The Kennedy Half-Century
Read The Kennedy Half-Century Online
Authors: Larry J. Sabato
Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Modern, #20th Century
For all those who ask what they can do for their country
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now
.
—EUGENE O’NEILL, IRISH AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT
Contents
Introduction: The Birth of a Legacy
1: “President Kennedy Died at 1 P.M. Central Standard Time”
6: Europe, Space, and Southeast Asia
8: 11/22/63: Questions, Answers, Mysteries
9: Rounding Up the Usual Suspects: The Assassination’s Puzzle Palace
10: Examining the Physical Evidence: Old and New Controversies
11: Inevitability: The Assassination That Had to Happen
12: The Assassination and the Kennedy Legacy
13: “Let Us Continue”: Lyndon Johnson—Pretender to the Throne
14: Crossed Swords: Camelot vs. the Great Society
15: “Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming”: JFK’s Repudiation and Revival
16: The Carters and the Kennedys: Democratic Hatfields and McCoys
17: Reagan and Kennedy: Opposites Attract
18: Clinton Grabs Kennedy’s Torch
19: G. W. Bush: Back to the Republican Kennedys
20: Full Circle: The Twinning of Barack Obama and John Kennedy
The Kennedy Half-Century
is the result of a research project stretching over five years, and many people have contributed much along the way. Without generous funding, this book would still be in my hard drive. The essential financial support came from the Reynolds Foundation, with special thanks to J. Sargeant Reynolds, Jr., Richard S. Reynolds III, Randolph N. Reynolds, David P. Reynolds, Glenn R. Martin, Dorothy R. Brotherton, and Victoria Pitrelli; our loyal Center for Politics backers, Paul and Victoria Saunders; McGuireWoods Consulting and McGuireWoods law firm, with special thanks to Frank B. Atkinson, Mark T. Bowles, and Richard Cullen; the Honorable William P. Hobby and Paul W. Hobby of the Hobby Family Foundation; James Falk and Martha Powell of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth; Dan Alcorn, a Center board member; and several sources at the University of Virginia, including the offices of President Teresa Sullivan and Provost John Simon.
It was my great pleasure to work with Hart Research Associates on the public opinion research that undergirds many of the book’s findings. The pollsters at this firm are Picassos in their field, and their artistry drew out our participants about long-ago events. We extend our gratitude to Peter Hart, chairman; Geoff Garin, president; Molly O’Rourke, partner; Becca Mark, analyst; Kevin Schmidt, assistant analyst; and Leah Stecher, also an assistant analyst.
I am deeply indebted to the interviewees, reviewers, and professionals who have so willingly shared their time, memories, research, and impressions. Special thanks to former President Jimmy Carter for granting us an interview, as well as Dr. Stephen Hochman and Lauren Gay of the Carter Center. A special mention is also needed for JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen, who was generous with his thoughts and counsel on several occasions before his passing in October 2010. Former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert and his wife, Laura, also deserve special acknowledgment for their hospitality and graciousness in showing me the critical locales of November 22, 1963, and giving me considerable access
to people who understood the city of that time and our time. In addition, I am grateful to Bill Alexander, Pierce Allman, Hugh Aynesworth, James Barger, Eddie Barker, Barry Webb Battle, Gerald Blaine, Robert Blakey, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Julian Bond, Dan Bongino, David Bowers, Jim Bowles, Stephen Bryce, Joseph Califano, Tommy Caplan, Mortimer Caplin, Jim Carroll, James Carville, Phil Costello, Mal Couch, Senator John Culver, Jim Cunningham, Craig Daigle, Jerry Dealey, John Dean, Ralph Dungan, Frank Fahrenkopf, Dan Fenn, Ari Fleischer, Winfried Fluck, Frank Gannon, Bill Greener, Jeff Greenfield, Ken Holmes, Henry Hurt, Heinz Ickstadt, James Jones, Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Ronald Kessler, Sergei Khrushchev, Chris Kincheloe, Mary Moorman Krahmer, Jim Leavelle, Jim Lehrer, Peter Leventis, Fred Malek, Chris Matthews, John McAdams, Paul McCaghren, Dr. Robert McClelland, Senator Mitch McConnell, H. B. McLain, Harry McPherson, Herbert Meza, Jefferson Morley, Bill Moyers, Bill Newman, Michael O’Dell, Robert Orben, Harold Pachios, Jerry Paul, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Perry, Gary Powers, Jr., Sandy Quinn, First Lady Nancy Reagan, Ron Reagan, Richard Reeves, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Jason Roberts, James I. Robertson, Jr., Ed Rollins, Jay Root, Sarah Collins Rudolph, Bob Schieffer, Bill Simpich, Gillian Martin Sorensen, Cliff Spiegelman, Oliver Stone, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Judge John R. Tunheim, Sander Vanocur, and David R. Wrone for their time and assistance.
The following people at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum were helpful to us: Director Thomas Putnam and staff members Stephen Plotkin, Sharon Ann Kelly, Lara Hall, Stacey Bredhoff, Laurie Austin, and Sara Ludovissy.
Staff in other presidential libraries also lent a hand, and we thank Kevin Bailey at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library; Tina Houston, Regina Greenwell, Claudia Anderson, Allen Fisher, Liza Talbot, Barbara Cline, Eric Cuellar, Lara Hall, Brian McNerney, Christopher Banks, and Margaret Harman at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum; Greg Cumming, Jonathan Roscoe, and Jon Fletcher at the Richard Nixon Library; Nancy Mirshah and William H. McNitt at the Gerald R. Ford Library; James A. Yancey, Jr., Keith J. Shuler, and Polly Nodine at the Jimmy Carter Library; Ray Wilson, Jennifer Mandel, Shelly Williams, Shelley Nayak, and Michael Pinckney at the Ronald Reagan Library; Robert Holzweiss at the George Bush Library; Herbert Ragan and Lisa Sutton at the William J. Clinton Library; and Christine A. Lutz at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.
We also thank several people at the National Archives and Records Administration, including David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Gary
M. Stern, general counsel; Mary Kay Schmidt and Amy DeLong, archivists working in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection; Daniel Rooney, supervisory archivist of the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video unit, and Mark Meader, an archives specialist in the same department; Joseph A. Scanlon, FOIA / Privacy Act Officer, Office of General Counsel; the Honorable Frank Keating, a member of NARA’s board of directors; and Kenneth Lore, president of the Foundation for the National Archives. Marc Oliver, production manager at Silver Spring Studios, deserves a special acknowledgment for copying essential audio files from NARA’s College Park, Maryland, repository.
We relied extensively on the personnel and resources of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza for our chapters on President Kennedy’s assassination, and we thank Nicola Longford, executive director; Gary Mack, curator; Stephen Fagin, associate curator; Megan Bryant, director of collections and intellectual property; and Pauline Martin and Krishna Shenoy, the Sixth Floor Museum’s chief librarians. Their cooperation was crucial, although they have no responsibility for anything I have written.
Charles Olsen, a senior analyst at Sonalysts, Inc., assembled an extraordinary team of audio experts to reexamine the Dallas Police Dictabelt recording and the original report put together by Bolt, Beranek, and Newman for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Mark Bamforth, Malinda Finkle, Jonathan Grant, Richard Hodges, Dr. John Jakacky, Lauren Logan, Scott Martin, Lisa Peringer, and Curt Ramm of Sonalysts teamed up with Brian Sargent of Aberrant Sound in Concord, Massachusetts, to produce a ground-breaking scientific study. These gifted men and women deserve the gratitude of everyone who has ever researched the Kennedy assassination.
A companion documentary based on the findings of this volume will air on PBS stations throughout the nation. We wish to acknowledge Curtis Monk, president and CEO of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting; John Felton, vice president and general manager of WCVE in Richmond and WHTJ in Charlottesville; Gene Rhodes; Mark Helfer; Leslie Custalow; and Paul Roberts, independent filmmaker.
Most of all, I am deeply appreciative for the fine team we assembled at the University of Virginia to work on this book. The team leader was Dr. Andrew Bell, a historian with a keen grasp of the subject, who worked directly with me on almost every aspect of the research. Andrew was the first to read each of my draft chapters and to fill in critical details that had escaped my attention or memory. Further, Andrew worked with Sean Lyons, who skillfully helped us conduct interviews, and he supervised a crack team of graduate and undergraduate interns and researchers. Several interns spent far more hours than
they should have, but we are ever so grateful that they became a bit obsessed with the project. They include Josh Bland, Sophie Arts, Jonathan Elsasser, Nicholas Blessing, Valerie Clemens, Jack Jessee, Emma Paine, Blake Wheelock, James Yu, Cameron Cawthorne, Ann Laurence Baumer, Joseph Wilkinson, Brian Wilson, and Michael Bugas. Other students who made significant contributions were Andrew McGee, Aaron Flynn, Whitney Armstrong, Joe Wiley, Jeff Young, Tyler Matuella, Ethan Thrasher, Justin Lee, Scott Tilton, Michael Pugliese, Randy Pearson, Kasey Sease, and Reed Arnold.
The home base for this book project was the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, whose staff assisted us in countless ways. First mention must go to Kenneth Stroupe, the Center’s associate director, whose hard work and creativity stitched together the pieces of the project in brilliant fashion. His patient, thorough work with the National Archives and on the evidence we have obtained of the assassination has been exceptionally diligent and creative. Also supporting the book in various vital ways were Mary Daniel Brown, Nyshaé Carter, Glenn Crossman, Joseph Figueroa, Geoffrey Skelley, Bruce Vlk, and Isaac Wood. Deb Maren and Donna Packard carefully transcribed interviews for us. Kyle Kondik, a daily generator of good ideas, proposed some gems we quickly adopted, and he served as a keen in-house critic of my arguments. A special shout-out to my executive assistant Tim Robinson, who performed many roles, not least keeping me on schedule and running interference as deadlines loomed.
No one has ever had a more caring, enthusiastic publisher than I have in George Gibson of Bloomsbury. George was as determined as my team to make this project all that it could be. Years ago, I was told that George was “one of the real gentlemen of New York publishing,” and the description has proved completely accurate. He was so termed by my able agents, Susan Rabiner and Sydelle Kramer of the Susan Rabiner Literary Agency. In that spirit, I declare them to be two of the real ladies of their field. The Bloomsbury team is unmatched, and I thank Cristina Gilbert, director of marketing and publicity, Laura Gianino, publicist, Laura Keefe, director of adult marketing, Marie Coolman, director of adult publicity, Megan Ernst, marketing associate, Nathaniel Knaebel, managing editor, and Emily DeHuff, copy editor. I also wish to thank Gene Taft, owner of GTPR, for his tireless promotional efforts.
Over the course of this lengthy undertaking, we have endeavored to be fair at every juncture, taking care not to be “captured” by any interest group or camp (pro-Kennedy, anti-Kennedy, Kennedy family, the factions supporting various assassination theories, and so on). No doubt many of the people upon whom we relied for information will disagree with some of my observations,
and inevitably, despite our best efforts, some errors of fact and interpretation remain in this volume. For all of these, I take the customary responsibility. For now, I can only hope that the book is worthy of the wholehearted efforts given by all the people acknowledged here.
Larry J. Sabato
Director, Center for Politics
University Professor of Politics
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
June 2013
INTRODUCTION:
THE BIRTH OF A LEGACY
When John F. Kennedy entered the presidential limousine at Love Field, he began his ride into history. The journey continues, and we call it the Kennedy legacy.
At its core, a legacy is a bequest.
1
Every president wants to hand down a dazzling record to posterity, and each occupant of the Oval Office dreams he will be elevated to the pantheon of “the greats.” But what presidents imagine their legacy to be usually differs from what cruel fate dictates.