Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy

by Ted Widmer

  Obviously if we could understand the Soviet Union and the Chinese to a degree, it would be in our interest. But I don’t think we, I don’t think that we, knowing all the concern that a good many scientists have felt with the comprehensive test ban, that the detection system is not good enough and that we, which would make our laboratories sterile, it seems to me that we’ve avoided most of that. I know there’s some problem about outer space, maybe some problem about other detection, but I think generally we can keep the laboratories, I would think, growing at a pretty good force, underground testing which we will pursue as scheduled. And we will see what our situation looks like as the Chinese come close to developing a bomb.

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY SIGNS THE LIMITED NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY, OCTOBER 7, 1963

  In addition, our detection systems will make it possible for us to determine if the Soviet Union has made any particular breakthroughs which result in their deploying anti-missile systems—which we’ve got to expect we can or will do and there’s no evidence that they [have?], which might change the strategic balance, and therefore might cause us to test again. We can prepare Johnston Island3 so that we can move ahead in a relatively short time. So I don’t think, I’m not sure we’re taking, I think we’re, the risks are well in hand and I would think in the next twelve months, eighteen months, two years a lot of things may happen in the world and we may decide to start to test again, but if we do, at least we made this effort.

  That’s the reason, those are the reasons I want to do this. I know Dr. Teller4 and others are concerned and feel we ought to be going ahead, and [that said?], time may prove that’s the wisest course, but I don’t think in the summer of 1963, given the kind of agreement we’ve got, given the withdrawal features we have, given the underground testing program we’re going to carry out, it seems to me that this is the thing for us to do.

  MEETING WITH SENATOR HENRY “SCOOP” JACKSON, SEPTEMBER 9, 1963

  The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed with fanfare on August 5, 1963, in Moscow. But President Kennedy still faced a battle at home as he sought Senate confirmation. From August until late September, he reached out to the essential senators. Early in the day on September 9, 1963, he met with the majority and minority leaders, Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) and Everett Dirksen (R-Illinois), both supporters, to discuss the opposition they still confronted. Later the same day, he sat down with Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Washington) for a long conversation that, like so many, took on the world. Jackson, a leading military thinker in the Senate, conveyed with great precision his anxieties about the advantages and disadvantages the treaty would bring. Kennedy countered with eloquent statements of the calming effect that a working treaty would have on a Cold War that had become dangerously hot during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their extended conversation also touched on Vietnam, where Jackson already had strong reservations, despite his generally hawkish stance. Kennedy confessed the delicacy of his position as a Democratic president trying to launch peaceful initiatives when critics like Richard Nixon and others on the right were attacking most of his positions (“you’ll find there’s a hell of a vested interest in proving any Democratic president to be wrong or soft on Communism”). This long and lucid conversation spoke well for the consultative relationship between the Senate and the presidency, designed by the founding fathers.

  JFK: The other thing is, I don’t think we should apologize to anybody …

  JACKSON: I’m not apologizing to anyone.

  JFK: But it seems to me we do have a story to tell about what we’ve done in the field of defense. The fact is the B-47 would have been out, it might as well have burned under the previous administration, there wouldn’t have been any B-47, we’re the ones who continued, after the Berlin Crisis …

  JACKSON: I agree, that’s why I want to see, if [unclear]. This is what I’m concerned about. I think anyone who is honest with you will tell you that we’ve taken unjustified criticism. Here we’ve had this big buildup, yet the big issue continues to be, I think in this coming campaign, outside of the problem of Civil Rights and so on, the international and national security.

  JFK: We came in here and we had two problems, on January 19, when we had a meeting in there, and Eisenhower and Levinson and everybody recommended that we intervene militarily in Laos. And in the summer, we had a …

  JACKSON: And Berlin was under maximum threat.

  JFK: The fact of the matter is Berlin has never been more secure than it now is, we still kept Laos, we are, if—would improve their public relations, we’re really doing well in that war there, I’ve been reading a report from Hartkinson [?] and Krulak, who have just been out there. So I think we’re good [?] for all the problems in the world, we’re good for the economy, Cuba remains a tough one, but I mean, Christ, we were given that.

  JACKSON: Well, I think the criticism we’re going to be up against is whether we have the will to use our power, and how far we will do it.

  JFK: We made that very clear in two ways. First, in 1961, over Berlin, when we got an ultimatum from Khrushchev, which he had to eat. And the second was last October, in the case of Cuba, when I think we can make the argument, that we’re prepared to, on those occasions … The fact of the matter is that Khrushchev said in June, in Vienna, that by December he was going to sign a peace treaty, and that any American forces that moved across East Germany would be guilty of an act of war. Well, he had to eat it, after we increased our defense budget.

  JACKSON: He can eat an awful lot of crap.

  JFK: I know. They’re going to make that charge, we’ve made that charge against them. But I mean, I think we have an answer.

  JACKSON: But we still might have to intervene in Laos. I went out there for ten days in Vietnam, went on a couple of missions, watched that operation, and if they play at all smart, all they have to do is take Laos, and completely outflank South Vietnam. I think, you have to, from a strategic point of view, hold that area along the Mekong, that’s about two-thirds of Laos …

  JFK: That’s a hell of a place to intervene.

  JACKSON: I know, but if they play it smart, where the hell are we? We just keep pouring a million bucks a day into South Vietnam.

  JFK: I agree, I think that’s why we’ve always felt we would have to indicate to them that we would intervene along the Mekong, we can’t get anybody else to intervene.

  JACKSON: No, I say, it’s a rough one, but I don’t think it’s over with.

  JFK: I think it is.

  JACKSON: The Chinese and Russians.

  JFK: But I’d think twice about Laos, even though we’ve both threatened to, and I think it’s been the reason they haven’t taken all of Laos, because they think we might.

  JACKSON: Well, do it after election.

  JFK: Well, all I want to say, Scoop, was that I think it’d make a hell of a difference in this debate, and I think that having gone this far, having signed this, if we get beaten on it I think we’d find ourselves in a much worse position than we would’ve been if we hadn’t brought it up. Now my guess is, the Chinese Communists may explode a bomb in three years, and we may then decide we do the testing. But at least …

  JACKSON: Sooner than that.

  JFK: Maybe a year, eighteen months. I’m not saying, I’ve never thought this treaty was for good or for long, but I think that as a political effort at this time, we wouldn’t be testing anyway until ’64, and I think that over the next eighteen months it could be of some significance to us.

  JACKSON: Well, again, I think it depends on our will. What we’re really doing is reinstituting the moratorium, we hope with our eyes wide open this time.

  JFK: Except we have underground testing.

  JACKSON: Well, I say, it’s one addition.

  JFK: [unclear]

  JACKSON: Yeah. I think actually they could do more by extrapolation and by various simulated types of tests in addition to actual fairly high-yield underground tests. The great problem, as you know, is the question of what they have found beyond th
e obvious black capabilities of high-yield nuclear tests. There’s a whole field of new scientific phenomena that no one seems to know the answer, and I’ll be honest with you, if I go along on the treaty, if I do on it, I hope I can, I’m going to try to decide tomorrow, on it, it seems to me we’re going to spend more on delivery systems, because we’re going to have to offset the qualitative advantage that they have in high-yield with more delivery systems, to compensate for the advantage we have quantitatively in weapons, I mean in warheads. And I think it’s going to cost more to test underground, it’s going to run into more money, so this isn’t going to cost less, it’s going to cost more, that’s my own analysis.

  JFK: Yeah, I think there will be some great cost.

  JACKSON: We’re going to have to pay a price for secrecy. That’s a hell of a weapon in their arsenal.

  JFK: We can watch pretty well what they do.

  JACKSON: Well, the only thing, I agree, but the question is, what have they learned, that we really don’t know about.

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY INSPECTING THE “FRIENDSHIP 7” MERCURY CAPSULE WITH COLONEL JOHN GLENN, CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA, FEBRUARY 23, 1962

  The Cold War was fought in all of the theaters of the world, including one that was extraterrestrial. Outer space was clearly of the utmost importance to a presidency that embraced the future, technology, and the imperative of responding to all foreign challenges. The first Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, had flown into space early in the Kennedy administration, on April 12, 1961. That impressive achievement only deepened the resolve of the new administration to forge an achievement of its own in this very new frontier. Accordingly, Kennedy put enormous pressure on government scientists to equal and exceed the Russians. The lead administrator of NASA, James Webb, was an outspoken public servant who often chafed under this pressure, but who also reciprocated Kennedy’s enthusiasm and driving interest. In these two excerpts, President Kennedy and Webb enjoy a spirited exchange about the possibilities opened up by space exploration.

  MEETING WITH JAMES WEBB, JEROME WIESNER, AND ROBERT SEAMANS, NOVEMBER 21, 1962

  JFK: Do you put this program … Do you think this program is the top priority program of the agency?

  WEBB:1 No sir, I do not. I think it is one of the top priority programs, but I think it’s very important to recognize here that as you have found what you could do with the rocket, as you found how you could get out beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and into space and make measurements, several scientific disciplines that are very powerful have begun to converge on this area.

  JFK: Jim, I think it is a top priority. I think we ought to have that very clear. You, some of these other programs can slip six months or nine months and nothing particularly is going to happen that’s going to make it. But this is important for political reasons, international political reasons, and for, this is, whether we like it or not, a race. If we get second to the moon, it’s nice, but it’s like being second anytime. So that, if you’re second by six months because you didn’t give it the kind of priority, then, of course, that would be very serious. So I think we have to take the view this is the top priority.

  WEBB: But the environment of space is where you are going to operate the Apollo and where you are going to do the landing.

  JFK: Look, I know all these other things and the satellite and the communications and weather and all, they’re desirable, but they can wait.

  WEBB: I’m not putting those … I am talking now about the scientific program to understand the space environment within which you got to fly Apollo and make a landing on the moon.

  JFK: Wait a minute—is that saying that the lunar program to land the man on the moon is the top priority of the Agency, is it?

  UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And the science that goes with it …

  ROBERT SEAMANS:2 Well, yes, if you add that, the science that is necessary …

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY WITH NASA ADMINISTRATOR JAMES WEBB, JANUARY 30, 1961

  JFK: The science … Going to the moon is the top priority project. Now, there are a lot of related scientific information and developments that will come from that which are important. But the whole thrust of the Agency, in my opinion, is the lunar program. The rest of it can wait six or nine months.

  WEBB: Well, the trouble … Jerry is holding up his hand … Let me say one thing, then maybe you want to [unclear]. The thing that troubles me here about making such a flat statement as that is, number one, there are real unknowns as to whether man can live under the weightless condition and you’d ever make the lunar landing. This is one kind of political vulnerability I’d like to avoid such a flat commitment to. If you say you failed on your number-one priority, this is something to think about. Now, the second point is that as we can go out and make measurements in space by being physically able to get there, the scientific work feeds the technology and the engineers begin to make better spacecraft. That gives you better instruments and a better chance to go out to learn more. Now right now, all through our universities, some of the brilliant able scientists are recognizing this and beginning to get into this area, and you are generating here on a national basis an intellectual effort of the highest order of magnitude that I’ve seen develop in this country in the years I’ve been fooling around with national policy. Now, to them, there is a real question. The people that are going to furnish the brainwork, the real brainwork, on which the future space power of this nation for twenty-five or a hundred years are going be to made, have got some doubts about it and …

  JFK: Doubts about what?

  WEBB: As to whether the actual landing on the moon is what you call the highest priority.

  JFK: What do they think is the highest priority?

  WEBB: They think the highest priority is to understand the environment and … and the areas of the laws of nature that operate out there as they apply backwards into space. You can say it this way, I think. Jerry ought to talk on this rather than me, but the scientists in the nuclear field have penetrated right into the most minute areas of the nucleus and the subparticles of the nucleus. Now here, out in the universe, you’ve got the same general kind of a structure, but you can do it on a massive universal scale.

  JFK: I agree that we’re interested in this, but we can wait six months on all of it.

  WEBB: But you have to use that information to do these things.

  JFK: I see what you’re saying, yeah, but only when that information directly applies to the program. Jim, I think we’ve got to have that.

  MEMO FROM PRESIDENT KENNEDY TO VICE PRESIDENT JOHNSON REGARDING THE SPACE PROGRAM, APRIL 20, 1961

  WIESNER:3 Mr. President, I don’t think Jim understands some of the scientific problems that are associated with landing on the moon, and this is what Dave Bell was trying to say and what I’m trying to say. We don’t know a damn thing about the surface of the moon, and we’re making the wildest guesses about how we’re going to land on the moon, and we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the moon that’s very different than we think it is, and the scientific programs that find us that information have to have the highest priority. But they are associated with the lunar program. The scientific programs that aren’t associated with the lunar program can have any priority we are pleased to give them.

  UNKNOWN: That’s consistent with what the President was saying.

  SEAMANS: Yeah. Could I just say that I agree with what you say, Jerry, that we must gather a wide variety of scientific data in order to carry out the lunar mission. For example, we must know what conditions we’ll find on the lunar surface. That’s the reason that we are proceeding with Centaur in order to get the Surveyor unmanned spacecraft to the moon in time that it could affect the design of the Apollo.

  JFK: Yeah. The only thing is I would certainly not favor spending six or seven billion dollars to find out about space. Why are we spending seven million dollars on getting fresh water from salt water, when we’re spending seven billion dollars finding out about space? So obviou
sly, you wouldn’t put it on that priority because, except for the defense implications behind that, and the second point is the fact that the Soviet Union has made this a test of the system. So that’s why we’re doing it. So I think we’ve got to take the view that this is the key program, the rest of it we can find out about, but there’s a lot of things we want to find out about, cancer and everything else.

  WEBB: But you see, when you talk about this, it’s very hard to draw a line with what, between what …

  JFK: Everything that we do ought to really be tied in to getting onto the moon ahead of the Russians.

  WEBB: Why can’t it be tied to preeminence in space, which are your own words?

  JFK: Because, by God, we’ve been telling everyone we’re preeminent in space for five years, and nobody believes it because they have the booster and the satellite. We know all about the number of satellites we put up, two or three times the number of the Soviet Union … we’re ahead scientifically. It’s like that instrument you’ve got at Stanford which is costing us a hundred and twenty-five million dollars and everybody tells me that we’re the number one in the world. And what is it? I can’t think what it is.

  MANY VOICES: The linear accelerator.

  JFK: That’s wonderful, but nobody knows anything about it!

  WEBB: Let me say it slightly different. The advanced Saturn is eighty-five times as powerful as the Atlas. Now we are building a tremendous giant rocket with an index number of eighty-five if you give me Atlas one. Now, the Russians have had a booster that’ll lift fourteen thousand pounds into orbit. They’ve been very efficient and capable in it. The kinds of things I’m talking about that give you preeminence in space are what permit you to make either that Russian booster or the advanced Saturn better than any other. A range of progress possible [unclear].