead car, with Agent Blaine sitting next to him in the front seat. Greer drove the presidential limousine. Boring sat next to him while Agents Lawton and Zbaril stood on the rear steps. There were buttons, banners, and crowds pushing against police barriers. Girls screamed and women leaped into the air, just as they had in 1960. When the crowds thickened, Greer slowed down and Lawton and Zbaril jumped off the rear steps and jogged alongside. When he accelerated, they remounted and Kennedy noticed them for the first time. He leaned forward and, speaking into Boring’s ear so he could be heard over the roar of the motorcycles, said, “Floyd, have the Ivy League charlatans drop back to the follow-up car.”

  Boring was surprised that he had allowed the agents to ride on the steps for so long. He relayed the message verbatim over the walkie-talkie to Blaine, who was also surprised because Kennedy usually made his wishes known at the beginning of a motorcade. He was unfamiliar with the word “charlatan” and jotted it down so he could check its meaning. Kennedy had cultivated a closer relationship with the agents than most presidents, and probably meant the comment as an affectionate put-down. Most did in fact dress like Ivy Leaguers. But for a president who was trying to be more Irish than Harvard, Ivy Leaguers, even if they were charlatans, reminded the public of his own Ivy League background.

  “It’s excessive, Floyd,” he told Boring when they arrived at the armory, “and it’s giving the wrong impression. . . . Tell them to stay on the follow-up car. We’ve got an election coming up. The whole point is for me to be accessible to the people.”

  The tension between the agents’ desire to minimize his interactions with the public and his desire to maximize them was apparent all day. After arriving at MacDill Air Force Base, he had unsettled the Secret Service by climbing in one door of his limousine and out the other in order to greet some military wives and children who had been confined to a parking lot. After eating lunch at the MacDill officers’ club he insisted on speaking with the black waiters, who grabbed towels and wiped their hands before shaking his. He delayed his departure from Tampa so he could talk with each of the thirty-three motorcycle policemen who had escorted his motorcade. “As he shook our hands he looked us in the eye and said each of our names,” one recalled. “It was thrilling. I didn’t wash my hands for a week.”

  The lead editorial in Tuesday’s Tampa Tribune confirmed the wisdom of his tanning, shirt-changing, hand-shaking, and accessibility. The editors wrote, “The Democrats’ main selling points next year, it appears, will be Peace, Prosperity, and Personality (Mr. Kennedy’s).” After describing him as “a bright-eyed relaxed young man” who had charmed Tampa by “distributing cheer with an expert hand,” they complimented him for offering “a smile and a handshake for all within reaching distance, [and] a cordial wave for the crowds along the motorcade route,” and concluded that his performance had illustrated the problem Republicans faced in 1964, noting, “Sunshine, as reflected from peace, prosperity, and personality, is a tough product to compete against.” The editorial could only have reinforced his determination to follow the same script in Texas.

  He witnessed the power of his “Personality” firsthand while answering questions from members of the Florida Chamber of Commerce at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory. Most of the questions were timid and respectful, along the lines of “Why didn’t you bring Caroline?” and “How will the recent wheat deal with Russia affect our economy?” Finally, someone asked why he was pushing civil rights “so vigorously.”

  Lunch counters, hotels, theaters, pools, and other public accommodations in Tampa remained segregated. The state’s congressional delegation, including his friend George Smathers, opposed the civil rights bill, and if you could have polled the armory audience, most would have probably accused him of pushing integration too fast. But instead of filibustering the question or offering platitudes and generalities, he reaffirmed the practical and moral underpinnings of the controversial public accommodations section of his bill, defending it as necessary to guarantee “domestic tranquility,” and reminding the audience that treating black Americans “as I would like to be treated, and as you would like to be treated” was in line with the Golden Rule. He concluded, “No country has ever faced a more difficult problem than attempting to bring [up] ten percent of the population of a different color, educate them, give them a chance for a fair life. That is my objective and I think it is the objective of the United States as I have always understood it.”

  The white businessmen and their wives gave this statement the loudest and most prolonged applause of the aft
ernoon. Decades later, a St. Petersburg Times reporter interviewed members of that audience and concluded that they had been “mesmerized,” and that “no one really heard what he said—only how he said it.” An attorney’s wife who had arrived a skeptic, because she felt Kennedy was “not sensitive to the problems of the South,” changed her mind after seeing him. “He was so young and handsome . . . ,” she recalled, “a knight in shining armor.”

  He told the crowd greeting him at the Miami airport that he agreed with Woodrow Wilson’s statement that “a political party is of no use unless it is serving a great national purpose.” At the Inter-American Press Association banquet at the Americana Hotel, he ended his prepared speech with a signal to Castro that he was prepared for a secret dialogue. It echoed what he had told Jean Daniel on October 24. He praised the initial Cuban revolution as a genuine uprising “against the tyranny and corruption of the past.” After accusing Castro of betraying it, he said:

  It is important to restate what now divides Cuba from my country and from other countries of this hemisphere. It is the fact that a small band of conspirators has stripped the Cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban nation to forces beyond the hemisphere. They have made Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism . . . a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert other American republics. This, and this alone, divides us. As long as this is true, nothing is possible. Without it, everything is possible [emphasis added]. Once this barrier is removed, we will be ready and anxious to work with the Cuban people in pursuit of those progressive goals which a few short years ago stirred their hopes and the sympathy of many people throughout the hemisphere.