How about Governor Barnett in Mississippi? Was he mad then or was he more—I suppose he was less—he felt betrayed by Blough. He had no reason, I guess, to expect Barnett to act differently from the way he did.47
Well, you see, Barnett—it was just so hopeless. And you knew the man was an inferior, welshing person to begin with. There was never rage there, it was—oh, I don't know, just hopeless. And you know what I can remember? I was in Newport in bed and he called me—it was that night—and at five o'clock in the morning, the phone rang and I guess he'd just gone back to the White House after staying up all night and, you know, I was so touched that he called me because he just wanted to talk, and he'd said, "Oh, my God!" You wouldn't realize what it had been like and I guess when, you know, the tear gas started to run out and the troops that were meant to get there in an hour were still four hours away. And I guess that was just one of the worst nights of his whole life.
Was the civil rights thing something he talked much about?
You know, it was over such a long period of time, and there were always—all the Barnetts and then the Wallaces,48 and I mean one sort of awful problem after another, and first thinking that Little Rock had been so badly handled, I guess he thought, and then you see him presented with an almost worse Little Rock49—Oxford and—oh, yeah, and then with—
What did he think of the Negro leaders? Martin Luther King, for example? Did he ever mention—
Well, I don't think—I don't know what he—well, I do know what he thought of him later. Well, he said what an incredible speaker he was during that freedom march thing and—and he acknowledged that having made that call during the campaign got them—Then he told me of a tape that the FBI had of Martin Luther King when he was here for the freedom march. And he said this with no bitterness or anything, how he was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel, and everything.50
Martin Luther King?
Oh, yeah. At first he said, oh, well, you know—and I said, "Oh, but Jack, that's so terrible. I mean, that man is, you know, such a phony then." No, this wasn't—this was when it was just one girl, they had the conversation. And Jack said, "Oh, well"—you know, he would never judge anyone in any sort of way—oh, well, you know—he never really said anything against Martin Luther King. Since then, Bobby's told me of the tapes of these orgies they have and how Martin Luther King made fun of Jack's funeral.
Oh no.
He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and said that he was drunk at it. And things about they almost dropped the coffin and—well, I mean Martin Luther King is really a tricky person. But I wouldn't know—he never said anything against Martin Luther King to me, so I don't know. Bobby would be the one to find out what he ever really thought of him in that way. But Bobby told me later. I just can't see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man's terrible. I know at the time of the freedom march when they all came in his office, well, he was always—I think he was touched by Philip Randolph.51
Philip Randolph's very impressive. He's an older man and has great dignity.
Yeah, and all that and he was very worried about that freedom march. It turned out all right, I guess.
Worried that it might lead to violence?
Well, yes, everyone was worried, weren't they? And—but you know, civil rights just—well, that was just something that was always there, wasn't it? And then I remember he got mad at—When we were in Texas in November, he was mad to me about Lyndon because he said, "Lyndon's trying so hard to show everyone that he's a real liberal." That he'd done something down there and made some speech which had just caused infinitely more trouble, and then got all the South mad or something and then Lyndon was trying to make the—I don't know who—like him. The northern liberals, I guess. And he said, "If he'd just, you know, not tried so hard to do what was best for Lyndon Johnson, I mean, this whole problem would have been made so much easier." But I forget exactly which speech that was. You could find that out.52
The—one of the other things in the autumn of 1962, of course, there was a political campaign and there was also—the biggest thing was the Cuban Missile Crisis. How early were you—did you—were you told about the missiles?
I can't remember if people knew about missiles when Jack went away on that speaking trip. Did they?
They did, yeah.
Everybody knew?
No.
Just a few special people.
Yeah.
Was it ever in the papers then?
It had not—it was not in the papers. He went over the—the news arrived on a Tuesday and then the small—very small group knew. And he went away, remember, on the Thursday or Friday—on the Friday—and then came back on the Saturday, and then gave his speech on the Monday following.53
Well, I can't remember if I knew before, or if I—I'm sure I would have known if he was worried or something. But I can remember so well, I'd just gotten down to Glen Ora with the children and it was either—was it a Friday afternoon or Saturday afternoon?
Saturday afternoon.
Whenever he made up his mind to come back.
Saturday afternoon.
And you'd just sort of gotten there, and I was lying in the sun and it was so nice to be there, and this call came through from Jack and he said, "I'm coming back to Washington this afternoon. Why don't you come back there?" And there—you know, usually he would be coming down or I thought he'd be away for the weekend, or he would be coming down on a Saturday or I would have said, "Well, why don't you come down here?" or something. But there was just something funny in his voice and he never asked me to do—I mean, he knew that those weekends—and away from the tension of the White House—were so good for me, and he'd encourage you to do it. It was just so unlike him, having known you'd just gotten down there with two rather whiny children, who you'd have to wake up from their naps and get back. But I could tell from his voice something was wrong, so I didn't even ask. I said, sort of, "Why?" And he said, "Well, never mind. Why don't you just come back to Washington?" So you woke them up from their naps and we got back there, I suppose, around six or something. And then I guess he told me. I think that must have been when. But I just knew, whenever he asks, or I thought whenever you're married to someone and they ask something—yeah, that's the whole point of being married—you just must sense trouble in their voice and mustn't ask why. And so we came right back. And then, those days were—well, I forget how many there were—were they eleven, ten something? But from then on, it seemed there was no waking or sleeping, and I just don't know which day was which. But I know that Jack—oh, he'd said something—I know he told me right away and some people had said for their wives to go away and Mrs. Phyllis Dillon told me later that Douglas had taken her for a walk and told her what was happening, and suggested she go to Hobe Sound or somewhere. I don't know if she did or not. And I remember saying—well, I knew if anything happened, we'd all be evacuated to Camp David or something. And I don't know if he said anything about that to me. I don't think he—but I said, "Please don't send me away to Camp David"—you know, me and the children. "Please don't send me anywhere. If anything happens, we're all going to stay right here with you." And, you know—and I said, "Even if there's not room in the bomb shelter in the White House"—which I'd seen. I said, "Please, then I just want to be on the lawn when it happens—you know—but I just want to be with you, and I want to die with you, and the children do too—than live without you." So he said he—he wouldn't send me away. And he didn't really want to send me away, either.54
What was his mood when he told you?
Well, it wasn't—you know, it wasn't exactly sort of "sit down, I have something to tell you." It was so much going on and then the thing—and then as the time went on, it turned out—well, you know—oh, the awful fluke of a couple of days. Like one day, they took pictures and there was nothing there. Then the next day was foggy. And then McCone, when—McCone had just gotten marr
ied again and had gone off on a honeymoon. Well, now that was one of the real problems. Then he'd stopped—all—there was something rather tricky there that, him being out of town on his honeymoon, didn't order another flight or didn't something, so you would have known a couple of days sooner.55 There's something there where McCone, who was—I don't know whether to blame McCone—I mean, he could have postponed his honeymoon a bit, or whether it was just a hapless accident, but that was responsible for a delay. And then when those pictures came through and they knew then. Well then, as I say, there was no day or night because I can remember one night, Jack was lying on his bed in his room, and it was really late, and I came in in my nightgown. I thought he was talking on the phone. I'd been in and out of there all evening. And suddenly, I saw him waving me away—Get out, get out!—I'd already run over to his bed, and it was because Bundy was in the room. And poor Puritan Bundy, to see a woman running in in her nightgown! He threw both hands over his eyes. And he was talking on another phone to someone. Well, then I got out of the room and waited for Jack in my room, and whether he came to bed at two, three, four, I don't know. And then another night, I remember Bundy at the foot of both of our beds, you know, waking Jack up for something. And Jack would go into his own room and then talk on the phone maybe until, say, from five to six to seven. And then he might come back and sleep for two hours and go to his office, or—as I say, there was no day or night. And, well, that's the time I've been the closest to him, and I never left the house or saw the children, and when he came home, if it was for sleep or for a nap, I would sleep with him. And I'd walk by his office all the time, and sometimes he would take me out—it was funny—for a walk around the lawn, a couple of times. You know, he didn't very often do that. We just sort of walked quietly, then go back in. It was just this vigil. And then I remember another morning—it must have been a weekend morning—when all—there was a meeting in the Oval Room and everybody had come in one car so that the press wouldn't get suspicious. And Bobby came in in a convertible and riding clothes. And so, you know, and I was there—so—and then I went in the Treaty Room, where I—well, just to fiddle through some mail or something, but I could hear them talking through the door. And I went up and listened and eavesdropped. And I guess that was at a rather vital time, because I could hear McNamara saying something, "I think we should do this, that, this, that." No—McNamara summing up something and then Gilpatric giving some summary and then a lot of ques—and then I thought, well, I mustn't listen, and I went away.
Did the President comment at all on the question of whether there should be a raid to knock the bases out or blockade or what? I mean, you mentioned Mac Bundy's—
Well, that I all knew later and that was never told to me until much, much later. And the thing was—no, at the time, you know, at the time he—well, it was just so—he really wasn't sort of asking me. But then I remember he did tell me about this crazy telegram that came through from Khrushchev one night. Very warlike. I guess he'd sent the nice one first where he looked like he would—Khrushchev had—where he might dismantle, and then this crazy one came through in the middle of the night. Well, I remember Jack being really upset about that and telling me and then deciding that they would just answer the first, and being in on that.56 I also remember him telling me about Gromyko, which was very early in it.
Oh, yes.
How he'd seen Gromyko and he talked to him and everything they'd said and that he really wanted to put Gromyko on the line of just lying to him and never giving anything away. And I said, "How could you keep a straight face?" or "How could you not say, You rat!' sitting there?" And he said, "What, and tip our whole hand?" So he described that to me. And then I remember another thing which—the man that Roger Hilsman wrote me a letter about just this winter—but how one of the worst days of it all, the last day, suddenly some U-2 plane got loose over Alaska or something?57
Violated Soviet airspace.
Yeah, but some awful thing. Oh, my God, you know, then the Russians might have thought we were sending it in, and that could have just been awful. I remember him telling me about that. And then I remember when the blockade—oh, and then I remember hearing how Anderson at the Pentagon was mad at McNamara, wouldn't let—I don't know if that was afterwards or before—but all that thing.58 And then I remember just waiting with that blockade. The only thing I can think of what it was like, it was like an election night waiting, but much worse. But one ship was coming and some big fat freighter had turned back, but it didn't have anything but oil on it anyway—and all these ships cruising forward. And I remember being—hearing that the Joseph P. Kennedy59 was there and saying to Jack, "Did you send it?" or something. And he said, "No, isn't that strange?"—you know, and just remembering, and then finally, some ship turned back or was boarded or something, and then that was when you heaved the first relief, wasn't it? And I can't remember—the day finally when it was over and saying to me—and Bundy saying to me either then or later, that if it had just gone on maybe two more days, everybody really would have cracked, because all those men had been awake night and day. Taz Shepard60 in the Situation Room or something. I remember I had something to ask him once and they said, "You can't." He's been—day and night, you know, everyone. And you just thought—and then I wrote a letter to McNamara afterwards, which I showed to Jack. But I remember everyone had worked to the peak of human endurance.
Did the President show fatigue?
Well, as the days went on, yes. But he always—you didn't worry about him and fatigue because you'd seen him driving himself so much all his life—I mean, through some awful campaign and the day that you're bone tired, getting up at five to be at a factory gate and still—So you knew he always would have some hidden reserve to draw on. But, oh, boy, toward the end—you always think—I always think that if you're told how much longer you have to go on, you can always make it. But the awful thing with then was you didn't know. And finally, when it was over, I mean, I don't know how many days or weeks later it was, but he thought of giving that calendar to everyone. And he worked it out so carefully himself.61
AFTER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, PRESIDENT KENNEDY GAVE CALENDARS TO MEMBERS OF HIS INNER CIRCLE. HE PRESENTED HIS WIFE WITH THIS CALENDAR, SEEN HERE ON HER DESK IN THE WHITE HOUSE FAMILY QUARTERS
Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
What about—
And then it was a surprise. I didn't—I was so surprised when I got one because he told me he wanted to do it so he said, you know, "Ask Tish or Tiffany," or something. So I told her and then when they came, I was so surprised that I had one and I burst out crying.
Well, what about Stevenson and the UN side of it?
I don't remember any of that at the time. I just remember when the article by Charlie Bartlett or something came out later. And—I don't know how much later that was.
Was it in—about six weeks later was it? In early December—Charlie Bartlett and Stewart Alsop.
So then I remember the discussion then. I don't think Jack ever said anything at the time or—Oh, didn't Lyndon just come to one of those meetings? And then to none of the others? I think he came either to the one at the end or the one at the beginning. If he came at the one at the beginning, he didn't want to get involved with everything that was going on, or what I think is more like it, he came at the one at the end and didn't want to give any opinion. As usual, he just didn't want to get put on position anywhere.
Yeah.
And he could have come to all those meetings too, and he didn't come to one. I don't know what he was doing. Then there was something with Chester Bowles too, or was that earlier?
No, that was the first—that was the earlier Cuba.
That's right.
Chester was in India.62
And Bobby said—I remember the first one, Bobby said to him—
No, Chester wasn't in India but he wasn't involved in this. No, this is the first Cuba that he was involved in.
Tha
t's right. And where he was going to say that he didn't disagree—that he didn't agree, and Bobby said, "Everyone who leaves this room agrees," or something.63 But I don't know.
Did the President have any particular reactions to Charlie's piece?64
Oh, yes. That was awful, wasn't it? It was awful with Adlai and this and that, and I think—it's all so involved now, but I think, wasn't Charlie's piece right?
Not really, no. I mean, everybody had taken a whole series of positions on this and various people at various times had taken various positions and various things had been suggested that, as you mention the case of Mac, who was both—you know, one time he was a hawk and another time he was a dove. And the thing was, there—two viewpoints existed, but I think, at one time or another, nearly everyone around that table had—took one or another of the viewpoints. It much oversimplified the—
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