ALAN PRICE: Good evening. I'm Alan Price, Director of the
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. On behalf of my library
and foundation colleagues, I'm delighted to welcome
all of you who are watching tonight's program online. Thank you for joining
us this evening. I would also like to
acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the
Kennedy Library Forums, lead sponsors Bank of America
and the Lowell Institute, and our media sponsors,
The Boston Globe and WBUR. We look forward to a
robust question and answer period this evening. You'll see full
instructions on screen for submitting your
questions via email or in the comments
on our YouTube page during the program. We are so grateful to
have this opportunity to explore President
Kennedy's earlier years in depth with our
distinguished speakers this evening. This is the first major
work about President Kennedy in many years. We have been anticipating
this for some time. Much of Professor
Logevall's research took place in the
Kennedy Library Archives, and we are very
pleased to learn more about this comprehensive new
look at President Kennedy's formative years. I'm now delighted to
introduce tonight's speakers. We're so glad to welcome Fredrik
Logevall back to the Kennedy Library virtually. He is Laurence D.
Belfer professor of international affairs
and professor of history at Harvard University. A specialist on US
foreign relations history and modern
international history, he is the author or editor of
nine books including, Embers of War which won the
Pulitzer Prize for History, and the Francis Parkman Prize. JFK, Coming of Age in the
American Century, 1917 to 1956 is Fred's newest book. I'm also pleased to extend a
warm welcome to George Packer, our moderator for this evening. A staff writer for The
Atlantic, his nonfiction books include Our Man,
Richard Holbrooke and the End of the
American Century, a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize, The Unwinding 30 Years
of American Decline, which won a National Book
Award, The Assassin's Gate, America in Iraq, and
Blood of the Liberals. He is also the author
of two novels and a play and the editor of a
two volume edition of the essays of George Orwell. Please join me in welcoming
our special guests. GEORGE PACKER:
Welcome, everybody. I hear there's at
least a couple hundred of you, which is
fantastic, and it will be a privilege
and a pleasure to talk to Fred
Logevall of all tonight and to get our heads out
of the present and out of the news for an hour
or an hour and a half and into the past, which
is a great refuge as well as a guide for us as
we try to navigate one of the stormiest
years in our lives. Fred, I know you
as the author of I think the two essential
books on the Vietnam War. And it's not just
me saying that. People I know who fought in
Vietnam, who served in Vietnam, when I asked them, what are the
books I have to read on the war when I was researching my
biography of Richard Holbrooke, who served in Vietnam,
said, oh, that's easy. Choosing War and Embers
of War by the same guy, Fredrik Logevall. So I knew you as
a Vietnam expert. But now I know you really
as something broader, as an America expert
and as someone who just shares a lot
of interests with me in American history
and foreign policy. So it's great to get to talk
to you about your completely engrossing ensorcelling,
which was the word that David Kennedy used in The
New York Times Book Review, new biography of JFK. So welcome, Fred, and
welcome to our audience. And I guess the first
question is inevitable, but why another biography? It's true there hasn't been
a major one in some time, but there are dozens. It takes a little
bit of chutzpah to wade into those waters where
so many other writers have gone and where we thought we knew
everything there was to know. So why did you take this on? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Well,
first off, George, tremendous to be with you
and to have this opportunity to talk with you
about all this stuff. It occurred to me just now
listening to you that in a way our two most recent
books, mine and Our Man, are kind of bookends here. Because mine is really the
beginning of the American century and yours is really
more about the latter part of the American century,
if in fact it's-- maybe we can talk about that. But great to be on with you. Yeah, I think I've
been fascinated by John F. Kennedy and the
Kennedys for a long time. I had written about
Kennedy in other contexts, especially relating
to the Cold War and, in particular,
I think, Vietnam. And of course in volume
two, which is still to come, that Vietnam question
and what I like to call the mother of
all counterfactuals, namely what would he have done
in Vietnam had he survived, will get attention. So it's partly this interest
in the Kennedys, partly a sense that-- this hit me one day
walking in Harvard Yard that one could write a
book that is a biography, but I could also use my
training as a historian and use Kennedy's
life to tell the story not just of his rise
but America's rise. That you could map the
rise of the United States to great power status,
to superpower status on Jack Kennedy's life. He's born in '17 right as the US
is entering World War I. Hugely important conflict, of course. Dies in '63, which is
arguably the sort of zenith of American power in some ways,
prior to the mess of Vietnam. So it's those two things, and
then maybe a third, George, which is that the
materials in the library are just so phenomenal. And I knew this. The library that's
hosting tonight's event, they're so good. I thought a lot of
them hadn't really been tapped by a lot of people. So there was something
kind of fresh about them. And then a sense that the
biographies, as you say, they're out there,
but nobody's really done, I think, the kind of
comprehensive life and times that I'm doing,
trying to do here. GEORGE PACKER: And you
knew about the materials in the library from
your Vietnam research? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah,
I knew about it from-- yeah, I knew about it
from the work on Vietnam. I knew about it to some
extent from other researchers, graduate students of
mine, and others who said, you know, incredible
folders, files, documents in the library,
some of them used. A lot of them haven't
been used all that much. And then of course,
stuff has come available. So yeah, but it
was partly because of my own private
research, no question. GEORGE PACKER: So you actually
zeroed in on documents that you already knew were there
once you committed yourself to this project. You said, I'm going to find
box 291, folder 73, because I know what's there and
no one has ever used it. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Well, I
mean, obviously some of this, in terms of specific collections
and specific folders, I had to see them
myself, see them up close before
I had this sense. But I knew, for
example, David Nasaw's a terrific biography of Joe
Sr. I was able, as historians, we all do this, and
you do this yourself, you look in the
end notes and you look to see what other
people have done. I could see what David
and a few other people had done in terms of particular
collections, some of which hadn't been, I think, open and
available prior to that work. And then one of the marvelous
things about the library, even though I think a
relatively small percentage of the library's collections
have been digitized, nevertheless some
great stuff, George, anybody can access
from their couch. There's stuff
available that you can see without having to darken
the doorways of this library. But it's a great collection. GEORGE PACKER: So
how did you approach the genre of biography,
since I don't think you've written one, right? And it's not the same thing
as the history of a war or the history of even
two years' decision making about a war. It's more of-- I would say it's a little closer
to the problems that confront a novelist, because you have to
fill your book with characters and especially
with one character and bring that
character to life. And I think all the harder
if everyone already thinks they know that character. So how did you
approach the genre, the unknown genre of biography? And what models
did you use or what guidance did you give
yourself as you figured out how to research and write it? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Well,
it's so interesting, especially given that you've
yourself authored novels. And so you have a sense of
what you're describing here. That's totally
fascinating to me, and I think you're quite right. History and biography
are not the same thing. I think I've come to realize
just how different they are in some ways. Of course, there are also
important similarities. It's about, I think,
finding evidence. It's about trying to
figure out what happened. In this case, it's centered
on a particular life. But there are similarities here
between this work and the work that I've done previously. But as you say,
they're also different. I think I had been
fascinated by the Kennedys. It is, in some ways, the great
American story, this family. It's an extraordinary
one beginning, and I begin the book with the
arrival of both the Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds
and the middle part of the 19th century. And then, of course,
Joe's rise in particular, that is to say Joe Sr. And then
this huge family, this marriage to Rose. Jack who was a sickly
child emerges from this. And I won't say that I
thought that the story would write itself. It turns out they never do. But I did think this has great
potential for me as a historian but also as somebody who's
interested in biography and wants to see if I can make
this work kind of, as I said, both telling two narratives
at the same time, both Kennedy story and America story. Can I just briefly
toss this back to you? Because you have this
experience, George, how would you answer
your own question in terms of how you approach
this with respect to Our Man? GEORGE PACKER: I had
a different problem, which was Richard Holbrooke
by the time my book came out was a fading figure in
American foreign policy. He had kind of dominated many
rooms and many news events in his lifetime, but he was not
on the scale of JFK, not close. He actually first went into
the Foreign Service under JFK. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Yeah, that's right. GEORGE PACKER: It's his call to
service that inspired Holbrooke to join the Foreign Service. I felt that I needed to grab the
reader with the first paragraph and never let that
reader go or else they would abandon the project. Because who cares? That was my great fear. Who cares? You didn't have that problem. People care about JFK. So I began my book
about Holbrooke in the voice of a novelist
even though the book has 35 pages of notes,
and it is accurate as I could possibly make it. It begins Holbrooke,
yes, I knew him, as if you're about to hear a
long yarn by a raconteur who knew Holbrooke. And that is the voice that
carries the entire book. And it gave me a ton
of freedom to do things that traditional
biographies don't do, but always within the
guidelines of the contract with the reader, which is
that it all has to be true. So I tried to make it sound
like just a great yarn that you would want to sit down
and hear through a long night of storytelling. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
And you and I have talked a little bit
about this before, but I think it succeeds
just marvelously. When we were on Chris
Lydon's show together, it was great fun
to talk about this. Here's one thing,
if I may, that you say I think in the early
pages, which I've thought about and which would be fun to
talk about a little bit. I'm paraphrasing. I didn't have a chance to look
at this before we came on. But you say something like,
only in fiction can we ever really get to know the
person deep inside. And I've thought about
that, because Jack Kennedy, many people think is,
and maybe this is true, he's somewhat elusive. Some people warned
me early on, you're never going to be able to really
get close to this guy because of that nature that he had. He had some of his
mother's emotional reserve. GEORGE PACKER: Detachment, yeah. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I think
you're so right in this. And yet I hope, my
readers will have to tell me whether I'm right
about this, I think we do get-- I think I can get,
given your parameters, that only in fiction
can we ever really know, I hope I get fairly close. GEORGE PACKER: I think you do. I wrote this to you
personally, and I think it's sitting there
on the book jacket now. This brings us so close to JFK. It is really an
intimate picture. And we should talk about
how you achieve that. But I think readers will
find that this is engrossing, it's a page turner, and
that's because you're always right there in the middle
of a scene or very close to the characters. And yeah, there
is of course he's ironic and detached
and always observing his own life and everyone else. That's his character. But the things that
created that character I didn't understand very well
until I read your book. So let's talk about that,
but two things at once. Your book begins--
or doesn't begin, but his story begins the month
before we enter World War I. And this is an
interesting parallel to mine, because Holbrooke was
born in 1941, which is that other year the
American century began and we entered World War II. So tell me about your
decision to frame JFK's life as a life of the
American century beginning in 1917 and what that means for
our understanding of America's rise to global power. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. I mean, I think
it might have been Ernest May, the late great
Harvard historian, member of this department
that I'm now in, I think it might have
been Ernie who wrote, and this struck me at the
time, I was a graduate student, something like this,
which is, we think of the American century
beginning in 1940 or '41 or conceivably you could
say maybe the late '30s. Some might say 1945, which I
think would not be correct. But Ernie said, no. In fact, America's contribution
to the war in 1917 and 1918 was formidable. And because of the degree to
which the European powers were decimated by that
great conflagration, though it wasn't fully evident
at the time, sagacious, farsighted Europeans
understood that it was only a matter of time before the
Americans were going to be dominant on the world stage. And in a sense, there
was a delay, I think, in the '20s and '30s. The American statesmen
leaders were not quite sure what they wanted to do. I write a little bit
about this in the book. Do they want the
responsibilities of leadership? Maybe not. But I still feel
comfortable in saying that 1917 is absolutely critical
to the American century for two reasons. US entry into the war and
then, of course, the Bolshevik revolution, which becomes
so crucial later on and crucial to Jack
Kennedy's life. GEORGE PACKER: So
basically, the Cold War that defined Kennedy's
public life began in 1917. The two powers of the Cold War,
their trajectory in collision with each other began in 1917. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: You could
certainly make that argument. I mean, I think
that we would say, and I sometimes
say to my students, I often ask them a
question about when did the Cold War begin. And if you look at the
characteristics of the Cold War, which I also
have them do, then I say, how many of
those characteristics were present in 1917? It turns out that maybe only
two or three of them were. That is to say,
one of them might be in a deep ideological
schism, but some of the things that we associate with
the Cold War, which is a great arm race,
for example, suppression of internal dissidents. Some of that we see
right after World War I also in the United
States, and of course, also in the Soviet Union. A bipolar world structure as
opposed to a multipolar world structure. Some of those things may
not be present in 1917, but I've had very
smart students, interesting students make a
pretty compelling case for 1917 as the start date of this
superpower confrontation. GEORGE PACKER: Did you
have a preconception about JFK going into this? Did you have a picture
of him that you were going to then draw or did
you begin relatively agnostic and come to your picture
through the research? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I
think I had a sense. That's a really
interesting question. I think I had a
sense even when I began from my work on
Indo-China and the fact that he had visited in 1951. GEORGE PACKER: Which is the
beginning of Embers of War. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Beginnings of Embers of War. He goes and he asks all
these penetrating questions about what the French
are trying to achieve. I think I had a sense that
the common view of young Jack Kennedy as a callow kind of
playboy who had everything handed to him, who wasn't
very serious about anything, and only later became a
mature striving politician, I had a sense that that
was maybe not correct. And I think that the research
that I did, I mean, again, the materials in the library
are so marvelous, I think show beyond a doubt that this
is a guy who from an early age is serious about policy,
deeply curious about the world. So that's sort of a half answer. I guess it's suggesting I had an
inkling that I wanted to revise what was a common view. And I think that the
research actually supports this portrait. GEORGE PACKER: Some of
the most riveting pages are young Jack's trip
to Europe in 1939 when Europe is moving
rapidly toward war, and he's having a mix of a
kind of rich boy's vacation along with access to the
most important councils of government all
across the continent. Churchill, Chamberlain, Hitler. Doesn't he see
Hitler give a speech? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
No, to his regret, he never did see
him give a speech. He was there with Lem
Billings first in '37, and they had an opportunity
to hear Hitler at Nuremberg, and they decided,
nah, let's not do it. And then they said,
we should have gone. But in '39, nevertheless,
as you say, I mean, it was almost like a
zelig kind of quality the degree to which he shows
up in these places that become hotspots. And I open the book, I
open the preface with him in Berlin in late August of '39. And he even carries a message
from the US consular official. The ambassador had left, but
the senior diplomat in Berlin gives him a message
to carry back to his father, who's the
ambassador in Britain, Joe Kennedy Sr. And
the message says, the Germans are going to
attack Poland within a week. So yeah, you have this
kind of intrepid guy. He's certainly benefiting
from his father's connections. He wouldn't be able to
travel to these places and see these people
if Joe Sr. who was already ambitious
for his two sons in particular, the
two eldest sons. But it's also JFK's own early
striving and motivation. GEORGE PACKER: Let's
talk about his parents and his relation to them. Because when I
said earlier I felt I understood his character
much better from your book, it was really because of
especially his relationship with his father. The relationship with
his mother is distant, and I wouldn't be the
first to say maybe the source of some
of his misogyny, because his mother let him down. She wasn't around for
a lot of his childhood. Of course, his
father wasn't either, but the mother was expected
to be and the father was not. But his father comes across-- Joe Kennedy comes across as-- let's just say he made me feel
like kind of a lame father, because he's just constantly
arranging activities and events, and every
day is scheduled, and we're going to go yachting
in the morning and play football in the
afternoon, and then we'll discuss current
events at dinner, and you'll be reading at night. And he's incredibly, for
a man of that generation, incredibly involved in
his many children's lives and incredibly devoted to them. So that seems to me to
be the core relationship for Jack Kennedy growing up. Is that right? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I
think it ultimately is, and I think you've
described it really well. And I think it's an
extraordinary aspect of Joe Kennedy Sr's persona. And there's a really
interesting example of this, I think, George, which is
that Joe Kennedy in say 1934, '35 is heading up the
SEC in Washington. Is heading up an important
new government entity. And yet he pens
these long letters, handwritten letters to Jack, who
is in his last year at Choate, the prep. School he sends long
letters, handwritten, to Joe Junior, who's
already at Harvard. The younger children. It just, it strikes me that
this is a guy who's somehow managing important
government policy, is nevertheless
instructing his children, trying to mold his children,
in particular, the sons. He's more concerned,
it's quite clear, about them, and especially
the two older ones. So whatever one might say about
Joe Kennedy as a businessman, as a diplomat, he has an
ultimately disastrous turn as ambassador to Britain. We can talk about that. This devotion to his
kids is something. I'll also say that I think
Rose Kennedy, the mother, she deserves more,
in some ways, credit for Jack's upbringing than
she is sometimes given. I think he gets his historical
sensibility more from her than from his father. He's actually more like
his mother in many ways than he is like his father. His international sensibility
comes in part from her, I suggest in the book. But as you say, George,
she's emotionally withdrawn. She leads a kind
of separate life through all of his
illnesses at Choate. At Canterbury, his first
prep school, then at Choate, she never pays a visit. I think she comes
once to Canterbury. She never comes to Choate. Meanwhile, she takes extended
vacations by herself, including to Europe. And I think that was hard for
him, as I think you suggested. GEORGE PACKER: But you
also said at one point that what do you expect from
a woman whose husband is flagrantly cheating on her
throughout their marriage and is humiliating
her by bringing mistresses home for dinner? Of course she's
going to withdraw. The alternative is to
be fighting all the time and maybe to leave, and
those are not alternatives that she wants to inflict
on herself or her family, and they go against
her religion. So the way out is
emotional withdrawal. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. I think that's exactly right. And I think that I
suggest in the book that they have a kind
of arrangement, which is that he's going to be
more discreet in his affairs than maybe he was early on,
and she's going to kind of look the other way. And I think that's what happens. He has a notorious affair with
Gloria Swanson in Hollywood. And that's, I think, on some
level he comes to realize, I can't continue to do this. But you're so right, George. When you think about
what she has to endure and when you think
about his view of-- his objectifying women,
seeing them as objects to be conquered, it's just
a hard environment for her. GEORGE PACKER: Where did
Jack's ambition come from? Because one thing that
your book makes very clear is that it wasn't simply
handed to him instructions on how to be a
man by his father. He is his own boy
and man in a way that is extremely attractive. He does not seem like
a pampered, spoiled son of privilege who went his
father's way because that was the path of least resistance. In other words, he's
not Don Trump Jr. He fights for his own path
even while never causing too much trouble. He never openly is
defiant and rebellious in a way that could
deeply hurt his father, but he nonetheless manages
to, against a great deal of magnetism coming from
his overbearing father, find himself. So how did that happen,
and how did it create a political ambition in Jack? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. Yeah, I've thought a lot
about that, of course, in going through the
materials, which are so rich. But all materials, all
archival materials, all other kinds of
evidence, the oral history collection at the library,
which is magnificent. They can't reveal everything. I think what we see is somebody
who because he was bedridden a lot with his various ailments. GEORGE PACKER: Continuous. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Yeah, continuous. He became the family reader. He devoured especially
European history and statecraft and diplomacy. He was an early fan, to say the
least, of Winston Churchill. And I think the ambition
at least comes in part from him realizing, hey, maybe
I can do something similar here. Then he's also got his maternal
grandfather, Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, who is a
legendary Boston politician. And the two of them
are extremely close. They're quite different
as politicians. Jack is much more
reserved, much more urbane. GEORGE PACKER: Cerebral. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Sort of
scholarly in his approach than his grandfather. But I think there's also that,
that Grandpa Fitz is I can aspire to do something similar. And then finally, and I
think this is, especially in our own day and age, for
me such an appealing quality, George, he likes politics. And I think he likes
politics precisely because he thinks
politics matters. Politics is important. And I think from a
pretty early age, before Joe Jr. is killed
in the war, he's already thinking to himself and
to a particular girlfriend that he was close to, Inga
Arvad, that maybe I want to pursue a political career. So it's those things,
at least in part, that I think bring in this
serious quality to him early on. GEORGE PACKER: Yes. And it's not as
though when Joe Jr. is killed over England
or over the channel that suddenly it's up to Jack
to carry on his father's dreams. Jack was headed
that way already. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
I think that he. GEORGE PACKER: And
would have been-- Joe Jr. would not have
had what Jack brought to that career, which is
that incredible intelligence and broad learning, but
also that quality being his own man, which is
just essential when you're in the Oval Office
and your generals are all telling
you that you need to start World War III with
the Soviet Union over Cuba. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Yeah, over Cuba in '62. GEORGE PACKER: Sorry to
jump ahead to volume two. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: No,
I think it's right. And I do think that Joe Jr.
who was the golden child and who brought a
lot to the table. He was straight
from Central Casting in terms of being incredibly
handsome, healthy as an ox, extremely ambitious. I'm not going to suggest,
I don't say in the book, that even if Joe Jr. survives,
comes back from the war, that we would have seen
the same kind of trajectory from his younger brother. But he had his own
reasons for running. And as you suggest, I think
he had a better claim. He had already
authored a book Why England Slept,
which was a lightly revised version of
its senior thesis. That really rubbed it, I
think, Joe Jr. the wrong way, because he was used
to being primus inter pares in the family. And he already had
these attributes before Joe Jr's tragic death. And he's making his
own decisions, even in terms of which
office to seek in 1946. It's not his father's
decision to seek a House seat. That is ultimately JFK's own. GEORGE PACKER: Tell
us how his mind as a practitioner of
statecraft, as someone who thinks about and eventually
practices foreign policy developed in those crucial
years from the late '30s to the early Cold War when
he first ran for office. How did he become the
Jack Kennedy that we now know who is president? Seems to me, those
are the key years. So tell us what happened
and how they affected him. And bring in his father
too, because that's a crucial parting of the ways. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: This was such
a fun part of the whole writing experience for me. And my wife will tell you that
I would talk about, again, what the materials in
the library and elsewhere show about precisely
this period. I think what happens
is that he gets to Harvard where the student-- he begins in 1936. He's had effectively
a kind of gap year. So he's a year older than
most of his classmates in the class of 1940. The student body is pretty
heavily isolationist, and it continues to be
so right up to the end. And I think he buys into that. His father becomes
ambassador to Britain in '38 and is, as you know, a kind
of arch appeaser, even more so than Chamberlain himself. And I think initially,
Jack is inclined to agree with this position. But, and this is the distinction
between him and his brother, Joe Jr. I think is
never comfortable outside his father's shadow. And so he parrots his father
really right to the end. And what's fascinating to me
is to observe little by little Jack Kennedy begin to see a
more complex and crowded world than either his father
or his older brother, to see the problems with a kind
of narrow parochial nationalism that I think both
of them endorse, to see the threat posed by both
the Japanese and the Germans, and by, hard to
say exactly when, but certainly
before Pearl Harbor. So let's say by the
early part of '41, I think he's a confirmed
internationalist. And that shift or that
growth, in his view, I think is totally interesting. And then finally, I'll
just say that his own war experience in the
South Pacific in '43 is important here in
affirming for him, it's kind of mixed, it
affirms for young Jack Kennedy that the United States
has to play a leading role in world affairs. I think that question
for him has been settled and for his mates. They have these long discussions
in their tent in the Solomons about what the US
role should be. And I think he comes back
from the war affirmed in that belief. But he also comes back skeptical
about, I think, the military as an instrument of policy. I think you see in his
letters home, which are really interesting, a
sense that military leadership, it may not be a
contradiction in terms, but I think he's
skeptical of that. I think we see-- I'll see if I can develop this
or if it should be developed into volume two, but
you see it, really, in some ways to the
end of his life. So it's those two. GEORGE PACKER: It's
interesting, because it may be-- he was Lieutenant, right? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Correct. GEORGE PACKER: He
was a young officer, but he was not someone for
whom the war was in any way abstract. Because at headquarters, he
was out there, obviously, getting shot up. Because a whole
generation of officers became the overconfident
generals of Vietnam who thought that America
had nothing to worry about with these peasants in black
pajamas because we had fought the Nazi war machine,
the Japanese war machine. This is actually
going to be nothing. We are the United States. Jack Kennedy didn't come back
from the Second World War with that kind of confidence
in the American military. Maybe in the American
example to the world, but not in our ability
to impose our will. And I have a feeling
it may have been the experience in
the South Pacific, but it's also just his
nature to be skeptical, to sort of have an
eye on the darkness and on human frailty and
the flaws in our nature, our blind spots, our ability
to deceive ourselves. So all of that seems to be
there at a very young age. And I'm sure you'll
be able to trace it straight through to the crucial
years in the White House. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah, I
think that's so well put. I think partly because
of his ailments, partly because of the tragedies
that he suffered, losing-- well, he effectively
lost Rosemary through a botched,
horrible lobotomy in late '41, the sister
who closest to him in age. They're only about
18 months apart. Loses his brother in '44. Later loses his closest
sibling, Kathleen or Kick. But I think he had, and I
think it goes to your point, he had a sense that
life was fraught. He had the well developed
sense of irony, a kind of self-deprecating humor. I think then combined with,
as you say, the experience in the South Pacific, he came
back, I think, with a sense that there were limits to what,
certainly in military terms, there are limits
to American power, even though in '45
the United States is absolutely colossal in
what it can do and achieve. Yeah, so I think you're
absolutely right. He didn't fall prey to what so
many later generals fell prey to. And that's evident
here early on. GEORGE PACKER: Before we get
to the political chapters at the end of the book, let's
talk about JFK and women. Because man, there are a
lot of women in this book. They come and go
quickly, most of them. He is a hound dog. He's just constantly writing
letters to his friends about having just
bedded this nurse or failed to bed this nurse. And then there's just a ton of
girlfriends that come and go. And some of them he seems
really smitten with, especially Inga Arvad,
others are just clearly instruments for pleasure and
maybe a bit of narcissism. So how do you, as a biographer,
so you don't spare him. You definitely don't spare him. But his treatment of women-- and the worst moment is when his
wife, Jackie, has a miscarriage and he's off sailing around
off the French Riviera, if I'm not mistaken, and
finally gets back maybe a week or two later. It's pretty unforgivable. It's hard to want
to stay with him. So how did you handle
that fraught material, which you don't hold
back, but somehow, you make it possible for
us to go on wanting to know the next chapter. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah, I
think it's a challenge, George, and I think it'll be a bigger
challenge, frankly, in volume two. I don't think as
a first response, I don't think that the behavior
in the period up through 1956 is predatory, if that's
the right word here. There isn't the
position of power. I guess there is already
a power differential in the latter part of this. He's a senator and so forth. But I suspect, not having
researched this fully or written volume
two, I think that this is going to become more
problematic in volume two, but it's already problematic. And I think some of this
clearly comes from his father. I think we have ample
evidence that he expected, indeed instructed, his sons to
proceed in the way that he did and to view women as
objects to be conquered. There's no question about that. He was unfaithful to Jackie
before the wedding and after. And I think I can't
have it both ways. I can't on the one hand say
he's his own man in politics. He does not follow
his father's dictates in terms of his
political positions or which office to seek
or which career to choose. He's his own man. Or whether to
support isolationism versus interventionism
before Pearl Harbor. If I'm going to make that
argument with respect to the political stuff
and career stuff, then obviously he should show
the ability to not follow his father's dictates when it
comes to women, and he doesn't. It doesn't have, at least
again, as far as I can see, some of the more
problematic elements that we see with Joe Sr. who sometimes
asks out, if you can imagine, Jack's girlfriends himself. GEORGE PACKER: Nor can we say it
was a different time back then, because this is,
I think, a more I would even use the word
pathological attitude toward women. And I wonder, at times I got a
little whiff of if not hatred, at least disdain. A dehumanizing eye
toward them, as if I don't need to treat you the way
I would treat my gay friend Lem Billings to whom Jack, after
rejecting his advances, is a loyal friend for
the rest of their lives. His sister is different. She's like an honorary guy. But the women don't
get that treatment, and I wonder if there
is something darker than just being a [INAUDIBLE]
or being a bit of a scoundrel about it. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. It may be. I think that Inga, who
we've talked about, is a kind of exception, because
he treats her so differently from so many of the other women
and respects her intelligence and, in fact, sort of
is envious of the fact that she speaks
so many languages and she's been to
so many places. And she's clearly
super sharp, and they have these conversations,
some of them picked up by the FBI,
interesting story, because she's
under surveillance, in which you see the two of
them go at it intellectually. And in other ways too, but
intellectually in a way that I think you're quite
right, you don't see very often. There are some other exceptions. Ultimately, Jackie. Though there are lots of rocky
moments, and I deal with these. She is very formidable. And he comes to see
how intelligent she is. And she too has this
kind of cultured quality that he really admires, in
part because he doesn't possess it the same way himself. But yeah, there
may be a certain, how did you put
it, loathing or-- GEORGE PACKER: Disdain. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
There's something there that's problematic, no question. GEORGE PACKER: So he becomes
a member of the House from Cambridge. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yes. Or the 11th district. GEORGE PACKER: 11th district. Yep. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: East
Boston and other-- GEORGE PACKER: Watertown,
I guess, a bunch of places. And then he gets
elected to the Senate. And all of it leads to
this wonderful set piece that the book ends with, which
is this '56 convention when Jack comes within a whisker of
being Adlai Stevenson's Vice Presidential candidate, which
may have been a bullet dodged rather than an
opportunity missed. But what do you make of Kennedy
the politician in those years? What did you learn about
him, and what struck you as-- he doesn't seem presidential
material in the early going. He seems hardworking,
curious, all that, but there isn't that quality
that you just immediately say, this guy is getting
go to the top. And yet obviously, he's
going to get to the top. So how do you describe
him as a politician who saw domestic politics
as, what was the word, sewer contracts? Really is mainly interested
in world affairs. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. No, and I think that's right. I think it's pretty
clear from the time he enters the House in
'47 that foreign policy is where he's most interested. It's also where I think he
feels the most comfortable. During the campaign in '46,
this skinny 29-year-old who's got to get the nomination,
once he gets the nomination, he's home free. But that nomination
battle is a ferocious one. And you see even then
that he's comfortable talking about the
emerging Cold War, then yet not really a
reality, but it's emerging, and other international issues. And by the way, quite
already penetrating, insightful in seeing things
from the Soviet perspective and what they might want. There is a certain
empathetic understanding that he has with
respect to policy that I think is impressive. But then, as you
say, it doesn't have the same kind of engagement
at all with domestic issues. I think he's fundamentally
liberal on most issues. Not so much fiscal issues,
where he's more conservative. He's quite conservative
on foreign policy. I suggest in the book that
he's an early Cold Warrior, that he does not see an
opportunity for accommodation when Henry Wallace
argues for the need to try to smooth things
over with the Soviets. JFK is pretty caustic in
swatting down that notion. Interestingly here, just a
side note, Joe Kennedy Sr. And I think David
Nasaw brings this out in his biography, and maybe
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. back in the day brought this out,
that Joe Kennedy articulated a position that more than a
few Cold War historians would articulate, which is the Soviets
aren't going to invade anybody. The Soviets are not a
threat to the United States in terms of its
existential existence. We can take a sort of
hands off approach here. That's Joe Kennedy Sr. His
son felt very differently at the time, which is a
fascinating difference between the two of them. GEORGE PACKER: An
interesting instance of that. He goes to Vietnam,
as you say, in 1951, and this is the opening of your
wonderful book, Embers of War, and asks all the right questions
and wants to see for himself. And what he sees as
if the French are fighting a losing
colonialist war, and why should that be our war? Why are we defending
a colonial empire? We're the world's
hope for democracy. But by the mid '50s, he is
taking a more hawkish view about Vietnam as a
threat, giving speeches in which he thinks
we really have to hold the line
against communism right there at the parallel
between North and South Vietnam. So what happened? How did-- FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I mean, it's
the great paradox about JFK and Indo-China, I
think, which is, and I think this will be
the thread in volume two as well, is that I don't
think his skepticism, George, about a military solution
in Vietnam ever goes away. I think it's there from '51. It's there until
November of '63. And in fact, we have
lots of evidence of him in the White House rejecting
hawkish advice from his aides when they want to send
ground troops and so on. And it's one of the reasons why
in terms of the what if that we can never know. I do believe he would
have, if he had survived, he would have avoided-- it's most likely that
he would have avoided the kind of huge
open ended escalation that Johnson [INAUDIBLE]. GEORGE PACKER:
[INAUDIBLE] And that's a passage in Choosing War
that I read really carefully, because you had earned
the right to say that. And I'll be curious to
see if you still think it after writing volume two. But anyway, go ahead. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I
reserve the right to shift. No, but the paradox then,
so if that's part of this, the paradox is that, as you say,
this same Jack Kennedy as we get into even the mid '50s,
but especially the late '50s, is much more aggressive. He's careful, because he's
a very careful politician. He's careful in terms
of his language. A very reasoned approach
to all policy issues. But as you say, he now
sings a different tune on Vietnam and on
Indo-China, and he's supportive of the Diem
government in the south. He believes that the United
States must preserve-- do all in its power to preserve
a non-communist South Vietnam. And so figuring
out how this guy, who understood so early
that Western powers, whether it be France
or the United States, and he said that. He said any Western
power is probably not going to be able to put down
Ho Chi Minh's revolution, is this the same guy who's,
in domestic political terms, and maybe that's
the explanation, he seeks the White House now. He knows that Democrats cannot
be targeted with the soft on communism slogan. Maybe that's the
explanation of the paradox. But however we explain
it, it's there on Vietnam. GEORGE PACKER: And it's going
to be a major tension of volume two, because even though
I think you convinced me that if Kennedy had
lived, we would not have had 200,000 troops
in Vietnam within two years of '63. Nonetheless, he got us in deep. He brought in 15,000 advisors
and he overthrew the government of South Vietnam. So in some ways,
he may well have corrected his own
mistakes, but the mistakes were already being made. And how much
domestic politics has to do with that, the fear
of a Democratic president, faced with hawks in his own
government and the opposition party, I'll be really
interested to see what you learn doing volume two. We're going to take questions
in about five minutes, but I just had one or two more
things I wanted to ask you. The only points in your
book that I stumbled at all were the same two that
David Kennedy mentions in his glowing, wonderful review
in this week's New York Times Book Review. And those are the
McCarthy period and the question of authorship
of profiles in courage. And you've looked at
both of them carefully. So tell us why I might be wrong
in thinking that JFK deserves more of a harder
spanking for his punting, essentially, the McCarthy era
and trying his hardest not to have to make a
difficult call on that and why we shouldn't think
that he may have written some notes for
Profiles in Courage, but he didn't write
the book page for page. So take each of those, please. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Yeah, I don't know whether the first
part of this is something I should be admitting
before a live audience, as it were. But when you read this,
George, in more than in draft, I guess in galley form. GEORGE PACKER: In galleys, yeah. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: And you
pointed out the McCarthy bit. I said, I need to tweak
this a little bit. I need to try to
somehow address this. Is there time? And the people at Random House,
who are absolutely marvelous up and down the line. I have such a
wonderful publisher. But they said, yeah,
we can do this. So in response not, I
think, to your satisfaction, although you will see-- you're going to be
getting the [INAUDIBLE].. GEORGE PACKER: I haven't
gotten the finished book, so you may well have
just killed this. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: It's
because of how late we were, I could only do a few
words, change a few sentences. But suffice it to say that
I think you were right. I do think that even
before your intervention, I suggested that he was
overly careful on McCarthy. I think it had something
to do with the close family ties with McCarthy,
especially Joe Sr. who loved. But Bobby, we haven't talked
about Bobby tonight yet. Bobby was also
close to McCarthy, and would remain close. Flew to Wisconsin for
McCarthy's funeral. Remained devoted to him, I
think, in some ways to the end. It's partly about
Massachusetts politics. Irish Catholics constitute a
large part of the electorate. And by the way, interesting
comparison to our own day. Right through to the
end, beyond the censure, or at least through the
censure in '54 of Joe McCarthy, public opinion survey
after public opinion survey showed that he had the
support of roughly 40% of the electorate. I don't want to draw the
comparison too closely, but it's interesting how
even after the Senate begins to move, even after his
attack on the army, McCarthy, a lot of Americans stay
with him to the end. But I think Jack
Kennedy would have spared himself a lot of grief
if he had instructed Sorensen-- he was in the hospital
for legitimate reasons. So those authors who say,
well, he went into the hospital to dodge the McCarthy vote. I think that's not true. But he could have, through
a procedure called pairing, he could have instructed
Sorensen to vote, and he should have done so. And why he didn't
is interesting. Here's another quick little
thing about this, which is that in '56 at the
aforementioned Democratic National Convention, he had a
meeting with Eleanor Roosevelt. And Mrs. Roosevelt basically
said, and I'm paraphrasing, what gives? Why didn't you come
out against McCarthy? And what I puzzle
over, George, maybe you have an explanation
for this, I don't write about this in the book. I thought about it. I think I had a paragraph
and I then erased it. But I thought, why would he
not in the summer of '56 when attacking Joe McCarthy is
easy, the guy is a spent force, he's gone, why would Jack
Kennedy not say to Mrs. Roosevelt, yeah, you know what? I didn't like the
guy, which is true. I don't think he ever liked
McCarthy in personal terms or even in political terms. Even then, however, he doesn't
want to criticize McCarthy. And I can't quite
figure that out. Let me quickly respond
to what you're saying. GEORGE PACKER: I don't know. I don't know. I can only imagine that he
was loyal to his family. And this was one that
didn't mean enough to him as going against his
father's impeasement did to reject his father
that way, I think. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
And that's as good an explanation as any of them. GEORGE PACKER:
For me, my parents were a little younger than
JFK, and the McCarthy period was the litmus test for
them as liberal Democrats of whether a politician could
be trusted, whether they could really respect a politician. And they ended up
as Stevenson people, largely because, I think,
Stevenson was much more outspoken about McCarthy. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: He was. I will only say-- go ahead, sorry. GEORGE PACKER: And so
when it came to 1960, they celebrated
Kennedy's election, but he was not their man,
and he never was their man, and it was really because
of the McCarthy period. I think for a lot of
liberals, that remained true. So I think it had a
decisive effect not so much on the
politics of that time, but on how Democrats saw him
and how they divided on him. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I think
it's a really good point. I'll just say one other thing
there quickly and then just talk for a minute about
"Profiles in Courage" And that is that
it is worth noting that the Democratic party
as a whole, including liberal stalwarts like Hubert
Humphrey, for a very long time were unwilling to
criticize McCarthy. You'll have to go
pretty far into '54 to see broad parts of
the party begin to go after him in any serious way. So Kennedy is not
alone in this regard. And in fact,
Leverett Saltonstall, senior senator from
Massachusetts, Republican, is just as cautious, if not
more so, than Jack Kennedy. So he's not alone in this. The censure vote is the problem. Now, on Profiles in Courage very
quickly so we can open this up for others. Yeah, I guess here you
and I differ a little bit. I think that the evidence
is pretty powerful that the broad architecture
of the book, the themes of the book, the argument,
which by the way I think has salience in our
own day, in part about the need for
evidence based discourse, for bargaining in good
faith, the need ultimately for compromise in a democracy,
which we can discuss. But those arguments, those
themes, are Jack Kennedy's. Ted Sorensen is way too
young to have-- at 25 or 26, he's not going to be
able to articulate those kinds of things. And he didn't. Moreover, the introduction
and the conclusion, I think, for me are the most
interesting and important parts of the book. I think those are more
than Kennedy's notes. I think that's
basically his work. Had he not won the
Pulitzer, I don't think this would have
ever been an issue. And the question,
which I'm going to deal with so I can come back
to this, how he should have responded to the awarding of
the Pulitzer is a fair question. It was one of the proudest
moments of his life, he later said. Is it reasonable to expect
him to turn down the award? I don't know. I don't know what
that would have meant to an aspiring politician. There's no question that the
middle chapters were drafted by others, not just Sorensen,
but they had some professors who helped them. And I write about this. But I guess I'm suggesting this
is more Jack Kennedy's book than perhaps you are allowing. GEORGE PACKER: Well,
before we go to questions, I don't want to end on
that minor disagreement, because I want our audience
to know that we haven't even really talked about
the way the book ends, but it's a marvelous
account of a convention that hasn't gone down in history as
one of the great conventions, but it's the '56
Democratic Convention. And you see Jack
Kennedy at his absolute best, because he is
maneuvering and showing that he knows how
to play the game, but he's also
detached enough to be able to recognize that
he can take a loss now and it won't be the end of him. And in fact, it might
actually help him when the big turn comes
four years from [INAUDIBLE].. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I
think that's right. And I'll just say
here to folks that, and I have this in
one of the end notes, you can go on YouTube, which
I guess is where we're on now, and you can see the
concession speech that he gives at that convention. And it's done without notes. I think it's a remarkable
moment captured. We can all see it on YouTube. It's an amazing clip. So if folks are interested
in this and he's come so close just
minutes before to getting this nomination. By the way, his father
thinks it's a disaster to even seek the nomination. He comes this close, and
then he says to Ted Sorensen when it becomes clear
that the tide has turned, he says, let's go. And they leave their hotel room. They go to the podium. He gives this speech, and
it's an amazing moment. GEORGE PACKER: Yeah. And a great ending, and it makes
you eager for Fred Logevall to get to volume two
and finish volume two. Let's get to a few questions. And some of them
are questions that I would have wanted
to ask, so I'll allow others that ask them. This comes from
someone in Columbia. How would you define
his leadership style, and how does it apply to
today's world challenges? You touched on
that briefly, Fred. What more do you have
to say about that? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Well, I think it's a leadership style characterized
by an absolute insistence on his part that he himself
and his aides need to be well-informed on the issues. He had very little patience
for advisors and others who didn't know their
stuff down to the details. So it's a leadership
style that is about becoming
informed on an issue and then acting
accordingly, which leads me to the second point. I think he is-- and this is something
I find admirable. He's doesn't want yes men
and yes women around him. He is actually
somebody who wants people to have different views. He wants to hear
people's opinions about which path to take, and
then he will act accordingly. And I'll also say
maybe there's much more to be said about this. But the final
piece of this maybe is that when he needs
to make a decision, even though he's overly
cautious on issues like civil rights,
which we can discuss, his legislative record
overall is fairly meager by the time he's killed. The Cuban Missile Crisis, when
virtually all of his advisors are counseling a
military response, they are aggressive
almost to a person, Kennedy is seeking a
political solution. He shows a capacity
to look at things from Khrushchev's
perspective, which I think is really important. And that's an element of
his leadership style too. GEORGE PACKER: Yeah. This question is, why
did you end in '56? Are you really going
to be able to get all of the late '50s,
the 1960 election, and his entire presidency
into volume two? So that's a worried reader
about your next book. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I'm going
to remember that question. Whoever opposed it, that one
will be seared in my memory. No, I'm committed to doing this. I think I can do it. It's seven years of his life. And of course, so much
happens in those seven years. But the first volume, there's
a lot also that happens. It's an extraordinarily
varied life that he leads, which
helps me as a biographer. This story is
remarkable, and there's so much in the early
volume also on his father. He's himself a huge figure in
the book and several others. But I think the subtext of
your question is a good one. I've got to deal with the
amazing campaign, which really begins, by the way, in '57. The secret of Jack
Kennedy's success at all levels of
politics is that he starts earlier than
the competition and he works harder
than the competition. So I have to early
in volume two deal with this flying around the
country with Ted Sorensen and speaking before tiny
audiences on airport tarmacs for eight people and 12 people. And then, of course,
ultimately it culminates first in the
primary battle in '60, then at the race against
Nixon, and we haven't even gotten yet to the presidency. I guess I'm helped by the fact,
that's a terrible thing to say, but this all ends really
suddenly in November of 1963. And I don't think,
George, my present plan is not to get deep into the
conspiracies or deep into the-- obviously, I have to
give the reader my view of what happened in Dallas. But maybe I save some space by
keeping that pretty limited. GEORGE PACKER:
Yeah, well, I mean, I have the same fear
for Robert Caro, except he's older than
you, and he has in some ways even more ground. I mean, between '64 and '68,
Lyndon Johnson's presidency went to the stars and
then crash back to earth. So I don't know how
he's going to do it, but I hope it happens soon. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: We all do. GEORGE PACKER: Yeah, yeah. So a viewer asks, what
legends about young JFK do you either unwind or
upend from the biography? Are there any stories that
you either could prove wrong or that you learned and
included that we don't know? Or what is there hidden
deep in the archives that might raise our
eyebrows or teach us something about young JFK? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
I mean, part of it is what we've already discussed. And maybe the viewer is wanting
something more specific. But I do think that this
is a young JFK who is-- this is one of his best
qualities, by the way, and Jackie talked about
this after his death. His curiosity. His interest in the world
and what made people tick. So the young JFK is, I think,
a more serious, more engaged individual than we
have come to believe. We've already talked about this. I'll also say I think
maybe I upend a myth which is that the illnesses, which
were real, some of them ill diagnosed, but
nevertheless, he felt them, I think I upend the notion that
they were acutely debilitating. Or let me put it this way. This is a guy who despite these
illnesses from a young age was extraordinarily active. And he served in the war. He had to sort of fudge
to get into combat. But with his father's
help, he did. Who runs this bruising
campaign in '46 where he outworked everybody. He often sleeps only three or
four or five hours a night. Somehow this guy who's
supposed to be at death's door all the time and supposed to
be so ill that he can barely function, he's able
to do these things. And so maybe I suggest
that we shouldn't exaggerate the scope, the
importance of those illnesses. I'm not sure if that's quite
where the question was going, but those are a couple of
things that come to mind. GEORGE PACKER: This is
a question about what he knew about his own country. He seemed to Europe
and the South Pacific deeply from personal experience. But as far as America
goes, he knew Brookline, he knew Riverdale, he knew
Harvard, he knew Palm Beach. Did he know much
about the country? The question is,
what can you tell about how much JFK knew
about the vast nation that was the United States? And is it possible to
know some of his views on our diversity, the American
people in all their diversity, at this stage of his life? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah, I think
it's a really good question. I think it's pretty limited,
his knowledge, maybe even his interest, to some extent. He had not, for example,
traveled much in the South before he became even a senator,
so never mind in the House. And I write about the
small number of, say, African Americans, for example,
that he interacted with. I don't believe he was
personally prejudiced really. But it's also true
that he didn't-- he wasn't really animated
by the searing experience that African Americans had. And there was ample
evidence all around him. I think that comes
later, and I'll talk about this in volume two. I also would say that when
he runs for president in 1960 and he goes to places
like West Virginia and he goes to other
parts of the country that he hasn't seen
before and he sees the degree to which
there are deep income disparities in the country
that I don't think he had fully grasped before,
thought about before, I think it's clear
from lots of evidence, contemporaneous evidence, that
West Virginia in particular made a huge impression on
him, what he encountered, and he came to
appreciate the people that he met there and got
a chance to talk with them. I don't think that
was so evident before. I think we'll see whether I can
develop this early in volume two. But again, traveling around
the country for the first time, really, he is seeing
lots of parts of it that he hadn't seen before. GEORGE PACKER: And
it's interesting that it was a book
and really a book review that brought hidden
poverty to his attention in a big way. Michael Harrington's The
Other America and then Dwight MacDonald's
review in The New Yorker. So that's how a cerebral,
detached, non-populist. He was not a populist. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Not a populist. GEORGE PACKER: And you
could compare him to FDR and say they were
both patricians. They both suffered
debilitating illnesses that made them better people
and maybe better politicians. But somehow, maybe because
his career coincided with a period of prosperity
rather than the Great Depression, JFK was not-- that wasn't what animated him. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
I think it's true. And I'm glad you raised that,
because we haven't really talked about the two
of them in that way. And I think I suggest somewhere
in the book that he was never-- what's the word? He was never really engaged
by the FDR phenomenon. He never connected
with him in some way that a lot of other people did. I think it's
extraordinary the degree to which the Kennedys were
insulated from the Great Depression. Rose Kennedy said
later in life that one of the best periods of her
life in terms of her marriage and so on was the early 1930s. That gives you a sense of how
the Kennedys didn't experience this. And I think you're quite
right that JFK becomes of political age after this. It's a result of the
war and the aftermath. And he doesn't see things in
the same way that FDR does. GEORGE PACKER: Right. This question is today when
the need for public service and commitment to democracy
and courage feels so great, what of young Jack leaves you
hopeful that today's emerging generation can rise
to make an impact? FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I am hopeful. I do think that our
younger generation can-- my own kids are an example
of this, but also others-- can do this. I do think we need
desperately for Americans to re-engage with civic life,
and we all need to do this. And I think that the example
of Jack Kennedy and even a young Jack Kennedy
helps us to do this. I hope this comes out in
those chapters of the book. I am struck by the degree to
which in the mid 19 or maybe the 1936, '37, '38 when
he's an undergraduate, he's asking large questions
about the survival of democracy. Is democracy suited
to this age responding to the authoritarian threats? Can we do this? Are there leaders who will grasp
the nettle and accomplish this? And he's asking that
even as an undergraduate. And the thesis,
it's in some ways that's the heart of the thesis. Why were the British under
Baldwin and Chamberlain seemingly unable
to prepare for war? But it's ultimately, I
think, a hopeful message. And I guess this comes
back to the question, that I think he
decides that democracy, it requires able leadership. More than that, it
requires citizens who are informed, who take an
interest in policy issues, who hold their leaders accountable,
and then for people themselves, of course, to enter public
service and be engaged. That's, it seems to me, the most
powerful part of the legacy. GEORGE PACKER: That's
really well said, and it connects
to a question that just came in from a 20-year-old
university student interested in a career in the
political world. What can I learn from a
young JFK and his activities and attitude to
self-learning and ambition? So those are two
interesting terms that both apply to Kennedy. FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Self-learning and ambition. I think that's perfect, because
he commits himself to that. It's hard to say
exactly when he does. When he comes back after
this great excursion that you talked about,
George, in 1939, he's in some ways,
I think, different. I think that senior
year of college, we see that self motivation and
that determination to succeed. And he becomes much
more ambitious. Ambition has to be a part of
this, no question about this. But I do think it's about,
to respond to the question, it's an excellent question
from our 20-year-old friend, it's about taking an interest
in policy, which it sounds like you already have,
in public service, in seeing how we can
make things better. Jack Kennedy says in
one of his papers, I think he's a junior
when he writes this, for democracy to
survive, it requires dedicated and capable leaders. I have that slightly wrong. It's in the preface, actually. I should have checked
before we came on. That, it seems to me, is
what you and others your age should think about. Because I think democracy
is under threat. I'm worried about the
current state of it, and I think it's going
to require all of us, but maybe especially
your generation, to commit yourself to the
hard work involved in this. I have no doubt that
democracy can work. It has worked for this country
and for other countries. And then I'll say
one other thing which maybe is controversial. It shouldn't be. And I guess it's an argument
for if not maybe necessarily centrism, it is an
argument for remembering to treat political opponents as
adversaries, and not enemies. And I think that's something
that Kennedy committed himself to. It's seeing the merits
of the arguments on the other side, which is
really hard for all of us. Don't get me wrong. But I do think it's
absolutely crucial. GEORGE PACKER: I was going
to make the exact same point, Fred, because we now live in
a political and media world where you are rewarded
for the instant victory and for wiping out your opponent
and for humiliating them, really, on Twitter and anywhere. And what is the point? What does anyone gain from that? And as a journalist,
I think there is a connection to
politics in that you always benefit from going out and
talking to people whose experience is
different from yours and whose views are
different from yours and just try to understand them. Try to hear them. You don't have to like it. You don't have to be friends. You don't have to
approve of their views. But you really do need to make
that effort to understand. And this is something
Obama has said. And probably the most
Kennedy-esque president we've had since Kennedy. Try to walk around in somebody
else's shoes, and then you will be able to be a better
public servant and a better-- FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I think
that's exactly right. I think that Joe Biden at least
has talked in similar terms. And he was criticized
earlier this year from his then primary
opponents for this suggestion that ultimately we are
going to have to reach out and we are going to
have to bargain hard. Not abandon our principles, but
we're going to bargain hard. And I think it's essential. I'll say also just a totally
fascinating conversation to me that I talk about in the book
is I think in '55 between JFK and his good friend,
an Englishman named David Ormsby-Gore, who
in the Kennedy administration becomes Britain's ambassador
to the United States. So they are friends
right to the end. But JFK says in
this conversation, I don't know if I'm cut out
to be a politician, because I too often see the merits of
the argument on the other side. I too often therefore
become a little bit uncertain about the
arguments on my own side. It's a very revealing
conversation. And as you say, George,
in our day and age, we don't talk in those terms. GEORGE PACKER: Right. Exactly. It'll be interesting
to see if Biden-- my analogy for Biden
is much more LBJ, because he is a
creature of the Senate. He is a career pol. He's a wheeler dealer. He's a centrist. And yet he's coming
in, if he makes it, at a moment when
history may actually make him a really
consequential president. So that's my little
historical analogy for the election in the moment
that we're in right now. So one audience member wants
you to talk about his superb sense of humor, which
we haven't talked about, but it really runs all through
this book, in his letters, in scenes, in quotes. So say something about that. What kind of humor was it? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
Yeah, it's true. I quote in an end note, I maybe
should have it in the texts, but I have Conan O'Brien, who
has a marvelous little essay about JFK's sense of humor. But O'Brien says, we've
had exactly two truly funny presidents, Abraham
Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. I think he's right
about that, actually. It's not to say that
other presidents haven't had a sense of humor, but it's
not been as well developed as we see with these two. I think it's an
ironic sense of humor. It's a kind of
self-deprecating sense of humor, which I think
he used to great effect, maybe especially
in the White House. I think he honed this
particular skill. You see it to some
extent earlier too. And there was a kind
of absurdist quality to it at times as well, maybe in
part, I'm sure this is inborn. People probably who know
more about this than I do can explain it. So it's partly,
I'm sure, inborn. It may also have something to do
with these maladies that he had and that poking fun
at them and not taking himself too
seriously made sense, was also a winning strategy. People liked it. I can't fully explain
where it came from, but there's no question
that it's there, and it's key to
understanding him. GEORGE PACKER: We
didn't talk about Bobby, but two questioners
are interested in when did Jack see
Bobby's political talent, and what did Jack think of
Bobby's work for the McCarthy committee alongside Roy Cohn? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
I think he saw-- he certainly saw Bobby's worth
as a political strategist, as a campaign manager. Somebody to run a campaign
he saw in spades in '52. The campaign kind of is
floundering against Henry Cabot Lodge. It looks like he's
going to lose, or at least is not
well positioned. And then this 26-year-old
comes on, Bobby, and in part because he's quite a lot
like the old man just gets the thing right on track. And I think it's hard to
overstate how important Bobby is as a manager and as a shrewd
and ultimately kind of ruthless operative. When he sees Bobby's
potential as a politician is a more interesting question. I don't know that I have
a good answer to this. I think he saw-- became very devoted
to his brother. The age gap was such that
when they were young, they were not
particularly close. There was a trip in '51 which
I write about to the Far East, including Vietnam, which
they become much closer. But I think he deeply
admired his brother, and I'm sure saw that, hey,
this is a guy who at some point should run himself for office. How he felt about
Bobby's devotion to McCarthy and his service
on McCarthy's committee, I think that early on he was
very much inclined to let Bobby do what he felt
like he should do. And it was a good
career move for Bobby. The father wanted Bobby
to have that position. I think as McCarthy
became more controversial and started doing more and
more outrageous things, I think it became a problem. By then Bobby is no longer
in McCarthy's employ, if we put it that
way, but he was still very close to Joe McCarthy. That creates more problems, I
think, for Jack politically. But this is a very
close knit family. This is not a family
that screams and yells at each other. And so you don't see
at least on the records that I've seen any particular
anger on Jack's part about that continued loyalty
on Bobby's part to McCarthy. GEORGE PACKER: And let's end
with this rather enigmatic question. I sense that the majority
of JFK's thoughts and ideas were never vocalized
or discussed by him. Put another way, a lot of his
thinking remained unrevealed. Therefore, there's
a lot about JFK the real man, his
thoughts and ideas, that are a mystery and that
we will probably never know. Do you agree or disagree? And this gets to that
question we talked about at the very start about
how a biographer would have access to the inner life
of a real person who died almost 60 years ago. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Yeah. I think it's a very
perceptive question. And I do think that he does
keep a part of himself secret. I think we all do, but maybe
he does it a little bit more than some. He's his mother's
son in this regard, because Rose, very prolific
in her letter writing. At least I found. And there, of course, have been
excellent biographies of Rose. So her biographers
may disagree with me. But I find her even
with her letter writing and the voluminous
correspondence kind of hard to penetrate in this regard. And I think there's
some of that with JFK. But I still believe, as I
said I think when we started, maybe this is a
good place to end, I think we can get
to know Jack Kennedy. At various points in this story
in volume one, he writes a lot and I think is quite open in
what he says in these letters, including sometimes
about himself. Letters to his friends, maybe
in particular Lem Billings, but also others. The letters to Inga Arvad, the
communication between the two of them I think reveals a lot. It's going to be
interesting in volume two. GEORGE PACKER: He will be more
guarded, because he will be-- FREDRIK LOGEVALL: I think
he will be more guarded. In fact, I already know,
George, that letters, plain old letters written by him
to others become more scarce. And so that's going
to be a challenge. I think it's less-- it surprised me the degree
to which I felt like I could get at the young JFK. GEORGE PACKER: Are
there people still alive who were adults
when he was alive and who can tell you their
firsthand experience? Or has that generation
pretty much disappeared? FREDRIK LOGEVALL:
It's pretty much gone. There are a few. I've spoken to some of them. And some of the ones
that I spoke with, the late Richard Goodwin,
the late Dan Fenn, are no longer with us. I don't think there are many. I do think that the magnificent
JFK Library oral history collection, though it has
to be used with caution, as all such collections
must be used with caution, I think it is a great resource. And some of those interviews
were conducted soon after the assassination,
which is both a good thing and a problem. But I will rely more
on those, sadly, than on being able to talk
with people face to face. GEORGE PACKER: Well, I
can't wait for the next one. But meanwhile, congrats
on a marvelous book that I wish all the
success in the world. May it reach many tens
of thousands, hundreds of thousands of readers. And I want to thank the JFK
Library and our audience for joining us tonight, and most
of all, Fred Logevall for being one of the really great
historians and writers in America today. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Well,
thank you, George. To have this opportunity
with you, given your work. And if you have not seen, folks,
if you have not read Our Man, you've got to get your
hands on that book. George's recent writings in
The Atlantic are a must read. It's been great to
chat with you tonight. I too want to thank the library. Many folks in the library are
thanked in my acknowledgments. I could have said
much more there, but now we just need the doors
to reopen so that some of us can get back into those
marvelous collections. GEORGE PACKER: OK. Good night, everybody. FREDRIK LOGEVALL: Take care.
