The Kennedy Imprisonment

by Garry Wills

  But Shriver remained an in-law, so no final break occurred. With those less bound to the family, retaliation for disloyalty could be savage. Arthur Krock, who had spent decades serving the career of Joseph Kennedy, was bitterly opposed to the civil rights movement of the sixties. He refused to endorse John Kennedy because of the 1960 platform statement on civil rights. Kennedy, once in office, arranged for attacks on Krock to run in Newsweek, and was disappointed that they were so mild. “Tuck it to Krock,” he told Ben Bradlee. “Bust it off in old Arthur. He can’t take it, and when you go after him he folds.”

  Bradlee, meanwhile, was serving Krock’s old functions, clearing things he wrote about Kennedy with Kennedy himself, informing the President when Newsweek planned to publish anything critical of the administration. But Fletcher Knebel quoted in print a Bradlee remark about Kennedy’s sensitivity to criticism, and the punishment that followed confirmed the accusation: for three months Bradlee was banned from Kennedy festivities, and from other social gatherings where the President’s influence extended. In front of Bradlee himself, Kennedy told the British Ambassador not to invite Newsweek’s man to an embassy party. Only after he had been fully chastened was he readmitted to court—never to make the same mistake of risking candor while Kennedy lived.

  Loyalty, which won honorary Kennedys their reflected glory, also exacted a price. Kennedy’s bright staff at Justice worked hard, cut corners, got things done. But the cost was a certain suspension of judgment before Kennedy priorities. Family pride was forfeit to the task of “getting Hoffa,” and the loyalists supported this effort, even when it meant prosecuting on a dubious charge, with no issue at stake, by a major commitment of resources to the hunt. Navasky says of Hoffa’s Nashville indictment, “Never in history had the government devoted so much money, manpower and top level brainpower to a misdemeanor case.” The charge, which would have brought a maximum penalty of one year, was conflict of interest in a truck-leasing firm Hoffa openly set up. This was not a crime that cried to heaven; it was just an opportunity to get Hoffa, and the honorary Kennedys—with one honorable exception—dutifully went along (though they would not, in fact, win a conviction):

  Within the Department, Byron White, Nicholas Katzenbach, Burke Marshall (who flew down in the middle of the trial with Howard Willens, First Assistant in the Criminal Division), former labor law professor Archibald Cox and Ramsey Clark were among those consulted on the case, and with the exception of Clark—whose experience as a private attorney with the trucking industry convinced him that the evidence was insufficient to show a significant departure from the practices of the trucking industry—they all felt a legitimate case might be made.

  Honorary membership in the family could entail dangers. And why not? Being a real Kennedy is even more dangerous. Dean James Landis, loyal to the Kennedys for many years, was one of those people who suffer a mental block in dealing with the IRS. For some years, he had deposited his income tax payments in a special account rather than with the government. When this came to light, he paid taxes, interest, and penalty; there was no evidence of attempt to defraud; with anyone else, the case would have been dropped. But that might open the Kennedys to a charge of favoritism, so the Justice Department was compensatorily rigorous. Navasky concludes his analysis of the case:

  The code of the Kennedys was profoundly entangled with James Landis’s fate. His tax delinquency was discovered because he was on the Kennedy White House staff. It was brought to old Joe’s attention because the district Director of the IRS shared the nation’s image of the clannish, behind-the-scenes way the Kennedys do business. The case proceeded through channels partly because the Kennedys had officially disqualified themselves, partly because it was not part of the Kennedy way of doing business for Robert to tell his old University of Virginia tax professor, Mortimer Caplin, to get him off the hook at the expense of the integrity of the tax code, partly because Kennedy loyalists didn’t want the Kennedy Administration vulnerable to charges of fix. Landis pleaded guilty so as not to embarrass the Kennedys, despite evidence that a not-guilty plea might have been sustained. He was sentenced to confinement, seldom the case in failure-to-file convictions, undoubtedly in part as a tribute to his importance as a member of the Kennedy family.

  To circle in tight family orbits, ringed about with powerful satellites, is to create a field of influence very gratifying—until the satellites, reversing nature, begin to tug at the center of their own system, pulling it in contrary directions. This happened to Robert when the number of real Kennedys diminished, and the honorary family members were all concentered on him. Other galaxies collapsed inward, around his, after his father’s stroke, his brother’s death. Edward, the youngest Kennedy, was more Robert’s satellite, at this stage, than a center in his own right. The subordinates, neatly sorted out before, now collided; clogged the air around Robert, inhibiting his motions with their friendly crowding; deafened him with advice.

  This problem became acute when Robert Kennedy tried to free himself of the Vietnam war his brother helped initiate. Robert had named three of his children after powerful men in his brother’s administration—Averell Harriman, Douglas Dillon, and Maxwell Taylor. It was a way of binding the system together; the honorary Kennedys around the older brother were honored in their turn by the younger brother. But in the period leading up to the 1968 campaign, these three “wise men” were supporting the war they helped President Kennedy launch. The natural order of things is for honorary Kennedys to move toward the oldest living heir; but one test of President Kennedy’s growing influence had been his ability to attract ever more powerful men toward him, men who—even while serving Kennedy—had positions and reputations of their own at stake. Besides, the Kennedy heir had himself supported the Johnson escalations when they first occurred—along with stellar members of the Kennedy team like Robert McNamara, the Bundy brothers, the Rostow brothers. These people all felt they were being true to a Kennedy legacy. Robert had departed from the course his brother set.

  Even some of those closest to Robert—including his younger brother—joined those who had been close to John Kennedy (e.g., Schlesinger, Sorensen, Salinger) in urging Robert not to run against Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Other members of the Kennedy team were dropping out of the Johnson White House—but, like McNamara, they went quietly, not risking outright confrontation with an incumbent Democratic President. And when Robert Kennedy began to critize the war, his comments were cautious, muted, contrite (“there is blame enough for everyone”), and invariably joined with some expression of good will toward President Johnson. This meant that the “old guard” was still welcome at Robert’s home, Hickory Hill, where their voices were raised in the rivalry of friendly advisers, all with claims on Robert through his brother or his father. They were part of the dead man’s legacy, the Kennedy promise. Many resented Kennedy’s apparent willingness to squander the family’s future hopes in a quixotic race against Johnson. They thought of him as disloyal to his name.

  In this period, Robert showed signs of wanting to break out of his own protective cordon of family powers. He sought new and younger advisers—creating, inevitably, more honorary Kennedys who would clash with the older ones. Generations of such family retainers now clamored for his ear. The “first generation” were veterans of the Adlai Stevenson campaigns who had switched to Kennedy. They claimed to uphold the authentic liberal tradition—Arthur Schlesinger, for instance, and Kenneth Galbraith. Schlesinger began with doubts that Robert should take on Johnson, then shifted as the candidate’s own desires became clearer. Galbraith thought he should run from the start; and, when he didn’t, joined Eugene McCarthy’s campaign. This member of the old guard outran Robert’s own hotheaded young staffers.

  The second generation was made up of those who had run his brother’s campaigns. They, too, were divided—Kenneth O’Donnell, for instance, wanted to take on Johnson. But the weightiest members of that team thought this would be foolish—and theirs were the arguments Robert himself had
used when advising his brother. Don’t make gestures; go in to win; forget liberal sentiment; count the votes. The vote counters could not come up with the right numbers, so they told him not to run.

  Another generation was made up of those recruited into President Kennedy’s cabinet and staff. The “big guns” here were all supporters of Johnson and the war. They spoke, for the public, as Kennedy men. They made the war Kennedy’s war—how dare Robert attack it?

  The fourth generation of honorary Kennedys came from Robert’s associates in the Justice Department—men like Burke Marshall, John Seigenthaler, Edwin Guthman. They, too, initially opposed a 1968 campaign.

  Last came Kennedy’s Senate staffers, the press secretary Frank Mankiewicz and the two “kids” who served as administrative assistants, speechwriter Adam Walinsky and legislation-drafter Peter Edelman. These people were free of echoes and memories from President Kennedy’s time, and vividly alert to the distress of college students over the war. Often Robert’s heart slipped off from his head’s calculations to share the sentiments of these “kids.” And, while the older Kennedy guard of journalists upheld the Vietnam war—Joseph Alsop outstanding in this group—Kennedy cultivated a new circle of adversary journalists: Jack Newfield, Jeff Greenfield, Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, David Halberstam. When Robert died, these writers would be his elegists—as Theodore White and Hugh Sidey had been for his assassinated brother.

  Naturally, the young staffers and newsmen were resented by older servants of family glory—not simply because they were Johnnys-come-lately, but because they were reckless with the family’s future hopes. They seemed to think in terms of a demonstration rather than a restoration. Guardians of the legacy were rightly upset when the young firebrands dragged Robert Kennedy off to consult with Tom Hayden, or with street gang leaders. If Kennedy was willing to take communion with Cesar Chavez today, to recommend sending blood to the Viet Cong, what might he do tomorrow? Take communion with a pacifist like Dorothy Day? Become Eldridge Cleaver’s friend? Go—as his Justice Department colleague, Ramsey Clark, finally did—to Hanoi? Or, like Clark, defend the Berrigan brothers? Where would it all end?

  At least part of Robert Kennedy—and that the oldest part, the successful campaign manager—shared these reservations about his new cohorts. Kennedys do not run campaigns as a form of moral gesture. They run to win; and know what that takes; and do what is necessary. The young guard around Kennedy had an open contempt for “old politicians” like Mayor Daley. But longstanding associates of the Kennedys knew what Daley had done for them in the past and could do in the future—and Robert knew that best of all. Shortly before his death, he told Jimmy Breslin, “Daley is the ball game.” But if that was so, what was he doing in a different ball park entirely, palling around with Cesar Chavez?

  The truth is that Robert Kennedy agreed to run, not out of total agreement with his “kids,” but in the belief that he could beat Eugene McCarthy first and then win back the old machine types he would need. That is why Robert ran a “law and order” campaign, and refused to debate McCarthy in Indiana and Oregon, though all his younger aides felt he was honor-bound to do so. The strains of the coalition Kennedy was trying to put together showed over and over in Oregon. And then, when he agreed to debate in California, Robert was willing to win in his old ruthless way—he played on white fears of blacks moving into lily-white Orange County, a ploy even Schlesinger called “demagogic.”

  In Oregon the honorary Kennedys were fighting for custody of “their” man. Those who felt he had to debate McCarthy went to his suite hoping to make him reverse his decision. Kennedy, standing there in his shorts, blew up. Jules Witcover describes the scene:

  Kennedy ordered the room cleared except for a few of the old professionals. He called one of them into the bedroom. “They’re pressing in on me,” Kennedy told him. And then, looking at the old pro, he added: “Don’t tell me you’re buying these guys.” It was a political crunch, and time for political decision making. “I don’t know what they’re doing here,” Kennedy said of his young speechwriters. “I didn’t even want them out here.” Outside in the corridor, Walinsky, Greenfield and others were milling around, talking loudly. Kennedy, still dressed only in his shorts, went to the door, opened it and stalked out. “I thought we decided that,” he told them angrily. “Why are you standing around here making noise? If you want to do something, go out and ring doorbells.” And then, turning to Adam [Walinsky] and Jeff [Greenfield] he barked: “Besides, I don’t see why my speechwriters aren’t writing speeches instead of playing the guitar all the time.” And he stormed back inside. This last was a slow burn erupting. Sometimes during the campaign, Walinsky and Greenfield would get aboard the campaign plane and start playing and singing folk songs while others, including the candidate, tried to work. Now the group in the corridor broke up, and Kennedy dressed for the rally. Adam and Jeff came to [Fred] Dutton’s room later, properly chastised, announcing they were returning to Washington to write their speeches. Dutton laughed it off, and told them to do the same. That was the end of it—but there was no debate in Oregon.

  Kennedy’s young followers were acutely embarrassed by the way their candidate deferred to McCarthy when he could not avoid him. The man who made such a cult of courage, the man who had challenged Jimmy Hoffa to do push-ups, actually turned and ran when his path crossed McCarthy’s in Oregon. The two men, without knowing it, were touring the same park outside Portland. Jeremy Larner, on McCarthy’s staff, saw the rival press bus and sent three of his aides to block Kennedy’s car while Larner brought McCarthy to it. Larner’s candidate would only saunter toward the car, so Larner ran ahead to hold it:

  My charge carried me right up to Kennedy, who was sitting on top of the back seat with his brown and white spaniel next to him, just like in the photographs. Kennedy shrank a little, as if I were going to grab him. He was smaller than I thought, and his eyes were a brilliant blue. Every second I could hold him talking would bring McCarthy that much closer into camera range.

  “Senator McCarthy is coming,” I grinned. “Why don’t you stick around and talk with him?” I was standing over him and he was looking at me with a look of exquisite hurt. Did we think he was running from fear?

  “Isn’t that too bad!” he said. He turned to his driver and the driver floored it, the kids jumped for their lives. So Kennedy rolled down the hill without looking back, and I stood with the Life photographer shouting “Coward! Chicken!”—for truly he was running away. It turned out that we had held him just long enough for the TV crews to get McCarthy coming and Kennedy speeding off. That night all Oregon saw our backs, and heard the shouts of Coward. Followed by McCarthy capturing the Kennedy press bus and shaking hands with Kennedy’s abandoned press.

  After Kennedy’s death, Larner felt contrite about taunting him; but even Kennedy’s people were a bit sickened at the thought that their man was following the old politics—not risking his greater name in debate—even at the cost of running out on the young. There was no way to please all the honorary Kennedys; and their division had left the aggressive Robert Kennedy inwardly divided and uncharacteristically wavering.

  Those closest to him at that point sensed that his resort to old political ways violated something that had come to birth in Kennedy out of his brother’s death. Now he talked wistfully of leaving politics, of becoming a social worker. His feats of brave mountain-climbing and rapids-shooting were nonpolitical ways of recapturing the headlong spirit with which he once campaigned. He ruefully admired the young McCarthyites with nothing to lose, working for their cause with never a compromise. That was how he had fought when he knew no cause higher than his brother’s election. But he could not fight for himself that way. When friends regretted that “Bobby” did not have his own Bobby to do his dirty work for him, they were confessing, indirectly, that “Bobby” no longer existed. It was a deeply changed man who was running for office now. Depth had come to him, and with it indecision—the very thing he despised in Adlai Stevenso
n while working on his 1956 campaign staff.

  No one can tell how the 1968 election might have gone if Kennedy had lived. But David Halberstam rightly observes: “Because he had come in late, McCarthy had picked up Kennedy’s natural base and as a result Kennedy was forced to appeal to blue-collar people, which contradicted his appeal to blacks and liberals.” And Lawrence O’Brien, who had seen more of all the candidates’ camps than any other man that year, was overheard on Robert’s funeral train: “Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t they see? He didn’t have a chance.” Kennedy had given himself an assignment he probably could not live up to—itself a sign of his change from the win-at-all-costs days. He intended to woo Johnson democrats, and Humphrey, through Richard Daley, after polishing off the McCarthy threat. But that would give him hostages in too many camps. The South, with enmities toward him nurtured from civil rights days, thought him a traitor for advocating that blood be sent to the Viet Cong. His “kids” would deny him that superpatriot bloc so necessary to a Democratic candidate. And would his kids themselves stay with him when he went, hat in hand, back to Johnson, to the man they greeted with the shout, “Hey, hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?” Would Johnson receive him? Would Daley?

  Robert’s hopes from Daley can be gauged by the way he went through a farce of reconciliation for Daley’s sake, just at the time when he was deciding to run against Johnson. When Daley made the suggestion, Kennedy had to go along. He had a lingering respect for the man, who had some of his father’s gifts and abrasive strength. In fact, the young Robert Kennedy once seemed destined to become a kind of Richard Daley, a tough political manager. Certainly, when he looked back at his earlier career, Kennedy did not find there a Tom Hayden or Jimmy Breslin. Breslin and Hayden and Hamill, like Michael Harrington, were Catholics who broke away from the Daleys and Cushings and Spellmans—from the people young Bobby had revered.