The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
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“He didn’t say”: Dutton, interview.
“I am the responsible officer”: News Conference 10, April 21, 1961, transcript, Press Conferences of President Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Library.
“How could I have been so stupid”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 309.
“Well, they had me figured”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 365.
“You failed in Cuba”: “Grand Illusion,” Foreign Relations, Time, April 28, 1961.
“They had tremendously high expectations”: Dean G. Acheson, interview by Lucius D. Battle, April 27, 1964, transcript, Oral History Program, John F. Kennedy Library.
The administration, he argued: Walter Lippmann, “Walter Lippmann, 1961,” interview by Howard K. Smith, CBS Reports, June 15, 1961, transcript, http://archives-trim.un.org/webdrawer/rec/423553/view/Items-in-Public%20relations%20files%20-%20interviews%20-%20TV%20broadcast%20-%20CBS%20Reports%20%28Walter%20Lippman%29.PDF.
“It wouldn’t be long”: Nixon, RN, 234.
“I felt empathy for a man”: Ibid., 236.
“I’d end the thing forthright”: Smith, An Uncommon Man, 23.
“In fact, you’d better go”: Ewald, Eisenhower the President, 316.
“I don’t run no bad invasions”: Michael R. Beschloss, “A Tale of Two Presidents,” Wilson Quarterly (Winter 2000).
“He seemed himself at that moment”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Post-Presidential Papers, 1961–69; Gettysburg, Palm Desert, Indio File Box 2 JFK 1960–61 (1)(2) JFK 1962–67 (1) (2)(1)-14 pp. Malcolm Moos interview, 1966.
“Kennedy’s most irritating campaign promise”: Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 32.
“You must get courageous men”: Schieffer, “Advice and Dissent.”
But the American people: Dwight D. Eisenhower, notes on meeting with John F. Kennedy, April 22, 1961, Post-Presidential Papers: Augusta–Walter Reed Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“I want you to see”: W.H. Lawrence, “Eisenhower Urges Nation to Back Kennedy on Cuba,” New York Times, April 23, 1961.
When New York’s Republican congressman: Parmet, JFK, 155.
“Don’t go back and rake over the ashes”: New York Times, May 2, 1961.
He invited some old friends: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 38.
“‘Profile in Timidity and Indecision’”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Diaries, 389.
His report, one of the most secret: Jon Wiener, “SECRECY: The American Experience,” The Nation 267, no. 21 (December 21, 1998).
The operation was doomed: For the full account, see Peter Kornbluh, ed., The Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (New York: The New Press, 1998).
“Calling three meetings”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 113–14.
“how you like to begin the day”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 113.
The Bay of Pigs: Clifford, Counsel to the President, 350.
After the Bay of Pigs: Ibid., 350–51.
“I send them with my best wishes”: Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 65.
Gray agreed: Ambrose, Eisenhower the President, vol. II, 640.
“Did we inherit these problems”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 293–94.
“The worse I do”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 292.
Kennedy’s great fear: Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 255.
“He treated me like a little boy”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 166.
“He savaged me”: Ibid., 172.
In the “Single Integrated Operation Plan”: Fred Kaplan, “JFK’s First-Strike Plan,” Atlantic, October 2001.
“‘And we call ourselves the human race’”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 230.
Kennedy struck people: “John F. Kennedy, a Way with the People,” Man of the Year, Time, January 5, 1962.
How do we drain: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 298.
The United States had too little: Ibid., 316.
“It’s not a very nice solution”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 426.
He doubled the arsenal: Reeves, President Kennedy, 245.
“Well, I thought you should have”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 496.
“Therefore the missiles have one purpose”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 536.
Conservative senators: Reeves, President Kennedy, 347.
“The reason we’re in trouble”: “The Durable Doctrine,” The Presidency, Time, September 21, 1962.
Kennedy meanwhile said: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 541.
“He said that”: Kennedy, In His Own Words, 346.
“The Nation’s engine was idling”: John F. Kennedy, “Remarks in Harrisburg at a Democratic State Finance Committee Dinner, September 20, 1962,” The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8886.
“One more attack”: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 94.
“No threatening foreign bases”: Tom Wicker, “Eisenhower Calls President Weak on Foreign Policy,” New York Times, October 16, 1962.
“But partisan discussions of foreign policy”: “Two Presidents,” New York Times, October 17, 1962.
“I want you over here”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 368.
Bobby Kennedy rode to the White House: Ibid., 381.
The White House mess stayed open: Salinger, With Kennedy, 261.
“He thought they were the only ones”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 557–58.
“He initially suspected Kennedy”: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 94.
McCone told Kennedy: Kennedy, In His Own Words, 346.
“Eisenhower Bars Any Crisis”: New York Times, October 22, 1962.
“Well, we’ll hang on tight”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dictabelt recording of phone call with John F. Kennedy, October 22, 1962, transcript, Post-Presidential Papers: Augusta–Walter Reed Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“YOUR ACTION DESPERATE”: “The West’s Response,” World, Time, November 2, 1962.
There was a run: “The Showdown,” Nation, Time, November 2, 1962.
McCone offered: Sheldon M. Stern, “What JFK Really Said,” Atlantic, May 2000.
“I felt we were on the edge”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 378.
“So far as Cuba and Soviet Russia”: “Eisenhower Backs Kennedy in Crisis,” New York Times, October 24, 1962.
“Here, Kennedy’s talent for crisis management”: Beschloss, “A Tale of Two Presidents.”
“In effect the members walked”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 801.
Part of the problem: “The Talker,” World, Time, November 23, 1962.
Tiffany president Walter Hoving: Reeves, President Kennedy, 416.
“The advisors may move on”: “John F. Kennedy, a Way with the People,” Time.
He had come, Schlesinger the younger concluded: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 674.
“Now he’s mad to save”: Ibid., 675.
“The old man”: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 74.
“Apparently we have avoided this one”: Marie B. Hecht, Beyond the Presidency: The Residues of Power (New York: Macmillan, 1976), 313.
“It is my hope”: Ibid., 180.
Chapter 7: “How About Coming in for a Drink?”
“I am ready to serve our government”: Smith, An Uncommon Man, 426; and Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 31.
“Oswald had been planning to kill me”: Nixon, RN, 252.
“Now he wasn’t so sure”: William Manchester, The Death of a President: November 20–25, 1963 (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 260.
“He can ride with me”: Ibid., 504.
In the river of people behind: “The Funeral,” Nation, Time, December 6, 1963; “A Hero’s Burial,” New York Times, November 26, 1963.
And they talked about the old days: Steve Neal, Harry and Ike: The Partnership That Remade the Postwar World (New York: Scribner, 2001), 321; an
d Manchester, The Death of a President, 592.
Eisenhower looked at Mamie: Edward T. Folliard, interview by Jerry N. Hess, August 20, 1970, transcript, Oral History Interviews, Harry S. Truman Library.
“I don’t know where the magic came from”: Admiral Robert L. Dennison, interview by Jerry N. Hess, November 2, 1971, transcript, Oral History Interviews, Harry S. Truman Library.
Truman had already planned: Neal, Harry and Ike, 322.
Neither was at all inclined: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), 576.
And she thanked him: Folliard, interview.
“It was a long, lingering, silent handshake”: Neal, Harry and Ike, 322.
“President Truman does too”: “June 17, 1966,” People, Time, June 17, 1966.
“They had been very closely associated”: E. Clifton Daniel, interview by J.R. Fuchs, May 4, 1972, transcript, Oral History Interviews, Harry S. Truman Library.
Johnson and Eisenhower: Blood Brothers
Pulling back from Vietnam: George Ball, interview by Paige E. Mulhollan, July 8, 1971, transcript, Oral Histories, LBJ Library.
“And, for the fact that no one”: Lyndon B. Johnson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, March 10, 1966, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
Chapter 8: “The Country Is Far More Important Than Any of Us”
“No one but my family”: Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 13.
“I always felt sorry for Harry Truman”: Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145.
“as useful as a cow’s fifth teat”: “Some Day You’ll Be Sitting in That Chair,” Nation, Time, November 29, 1963.
“Every time I came into”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 164.
More than a quarter million people: “Sympathy & Scrutiny,” The Nations, Time, December 6, 1963.
“The whole thing was almost unbearable”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 170.
The secretaries had already cleared: Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, interview by Michael L. Gillette, January 11, 1991, transcript, Oral Histories, LBJ Library.
“you give me a call”: Michael Beschloss, ed., Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963–1964 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 20.
“Us three Texans got to stand together”: James J. Hagerty, interview by Joe Frantz, November 16, 1971, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
This helped explain how: Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson, 80.
“Ike,” Harlow said: Bryce Harlow, interview by Michael L. Gillette, May 6, 1979, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
Republicans dragged their feet: John Whiteclay Chambers II, “Presidents Emeritus,” American Heritage Magazine 30, no. 4 (June/July, 1979).
“For the moment we can content ourselves”: Lyndon B. Johnson, statement on Senate floor, February 4, 1957, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“It’s easily possible”: Andrew J. Goodpaster, interview by Joe Frantz, June 21, 1971, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
“Every impulse of the man”: Horace W. Busby, The Thirty-First of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson’s Final Days in Office (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 158.
Let a decent interval pass: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961–1969 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 205.
“It is better to be”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 23, 1963, Post-Presidential Papers: Appointment Book Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
He asked if a secretary he’d known: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 31.
He asked that she burn her notes: Dwight D. Eisenhower, memo to Lyndon B. Johnson, November 23, 1963, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
And he should vow to work: Ibid.
“Any hesitation or wavering”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 54; and Johnson, The Vantage Point, 12, 18.
Then Lady Bird got on the phone: Beschloss, Taking Charge, 131.
“Of all the things to which Kennedy was born”: Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964 (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1965), 35.
Indeed Johnson tended to build: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 79.
“‘I talked to the President’”: Robert B. Anderson, interview by Paige E. Mulhollan, July 8, 1969, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
“I want people around me”: Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson, 181.
“Outside of that”: Hagerty, OH interview.
“‘This is what I would have done’”: Anderson, OH interview.
“If you asked him a question”: Hagerty, OH interview.
He moved Eisenhower’s portrait: Memorandum for the President from Bob Fleming, October 13, 1967, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“I think that one day”: Dwight D. Eisenhower to Lyndon B. Johnson, November 25, 1966, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“And your bedroom is up there”: Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Bess Truman, WH6411-04-6166 (phone call), November 1964, transcript and MP3 and FLAC audio, Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/johnson/wh6411-04-6166.
It was, Truman told Johnson: Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson, November 9, 1965, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“I wonder if anyone will do the same”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 250.
Chapter 9: “I Need Your Counsel, and I Love You”
“We hardly discussed it”: Gregory Allen Olson, Mansfield and Vietnam: A Study in Rhetorical Adaptation (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1995), 126.
At least until he won: Beschloss, Taking Charge, 266–67.
And then he would wake up: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 253.
He opened a press conference: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 145.
“And it’s just the biggest damn mess”: Ibid.
“I don’t know all the answers”: Michael Beschloss, ed., Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 165.
A special National Intelligence Estimate: Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008), 102.
Stalwart establishment columnists: “One Problem, Two Solutions,” Columnists, Time, January 1, 1965.
That would yield: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 251–52.
“a defeat for the American people”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 244.
“That’s why I am suspicious of the military”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 252.
“I’m going to come running”: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 154.
“The time has come for harder choices”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 246.
Bundy, after a quick trip: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 127.
The problem was not political: Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), 408.
“I’m too sentimental to give the orders”: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 175.
“Don’t be in a hurry”: Ibid., 178.
“I don’t want to tax you”: Ibid., 180.
Goodpaster reported in his notes: Memorandum of meeting with President Johnson, February 17, 1965, Presidential Papers: Special File: Meeting Notes (Top Secret),
Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
But it ensured that the North Koreans: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 182.
(That may have been how he chose): Michael Gordon Jackson, “Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea, 1953–1968,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1 (March 2005).
But the United States has now put its prestige: Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidential Papers: Special Files: Meeting Notes, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“Eisenhower advocated a variety”: Clifford, Counsel to the President, 407.
“This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war”: James Reston, “Washington: The Undeclared and Unexplained War,” New York Times, February 14, 1965.
And yet all the while: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 281.
“The Republican leaders”: Lyndon B. Johnson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, March 5, 1965, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“I wonder why people don’t recognize”: Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Knopf, 1969), 406.
The Dallas Morning News: Dror Yuravlivker, “‘Peace without Conquest’: Lyndon Johnson’s Speech of April 7, 1965,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3 (September 2006), 475.
Nearly two thirds of voters: Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson, 217.
“We’re in a hell of a mess”: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 348.
“I’ve exaggerated in both cases”: McGeorge Bundy, interview by Paige E. Mulhollan, January 30, 1969, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
“I don’t see that he’s overeager”: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 348.
“It could only be serious and bad”: Ibid., 377.
“a thorn stuck in his throat”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 283.
“I’m beginning to feel like a martyr”: Ibid., 258.
“Louisiana swamp . . . that’s pulling me down”: Ibid., 282.
“I’ve got to rely on you on this one”: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 383.