Listening In (46 page)

MCHUGH:
Why, sir, this is obviously …

JFK:
Well, this is obviously a fuckup.

MCHUGH:
That’s right.

JFK:
That’s right.

CALL ABOUT FILMING OF
PT-109
, DATE UNKNOWN

The story of
PT-109
and JFK’s heroics rescuing his crewmates had been integral to his rise as national political figure in the 1950s, and the campaign of 1960. When Hollywood decided to issue a film version of the story, JFK was interested to a highly personal degree, and even was given the right to choose the lead actor, Cliff Robertson (Peter Fonda and Warren Beatty were also considered). The film was released in 1963 and achieved only modest success. This conversation shows him following the course of the film’s production, concerned that the film will be too long.

JFK:
Yeah.

AL
⁶
:
But the big miss that I made is Lawford
⁷
had already talked to Steve Trilling.

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
So that when I got to Warner,
⁸
Warner said, “Well,” he says, “you know where this is coming from?” And I said, “Well, I know the President and his family are very concerned about this.” And he said, “Well,” he says, “it’s coming from Lawford because Lawford already talked to Trilling.”

JFK:
Who’s Trilling?

AL:
Trilling is Warner’s number-one boy.

JFK:
Yeah, yeah.

AL:
So Peter had already talked to Trilling …

JFK:
Yeah, well I told him not to.

AL:
… and delayed some of the impact that, I got …

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
… by putting your message in.

JFK:
Yeah.

NAVY LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE) JOHN F. KENNEDY AT THE HELM OF
PT 109,
SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1943

CREW OF
PT 109
, SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1943

PT 109
, SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1943

AL:
However, I will keep following them and, uh, keep you advised.

JFK:
Well, they know what they’re doing, but I do think, myself, that two minutes, two hours and twenty minutes for that kind of a picture is pretty long. Of course, they all get to think it’s a work of art and they can’t change anything.

AL:
[laughs]

JFK:
But that seems like a long night, and there’s no doubt Pat felt it.

AL:
[laughs] Right. Well, we’ll keep chiseling away on him and I think we can get him to cut some of …

JFK:
Can he get somebody out there to look at it that he’s got confidence in?

AL:
What?

JFK:
Can he get somebody out there to look at it that he has confidence in?

AL:
You mean some, an objective viewpoint?

JFK:
Yeah, some fellow who just knows something about movies.

AL:
Well, unfortunately, by this time he has shown it to enough people that have patted him on the back. You know, the old Hollywood yes men.

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
And of course, some of his hardheaded distributor people have looked at it and they’re usually pretty damn objective in their comments …

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
… and they have said it was good and so he’s kind of got his neck bowed right now.

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
He feels that he’s got a good product.

JFK:
Yeah.

AL:
But we’ll …

JFK:
Well, he has got a good product, it’s just a question of whether there’s too much of it. Well, in any case, that’s his judgment finally.

AL:
We’ll keep working on it.

JFK:
Okay, good, Al.

AL:
Fine, bye.

MEETING WITH ECONOMIC ADVISORS, DECEMBER 12, 1962
9

JFK:
I’d like to make sure that, in that, I don’t know, if we have a recession in ’63, then we can assume we won’t be having one in ’64, but we can go through ’63 and sort of a plateau, and it looks kind of tough in ’64. I’d hate to see us go to the people in ’64 … you know, the one that would ball break [garbled] me more would be to have people think we’re in a recession … [garbled] I’d like to be in a position to have something in that economy, I think it ruined Nixon in ’60, in the major industrial states. …

If you’re running for reelection in 1964, what’s the thing you worry most about? The recession? That’s what I’m worried about. [several voices] Otherwise we’re liable to get all the blame for the deficit, and none of the advantage of the stimulus for the economy.

MEETING WITH TREASURY SECRETARY DOUGLAS DILLON, SEPTEMBER 3, 1963

JFK:
Well, the problem that I’m concerned about is, that we’re all going to be judged, I’m going to be judged, if they’re able to produce a crisis [unclear] in ’64, that’s going to say, because of, you know, all the problems we’ve had, here we’ve had price stability, and yet they keep mouthing the same old things. If I have to have happen to me what happened to the Eisenhower administration in the fall of ’60 [unclear], it would have cost the election. So I hate to get myself as vulnerable as that, at the mercy of bankers who I know would like to probably screw us anyway.

MEETING WITH POLITICAL ADVISORS TO DISCUSS 1964 CONVENTION
10

JFK:
Steve,
¹¹
on this question of the films and who’s going to do them. I thought that film
Five Days
or
Cities in June
was—have you seen that film? The guy who wrote the music was called Vershon or something, but God it’s good. Why don’t you get it from George Stevens.
Five Cities in June
. Look at it. I think the guy’s fantastic. I’d like to see what else he’s done, whether that just happened to be lucky. … Should they be made in color? They’d come over the television in black-and-white. I don’t know if maybe they’d come over the NBC one in color. Probably a million watching it in color and it would have an effect. I don’t know how much more expensive it is. Be quite an effect on the convention. The color is so damn good. If you do it right. … You’d have a film the first night, ahead of the keynoter. …