The Kennedy Half-Century (100 page)

62
. Mary McGrory, undated Western Union Telegram, Mary McGrory Papers, Box 96, Folder 8, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

63
. Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 402–3.

64
. John M. Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson, Gary Gerstle, Emily S. Rosenberg, and Norman L. Rosenberg,
Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People
, 3rd ed. (New York: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002), 936–37; Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 402.

65
. Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 158–66.

66
. Perry,
Jacqueline Kennedy
, 86; Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 166; Eddy Gilmore, “Jacqueline Charms All Vienna—Especially K.; Nina Cheered for Accepting Plea,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, June 4, 1961; Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, 367. Khrushchev may have been more impressed by President Kennedy than he showed. According to Schlesinger, Khrushchev told Soviet ambassador Georgi Kornienko after the meeting in Vienna that he (Kornienko) had been right to describe Kennedy as “independent and intelligent.” Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, 378.

67
. Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, 369–70; Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 167–71; John Morton Blum,
Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961–74
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 46.

68
. Contrary to some others, O’Donnell thought that Kennedy seemed calm and in control at Vienna. In his version of events, the president came out of the talks with Khrushchev saying that the chairman was bluffing and would never sign a treaty with East Germany. “Anybody who talks the way he did today, and really means it, would be crazy,” said Kennedy. “And I’m sure he’s not crazy.” Kenneth P. O’Donnell, Dave F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy,
“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
(New York: Pocket Books, 1973), 344.

69
. Parmet,
JFK
, 190; O’Donnell,
“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,”
345.

70
. Theodore C. Sorensen, ed.,
“Let the Word Go Forth”: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John F. Kennedy
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1988), 248–50; Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 190–95.

71
. Kevin W. Dean, “ ‘We Seek Peace, but We Shall Not Surrender’: JFK’s Use of Juxtaposition for Rhetorical Success in the Berlin Crisis,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly
21 (Summer 1991): 531–44.

72
. Fred Kaplan, “JFK’s First-Strike Plan,”
Atlantic Monthly
288 (October 2001): 81–86.

73
. In fairness, it should be noted that President Bush was speaking to a group of airline employees in Chicago whose livelihoods depended on public confidence in the safety of air travel. But Bush never asked the public to do anything out of the ordinary to cover the massive human and financial costs of post–September 11 actions. Andrew J. Bacevich, “He Told Us to Go Shopping. Now the Bill Is Due,”
Washington Post
, October 5, 2008.

74
. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “Report on the Berlin Crisis (July 25, 1961),” Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia,
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/5740
 [accessed December 24, 2010].

75
. Schlesinger,
Thousand Days
, 392; Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 424.

76
. Something like this would have been much less possible after November 22, 1963, even for a vice president. Security would have been much tighter anywhere, much less in what was effectively a war zone. Neil Spitzer, “Dividing a City,”
Wilson Quarterly
12 (Summer 1988): 100–122; Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 211; Giglio and Rabe,
Debating
, 27 (quotation); Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 427.

77
. Giglio and Rabe,
Debating
, 27; Kaplan, “JFK’s First-Strike Plan,” 81–86.

78
. See Robert Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 288–90, and Thomas Reeves,
Question of Character
, 249.

79
. Eisenhower authorized the Jupiters in 1959, but never actually deployed them.

80
. Joseph A. Loftus, “Gilpatric Warns U.S. Can Destroy Atom Aggressor,”
New York Times
, October 22, 1961; “Huge U.S. Arsenal of A-Bombs Bared,”
Long Beach Independent Press Telegram
, October 22, 1961; “Unprecedented Disclosure: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Counted ‘In Thousands,’”
Zanesville
[Ohio]
Times Recorder
, October 22, 1961; Giglio and Rabe,
Debating
, 19; Dallek,
Unfinished Life
, 433–34. Kennedy, Rusk, and McNamara were also bragging publicly about America’s nuclear arsenal.

81
. Joseph Alsop thought the president “looked like his old self” during this period. “[H]e has forced himself to lose ten pounds, which is good for him.” The journalist had recently dined at the White House and thought that the evening had been “a great relief for the president” who needed to “escape and forget his terrible burdens.” Letter written by Joseph Alsop, January 16, 1962, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Box 183, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, DC.

82
. The Kennedys did achieve some progress on civil rights in 1961. Speaking from Dallas on November 15, 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy told the press that “the people of Dallas, Atlanta, Memphis, New Orleans, and many other cities” had shown their respect for orderly progress by “desegregating their schools this fall without disorder or disrespect for the law. In each of these cities, and particularly in Dallas and Atlanta, this was accomplished by citizens from all walks of life, accepting their responsibilities and acting with skill, vigor, and dedication.” “Address by Robert F. Kennedy, Associated Press Managing Editors Meeting, Dallas, Texas, November 15, 1961,” Victor S. Navasky Papers, Box 3, “Background: Communist Party, General,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

83
. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “State of the Union Address (January 11, 1962),” Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia,
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/5742
 [accessed December 29, 2010].

5. STEEL AT HOME AND ABROAD

1
. Arthur Goldberg to JFK, March 13 and 20 and April 3, 1962, Arthur J. Goldberg Papers, Box 1:27, Folder 2, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC; Richard Reeves,
President Kennedy: Profile of Power
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 294–95. Goldberg was a highly effective secretary of labor at a time when unions wielded considerable power. In September 1961, he helped avert a UAW strike: “The primary cause of this automobile strike was failure to reach agreement on the question of relief time. When I learned of this I suggested the formula which the parties accepted last night.” On October 24, 1961, he informed the president that “The threatened strike against the Southern Pacific Railroad was postponed at my request. The parties have been meeting here in the Department in an effort to work out an agreement.” In November, a “strike of the Air Line Pilots Association against Pan American World Airways was averted … by the creation of an Emergency Board.” Goldberg to JFK, September 12, October 24, and November 14, 1961, Arthur J. Goldberg Papers, Box 1:27, Folder 2, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC. In the summer of 1962, the nation’s five major aluminum companies were able to negotiate labor contracts without Washington’s help. See “Labor: Forgotten Method,”
Time
, July 6, 1962,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939998,00.html
 [accessed March 23, 2011].

2
. According to some sources, the original quote was, “My father told me businessmen were all pricks …” Others say that it was, “My father always told me that steel men were sons-of-bitches …”

3
. Ted Sorensen,
Kennedy: The Classic Biography
(New York: Harper Perennial Political Classics, 2009), 447–48; Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers with Joe McCarthy,
“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
(New York: Pocket Books, 1972), 471; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 635; James N. Giglio,
The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 131.

4
. In February of 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered his attorney general, Philander Knox, to file suit against the Northern Securities Company, “a recently created holding company that comprised the leading railroads of the northwestern quarter of the country.” Roosevelt’s decision prompted a visit from J. P. Morgan, one of Northern Securities’ primary investors, who asked the president if he planned on attacking his (Morgan’s) “other interests,” which included the “steel trust.” “Certainly not,” said Roosevelt, “unless we find out that in any case they have done something that we regard as wrong.” H. W. Brands,
TR: The Last Romantic
(New York: Basic Books, 1997), 437. One could reasonably conclude that JFK went even further than TR in using the power of government to influence one big business.

5
. John F. Kennedy, “President’s News Conference, April 11, 1962,” John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters,
The American Presidency Project
[online], Santa Barbara, CA,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8598
 [accessed January 11, 2011].

6
. Some researchers believe that the Kennedys also ordered the IRS to audit the uncooperative steel executives’ books. Although the evidence is not ironclad that JFK ever used the IRS for political purposes, there is certainly some support for this conclusion. See James Bovard, “A Brief History of IRS Political Targeting,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 14, 2013,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324715704578482823301630836.html
 
[accessed May 17, 2013]; John Gizzi, “IRS Political Abuse Started Long Before Tea Party,”
Newsmax
, May 13, 2013,
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/irs-tea-party-political/2013/05/13/id/504108
 [accessed May 17, 2013]; and Joseph J. Thorndike, “An ‘Unthinkable’ IRS Scandal? More Like Unavoidable,”
Washington Post
, May 17, 2013,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-unthinkable-irs-scandal-more-like-unavoidable/2013/05/17/3f89a1ce-bd84-ne2-89C9-3be8095fe767_story.html
 [accessed May 17, 2013]. When I asked Stephen Plotkin, archivist at the JFK Library, if President Kennedy ever used the IRS as a weapon against his political enemies, Plotkin replied: “I’m missing one thing, which is a direct connection between the office of the president and the IRS activity. It’s one thing for JFK to create an atmosphere receptive to IRS investigations of right wing organizations, but it is quite another to imply that he ordered such investigations. And let’s not forget that a great many of these organizations richly deserved to be audited.” E-mail from Stephen Plotkin, May 15, 2013.

7
. Reeves,
President Kennedy
, 298–99; Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–63
(Boston: Back Bay Books, 2003), 486; Giglio,
Presidency
, 132.

8
. Burton Crane, “Stock Prices Dive in Sharpest Loss Since 1929 Break,”
New York Times
, May 29, 1929; Thomas C. Reeves,
A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy
(Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1992), 332; Giglio,
Presidency
, 132; Theodore C. Sorensen,
Kennedy
(New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 462.

9
. Giglio,
Presidency
, 133–35; John F. Kennedy, “Radio and Television Report to the American People on the State of the National Economy, August 13, 1962,” John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters,
The American Presidency Project
, Santa Barbara, CA,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8812&st=&sti=
 [accessed January 12, 2011]. Similarly, President Obama tried to repair relations between the White House and the business community in 2011 after two years of health care reform, financial industry regulation, and other battles with business. In February 2011 he delivered a pro-business address at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Previously, the chamber had lobbied against Obama’s various reforms. It made little difference, of course. Business interests overwhelmingly opposed Obama’s successful reelection in 2012. Scott Horsley, “New Approach: Obama Woos Chamber of Commerce,” February 14, 2011, National Public Radio website,
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/07/133551752/new-approach-obama-woos-chamber-of-commerce
 [accessed February 14, 2011].

10
. Giglio,
Presidency
, 138.

11
. C. Douglas Dillon, JFK’s treasury secretary, thought that Kennedy had been sold on tax cuts even before he assumed the presidency: “This was something that was originally discussed by me with the president before my appointment. It was part of our original policy that was mentioned in the tax message of 1961. Our idea then was that the first tax bill would be passed in 1961, and that we would come along the next year with the overall tax cut. We didn’t, at that time, know the exact size of the tax cut that we would propose, but we did know that we wanted to reduce the top rates to the area of 65 or 70 percent and other rates accordingly.” Interview with Douglas Dillon, C. Douglas Dillon Papers, Box 43, “Dillon Tapes,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.