Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations

good evening you've read the news stories bought your copies of the book watch the ABC primetime special morning television and even The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and now tonight live from the Kennedy Library with this oral history was so carefully housed for the past half century we'll hear directly from Jacqueline Kennedy about her life with our 35th president and from their daughter who has brought this fresh new history to light I'm Tom Putnam director of the John F Kennedy Presidential Library Museum and on behalf of atomic not the executive director of the Kennedy Library Foundation members of our Foundation Board many of whom are here with us tonight and all of my library and foundation colleagues I thank you for coming and all those watching on c-span and acknowledge the generous underwriters of the Kennedy Library forms lead sponsor Bank of America Boston capital the Lowell Institute the Boston Foundation and our media partners the Boston Globe and WBUR the opening text panel of our new exhibit in her voice Jacqueline Kennedy the White House years which pairs this new oral history with never-before-seen documents and artifacts from our collection reads Jacqueline Kennedy had a rare combination of gifts intelligence courage discipline artistic creativity and a style all her own she had an adventurous spirit and was an accomplished horse woman who lived life at full gallop the oral history provides us with many of mrs. Kennedy's personal recollections and insights and I hope you'll allow me to comment on just one when asked by Arthur Schlessinger whose son Andrew was here with us this evening about where the president best relaxed mrs. Kennedy replied it was while sailing he loved the Sun in the water and not the phone and she remembers JFK is blissfully happy with the wind blowing his hair and adds it was for him what getting out on a horse was for me through her thoughtful forward to the book and some of her mother's recollections we also learned about Caroline Kennedy whose presence animates this institution like no other and whose steady leadership had split this library in the forefront of the Presidential Library System and providing worldwide access to archival collections we learn of the adventure stories her father told Caroline as a young girl stories about two ponies white star and black star as he wove these tales the president will let her pick which horse she was to ride and ask which of her cousins should race on the other and interviewed and Parade magazine Caroline describes often choosing Stevie Smith as her adversary whose father this names this Hall is named for and when asked by the interviewer if she was always the heroine in JFK's stories she quipped of course would you want to go to bed thinking that Stevie Smith triumphed over you we will open tonight with a brief introduction from the triumphant horse woman in our midst after Caroline's comments our panel will feature Michael Beschloss described by Newsweek as the nation's leading presidential historian who wrote the introduction to this new book as well as its extensive annotations and Richard K Donohue a member of the Kennedy administration the vice chair of the Kennedy Library Foundation Board of Directors who knew and worked with Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House here in Massachusetts and during the 1960 campaign we're delighted to have Ted Widmer a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and now director of the John Carter Brown library of Brown University is the evenings moderator towards the end of the program will take written questions from the audience there are index cards available and staff will collect them from you let me note a few other special guests who are here with us tonight including Vicki Kennedy Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Sidney Lawford McKelvey Steven Smith himself and two former Kennedy administration officials who both happen to be my predecessors as director of this library charles daily and Danson also joining us this evening is Jim Gardner who among other duties oversees the Presidential Library System for the National Archives a nation reveals itself by the men and women it produces JFK once stated and in Jacqueline Kennedy this nation produced a most remarkable woman among the many compliments one can bestow on this new book is that it is truly revelatory of her extraordinary life keen wit and historical accomplished as maureen dowd noted in a recent column who else could read war in peace during the Wisconsin primary persuade the French to lend the Mona Lisa to the US the only time it has ever left France and encouraged White House chefs to serve French cuisine at state dinners rather than Irish stew in its editorial the Boston Globe praised Caroline for publishing this oral history and demonstrating her trust in the general public and posterity to judge these recordings for themselves she is for many of us our own gallon tonight still a stride white star galloping through these troubled times on behalf of the causes her parents believed in not the least of which is an appreciation of history history much as revealed Caroline writes in the forward to the new book by her mother statements her tone and even her pauses and the same can be said of the decision to publish this oral history by the daughter the Jacqueline Kennedy raised so well ladies and gentlemen Caroline Kennedy you are for coming the staff of the library and the foundation for the stewardship and the tremendous care and dedication that they show every day here at the library and board members who are here and people that I've worked with over the years and especially the members of my family who are here it means so much to me and I think it's a wonderful tribute to our parents that we're all here together so thank you all most importantly it means a great deal that fifty years after my father's presidency so many people still share his vision for America and are interested in learning about his administration his time is really becoming part of history rather than living memory yet President Kennedy's words his spirit and his example remain as vital as ever now when young people often feel disconnected from politics it is up to us as adults to reach across the generations and recommit ourselves in our country to the ideals who live by for my family in the Kennedy Library the goals of these anniversary years are to stimulate interest in public service and use the power of history to help us solve the problems of our own time we've undertaken a number of important projects we've created the largest presidential digital archive in which my father's papers are now available online worldwide so that people can study his decisions and see history in the making we've launched the JFK 50th website which includes downloadable exhibits and curriculum for students and where kids can upload testimonials about their own public service in the spirit of JFK we've sponsored conferences on the presidency civil rights scientific innovation in the space program and the quest for nuclear disarmament all issues that continue to shape our national destiny and as you all know we published the seven interviews my mother gave in 1964 as part of an oral history project in which more than 1,000 people interviewed about my father's life and career when these interviews were completed she sealed the audio tapes here at the Kennedy Library and put the transcripts in a safe-deposit vault in New York though she often spoke of them to me and John a few other people knew of their existence and she never gave another interview on the subject the underlying goal of the oral history project which was the largest of its kind at the time was to capture recollections while they were fresh before the stories had been told a million times or become overly mythologized no one interview was expected to be complete or comprehensive but together with the underlying documentary record and historical archive housed here at the Kennedy Library it was hoped that they might form a composite picture that would be valuable in later years to me their most important value is that they make history come alive they give us a glimpse of the human side of the people in the White House and remind us that they are just as imperfect as the rest of us people have been surprised that my mother who was so famously private participated in this project and gave it her full commitment but to me it makes perfect sense my parents shared a love of history as a child my father was sick a great deal while his brothers and sisters were out playing football he spent hours reading in bed I have his books on British parliamentary history the Federalist Papers the American Civil War and the great orders of ancient times my mother preferred novels poetry and memoirs as Tom said she read war and peace during the Wisconsin primary to bleak winter landscapes she has a nice things to say that was constant also and she always told us that the best preparation for life in the White House was reading the memoirs of the Duke de sensee MA who describes how courtiers jockey for the King's attention at the court of louis xiv my mother brought the same intellectual curiosity to current affairs when she was engaged and first married to my father she translated countless French books for him about the struggles for independence in the French colonies of Algeria Tunisia Vietnam and Cambodia all of which gave her a deep understanding of parts of the world that most Americans were barely aware of at the time yet are still shaping our history today so she brought to the oral history interviews a respect for accuracy and historical scholarship that's why she chose to be interviewed by Arthur Schlesinger the Pulitzer prize-winning historian who had served as a special assistant to my father it took a good deal of courage to be as honest as she was but her own reading of the chronicles of the past convinced her that future generations would benefit from her commitment to tell the truth as she saw it it wasn't easy but she felt that she was doing this for my father's sake and for history since this book has come out some people have been surprised by her statements and opinions in today's world of cautious political memoir it's hard to imagine a contemporary public figure writing such a forthright book but she did not Dick Cheney out of the number one spot on the best so I think she deserves a lot of credit for her honesty one of the difficult decisions I faced was whether to edit the interviews there are repetitions issues that haven't stood the test of time comments that can be taken out of context and views that she would later change it didn't seem fair to leave them in but on the other hand these were formal interviews not accidentally recorded conversations in both participants understood that they were creating a primary source document so although there are good arguments on both sides of the issue I felt that I didn't really have the right to alter the historical record I also wanted people to see what and how my mother thought at a particular moment in time it's sometimes difficult for me to reconcile that people feel they know her because they have a sense of her image or her style but they've never been able to appreciate her intellectual curiosity her sense of mischief her deep engagement with the people and events around her and her fierce loyalty to my father for a modern listener one of the striking things about these interviews is how they evoke a moment in time in her statements my mother takes care to come across as an obedient wife of the 1950's who thinks only of creating a home for her husband and children in keeping with the purpose of the interviews but also in keeping with the times Arthur Schlesinger has fewer questions about her own activities or conception of her public role than an interviewer would ask a first lady today and now that she's become sort of an international icon it's hard to remember that she was only 31 when my father became president and totally overwhelmed by the prospect it's interesting to track her evolution into a modern woman and ironic that despite the hopelessly old-fashioned view she expresses that transformation began in the White House look she played largely traditional role as first lady like so many women she on her identity through work when she moved into the White House she had a three-year-old and a newborn baby her pregnancies had been difficult and she would lose another child in 1963 so caring for us and protecting us was her top priority but it had been a long time since there had been children in the White House and the obligations of a first lady included a busy official schedule she fought to carve out to the time that she spent with us each day an early version of the work family balancing act that women are so familiar with but she was dismayed by the uninspiring or shall we be honest and say hideously unattractive look of the White House and its surroundings she shared my father's belief that American civilization had come of age and was determined to project the very best of our history art and culture to the world she wanted the legacy of Washington Jefferson and Lincoln to be visible to American students and families who visited our nation's capital and to foreign heads of state who were entertained there so she set about to transform the White House into one of the nation's premier museums of American Art decorative arts and history this was more complex than simply redecorating a word she didn't like the project involved congressional oversight and interagency debate she was determined that it be self-financing and self-sustaining and proud that it elevated academic research and scholarship in the field of American art and her television tour stimulated new interest in pride in our cultural heritage she set up the fine arts committee founded the White House Historical Association and reorganized the White House Library to showcase works from American literature she created and mostly wrote the first guidebook and got Arthur Schlessinger to help with a book of presidential biographies on one page both of which are still sold today of course people were eager to help her but this was an ambitious high visibility undertaking and though it's hard to believe today it was controversial and carried political during my father sent a campaign in 1958 and the 1960 primaries my mother felt that she was a political liability to my father because of her fancy French accent and clothes and his advisers did too they lined up against the White House restoration which they thought was elitist and they were concerned about the propriety of creating a guidebook I recently came across a few memos on the subject and I thought you might like to hear some excerpts the first is from a memorandum to the president ray proposed sale of mementos in the White House from Jack McNally a loyal Irishman from Worcester Mass who was put in charge of White House administration he attached supporting memos from the White House Police and the Department of Interior who joined him in opposing the idea of a guidebook in behavior that could not be called a Profile in Courage my father just gave the memo to his secretary to forward to my mother who was on the Cape it reads in part quote the large flow of people through the White House was accomplished by the fact that there were no obstructions to slow up traffic the Secret Service in white house police contend that a movin' crowd is a safe crowd we must take into consideration the possibility of severe criticism from the public frequent references are made by tourists that commercialism does not and has never existed in any form in the president's home consideration must also be given to the impressions formed by visiting dignitaries who would be exposed to such a commercial venture in the president's home also possible criticism from the press and members of Congress as examples of the criticism that might result we would like to cite the unfavorable publicity that was given the Truman balcony and the efforts of the Eisenhower administration to keep squirrels off the president's putting green this last reference was too much for my mother who wrote in the margin absurd how stupid this is not a concession stand there's absolutely no connection like other people who came up against my mother McNally didn't stand a chance not long afterwards my mother wrote to JB West the White House chief usher mr. West the president tells me that Jack McNally who was against selling guide books in the beginning now says lots more could be sold on the way out but timidly says this is your province and doesn't want to mention it which is rather sweet of him I agree we can use the money every penny is needed not long after her commitment to history led her to pressure my father to support a UNESCO effort to save the Egyptian temples at Abydos in BO which were going to be flooded by the construction of the Aswan Dam she wrote a long memo to JFK which you can see downstairs laying out the importance of the temples and suggested that this would be a nice gesture to Nasser as he promised Aramco not to interfere with them in Yemen in South Arabia she demonstrates an understanding of Cold War diplomacy writing the psychological political argument carries more weight than the economic one the Russians are building the dam as strictly an economic Enterprise by saving the temples the US could show they care about the spiritual side and realize the importance of saving the cultural patrimony of Egypt I think my father rolled over on this one too the temples were saved in the temple of dendera now at the Metropolitan Museum in New York was a gift from the government of Egypt to the people of the United States to thank them for their support her commitment to history also led her to encourage my father to save Lafayette Square and start restoring Pennsylvania Avenue these efforts helped launch the historic preservation movement at a time when neighborhoods across the country were being demolished for modern office buildings and urban renewal projects and she didn't give up in 1970 she was still twisting my uncle Teddy's arm a letter to him reads dearest teddy I can tell where this is going I send you Pat Moynihan's letter to me the week before I left the White House I went to see President Johnson to ask him if he would see President Kennedy's committee for Pennsylvania Avenue before we left Washington Jack had been working on the president Pennsylvania Avenue project when he would drive from the White House to the Capitol and sometimes we would walk halfway there at night the tawdriness of the encroachments to the presidents has depressed him he wished to do something that would insure an ability of architecture along that Avenue which is the main artery of the government of the United States this was not something that came of my trying to restore the White House it was his own vision that's why I felt such an urgency about asking President Johnson I knew we would have so many things piling on him he would not give priority to the committee for Pennsylvania Avenue that's why I begged him to receive them he did you can ask him how surprised they were to be among the first meetings of Lyndon Johnson here comes the hard part I gather from Moynihan's letter that he has reason to feel uncomfortable with you I don't know the reasons but I can guess them I just wanted to tell you with all my heart this is one thing that really meant something to Jack love Jackie so Teddy had to resolve his differences with Moynihan and as he always did for mommy and all of us he found a way to make it happen in so many ways both private and public she defined the role of first lady for the modern age she straddled two eras the ones he describes in the oral history when women stayed home and had few opinions that differed from their husbands and the coming age when women broke free to become independent and self-supporting she lived fully in both as first lady she took the traditional woman's focus on the home and transformed it into a full-time job and a source of national pride in doing so she created her own identity as an independent woman she became an international sensation a new kind of American speaking the languages of the country she visited with my father and traveling abroad to in in Pakistan on her own most of all my mother was a patriot she believed that her time in the White House was the greatest privilege and worked hard to be worthy of the honor she loved my father and her courage held this country together after his death and when it was over she resumed the life of her private citizen a status she cherished she found the strength to create a new life for herself and embraced new world although John and I would have preferred to stay near the penny candy store in Hyannis Port she remarried took us to Greece and expanded our horizons immeasurably she devoured everything she could about ancient civilizations and renewed her unsuccessful efforts to teach us French then like so many women of her generation she went back to work when her children were grown she took tremendous satisfaction from her job as an editor and from the fact that it was a job that she could have gotten if she had never married at all she loved her colleagues and her authors she enjoyed the chase for the next big bestseller she was excited when she landed michael jackson's autobiography and she was proud to bring quality literature to a wide audience when she was the first to publish the work of the egyptian Nobel laureate Megeve mahfooz in English her love of history continued to inspire her she published an early book about Sally Hemings and was always trying to get us to read the only known Diary of a Napoleonic foot soldier which she discovered in an obscure library and to continue to advocate for historic preservation mixed-use neighborhoods and the quality of urban life she led the fight to save Grand Central Station and secured that victory with a landmark Supreme Court decision though she rarely talked about herself and gave almost no interviews her evolution as a public figure and her life as a private citizen inspired millions of women to live life on their own terms and continues to do so today when I was growing up she often used to say that she thought American history was boring because there weren't enough women I'm proud that she helped to change that and make possible the world that we're fortunate to live in today now I'd like to share a few of my favorite excerpts with you first you will hear a description of my father's reading habits then a section on the Cuban Missile Crisis and finally a brief description of the White House restoration I hope you enjoyed [Applause] [Music] during these times music 1958 campaign how did he kept up reading his own I want Linda to do this well he read in the strangest way I mean I could never read unless I have a rainy afternoon or long leaving embarrassing me he'd read wok-te read at the table at meals he agreed after dinner he agreed in the bathtub he agreed prop open a book on his desk while he and his bureau while he was doing his tie he just read a little and we'd open some book I'd be reading you know just devour it he really read all the times you don't think you have time to read it reading short takes and I remember it come back Ithaca thread and anything he wanted to remember he could always remember and he'd say things he'd used in his speeches you'd be sitting next to him on some platform and suddenly outward comes a sentence but two weeks ago in Georgetown he would have read out loud to you one night just cuz it interested him was mostly history biography yeah why not have his birth I think he was always looking for something in books he was looking for something that history or something for quote what oh it's when Rory he was reading math safe zone he was quoting that to me mommy reward her yeah then we start to make bullies were powerful like when an army drinks matter this Thursday or something you got a bit funny about it being the usual reason I think he was looking for something industry because he wasn't too sweet he didn't want to waste a single second [Music] the president comment at all on a question whether it should be is raid not the basis or blockade or what you mentioned was Mac monies well that I all-new later and that was never told to me too much much later then I remember he did tell me about this crazy telegram that came through from Khrushchev one night very warlike I guess except the nice one first where he looked like you what Khrushchev had wearing might go to smell and then this crazy man came through the night wasn't exactly really upset about that and then deciding that they were just answered first being in a man I also remember him telling me about Gromyko which was very early in it notice how he'd seem for me go and he talked doing everything they'd said and then he really wanted to put Kimiko on the line and just lying to him I'm never giving anything when I said happy to keep straight thanks a how could you not say you rat sitting there and we said what and tip our whole hand we just cry that to me and then I remember another thing which the man that Roger Hills me wrote me a letter about just this morning but have one of the worst days of it all last day send me some YouTube playing got loose over Alaska or something mmm-hmm violated Soviet airspace if it's a moth saying oh my god you know then the Russians might have thought we were sending it in and that could have just been off well maybe I'm telling me about that oh and then I remember hearing how Anderson's dependent I wouldn't let that was after winter before but all that thing and then I remember just waiting that blockade the only thing I didn't think of what it was like was like an election night way but much worse but you know one ship was coming in some big fat ready to return back but it didn't have anything but oil on it anyway and all these ships cruising forward and then being hearing that the Joseph D Kennedy was there and saying to Jack did you send us anything no and that's strange you know I'm just remembering and then finally some ship turned back or was boarded or something and then that was when you gave the first relief wasn't it and I can't remember I'm you know the day filing when it was over and saying to me and Bundy saying to me that any later you know that if it is just going on maybe two more days everybody really would have cracked it's all those men you've been awake night and day - Shepard in this situation or something I mean Brad had seven dad in everyone and just thought and then I wrote a letter to McNamara afterwards which I showed the jack I remember every one of the work to the peak of Union doors not present feel about restoration the restaurant of aware oh well he thought um you know he was interested in it he'd always get so interested in anything that you know I cared about him but he was nervous about it I mean he wanted to be sure it was done the right way so he sent Clark Clifford to see me and Clark Clifford was really nervous because he he tried to persuade me not to do it which Jack never you just can't touch the White House he said it too strange everyone America feel so strangely about it look at the Truman balcony if you try to make any changes it'll just be like that nice ed it won't be like the Truman balcony and then I told him all about Harry DuPont and all the people we hope to get so is it went on but I thought and how you'd set this committee up and certain legal things and then Clark was very good about setting up a geyser so once Jack saw it was going along with sort of good counsel I mean he was so excited about it there was ever any criticism of the things that you didn't know I have never know the most incredible interest and then the tours would start going and every night he'd come home saying we had more people today that could be after you'd found them in rogue Pierre table or something then the Eisenhower's had in the first two years I've been the guidebook was selling Adi doors be teasing McNally about it so he was just so proud I was so happy that I could do something that made him proud of me because I tell you one wonderful thing about him I was really I was never any different once I was in the White House than I was before but suddenly everything had been a liability before your hair that you spoke French that you didn't just adore the campaign and you didn't bake bread and flour up to your on and we got in the White House all the things that I'd always done suddenly became wonderful so I was so happy for Jack but he could be proud of me then kazuma may also happen and they'd be so happy so those were happy to use [Music] can you hear us all right in her forward to this book Caroline said that for her parents the past was the gathering of the most fascinating people you could ever hope to meet and thanks to these remarkable interviews which we can hear as well as read we are privileged to attend a gathering of the fascinating people of the past people ranging from Edmund Burke to onions Berg and at the center of this gathering is a family living in a home that has famously not been welcoming to its inhabitants that has been likened to a prison and Michael I want to start with you you've studied many presidencies the Franklin Roosevelt presidency Lyndon Johnson were you struck by how many times the word happy came up in these conversations I was and and something you know she's nothing if not frank throughout these interviews and one thing that she says more than once is that when her husband was elected in 1960 she had a novel reaction very unlike most incoming first lady's she was terrified and she was depressed partly because she had just given birth to partly because she thought that it would wreck their family life that there would be just such a fishbowl of so many pressures and she was amazed of time but she says that it actually had the opposite effect during their marriage since 1953 John Kennedy had run for vice president ran for reelection the Senate run for president and so was gone she says almost every weekend very much apart the first time now they were there in that house he worked in the Oval Office they were together in physical proximity a lot more so I think there was an exhilaration finding that contrary to what she expected that they really were their happiest years we heard about her interesting style of campaigning in Wisconsin reading or did she just love Wisconsin as Caroline saw and it's a good thing that no one's running there this year these proceedings are being televised in Wisconsin but I don't remember left o Wisconsin oh she is extremely fond of Wisconsin everyone in Wisconsin just don't worry about part please in fact there's a word in your transcript I always wondered how to spell and describe in Wisconsin in the winter she says you okay no you wwwww thank you for clearing that up but uh she says that I think she says that she didn't like a single person that she met in Wisconsin except for the people that she worked for Jack and then in West Virginia she liked almost everyone she met that's right but dick obviously she brought great charisma to the kid to that art of campaigning and was an asset from well before the election and and how did in the hard work of daily politicking how did how did the staff feel about her oh she's great and you know I I am sorry that she was not as happy about Wisconsin as I saw her because we were in a Main Street broken-down storehouse and that was the headquarters and I remember her being there with writing and things and at least entertaining the people who came they found out who she was and they wanted to visit with her and they did so I do not remember her bad part of that how I do remember that there was a pester pestiferous salesman for some newspaper and kept bothering her and bothering her and eventually she was riding with the president because Kenny O'Donnell told me this and she said you know that fellow I bought an ad and she said well what mind you I wrote it oh he said that's my money so it was not what they had hoped would be but thereafter I mean in West Virginia of course she was great and and she was marvelous the best part about her was that if you got an assignment for her it was done completely and fastidiously and as beautifully as it possibly could them so that if you were on the committee you would better make sure that you did everything problem but she was very good in that that no yeah and one of the fascinating things is that there was a film crew doing a documentary of the Wisconsin primary which I'm sure honey of you've seen and just to give you a sense of how far she came in such a short period of time she's standing there in a grocery store with a microphone almost begging people to come over and say hello and they're still shopping and not paying her the attention so I think that may have had some influence on her and then this constant tool when deservedly when the book was published on the 14th of September there was a huge amount of media attention and as usual the media got some things right and a few things not so right and a lot of attention was paid to her remarks about the obligation of a wife to subscribe to the political opinions of her husband fairly uncontroversial statement and glad someone laughed thank you and yet on the feminism meter that was coming into existence in the 60s and as you mentioned Betty Ford and the feminine mystique published in 63 obviously she she has very independent thoughts she's a sharp judge of human nature and of all the people populating the White House and the actions happening all around her and she later did work and so where do you see her as a feminist in evolution I'd say she was an unwitting feminist in the early 1960s and she explicitly says in the oral history I'm not a feminist like Tish Baldrige refers social secretary but when you when you read and when you listen to her this is someone who as Caroline that very well she came to the White House yes she decided to do it in her way she found for herself an enormous project which was restoring the White House which was probably three careers at the same time at the same time as she had young children she did the job of first lady in a way that was very much her own choice and she made other choices about her life too so I think by the definition of feminism that we now suggest I think she was an early feminist but her political instincts would have caused her in these tapes to say no I'm absolutely not a feminist that track with your sense dick as well yes I mean there's no question that she was a feminist she just basically took over and did a job that under others somebody might have assigned it to a man because when she undertook the remodeling of remaking or the refurbishment or the correction of the mistakes that were made the White House she did it with a strength and a Verve and an intelligence that captures everybody so it is not you know I I would not dismiss her on any count but certainly not for her lack of some wishing washing us but that's not her that wasn't her style one of the observations that jumped out at me reading this book was the extraordinary degree of physical pain President Kennedy was in for much of his adult life including much of his presidency and up dick if I can continue with you as someone working in campaigning and and congressional liaison was that constant pain something you picked up on as a staffer in the White House no he never complained of pain he complained about lack of having sufficient hot water or something in order to get all baths to relieve the back pain but he did not complain about what was happening to him and indeed I was really struck by the book but because dr. Travelle was the sort of who offering herself as the corrector of all illnesses wherever they were including with Sam Rayburn and it obviously was not giving him the relief that he should have had the the latest thing with a doctor that taught him straining and stretching was what gave him relief but he was not a complainer about anything he was a stoic and mrs. Kennedy tells two things that illustrate that she talks about after of his two back operations in 1954 in 1955 and one of the most poignant things is she describes what torture it was and how he went through this and then she says we later found out that it was absolutely unnecessary and she says that the following summer he went back to the Senate she says he looks so wonderful in his gray suit he was strolling around the Senate floor as if there was nothing wrong then he would go back to bed at night in a hospital bed and the other thing is that you know when he was president I think dick would confirm this you know the number of times we now know he was in agonizing pain you never saw it one image of that is in the spring of 1961 their first foreign visit which was to Canada and he planted a tree and he had been told to bend his knees not to aggravate his back and have just forgot to do it so they went over and essentially almost ripped his back put himself and absolutely unbearable pain which he suffered the next of months but if you see the video of it it goes a little bit like this but he was such a stoic and he was so accustomed to not making people uncomfortable but even the people who were close to him didn't quite know what had happened do you think any other president was ever in such constant physical discomfort him including Franklin Roosevelt who you have worked on hard to think of one I think for instance Robert Kennedy says in his preface to the memorial edition of profiles encouraged 1964 that at least half of his days on earth were spent in physical pain and if that's the truth I think more than Franklin Roosevelt absolutely right you you must have been thinking about Arthur's questions as you were researching this book and he was a friend of all of ours were there questions he didn't ask that you wished that he had did but everything is always 20/20 in hindsight 47 years later as Caroline mentioned for instance in those days most historians would not have thought to ask her a lot about her own experience a first lady in those days even by so knowing in a story in his Arthur Schlesinger was sort of a side event so there's less on her and also the purpose of the oral history was basically to talk about President Kennedy but Carolina boy and I had discussed these two they're things that since we know what happened later on you sure wish he had asked for instance what President Kennedy might have done in Vietnam other issues that were not so important in early 1964 that in retrospect renowned very important it seems like by asking Arthur and there was no one else to ask with better skills and training as a historian you the decision was made to take a certain path to the story which was the the path of the Harvard elites who had come down to the fat White House and did you feel that there were stories that weren't told in this yes including anything that I've told because Arthur was the greatest author of stories about himself I I know specifically because Kenny O'Donnell told me when Dean Rusk came to visit the president he had a particular message to deliver would you please get Arthur Schlessinger off the list of people who get my cables why because Arthur was about the most garrulous party going person and the whole White House because Russ said listen anything you get by cable has around town by nightfall so then he said to Kenny no you better not I'll have to do it you're going to come out poorly in his book as it is and one thing she says in here is how in many ways compartmentalised President Kennedy's life was and she explicitly mentioned the staff well yes and you know one of the things that I found remarkable but it's real nobody in the staff really did business in memos we communicated by phone and conversation and that's it so there are not great records it's one reason the Oral History Program that's right and it made it very refreshing when you could know that something that you had seen or done was not recorded but you could also see when and was there anything particular that you would imagine the names undulate ik no no I have saved up for my book no the thing that I remember best about all of that was when they we came it was really about getting some stuff done at the White House and everybody would get all excited about why is someone so writing a memo why are they doing that we don't need a memo we just get things done I think Dave powers remarkably should have some no historian we should have just some three deca people to give a report of what went on and that was that his personal look at the president president's attempt to deal with people on the staff but the people on the staff dealt very very generously with one another I mean generously not so generously but critically you bet and but not in an offensive way nor will we offensive to one another although I could have been but but the most important memory I have of the thing was the formation and they can of the of the campaign for the presidency and that really began with the fight for the control of the Democratic state committee in Massachusetts this is onions Burke not Edmund Burke yes onions book and onions Burke was from the western part of the state and he got to be known as onions I think because they have an onion patch out there of some there was an onion farm oh yeah it's not as well as a bartender and smelly well when that was not untypical of leadership of the party but it hasn't changed you know but it started because that was when we determined that this guy who had just been elected to the Senate and should take a shot at getting control of the mechanics of the party now that is really how will you get recognition nationally nobody cares who is chairman of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire or or anyplace else but who are the offices but if you are getting ready for a convention to people who care about who are the party leaders wanna know who's in charge even though they find that being in charge doesn't put you in charge of much but they did so that's when we started the campaign for the control of the Democratic state committee and it was a tumultuous event that went on and on and on although I remember only clearly that it was on Mother's Day in the year in which the election was held when we were in the hotel Park Plaza whatever Copley Plaza and the president was interviewing the people of the state committee and asking if they support them or not and if they did we thought they were wonderful people and if they seemed a little hesitant we'd want to find out and you remembered years later who was for you and who was against role Oh oh brother yes and if you wanted to get a ticket to go to the White House you better have been on the right side in 1956 yes and but that's when it began and it was a crucial campaign I mean we didn't have onions Burke and juicy Rivera Granero who watched you secret and mrs. Kennedy talks about these wonderful figures that yeah had not been a part of her previous life like juicy Granero and another gentleman who was referred to as the china doll yeah tell about them well and because you know this really goes back to the hotel Bellevue and the hotel Bellevue which apparently no longer exists but was at that time the right a block from where the president's apartment was and right across from the Statehouse it was the buzzword of all Pauls who were around and they were in and out and hey we didn't have Meredith Gerald have had his headquarters there having her I was a little perhaps but you know it was not a place where you don't have emails and Twitter's and and all of that type of thing because you just met me whistle we have one fellow at home we call whispering Eddie Smith I mean they will all why why did you call whispering Eddie because they whispered thank you no they would spread rumors like as quickly as you could spread a disease they freaked when he did what they spread was a disease but as we were getting ready for the fight in the for the control of the State Committee we had may a Lynch of Somerville which was our champion and they had onions Burke was the champion of the McCormick's but NACO McCormick which was Eddie McCormick's father was also on the state committee there was the brother of a House Majority and NACO was about as different as the speaker as you could make he was coarse and rough and tough and I remember when his son was withdrawing from a campaign for the attorney generalship was something of that nature and the father stood in the middle of the aisle in the mechanics hall yelling at his son sit down that's a stupid thing to do so he wasn't what you'd call the wise counselors in the back of their largely six but but we got through this fight and everybody was convinced that there were big piles of money because the Kennedys were going to buy this thing and how much you getting and help you know and so I went home and said gee I'll to something waiting for me it was dinner was waiting for but that was the meter of the day determine who was good and who was bad but that continued on and everybody is correct people will recall where were they in the fight for election O'Neill Oh Bert and they never did get it solved because people were still mad much much later and they never would ever would stop that I think they were still mad about 1980 or so yeah I had high hopes of talking about the Duke de Santa Samoan Andrew Malraux but it really is fun to talk about yeah there's some fascinating what if in the story Michael there is the hint that an opening to China was anticipated in the mid-60s in quoting of Mao and a trip to Russia and did that strike you as a surprise when you it was interesting I suspected it but it's the first time we really had more solid evidence from the Prime Minister on Kennedy essentially was beginning to plan his second term and two of the things that he planned to do were to go to the Soviet Union would have been the first time a president had been there believe it or not and also an opening to China which in retrospect given what our world is like today was a normal enormous depression but he used to say in private but face it those are subjects for a second term after I'm reacted right and Lyndon Johnson whom you've worked extensively in doesn't fare that well in this treatment there's a story of how he went out one night in Georgetown and had a bit too much to drink and just felt he wasn't up to the job and does that Trek with your sense of where LBJ was I think mrs. Kennedy if she had read this later on probably would have felt that she was a little bit hard on LBJ this was spring of 1964 LBJ had just become president she was not happy that he was beginning to overturn a number of her husband's and tensions and there were other little personal glitches that had gone on the previous two months and I think if she were here the one cautionary note that perhaps she would have wanted to emblazoned on the front of the book would be this is a snapshot in time what she may have thought in the spring of 1964 may not have tracked with her feelings later on and later on as she said it in rural history she came to resume her old fondness for LBJ she was very close to Lady Bird and so I think one thing you always have to remember when you're reading this book is that some of the more fascinating opinions she didn't always keep them yours right one interesting insight into his political temperament and dick this is almost the opposite of the story about in the onions Berk where everyone remembered which side you were on in 1956 but she said he had a remarkable magnanimity that he forgave everyone and a little it was a little bit self-serving because you never knew who you need in the next fight but also it seemed that it proceeded from a genuine inclination to forgiveness and was that your sense of how he did politics well no one could understand how he could ever forgive the senator from Florida his dear friend Natalie George snipers John who stabbed him in the back everyone aspiration voting record was about two percent yes and whenever you needed his vote he couldn't have it and then you'd find the president inviting him down to the White House for dinner and we frequently complained about it which did us absolutely no good because he continued to entertain and happily he got his he determined that his career was not would be furthered in politics and he got out or there were those you couldn't really understand why he could be so charitable to them but he was forgiving and he his modus operandi was if you may need him tomorrow so you better not stab him in the back today things of that nature and he was very very fair about it and you know in these times that just stood out so much for me because she says you know I used to tell him you know why are you being so nice to that guy I've been hating him for the last three weeks because of what he did to you and president said oh no he's done such-and-such last week which was actually very good and the thing that he says to her is never close off a relationship so that there is no possibility of reconciliation and I do hope that everyone who's in Washington right now will grieve that sense yes yeah take it to heart Michael the term soft power has been in vogue for about a decade book by Joan I and I believe Caroline uses the phrase in her forward and I don't know there ever was a first lady before her since you had that kind of ability to change people's attitudes around the world towards the United States and even if she doesn't talk about her her political thoughts as much as we might like in these interviews there's there still there's clearly the sense of Simon's getting a great deal done to support the administration even in her choice of countries to visit her choice of how to present herself all the cultural work she was doing was there anything like that before her she really could see around corners and see things that others could not see one of them was Latin America which then and later on got very short shrift from American presidents she thought it was important they went to Costa Rica they went to Mexico they traveled there one of the most poignant things in the book is she talks about a newspaper headline but mrs. Kennedy was nice enough to actually shake hands with little children who were from a latin-american country because that was so unusual at the time one thing both John and Jacqueline Kennedy I think both felt was exactly what you're saying Ted which is that one test of American power is the number of missiles and nuclear weapons and so on but oftentimes just as important is how people think about America and their hearts that's what the Peace Corps was about there's some wonderfully undiplomatic statements in this book thank one or two one or two thank goodness I learned she named her poodle de Gaulle in the 1950s and in dreg that was my footnote she should not be held that was a nice did those surprise you did the acuity she says that she had she came to have the same I think opinion of French people as she did of people in Wisconsin and I think sort of for the same reasons because Wisconsin did not ultimately vote overwhelmingly for John Kennedy and the French particularly Charles de Gaulle was giving her husband a great deal of trouble so I think you can see these things to some extent is a great test at wold there's some beautiful language is well in the middle of the account of the Cuban Missile Crisis she says just a throwaway line there was no day and no night no difference between sleeping and waking right and I thought that was so signal because one of the toughest things that I think in a story it always has to do what I think you'd agree with this we talked about this a little bit is to find out what someone two things one the depth of his or her religious belief particularly president and also the true nature of marriage and she describes the Cuban Missile Crisis that they were together probably more during that period than perhaps any other time during that presidency and he would call her and they would go for walks on the lawn spent a lot of time together and that does tell you something because you were mentioning Franklin Roosevelt he admired Eleanor but when he was at a moment of great anxiety I don't think he would have found her resting restful or supportive company probably would not have spent a lot of time with her in a crisis like this in the case of JFK whom does he turn to it's Jackie were there any parts of this CD set and book dick that surprised you that revealed new sides to President Kennedy not really but I must say that I was marveled at her concern about the differences the remodeling of video White House the detail that she went to and that she had the research that she did and then her ability to administer it is really overwhelming I just don't can't believe that a person could do it on with short notice unless she had been planning it for much longer than we know and I think it was a depth of her reaction when she came to the White House and had a lovely experience with mrs. Eisenhower who did not hold her terribly well will laughing read it in the book if you haven't seen it yeah but she was shown through the staterooms and she said that they looked like Lubyanka or a bad convention hotel and it was actually reason for that which I'm not sure if she knew which is that when the White House was reconstructed during the Truman administration because it's falling down they left the four walls on the outside scooped out everything in the inside and built new floors and so on they ran out of money so Harry Truman quite characteristically made a deal with B Altman's the department store in New York they just furnished the whole ground floor of the White House and it looked that way and she she felt it did but dick is absolutely right because sometimes the restoration of the White House is sort of written off as interior decoration or just sort of superficial she had to raise this money which was not easy she had to keep particularly to three advisers architectural advisers from essentially colliding with one another Harry DuPont and Stefan Buda and sister parish I think also to some extent and so if anyone doubts her political skills the fact that she was able to do all this get it in on time under budget and for the White House to look the way it does today if it were not for her I think the White House would still look like a bad convention hotel yeah the Eisenhower's don't come off terribly well President Eisenhower was walking around the residence and his golf shoes they can little holes in the floor and Mamie Eisenhower is not a very sympathetic figure but I felt a little bit sorry for her because to have been succeeded by Jacqueline Kennedy must not have been the easiest thing I think not but as she as mrs. Kennedy says things would drift to her years such as mrs. Eisenhower saying of the restoration I hear they've made the Red Room purple things like this ain't we're at an interesting moment in the history of publications because I wasn't sure whether to listen or to read and which would be faster and really between the two you get so much more from hearing her speak although I had one alarming moment in my car I had them all loaded in and I accidentally left Keith Richards one CD from Keith Richards in the middle of her took a little understanding I love that what is she but where do you think do you think your readers and her readers I mean are they even readers or should people listen to this to bid like really both you get different experiences when you read it I think you can perhaps absorb what is that a little bit more but when you listen I think you're absolutely right Ted and this is probably true for most tapes of this kind you get a sense in fact I've heard Caroline talk about this you know you hear her tone of voice there are shades of meaning that you just can't possibly get just from reading the words right we're now at the part of this event where we are taking questions and I have a few to begin this is for you dick she talks about Joseph P Kennedy and Rose Kennedy you must have known those two individuals do her impressions match with your memories of them and her interactions with them in public yes you see why pick had a very long career in political life oh I'm distinguished well no mr. Kennedy was very much a dominant figure and almost everything that went on in the political life in John Kennedy his mother was even more dominant on their prayer life and kept after them for all the reasons that good mothers do I mean to make responsible children and but they kept very very close track of what each was doing and so I would not disagree that anybody who thinks that they were enormous ly influential the only thing I am conscious of how well or is that ambassador Kennedy could not influence certain people in the Democratic Party I mean people that we were supporting he frequently did not so that who are you effective well I'm just really thinking about one fight that we had and he just was not responsive I mean well bobby was a responsible one and what happened was that Bobby had indicted the brother of a congressman from New York and the congressman who had been very very responsive to us and wanted desperately for the indictment to be withdrawn Bobbie refused they then was a talk to the Ambassador who said no he will do what he's going to do anyway so it caused us some pain but not a great deal but it's the type of thing which they would differ and if he differed he differed because he was one strong rascal I think around that time ambassador Canada used to joke that he was a Robert at Democrat yeah Michael what surprised you the most did any of her assessments of key players differ from your views and those of other historians sure in all sorts of ways but I think in a large sense the thing that really surprised me was that if we were talking a year ago I would have said that she was a large influence during that period but I wouldn't have particularly said that she was a large political figure in this administration and I think if you read this book you have to say that because the number of times she talks mainly about people but not always only about people and you notice that the people that she's very critical of wound up not doing terribly well during the administration and vice versa to some extent I think she was absorbing her husband's views but she does talk about a few cases where for instance she was in Pakistan which had been added to her trip to India to balance it off for political reasons and two things happened actually John Kenneth Galbraith was the ambassador to India whom John Kennedy had known since the 1930s when he was at Harvard the ambassador in Pakistan did not have that kind of relationship so for diplomatic reasons it was thought that it was a good idea to imply that Walter Makana he and Pakistan had not an equal leave at least some relationship with the president so mrs. Kennedy sort of implying the president thinks very well ambassador Makani so island economy says well that's funny I've only met him once when I present it when I left to take this job two weeks ago so that didn't work terribly well but not as a result of this but having been in Pakistan and watched him in action she went right back home and wrote her husband a memo saying this is exactly the kind of ambassador we should not have in a job like this and it went to the State Department and ambassador Makana he served till 1966 so maybe a comment on Dean Rusk she didn't seem to get as involved in domestic politics would you agree they're coming well I don't know that she didn't get involved in domestic politics because for instance will they talk about the monuments from the Aswan Dam flooding I remember going to see John not latech was named congressman from Brooklyn who was in charge of the Appropriations now would he have been politically very eager to help Egypt at that point no he was not he was politically he was not at all anxious to help the president because he fancied himself being in opposition that would strengthen him domestically John relief yeah type and but he was in opportunity I went up to call him off the floor to ask him to please vote the thing that the president wanted and he eventually said yes he would but he never forgave me 400 we've got another question for Michael as a presidential historian are you aware of any first lady prior to Jacqueline Kennedy who provided a candid public revelation of her experience in the White House no and one thing that if you study her life she always broke the mold she was always innovating and perhaps may be pretty near the most important innovation she made was this idea that she would be asked for eight and a half hours very personal questions in great detail about her time as first lady that had not happened before and since then it almost always happens the first lady's even like books which in those days was very unusual there's not a page of this book that isn't fused with her her wit and and the sense that she and and President Kennedy were were sharing there's a wonderful story if I can interject for a second were Sukarno of Indonesia is coming for a state visit and his not very good reputation had preceded him but they were trying to make the best of it so oftentimes as she says when there was a leader who's coming to the White House president would bring the leader upstairs to visit with the first lady is sort of a special thing to do for him and sukarno was said to have published his art collection was actually published by the Chinese so mrs. Kennedy it's the kind of detail that she went into got a copy of the collection the book from the State Department about 20 minutes before Sukarno arrived she wasn't able to read it before he got there so sukarno was there on the sofa mrs. Kennedy on one side president on the other but oh we have this wonderful book of your art collection they opened it and virtually every page was a topless woman and Suparna would pick through it there was my second wife there was my third wife and she says Jack and I had to make such an enormous effort to keep from laughing almost didn't make it could you tell how funny she was well not tell a funny story about her family she was very close to her sister who was married to the Prince of Poland and he came here during the campaign and he was very big in the Polish crowd but he was not a American citizen he was a Polish to us and the drive was to get him out and see the people and as a fellow who worked in the State Department Michelin ski Michelin ski was a very very powerful political figure in the polish world so he definitely wanted stache to come to his district or the good old campaign I said Mitch we can't do that we can't have a foreman Signet diggit dignitary campaigning in a domestic collection well he says let me see what I can do so the next thing I remember is I get a call from ship Lensky hello geek yeah Miche last tonight in wookies berry stash was a smash you hear me last night in Wilkie's berry stash with this man Thank You sash and Pennsylvania went democratic that year by a much larger margin than expected so we now know the reason Michael alluded earlier to the toxic political climate we live in now and how do you think President Kennedy would have negotiated within that that kind of a climate how how would he have helped our system recover I really do not know with this system as we have it today where people refuse to tolerate the other person's view how he could possibly have owned up to it when I left Washington which was exactly a week before the president was assassinated I had been working on the Civil Rights Act bill now we had put together with a lot of work and a lot of thing a real coalition of Republicans and Democrats prepared to support a real civil rights bill it was and I left Washington with a certain assurance that it was over there was no need to do it I used to be able to name the Republican congressman that I could line up on almost any given matter because they had respected President Kennedy and they respected the things he stood for you don't have any of that today no one respects anyone else no one has shared anyone else so I do not know how he could have fit in today's world unless he could have bombed them or something and I did want one thing that sort of does it for me is the space program yeah when he went to Congress and dick I'm sure was a part of this and said I think a moon landing before 1970s essential national security a lot of Republicans who didn't want to spend the money said if our president tells me that national security is at stake I'll vote for it which they did well I think we should all take from this book a measure of optimism about ways that our system can perform well that it's at its very best and on that note so even though we're not American Idol there's no phone number for you to call and to place your vote but our bookstore does report directly to the New York Times bestseller that so if you would like to keep Jacqueline Kennedy ahead of Dick Cheney on that list we encourage you all to buy a coffee or two or three of the book at our bookstore I ask you to remain in your seats if you will will get Caroline the book signing will be right outside this store those of you in the satellite will be a line that will be coming in from the front those of you in this room the line will form literally around the back of this wall but most of all what I want to do is to thank Caroline Kennedy for her comments and for this terrific panel Michael [Applause]

Channel: JFK Library

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Keywords: John, F., Kennedy, Presidential, Library, and, Musuem, jacqueline, kennedy, white, house, politics, american, history

Id: fAsriPJg7DM

Length: 79min 50sec (4790 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2018