Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy
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JFK: That’s right. Yeah.
EISENHOWER: Now, when we got into Tibet. What is it with Tibet? Goddamned mountainous country over there, we couldn’t even reach it.
JFK: Right.
EISENHOWER: And so, well, what could we do then was to reverse itself, that’s all.
JFK: Right, right.
EISENHOWER: Now, so they get you, and they probe about when you can’t do anything. Then if they get another place where they think that you just won’t for some reason or other …
JFK: Yeah.
EISENHOWER: Why, then they go ahead.
JFK: That’s right.
EISENHOWER: So I think you’re doing exactly right on this one. Go ahead. But just let them know that you won’t be the aggressor. But on the other hand, then you’ve always got the right to …
JFK: That’s right.
EISENHOWER: … determine whether the other guy is the aggressor.
JFK: Well, we’ll stay right at it, and I’ll keep in touch with you, General.
EISENHOWER: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
JFK: OK. Thank you.
CALL TO PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN, OCTOBER 28, 1962
OPERATOR: Yes, sir.
JFK: President Truman, please.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Hello?
TRUMAN: Yes, hello.
OPERATOR: He’ll be with you in just one minute, Mr. President.
TRUMAN: All right. All right.
JFK: Hello.
TRUMAN: Hello, this is Harry Truman.
JFK: Hello. How are you, Mr. President?
TRUMAN: Well, I’m all right, and I’m just pleased to death the way these things came out.
PRESIDENT TRUMAN WAS PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S FIRST OFFICIAL VISITOR TO THE OVAL OFFICE ON HIS FIRST FULL DAY AS PRESIDENT, JANUARY 21, 1961
JFK: Well, we’ll just stay at it, and I just wanted to bring you up-to-date on it. We got a letter from him on Friday night which was rather conciliatory on these withdrawals. Then on Saturday morning, twelve hours after the other letter was received, we got this entirely different letter about the missile bases in Turkey.
TRUMAN: That’s the way they do things.
JFK: Then, well, we rejected that. Then they came back with and accepted the earlier proposal. So I think we’re going to have a lot of difficulties. But at least we’re making some progress about getting these missiles out of there. In addition, I think that Khrushchev’s had some difficulties in maintaining his position. My judgment is that it’s going to make things tougher in Berlin because the fact he’s had something of a setback in Cuba is going to make him …
TRUMAN: That’s right.
JFK: … rougher in Berlin. But at least it’s a little better than it was a couple of days ago.
TRUMAN: Well, you’re on the right track. Now you just keep after them. That’s the language that they understand, just what you gave them.
JFK: Right. Good.
TRUMAN: They’ve been asking me for comments, and I’ve said the President of the United States is the only man who can comment on it.
JFK: [laughs] All right. OK. Good. Take care, I’ll be in touch with you.
TRUMAN: All right.
JFK: Thank you, Mr. President.
TRUMAN: I certainly appreciate your call.
JFK: Well, thank you, Mr. President. Bye-bye.
CALL TO PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER, OCTOBER 28, 1962
HOOVER: … it seems to me these recent events are rather incredible.
JFK: They are incredible. I just, we got a message on Friday night which was rather forthcoming from them. And then on Saturday we got the one on Turkey. Then this morning we got the one going back to their more reasonable position. So we’re going to stay right on it and see if we can work up satisfactory verification procedures, but I just wanted to bring you up-to-date on it. We got a lot of problems still to go, but I think we’ve made some progress.
HOOVER: This represents a good triumph for you.
JFK: Well, I think we just have to, the rhythm of these things, we’ll see what happens this week. But I just wanted you to know. I’ll keep in touch with you and keep you up-to-date.
HOOVER: Thank you.
JFK: Thank you, Mr. President. Bye-bye.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY WITH PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, APRIL 28, 1961
PRESIDENT KENNEDY OBSERVES THE FIRING OF A POLARIS MISSILE BY THE SUBMARINE USS ANDREW JACKSON OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA, NOVEMBER 16, 1963
In his inaugural address, President Kennedy pledged that the United States would “bear any burden” to assure the success of liberty and in so doing that we would never “fear to negotiate.” In the aftermath of the Missile Crisis, he acted on the second impulse. In these tapes, it is clear that he was willing to invest political capital to make sure the world would never come as close to the brink again.
No one would ever accuse President Kennedy of naïve pacifism. In 1961, he went to Congress three times to ask for military funding, and the result was an extraordinary increase in production—from ten Polaris submarines a year to twenty, a 50 percent increase in Strategic Air Command bombers on alert, a thousand new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-tipped, with bombs eighty times more lethal than the one dropped on Hiroshima. All told, he increased U.S. defense spending 14 percent in 1961 alone, and that was after President Eisenhower warned of a military-industrial complex. To an extent, this was the fulfillment of a campaign promise to close the so-called missile gap, and to increase the security of the United States.
But Kennedy also felt an instinctive abhorrence of nuclear weapons and the complacent strategic thinking they encouraged. He was concerned by the quickness with which his military advisors went to the final option in their scenarios, dropping a nuclear weapon on a large Communist army they could not defeat by other means. On September 13, 1961, he was presented with the defense plan of last resort, “a massive, total, comprehensive obliterating strategic attack … on everything Red.” Within fifteen minutes of his command, missiles and bombers would be flying toward 3,729 targets in Russia and China.
On October 28, 1962, the day the crisis ended, Khrushchev had written, “We should like to continue the exchange of views on the prohibition of atomic and thermonuclear weapons, general disarmament, and other problems relating to the relaxation of international tension.” Kennedy now took steps to return to their earlier, better aspirations. If it was not possible to rid the world of nuclear weapons, then they could at least prevent the testing of weapons in the earth’s atmosphere, underwater, and in space.
Khrushchev had actually proposed a test ban years earlier, in 1955, as scientists began to discover the lethal effects of radioactive fallout. Kennedy had also voiced support in the 1950s, as a young senator frustrated by the Eisenhower administration’s rigid dependence on its nuclear arsenal. But the volatility of Cold War tensions had led to continued testing, including by the United States, which resumed tests, in response to Soviet testing, in April 1962. With the solidarity of Prime Minister Macmillan, a new dialogue began that began to pay dividends over the spring of 1963. In March, Kennedy said, “I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be ten nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, fifteen or twenty.” In June, Kennedy gave a speech at American University that revealed how profoundly his thinking had evolved from the brinksmanship of October 1962, and invited the Russians to join him in a renewed quest for a test ban. Khrushchev, who had evolved in his own way, did not miss the opportunity. The three powers met under improved conditions in July 1963, and signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on August 5, which was then ratified by the U.S. Senate on September 24. On October 10, it went into effect. Within a year, much had changed. Nine days later, reflecting on the first anniversary of the crisis, Kennedy spoke at the University of Maine and urged his listeners, “Let us resolve to be the masters, not the victims, of our history.”
MEETING ABOUT DEFENSE BUDGET, DECEMBER 5, 19
62
This short excerpt reveals Kennedy thinking expansively about the logic of a nuclear attack on an adversary certain to retaliate, or, in the parlance of the day, Mutually Assured Destruction. Clearly, he is tending toward a new strategic vision.
JFK: The other question is, the, we didn’t talk about our strategic so much, whether we’re, if our purpose of our strategic buildup is to deter the Russians, number one, and number two, to attack them if it looks like they are about to attack us, or to make, be able to, lessen the impact they would have on us, in an attack. I think, they concentrate on our cities, we can’t be sure enough of their targets, or they may be hard, or they may have submarines, or we can’t acceptably carry out a first strike without taking, as I understood the secretary’s position, an inordinate amount of damage.
If our point really then is to deter them, it seems to me that we’re getting an awful lot of the Polaris submarines and planes that we have, and the navy’s strategic force, and the ballistic missiles we have, an awful lot of megatonnage put on the Soviets sufficient to deter them from ever using nuclear weapons.
However, unless we accept … otherwise, what good are they? I don’t know, you can’t use them as a first weapon yourself. They’re only good for deterring, and if they attack us, if we fail to deter them, and they attack us, then it’s just, just destroy them, out of, fulfill your part of the contract, just drop it on their cities, and destroy them … Russians. I don’t quite see why we’re building as many as we’re building.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY ABOARD THE USS OBSERVATION ISLAND, AUTHORIZING THE LAUNCH OF A POLARIS MISSILE, NOVEMBER 16, 1963
MEETING WITH NORMAN COUSINS, APRIL 22, 1963
The Kennedy tapes reveal a surprising diversity of conversationalists, and now and then President Kennedy would welcome in iconoclastic thinkers to offer viewpoints from beyond the Beltway. The journalist Norman Cousins (1915–1990) fit that description well; as the editor of the widely read Saturday Review, he dispensed opinions on a broad range of topics. But one was paramount: since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima he had been a leading advocate for nuclear disarmament, and in the early 1960s, his advocacy climbed to a higher level as he brought personal messages between the Kremlin and the White House. He also consulted the Vatican extensively, a fact of consequence in the spring of 1963, as Pope John XXIII drew up his final encyclical, Pacem in Terris, calling for peace, human rights, and the calming of the nuclear terror. In a long meeting on April 22, 1963, he told President Kennedy in great detail about his recent visit to see Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha, including gossipy stories of badminton and badinage with the Soviet leader. They also spoke about the world picture, and the deepening involvement of the United States in Southeast Asia. Kennedy indicated a desire to extricate, and a refusal to become trapped in a protracted war (“we’re not going to do that”), but also signaled a desire to adhere to the Geneva Accords, and to maintain some form of support for South Vietnam.
JFK: What about … it’s really sort of ironical to go through these experiences, talking to both of us. [unclear] Especially when I’m sure when he’s dealing with the Chinese, who are hopeless, and I’m dealing with [unclear] and Nixon, and the rest of these people, who are almost hopeless.
COUSINS: The political situation is somewhat the same, it’s interesting.
JFK: Agreed. He does seem to feel he has a complaint; I don’t think he has one, but he thinks he does, and that’s the important thing, not whether I do. But it seems to me when we came down, the Senate had indicated that we might even go down to six,1 perhaps even five, it wasn’t, wouldn’t have been a hell of a concession for him to go up to. Unless he’s in very much more trouble than I am. I don’t think probably it would get by the Senate anyway, even with six, but at least I wouldn’t mind making the struggle, as I said to you before. But his control must be very limited if he can’t go from three to five.
COUSINS: As I say, on a personal level, having had the men on the council say, well, Nikita, you made a fool of yourself again. Again, it personalizes the situation.
JFK: That’s what happens. Well we have been subjected to the last few months, to the charge that we are constantly lowering our, I mean Nixon said it most recently, but it happens every week, that we are appeasing the Soviets. I know he must dismiss all that, but it’s of some importance over here.
CALL TO PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN, JULY 26, 1963
On July 26, the day that President Kennedy addressed the nation on national television about the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, just concluded in principle the day before, this friendly call between two presidents reveals the close camaraderie that Kennedy and Truman now shared in the summer of 1963. Truman felt sufficient closeness to his successor (who had gone to some lengths to cultivate his goodwill, inviting him to the White House for ceremonial occasions) that he offers to support Kennedy with public statements in favor of the test ban.
JFK: Hello.
TRUMAN: Mr. President.
JFK: How are you?
TRUMAN: Well, I’m all right, and I want to congratulate you on that treaty.
JFK: Well, I think Averell Harriman did a good job and I think it protects our interests without, but on the other hand, maybe it’s going to help.
TRUMAN: I do, too, and I’m writing you a personal confidential letter about certain paragraphs in it, which I know you’re familiar with, but I thought that’s what you’d want me to do.
JFK: Right. Right.
TRUMAN: But I’m in complete agreement with what it provides. My goodness, maybe we can save a total war with it.
JFK: Well, I think that’s the whole, I think that’s just to see where we go, and see what happens with China. I think that’s our …
TRUMAN: Well, and I’m congratulating you on getting that thing done. I think it’s a wonderful thing.
JFK: Well, I appreciate that very much, Mr. President, that’s very generous and I’m going to make a …
TRUMAN: I will send a special airmail letter from me, confirming what I’m saying to you now.
JFK: Good, fine. Well, I think that anything you say about it will be very helpful.
TRUMAN: Well, I’m not going to say anything publicly until you give me permission to do it.
JFK: Yeah, well, I think …
TRUMAN: I don’t like these fellows who quote the President on [unclear] occasions …
JFK: Well, no, but I tell you what. I’m going to make a speech tonight, then anytime you could say anything would be very helpful.
TRUMAN: I’ll be glad to do it.
JFK: Fine.
TRUMAN: I’m going to St. Louis tomorrow …
JFK: Yeah.
TRUMAN: … to the American Legion convention.
JFK: Yeah.
TRUMAN: Do you think that’s a good time?
JFK: I can’t imagine a better.
TRUMAN: I’ll make some statements on the subject, if it’s satisfactory with you, in connection with the letter which I’m sending you. You’ll get it in the morning.
JFK: That’d be very helpful.
TRUMAN: Well, I want to do it the way you want it.
JFK: Well, fine. Well, if you could say something tomorrow, I think that would really give us a lift.
TRUMAN: I’ll be glad to say it. I thought maybe, Sunday morning’s papers might be a good place to say it.
JFK: Oh, good. That’s fine, Mr. President. Well, you sound in good shape.
TRUMAN: All right. All right. The only trouble with me is that, the main difficulty I have is keeping the wife satisfied. [laughs]
JFK: [laughs] Well, that’s all right.
TRUMAN: Well, you know how that is. She’s very much afraid I’m going to hurt myself! Even though I’m not. She’s a tough bird. But I want to do whatever will be helpful to you.
JFK: Well, that’s fine, I think anything you can say tomorrow would be very good.
TRUMAN: All right.
JFK: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
This short but revealing excerpt came from a meeting between President Kennedy and four scientists that took place in the Cabinet Room on July 31, 1963. Kennedy expresses optimism that the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty could lead to a larger détente with the Soviet Union. He also conveys some concern that other nations who are not parties to the treaty (such as China) will conduct their own tests, forcing the United States to respond.2
JFK: Well I want to, just want to, say a word or two about this treaty and about how we ought to function under it and what we expect from it and what we don’t expect from it. There are a good many theories as to why the Soviet Union is willing to try this.
I don’t think anybody can say with any precision, but there isn’t any doubt that the dispute with China is certainly a factor, I think their domestic, internal economic problems are a factor. I think that they may feel that [events?] in the world are moving in their direction and over a period of time they … there are enough contradictions in the free world that they would be successful and they don’t want to … they want to avoid a nuclear struggle or that they want to lessen the chances of conflict with us.
[Whatever?] the arguments are, we have felt that we ought to try to, if it does represent a possibility of avoiding the kind of collision that we had last fall in Cuba, which was quite close, and Berlin in 1961, we should seize the chance. We felt that we’ve minimized the risks, our detection system is pretty good, and in addition to doing underground testing, which we will continue, therefore, and we have a withdrawal clause.
And it may be that the Chinese test in the next year, eighteen months, two years, and we would then make the judgment to see if we should go back to testing. As I understood it, we’re not going to test till 1964 anyway, in the atmosphere, so this gives us a year to, at least a year and a half, to explore the possibility of a détente with the Soviet Union—which may not come to anything but which quite possibly could come to something.