Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House (23 page)

Despite Kennedy’s directive, Diem complained that the United States was not fulfilling its commitments. Kennedy’s aides warned of a collapse without some kind of prompt action. During a mid-June meeting with South Vietnam’s visiting secretary of state, Kennedy promised to increase the number of U.S. military advisers in Vietnam but warned against any public discussion of his decision as likely to provoke protests that he was violating commitments made at an international conference on Vietnam in 1954 to limit U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. He also feared that press notices about expanded U.S. support for a collapsing Vietnam would trigger conservative demands in Congress and the press for more decisive action to save Diem’s regime.

As it was, White House and Pentagon pressure for a more aggressive response to the Vietnam crisis was more than Kennedy wanted. When the deputy director of a Vietnam task force told Rostow about a plan that worked in British Malaya for sweeping Vietnam clean of communist guerrillas, Rostow “jumped to his feet” and said, “This is the first time I have heard a practical suggestion as to how we should carry out our operations in Viet-Nam.” To make any such operation work, Diem wanted U.S. financing for an additional hundred thousand South Vietnamese troops. Kennedy remained skeptical about the effectiveness of such an offensive and was loath to ask Congress for the money—not only because he feared that Vietnam might become an open-ended drain on the U.S. Treasury, but also because it could touch off a public debate about involvement in that country’s conflict. On July 3, Kennedy held off Diem by instructing the Pentagon to send a qualified military team to Vietnam to study his request. Still hoping that Diem could find an alternative to a wider civil war, Kennedy urged him to get on with the economic, political, and social reforms that Kennedy said would nourish the aspirations of the Vietnamese and boost Diem’s popularity.

With the Cuban failure still casting a shadow over Kennedy’s competence, he was eager to keep Vietnam from erupting into a public dispute that could add to a sense of national drift. By May, only four months into his presidency, he was downcast about his performance and his advisers’ ability to help him achieve big things. When asked in an off-the-record discussion if he was “disappointed or frustrated in . . . luring the kind of men you want in your administration,” he replied: “It is frustrating. . . . It is hard to get people, and we have had some turndowns on some good men who I think could have been better off in the government.” Or at least his administration would have been better served if they had come on board. The immediate task he and Bobby now saw was to find ways to rekindle the excitement and optimism that had been so evident at the start of his term.

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HAPTER
5

“Roughest Thing in My Life”

D
uring his first months in office, foreign challenges had tested Kennedy’s skills as a political leader, but so had civil rights disputes. On one occasion, when these problems became too exasperating, Bobby said to his brother, “Ah, Jack, let’s go start our own country.” The levity provided only momentary relief from the unrelenting demands of governing.

America’s long history of racial divisions and a Congress dominated by southerners determined to resist pressures for change made civil rights a losing struggle for the most adroit president. Yet after so long a battle for equal justice, civil rights advocates were in no mood to settle for anything less than demonstrable progress. And in Kennedy, they saw someone who impressed them as less than fully committed to their cause. Martin Luther King complained that Kennedy was intent on no more than “token integration.” He thought that the president lacked the “moral passion” to fight for equal rights. Expectations of executive action, including pressure on Congress to outlaw segregation, were being disappointed. Kennedy was a “quick talking double dealing” politician, one rights leader said. Bayard Rustin of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) believed that Kennedy would only react to pressure. “Anything we got out of Kennedy” would be the product of “political necessity, and not out of the spirit of John Kennedy. He was a reactor.” A black official at the Democratic National Committee warned the White House that its timidity on civil rights was allowing the president’s political enemies “to charge him with inaction in a very vital area.”

Kennedy hoped that the Justice Department might have some suggestions for actions that could advance the cause of equal rights without congressional action. But Burke Marshall in the Civil Rights Division offered little help. He saw distinct limits to what the federal government could do to compel southern state and local officials to promote desegregation and ensure blacks equal access to the ballot box.

An executive order increasing the powers of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO) became the administration’s principal vehicle for meeting black demands. Lyndon Johnson’s chairmanship of the committee, however, raised doubts among civil rights leaders that much would come of its charge to compel businesses with government contracts to hire more blacks. As a former Texas senator, Johnson seemed unlikely to press very hard for any kind of integration. Given that 15.5 million people were employed by government-financed businesses, the White House hoped that the CEEO could advance the economic well-being of African Americans. But Johnson, who genuinely wanted to make the committee an effective instrument of black gains, was nonetheless reluctant to pressure southern businessmen or corporations with factories and offices in the South into unwanted social actions. To assure southerners that the federal government would not compel them to act against their accepted norms, Johnson declared “this is not a persecuting committee or prosecuting committee.” He hoped that “volunteerism,” which was called “Plans for Progress” and relied on business establishments to initiate nonmandated reforms, would bring some results.

Robert Troutman, an Atlanta attorney and friend of the president, who was put in charge of implementing “Plans,” echoed Johnson’s determination not to threaten or bully anyone. Troutman announced that the CEEO would not be “a policeman with a nightstick chasing down alleged malefactors.” It was a formula for no progress: By the summer of 1961 the
New York Times
saw little evidence of increased black employment. It incensed Bobby Kennedy, who served not only as his brother’s principal adviser but also as his enforcer—the man everyone had to answer to if they fell short of the president’s expectations. And Johnson, whom Bobby already disliked, became the object of Bobby’s anger over public criticism of the CEEO’s lackluster performance. Johnson’s defense of his efforts provoked Bobby to attack him at a committee meeting as insincere and incompetent. Privately, Bobby said that Johnson “lies all the time. . . . In every conversation I have with him, he lies.”

The White House came in for additional criticism when it failed to back up a promise to desegregate interstate travel. In May, when an integrated group of CORE members tested the administration’s commitment by traveling on interstate buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, the Freedom Riders, as they called themselves, were physically attacked in Alabama. Kennedy pressed Harris Wofford to get his “goddamned friends off those buses.” Although the CORE riders gave up the trip, student activists from Nashville, Tennessee, took up the challenge. When the Birmingham, Alabama, police arrested them, Bobby Kennedy stepped in to arrange their release and facilitate their trip to New Orleans. His actions angered southerners but won the administration little credit with rights activists who saw the Kennedy initiative as a belated and token attempt to fulfill the administration’s promise. After the riders reached Montgomery, Alabama, a mob attacked them and Bobby had to send federal marshals to save them and King, who had come to speak at a black church in support of the riders.

When riots erupted, Bobby publicly asked rights activists for a “cooling off” period. It provoked ridicule from them. They complained that “Negroes have been cooling off for a hundred years,” and would be “in a deep freeze if they cooled any further.” The conflict now petered out, but it enraged southern segregationists against the administration and deepened suspicions of civil rights backers that the administration had little resolve to overcome historic wrongs.

To refute civil rights critics and disarm segregationist obstructionism, Bobby Kennedy went to Athens, Georgia, in May to give a speech at the University of Georgia. He felt as if he were entering the lion’s den and his hands trembled as he turned pages of his speech. Clearly speaking for the White House, he emphasized the administration’s determination to back equal rights for all Americans. To counter segregationist resistance, he explained that they were essential in the struggle against international communism, which continually scored points with people of color by pointing to America’s enduring tradition of racism. He warned that acts of violence by segregationists “hurt our country in the eyes of the world.” His display of courage by speaking so forthrightly moved the sixteen hundred people in his audience to warmly applaud him. King sent him a telegram of praise, but the good effects were dissipated four days later when the White House announced that it would not press Congress for a major civil rights bill. Roy Wilkins, the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), compared the administration’s behavior to giving blacks “a cactus bouquet.”

The administration’s travails at home and abroad convinced Kennedy that he needed to restate his determination and plans to get the country moving again. On May 25, 1961, almost four months after his State of the Union message, Kennedy took the unusual step of appearing before a joint congressional session to present a “Special Message on Urgent National Needs.” It was a transparent attempt to rebuild public confidence in administration policies by giving a second State of the Union speech.

Kennedy began by condemning an unnamed aggressor’s assault on freedom around the globe. His spoken presentation omitted a paragraph identifying the culprit as “a closed society without dissent or free information, and long experience in the techniques of violence and subversion.” The omission softened the verbal attack on Moscow, which was evident when he said, “[W]e are engaged in a world-wide struggle in which we bear a heavy burden to preserve and promote the ideals that we share with all mankind.” Several paragraphs on the administration’s attentiveness to expanding the country’s capacity to resist nonnuclear aggression and develop its civil defense programs as a guard against the possibility of an accidental war were intended to reassure Americans after the Cuban failure that their security from attack was the administration’s highest priority.

The longest part of the speech was devoted to a great new enterprise in space. It was calculated to dispel additional concerns about national security that had been triggered on April 12 by Moscow’s success in sending Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, into an orbit around the earth, the world’s first manned spaceflight. The combination of this scientific breakthrough and the Bay of Pigs fiasco made Kennedy a little desperate to identify some way of bolstering U.S. spirits in the Cold War.

On hearing the news, Kennedy had instructed Sorensen to assemble a group of scientists who could suggest a U.S. response. The meeting initially added to the gloom that recent setbacks had provoked. The scientists concluded that the Soviets had a considerable advantage in the space race. Specifically, they held an edge on the United States in sending a two-man spacecraft aloft, orbiting a space platform or laboratory, exploring the far reaches of space, and landing an unmanned vehicle on the moon. The one hopeful note was that the United States might be able to beat the Soviets to the moon with a manned spaceship. The challenge was so great that neither the United States nor Moscow had begun to move toward that goal.

On April 20, Kennedy sent Johnson, who headed the administration’s space council, an urgent query: “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man? Is there any other space program, which promises dramatic results, in which we could win? . . . Are we working 24 hours a day on existing programs? If not, why not? . . . I would appreciate a report on this at the earliest possible moment.”

Kennedy largely knew what Johnson’s answers would be. Everything about the six-foot-two-and-a-half-inch Texan’s career bespoke grand designs. As a senator, he worked to become the chamber’s greatest majority leader in history, with an unprecedented record of achievement that future leaders could not easily surpass. As the Senate’s architect of NASA and an outspoken critic of Eisenhower for not being more aggressive about putting the United States ahead of Russia in a competition for dominance in space, Johnson was more than ready to expand America’s program. It appealed to his hopes of becoming a memorable vice president.

Johnson believed that the United States should try to land a man on the moon and that getting there ahead of the Soviets was vital in convincing people everywhere that American institutions and technology were preferable to what the communists had. As he told Kennedy, the Soviets had eclipsed us “in world prestige attained through technological accomplishments in space.” But “manned exploration of the moon” would be “an achievement with great propaganda value” and would allow us to win “control over . . . men’s minds.” Johnson had an apocalyptic view of the competition: It would “determine which system of society and government dominate the future. . . . In the eyes of the world, first in space means first, period; second in space is second in everything.” Johnson brushed aside complaints about the proposed costs of a moon mission by saying, “Now, would you rather have us be a second-rate nation or should we spend a little money?” Nor did he reflect on the relatively low Soviet standard of living. In 1961, fear of Soviet might eclipsed all realistic assessments of Russia’s economic weakness. Russia was not even a model for China, the other communist giant, which was struggling to emerge from centuries of feudalism. Only after the collapse of Soviet rule in Russia in 1991 did many in the United States concede that the communists never had a chance to catch or exceed America’s economic output.

McNamara and Rusk agreed with Johnson’s exaggerated view of the benefits from space accomplishments in the competition with communism. Understanding how badly Kennedy needed to distract the country from recent setbacks with a bold initiative, McNamara echoed Johnson’s call for an all-out effort: “Major achievements in space contribute to national prestige,” he told the vice president. “What the Soviets do and what they are likely to do are therefore matters of great importance from the viewpoint of national prestige.” Or, he might have said, favorable comparisons with Moscow were essential in rekindling domestic and international support. Johnson prodded Rusk into telling the Senate Space Committee, “We must respond to their conditions; otherwise we risk a basic misunderstanding on the part of the uncommitted countries, the Soviet Union, and possibly our allies concerning the direction in which power is moving and where long-term advantage lies.”

Kennedy was less inclined to believe that beating the Soviets in a space race would determine the outcome of the Cold War. But he shared the conviction that a major victory in space was a way to score political points and win hearts and minds at home and abroad. Moreover, if he were to convince the Congress to spend billions on an unproved scientific and engineering experiment, he needed to overstate the benefits. Buoyed by a successful suborbital flight by the U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard on May 5, Kennedy told the Congress, “If we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to all of us, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. . . . Now it is time . . . for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.” Kennedy proposed to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the decade. Nothing could be more difficult or expensive, but it would be the work of the entire nation.

Kennedy saw serious risks in gambling so much of his administration’s prestige and the nation’s money on so uncertain an enterprise. When Shepard met him at the White House after his successful mission, he thought Kennedy was nervous about his association with a program with such uncertain prospects. Kennedy joked with Johnson, “Nobody knows that the Vice President is the Chairman of the Space Council. But if that flight had been a flop, I guarantee you that everybody would have known that you were the Chairman.” Newton Minow, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, chimed in, to Kennedy’s amusement, “Mr. President, if the flight had been a flop, the Vice President would have been the next astronaut.” Johnson did not share in the mirth, understanding that as the principal subordinate responsible for the moon shot, he would have to take the fall for a failure. Kennedy, however, knew that, as with the Bay of Pigs, he would be the one to suffer the greatest consequences. In joking about shifting blame for any failure to Johnson, he was acknowledging that he was betting a great deal on a space initiative to improve his public image as a dynamic leader intent on winning the Cold War.