Kennedy: the man and his legend

Title

Creator

Jenkins, Roy

Language

English

Year

1963

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

From The Observer, November 24, 1963.

He opened the doors through which others may be able to walk.

Fulltext

■ He opened the doors through which others may be able to walk. KENNEDY: THE MAN AND HIS LEGEND Roy Jenkins Kennedy’s tenure of the White House was the short est since the United States became a world Power. The youngest President to come, he was the quickest to go. There can now be no Age of Kennedy, with a gradual fulfillment of policies and a descriptive meaning for a whole epoch of American life. The most that he was able to do was to open doors through which others, if they have the will and the capa city, may be able to walk. Compared with the great est Presidents of American history therefore he inevit ably leaves more promise and less achievement behind him. Yet, aided perhaps by the manner of his death, it is difficult to believe that his name will not live with theirs. He will be the great “mightrhave-been,” the sym bol of fate in its most vicious and retaliatory mood. Yet his achievement was by no means all still to come. He had revitalized Washing ton and, still more important, he had led the world with almost faultless skill and pre cision through the most dan gerous crisis in its existence. The hackneyed criticism of John Kennedy is that he was a cold and calculating man, unwilling to take political risks, unable to infuse great crises with the warmth of human sympathy. This criti cism is at once exaggerated and irrelevant. Calculation Of course he was capable of political calculation. No one who has read the story first of his fight for the no mination, then for the Pres idency, can doubt that he December 1963 5 was a political planner of the most careful and determined kind. I am very glad that he was. Otherwise Richard Nixon would have been in the White House for the past three years. To suggest, however, that he habitually subordinated vital policy decisions to nar row political considerations is nonsense. In and after the Cuban crisis he did pre cisely the reverse. So anxious was he not to damage the future world prospect by any humiliation of Khushchev that he competely failed to bring home to the American people the magnitude of the victory which he had won. His decisions were, admit tedly, not emotional ones. But who would have wished that they were? To cite the Cuban crisis once again, the essence of his strength was his ability to watch the cases for and against the different courses of action being built up or destroyed, without rushing into a prior commit ment to one or another; and then, when all of the re levant information and argu ments were available, to make a clear decision in fa vour of the one that seemed best. He himself attributed the wisdom of the choice to the time that was availabe for the process; at least equal credit should be given to his own capacity to evaluate the evidence objectively. No doubt the reverse side of the coin was a certain hardness of presentation. As a speaker he had force and clarity, and at times a touch of eloquence. When I first heard him at the height of his Presidential campaign on Columbus Day, 1960, I listened to him making five New York speeches on that day. All of them were envigorating, one or two of them were moving. His command of widely contrasting au diences was complete. He was not, perhaps, an orator in the fullest sense. The play and interplay be tween himself and the au dience was not sufficient for that. Despite his Massachu setts-Irish, he could never have made a vast audience in the Boston Bowl chant back slogans at him as Roose velt did in 1940. Nor could he pick out with inspired timing the one moment for a launching of an idea and the one simple phrase in 6 Panorama which to do it, so that mil lions of stolid minds might be shifted. But this is a rare gift in deed, and liable to be per verted even when it exists. For most practical purposes Kennedy’s eloquence was a worthy and persuasive vehi cle for his clear and cogent thoughts. His private personality was far removed from that of a man who lived a life of nar row political calculation. That he had gaiety and charm goes without saying. But he also had sustained intellectual interest and zest. As any President must do, he saw an almost unending stream of visitors. But he chose them on the basis of who would interest him just as much , as who would be useful to him. And he gave enough time and contributed enough energy to these inter views to make them an ex change of ideas and not mere ly an empty formality. I saw him in this way one evening last January. When I came into the room he was standing talking to Sorensen, Salinger and a naval aide. In a moment they left and he settled down in his rock ing chair; there were no fur ther interruptions for 40 mi nutes. Rapid fire Three features of the con versation remain imprinted on my mind. The first is that he talked about half the time and encouraged me to do the same. Almost any other Head of Government would have struck a different balance. Either he would merely have answered ques tions or he would merely have asked them — perhaps resting his mind during the answers. Kennedy chose the much more stimulating and ex hausting middle course. He asked a series of rapid fire questions about all sorts of subjects — economic growth, Europe and de Gaulle, the Labour Party. He interrupt ed the answers, he gave his own views, he followed up a weak or unconvincing reply by forcing one hard against the ropes. My second memory of this conversation, therefore, is that it was peculiarly intel lectually testing. My third memory is that the President, during these interchanges, December 1963 7 contributed two pieces of original, rather unconvention al analysis. That, again, was unexpected from any Head of State. Yet the inexorable intel lectual vigour was only one facet of Kennedy’s personal ity. He could turn his mind in much more frivolous di rections. He could switch away from the highest alfairs of State and back again with the greatest speed. He had the self-confidence to feel that he could always get his eye back on the ball at the right moment. Self-confidence This self-confidence (not for a moment to be confused with a misplaced arrogance) was indeed one of the great changes which the New Frontier brought to Washing ton. It stemmed directly from the President. He ga thered around himself a team of outstanding intel lectual quality. They were not strikingly experienced in affairs of government. They were not strongly po litically connected in any traditional sense. They came from Harvard and the Ford Motor Company and from private law practice. But to gether — McNamara, Robert Kennedy, Bundy, Gilpatric, Sorensen — they amounted to a most formidable group. Kennedy’s great gift was that he could use them ef fortlessly. He trusted them. They respected him. He could give them the freest of rope without ever endanger ing his own command. Whe ther the same system can work equally well under an other President remains to be seen. Under Kennedy, however, it performed the great service of increasing the respect of the American people for their system of government. He was elected by the nar rowest of majorities after a bitterly fought campaign. He replaced the most widely popular President in Ameri can history. He was young and relatively inexperienced. His politics were disliked by most of America’s more pros perous citizens. Yet there was hardly ever a whisper that he was not up to the job. He was frustrated by the conservative majority (partly Republican and partly De18 Panorama mocratic) in the Congress. He provoked disagreement and criticism and satire. But he and his Administration were never sneered at or patronized. They greatly in creased the prestige not only of the executive branch of American government but of democratic leadership throughout the world. — The Observer., November 24, 1963. SOVIET REACTION Normal Moscow radio programmes were sus pended. The news announcements were followed by organ music. This was an unprecedented tribute. Russian television played Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony after a news bulletin. It went off the air later, still playing solemn music. Moscow radio stayed on the air, also playing funeral music. A person of broad outlook who realistically ac cepted the situation and tried to find ways for nego tiated settlement of the international problems which now divide the world. The Soviet Government and the Soviet people share the deep grief of the Am erican people over this great loss — Soviet Premier Khrushchev, to President Johnson. 9

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