The Kennedy Half-Century (127 page)

48
. “10 Things You Don’t Know About,” season 1, episode 3, “John F. Kennedy,”
History Channel 2
, original airdate March 5, 2012.

49
. Khrushchev made this chilling statement in the presence of Western diplomats during a November 1956 reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow. See “Foreign News: We Will Bury You!”
Time
, November 26, 1956,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867329,00.html
 [accessed April 6, 2012]. Sergei Khrushchev, son of the Soviet chairman, believes that his father’s words have been widely misunderstood in the West: “[T]his was a metaphor … Father meant the burial of the outmoded capitalist structure and its replacement by a socialism that would benefit the people. He believed faithfully that the day was not far off when everyone, even the Americans, would ask to enter our paradise. He believed, he held the doors open, but wasn’t prepared to chase anyone in by force.” Sergei N. Khrushchev,
Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 133.

50
. Ronald Reagan, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Tennessee State Legislature in Nashville,” March 15, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42270
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

51
. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Strategic Arms Reduction and Nuclear Deterrence,” November 22, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42030
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

52
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the National Leadership Forum of the Center for International and Strategic Studies of Georgetown University,” April 6, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39731
 [accessed December 28, 2011]. The Kennedy reference is a paraphrase of JFK’s inaugural assertion, “For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

53
. Office of Management and Budget,
Fiscal Year 2012 Historical Tables, Budget of the United States
, Table 3.1, “Outlays by Superfunction and Function, 1940–2016,” 49–51,
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-TAB/pdf/BUDGET-2012-TAB.pdf
 [accessed May 1, 2012]. When measured in 2012 dollars, one could argue that defense expenditures declined slightly from $400 billion in 1963 to $373 billion by 1980.

54
. Reagan went on active duty with the army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
but his poor eyesight prevented him from receiving an overseas assignment. “His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, Fort Mason, Calif., as Liaison Officer of the Port and Transportation Office.” Reagan was later reassigned to “the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City.” See “President Ronald Reagan,” National Museum of the US Air Force, September 18, 2009,
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1660
 [accessed May 1, 2012].

55
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Citizens Medal to Raymond Weeks at a Veterans Day Ceremony,” November 11, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41978
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

56
. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on United States Policy in Central America,” May 9, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39901
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

57
. Some of Reagan’s top officials sold arms to Iran as part of a secret deal to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon, and they funneled the profits from these sales to anticommunist forces in Nicaragua (known as the “Contras”). This clandestine arrangement directly violated a federal ban on U.S. military aid to the Contras that had been enacted by Congress months earlier. Reagan famously claimed that he could not remember the details of the Iran-Contra plan or whether he had discussed it with aides. See “Reagan: The Iran-Contra Affair,”
American Experience
, PBS.org,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/reagan-iran/
 [accessed April 5, 2012].

58
. Clare Boothe Luce, the wife of media mogul Henry Luce, was a playwright, a social critic, a journalist, a congresswoman from Connecticut, an ambassador to Italy, and a lifelong Republican. See Ralph G. Martin,
Henry and Clare: An Intimate Portrait of the Luces
(New York: Perigee, 1992) and Alan Brinkley,
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century
(New York: Vintage Books, 2010).

59
. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Nicaragua,” March 16, 1986, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=36999
 [accessed December 29, 2011]. See also Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States,” October 7, 1987, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33514
 [accessed December 29, 2011].

60
. Lou Cannon writes, “Both Goldwater and Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on what they believed were constitutional grounds. Neither man was a racist, but their alliance with the Southerners on this touchstone issue opened a gulf between conservatives and blacks that has never healed.” Lou Cannon,
Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power
(New York: Public Affairs, 2003), 122. Reagan became more supportive of civil rights during his presidency. In 1988 he championed the Fair Housing Amendments Act and invited Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), a veteran of the civil rights movement, to attend the signing ceremony. At the end of his speech, Reagan paid tribute to Lewis while offering a subtle reminder of JFK’s failure to enact similar legislation a quarter century earlier: “Twenty-five years ago, as a young leader of the civil rights movement, Congressman Lewis was standing in this very Rose Garden pressing for federal action to eliminate housing discrimination. John’s hard work to achieve that has brought us one step closer to realizing Martin Luther King’s dream.” Reagan’s aides had wanted him to deliver a more cutting remark: “[T]he
president could acknowledge Lewis’ presence, note that he stood in the very same spot for the very same reason 25 years ago and tell him that he (the president) is living proof that sometimes you have to wait to get what you want.” See Gerald McKiernan to Alan M. Kranowitz, August 31, 1988, and Kranowitz to Mari Maseng, September 9, 1988, Folder “H.R 1158 Fair Housing Bill Signing Ceremony,” Box OA 16829, Legislative Affairs, White House Office of Records, Ronald Reagan Library. See also Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Signing the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988,” September 13, 1988, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=36361
 [accessed August 15, 2012].

61
. The major arms agreement of the Reagan era was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned the use of missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. See “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles,” Department of State website,
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/infi.html#treaty
 [accessed May 2, 2012]. Another major arms reduction treaty accredited to Reagan (introduced in 1982)—START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)—was not signed until after he had left office. See “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,” Department of State website,
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/starthtm/start/starti.html
 [accessed May 2, 2012].

62
. Edward Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, March 7, 1985, ID#297993, FE008, WHORM: Subject File, Ronald Reagan Library.

63
. James Mann,
The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War
(New York: Viking, 2009), 131. Many Cold War experts and observers strongly disagreed with Reagan when he asserted there would have been no hostilities had the United States attempted to stop the wall, which was on East German territory, from going up.

64
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks to the People of Berlin,” June 11, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42623
 [accessed January 11, 2012].

65
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin,” June 12, 1987, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=34390
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

66
. Reagan referenced JFK 51 times in 1984, which represents 38% of the 133 total Kennedy references he made during his first term. See
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan 1984
, vols I & II. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986.

67
. Bill Peterson, “Kennedy, Citing Family, Rules Out Campaign for ’84,”
Washington Post
, December 2, 1982.

68
. Peter Goldman and Tony Fuller with Thomas M. DeFrank, Eleanor Clift, Lucille Beachy, Joyce Barnathan, and Vern E. Smith,
The Quest for the Presidency 1984
(New York: Bantam Books, 1985), 65.

69
. Richard Nixon to “friends in the Reagan-Bush campaign,” October 29, 1984, reprinted in Goldman et al.,
Quest for the Presidency 1984
, 450–53.

70
. Goldman et al.,
Quest for the Presidency 1984
, 70.

71
. Hayward,
Age of Reagan
, 368; Robert S. McElvaine, “The Kennedy Complex,”
New York Times
, September 27, 1987.

72
. Sabato,
Feeding Frenzy
, 76–77.

73
. Ibid., 12–13.

74
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas,” August 23, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40290
 [accessed December 29, 2011].

75
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a Reagan-Bush Rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,” September 20, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40407
 [accessed December 29, 2011].

76
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a Reagan-Bush Rally in Boston, Massachusetts,” November 1, 1984,Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39363
 [accessed December 29, 2011].

77
. “Debate with Walter Mondale (Domestic Issues) (October 7, 1984),” Miller Center, University of Virginia,
http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/5459
 [accessed December 29, 2011].

78
. Erickson, “Once and Future President,” 317; United Press International, “101 Academics Buy Ad to Back Mondale,”
New York Times
, October 31, 1984.

79
. CBS, Inc., and New York Times Company, CBS News / New York Times Poll: National Election Day Survey (USCBSNYT1984-NATELEC), November 6, 1984. National Election Day Exit Polls Database (Storrs, CT: Roper Center, University of Connecticut, 2012).

80
. See Jonah Goldberg, “Ted Kennedy’s America,”
National Review Online
, October 26, 2007,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222638/ted-kennedys-america/jonah-goldberg
 [accessed April 4, 2012].

81
. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on Presenting the Robert F. Kennedy Medal to Mrs. Ethel Kennedy,” June 5, 1981, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43909
 [accessed December 28, 2011].

82
. Edward M. Kennedy to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, November 13, 1981, Presidential Handwriting File, Box 1, Folder 14, Ronald Reagan Library; “The Daily Diary of President Ronald Reagan, July 22, 1982,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library website,
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/white-house-diary.aspx
 [accessed January 3, 2012].

83
. Eunice Shriver to Ronald Reagan, March 19, 1985, Presidential Handwriting File, Series II: Presidential Records, 3/1/85–5/28/85, Box 12, Folder 175, Ronald Reagan Library; Eunice Shriver to Ronald Reagan, April 24, 1985, Presidential Handwriting File, Series II: Presidential Records, 3/1/85–5/28/85, Box 12, Folder 175, Ronald Reagan Library; Ronald Reagan to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, August 5, 1987, Presidential Handwriting File, Series II: Presidential Records, 2/20/87–8/27/87, Box 18, Folder 299, Ronald Reagan Library.