ON THE MORNING of Wednesday, November 8, 1960 Richard Nixon officially conceded, marking the first day of Jack’s life as president-elect. It also marked the start of new lives for each member of the Irish Brotherhood.
After their parting the late night before on Bobby’s back lawn, the next time Kenny saw Jack was later that same day, when he spoke to the gathered press and nation.
“This was the first time I had seen him as president-elect,” Kenny remembered. “We were standing by the steps of the armory, Larry O’Brien, Elva, myself, and Helen. Jack came up the steps and stopped. He shook hands with me and Helen. Then he put his hand on my shoulder.”
No words were spoken. It was, as Helen would later recall, “a very emotional moment.”
Jack stopped in front of Helen, kissed her on the cheek, and held her hand for a moment before saying a simple “Thank you.”
“It was done,” Kenny said, “in the most charming fashion. Jack was very emotional, and so was Helen. I had been spending most of my time away for years now. Helen had sacrificed a lot for this moment. Jack was letting her know that he recognized and appreciated her sacrifice. Then he shook my hand, and we said very little. Frankly, I think we were both too emotional to speak,” Kenny admitted later. “Remember, the president-elect, as he was now known, was the longest of long shots. It is hard to explain the rush of emotions one feels at such a moment. He only said, ‘Thank you, Ken.’”
With their dreams realized, Jack expressed his personal gratitude to all those who had been with him for many years, and to their families, who had sacrificed so much.
Kenny said, “Everything was different. He was no longer Jack Kennedy, the candidate I had first met at the Bellevue Hotel in Boston with some skepticism. He was not the man who, filled with frustration, had walked down the hill from the Kennedy apartment at 122 Bowdoin Street to check our numbers for himself in 1952. He was no longer the candidate standing in the freezing cold at 5:00 a.m. in the frigid Wisconsin morning, bareheaded, and shaking everyone’s hand until his was swollen and scratched nearly beyond recognition.
“Everything about him was different. He was humble and grateful, yes, but now wearing ‘the hat,’ as we called it, the heavy burden of the presidency. Jack was not the same man.
“After his speech, Jack took my arm and said, ‘I will see you this afternoon. We have a lot to do.’ I was surprised. I just said, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President.’”
Helen gave Kenny a look. It was not an unsupportive look; certainly this was her dream as much as his. But Kenny had promised some breathing room.
“We went back to the Yachtsman,” Kenny said. “We had only just arrived and begun to relax when Bobby called again. ‘Jack wants to see you at the house.’”
Kenny was surprised. “Now?”
“Now,” Bobby said, “It’s about the transition. We’re sending a car.”
Click. Kenny stared at the dead telephone receiver. “The next thing I remember,” Kenny recalled, “was a series of meetings with the president and Bobby. They were back-to-back planning sessions and extremely high-pressured.”
Kenny was still exhausted from the campaign but admittedly exhilarated as he headed out the door of the Yachtsman to the car Bobby had sent.
“Secret Service agents?” Helen had asked suspiciously when she saw the car as she walked him out of the motel. What are you and Bobby up to? was her immediate though unarticulated question.
As if reading her thoughts, Kenny said quickly, “Have no idea. Maybe Bobby thought I wouldn’t show unless he sent armed escorts.”
Her laugh broke the tension. Kenny waved at the two Secret Service agents, whom he immediately recognized, having met them the night before, actually early that morning. The moment that John F. Kennedy had become president-elect, they had moved into place in those early morning hours around the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port. Kenny had handled their transition and arrival before he and Helen had returned to the Yatchsman, even before it was official that Jack had won; but he had done so simply because there had been nobody else to do the job. He assumed correctly that a similar team was in place around Nixon, had the election gone the other way.
As the car glided into the drive in front of Bobby’s house, Kenny climbed out and stood momentarily, taking in the brisk November air rolling in off the ocean. His mind raced through the events from the football fields of Harvard, where he and Bobby had first met, to this moment. His mind was quickly brought back to the present when he realized that both agents remained at full attention and were now joined by others, whom Kenny immediately recognized by their attire and demeanor as FBI.
When he refocused on them, several saluted. Surprised, Kenny saluted back before sort of turning to see who was behind him. He thought somebody of some importance had come up while he was lost in thought. There was nobody there; he quickly turned back, trying to cover his confusion to the agents.
“They were asking for their orders.” Kenny remembered first being confused, then simply stunned. “I said, ‘Orders?’”
“They said, ‘Yes, sir, the president-elect said you were in charge of Secret Service and the FBI on watch and we should report to you for the time being.’”
Kenny was speechless. He had expected, assumed, and hoped to be asked to transfer his entire operation from the campaign to the White House. He expected it would happen eventually, but they had never discussed it. Jack was not the type of man who made plans before all the votes were counted, and neither was Kenny. Kenny certainly hoped he would be rewarded with a White House post or, perhaps more realistically, the Democratic National Committee should the senator win, but it was never discussed.
The race had been down to the wire until the end; none of them, not Jack, Bobby, Kenny, Steve, or even Joe, dared to start measuring drapes for the White House just yet. So Kenny had not given any serious thought to his role going forward. He understood all too well the vagaries of politics and was too respectful of Nixon’s political canniness to write the former vice president off—at least not until they had received the call that morning that told him and Jack that it was over. They had won.
Having absolutely no idea what to say to the agents, Kenny replied simply, “Keep doing what you are doing.”
Kenny said later, “They hardly needed me to tell them what to do at that early stage, but I think it was just what was expected with the transition of power. The agents,” Kenny said, “saluted back and moved into position. They were very good-natured about it all. These guys were all pros.”
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Kenny headed inside Bobby’s house to find out what was so damn urgent. He walked into the living room where the meeting was going on. The discussions centered around the plans going forward.
Bobby was sitting on the arm of the couch. He immediately got up and indicated that Kenny should follow him into the dining room, which still looked more like command central than a dining room.
Kenny stood with his back to the door, while Bobby stood across from him, hands on his hips, a wrinkled white shirt hanging out of his khakis.
Kenny looked him up and down and remarked, “I see winning has done nothing to improve your sense of style.” Nodding toward the window where the Secret Service men could be seen getting into position, Kenny teased Bobby, “Afraid I wouldn’t show, so you sent guys with guns?”
Bobby laughed. It was a good, hard laugh. Kenny had not heard him laugh like that for a while. Kenny thought it was perhaps the first time in months that he had seen Bobby actually get a moment to relax. But it was only a moment; he quickly snapped back to reality and the purpose for pulling Kenny aside.
“Jack wants you to go with him to the White House,” Bobby said.
Kenny nodded, pleased. This is what he had hoped would happen. “Can I move the entire operation and team to the White House?” Kenny asked, assuming this was the political post he had sort of been occupying.
Bobby shook his head. “No, you don’t understand,” he said. “He wants you to serve as special assistant to the president. He wants you right there, outside his door. This is different.” Bobby seemed slightly unsure of what the job was himself. “Don’t ask me why,” Bobby said with a slight smile, “he seems to like your company, which is more than I can say.”
Kenny grinned that slight, at-the-corners-of-the-mouth, barely visible grin.
“What the hell does that mean? Special assistant?” Kenny asked.
“Whatever the hell he wants it to mean,” Bobby replied.
“What about Sorensen?” Kenny asked.
Bobby laughed and nodded. “You will have equal power. Don’t worry, he’s as disappointed as you are.”
Kenny chuckled, shrugging. “I see the president is already upholding the separate-but-equal-powers doctrine very carefully here.”
Bobby, too tired to take the bait, nodded blankly.
Kenny recalled later, “Bobby then asked if I would go with Jack to Florida and stay with him there to help get everything set up. Before I could reply, the president-elect walked in, unannounced. I did not even know he was behind me. He said, ‘You’re coming to Florida with me.’ It was not a question.
“I turned, saluted, and said, ‘Yes, sir.’” He nodded, returning the salute. The relationship, Kenny said later, while always close until the end, had changed. He was no longer just Senator John F. Kennedy; he was the president-elect of the United States, the leader of the free world.
Kenny tried hard to explain this to Vanocur years later. “I saw it with Lyndon on Air Force One on November 22; I saw it that morning at the Cape Cod armory and again in Bobby’s dining room that day. He had the weight and responsibility of the office of president—it changes a man immediately. It is not easy to describe, but the change in their persona, demeanor, and perception of themselves is immediate.”
“Good,” Bobby said tiredly.
“Then the president-elect said to me, ‘You’d better make your plans. You will be there right through most of November and December and into January. You’d better tell Helen. Or do you want Bobby to call Helen and explain?’”
For a moment Kenny froze. Helen had sacrificed so much. It was not that he did not want to join Jack. He did. He also knew he had no choice. But he had no idea how to tell Helen.
“Mr. President,” Kenny said, in his characteristic no-bullshit fashion. To Jack’s great relief, not even the office of the president would change that. “If I go back to the motel and tell my wife what you just said, sir, I won’t have a marriage to come back to in January, with all due respect.”
Jack understood immediately; he looked past Kenny to Bobby. “Go call Helen and explain. Tell her how vital it is to me that Kenny come with me. Tell her I need him. Find out what she needs and work it out.”
Bobby nodded and left.
“We leave for Palm Beach tomorrow,” Jack continued.
Kenny saluted.
Jack nodded. Again he reached over and squeezed Kenny’s shoulder. “We have a lot to do,” Jack said. “Campaigning is one thing. Governing is something else,” Kenny recalled him saying as he left.
“From there, the Kennedy forces took the next step,” Kenny said. “The key for the president here was to keep that inner circle together as we planned the move to the White House and the setup of the White House itself. Everything would fall into place as expected.”
Kenny briefly joined the others, greeted Steve and Joe, and gave Ethel a warm hug. He had some coffee before he noticed the president give him the high sign. He walked out with the president, who was returning to his own home at the compound, behind Bobby’s, to have lunch with Jackie, Caroline, and some family members.
“Get ready to move,” was all Jack said.
Kenny commandeered another ride from the Secret Service and returned to the Yachtsman to talk to Helen. “She was not terribly happy with me at that moment. I was worried, but Bobby had talked to her, and she was fine by the time I got there. She understood, but that did not mean she was happy.”
Kenny and Dave prepared to head to Florida with Jack. Helen and Elva, Larry’s wife, packed up to head back to Washington, DC.
Now all they had to do was form an administration.
“We packed up and left within a couple of hours. The only thing I remember, because I was still so tired, was one very funny story,” Kenny recalled. “We got off the plane in Washington to transfer to the Caroline. Here, the girls would get off to go home. Helen got off the plane. She was very unhappy with me and with the president-elect, frankly, and let us both know it in no uncertain terms. President or not, he got an earful. I had not really been home for any stretch of time since 1955.
“We got off the plane. My son Mark was at the gate with Helen’s mother, and this was 1960, so he would have been about four years old. The president-elect greeted everyone and was walking back, but he went over to say good-bye to Helen. He hated to leave with her still so upset. He was very nice and gracious in a fashion. He knew she was upset, and I think he was trying to comfort her a bit.
“Mark saw him and yelled to him, ‘Hey, Mr. President.’ The president-elect kept talking to Helen, then to other people, shaking hands, and Mark yelled again, ‘Hey, Mr. President!’ Nothing. ‘Hey, Mr. President of the United States!’ The president-elect kept talking.
“Finally, in frustration, Mark yelled, ‘Hey, Jack, don’t you know your own name?’ The president turned and burst out laughing. He walked over to Mark and talked to him, and everybody was laughing. Mark shook his hand and told him some story, I have no idea what it was, but it was a very funny moment. It broke the tension beautifully.
“The president-elect said later to Helen and me as he and I turned to walk to the plane, ‘I heard [Mark], but I completely forgot that was now my title.’ In fact,” Kenny laughed later, “I think the president-elect wanted to say, ‘He’s a fresh little bastard,’ but to my relief he did not get to finish that thought. Helen had just joined us with Mark. Helen was mad enough. All I needed was the President knocking my kid’s manners!”
Having survived, Jack, Kenny, and Dave climbed back on board the Caroline and headed to Palm Beach. The first night was wonderfully free of the burdens that would soon consume them. It was the first time Kenny had allowed himself to actually relax.
“We stayed at the house. Joe and Rose were there. We had drinks, dinner, and a lovely evening. We chatted casually. Jack reminisced about the journey to this point. He told funny stories, laughed, and relaxed. Mr. Kennedy pulled me aside at one point. We had a brief conversation. It was a very nice thing for him to do and a nice moment. We’d had a lot of tension from the beginning, but starting with the ’58 win, he accepted that we knew what we were doing, had Jack’s interest at heart, and I think had begun to recognize he could trust me. We had a nice conversation from which our relationship would always move forward in a positive manner.”
That evening, the only business Jack raised was bringing on Clark Clifford. Clifford was a Washington, DC, lawyer and political fixer who had served in the navy from 1940 to ’44. Then he had served as an aide to Harry Truman; he went on to become friends with Truman and was widely credited as the architect of Truman’s stunning 1948 political upset.
Kenny did not know him personally at all but knew of him, since Kenny and Larry had studied Clifford’s ’48 political race for Truman and had designed Jack’s ’52 campaign along those lines.
Jack asked Kenny what he thought of him. “I know you don’t know him, but what do you think of him?” When Kenny asked why, Jack explained, “I intend him to be the liaison man between the outgoing Eisenhower regime and the incoming Kennedy regime.”
“I knew Clifford’s name and obviously knew his background,” Kenny said. “The president’s father was there; I assumed he had suggested Clifford, but I had no objection. Frankly, I told the president quite bluntly, I saw [Clifford] as someone apart from us, part of the establishment in Washington with some continuous relationship with Truman, Eisenhower, and now the Kennedy regime. It appeared to me to be a good logical choice. Quite honestly, I said to the president, “Ike or not, I believed we did not really have the credentials, skills, or connections to do that job ourselves. First, we’d have to be introduced to people to be able to even know where to start or negotiate this sort of thing. The choice of Clifford as a liaison seemed like good judgment.”
With that settled, Jack told Kenny and Dave to go out and enjoy themselves. “It might be a while before you get to do it again. At least four years! I want to spend some time with my parents,” Jack explained.
Kenny sensed that Jack understood what they all did: The pace during the campaign had been constant and brutal, though Kenny loved it, thrived on it, and he felt Jack did as well. At the White House, Kenny rightly suspected, the problems were going to be bigger and the pace would not lessen in the least. So for the night at least, the Irish Brotherhood intended to celebrate!
The next day, Kenny remembered, “Kennedy family members started to arrive. While Dave was disappointed,” Kenny said with a laugh, “I was uncomfortable. I felt it was inappropriate for us, any of the transition, soon-to-be White House staff, to stay at the house. He was now president-elect. Joe and Rose had invited us to stay, but to Dave’s complete disappointment, I insisted we stay at a hotel. That included all staff members, who were not too happy with me that day. But it was time to enforce the line. He was president now. Everything had changed. Also, I felt he needed time with his family. Dave and I had a lot of work to do besides.
“Jack completely understood. Honestly, I think he was a bit relieved, saying to me, ‘Thanks, Kenny.’ Though he had not asked the staff to step back, he was relieved we had.”
The next day proved to be their first introduction to the media’s surveillance of the president of the United States, and it was jolting. Kenny and Dave returned to the Palm Beach house and joined the president-elect by the pool to go over names for the new administration.
“The picture would appear in Life magazine, much to Helen’s annoyance when she saw it,” as Kenny recalled. “The photo was of a sun-drenched Kennedy palm villa, by the pool with the ocean in the background, and there with sunglasses on was Dave, the president, and I having a meeting, and then we all decided take a swim and have a bottle of beer around noontime. Suddenly a plane appeared, flying so low over us that we could not hear. We could see them taking pictures. The noise was deafening, and suddenly there were tons of boats driving back and forth as close as they could along the beach compound. It was impossibly noisy.”
The president-elect, trying to relax and enjoy the afternoon, stared in frustration at Kenny. He asked Kenny testily to talk to the Secret Service and get the press to back off.
“We can’t live like this,” he growled to Kenny.
Kenny quickly found agents Jerry Bain and Jim Riley and asked them to do something about the ruckus. They seemed a bit taken aback.
“I think they were used to the press,” Kenny said, “They were old hats at this, real pros; but this was all new to us. I probably did not properly explain what we wanted. I was still just learning. But suddenly they tripled their manpower. Now we were at the pool surrounded by Secret Service in ‘Indian fighting style.’ They are up in the palm trees, on the roof, all in their black Brooks Brothers suits with sunglasses on. The president-elect thought it was rather humorous.”
Jack looked over at Kenny in exasperation and said, ‘Great, Ken, this is so much better. Thanks. Now we can all relax.”
Jack then gave him his first order as president-elect. “Look, Ken, get them to back off a little bit, at least a few feet away, and tell them to take off their suits and put on sports shirts so they can at least be comfortable. And tell them to sit the hell down. They are making me uncomfortable. Nobody is going to shoot me, so tell them to relax a bit.”
“I transmitted the president-elect’s request,” Kenny said. “So the Secret Service changed shirts, and suddenly they were dressed in identical sports shirts, loafers, and light pants. They were all so relieved.
“Then they moved the perimeter out. The coast guard arrived and backed the boats off, which meant relieved Kennedy family members could again use the beach without fearing their children would be frightened by photographers. Even for family members, Jack’s ascendency to the presidency was taking some getting used to.
“As for the plane rented by Life magazine, unfortunately there was not much we could do about that. The president-elect told me he was sure there was a rule that planes could not fly that close. I checked with the Secret Service, and they were happy to have authority to their job. They knew what they were doing; they just needed to know what the new president wanted. Each president is different.
“The Secret Service could not order the planes backed off, as Jack was still just president-elect, but they could scare them a little bit and they were happy to do it. The coast guard, however, was much less original. They brought in several boats and began bobbing and weaving and doing these exercises.
“The president-elect said to me, ‘What the hell are they doing? What do they think, Castro is going to land on my beach? If he does, I’ll invite him to lunch. Get them under control before they hurt one of the residents.’
“I was still learning and did not realize I could order the coast guard to stop, but by now I understood that the Secret Service was my best ally. I approached them at the president’s request. The Secret Service understood immediately and ordered them to back off the beach.
“For me, this was a learning curve. For Jack, it was the beginning of a new phase of life in which his every movement would be monitored. He would not allow it to slow him down or change his habits.”
But it would prove to be an interesting experience for the Secret Service, Jack, and Kenny; and with the cooperation of the press corps at that time, Jack would try to live as much of his own life as he could, whether it was wise or not, and whether Kenny agreed or thought it a good idea or not. Kenny would often find himself walking a line between Jack’s public and private life. Their new lives had begun and it was going to clearly be an adventure.
Clark Clifford came down the following week from Washington to meet with the president-elect, and the work on the transition went full-throttle. Kenny found Clifford impressive and “without any of our biases. This meant that the advice he was giving the president-elect was really at a different level than anything I think he could have received from his current advisors. We were too insular. Clifford had a much broader view of Washington.”
Next on Jack’s schedule was a meeting with his defeated rival, Richard Nixon. The meeting with the losing candidate was necessary, being part of an American political tradition, though Jack, embittered by some of Nixon’s statements, was less than thrilled.
Kenny remembered that Joe insisted on it. “The meeting with Nixon happened because the president-elect’s father convinced him to do it. It had been a very narrow election, and it would be important for the country to see him with Nixon.”
Kenny felt that Joe was correct. So together with Dave Powers and Kenny, Jack chartered a helicopter to Key Biscayne, Florida, to bury the hatchet with Richard Nixon.
Kenny remembered that they did not have a very substantial talk. For his part, Kenny enjoyed meeting Herb Klein, Nixon’s press secretary, more than he enjoyed meeting Nixon.
During the meeting, Jack, who had known Nixon for years, made clear his intention to ask some Republicans to join the Cabinet. Nixon thought it was a good idea, though the difficulty of such a close loss made the meeting “challenging” at best, as Kenny said.
Kenny remembered that Nixon had suggested Douglas Dillon. Dillon was a patrician Republican from New Jersey. He had gone to Groton and Harvard, taken over his father’s firm in New York, and worked for John Foster Dulles in the losing campaign of Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican “dream candidate” bested by Harry Truman in 1948. He went on to work for Eisenhower in 1952, later becoming ambassador to France, undersecretary for economic affairs, and then undersecretary of state, all under Eisenhower. He was what Kenny would describe as “one of those Republican, well-connected Washington types.”
“I don’t remember exactly. Nixon thought it was a very good idea, but I don’t think it was any meeting of minds,” Kenny recalled.
“Losing an election,” Jack said thoughtfully, as they headed back to Palm Beach, “is never easy. Especially the presidency.”
Kenny nodded.
After they returned, Kenny said, “We came back to Palm Beach, and Jack wanted to take a swim. So we were at the pool having a beer. I could tell something was bothering him. He had been unusually quiet and reflective since the visit with Nixon.” Finally, Kenny could stand it no longer and he asked, “What’s up? You seem preoccupied.”
After a long pause, Jack finally looked across at Kenny and said, “I cannot figure out why or how I only beat Nixon by one hundred thousand votes. You’ve seen the same lack of substance in the man that I have seen. You’ve seen how there seems to be something wrong. Off track. Yet how is this possible that the election could be this close?”
Kenny hated to say it, but here were the remnants of the Catholic issue. “Bigotry,” Kenny said. “My own view is, though I can’t prove it, that his people fed the bigotry, used certain code words and actions to keep the fire stoked. That meant a lot to haters and people who vote by fear who came to the polls.”
“Maybe,” Jack replied as he relaxed in the pool. “But I should have done much better. That seems almost too easy an answer and conveniently means we did not do anything wrong. We could have done better.”
“My father,” Kenny said, “would tell you that, in politics as in football, a win is a win.”
“Perhaps,” was all Jack said in return.
The other significant thing left unsaid in their meeting with Nixon was that plans had already been laid by the Eisenhower/Nixon administration for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
Jack told Kenny later, “Nixon never mentioned it. You would think he would have.”
Kenny affirmed this. “If Nixon had raised the Bay of Pigs, Jack would have told me. He had never heard of the Bay of Pigs until December. Dulles told him that December, but not before. I was with him constantly in all those meetings.
“Even then we did not know the whole story or receive specific plans until about a month before the invasion. From this point forward, we never did things this way. After the Bay of Pigs, I was kept informed about such things, as was Bobby. But this invasion was presented to the president as though it were inevitable. Dulles acted toward the president as if he had no right to ask questions. The president learned from the disaster. I remember he told me that they made light of the Bay of Pigs and really pushed him on Laos as being the more immediate and serious danger, because, in my view,” Kenny told the president later, “they did not want you sticking your nose into the Bay of Pigs.”
The Bay of Pigs and Laos would weigh heavily on the Irish Brotherhood as two quick stumbles out of the gate. But at the time, Kenny said, “it was clear there was more to the story, but one got the feeling you were being pushed back for even asking more questions.” There would be plenty of time ahead for more questions and scrutiny on both issues.
In the meantime, staffing the White House remained the major focus. The next visitor to Palm Beach was Connecticut’s governor, Abe Ribicoff.
“Jack,” Kenny remembered, “felt a deep obligation to Ribicoff. “I think very frankly Abe Ribicoff could have had anything he wanted from John Kennedy. Jack had assumed Abe would want to be attorney general, so he offered it to him.”
“The Democrats had a very strong plank on civil rights, and the president-elect intended to carry it out,” the president told Ribicoff. Jack felt Ribicoff should lead the battle as attorney general.
Jack was shocked when Ribicoff immediately turned it down.
“The governor felt,” remembered Kenny, who sat in on the meeting, as he would all these discussions, “that the Negro vote had been very decisive in the election. In addition, he felt [the president] had a moral obligation to carry out the platform.”
The governor then explained, in what Kenny called “political terms,” that he believed, as much as he might want to be attorney general, “that he felt the worst thing in the world, in his opinion, would be for a Jewish attorney general to be carrying out the orders of an Irish Catholic president, the first in history, to impose a solution on the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants of the South for the Negroes. That this would not be good politics, in his opinion, and could actually cause a host of problems that they might not anticipate.”
Kenny said, “Jack agreed with Abe,” and the president made clear that it bothered him to admit that politically the governor was correct. However, the president “nevertheless felt his obligation to Abe was substantial enough that he owed him the job if he wanted it.”
“It is yours if you want it. I don’t mind the fight if that is what we have to do, if you want the job,” the president said.
In the end, Abe would go on to head up the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, a position he was perfectly thrilled to receive.
“We found someone much less controversial for the attorney general job,” Jack later teased his younger brother Bobby, who would reluctantly end up with the job.
“When Jack told Ribicoff pal and patron Hubert Humphrey of his choice, Humphrey was surprised. ‘Ribicoff,’ Hubert said, ‘had been considered a rather conservative governor. He wasn’t looked upon as one of the ADA [Americans for Democratic Action] types of fellows, the overly liberal types. He would have had a much easier time getting through the Senate.’
“I remember when the president told me of his decision, thinking to myself, How wise. How very very shrewd.”
About this time, Bobby came down to Palm Beach. So now it was Clifford, the president-elect, Bobby, Kenny, and Sorensen, who was the last to arrive. Clifford had a big black book with notes on all the jobs, the problems associated with each position as he saw them.
Kenny remembered, “The president-elect kept looking at me, and his reaction was the same after every conversation that he ever had with Clark. Afterward, the president-elect would say, ‘I don’t know what we talked about.’
“This is where Sorensen was really important. He could talk to Clifford; where the president-elect and I have little patience with those types.
“Then Dick Neustadt arrived, and the president was now really focused on who he would bring into his cabinet.” Neustadt, historian, advisor to President Truman, and author, would go to work with Dillon and Clifford as an advisor on several important areas. Neustadt and Clifford began talking about the issues that Jack would face as they related to those people he should select.
Kenny could tell that the president was getting increasingly frustrated. “The president was an action-oriented, get-to-the-point kind of fellow,” Kenny said. “These sort of well-meaning roundabout discussions did not work well with his approach. An accomplished writer, historian himself, he could hold his own with them, but for the purposes of staffing the White House, the president wanted much less talk and more of a direct approach. And, looking far beyond the filling of the positions, what were the problems in the long run that they had to face? Laos? Cuba? What were the problems that General Eisenhower is going to leave on his doorstep? What positions should he begin to fill, vis-à-vis those problems?” Kenny remembered that the president-elect wanted to move things along.
Frustrated, one late evening after dinner and endless discussion, Jack called Kenny back into his father’s den, just as Kenny began to leave for the hotel. “We will get you a ride back later,” Jack said. “I want to ask you something.”
Kenny nodded. He poured them each a drink. Jack sat in a rocking chair, no doubt in pain. Kenny sat as usual on the edge of the couch, wound up, ready to spring.
The president-elect said to Kenny that “he was trying to look at Clifford and Neustadt and determine whether, like so many of these people we had met in the last seven or eight years, they had all been paper tigers.
“He asked my views,” Kenny said. “They seem to talk tough. Then when you push them, they back right down.”
“I told him I thought they were both paper tigers, because their judgment seemed to change instantly if the president-elect changed his mind or he challenged them.
“I said to him, ‘You say one thing, and they immediately shift their views to parrot what you said. You would say or speak very clearly and forthrightly about how you felt about a certain thing they would have been arguing the opposite a minute before, but when you made your case, they would immediately agree with you as if it was their position in the first place.’ I told him that made me uncomfortable and I did not think they were in sync with him or serving him as well as I hoped they would.”
Jack sighed and agreed.
Kenny suspected that the president-elect was steps ahead; Kenny was simply articulating what Jack already knew.
“I told him,” Kenny recalled, “‘If you don’t, with those two, we will be here the night before the inaugural going over their lists and reading memos about memos.’”
The president laughed. “I agree,” he said, seeming to relax. “Call Bobby now.”
Kenny reached for the telephone and did just that. While it was unorthodox at the time to rely on unseasoned political hands for the formation of an incoming administration, Jack told Kenny that he felt his team had worked all through the campaign, and they were the best ones to take the lead on staffing the government. “‘Bobby and Sarge will get the job done, pick the right people, bring me the final choices I need to make, and we can get moving forward. I don’t have time for discussions and meetings to discuss meetings,” Kenny recalled him saying.
The choice of Bobby and Sargent Shriver may have been unorthodox, but knowing Jack as they did, it would turn out to be a brilliant decision.
“Given their family relationship to the president,” Kenny explained, “his trust in them was absolute and this gave them freedom of action. It did not mean that Clifford or Neudstat would not continue to serve in an advisory capacity; they did just that, but it meant that now they went through Bobby and Sarge. “Watch out for the black books,” Kenny teased Bobby on the telephone. It was not until later, when Clifford presented Bobby and Sarge with stacks and stacks of unread memos, overviews, and résumés in three-ring black binders, that Bobby truly understood why his brother had called him.
Kenny admitted to the president that he had not been terribly impressed with these Washington types. “They seem to meet to meet and nothing ever gets done; it is all theory. It is time for some reality and some action,” Kenny believed.
That, of course, was Jack’s view, which is why Bobby and Sarge took the reins. They were two men well versed in Jack’s approach. Theory and discussion were important, but, in the end, they had to lead to action.
With their assignments laid out, they prepared to head back to Washington, DC, and get to work. Their goal was to utilize the machinery of the Democratic National Committee to attract high-level talent to the Kennedy administration.
The day they left the president, Dave and Kenny were by the pool having lunch and a beer, going over the afternoon’s schedule. Who the president wanted to see next and so forth. Bobby looked over at Kenny as he prepared to depart for Washington and shook his head. “You’ve got the tough assignment,” Bobby teased.
“It’s a burden, that’s true,” Kenny responded, not missing a beat. Winning the White House had not changed their relationship at all.
Around this time, Jack also surprised Kenny with something else. He called Helen up in Washington and asked if she would like to come down and spend some time in Palm Beach. Helen was thrilled, and Kenny was relieved. He would be down in Palm Beach for much of November and December before the January inaugural.
Kenny said to Jack, “Maybe you saved my marriage.”
Jack laughed. “I do what I can.”
In the end, Kenny noted that it was a wise move. “There would be many more trips like this, and getting Helen on [Jack’s] good side was going to make it that much easier for both him and me.”
“After Helen,” Jack teased, “the Soviets can’t be too hard to mollify.”
MEANWHILE, LARRY O’BRIEN, Dick Donahue, and Dick Maguire were assigned the task of rewarding the rest of the Kennedy campaign staff. Kenny’s sister Justine would eventually go to work for Dick Maguire at the Democratic National Committee, playing a role as a vital party link to Kenny at the White House. Those they wanted to duck but not lose altogether were often happy to meet with Justine for lunch, dinner, or drinks. If they had vital information, Justine made sure it made its way to Kenny.
Another name that came up around this time was Arthur Goldberg. Kenny said, “The president-elect was anxious to have Goldberg as part of his administration. [Jack] thought very highly of [Goldberg].” Goldberg had served prominently as a labor attorney. Jack had enormous respect for this strong, well-connected Democrat from Chicago and wanted him for the administration. Goldberg would eventually go on to serve, much to Jack’s delight, as secretary of labor, before later being appointed to the Supreme Court.
Another name that surfaced was Kenny’s old pal Jack Conway, who was considered for a reasonably high-level position. “The president-elect was concerned that he was a UAW official and my close association with him could both distort my judgment and be misunderstood. I had to agree with him on that point, but he thought very highly of Conway and wanted to bring him in if possible.”
Jack was a careful man, especially in his approach to major issues such as civil rights, the Soviets, and many of the other decisions he would soon face.
Kenny said later, “In making up his mind, he was extremely cautious. This would prove to be true with one exception, the Bay of Pigs, which led directly to his conviction that caution was the better approach.”
At this early stage, Jack had not thought of the government or how to run the government. Kenny described Jack as “a very single-minded person. Politically, each battle he fought was fought only at that time. Then, when he won the battle, he would go on from there.”
This was his approach to forming a government and to running the country. “When he ran for president of the United States, Jack ran on his own terms, his own program. After he had been elected, then he began planning the formation of his government.”
In Jack’s mind, only a few things were clear at the moment of his election. For one thing, Adlai Stevenson would not, under any circumstances, be appointed secretary of state.
Kenny recalled, “He did not feel Stevenson exhibited the qualities necessary for that position. He did not feel he owed it to him, either. But the main thing was that Stevenson would not be the type Jack could work with. He admired Stevenson’s mind, and though Jack felt Stevenson should be involved in public service, the president-elect ended up making Stevenson ambassador to the United Nations.
“He was clear that neither Adlai nor Chester Bowles would be secretary of state, but he had to find a place for this rather difficult twosome in the government that would not lead to vexation for those who would eventually end up working with them.”
Kenny was characteristically blunt about this decision. “I told him I thought the ambassadorship the best spot for Stevenson if he had to give him anything. Frankly, given Stevenson’s performance, or lack of it, during the campaign, I told the president I thought he should be happy to be offered anything.”
Jack laughed and admitted that he completely agreed, though he could not say it, which is why he had Kenny.
In addition to secretary of state, the other positions Jack had concerns about were those in Treasury and Defense. He wanted a Republican in Treasury; there was no question about this from the beginning.
Joe Kennedy was personally very high on Bob Lovett. He mentioned him many times and always with a degree of admiration and regard.
Kenny explained, “Jack did talk to Lovett, but his health would not allow him to take a post. Jack was unconcerned about Lovett’s age but still wanted him, though ultimately the man could not be enticed into the cabinet.”
These were all rather casual conversations. The minor departments would be a mechanical problem to a great degree. Jack hoped that Sarge and Bobby and the rest of the group would handle them.
Jack viewed the staffing of the State Department, however, as a great challenge. Still, he was confident in his ability to oversee it. “I suppose like any president your main concern would be the State Department,” Kenny remembered. “In large measure, the Hill and the State Department had never been able to hit it off.”
Sorensen was now getting ready with the presidential speeches and messaging and also overseeing different task forces on housing and energy issues.
“I had not thought much about the cabinet,” Kenny recalled. “I did not expect to be consulted on the cabinet and did not see that as my role, but as it turned out, Jack very much wanted my views on these things. I realized now that the president-elect felt he could think out loud with me, and we could go back and forth on things. He knew my only agenda was what was best for him, so I became a good sounding board for him. We had a mutual confidence in each other, born out of many years campaigning together. I would not say that he officially consulted me on these things, but we discussed them. He would privately and casually ask my opinion of people or situations, and I would give him my unvarnished views. I think he had come to appreciate my candor.”
Robert McNamara’s name, Kenny recalled, came from Bob Lovett. “The president, I recall, at first recoiled, assuming from his last name he was an Irish Catholic. That would have gotten him stricken from the list,” Kenny said.
But McNamara was neither Irish nor Catholic; he was a Protestant Republican who had actually voted for Kennedy. McNamara was then newly appointed president of the Ford Motor Company, and Bob Lovett had been impressed with him. While declining any position for himself, Lovett pushed hard on McNamara.
As Kenny remembered, “The president was intrigued by McNamara’s background and sent Sarge Shriver to quietly meet with him to sound him out about accepting the Treasury position. Sarge was impressed but found McNamara not particularly interested. He made clear that he had no desire to leave his current position and to have to sell his company stock at current interest rates in order to take a position in Washington. He also made clear he had no interest in Treasury anyway, and Defense interested him, but not enough to leave his current position. Still, Sarge pushed hard.
“As a matter of courtesy, he agreed to meet with the new president in December. The meeting would take place at the president’s home on N Street; Jack would succeed in persuading McNamara to come on board. Ultimately, the final cabinet would consist of Robert McNamara as head of Defense, C. Douglas Dillon at Treasury, and Dean Rusk would become secretary of state.
“But,” Kenny pointed out, “in the meantime, cabinet and staff selections had to be interrupted by a trip to Lyndon Johnson’s Texas ranch, in order to mend some political fences, damaged during the campaign.”
“The trip to Texas, of course, came off in a rather peculiar fashion,” Kenny recalled, “a total shock to me. We were having lunch by the pool, a beautiful day, going over staffing questions for the White House, and suddenly Jack told me he was going to the ranch and I just stared at him. I didn’t know why at the time he felt he had to go to the ranch, but he, from the beginning, had accepted the fact that the vice president is a very sensitive fellow and that he, being younger and a junior in the Senate, wants to keep him happy. Therefore, he must show some deference and have him involved in the government in some fashion rather than have him around grousing as an unhappy vice president.
“Okay,” Kenny said, listening to Jack’s explanation but still not wanting to actually hear it, for fear he too might have to go to Texas. “But the president made clear to me,” Kenny said, “especially when he saw my unhappy face, that he wanted to get Lyndon squarely on the team; this was why he agreed to go to the ranch. He and the vice president are talking every day now. We are at Palm Beach, the weather is beautiful, and we are lolling around the pool in a rather jolly fashion after a long strenuous four or five years; so I was not terribly excited about going to Texas. He was not very excited either, as I recall, but felt it was a duty, an obligation.”
Kenny sent out an equally unhappy advance team, now with Secret Service agents: “For reasons that always have escaped me I ended up in charge of both Secret Service and FBI, so I am swamped at this moment, taking at least half my time.
“Anyway, they call back and their reports are horrendous. The reports are about all the problems, logistics are a nightmare, as well as the physical problems they are having. I had the director of the FBI, Hoover, screaming at me and the Secret Service screaming that it can’t be done. I told them point-blank it has to be done. Make it work. This is what the president wants, I told Hoover. Make it work.” Kenny hung up angry.
“Look,” he explained later, “I agreed with Hoover. I did not want to them to go either, but this is what the president wanted, so you have to do it. We left lovely Palm Beach and headed to Texas. As were leaving, much to the president’s and my annoyance, Powers ducks out of the trip. Turns out he is needed in Palm Beach to take care of the wives and take them all to dinner.
“We couldn’t believe it; we found this out as we took off. Turned out poor Congressman Torby MacDonald and I ended up as the party of two to accompany the president to the ranch. Torby said to Jack, ‘With friends like you . . .’” They all laughed.
“The night they arrived, I remember it was dark and raining and the vice president was nowhere to be seen; he was solving a soil problem of some kind. Dark and rainy, just miserable. We drove around and went to Poppy’s grave, and the president didn’t know who the hell Poppy was. I just remember driving around forever and there was nothing to see.”
The Texas trip, designed to shore up the relationship with LBJ, would turn out to be a series of fiascos, though Johnson remained somewhat oblivious to it all.
“All I really can say,” Kenny said with a laugh, “is that the president was furious with me for bagging a deer before he did, which meant I could go back to bed. He had to run around all morning, driving around in Lyndon’s Cadillac trying to track down a deer for Torby. I mean, the president got his right away, but Torby could not shoot one if it was standing still waving a flag of surrender. The story was hysterical, though the president did not see it that way at the time.”
Kenny told Bobby the entire tale later, even admitting that Jack refused to speak to Kenny for twenty-four hours. “It was your damn idea,” Kenny said to Jack as they thankfully flew out of Texas and back to Palm Beach. Jack gave Kenny an ice-cold stare.
“I don’t have to take you to the White House, you know,” Jack said, still clearly annoyed.
Kenny laughed. “Yeah, but you’d miss me.”
Jack ignored him. He may have been president, but little in their relationship had changed.
“You’re just bitter because I got my deer first,” Kenny teased, still unable to let it go.
Jack turned and stared at him. “Your deer was sickly and unwell and wanted to be put out of its misery. My deer, I actually had to make an effort to catch, as it tried to get away, and I nevertheless got it.”
Kenny burst out laughing. “If you say so, Mr. President.”
Kenny could not remember exactly when it happened, but seventeen days after the election, John F. Kennedy Jr. was born in Georgetown Hospital. John Kennedy had his second child, his first son, and somehow it seemed all to capture the spirit and glamour of the new administration. Newly chosen White House press secretary Pierre Salinger released a simple statement: “Mother and son are doing fine.”
John’s birth allowed for Kenny to make another return trip to Washington, DC, where he spent some much-needed time with Helen and his four children. Jack was ecstatic over the birth of John and told everyone who would listen about what a beautiful baby he was and how beautiful Jackie looked when he saw her at the hospital. Kenny remarked to Helen, “While he understands the responsibilities ahead, he is for the first time in a long time truly happy.”
If Kenny thought that would translate into some downtime, he was wrong. The phone call came late one night. “Come over,” the president-elect said, “I want to discuss Bobby.” As he arrived at the president-elect’s house on N Street, Kenny assumed that this would be more of the same, filling in those final slots for the new administration. Bobby, Kenny figured, could have pretty much what he wanted. But it frankly never occurred to Kenny that Bobby would become the next attorney general. Later, Kenny admitted, it would prove to be the best cabinet selection Jack Kennedy made—at least that was Kenny’s view and, most important, a view Jack seemed to share wholeheartedly.