The Hated and the Dead

EP35: John F. Kennedy

June 19, 2022 Tom Leeman Season 3
The Hated and the Dead
EP35: John F. Kennedy
Show Notes Transcript

John F. Kennedy served as President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. An impressive and courageous record as president demonstrates Kennedy's unmistakable personal fortitude, but his legacy has been tarnished by his lack of faithfulness to his wife Jackie, and evidence he slept with women linked to the mafia and America's enemies abroad. 

My guest for this conversation is Stephen F. Knott, professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. He has written nine books, and his next one, Coming to Terms with John F Kennedy, comes out this September. Stephen spent a time in his youth working at the John F Kennedy Library in Boston, a place where he met John’s wife Jackie Kennedy, but also saw first-hand the arrogance so often ascribed to members of the Kennedy family. 

Unknown:

Hello and welcome back to the hatreds in the dead with Tom Leeman this week. For the 35th episode of the podcast, I turn my attention to the 35th President of the United States since his assassination in 1963, less than three years after becoming president, John F. Kennedy has become a mythical figure and a figurehead for American liberalism. His film star image is something every president hence has spied with envy, and some have tried to emulate with limited success. However, six decades after JFK his death, the superficial image we have of him seems incomplete. Kennedy was president at the height of the Cold War, guiding America through the Cuban Missile Crisis and increasing support for South Vietnam. On the homefront, JFK shunted and initially cautious approach to civil rights in favour of much greater support for African Americans, paving the way for civil rights legislation in the 1960s. In spite of an impressive record as president revelations since his assassination, about his treatment of women and his infidelity, have undermined Kennedy st like reputation. The image of rich liberal elites leading detached and immoral lives on America's coasts can be traced back to JFK, along with his brothers Bobby and Teddy, and still affects the Democratic Party to this day. The combination of the tragedy and the tawdry makes Kennedy a difficult figure to grapple with. So it's a good job. My guest for today is about to release a book hoping to examine Kennedy, free from ideological or emotional constraints. Stephen not is a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. He has written nine books and his next one, coming to terms with John F. Kennedy comes out this September, Stephen spent a time in his youth working at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, a place where he met John's wife Jackie Kennedy, but also saw firsthand the arrogance so often ascribed to members of the Kennedy family. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce John F. Kennedy. Hi, Steven, how are you? Good. Tom. Thank you very much. Happy to be with you. Happy to be with you, too. Steven, we're talking about John F. Kennedy today. You have a book coming out later this year called coming to terms with John F. Kennedy. JFK died in office in 1963. He was I say died. He was murdered, of course. So he hasn't been president for nearly 60 years. Why does America need to come to terms with a man who's been out of office for nearly six decades? It seems odd. I don't think anyone's ever going to write a book called coming to terms with Gerald Ford. Yeah, hopefully next time, it might sell three or four copies? Well, I would say this. Part of this is a very personal story that I felt the need to come to terms with this president who was the first president I remember. But I would say more importantly, after the experience with President Trump, who could still easily reemerge and 2024 as our next president. I think we might have some Americans and those of you abroad who are interested in the United States might have something to learn from Kennedy's presidency. He is in a lot of ways the anti Trump in the sense that he rejected conspiracy theories. He certainly tried not to circulate conspiracy theories, unlike President Trump. And I would also argue I for most of John F. Kennedy's presidency, he appealed to what is best in the American people and the nation's founding principles, as opposed to President Trump who I frequently thought appeal to the worst of the American character. And some of its more unfortunate, insidious history. So I think John F. Kennedy offers an example of for people of my age, I'm a baby boomer, as we like to say in the States, he still resonates. And there's an interesting you know, your question is onto something. The guy who was only president for two years, 10 months and two days, and yeah, he's civil rights. Tonight, it's 60 years later, you'd be hard pressed to say that about even other assassinated President, William McKinley, James Garfield, 60 years after the fact, not a lot of discussion, not a lot of people trying to come to terms with James Garfield. So I get the point of your question, but I would still say that Kennedy had an impact that is helpful to Americans and outside observers in 2022. Okay, I think that sets quite a lot of the other questions I have up quite nicely. So thank you. JFK was the first president born in the 20th century. He was born in 1917. In Massachusetts Kennedys were, of course, a Boston family. I think for some presidents I've studied their early life actually isn't very important to understanding the president or the man that they become. But I think Kennedy's background kind of is central to him, really, you can't really understand JFK without looking at least a better his, his ancestors and his family. Who were the Kennedys, at about the time of JFK, his birth. At the time of JFK, his birth journey, F. Kennedy's grandfather was the mayor of Boston. He may have been out of office briefly at that point, but he was a prominent political figure in the city of Boston. His name was John F. Fitzgerald. His nickname was honey Fitz. And he was rose Kennedy's father, Rose Kennedy being President Kennedy's Mk. On the paternal side. President Kennedy's grandfather was Patrick Kennedy, who was a state senator in the Massachusetts State Legislature, a point being and that on both the Kennedy in the Fitzgerald side, this was a very prominent political family. And the marriage of Rose Fitzgerald to Joseph P. Kennedy, was really something at least on the Boston level, on the local level, kind of a royal wedding, it was a big deal. So this was a name that was already known in and around Boston, at the time of John F. Kennedy's birth. And of course, as a young child, he's going to be brought up in that atmosphere. Now I should point out, his father never really directly went into politics. He made his fortune in banking, and then eventually in Hollywood and some other endeavours. But President Kennedy's father was always keeping an eye on the local political scene, and had aspirations at least for the boys in his family had aspirations for political office for them. You mentioned the boys there, the Kennedy, children. How many children were there? There were nine. And Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was the eldest, he of course, will be killed in the Second World War. And then John F. Kennedy was the next oldest child, JFK sort of grew up in Joseph Jr's shadow. And it was always assumed that Joe Jr. would be the one to sort of inherit the political mantle of the political aspirations of the family. But when Joseph Kennedy Jr. was killed in the Second World War, that burden or that opportunity, however you want to look at it fell on John F. Kennedy. It is there's no question that, for that Kennedy family, this is a very traditional Irish Catholic well, not not in a lot of ways, but in some ways, was a very traditional Irish Catholic family and the public political aspirations were focused on the sons. The daughters were expected to go a very different route, although interestingly enough, Eunice Kennedy and some of the other sisters did become somewhat, I would say, quite politically active. This is a function of Kennedy being born when he was he was also the first president to have actually fought in World War Two. What experience did John have in World War Two? You obviously mentioned, the very tragic death of his older brother, but what was his experience fighting for the US? So he, both both Joseph Jr. And President John F. Kennedy joined the United States Navy, John F. Kennedy was sent to the Pacific theatre. Joe Joe Jr. was sent to the European Theatre. In the Pacific theatre, John F. Kennedy was a PT boat commander, a torpedo boat, the small really cheaply constructed plywood boats that were expected to attack Japanese naval surface vessels. By the way, their track record during the second world war wasn't the are impressive they were not as effective militarily as was hoped. But nonetheless, President Kennedy future President Kennedy did see some serious action. His PT Bo, PT 109, was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer in August 1943. And of course, that story of Kennedy sort of tried to pull his crew back together, and to rescue them, they were stranded for quite a few days, would be used to great effect there during the political campaign of John F. Kennedy, his first race for office in 1946, when he runs for Congress, I do want to point out, however, that while there's no question that President Kennedy's father and some of their media connections, promoted the story of PT 109, and perhaps hyped it at times, there's no doubt in my mind that John F. Kennedy did act in a heroic fashion. After his boat was cut in half, there's some criticism of him as a skipper for allowing that boat to be cut in half, I'm not going to second guess somebody, I've never seen combat. So I'm not going to go down that path. But we can say, for an absolute fact is that he really engaged in some extraordinary actions to save the lives of his crew members, by the way, two members of his crew were killed. And I can tell you looking at having looked at some of JFKs letters that deeply affected him, and that's going to impact his that's going to affect his approach towards war, and particularly towards nuclear weapons when he becomes president. Let's talk a bit more directly then about his political career. He was elected to Congress in 1946. It first in the House of Representatives, he later became a Senator. I think if you think about the Kennedys now, and the reason I say Kennedy's is obviously because both of his or two of his brothers became prominent politicians in their own right. They're associated with liberalism in the American political system, was this liberalism, that they came to be known for something that their family had kind of inculcated in them, or was it sort of souI generous to John F. Kennedy's generation of, of Kennedy politicians, namely, also Bobby and Ted? To a terrific question, actually, the father, Joseph P. Kennedy. Had some fairly conservative views. Now I grant you, he was a member of the Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. He was Roosevelt's ambassador to the United Kingdom. But he was an American businessman. And, and he was, you know, there were vestiges of his Catholic upbringing. So I thought it would be something of a mistake, I think, to assume that they sort of ingested this kind of mid 20th century liberalism from their parents. And in fact, I would argue that John Kennedy broke with his father, particularly in foreign relations with a father had isolationist streak, of course, was accused of being an appeaser. During its time as the envoy to London, Kennedy, John F. Kennedy had more liberal internationalist views much more than than his father did. And you also see this, by the way, in Bobby Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy had some very conservative views going into the 1950s. I mean, this is a guy who work for Senator Joseph McCarthy's internal subversion subcommittee or whatever the hell it was called, for a few months in the 50s. He was very Bobby was very much an anti communist and a lot of Massachusetts Irish Catholics, by the way, as my background in the 1950s were supporters of Joe McCarthy's. So in Bobby's case, and to some extent, but I'd say less with Jack, there is a kind of evolution away from this. I hate to sound like a beating up on my fellow Irish Catholics, but from a kind of Boston parochial Catholicism. There is a kind of evolution it's most pronounced in Bobby Kennedy. I think, what JFK he's less taken with that even at a relatively early stage. And again, as I said, particularly on foreign policy matters. He's differing with his father quite a bit. So I hope that's a helpful response to your very intelligent question. Yes, and very interesting. I didn't actually realise that that Bobby Kennedy had worked for for McAfee. Just very quickly. I don't want to get too sidetracked. But was McCarthy a Boston Catholic himself? I don't know. He was not he was actually a senator from the state of Wisconsin, in the United States. So a Midwestern er although for all I know he may have had roots in New England. But I will also point out that one of Robert and John Kennedy sisters, I believe it was Patricia Kennedy, actually went on a date or two, with young senator Joe McCarthy. And the father, Joseph P. Kennedy was a financial contributor to Senator McCarthy. So the ties between the Kennedys in the McCarthy's in the late 40s and early 50s, were quite strong. And when it comes time to centre, Joseph McCarthy in the United States Senate, John F. Kennedy is not a key player in that effort. Now, part of that is due to the fact that JFK was seriously ill. But there was also I think, a bit of a political calculation, that taking on Joe McCarthy was not politically beneficial in Irish Catholic Massachusetts. If we discuss the bringing forward of Kennedy as a candidate for kind of national politics, then Kennedy was 43. In 1960, when he ran for the presidency of the United States for the Democratic Party. I was quite a young kid when Barack Obama was running and it was considered he was, I think, 47 when he became president, and that was considered quite young to be running for president. How did a 43 year old Kennedy managed to be in a position to run for office at such a young age but not only run actually be taken seriously. for that? time there were two key events in well, three key events, obviously moving from the United States House of Representatives into the United States Senate 9052 And Kennedy, JFK defeats Henry Cabot Lodge, who is a prominent member of the Eisenhower draft, Eisenhower 1952 movement. Kennedy's victory Senate victory in 1952, was one of the few bright spots for the Democratic Party in that year, which saw Eisenhower pretty much win in a landslide over ally Stevenson. So that's where Kennedy, I think first emerges as a national figure. And he's, as you mentioned, he's extremely young at this point, least for political life. So 5052 election in the defeat of Lodge, and then in 1956, when Eisenhower is up for reelection, the Democrats nominate Adly Stevenson, the former governor of Illinois, and Stevenson opens up the Democratic National Convention in 56, to select his running mate for him. And John F. Kennedy on the first or second ballot is the first choice. So there was this feeling that Kennedy being from Massachusetts would balance Stevenson being from Illinois, the BG who wrecked geographic balance, Kennedy being Catholic Kennedy being much younger, Kennedy being a war hero, etc. He almost secured the Democratic Party's vice presidential nomination in 1956. In the end, he loses, he loses out, but it was kind of a plus for him not to get put on that Stephenson's ticket in 56, because Stevenson gets wiped out again, by by President Eisenhower. But nonetheless, it enhances JFK is national visibility. And then the next event that I would mention, is Kennedy winning the Pulitzer Prize, a prominent Literary Award in the United States. For his book profiles and courage, which was a collaborative effort with a speech writer named Ted Sorensen. There's all sorts of controversy of whether he actually wrote it or not. Point being, however, winning that award, and 5758 gives him not only so now he's not only a war hero, and a young up and coming, Paul, he's got something of a literary reputation. And all of that, coupled with the Kennedy money, puts him in a good position for 1960. He won the candidates candidacy for the Democratic Party that year, and he was then up against the Republican vice President Richard Nixon, who has been the EPA the subject of another episode I did a couple of weeks ago, he beat Nixon, but it wasn't. It was by no means a landslide. It was a very close election. 1960. There is some controversy or there has been some controversy as to how legitimate his victory was. Can you go into some of the accusations that have been levied levied at the Kennedy campaign? Over the years? Sure. The the primary accusation is that the election was stolen in Illinois and in particular in the city of Chicago. which was controlled by Mayor Richard Daley and how I have the Kennedys. And that's quite possible, though there's some interesting work out there to show that the daily machine in Chicago was more interested in stealing elections at the local level, as opposed to the race with JFK, Kennedy ends up winning Illinois narrowly. And again, that tends to be where most folks, most critics will say it was stolen. However, it's important point out, John F. Kennedy still becomes President of the United States. Even without Illinois, he still wins in the Electoral College. Now it's the popular vote is margin in the popular vote out of just shy of 70 million cast is in the vicinity of 120 or 130,000 votes, incredibly narrow. I do think it is quite possible that Kennedy actually lost the popular vote, not so much by looking at Illinois and saying that's where things went on. But there was a lot of stuff going on in the state of Alabama, which had this really convoluted, I won't go into it here, process of allocating electoral votes, and even distributing the popular vote, the way they distributed. The popular vote in Alabama benefited Kennedy, I think there's a much stronger case for folks to make that Kennedy lost the popular vote narrowly, and due to what due to Alabama's but Byzantine system of elections, but nonetheless, in the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was fairly decisive. And none of that really changes that outcome. And as we all know, perhaps the hard way, winning the electoral college is what gets you into the Oval Office. Yeah, so he, what you're saying is he may well have actually been in the position that George Bush was or that Donald Trump more recently rested, exactly, you know, lost national vote but but ended up winning the electoral vote. We now live in an age where two presidents out of the last four have been elected, having lost the national popular vote, and there is at least on the Democratic side, a real discontentment with with the electoral college system, this this majoritarian voting system, kind of super majoritarian voting system. George Bush nearly lost the election in 2004. Having won the popular Do you think that if it turned out that in 1960, that Kennedy had lost the popular vote, and it was publicly known that he'd that he'd lost the popular vote and still become president? Do you think that in the less partisan fraught political era that America was in then there might have been a serious discussion about getting rid of the Electoral College that could have borne any fruit? Your questions, an interesting one, because Kennedy actually was always a supporter of the Electoral College, even prior to his own experience in 1960. I just in the last the last time, so let's say this had happened in 1960. Were Kennedy lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral College? I believe the last time that had happened, you'd have to go back almost 100 years. So I think Tom in 1960, had this happened again, it would have been the first time in quite some time. I still think at that point. They were enough. Both Republicans and Democrats, who were constitutional traditionalists, or, you know, who were still firm believers in the structure created in 1787 1788. I just don't see it happening. And you add, I would add to the mix as well, in addition to having a bipartisan coalition that tended to sort of still believe in the Constitution of almost 200 plus years ago, it was the height of the Cold War. And that kind of somewhat radical, I don't want to overstate it but somewhat radical surgery to that founding document, in the midst of the Cold War leads me to believe that if your if your hypothetical had come to pass, the tendency would have been to just go along with the existing system, not upset the applecart. I mean, as it was Richard Nixon was under a lot of pressure to challenge the results in Illinois to challenge the results in Texas as well. He gave sort of covert signals to Republican operative was in the States to go ahead and do that. But on the other hand, on a sort of national level, he was always at least publicly making deferential statements, in terms of he would obey the results coming out of these states, he was not going to get he need protracted legal challenge. And again, for him, at least publicly, it was not a good time for any party to engage in that kind of challenge. So just think the forces were in place, that if your hypothetical had come to pass, I don't see any serious challenge to the electoral college. If we look at his presidency, then Kennedy became president at the start of 1961. He was taking over from Dwight Eisenhower, another subject of another episode. And those were big shoes to fill really given us. Eisenhower was, what was the main issues that Kennedy had his eyes on in 1961. As a new president, every president comes up against different challenges coming in what were Kennedy's Kennedy a, become convinced, I think, you know, partly out of a genuine sense of concern that the United States was sort of slipping behind in the 1950s. And of course, that was also good politics. So Kennedy was determined, as he put it, to get the country moving again. And also to energise or re energise the presidency, he believed that Dwight Eisenhower had kind of been asleep at the switch, and had allowed the Russians to beat the United States into space was Sputnik, Kennedy also accused Eisenhower of letting the Russians go ahead of the United States in terms of just overall missile technology, including intercontinental intercontinental ballistic missiles. And Kennedy argued that Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were asleep at the switch in terms of allowing the Castro government in Cuba, which was by the time JFK becomes President pretty firmly allied with Moscow. Kennedy blames that on Eisenhower and Nixon. So he's determined to do something about that, as well. So there were some very dramatic promises made in the 60s, weekend 60 campaign, and in Kennedy's inaugural address in January of 61, to get the country moving again, but in particular, to defeat in a sense the Soviet Union in a peaceful type of competition. Although, obviously, in places like Cuba, it was less than peaceful, but it was more covert efforts to try to topple what was seen as a Russian bridgehead in the Americas. And so of course, that leads directly to the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April of 61. Yes, I mean, that sounds very much like a president who's focused on international affairs. Really, you mentioned Cuba. And and obviously, the other sort of foreign policy area that he's become known for, in hindsight, is, is his dealings in Vietnam. If we just stick with Cuba for a second, and you mentioned the Bay of Pigs, which was obviously a complete disaster in 1961, April 61, but 18 months later, the amazing event or inspiring events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, how do you think Kennedy fared during the missile crisis? Do you think he came out of that as a better president? Or do Tom I think he fared quite well. I think he had learned on the job. And I look, this has become a cliche that he grew and learn between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is essentially the period of the year and a half. But you know, some cliches are rooted in the truth. I actually believe that is correct. Now, what is often misunderstood about the Cuban Missile Crisis. And by the way, this is partly due to a lot of mythmaking put forward by Robert Kennedy and a lot of the Kennedy circle that a young American President John F. Kennedy stood up to Nikita Khrushchev, and they were eyeball to eyeball and the other fellow just blanked. And this was an incredible victory, a peaceful one in a sense, that averted nuclear war but also forced the Soviet Union to back down. What we now know today is that President Kennedy was working. I don't want to say frantically because he was usually quite deliberate, but working aggressively to strike a deal with the Kremlin with Khrushchev to remove we would remove the American missiles from Cuba in exchange for the United States removing its missiles from Turkey. And Kennedy offered it no invasion pledge, no repeat of a Bay of Pigs type thing. I would say this when you look at the transcripts, and we have not just transcripts, but actual recordings of the so called X calm that met through those tense 13 days and October 16, to the one person I believe, who comes through the best in terms of being inquisitive, in terms of not accepting sort of boiler plate answers from various advisors is President Kennedy. He's constantly looking for a way to avoid war with the Soviet Union. And even his own brother, Robert Kennedy, is one is going to be one of the more hawkish members of that x calm, that's advising the president. And it's really President Kennedy's determination, to allow Khrushchev to save face. It's Kennedy's ability to put himself in Khrushchev shoes, which I think is highly unusual, at least for some modern American presidents that shines through and it really was something of a shining moment in the Kennedy presidency, because we really did come quite close to what could have been World War Three and perhaps a nuclear exchange. So that there wasn't this kind of cheap sort of madman theory stuff that comes through with with other presidents later, like Nixon and, and and Trump. No, I don't, I don't see it at all. With Kennedy now mentioned to you earlier, Tom. Kennedy did take a hot hawkish stance in the 60 campaign, the missile gap, Nixon and Eisenhower allegedly being soft on Cuba, and the Bay of Pigs is an in a way an attempt to deliver on a promise made, that we're going to be on the offensive, and we're going to turn things around. But that's, I see. That is not the complete picture, I think Kennedy comes to see that in an age of nuclear weapons, these kinds of confrontations can quickly spiral out of control, he was something of an amateur student of history. And he was very much interested, for instance, in the origins of the First World War, and of course, the origins of the second world. So this, this is a president who, out out hawks, not the right word, but is one of the few Democratic candidates who manages to put the Republican Party on the defensive when it comes to national security. But having said that, as President, I see this man, quickly trying to sort of convince both his own government and ultimately the American people speech at American University in June of 63, that we can't keep going down this path. In an age of nuclear weapons, these constant conflicts which have the potential to spiral out of control. We've got to stop this, we've got to find something new. And one of the tragedies of Kennedy's death and Khrushchev departure or his overthrow in the fall of 64, is that I think we would have had a golden opportunity for descant much earlier than occurred in the early to mid 70s. But with the absence of Kennedy, with the absence of Khrushchev, that that just is not going to happen. What do you think Kennedy's view of domestic politics was during his presidency? I don't think he cared much for it. I think he was drawn to foreign policy. And there are certainly quotes to back me up on that. I'm going to butcher the quote, but one point, Kennedy said, I think to a member of Congress, something along the lines, pardon my language here, something along the lines of, you know, nobody really gives a shit about, you know, a president's stance on the minimum wage. But, you know, they do give a hoot about war and matters of war and peace and national security, etc. So he was just instinctively drawn to those types of issues. Now, he's not alone in that most American presidents find those foreign initiatives where they have much greater leeway, and a much more much more deference in Congress on foreign affairs than you're going to find on domestic matters. So that's part of it as well. But Kennedy was, you know, he'd been in Congress from 1946. Up to his election to President he was never really a creature of Congress. he'd never really enjoyed the lawmaking process. And the bulk of that lawmaking process is kind of a it's a domestic focus. It just wasn't his thing. This this is an administration. This is a president, who I think is intellectually challenged by foreign and national security matters. And not at all challenged, not particularly interested in domestic issues. Although, and I'm sure we'll get to this in the last year of his presidency, I think he emerges as an eloquent spokesman for the cause of civil rights for African Americans, but it is somewhat late in Comey. Well, let's discuss that. Now. Then, before we move on to obviously the thing that everybody knows about Kennedy, the kind of nascent civil rights movement of the early 60s, how do you think Kennedy's presidency stands up? You've obviously got him, you know, meeting with, with Martin Luther King at the March on Washington, I think, three months before Kennedy's death. What does the ledger look like for Kennedy? on that issue? Yeah. For his first year in office, I think we can say certain, certainly from the perspective of Martin Luther King and the southern Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Kennedy's first year in office was disappointing if not an outright failure. Kennedy had promised in the 1960 campaign, for instance, to integrate federally funded housing in the United States. And he said he would do it with the stroke of a pen through an executive order. He does not do that. And so a lot of civil rights activists begin literally to send pens in the mail to the White House, to get Kennedy to sign this thing. He doesn't do it too, right before the off year elections of 1962. That's one instance, one example of one king and other leaders were very disappointed with Kennedy. Now look, from the perspective of the Kennedy White House, he just squeaked into office. And he had squeaked into Office through the support of states like Alabama. As I mentioned earlier, Mississippi, the state of Georgia gave Kennedy his highest popular vote March and I believe, of any state, Texas supported Kennedy, he won the White House with the support of five or six deep southern states. His political advisors are telling him, Mr. President, if you want to win reelection in 1964, and you want to get anything through Congress related to, you know, not just civil rights, but anything, you've got to keep these barons in the Senate from the Deep South, who've been there for decades, and control various congressional committees, you got to keep these folks happy. So the political pressures are causing Kennedy to move with some caution. This, I think, is another area where events force forces in the right word, Kennedy's react, Kennedy learns on the job, in a sense, he's very much offended by the violence that he sees, being directed against peaceful civil rights protesters, by these white citizen councils in the south, by, of course, the Ku Klux Klan, and other terrorist organisations. And it kind of comes to a head, the University of Mississippi in the fall of 1962, and the University of Alabama in the spring of 63. And other events as well cause Kennedy to realise that the American Civil War, which was 100 years past, that his time is still very much with us. And it's going to require presidential leadership to move us beyond this with seemingly intractable war. I want to talk about the end of JFK is life. Now, JFK was assassinated in November 1963, his presidency was a truncated one. Very sadly, I don't really want to go into too much detail about the assassination itself and the theories about it. I think it's partly because I think it's quite a saturated topic. And as I understand you don't have a very radical view of it yourself. But, but I do want to talk about the period after the assassination. And what might have happened, had the assassination not happened. Lyndon Johnson took over as president after JFKs murder. And the two issues that we've discussed so far, the sort of broader Cold War and civil rights kind of dominated Johnson's time in office, really, in what ways do you think Johnson was perhaps better suited to the presidency than Kennedy? And in what ways do you think maybe he was actually worse suited to it? terrific question. Well, Johnson, I think was better suited in that he loved the legislative game. He was as Robert Carroll was referred to him the master of the Senate. Lyndon Johnson was just a creature of Congress, he was the exact opposite of President Kennedy, who really, I think found Congress to be a frustrating experience. Kennedy was told when he first came into Congress by the Speaker of the House, if you want to get ahead here, you've got to go along with it. You know, you've got to do what the bosses want you to do. That's anathema to Jack Kennedy. Linda Johnson love that type of environment had been soaking in it since the the 30s when he was a staffer on the hill, later, a member of the House later remember the Senate, later Senate majority leader he loved at all. He loved twisting arms, he loved log rolling, he loved you know everything about the legislative process. In that sense, when Johnson becomes President, you know, he has that experience. He has that love of legislative machinations that makes him a more effective president, where Johnson falls down on the job. And I think Kennedy shines in my view is in the foreign policy arena. Kennedy is seriously interested in foreign affairs, Kennedy was remarkably well travelled for an American president. Obviously, not just the war years, but prior to when his father was in London. He travelled all over Europe, just prior to the Second World War. He'd been to Vietnam spent weeks in Vietnam, Kennedy was fascinated by foreign policy, Lyndon Johnson could have cared less about foreign policy. What started to happen was that President Johnson, who came, you know, in honour of President Kennedy keeps Kennedy's team in place. And it's Kennedy's team, many of whom tell Johnson to escalate in Vietnam. And I think Johnson lacked the confidence I would even say perhaps locked lacked the smarts in a sense to perhaps challenge these folks. Kennedy would have challenged them, Kennedy was already challenging them on issues like Vietnam, the whole course of American foreign policy, in my view, would have been quite different. Had Kennedy survived. So one was the master in a sense of domestic policy, one much more at home and foreign policy, I would say those are the key differences. But let me add, Tom, I do think Kennedy gets a bit of a bum rap, the standard line is that Kennedy couldn't get anything crude through Congress. In the last year of his life, it's Kennedy that leads the drive that ends up in the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty being ratified by the United States Senate. He busts his hump on that. And I actually think his civil rights proposals of 1963, which Lyndon Johnson signed into law in 1964, would have passed in some version had President Kennedy lip. So I'm not of this school that says Kennedy could do nothing. Johnson could do everything. So I did want to make sure I added that to my answer to your good question. So do you I mean, it's often sort of said, just to fill in a couple of gaps there that the civil rights legislation that was eventually passed by Lyndon Johnson was essentially just an honouring by Democrats of President Kennedy. After his assassination. They said, you know, that essentially, some of these southern Democrats and perhaps more conservative Democrats felt a sense of guilt after Kennedy's assassination. Not for you know, not for me with a slight qualification. I think Lyndon Johnson was able to get more than what a living President Kennedy would have gotten in a version of the bill in 1964. I will grant that. In other words, that's where the the martyrdom of President Kennedy that's where the desire Jami Johnson was great in terms of packaging this legislation as a tribute to the murdered recently murdered president. So I think Johnson gets more than Kennedy would have gotten. But I actually do believe in luck. I grant you this is all speculation. But I really do think Kennedy would have gotten something through in 1964. And the rap that he didn't engage with Congress is just not accurate, particularly when it comes to the Non Proliferation Treaty of 63. And the movement towards some type of dramatic civil rights legislation. This is a podcast about people that are are whose legacies are sort of contested, Steven Kennedy definitely has quite given In the circumstances of his death, quite a difficult legacy, quite a peculiar legacy in some ways. In the years after his death, one of the things that has become very well documented about not just John Kennedy, but also the entire Kennedy clan has been there treatment of women. And you know, romantic partners. Can you go into Kennedy's dealing with women a bit? Sure. Yeah, it's it's a pretty tawdry story. It's easy to say perhaps that he was a man of his time as something, I guess, to that. We had a television show here recently called Mad Men. I don't know if it aired in the UK or not. Yeah. He was sort of the Don Draper of American politics. But it's, it's it was remarkably risky behaviour. As as Kennedy is one of his closest advisors and speechwriter. Ted Sorensen put it you know, he knew what he was doing was wrong. And he went to great lengths to conceal it. And those efforts to conceal it worked for a time, certainly, the few members of the media who seemed to know about these frequent affairs decide to decided to sit on it, although that, you know, some people said that was a partisan thing. I think it was more than norm for many reporters at this point, not to talk about so called personal matters, womanising, it was called at the time or alcohol abuse or whatever. You know, to think that he might have gone through eight full years in office without something exploding, I think is, that might have been the thing he had he lived that would bring him down. And when I said it was risky behaviour, referring to you know, sleeping with a woman who was also involved with Chicago, mob boss, by the name of Sam G, and kinda, there are rumours. And I think that probably true of a relationship with a woman who was, I believe, married to somebody with connections to the East Germans. I mean, the list is fairly long. So beyond just the damage it must have done to his wife, who seems to have been aware of most of this, by the way. But you know, beyond that, this was it was remarkably reckless behaviour. And it's something that I, you know, deal with in this book, not my forthcoming book, not a great blank. But, you know, you can't you can't talk about the presidency of John F. Kennedy, without talking about this reckless behaviour. Well, let's talk about your place in this your your kind of own view of this story, then a bit more steam. You've come as you've said, from a Catholic family, I think from Massachusetts, correct me if yes, you actually had some experience kind of working on the, on the, in the hinterlands of Kennedy world as a young man. What was your experience being in that world? Very odd world? Yeah, yeah. I grew up in Massachusetts, I grew up in a Kennedy worshipping fit. Well, my mother was a worshipper. My father admired President Kennedy wouldn't say he was a worshipper. My mother was a worshipper. She was Irish Catholic, and President Kennedy broke the glass ceiling, right. He's the first non Protestant. He's the first Catholic president. That was a big deal. For people of my mother's generation, they never forgot it. And after that point, the Kennedys could do no wrong. And I mean that. You know, in my mother's mind, John F. Kennedy was a candidate for sainthood after breaking that glass ceiling, and she was well aware of the stories that came out later about his philandering. And it still didn't make much of a dent. So I was raised in that milieu. My first job out of college was at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where President Kennedy's papers are kept. And my brother, you know, I might as well have been appointed Pope. When I got that position. She was so thrilled when I was introduced to Jackie Kennedy by Dave Powers, who was an old Kennedy hand who was the curator at the Kennedy Library. I mean, she she was in heaven. When I told her that I had been introduced personally to Jackie Kennedy. I mean, I cannot convey to those who those of you who are outside of this northeast United States Irish Catholic milieu just how much of an impact this family had on these people like like my mother. I began to sour a bit over time, once I partly spending time at the library and interacting with some members of the family. It's it was not always an uplifting experience. And politically, I began to move to the right. Yeah, please go ahead. Before we talk about the the sort of politics side, what didn't you find particularly pleasant about the people that you met from the Kennedy clan? Well, that isn't that next generation, although, interestingly enough, not so much John F. Kennedy's children, not so much John and Caroline Kennedy, or even Jacqueline Kennedy, but a kind of arrogance and a kind of do you know who I am type approach to dealing with their lessers. But more importantly, perhaps, Tom, what I saw there, even though I was a great Kennedy fan, I was I saw so many instances of trying to manipulate the historical record. And this isn't a federal entity, it's part of the Kennedy Library was was part of the National Archives. And yet certain favoured historians were allowed access to the materials, the papers, personal papers of both President Kennedy and other family members. These favoured historians were given access, while those who might be a little more objective or in the minds of the Kennedy crew be critical. They were stonewalled, they were, you know, kept away from this material. And that manipulation of history, even though I was a Kennedy fanboy, I was also somebody who's interested in history. And it disappointed me to see this. Again, this these attempts to distort the record to manipulate history. And I said, essentially, I gotta get out of here. I don't want to be part and parcel No, let me make let me make this clear. I was not an archivist. I was about as low on the totem pole that as you can get, I was actually down giving tours in the museum to all these busloads of people making a pilgrimage to this Kennedy Mecca. But I was certainly well aware enough of what was going on in the archives. And that soured me quite a bit. If you think about the kind of the political developments in the 60 years since Kennedy died, obviously, some of his personal behaviour merits a fair amount of dislike, I mean, you said that in some ways, he's the antithesis of of Trump, but in his dealings with with women, he certainly isn't the antithesis of trouble, unfortunately. But what are the political criticisms that you think people make of, of JFK, either, you know, to his left or to his, to his right? Well, from the right, you tend to hear and I'm quite familiar with this, because I was, if you can't part of the right, and it says that he was nothing but good teeth and good here and telegenic, and there was he was an empty suit, as we like to say here, that there was nothing to him. That's just totally off the mark. This was a very intelligent man, who was an avid reader who would devour anything he could get his hands on an incredible I mean, his conduct during the missile crisis. As I mentioned earlier, this is a smart guy. He had a capacity to put him shell self in his adversary shoes, and had a capacity and a way to step outside of himself and examine his own biases, which I think is quite rare. So I think conservatives get the, when they reduce Kennedy to being nothing but good teeth, I think they're way off the mark, you know, and they'll even add that if it weren't for Leon Harvey Oswald, you know, we'd never remembered this man would be totally forgotten. I think that's just entirely off the mark. From the left. There's still quite a bit of criticism for Kennedy directed towards Kennedy, for dragging his feet on civil rights. As I said earlier, I get some of that. But I think ultimately, it's unfair. And what I would direct anyone who believes that, too, is to listen to Kennedy's June 11 1963 nationwide address, one of the few that he made in office, some of which he actually improvised, which I would argue is one of the most powerful appeals to white America to abandon In the sort of lost cause Confederate mythology that was still causing the United States to be a separate and unequal nation. It's a remarkable speech. And it's a remarkable speech that cost Kennedy politically, his poll numbers began to tank after he delivers that Jun 1163 speech. And it begins to tank primarily in the south. And for John F. Kennedy to win re election in 1964. He was going to need the South. This was a risky Gambit that the President engaged in, it was hurting him politically. And part of the reason part, not all of the reason he's in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, is to try to shore up the cell where his support was eroding. Due to a I would argue, a very aggressive pro civil rights stance. So my friends on the left, I think, need to rethink that criticism of President Kennedy fact could quickly add to a lot of folks on the left are also quite quite critical of Kennedy, certainly for Vietnam, but also just for being something in the Cold War, for pushing the world to the brink in Cuba. And of course, we have touched on this, but he did support efforts to topple Castro, if not outright kill him. Absolutely true. But I think the thrust of Kennedy's initiatives in the latter half of his presidency, were designed to remove the threat of nuclear war and to pursue a day taught with the Soviet Union. And that has to be factored in. And I wish more of my friends on the left would do that. That leads quite nicely into a question I wanted to ask you. I heard an author called Mark Lilla. I don't know if you're familiar with him speaking on a podcast a few years ago, where he wrote a book for people listening called The Once and Future liberal, which is quite an interesting book about liberalism in America. And he says that something in that book, something like, for my entire adult life, being a patriot, and being a liberal, is a contradiction in terms. You can't be an American patriot, and also be a leftist. And I'd say to some extent, it's actually true in Britain now as well. If you read Kennedy's words, or listen to his speeches, he was a patriot through and through, I think that's pretty clear. Yes. Do you think the Democratic Party and the left in your country has a problem with patriotism now? Today? Yes, yes, it does. Some of it might be unfair. But it is part of the reason why the Democratic Party struggles in a lot of areas in this country, and tends to lose those working class blue collar voters that used to be the backbone of the Democratic Party. It's this sense that there's just, there's just a lack of enthusiasm for the United States. And there's certainly a rejection scene of this notion of American exceptionalism. Look, I have some problems with that notion myself. But certainly, I think the kind of well, look, the conclusion of my book, I actually draw some parallels between John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, which is going to piss off. A lot of folks I know, both on the left, and on the right, who don't want to see those men compared at all. By the way, interesting enough of Reagan, I think, had a tremendous amount of respect for Kennedy voted for Nixon, as he flat, flatly admitted. But Reagan gave a speech about President Kennedy in June 1985. That's one of the most moving addresses I've ever seen, with one President discussing another. Back to where we were what we were just talking about. Reagan And Kennedy. Were patriots. And that is the source. One of the sources you asked me right off the bat. Why are we why should we care? 66 years later, why do we still need to come to terms? Well, to some extent, there's a reason why Reagan and Kennedy in public opinion polls here in the United States are revered in the US. Usually Kennedy comes in first and Reagan second. Not scholarly polls. That's quite different. Public but public polls. The Gallup organisation does one fairly routinely which president in your lifetime do you most admire which president in American history Kennedy is always near? Number one, if not one, and Reagan is always in the hunt as well. And I think there's a reason they made Americans feel proud of their country? They weren't ashamed of that. And well, I'll just leave it at that, Tom. Well, I think that's a good way to finish actually saving. That's that's been brilliant. I've loved that computation. Thank you very much. Where can people find coming to terms with John F Kennedy when it when it comes out when it hits the bookshelf? So I was just informed a few days ago, Tom that the book will be released, probably the second or third week of this September, September 2022. And of course, it's readily it'll be readily available on Amazon and any major online or hopefully your local bookstore. It is published by University Press. So sometimes, local bookstores don't carry University Press books. I wish they would, but it'll be readily be readily available in three months. Stephen, thank you. Thank you, Tom. Terrific, terrific interview. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow it on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And for good measure. Leave us a review. 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