CHAPTER 5

I would like to report that our reconciliation heralded a new spirit in my association with John Kennedy, that when we resumed work, it was with the conviction on both our parts that we were now partners in our editorial venture, and that, as such, I had become a welcome presence in the Kennedy household.

That was not the case.

As before, I had to fight for every addition, and go to the mat to keep him from taking back each revelation.

As before, my path led straight from the entry to the study, with—excepting bathroom breaks and lunch in the dining room—no side trips to other parts of the house. There were times when I would hear the voices of Caroline and John, but they never appeared in the study. Kennedy had been such an affectionate father that I could only assume they were staying away on orders. As to Jacqueline Kennedy, she might as well not have lived there. I never saw her or heard her. Once again, I was certain this was part of a plan, Kennedy’s way of reminding me that as far as the memoir was considered, his private life was off limits.

But I’d seen enough to know that he was a far more comfortable and amenable man when she was home than he was when she was away in Boston, working on the plans for the Kennedy library. I always knew without asking when she had gone to Boston; the change in his manner was that distinctive. On those occasions, she would call him each morning at about 11 o’clock. Only two callers were put through by Mrs. Lincoln during our working sessions: the President, and Mrs. Kennedy. At first, JFK had asked me to leave the room when the calls came in, but one day when I’d automatically risen as he answered the phone, he’d motioned me to stay where I was, and from that point on I’d remained there. His talks with the president were generally brief and matter of fact. He listened more than he spoke, and his comments were conclusive: “That’s what I would do,” or “That’s how I would have handled it,” or a simple “yes,” or “no,” or “right.” Then he would hang up without a goodbye and turn at once to me. The calls with his wife were totally different. I could always tell when she was about to be put through, because his body would relax and he would immediately slide down in his chair, as though settling in for a long talk. Invariably, he was the one who prolonged the conversation, asking questions that far more often concerned her welfare than they did the library. They would also discuss the children. He always sounded reluctant to break off, and would be melancholy and inattentive for the rest of the morning.

In the restless hour before I’d slept the previous evening, I’d decided that I needed to hit the ground running when our work resumed. If I let Kennedy think that my dismissal had softened me up, my role would be compromised. So, my first words as we settled in the following morning were, “We need to talk more about Lyndon Johnson.”

“Go ahead.” It was a cold invitation.

“Let’s go back to the 1960 convention. When you tapped him for vice president, did you really mean to give it to him, or did you think he would refuse?”

For a moment Kennedy regarded me, as though attempting to figure out where I was heading. “The decision was more or less spontaneous, in that it was based on a gut feeling I developed earlier that week and I hadn’t really had time to think it through, but when I made the offer, it was in the expectation that Lyndon would accept.”

“You said earlier that you chose him to help win the election. You were that sure he could help?”

“Absolutely. And history proved me right.”

“Did you give any thought at that time to the possibility that he might be president one day?”

“That was unavoidable. But I didn’t really believe it. When Kenny O’Donnell came screaming at me after the word got out, I said, ‘Look, I’m 43 years old and healthier by a long shot than I’ve ever been, and that includes my time in the Navy. I’m not going to die in office. So the vice presidency doesn’t mean a damn thing, except what it can do for us.’”

“Which was to carry Texas and the rest of the South.”

“No. I never thought Lyndon would help in that way. I figured the South was lost with or without him. Even Texas.”

“Then why did you say you chose him to win the election?”

“Because if he had left Los Angeles mad at me, and Sam Rayburn along with him, they would have cut me up in Congress the following month and I would have lost the election before Labor Day.”

“Cut you up?”

“I had to go back to Congress after the convention. I was still a senator. I had to fight for all the issues that were in the Democratic platform. All Lyndon and Sam—one controlling the Senate, the other controlling the House—had to do if they had it in for me was see that those issues got nowhere in that session. If that had happened, I would have been dead in the water.”

“And they would have done that?”

“That was the gut feeling I developed during the convention. Lyndon would have done it because that’s the way he was, and Sam would have done it for Lyndon.”

We spent the rest of the day, and the following day, as well, on the 1964 election. I wanted Kennedy to state flatly that, in deciding to withdraw from Vietnam, to negotiate an arms deal with the Russians, to open a dialogue with Castro and, most especially perhaps, to take the first steps toward a resumption of relations with Red China, he himself had given Barry Goldwater the issue on which the Republican Party’s 1964 presidential candidate nearly won the election: that the Democrats were out to lose all of the Far East, just as they had “lost” China to the Communists in the late ’40s, and would compromise Europe, as well. I felt that Kennedy needed to state plainly and unequivocally here—even if he had insinuated as much elsewhere in the manuscript—why such an issue could not only dissipate the immense reservoir of positive feeling for him that had been developed by the attack in Dallas, but explain as well the fierce zealotry of the ’64 campaign: that Americans by the 1950s had developed a crusading, religious belief in the evils of communism; that they perceived religion as the source of moral power democracy held over the world; and that any effort to come to an accommodation with the Communists—by Kennedy or by anyone else—would inevitably be construed as an attack against religious belief itself.

At this, Kennedy balked. “That’s not my style,” he said, holding up his hands, palms toward me. “That’s confrontational.”

“But that’s what it was, a confrontation,” I argued.

“You’re forgetting something,” he said. “For a long while, I held those same feelings. I’m not sure I don’t even hold them today. The difference is that when you’re the guy who has to push the button, you gain a different perspective. What was that line in the American University speech? ‘If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.’”

“Then let’s say that, too.”

In the end, our joint efforts produced a gentler version of the basic idea, which contained, as well, one important clarification: Kennedy’s conviction that someone other than Goldwater had been responsible for those charges of cowardice that had disfigured the campaign. “I didn’t believe then that Goldwater was responsible for that stuff, and I don’t believe it now,” Kennedy said. “Barry and I are friends. There’s damn little we agree on, either practically or ideologically, but I consider him an honorable man, and I believe he feels that way about me.”

“Didn’t he say something to that effect in one of his campaign speeches?”

“He didn’t address the charge of cowardice directly. What he said was he was certain that nothing that had happened in Dallas had left me unfit to serve, and that while he wanted to win the election, he wanted to win it on the issues, and not on a bunch of unfounded rumors. Something like that. Great man. That statement probably cost him the election.”

By early March, a pile of transcripts covering the coffee table testified to the work we’d done. Our casual dress—slacks and sweaters for the most part—reflected the informality that now characterized our sessions. But Kennedy seemed increasingly distracted. One morning, as I posed a question about J. Edgar Hoover, he rose from his chair and walked to the windows and stared into the garden, where blooming dogwoods were heralding the arrival of spring. I waited, thinking he would respond. But a full minute passed without a word from him. Nor had he changed position. “Mr. President?” I said at last.

No answer, and no movement.

“Mr. President,” I said more urgently.

Finally, Kennedy turned slowly and—it seemed—reluctantly toward me, as though he were being pulled away, against his wishes, from private thoughts.

“Sorry. Where were we?”

“J. Edgar Hoover.”

“Aren’t we finished with that bastard?”

“The one question we haven’t dealt with is the one most people will want to know about—how you got him to quit.”

Abruptly, Kennedy’s mood changed. He smiled, almost mischievously. “That was pretty slick, wasn’t it? Let’s see, how can we say that in a way that won’t disserve the truth, and yet won’t embarrass Mr. Hoover? I called Mr. Hoover in and told him that I didn’t know how future presidents might feel about it, but that I considered him the most outstanding and valuable civil servant in the history of the republic. I didn’t know how future presidents might handle it, I said, but when it came time for him to retire, I intended to make him director emeritus of the FBI.”

“Had there ever been a director emeritus of the FBI?”

“No. I made it plain that I intended to create the post for him, that in this post he would be ‘counsel for life,’ and that I would rely heavily on his advice throughout my second term. And I told him I intended to award him the highest honors I could bestow on a civilian, and to give him the greatest sendoff ever accorded a public servant—banquets, speeches, the Marine band, the Navy band, the Army band all massed on the White House lawn. And he fell for it.” Kennedy laughed. “I think we wound up with eight bands. I’ve never seen so many musicians in one place in my life.”

“Hoover didn’t fight you?”

“He really couldn’t. He was required by law to retire on his 70th birthday, which was in January of ’65.”

“But you could have extended him.”

“Yeah, I could have, but he got the message that future presidents might not honor him in as befitting a manner. Besides, it would have been ungracious for him to have refused.” Kennedy chuckled. “It’s gonna be a real test of your skill to say all that in a truthful yet diplomatic manner.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I hesitated. “Look, you seem preoccupied. We can knock off it you like.”

Kennedy shook his head, half in disapproval, half in admiration. “Jesus, Ash, if we spend much more time together, you’ll know when I have to take a crap. I am preoccupied. But I’d rather keep talking. Go ahead.”

“The other big decision after the ’64 election was your choice of your brother to replace Dean Rusk as secretary of state.”

“It’s in there.”

I said nothing, just shook my head from side to side.

“I knew it was a mistake to bring you back,” Kennedy said with a smile. “You’re just lucky Mrs. Kennedy’s on your side.”

“Oh?” I said. “I had no idea.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said with the closest thing to a rueful smile I’d seen from him. “That day I sent you packing, she was in Boston, working with the library architects. When I told her what I’d done, she got on a plane and came to Washington and gave me hell.” He shook his head. “She was your biggest ally from the get-go. Before I took you on, I had her read several of the books you’d ghosted. She was very impressed. That night, she told me I didn’t have a choice. I had to work with you.” He sighed. “So let’s get it over with.”

I thought he’d made that last remark good-naturedly, but I couldn’t be sure. “Fine by me,” I said. “We’re on Robert Kennedy, secretary of state.”

Kennedy returned to the rocking chair, sat, and rocked in silence, a sign that by now I understood to mean that he was thinking about revealing something. As he turned back to me he said, “Ah, what the hell.” He paused for a second, as though making one last appraisal. “I think maybe we should go back to Bobby’s appointment as attorney general. I’m not sure there’s any way to tell this story without making me look like an asshole, but I’ll let you take a shot at it. Contrary to all previous stories, Bobby wasn’t my choice. No, don’t say that. Say that I had great misgivings about appointing him as attorney general because of his youth and inexperience. That really is the truth; I mean, here was an attorney who had never practiced law. The problem was that I was getting a lot of heat from my father. A few weeks after the election, I sent Clark Clifford up to New York to take Dad to lunch and attempt to persuade him not to push Bobby for the job. Unfortunately, my father didn’t see it that way. He listened silently to what Clark had to say and when he was finished he looked him in the eye and said, ‘We’ve all worked our tails off getting Jack elected, and we’re going to be sure now that Bobby has his chance. I want Jack to name Bobby attorney general.’” Kennedy was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head and gave a little laugh.

“Are you saying, Mr. President, that you made that appointment simply to please your father?”

“No. I’m saying that I knew Bobby would be a superb attorney general, which in fact he became, but that I’d probably been looking for an excuse not to appoint him because of the objections I knew it would raise. Why don’t we say that my father helped me to see the matter with greater clarity.”

I’d been making notes as Kennedy was speaking. When I looked up, he was barely controlling a smile.

“You’re willing to say that?”

“Yeah, why not? This book could use some laughs.” He paused for a moment. “The point of that story is that it serves as a reference for where my brother was coming from. Robert Kennedy experienced the kind of growth in four years that it takes most men a lifetime to achieve. He was a superb attorney general in perhaps the most difficult period in the history of the Department of Justice. By the end of my first term, he had created the mechanisms within his department to meet the challenge, and had the right people in place. He wanted a new challenge, and I wanted him to have it. He perceived foreign affairs as that challenge. Besides, it was time for a change. Our foreign policy had evolved in a manner that Dean Rusk no longer found congenial. He’d been raised in China by missionary parents. He had powerful feelings about what had happened there. He always felt that we had to rally against the Chinese danger emergent, which had made him a reassuring symbol to the American establishment—a useful asset for me. But Rusk was dead set against an opening to the Chinese at the time I made it. Since the secretary of state serves the president, and his president had decided that an opening to the Chinese was in the interest of the country, he knew it was time for him to go. Besides, when he took the job, he told me that he wouldn’t want to serve more than four years.”

“Did you make Robert Kennedy secretary of state to enhance his qualifications for the presidency?”

Kennedy smiled. “I’ll give you two answers. The first is, sure. The second is that I felt he was the best man for the job.”

“And was he in agreement with your policies?”

“Absolutely.”

“He believed we should get out of Vietnam?”

“Absolutely.”

“He believed we should recognize Red China?”

“Absolutely.”

“He believed we should pursue detente?”

“Absolutely.”

“He favored a deal with Castro?”

“Absolutely.”

“Come on, Mr. President! How can you ask people to believe that when Robert Kennedy ran Operation Mongoose, whose purpose was to destroy Fidel Castro?”

“He didn’t run it.”

“But he inspired it, and he monitored it.”

“We all make mistakes.”

For moments, the remark just hung there. “Would you elaborate?” I said.

“That’s all I’m gonna say.”

Abruptly, Kennedy asked if I would excuse him for the rest of the morning. Now you’ve done it, I told myself. “Mr. President, I’m sorry, I’ve gotta ask these questions.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I’ve got something else on my mind.” And he did, indeed, seem distracted, as though he was already somewhere else. A moment later, he moved resolutely to the telephone, picked up the hand piece and pushed the intercom button. “Mrs. Lincoln, he said, “call Mrs. Kennedy and tell her I’m coming to Boston this afternoon. And make arrangements for the trip.” Kennedy put the phone down, seemed to reflect briefly, then started for the door, suddenly and visibly disturbed. When he spoke, he didn’t even look at me. “I may be gone several days,” he said as he walked out the door.election.”

Three weeks had passed since my last evening with Maggie. Not only hadn’t I seen her, I hadn’t spoken to her, either. I’d mitigated my loneliness by going to movies, concerts, plays, even the ballet. I’d tried out all the better restaurants. But no matter how the evening evolved, it always wound up in the same empty hotel room. My last act before going to sleep was to call Debbie and the children. Little of consequence transpired during those conversations, but their cumulative effect was profound, a reminder that, however it had happened, I had made a life, one full of memories, textures and tender feelings. Time had blurred the memory of my disappointments and smoothed the edges of my anger. The night before, in the moments before sleep, I’d found myself thinking about a particularly satisfying sexual episode with Debbie and had become aroused. Now, suddenly, I’d been handed a gift of several days off in the nation’s capital. What I did next was as natural as seeking water when you’re thirsty. I called Debbie.

“I’ve got a great idea,” I said without preamble the moment she answered. “There’s a flight to Washington at noon. I’d like you to get on it.”

A long silence ensued. “I can’t do that,” Debbie said. “The benefit’s tomorrow night.”

“The benefit will go on with or without you. Come!”

“What’s the point? I’d be alone every day.”

“You won’t be alone. Kennedy’s going to Boston. I’ll take the time off. We’ll tour the city. This town’s a fairyland at night, all the monuments lit up. I’ll introduce you to Crab Imperial. We’ll have dinner at the Place Vendome, sleep late, have breakfast in bed. Come, Debbie!”

“What about the children?”

“They’re not children anymore.”

“Don’t you miss them?”

“Of course I miss them.”

“The planes go both ways, Ash.”

“I know the planes go both ways.”

“So come home.”

“I can’t! I don’t know when he’s coming back, and I’ve got to be here when he does.” I could feel my heart rate rising. “Look, I want you here.”

“And I want you here! I need to know that you care about our home—because our home is part of what I’ve given you.”

“I love our home.”

“What color’s the guest bathroom?”

That stopped me cold. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Just tell me.”

“Blue? Pink? I don’t remember—and that doesn’t prove a thing. I don’t use the guest bathroom. Debbie! Listen to me. This has been very tough for both of us. I’m begging you. Get on that plane.”

“And I’m begging you. You get on a plane, come home, see your children, and take me to the benefit on which I’ve worked for seven months.”

I let my breath out. “You’re right. It’s what I should do. But I can’t. I shouldn’t have called but I wanted you here because it’s a moment when I really could have used your support.”

“Are you all right? You sound awful.”

“I’m sorry, but the way I sound is the way I feel. Kiss the kids.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

I sat for several minutes, trying to deal with my anger. Then I picked up the phone and called Maggie. “What are you doing tonight?” I asked the moment she answered. “I mean, all night.”