Grace and Power

by Sally Bedell Smith

  On Sunday morning, October 28, Khrushchev accepted the terms of Kennedy’s letter. By doing so, the Soviet leader could claim, as McCone had pointed out the previous day, “I saved Cuba. I stopped an invasion.” “Today was the day of the doves,” said Bundy. While he and the others were jubilant, JFK presided over the Ex Comm meeting “without a trace of excitement or even exultation,” noted Sorensen. Kennedy’s strongest injunction was against public gloating of any sort. After lunch, Kennedy and Billings took the chopper to Glen Ora to join Jackie and the children for lunch.

  No one could explain Khrushchev’s retreat, although documents released in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union shed some light. The discovery of the missiles had taken Khrushchev by surprise, and he feared an American invasion of Cuba. When Kennedy responded instead with the more modest quarantine, a relieved Khrushchev rejected a proposal from Dobrynin that the Soviets retaliate by blockading Berlin—“fuel to the conflict,” in the Soviet premier’s words.

  Kennedy’s unanticipated firmness about removing all offensive weapons from Cuba, coupled with intelligence reports of heightened American military activity, ended up persuading Khrushchev to back away from a potential nuclear war. He was also influenced by the Lippmann column and the private overtures through Bolshakov, although Khrushchev blundered by demanding the Cuba-Turkey trade publicly. The secret deal may have been duplicitous, but it shrewdly allowed Khrushchev to eliminate an irritating problem in nearby Turkey.

  Negotiations over the withdrawal of Soviet weapons from Cuba took several weeks, and the blockade ended on November 20. A month later Khrushchev finally abandoned his efforts to dislodge the Allies from West Berlin. By the following April, the fifteen Jupiter missiles in Turkey were removed quietly. The Soviets kept the secret, and so did the nine American officials.

  Those out of the loop inadvertently diverted attention from the secret deal with their own accounts of the crisis. “When the crunch came . . . at the end of the week,” said Rostow in an oral history, Kennedy “firmly excluded using the Turkish bases for bargaining. . . . He was right.” In his memoirs, Harold Macmillan admits perplexity over the “mystery”: “Why did [Khrushchev] suddenly abandon the Turkey-Cuba deal?”

  Kennedy worked hard to ensure that the press had no glimmer of the swap. Time’s cover story on the missile crisis called Khrushchev’s negotiating ploy “a cynical piece of statesmanship.” Newsweek noted that politically a trade “would be hard to accept,” while acknowledging that the Polaris submarines were a more effective deterrent than the Jupiters. Several weeks later, Kennedy told Cy Sulzberger that Khrushchev “could not have thought of really getting us to dismantle Turkey,” adding that he “simply could not understand” the Lippmann column.

  But the most cunning piece of disinformation was in a Saturday Evening Post analysis of the crisis by Stewart Alsop and Charley Bartlett. On Monday the twenty-ninth, the day after Khrushchev caved, Bartlett told Kennedy of his plan to collaborate with Alsop. “It occurs to me,” Bartlett wrote, “that I could inject the warm feeling that [Alsop] tends to lack and hopefully avert the little hookers that he intends to include. . . . I feel strongly it should be written without involving you directly.”

  Kennedy encouraged Bartlett to proceed and gave the two journalists carte blanche for background briefings. The duo talked to everyone involved in the crisis deliberations except McNamara. “It obviously was going to entail conflict, and it was McNamara’s policy to stay out of instant history,” recalled Bartlett. “He didn’t want to get involved.” Their biggest nugget came during lunch with Mike Forrestal, a member of the National Security Council staff. “He gave us a story about Adlai Stevenson going soft,” said Bartlett. After checking with both Bobby and Jack, they decided to run with it.

  When they had finished their chronicle of the crisis, Bartlett and Alsop gave it first to Kennedy’s military aide Ted Clifton to check for accuracy. Clifton made no changes, “so I gave the manuscript to Jack,” Bartlett recalled, “and he wrote in some changes.” The article “had Kennedy’s prints all over it,” said Bartlett. Alsop wanted to keep the manuscript as a memento, but Bartlett “threw it in the fire at Stewart’s house to protect Kennedy.”

  Despite his secret role as an emissary to Bolshakov on the Cuba-Turkey trade, Bartlett was offended by Stevenson’s stance. “He was ready to give in,” Bartlett muttered to Katie Louchheim at a dinner party in late November. “It will be better for the President in ’64 if Adlai is not in his present post.” Louchheim detected no venom in Bartlett’s remarks, “just a friend looking after a friend who happens to be President.”

  But when the three-page article appeared in early December, the portrayal devastated Stevenson—and nearly ruined his career. The central assertion was that Stevenson had challenged the consensus of the Ex Comm and was the only adviser to advocate trading missiles in Europe for those in Cuba. Stevenson “wanted a Munich,” said an anonymous source—in fact, Forrestal. “Stevenson was strong during the UN debate,” a photo caption added, “but inside the White House the hard liners thought he was soft.”

  Stevenson charged that Alsop and Bartlett were “wrong in literally every detail.” He appeared on the Today show to defend himself, accurately pointing out that he had “emphatically” approved the blockade and had correctly predicted that the Soviets would ask for a trade. The depiction was indeed unfair, because McNamara had been the leading advocate for negotiations, and Kennedy himself had frequently raised the prospect of a missile exchange. Most members of the Ex Comm had shifted their positions in the course of their debate. But Stevenson had made himself vulnerable by suggesting one concession too many (Guantánamo) and advocating a suspension of the quarantine during negotiations.

  The article triggered a burst of speculation, led by Joe Alsop, that Stevenson would resign his post. In a strong defense of Stevenson, Time observed that “it was promptly and widely assumed that Kennedy himself had instigated the accusation” in the Post piece. Recognizing that he needed to backpedal, Kennedy called Stevenson press aide Clayton Fritchey and said, “All right, cease fire. We’ll both put down our arms.”

  Kennedy insisted to Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow, a close friend of Stevenson, “I had nothing whatever to do with that article.” In a private letter to Stevenson, Kennedy repeated the denial. “The fact that Charley Bartlett was a co-author,” he wrote, “has made this particularly difficult for me. . . . In this case, I did not discuss the Cuban crisis or any of the events surrounding it with any newspaperman. . . . I am certain that the quotations . . . did not come from the White House.” Kennedy placed all blame on the impulse of journalists to “delight in stirring needless controversy.”

  A publicly released version of the letter made no mention of Bartlett and offered Kennedy’s “regret” over the “unfortunate stir,” his praise for Stevenson’s role in resolving the crisis, and his “fullest confidence” in the ambassador’s continued work at the United Nations.

  Stevenson stayed in his job but never got over his feelings of bitterness at the way he had been treated. By fingering Stevenson in the Saturday Evening Post, Kennedy made sure that no one would trace to him the idea of a missile trade. It took Charley Bartlett twenty-five years to realize he had been a pawn in Kennedy’s scheme. “We had the illusion that it was just Mike talking too much,” Bartlett recalled. “But Jack had planted the story on us through Forrestal, because when I told Jack that I had it, he was delighted.” Bartlett “came to the conclusion that we were sort of used. It is dismaying, but I guess the presidency involves a lot of maneuvers.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Election day on November 6 resoundingly advanced Joe Kennedy’s dynastic dreams. Even though he had no political experience, thirty-year-old Teddy Kennedy vaulted into the U.S. Senate with 54 percent of the vote, beating George Cabot Lodge, the son of the man Jack Kennedy beat in 1952. Publicly, the President had kept a discreet distance from the race. But his team ha
d been heavily involved in the campaign, and JFK had closely monitored his baby brother’s progress.

  The first challenge for JFK and his aides had been to deal with the little-known fact that Teddy had been expelled from Harvard for cheating. “The family could not quite figure out the most helpful way from their point of view that it should come out,” recalled Tom Winship, editor of the Boston Globe. Winship sent his political editor Bob Healy to discuss the matter with Bobby. JFK wanted to have the incident mentioned as part of a major profile of Teddy, but Winship suggested handling it as a straight news story.

  Mac Bundy “gave more than a little thought to this problem plaguing the family,” Winship recalled, and persuaded Kennedy that the Globe would treat the subject judiciously. The resulting article on March 30 was tame indeed. It “ran fully for one day,” said Winship. “That was the end of the incident.”

  Less than a month later, JFK organized a secret strategy session in Washington that included Boston politicians traveling under aliases to avoid detection. As the campaign got under way, Ted Sorensen supplied material for Teddy’s speeches, and other aides drilled the neophyte candidate before press conferences and debates. The Kennedy family also underwrote polls that tracked Teddy’s progress.

  When Massachusetts Democrats met in June to register their preference, Steve Smith orchestrated Teddy’s easy win over Edward McCormack with 70 percent of the delegates. Ben Bradlee was covering the event, and the President called him repeatedly from the White House (where he was dining with Jackie, Bill Walton, and Tony Bradlee) for reports on the balloting. Jack even correctly predicted the lead of Ben’s story: “For fledgling politician Edward Moore Kennedy . . . the First Hurrah rose from a steaming, smoking auditorium in Springfield, Mass., at 12:25 a.m., June 9, 1962.” Teddy’s margin in the September primary was equally impressive—67 percent of the vote.

  Teddy was one of six new Democratic senators. Two incumbents lost, which gave the administration a net gain of four senators. In the House, the Democrats lost four seats but still held a healthy majority there as well. It was a solid result for a midterm election, although it didn’t overturn the controlling conservative bloc of southern Democrats allied with Republicans. Still, Kennedy’s popularity surged to 76 percent in the aftermath of the missile crisis, giving him added leverage with recalcitrant legislators.

  On Thursday, November 8, Jackie assembled a dozen friends for a dinner party to celebrate her husband’s recent victories. When she called to invite Arthur and Marian Schlesinger, she asked him to recommend additional guests who would “keep the evening light.” He combined levity with intellectual depth by nominating Isaiah Berlin as well as humorist S. N. Behrman, while Jackie added Look magazine publisher Gardner Cowles and his wife, and Joe and Susan Mary Alsop, who asked to bring along their houseguests, Cy and Marina Sulzberger. Mary Meyer rounded out the guest list as a last-minute substitute for Lee, who was unavailable.

  Cy Sulzberger found the evening “extremely informal. The President looked well, calm and relaxed.” Cocktails were served in the Yellow Oval Room, complemented by caviar and crabmeat, as soft music played in the background, and Caroline wandered nearby in her nightgown. The New York Times columnist took note of Mary Meyer as a “very pretty young blonde,” but also observed that Kennedy “made only rudimentary efforts to converse with the ladies at dinner and none before and after.” For all Jackie’s intentions, Kennedy “wanted to talk only about politics and foreign policy,” wrote Sulzberger.

  The President’s conversation bounced from topic to topic: progress on disarming Cuba, a rant against the “excesses” of the press, and frustration over France’s unwillingness to supply enough troops to NATO, as well as a lament about Joe Kennedy’s poor health. “It is better to ‘go’ fast,” Kennedy concluded. Seated on the President’s left, Marina Sulzberger—“as excited and nervous as a debutante”—was content simply to bask in his presence. A zestful but plain woman, Marina thought JFK “the sexiest and most irresistible man on earth. . . . I would have given my right hand to seduce him. He loves or makes love or talks politics. Nothing between. . . . Just to listen to him talk is irresistible.”

  As he had at the Alsops’ several weeks earlier, Isaiah Berlin was discomfited in the presence of Kennedy, who glowed with “absolute happiness . . . a state of triumph and satisfaction after the second Cuba.” Once again, Berlin felt “cross examined about subjects about which I was conceived to know.” Cy Sulzberger observed that Jackie seemed “a little ill at ease.” The reason, according to Schlesinger, was Sulzberger’s presence at the party. “Cy was very deaf,” said Schlesinger. “He had a heavy conversational style, and as a result the evening lacked the light touch Jackie intended.”

  Promptly at 11 p.m., Kennedy announced that he was off to bed, and the “exciting tension” created by his presence disappeared. In a more easygoing mood, Jackie tried to brighten the atmosphere by playing phonograph records, including the new hit song “PT 109.” “Jackie seems to know the words by heart and loves it,” Sulzberger observed. After another half hour, the guests took their leave.

  The next night the Kennedys threw their fifth dinner dance, a welcome home for Ambassador James Gavin and his wife, who had been replaced by the Bohlens in Paris. Sixty guests came for drinks in the Yellow Oval Room followed by dinner in the Blue Room, and another dozen arrived at 10 p.m. to join the dancing. Most of the inner coterie turned up, including the Bradlees, newly released from social purgatory. Their rehabilitation had begun on election day when Jackie invited Tony for a movie and supper with their children. During a brief stop in the Oval Office, John Jr. and Marina Bradlee had performed a “special dance” for the President as Arthur Schlesinger gamely held their lollipops. Three nights later at the Gavin party, Tony and Jack “had a long session about the difficulties of being friends with someone who is always putting everything he knows into a magazine,” Bradlee noted in his journal. “Everybody loves everybody again.”

  Among the decorative women on hand was Mary Meyer but not Helen Chavchavadze. One noteworthy newcomer was a friend of Chavchavadze’s, a blonde twenty-six-year-old Hungarian emigré who taught English as a second language with Helen at Georgetown. Her name was Enüd Sztanko, and she was “extremely pretty,” recalled Chavchavadze. “Enüd was quite an amazing person, very strong, self-contained and reserved.”

  Sztanko had left Hungary during World War II when her father, a professor of internal medicine, was conscripted to teach medicine in Germany. After the war, her family fled first to West Germany, then to the United States. At age fifteen Enüd entered Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart (where she overlapped with Joan Kennedy), and she received a master’s in linguistics and languages at Georgetown.

  During a dinner party at Chavchavadze’s in October 1962, Sztanko was introduced to Walter Sohier, one of Jackie’s favorite extra men. Early one evening several weeks later, Sohier called Sztanko to invite her to a small White House dinner. He explained that Mary Meyer was supposed to be his date, but she had to cancel because her son was ill. Sztanko was still polishing her nails as Sohier drove her to the White House gate.

  At dinner Sztanko was seated on JFK’s left, with Susan Mary Alsop on his right. “I hope you’re not a spy. Walter said you might be,” JFK said to Sztanko. “If you must know, there’s a microphone under the table,” she replied, which the President found amusing. “From the first day to the last I was never nervous with him,” she recalled.

  An invitation to the Gavin party followed quickly, and Sztanko became a regular at second-floor dinner parties and formal dances, where she and JFK would “sit down in the corner, and no one would disturb anyone talking to the President.” He queried her about religion, existentialism, and political matters such as the admission of Hungary to the United Nations. Kennedy was fascinated by her life story, and he even helped arrange to have her father transferred from a veterans hospital in West Virginia to one in Tampa.

  When JFK made advances, she
“made it very clear that I would not get involved with him sexually.” Sztanko knew Kennedy was having affairs and she was “almost obsessive about not wanting to be part of that. I think I would have been hurt if I had been one of his many women. I was protecting myself, and I think I became more interesting to him as a result.”

  After raising his dosages of cortisone to compensate for acute stress during the missile crisis, Kennedy suffered a flare-up of his gastrointestinal problems in the following weeks, prompting his doctors to order a special bland diet. His back problems also worsened, forcing him once again to watch movies in the screening room from the bed in the front row. Most worrying of all, in early December Kennedy appeared unusually depressed, a mood shift Jackie attributed to prescription antihistamines.

  Kennedy was certainly under no extraordinary strain. He spent the second weekend of December relaxing at Bing Crosby’s estate in Palm Springs with Powers and O’Donnell. On Sunday morning they were joined by Pat Lawford, who accompanied them to mass at the Sacred Heart Church and hitched a ride back to Washington after midnight on an Air Force One red-eye flight. Only later did a journalist tell Barbara Gamarekian that he had caught sight of former White House intern Mimi Beardsley, by then a college sophomore, who had flown out to Palm Springs on one of the air force “backup” planes.

  On Monday evening, December 10, Jack and Jackie hosted a Hickory Hill seminar with Isaiah Berlin lecturing on nineteenth-century Russian literature. Berlin was more nervous than ever, knocking over an antique tabouret that Kennedy managed to catch before it crashed to the floor. At dinner the professor tried to amuse Kennedy with a story about Lenin and an illicit lover. But instead of being titillated, Kennedy reacted angrily. “Not at all a way to treat a great man,” Kennedy told Berlin with a frown. Berlin gave his talk after dinner as Kennedy listened quietly in his rocking chair. But Berlin was taken aback when Kennedy asked only one question—about the fate of Russia’s writers and artists after the communist revolution in 1917—and then left abruptly.