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

by Ted Widmer

  She was assisted once again by the talented team of Shubhani Sarkar, who brings an inspired sense of design to all her books, and Laura Klynstra, whose cover captures the spirit of this project. The hard production work behind the scenes was so capably done by Navorn Johnson, David Lott, Allyson Rudolph, and Linda Prather. Once again, Jill Sansone did a wonderful job on the audio, and Joan Lee, Maha Khalil, SallyAnne McCartin, and Mike Rotondo made sure this important history was available to the widest possible audience.

  —CAROLINE KENNEDY

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Ted Widmer is director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Widmer was a speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and he conducted the oral history project that accompanied President Clinton’s preparation for his memoir, My Life. A former contributing editor at George, Mr. Widmer has written many works on American history and contributes frequently to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The International Herald Tribune. He was educated at Harvard University.

  Caroline Kennedy is the author and editor of nine bestselling books on American history, politics, and poetry. She is active in the efforts to improve New York City’s public schools, and serves as president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

  PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate specific photographs, please follow the page number links provided.

  AP Images: 132

  Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images: 102–103

  Bill Hudson/AP Photo: 111

  Bettmann/Corbis: 274 (right)

  Elliot Erwitt/Magnum Photos: 284

  John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston: v, vi, vii, 19, 20, 21–22, 45, 59, 63 (photographer unknown), 148, 149, 162, 190, 191, 192, 193, 222, 231, 237, 238 (top and bottom), 239, 241, 249, 261, 274 (left), 278, 279 (top and bottom)

  Jacqueline Kennedy/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: 139

  Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston: ii, xix, 15, 25, 58–59, 97, 184–185, 199, 211, 227, 253, 267

  Abbie Rowe, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston: 52, 56, 61, 66, 109, 130–131, 169, 177, 195, 221, 244, 257

  Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston: xvii, 7, 29, 74, 75, 85, 100, 160–161, 168–169, 204–205, 217, 229, 288

  U.S. Department of Defense/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston: 135, 142–143, 187

  Library of Congress, Washington, DC: 170, 171, 172, 173

  Jacques Lowe: i

  Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images: 197

  Stanley Tretick/Look magazine: 247

  FOOTNOTES

  1. Jimmy Carter was the lone exception. After Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson escalated taping even further, recording as many as 9,300 telephone calls and 200 hours of meetings. Following Nixon’s resignation, there was a notable reluctance to record. Gerald Ford barely taped anything, and Jimmy Carter nothing at all. Ronald Reagan increased the use of videotaping, and videotaped small segments of meetings, but nothing on the order of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.

  2. Some excisions remain, for reasons relating to national security or deed of gift. In the former category, these reasons include sensitivity relating to ongoing military situations, intelligence matters, or any of the eight topical areas outlined in Executive Order 13526. Deed closures are determined by donors and are typically related to personal privacy. Both forms of restriction are reviewed to determine if the original reasons still hold.

  1. Maude Shaw was the nanny working for then-Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy.

  2. Hugh D. “Yusha” Auchincloss III (b. 1927), Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepbrother.

  3. Stanley Grafton Mortimer, Jr. (1913–1999), an heir to the Standard Oil fortune.

  4. Blenheim Palace, the magnificent seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, and the birthplace of Winston Churchill and Sarah Russell.

  5. Dennis Roberts (1903–1994) was governor of Rhode Island from 1951 to 1959.

  6. Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister, Lee, married three times. Her first husband was Michael Canfield; she then married Prince Stanislas Radziwill. Grace Dudley is Stas Radziwill’s former wife.

  7. Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965), Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1952 and 1956, former governor of Illinois and ambassador to the United Nations under President Kennedy.

  8. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902–1985) was a Republican U.S. senator, ambassador to the United Nations, and ambassador to South Vietnam during the last few months of the Kennedy administration. JFK defeated him in the 1952 Senate race, and they again ran against each other in 1960, when Lodge was the candidate for vice president with Richard Nixon. His grandfather, Henry Cabot Lodge, defeated John F. Kennedy’s grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, in the Senate campaign of 1916. Lodge also helped persuade General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in 1952.

  9. W. Averell Harriman (1891–1986) was a senior Democratic statesman from the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt onward, serving as ambassador to the Soviet Union (1943–1946) and to Great Britain (1946), secretary of commerce (1946–1948), and governor of New York (1955–1958). During the Kennedy administration, he was assistant secretary of state and closely advised President Kennedy on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union.

  10. Mike Mansfield (1903–2001) was a Democratic senator from Montana from 1953 to 1977, and the longest-serving Senate majority leader (1961–1977). John Sherman Cooper (1901–1991) was a Republican senator from Kentucky who served from 1946 to 1949, 1952 to 1955, and 1956 to 1973. Stuart Symington (1901–1988) was a Democratic senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976. Hubert Humphrey (1911–1978) was a Democratic senator from Minnesota (1949 to 1964, 1971 to 1978), vice president under Lyndon Johnson, and the Democratic candidate for president in 1968.

  11. Styles Bridges (1898–1961), Republican governor of New Hampshire (1935–1937) and long-term senator (1937–1961).

  12. Michael DiSalle (1908–1981) was Democratic governor of Ohio from 1959 to 1963.

  13. Johnny Unitas (1933–2002), legendary quarterback of the Baltimore Colts. The team had won the NFL championship in 1958 and 1959.

  14. JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969), received several political appointments; he was the first chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (1934–1935), and ambassador to the Court of Saint James (1938–1940). JFK’s paternal grandfather, P. J. Kennedy (1858–1929), was a longtime political boss in Boston Democratic circles, representing the East Boston neighborhood and serving in the upper and lower chambers of the Massachusetts legislature. JFK’s maternal grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald (1863–1950), or “Honey Fitz,” had a storied political career, serving as a congressman and as mayor of Boston. Joseph P. Kennedy’s cousin Charles Hickey was mayor of Brockton, Massachusetts.

  15. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (1915–1944).

  16. Lodge helped persuade Eisenhower to run in 1952 and served as his campaign manager.

  17. The conference to create the United Nations was held in San Francisco from April 25 to June 26, 1945; the British election pitted a Labour candidate, Clement Attlee, against the Conservative prime minister and wartime hero Winston Churchill, and resulted in Attlee’s surprising victory on July 26, 1945; the Potsdam Conference was held outside Berlin from July 16 to August 2, 1945, and attended by the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. JFK covered all three major episodes as a young newspaper correspondent and observer.

  18. James M. Curley (1874–1958) was a legendary four-term mayor of Boston and served as the inspiration for the character of Frank Skeffington in Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah. He also served in Congress and as governor of Massachusetts.

  19. This quotation, cited frequently enough by JFK to be nearly ascribed to him, was probably borrowed f
rom Dean Acheson, who in turn borrowed it from a 1923 book, Henry W. Nevinson’s Changes and Chances. Acheson gives it as “the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope.” See Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, p. 239. The quotation has also been attributed to Edith Hamilton, who cited it in her 1930 classic, The Greek Way.

  20. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act and monitored the activities of labor unions.

  21. The Battle Act, or Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act, of 1951 banned U.S. aid to countries doing business with the USSR. Its sponsor was Representative Laurie Battle of Alabama.

  22. These words are from William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, delivered on December 10, 1950.

  23. George Romney (1907–1995) was CEO of American Motors Corporation, governor of Michigan (1963–1969), and Republican candidate for president in 1968. His son, Mitt Romney (b. 1947), was governor of Massachusetts (2003–2007) and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate against Edward M. Kennedy in 1994. He became the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

  24. William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) was a legendary newspaper publisher, the originator of “yellow journalism,” and the inspiration for the lead character in the 1941 film Citizen Kane. He was also a Democratic member of Congress (1903–1907).

  25. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894–1971), first secretary of the Communist Party and thereby the political leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964.

  26. Lauris Norstad (1907–1988), air force general and commander in chief of the U.S. European Command.

  27. Lucius Clay (1897–1978), army general, military governor of the U.S. Zone in Germany (1947–1949), and advisor to President Kennedy on Berlin issues.

  28. Walter Bedell Smith (1895–1961), Eisenhower’s chief of staff during World War II, ambassador to the Soviet Union (1946–1948), and director of Central Intelligence (1950–1953).

  29. A popular nickname for Joseph Stalin.

  1. On November 7, 1962, following an unexpected loss in California’s gubernatorial election, Richard Nixon held a press conference in the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in which he excoriated the press, “so delighted that I have lost,” and announced, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” Ten years later to the day, he would win reelection to the presidency.

  2. Goodwin Knight (1896–1970) was governor of California (1953–1959).

  3. Thomas Kuchel (1910–1994) was a moderate Republican senator from California (1953–1969).

  4. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, b. 1938, is thirty-ninth governor of California (2011–present), after previously serving as the thirty-fourth (1975–1983). He was a candidate for the presidency in 1976, 1980, and 1992.

  5. Rowland Evans (1921–2001) was a conservative Washington-based columnist who worked extensively in both print and TV media. In 1963, he began writing “Inside Report” with his partner, Robert Novak.

  6. Everett Dirksen (1896–1969) was a Republican senator from Illinois (1951–1969) and Senate minority leader (1959–1969).

  7. Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979) was Republican governor of New York (1959–1973), vice president (1974–1977) under Gerald Ford, and a perennial possible candidate for the presidency.

  8. Edwin O. Guthman, RFK’s press secretary, and a former Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for the Seattle Times.

  9. A reporter who became the first nationally syndicated female columnist in 1945.

  10. John A. McCone was appointed director of Central Intelligence on November 29, 1961, succeeding Allen Dulles, who resigned in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster.

  11. Columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a prominent biographer.

  12. An air force tactical fighter plane program, inherited from the Eisenhower administration, that was plagued by a difficult bid process.

  13. John McClellan (1896–1977) was a long-serving representative of Arkansas as a member of the House of Representatives (1935–1939) and Senate (1943–1977). “Powerful and prickly,” in the words of Robert A. Caro, he fiercely defended the interests of his state as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and steered huge quantities of federal largesse toward the construction of dams, navigable rivers, and other improvements. He was also the long-term chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, which Lyndon Johnson once called “the key Democratic post in the whole Senate.” McClellan became widely known in the 1950s for his aggressive leadership of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which looked into the activities of those suspected of subversive activity, organized crime, labor rackets, and defense profiteering. In 1955, he hired Robert F. Kennedy as chief counsel to that committee.

  14. Abraham Ribicoff (1910–1998), secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (1961–1962) and senator from Connecticut (1963–1981).

  15. Anthony J. Celebrezze (1910–1998), mayor of Cleveland from 1953 to 1962; in 1962 he would accept appointment from President Kennedy as secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

  16. Christian Herter (1895–1966), a Republican congressman and governor (1953–1957) of Massachusetts, and secretary of state (1959–1961) under President Eisenhower.

  17. John Pastore (1907–2000), Democratic senator from Rhode Island from 1950 to 1976.

  18. George Smathers (1913–2007), Florida senator from 1951 to 1969, and a close friend of JFK’s.

  19. Daniel P. Loomis, president of the Association of American Railroads.

  20. Prominent Washington columnist.

  21. Roland Libonati (1900–1991) was a Democratic member of Congress from 1957 to 1965. He refused to vote the way Daley urged him to.

  1. Thomas Watkins was a Mississippi attorney and close confidant of Governor Barnett.

  2. James Meredith (b. 1933), an African-American seeking admission to the University of Mississippi, had been inspired to seek change by listening to President Kennedy’s inaugural address.

  3. Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor (1897–1973) was commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Alabama, and in charge of the city’s police and fire departments. A former member of the Ku Klux Klan, he had strong views about segregation and led a walkout of the Alabama delegation when the Democratic convention of 1948 added a civil rights plank to its platform.

  4. The Metropolitan Club is a prominent social organization in Washington, founded in 1863, with the goal of advancing “literary, mutual improvement and social purposes.” Its clubhouse is at 17th and H Streets, near the White House. The Metropolitan Club had had a policy of granting honorary membership to all ambassadors posted to Washington. But in the early 1960s when new African nations had been formed and were beginning to send their own ambassadors to Washington, the Metropolitan Club had discontinued the honorary membership policy. Several members of the Kennedy administration, including Robert F. Kennedy, had resigned their memberships in protest of the club’s segregation policies.

  5. John Seigenthaler (b. 1927), administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

  6. Burke Marshall (1922–2003), assistant attorney general for Civil Rights (1961–1964).

  7. On May 10, after days of turmoil, an agreement was reached between Birmingham authorities and Civil Rights leaders that promised greater hiring and reduced discrimination of African-Americans. The agreement, perceived as a triumph for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was brokered by Burke Marshall and Robert Kennedy.

  8. George Corley Wallace (1919–1998) was a Southern populist and segregationist who served four nonconsecutive terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979, and 1983–1987 as governor of Alabama.

  9. General Earle Wheeler (1908–1975), chief of staff of the army (1962–1964), and chairman of the Joint Chiefs (1964–1970).

  10. “Him” refers to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), the legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement. King had achieved national acclaim
in 1955, as the twenty-five-year-old pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, at the time of the protests against segregation launched by the refusal of Rosa Parks to sit in the back of a public bus. But in the eight years since, he had at times struggled to rediscover his voice. In 1957, he helped to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and in the spring of 1963, he was deeply involved in a campaign of civil disobedience against the racist authorities of Birmingham, Alabama. Known as Project C, this campaign combined sit-ins, marches, and other forms of resistance, including a “children’s crusade.” Incarcerated for his activities, King wrote his celebrated “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” on April 16, 1963. The first excerpts were published, without his permission, in the New York Post Sunday Magazine, on May 19, 1963, two days before this meeting. The full version was published in a variety of formats in the summer of 1963. King’s reemergence would culminate in the March on Washington, August 28, 1963.