American POTUS
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American POTUS
American POTUS - Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency - Mark Updegrove
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Welcome to American POTUS. I'm your host, Alan Lowe. You know, I'm so proud of what American POTUS has been able to accomplish these past few years. And it's all thanks to you, our listeners. Please make sure you check out AmericanPOTUS. org and consider supporting our work. We are a 501 C3 nonprofit dedicated to education and to elevating a civil discussion of the presidency and the presidents. Our guest on this episode is a very good friend from many years back, Mark Updegrove. Mark currently serves as the CEO and president of the LBJ Foundation in Austin, Texas, and as the presidential historian for ABC News. Prior to that, he served as director of the LBJ Presidential Library Museum, as publisher of Newsweek Magazine, and president of Time Magazine's Canadian edition. Mark has been widely published, and is the author of many great books, including, among others, The last Republicans inside the extraordinary relationship between George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush and the subject of his last appearance on American POTUS. Indomitable will LBJ in the presidency. Now today we're moving from that indomitable will to Mark's book, incomparable grace, JFK in the presidency. Mark, my friend, welcome back to American POTUS.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Good to be with you, Alan.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:You know, you start this book and we're going to have a great conversation today about this, but I want to start where you start this amazing meeting between president Eisenhower and president elect Kennedy as he's coming into office for a presidential junkie like me. That was a an amazing scene to think about being a fly in the wall at that meeting. What did they discuss? How did they get along?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Well, not very well. The amazing thing, Alan, is, as you know from reading the book, these guys had only met each other once it was in World War II. And what makes that amazing is the fact that John F. Kennedy had sat in the U. S. Senate For eight years and prior to that in the house of representatives for six years and he had never met dwight eisenhower, so the entirety of Of, Eisenhower's presidency, uh, JFK was, a senator from Massachusetts, and yet, they had never met until they had met in, in Potsdam during the war, uh, when JFK was discharged from the Navy, he became a reporter for Hearst Newspapers, and they had met in Very, very briefly, Eisenhower didn't remember it, of course, JFK did since he was talking to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. But here they come together in the Oval Office, Eisenhower had considered Nixon's defeat in the 1960, election, a repudiation of his presidency, so he was none too pleased with the outcome. He thought that Kennedy was going to undo everything he did. And so it, it started out somewhat. Tense, uh, it was a relatively brief meeting. The two did not think highly of one another eisenhower called JFK little boy blue and JFK called Eisenhower that old asshole, which is naval terms for the brass. You know, when you looked at the, those in command, they were the, the assholes. So it was, it was not a happy and harmonious relationship. But they had a very civil discussion about the state of the world. And interestingly, uh, after JFK emerged from the meeting and he was going back out of the, the white house through the big black iron gates, he said, I don't know how he can stare in the face of disaster with such equanimity.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:You know, I know during the campaign there was much back and forth about Missile gaps and all that but i'm curious as to Why during kennedy's whole time in the house in the senate there hadn't been more of a connection. Is that political? Reasons or, or others, what was the reason for that lack of connection during that time?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I think it's the fact that Kennedy was relatively disengaged. He was a backbencher in the Senate. He didn't do much in the House of Representatives, but he emerged very strongly on the American scene as a presidential candidate in 1960, and to some degree before that in 1956 at the Democratic National Convention where, he vied for, the second spot on the ticket as the Democrats vice presidential nominee, but he really didn't do a lot. So. It's not surprising, tremendously surprising if you know Kennedy's record that he and Eisenhower didn't come together. But still you think about this it's absolutely remarkable in many respects.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:It is, you know, I think we've had this discussion before I grew up in a household. I think I mentioned on American POTUS before I grew up in a household that kind of revered JFK. I grew up hearing about JFK particularly from my mother who campaigned for him throughout the state of Kentucky. And one thing we didn't know as much about back then, we've learned in the ensuing years it was about all the illnesses he fought throughout his youth and during the presidency. I'm curious to hear your thoughts as you research this book about, the fact that he kept those secret from the American people. How did that affect your analysis of him and of his presidency?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:The that he kept these things quiet was a political necessity. There's no way he could have revealed to the American public that he had Addison's disease and, a viable candidate for the presidency of the United States. He denied it steadfastly right through convention in Los Angeles that would anoint him as the presidential nominee of the party. But that's what it was. I mean, they simply could not disclose that because it would adversely affect his ability to ascend to the presidency. Uh, to become the, the standard bearer, but the illnesses that he had throughout his life, which we're talking about a moment ago, Alan, that informs. JFK's life to a large extent. He wanted to get everything he could out of life, get everything that was possible. And I think that explains a lot. He had this premonition that he would die. and he did
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm-Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:at his childhood illnesses where he nearly escaped death and of course his experience on pt109 in world war ii, I mean, this is a somebody who understood death intimately not only because of his, calls with death, but because so many in his family had died.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm-Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:He saw the fragility of life. I think that, again, that informs the way he led his life and it informs the policies that he advocated as President of the United States.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:You know, one of the amazing scenes from American political history that always harken back to when I hear about JFK's illnesses, I dunno if he was in the house or the Senate where he was so ill. And, uh, the scene was Richard Nixon visiting him in the hospital room and, and weeping, if I remember correctly, or being very distraught over the the state of his friend, JFK. And, of course, we know later their, their tremendous rivalry. So JFK, when he ascends to the presidency, chooses Bobby, his brother, to be attorney general. Was that as controversial then as it probably would be now? And why did he make that choice?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Was it as controversial? Yeah, it was controversial, but it quickly passed.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:I see. When
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:as much as any family that ever existed, blood was thicker than water. Uh, Joseph Kennedy told his family this all the time, and there was almost like this culture within the Kennedy family. part of that had to do with there being Irish aspiring at the same time at a time when Irish Catholics were discriminated against roundly in American society. So part of it was that and, and the fact that they aspired to something so much greater. But the Kennedys were thick as thieves, as my mother might've said. They were really clannish. They were really close. Bobby Kennedy and his brother were not particularly close for a long time. There was about eight years that separated the two. And so they kind of grew up in different phases of the Kennedy family. you know, Kennedy proved himself to his brother his brother's first campaign for the House of Representatives in 1946. and he became almost like a hatchet man. He outworked everybody on the staff. And not only proved himself to his brother, but to the other members of the family. And he became instrumental to John F. Kennedy's ascent through the political ranks. in, when he vied for a Senate seat in 1952, there was Bobby running his campaign. And of course, when JFK ran for the presidency in 1960, Bobby Kennedy was once again his manager. Bobby Kennedy would have walked across a broken glass through a wall for his brother, and that mattered a lot when you were as ambitious as the Kennedy family was in general and J. F. K. Was specifically
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:you look at those two men, were they similar in their personalities or were they Maybe. different in ways that complement each other.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:they were totally different, but they were simpatico. As you're alluding to, uh, in, in some respects, they rounded each other out, but no, totally different people. Bobby was really, uh, sort of a dour personality. He worked hard. But he didn't have the panache didn't have the charisma. He'd have the good looks and the charm of his brother. His brother sort of skated through life, despite the, all the adversity faced, particularly on the health front. He was a buoyant, he was. He was witty he was charming and beguiling. His brother simply did not have that, but what his brother did have is a killer instinct. And that certainly when you were as politically ambitious as the Kennedys were.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:You mentioned the 46 campaign, right? Is that the right year? The first campaign for the house. Remember, uh, years ago, I'm sure you met him, when I started at the office of presidential libraries at the national archives. First went to the Kennedy library. Dave powers was the curator then at the library who have worked on that campaign. They became a close friend of JFK there on. And I knew Dave when he was older and let me sit in JFK's rocking chair, which he shouldn't have done,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Oh, wow. That's cool.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:but,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:good.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:uh,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Powers was his buddy from the Navy.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Yeah,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:course, uh, went to the White House when, when Jack became president and they remained bosom buddies, but man, the fact that you got to sit in JFK's rocking
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:yeah.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:cool.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Now, I no longer work for NARA, so they can't fire me over that. Uh, uh,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I am going to send them a memo, Alan.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:please do, please do. I know Dave's book, Johnny, We Hardly Knew You,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I hardly
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:in the Canada, is a very good book. Not taking away, of course, from Incomparable Grace. So, um, Uh, so JFK gets in office and you really show this very well, the many challenges he had immediately. I mean, this was not an easy start to his presidency. And of course, chief among those was the disaster at the Bay of Pigs. Why in the world did he give the green light to that invasion, looking back on it, of course, we have hindsight, but why in the world did he think that would be successful?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Well, it goes back to your first question, Alan, which is that transition meeting between the outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower and the incoming President John F. Kennedy. Eisenhower had recommended he implement that program, that operation. And, I think that JFK was, that's not to say that he would have done that Eisenhower would have done so under the same circumstances, you might have asked additional questions or poked holes in order. We don't know. That's a counterfactual that we don't know the answer, but he did advocate this operation, generally speaking in that meeting. so John F. Kennedy looked at it very seriously when he became president. And we Ultimately, Green lit it to his detriment, and it was detrimental not only because of the damage that it did on an immediate term basis, but because the Russians were watching John F. Kennedy very carefully and Nikita Khrushchev, his counterpart, The premier of the Soviet Union saw Kennedy as being callow, as being inexperienced, out of his depths in the presidency. And this just reinforced that impression and emboldened Khrushchev. And of course, a year and a half later, you get the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think as a direct consequence the disaster that was the Bay of Pigs.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Now, I was curious, Mark, when I was reading your book, I was reminded, and tell me if I'm wrong, that as the operation was planned, JFK cut back the number of planes would not cutting those back have had any impact or was it felt doomed from the start?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I think more air cover would have helped, Alan. It would have helped mitigate the disaster, but it would have been a disaster nonetheless. It
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm-Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:were a lot of assumptions that the CIA, which had concocted this plan, had made that did not come to fruition, among which was that the Cuban population rally around this effort because they had been liberated and anything but that they, they had fallen into line under the leadership of Fidel Castro, who at that point had firmly established himself. As the dictator for Cuba. So there were a lot of assumptions that were made that were ill founded. And I think JFK reluctantly greenlit the operation and again, did so to his political detriment.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm-Hmm. Let, let's step back to domestic policy for a minute. And so many of these questions, mark, as I, I prepared them for today. You realize they're almost what if questions, you know, if he, if he had lived to serve out the term, serve another term, what would he have done? Which I know is unfair to you, but, but we're looking at JFK stance on civil rights in the time he was in office. What were his priorities there and how did he respond to. This horrific incidents that you detail in Mississippi and Alabama.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:It's a mixed record. So when JFK comes into office, I think the overriding, the biggest crisis was around the Cold War, which was, of course, the dominant geopolitical issue of its time, the world was bifurcated, either you're with Soviet Union or you're with the United States of America. And so we were enmeshed in this, this death struggle with the USSR. And so JFK's priority, was keeping Cold War tensions at bay and, trying to win hearts and minds in the battle with the Soviet Union, around ideological differences. so when the civil rights activists were exposing the very worst of racial tyranny and oppression, the Kennedys took exception to that. They thought That they were, by exposing the nation to that, they were also showing the world that we were not the superior system. And so they were trying to tamp down the efforts of those like, Martin Luther King and John Lewis and others who were on the front lines. Of the civil rights movement, trying to generate awareness about these things. So, so much so that when the freedom riders that included John Lewis were, desegregating, uh, bus lines down in the South and the Southern United States. Uh, you know, Kennedy was calling them almost traitors for doing that saying that his brother was about to go to Europe to have a series of meetings, including a summit with Nikita Khrushchev with mud on his shoes as a consequence of them showing the worst Of this racial oppression
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:No, uh, years ago when I was director at the Howard Baker center, John Siegenthaler was on our board and John, formerly Nashville, Tennessean was then with Bobby Kennedy and was sent down with the freedom riders and a beaten unconscious by the clan., so John, an amazing man, uh, many stories and sadly he's passed away now, but many stories from those days. With Bobby Kennedy and then with the Freedom Riders.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:left at the curb bloodied
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Yes,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:to be dead I mean it is an astounding story He was actually brutally beaten and was working for the federal government at the time. That's how bold Racial, uh aggression was in the deep south.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:John had that metal pole displayed outside his office when he went to his office in Nashville. Our friend Bill Vanden Heuvel I think also worked for Bobby Kennedy if I remember correctly. So, let's step for a moment to Jacqueline Kennedy. How would you characterize their relationship during the presidency? We've all heard so many stories. Yes. Uh, about the relationship during the time of the presidency, how would you characterize their relationship? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:we know all know about the philandering of You of JFK, after they got married in 1953. I mean, he really led life still largely as a single man. As, did his father and his brother, Ted, and to a lesser extent, I think Bobby Kennedy. But, uh, But, I think that particularly after the Cuban Missile Crisis or during the Cuban Missile Crisis, two became exceptionally close. insisted that she and her children go to the White House despite JFK's advice not to do so, to leave, not to be near Washington in the event that there was a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. And, and she said, if we're going to die we're going to die together. We're going to be all be together. And she was with him night and day throughout the bulk of those 13 crucial and excruciating days in American history, the closest that we have ever come nuclear Holocaust and perhaps the most dangerous moment in the history of the world.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:of what was at stake at that time, and I think after that, uh, in 1963, they lost a child, their fourth child, Jackie, gave birth to Patrick, their second son, who died two days later. And I think that deepened the relationship as well.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:So let's turn from that relationship and, also the near death of the world, at the Cuban missile crisis to something loftier, but still part of the cold war. And that was the race to the moon. My day job now, Mark, as you know, is in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I head up the American museum of science and energy. And we talk a lot about the space race and space in general. What do you think led Kennedy to kind of fully embrace getting to the moon first? In the face of some pushback, and you know this really well in the book, pushback from NASA and others,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Well, you just said it. It was the Cold War, right? We look back very romantically at the, the space race and, look at America pioneering space as being almost like Manifest Destiny. You know, the, this reflecting our adventurous spirit as a people. And certainly that was part of it, but a minimal part of it. Most of it drawn through fear. 1957 when the Russians launched Sputnik, the first spacecraft, that sent tremors of fear throughout politicians and American citizens in general, about the Soviet's domination of space. And so our capabilities to explore space evolved, it became almost an inevitability that we would try to land human beings on the face of the moon. And that became the space race. And we wanted to show the world our technological superiority. so this is very much born out of, the, the Cold War and our desire. To show the world the best of what we had technologically and to ensure that the Soviets would not dominate space, where they could potentially launch a weapon and have a greater advantage militarily.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:truly an amazing call to action that many people I'm, I'm learning thought there was no way in heck we were going to be able to accomplish that, but accomplish it. We did, you know, me, Mark, I hop around, I'm going to hop back real quick to the Cuban missile crisis as, as much as I know, we want to get around that, but, uh, you know, in, in the ensuing years after the missile crisis, thank God was resolved. We've learned that President Kennedy agreed to withdraw American missiles from Turkey and I remember correctly from Italy if the Soviets did the same in Cuba. So do you see the resolution of the missile crisis still as a success for the President and I guess for the U. S. or is it now a different picture now that we've learned there was a back and forth compromise involved?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:A huge success, Alan, because ultimately. The Soviet Union relented,
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:we averted nuclear holocaust as I mentioned earlier, but, but you make a really good point. What we didn't realize until well after the Cuban missile crisis is it was not the other side blinking. It was a quid pro quo, and it was a great deal for, I mean, and let me talk about the quid pro quo for a second. Uh, just as The Soviet Union was essentially putting nuclear weaponry in the Western Hemisphere, which changed the dynamic of the Cold War. We had put missiles in Europe, and as you pointed out, in Turkey and in Italy, which is sort of the backyard of the Soviet Union. So they were really close. It happened to be that they were outdated, We were going to pull those missiles anyway, the Soviet Union didn't know that and they didn't know how potent those those missiles were. So it was a great deal that we ultimately struck, but it was not a matter of us. Laying down the gauntlet and the Soviet Union backing down, it was a back channel negotiation that resulted in both of us pulling nuclear weapons from, places that were very close to the homelands. of the Soviet Union and, uh, the United States of America.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:And going back to what you said earlier, it was still a very audacious move by Khrushchev. It was based, you believe, on his perception of weakness in Kennedy to go ahead and put these missiles there in Cuba.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:There's no question about it. I mean, the Soviet Union didn't do anything even remotely like that during the Eisenhower years. They had high regard for Eisenhower, and what he had done in World War II, and I think there was a little bit of fear there. And they saw this young, callow leader who was, as I mentioned earlier, not up to the task of being president of the United States. And, we might mention, Alan, that Nikita Khrushchev had an opportunity to size up Kennedy in what was a disastrous summit in Vienna in 1961, just a few months into JFK's presidency. And after the Bay of Pigs disaster that we spoke about earlier. So he's looking at this young guy, the youngest president,, elect in the history of the United States. And he's thinking I, I've got it all over this kid. And he took advantage of that by making that stand in Cuba and John F. Kennedy realized if I don't take a stand myself, if we don't beat this back, this threat, Then we're sunk and that it'll just further embolden the soviet union And so it ended up working. Well, and I should mention at the conclusion of the cuban missile crisis Kennedy who had had a black eye after the Bay of Pigs fiasco stood on stage non parole. I mean, he was the leader in the world, the, the dominant leader in the world. There was a prestige that he emanated that no leader could even closely approximate.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Did that affect the Soviet view of him?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Yeah, I think Khrushchev gained respect for Kennedy, but we should mention that. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened to Khrushchev's detriment. I think the Politburo lost faith Khrushchev, who was taken out of power in 1964 as a direct result of that reckless gambit.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:You mentioned one of President Kennedy's great accomplishments, which was the Signing of the limited test ban treaty in 63. So can you tell us a bit about what that treaty accomplished and why did the Soviets agree to sign it? Was it part of this new perception of Kennedy?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Yeah, I think there was that and I think there was the view among world leaders that we could have a nuclear disaster or a nuclear accident, which could happen as we were testing nuclear weaponry. You have to give John F. Kennedy credit for the military victory that was the Cuban Missile Crisis outcome, and then using that victory and that prestige that he got in the wake of the crisis. to do something to peaceful ends. And that was the nuclear test ban treaty, which was vital in ensuring that there wouldn't be these reckless tests of, of nuclear weapons that could be extraordinarily dangerous.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Now I'm going to ask you a question next mark up to grove. And it's really an unfair question to you, given your unique position in Austin right now. But could you describe the relationship of JFK and Bobby Kennedy with the vice president, Lyndon Johnson?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Yeah. And, and this question gets asked a lot
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Yes.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:you can
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Yeah,
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:appreciate, and
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:sure.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:it. I think you're right. We, we talked about this last time as it related to LBJ when he was the subject of our conversation.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:There were different Kennedy's. And they had different relationships. Lyndon Johnson,
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Okay.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:you know, there was no monolithic view of Lyndon Johnson and we can start with Bobby Kennedy, which was the worst There was great antipathy between both a mutual contempt They hated each other and whatever ill feelings one had it was more than matched by the other They despised each other And there are many, many, many reasons for that. I'll happily jump into them if you'd like, but I would say he's the outlier in the Kennedy family. John F. Kennedy had perhaps begrudging respect for Lyndon Johnson, and that respect was returned in kind when, Lyndon Johnson saw John Kennedy mature and evolve into the presidency and become what Lyndon Johnson described as a great public hero.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:But it also bears mentioning that when John Kennedy was, in the Senate. really a back bench in the Senate. Lyndon Johnson was the all powerful Senate minority and then majority leader, perhaps the most powerful majority leader in the history of the U. S. Senate. So every time Kennedy needed to get something done for his constituents, he had to go hat in hand to Lyndon Johnson, who got it done for him.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Mm hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:was, there was respect between the two of them. And I think a lot of this Kennedy, LBJ stuff gets a little blown out of proportion, particularly as it relates to LBJ accepting the number two spot on the 1960 ticket.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Hmm.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:though, Alan, that Joe Kennedy, the Kennedy patriarch, the father of Jack and Bobby Kennedy had a huge regard for Lyndon Johnson. Joe Kennedy was a creature of power himself, albeit not political power, but, but understood the way power worked and saw Lyndon Johnson as a paragon of power. So we mentioned John F. Kennedy in 1956, gaining national prominence at the Democratic National Convention when he was a contender to be the vice presidential nominee. But his father advised him, look, I would not take that number two spot. on the ticket for anybody except for Lyndon Johnson. If Lyndon Johnson is the party nominee, then you should join the ticket, but otherwise I don't think you should join it. that says a lot about his view of LBJ.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:Now, of course, we know an issue that took LBJ down later was the whole issue of Vietnam. And in the arena of unfair questions, I have one more for you. And that is, the eternal question of JFK's next moves in Vietnam, if the assassination had not occurred, what, can you just remind us what actions JFK did take in Vietnam? Um, And then from your research, what do you think the next steps may have been?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:So Eisenhower had started in Vietnam, he had sent military advisors into the region, essentially that's just troops helping to train military forces. And John F. Kennedy escalated the number of those troops, not nearly to the degree that Lyndon Johnson would during the course of his presidency, not even remotely. But you could see that the war in Vietnam was a burgeoning crisis. In fact, going back to that transition meeting between, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower, that was a subject that was on the table because that was a really hot issue at the time. will tell you that. Two months before Kennedy's assassination, Kennedy, through a series of television interviews, said that they had to fight in Vietnam. We had to. It was a vital battle in the Cold War. We needed to fend off the communist insurgency in Vietnam. he sort of doubled down on that before his assassination. Uh, there is no evidence, despite Kennedy acolytes pushing this story that John F. Kennedy would have pulled out of Vietnam. There was a story, that was purveyed when Bobby Kennedy was trying for the nomination of the Democratic Party in 1968. There was sort of this revisionism as it related to John F. Kennedy's stance on Vietnam, uh, and Kennedy acolytes put forth this notion that, uh, Kennedy was going to get reelected in 1964 and then pull out of Vietnam. There is not one shred of evidence that's not anecdotal that suggests that that was going to be the course of action that he took. So that, that is. You know just legend as far as I'm concerned myth. But I think you can infer from jfk's prudence he negotiated a settlement in laos as opposed to fighting a war he chose not to engage with berlin when they put up the The berlin wall in 1961 shortly into his presidency. There are a number of things the cuban missile crisis he rejected the advice of his military advisors to take out uh, missile installations in Cuba through some aerial assaults. He, didn't want to do any of those things. He did not want to engage militarily if he didn't have to. It could go back to his days in World War II, where he saw the hell that war was. So my guess is, Alan, that he might've taken a different course, but there is no evidence to suggest that he was going to do so before he was assassinated.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:And that's fascinating mark You do hear so much of that anecdotally that of course jfk would have would have changed the whole History of vietnam, but there as you said, there's no shred of evidence that that indeed would have been the case Fascinating one of the many fascinating things about your book, sir Learning more about this amazing president. So, uh, sadly we all know that JFK was assassinated November 22nd, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. Why were he and Mrs. Kennedy in Texas in the first place?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I'll tell you that it boils down to money. surprise.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:There's a little bit of money in Texas. Yes, sir.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:lot of money in Texas. And this is at a time when there wasn't as much money in political campaigns, but money has always been the oil of politics, right? And was promised by John Connolly, the governor of Texas who was in, That that limousine with Kennedy when he was shot that if he came to Texas He could raise a million dollars for the re election war chest in 1964 And there was a big fundraiser planned here in austin for the evening of november 22nd, the day that kennedy was assassinated so there was a series of cities that the Kennedys either visited or were planning to visit, they were Houston San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas, and then they were to come to Austin. it spoke volumes that Jackie Kennedy accompanied Her husband, first of all, presidents didn't travel as much in those days and Jackie Kennedy wasn't around the White House much, let alone on the travel circuit with the president. She was very often either in Cape Cod or. Or in the Virginia countryside out of the glare of the white house spotlight. So the fact that she was with her husband attested to how important politically this was to John F. Kennedy. And it bears mentioning too, Kennedy won the presidency in a squeaker. of an election in 1960 by two tenths of a percentage point in the popular vote. But it came down to Illinois and Texas. LBJ being on the ticket helped to carry Texas. But since Kennedy was taking a more active stance on civil rights. By 1963, he was losing popularity, his approval. Ratings were descending rapidly in Texas, so it became a very important political stop as well.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:If our listeners have not been to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, I encourage you to go. Really, um, tasteful explanation of that horrible day in our history. And just, uh, really well done in terms of how that tragedy is presented. So, thank you. Final question for you, Mark, you know, this is again something that historians do every now and then they, they rank the presidents and JFK is a hard one to rank, but where would you put him in terms of his fellow presidents? And what do you believe his enduring legacies are today?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:I think he probably belongs in the top 10, of all of our presidents. So in the top quarter of, of all presidents, not quite in the presidential pantheon that is reserved for Lincoln and Washington and FDR, TR, but in a tier below in the near great. Tier. I think Lyndon Johnson probably belongs there too. I thought very carefully in my book about how you would encapsulate his legacy. So the last paragraph of the book reads, while he is remembered more for what he stood for than what he actually achieved, his example has endured. Beyond the Camelot facade and might have bins, Kennedy, the man in all his strengths and defects. Virtues and Vices shows us what is possible in leadership, offering us not an unrealistic, unattainable ideal, but an earthly standard from several generations past. Throughout the course of his restless, abridged reign in the White House, he dealt with the pressures of the office and the momentous decisions before him, standing on feet of clay at times, showing flashes of greatness at others. But all he did indelibly, honor and grace, edging out recklessness and abandon, calling forth the best in all of us. And I think that to me encapsulates why his legacy has endured for as long as it has, Alan. And part of that goes back to something we didn't talk about, but which is so much part of the enduring Kennedy legacy, which is the great rhetoric, the soaring rhetoric throughout the course of his presidency, beginning with His inauguration speech, perhaps the most famous inaugural speech in the course of history in which he, of course, said that famous line, ask not what your country could do, asks what you could do for your country.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:then it's been, I'm Berliner. We all know that. I mean, just amazing rhetoric that he had that. that inspired not just the nation, but the world. And. That as a young boy, I was learning growing up. And, in terms of his ongoing legacy and setting that, that standard, your guy LBJ took so many of those and made them reality. So you talk about civil rights, my goodness, you know, LBJ took that next giant several steps in terms of moving our nation forward with a great society.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Yeah, you're absolutely right. John F. Kennedy, I think, inspired us, and go back to that, you know, ask not quote, he inspired us to reach beyond ourselves. And I think when LBJ takes over after Kennedy's assassination, he exploits that, the faith that we have in government, which was at an all time high in 1964 of 72%, 72 percent of Americans is. Believed in their government and LBJ takes advantage of that to roll out the laws of the Great Society, some of which came from Kennedy, not much, most of which came from his own imagination after having seen what Franklin Roosevelt did with the New Deal during the course of the Great Depression.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:I see. Well, well, tell me about the LBJ foundation. What are you doing now? What are your plans for the future?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Well, you know, Alan, that presidential foundations for the presidential libraries that are under the auspices of the National Archives are partners in these endeavors. These are public private partners. The public side is, of course, the National Archives, and the private side are the foundations that support these operations. So we're doing a whole lot of stuff. We had President Biden here last month, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in which he talked about. far as I'm concerned, much needed, Supreme Court reform. Uh, we've got, Gretchen Whitmer and Nancy Pelosi, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Conan O'Brien. We've got a slate of folks coming in the fall that we're excited about. And we have a brand new exhibit going in on Vietnam. So some great things coming up at the LBJ Library.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:An amazing place. And what about you, Mark? I know, you always seem to be working on that next book. What's next for you?
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:Alan, I'm doing a book called Make your mark lessons in character from seven presidents. I've had the great honor of interviewing and getting to know presidents. And are, the presence from Gerald Ford through Barack Obama. And I assign them a character trait that I think underlies. legacies. So as a, for instance, for Gerald Ford, it's doing what's right. And that goes back to the pardon that is at the center of his legacy. Uh, the pardon of Richard Nixon in an effort to heal the country after the divisions and the stain of war. Watergate, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. It's grace, the grace that he embodied as the first black president in the face of very often just obvious, bigotry and racial judgment. So, I'm excited about that. That'll be out, in the, the spring of next year and available on Amazon and fine book stores everywhere.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:And you know, of course, about podcasts, you'll have to come on to talk about that book, Mark. Well, that's awesome, Mark. I so much as always for joining Potus. It's been fun and enlightening as always.
mku_1_08-29-2024_143658:It's a great podcast, Alan. Thanks so much. Look forward to the next time.
alan-lowe---american-potus_1_08-29-2024_153658:So I encourage all of our listeners to check out Incomparable Grace, JFK and the Presidency. Until next time, this is Alan Lowe. Thanks to all of you for listening and for supporting American POTUS.