The Highest Calling, page 26
DR: When John Kennedy is in college, his role model is his older brother Joe Kennedy Jr. He’s a better athlete, he’s better-looking, he’s smarter. Did that give John Kennedy a sense of “I’m not going to be able to do much in life, because everything is going to focus around my brother”?
FL: Yes, though I actually don’t think Joe Jr. was smarter. I think the more intellectually gifted of the two was Jack. Joe worked harder, I grant you, and he had better grades.
DR: Better grades meant you were smarter.
FL: Not necessarily. Jack was a slacker compared to his hard-charging brother. In some ways, he took comfort in that. He could be in his brother’s shadow. He could pursue his own interests.
But teachers who taught them both at Choate and professors who taught them at Harvard would comment on the fact that Jack was the one who seemed to have a greater interest in ideas, to grasp them more fully. But you’re right, he was in his brother’s shadow, really, until Joe Jr.’s death in 1944, even if he had long since begun to outshine Joe in important respects (which Joe could see all too well).
DR: As a senior at Harvard, he writes a senior thesis, Why England Slept, about why England wasn’t prepared for the war, which was later published. Very few people get to publish their senior thesis, and he had it published by a serious publisher. Was it that great a thesis? Or his father made sure it was published?
FL: Certainly his father had an influence. His father got Arthur Krock of the New York Times to do some editing. His father also got Time-Life publisher Henry Luce to write a foreword. That’s some serious help. But the foreword was agreed to after the publisher had signed the book, so I don’t want to overstate the importance of Luce. And Krock’s edits were fairly modest.
I think Jack happened upon a topic that was perfect in its timing, basically why was England not prepared for war with Hitler? Given the experience of the First World War, given the experience of the interwar period, it hit at just the right moment, and the publisher was smart enough to see, “I can do something with this, even though it’s a kid who’s written it.”
DR: So it’s published and it does reasonably well for a book by a unknown author. World War II breaks out, and John Kennedy, like most people his age at that time, wanted to go to war. Was it easy for him to get into military service?
FL: Anything but easy, because of his health problems. He’s turned down on account of his back. The Army won’t take him, the Navy won’t take him. He eventually lands a desk job in Naval Intelligence in Washington. That’s where he’s posted in the fall of 1941, when Rosemary undergoes her lobotomy nearby, and when Pearl Harbor is attacked. He’s not in harm’s way, much to his father’s relief, but he continues to work hard to get into harm’s way, which is an interesting part of the story.
Ultimately he succeeds. Again, his father’s influence helps—which is ironic, because Joe Kennedy is deathly afraid that his sons will go into battle and be killed doing so. But because he knew that both Joe Jr. and Jack want to do it, he helps make it happen, using his connections in Washington. And then Jack goes off to fight the Japanese.
DR: He finds his way to the South Pacific, and he becomes the commander of a PT boat. What is a PT boat?
FL: It’s a torpedo boat. It’s a small, nimble vessel, not particularly useful as a military instrument, but with undeniable flair. In people’s imaginations, there was something dashing, even sexy about these PT boats, and therefore about being a PT boat commander. And that’s what Jack becomes. His long experience on the water growing up, with sailing boats off Cape Cod, helps him get the assignment.
DR: Now, famously, PT-109 was cut in half by a Japanese ship. Some people say, “How can you be the commander of a PT-109 and not know a Japanese ship’s about to cut you in half?” What’s the reason for that?
FL: It’s a moonless night. That’s one thing. His boat does not have radar. Some of the other boats in the squadron do have radar, but his does not. He does not know what others know, which is that the Japanese ships that they are waiting for have already passed through, and some of them are on their way back up the passage. And as a result, when this giant destroyer comes along, almost like a skyscraper, and is bearing down on his boat, he doesn’t have enough time to evade. Miraculously, only two crew members die. The rest of them are now left there, sitting there, and they have to decide what to do.
DR: He takes one of the crew members in effect on his back and swims several miles—I forget exactly how many miles it was—to an island. How does somebody do that after an accident? And swimming by yourself for a couple of miles is not easy, but swimming with somebody on your back—how did he actually do that?
FL: It’s hard for me to imagine. We know that he had competed for Harvard. He had been in swim meets since he was a boy, so he’s an excellent swimmer. That’s part of the explanation. But still, this takes three to four hours, in shark-infested waters, with the Japanese all around. Somehow, he manages to take this wounded comrade under his care, while the others swim, if they can, and they make it to this little island.
DR: They were later rescued. He goes back to the continental United States and recovers. Does he go back in the service?
FL: Yes, but he does not see action. He goes back to the United States, and he’s ultimately discharged in March 1945. By the way, we should note—and this helps him in terms of his political career—he is called a hero for those efforts in helping to save his crew. It’s all over the newspapers in the United States. One of the fascinating parts of the research for me was to go and look at small newspapers and large ones. And sure enough, there are articles about the son of Ambassador Kennedy performing heroically in the South Pacific. That story, the story of Jack Kennedy and PT-109, will be very important in his political rise.
DR: He does say later, “I’m going to go back and run for office and try to use my war story.”
FL: Yes, although I don’t have any reason to doubt him when he says that he was reluctant to make too much of the PT-109 experience, in part because he’s a little embarrassed he allowed his boat to be rammed and cut in two. Certainly expert members of the Navy were a little dubious about his allowing that to happen. But eventually he agrees with his father and others that the story is too good not to use. So they do.
DR: Originally his plan had been to be a journalist. And he does do some journalism after the war?
DR: He covers the San Francisco conference at the end of Second World War.
DR: That created the UN.
FL: It’s a great coming together of the victorious nations. As the war now is wrapping up, the question on everyone’s minds is, what’s the new world order going to look like? Jack Kennedy is there in San Francisco, and he covers this extraordinary conference. I do quite a lot with the articles he writes while there, which show his maturing international outlook.
Then he goes to England, soon after, to cover the British election where Winston Churchill and the Tories lose. To many Americans this seems an inconceivable outcome given Churchill’s heroic stature, but Kennedy predicts that they could have trouble. He’s one of the few U.S. observers who say, in effect, “Even though they were victorious in this war, Churchill and his party are actually in trouble.” I have no doubt he could have stuck with journalism had he wanted; he showed aptitude for that, and could write quickly and well.
DR: Churchill started out as a journalist too. Maybe he looked up to Churchill.
FL: Churchill was a bit of a lodestar for him in different ways.
DR: So, there’s a congressional seat in Boston that includes Cambridge. Later, Tip O’Neill had that seat. Somebody decides, “This is a good seat for John Kennedy.” Does he reluctantly get in the race or eagerly agree?
FL: It’s more of the latter. That said, he is a little uncertain about his prospects. That’s one thing about JFK: he was always his own best critic.
And I think he said, in so many words, “I don’t have any political experience. I don’t really know what I’m doing as a candidate. People will say that I’m a carpetbagger, because other than when I was in college, I’ve never lived in the 11th District. I’m going to be perceived as a son or privilege and an interloper. How’s this going to work with Irish Catholics and Italians and others in the district?”
He’s a realist about what’s going to happen. But by the time he makes the decision “I’m going for this,” he is really determined. He’s all in.
DR: Was he good as a campaigner?
FL: Not initially. He spoke too fast, didn’t seem comfortable. He seldom departed from his text, and when he did, when he extemporized, he was not good at it to start with. Later, and especially in the presidential campaign in 1960, he became a superb extemporizer; here, he was anything but.
DR: He gets elected in 1946?
FL: And takes office in’47.
DR: Richard Nixon was elected to the Congress at the same time. Do they get along? Are their offices close to each other?
FL: They did get along. Imagine being a fly on this wall: Kennedy had what we might call salons, in which he would invite people to his house in Washington, in Georgetown. His sister Eunice also lived there, so the two siblings were together under one roof. He would invite people, often as many Republicans as Democrats, for these leisurely, conversation-heavy dinners. And there would be journalists; Joe Alsop would come over, for example, and Walter Lippmann on occasion. And lawmakers. And they would sit around and talk about the issues of the day.
Richard Nixon was one of those who appeared, with some regularity. They got along well in Congress, no question, and later when Kennedy was a senator and Nixon was vice president.
DR: Kennedy gets reelected in’48 and gets reelected in’50. So, after six years in the House, he’s ready to be a senator?
FL: Yes. From day one in the House, he is looking at bigger things. He is thinking about the governorship or a Senate seat. His father says, “Maybe you should think about running for governor. You’re in a good position to do this now.” Jack listens. He feels shackled in the House, frustrated by the fact that he is but one of 435 members, and a very junior one at that. Much of the work is drudgery—you’re dealing with correspondence from constituents, you’re giving people tours of the Capitol, that sort of thing. And so he decides that he’s going for the Senate in’52. And of course it’s an epic race against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
DR: Henry Cabot Lodge is a well-respected senator. Do people think that there’s any chance John Kennedy could beat this incumbent?
FL: Two people think he can beat him: Jack Kennedy himself and his old man. Ambassador Kennedy says, “You can do this. If you can beat Lodge in Massachusetts, there’s nothing stopping you.” In other words, “The presidency, Jack, can be yours.” So they launch in. And the two of them decide there is a vulnerability to Lodge. He’s got a great name, he’s a 10th-generation Harvard man, but he’s taking this race for granted, devoting much of his time and attention to lining up Dwight Eisenhower to run for the GOP presidential nomination.
DR: Does Kennedy run on his accomplishments in the House?
FL: Not really. He didn’t have many accomplishments in the House! But there are two keys to his victory. Some of this he had shown in’46 and will show again in’60, namely he starts earlier and he works harder than the competition. This is a theme in all his campaigns, and it’s certainly key here in 1952.
And so when Lodge is not even thinking about this, when Lodge is busy in Washington, Jack Kennedy is out in western Massachusetts, in small towns, weekend after weekend, speaking to any group that will have him. He drives himself forward, relentlessly. He starts early, and that’s key to his success.
The second key to his success in’52 is that he’s turning out to be an excellent politician who works hard at it. He’s not yet the fluent speaker he’ll become in the fall of 1960 and as president, but he’s improving, and already shows an awareness of what goes into a good speech. More than that, he shows an ability to connect with voters.
Put those two things together, then add in his father’s money and the fact that the family campaigns with him, and you’ve got a powerful thing. He’s got his mother—a formidable campaigner in her own right—out there. His sisters are out there. Young Teddy is out there, working long hours, doing what he can. Bobby, all of 26, comes on board to run the campaign. It’s an astonishing thing, a true family affair. You can see why it ended up the way it did.
DR: Eisenhower is at the head of the Republican ticket that year. And he wins, overwhelmingly. He wins Massachusetts as well. What happened in the Senate race?
FL: Well, young Jack Kennedy, Congressman Kennedy, becomes Senator-elect Kennedy. He pulls off an amazing win over Lodge, and in doing so becomes one of the rare bright spots for the Democratic Party in what is otherwise a pretty miserable election. Journalists said at the time, “We don’t know much about this John F. Kennedy character. But he pulled off a stunner of an upset against Henry Cabot Lodge in Massachusetts. He is somebody to watch.”
DR: He’s elected to the Senate when Richard Nixon’s elected to the vice presidency.
FL: Yes. He and Nixon have this interesting parallel track. And of course, it will lead to their slugfest for the presidency in eight short years.
DR: So he’s a senator, and as a senator, he says, “I guess the next stop is the White House.” One of the things people thought you needed if you were going to run for the presidency was a wife. What did he do about that?
FL: It’s true. His father says to him, in essence, “Look, Jack, you can’t be a bachelor if you have these kinds of aspirations. Even if you decide to remain a senator and make the Senate your career, a man of your age—you’re now in your mid-30s—needs to have a spouse. Or people will start asking questions.” And Jack comes to agree with this—with how much enthusiasm, we don’t know. He meets Jackie Bouvier and they begin dating in 1952, and then they marry the following year.
DR: Before that happened, did he have trouble getting dates?
FL: Quite the contrary. He was successful with women to a degree that surprised even himself. He would puzzle over it. In his college days, his roommates at Harvard would marvel at how often a new woman seemed to appear at whatever dorm he was living in. Same thing at the place he had in Georgetown with Eunice while he was in Congress. There is a charisma and a charm that draws women to him, no question—even Hollywood stars like Gene Tierney. But now, in 1953 and partly because of his father’s encouragement, he thinks “I’d better get serious about this. I’d better get myself a wife.”
DR: Was he well-dressed in his bachelor days? Or was he fairly sloppy?
FL: This is where Jackie is quite interesting, because before meeting her he doesn’t care at all about what he’s wearing, and often shows up as a congressman with mismatched socks, or his shirttail hanging out, or his tie askew. From his days at Choate right up to his wedding day, he would famously leave his clothes in a pile on the floor, and then, the next morning, would just go back to the same pile and dig out something to put on. But then along comes Jackie, and he undergoes a transformation. With her encouragement he even becomes a bit of a clotheshorse. Little by little, he begins to pay attention to the cut of his suits, to the fit of his shirts, to which shoes work with which ensemble, and so on. He develops a particular preference for navy blue suits with a single vent in the back.
DR: As a senator, he hires a young man from Nebraska to be his legislative assistant and speechwriter, Ted Sorensen. Can you describe how Sorensen got that position and how their minds kind of linked together?
FL: It’s one of the great political partnerships in American history. Sorensen, idealistic, intelligent, the son of progressive parents from Nebraska, has come to Washington. He is a finalist for positions with two senators. One is “Scoop” Jackson from Washington and the other is Jack Kennedy from Massachusetts. He talks to them both, and decides—and he writes about this in his marvelous memoir Counselor—that he’s going to cast his lot with Kennedy.
But before he does, he says to Jack Kennedy—and I give them both credit for this exchange—in the final interview, “Senator Kennedy, I’ve got to ask you why you were not more outspoken in opposition to Joe McCarthy.”
That’s a pretty bold move by this young Ted Sorensen, who wants a job with this guy. But he feels compelled to ask this question. Kennedy gives him an answer about the strength of Irish Catholics in Massachusetts and family ties to McCarthy. (It turns out McCarthy has dated Jack’s sisters on occasion, and Joe Kennedy knows him and likes him.)
I’m impressed by Sorensen for raising that question and Kennedy for still hiring him. And so they start to work together. And what a match it is. In some respects, Sorensen becomes a kind of alter ego to the senator. I suggest in my book that they are the Rodgers and Hart of politics.
Kennedy will tell Sorensen, “I need to give a speech on such-and-such. Here are the points I want to make.” Or, “I want to write an article on this, one stressing the following points.” And then Sorensen goes off and produces a draft, which they will then go over, fine-tuning until they’re happy with it. Pretty soon it’s hard to tell, certainly for me, where one begins and the other ends.
DR: Kennedy’s elected to the Senate in 1952. Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic nominee in’52, and he lost overwhelmingly to Dwight Eisenhower. But then in 1956, he is going to be the nominee again. Stevenson says, “I don’t know who I want to have as my vice president. I’ll let the party decide in the convention.” Does Jack Kennedy say he wants to be vice president?
FL: Not initially. Stevenson says, “I’m going to make this really dramatic. I’m going to give the decision of the vice presidency, the decision of who will be my running mate, to the floor of the convention.”
