Kennedy"s successful diplomacy gave the Democrats an advantage in the November elections that he was happy to exploit. The White House welcomed descriptions by Acheson, Bundy, Harriman, Norman Cousins of The Sat.u.r.day Review, The Sat.u.r.day Review, and General Norstad of a president who had been "extraordinarily skillful," "firm," "reasonable," and "calm." It also took satisfaction from and General Norstad of a president who had been "extraordinarily skillful," "firm," "reasonable," and "calm." It also took satisfaction from Newsweek Newsweek"s a.s.sertion that Kennedy "had given Americans a sense of deep confidence in their President and the team he had working with him."
The public had only a limited understanding of how resolute Kennedy had been. Health problems continued to dog him during the crisis. He took his usual doses of antispasmodics to control his colitis; antibiotics for a flareup of his urinary tract problem and a bout of sinusitis; and increased amounts of hydrocortisone and testosterone as well as salt tablets to control his Addison"s disease and increase his energy. Judging from the tape recordings of conversations made during the crisis, the medications were no impediment to long days and lucid thought; to the contrary, Kennedy would have been significantly less effective without them and might not even have been able to function. But the medicines were only one element in helping him focus on the crisis; his strength of will was indispensable. With so much at stake in the Soviet-American confrontation, he was not about to let personal pain or physical problems deter him from the most important business of his presidency. He undoubtedly had his own experience in mind when he wrote in an article on physical fitness for Look Look magazine in 1963, "Whether it is the astronaut exploring the boundaries of s.p.a.ce, or the overworked civil servant laboring into the night to keep a Government program going, the effectiveness and creativity of the individual must rest, in large measure, on his physical fitness and vitality." magazine in 1963, "Whether it is the astronaut exploring the boundaries of s.p.a.ce, or the overworked civil servant laboring into the night to keep a Government program going, the effectiveness and creativity of the individual must rest, in large measure, on his physical fitness and vitality."
This is not to suggest that Kennedy was superhuman or to exaggerate his invulnerability to physical and emotional ills. On November 2, he took 10 additional milligrams of hydrocortisone and 10 grains of salt to boost him before giving a brief report to the American people on the dismantling of the Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In December, Jackie asked the president"s gastroenterologist, Dr. Russell Boles, to eliminate antihistamines for food allergies. She described them as having a "depressing action" on the president and asked Boles to prescribe something that would ensure "mood elevation without irritation to the gastrointestinal tract." Boles prescribed 1 milligram twice a day of Stelazine, an antipsychotic that was also used as an anti-anxiety medication. When Kennedy showed marked improvement in two days, they removed the Stelazine from his daily medications.
Kennedy burnished his image as the princ.i.p.al architect of Soviet defeat by allowing journalists to draw comparisons with Adlai Stevenson. In December, when Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett published a Sat.u.r.day Evening Post Sat.u.r.day Evening Post article on the crisis, which Kennedy had seen in draft form, they contrasted Kennedy"s firmness with Stevenson"s soft approach; Stevenson wanted "a Munich," they said. It is true that Stevenson exceeded Kennedy"s readiness to make concessions, including especially a willingness to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo. But in fact he had been in sync with the president on avoiding an air strike or a premature invasion and was an early supporter of the quarantine idea. When the press interpreted the Alsop-Bartlett article as an indirect request from the president for Stevenson"s resignation, Kennedy emphatically denied it, but he left the charges of softness unanswered by refusing to comment on Ex Comm discussions. To boost Stevenson, who was demoralized by the flap, Kennedy released a letter to him praising his contribution at the U.N. Nevertheless, the public depiction of Stevenson as an appeaser strengthened the view of Kennedy as a tough-minded leader comparable to America"s best past and present defenders of the national interest. It increased his freedom to negotiate an arms control agreement and weakened the capacity of conservative critics to press him into more forceful military action in Vietnam. Petty revenge for old slights cannot be ruled out as another motive. article on the crisis, which Kennedy had seen in draft form, they contrasted Kennedy"s firmness with Stevenson"s soft approach; Stevenson wanted "a Munich," they said. It is true that Stevenson exceeded Kennedy"s readiness to make concessions, including especially a willingness to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo. But in fact he had been in sync with the president on avoiding an air strike or a premature invasion and was an early supporter of the quarantine idea. When the press interpreted the Alsop-Bartlett article as an indirect request from the president for Stevenson"s resignation, Kennedy emphatically denied it, but he left the charges of softness unanswered by refusing to comment on Ex Comm discussions. To boost Stevenson, who was demoralized by the flap, Kennedy released a letter to him praising his contribution at the U.N. Nevertheless, the public depiction of Stevenson as an appeaser strengthened the view of Kennedy as a tough-minded leader comparable to America"s best past and present defenders of the national interest. It increased his freedom to negotiate an arms control agreement and weakened the capacity of conservative critics to press him into more forceful military action in Vietnam. Petty revenge for old slights cannot be ruled out as another motive.
Kennedy understood that a strong showing in the November elections could make Congress more receptive to his major domestic proposals. Although his administration publicly made much of its legislative record, privately it was unhappy. The president had won between 81 and 85 percent of the roll call votes on domestic proposals in 1961 and 1962. And on roll calls involving foreign policy, he had received 96.5 percent backing. But his overall record was much less noteworthy. Many of the bills Congress pa.s.sed were relatively minor reforms, like temporarily reducing duty exemptions on Americans returning from abroad, authorizing an additional a.s.sistant secretary of labor, extending the Sugar Act of 1948, or reorganizing the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Most of his legislative requests-56 percent in 1962, to be exact-had never emerged from House and Senate committees, where conservative chairmen bottled them up.
Johnson and Hubert Humphrey were so concerned about Kennedy"s ineffective congressional leadership that in August 1962 they suggested ways to improve it. They wanted him to make his presence and influence more visible on the Hill. "[Both men] were talking quite honestly about the problem of getting effective results," Bundy told the president. "I did not detect any personal soreness in either of them, and both spoke in the framework of great commitment to your program and to you." So did Truman, who wrote Kennedy at the same time: "The President is just as great as the Congress-and really greater-when he exercises his Const.i.tutional Prerogatives. You are going through the same situations and troubles that Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and I had to meet. Don"t like to put myself in that high cla.s.s-but I had a h.e.l.l of a time. You meet "em, cuss "em & give "em h.e.l.l and you"ll win in 1964."
Kennedy saw no point in risking prestige or expending political capital by openly campaigning for particular candidates. Instead, he worked behind the scenes to advance the political fortunes of vulnerable Democrats. Moreover, Kennedy took Lou Harris"s advice that his best means of influencing the electorate was to speak "over and over again" about the measures needed to get the country moving forward. Harris was convinced that the people were eager to be led and that once "aroused and mobilized, Congress, business, and all groups will respond as a man to the reverberating chorus."
During the summer and fall, Kennedy crisscrossed the country in support of a Democratic Congress. He said that the nation"s well-being-its future prosperity and social advance-depended on electing more House and Senate Democrats who would vote for his programs. Since 1938, the Congress had been more or less deadlocked in its consideration of new progressive measures. He described himself as fighting the same battles Wilson, FDR, and Truman had faced "to provide progress for our people." "I believe we should have the opportunity and not have the kind of balance in the Congress which will mean two ... more years of inertia and inaction. That"s why this is an important election. Five, ten seats one way or the other can vitally affect the balance of power in the Congress and vitally affect our future... . So this is not an off-year, it is an important year." Kennedy catalogued his legislative victories and defeats, pointing out, "We have won fights by 3 or 4 votes in the House of Representatives, and we have lost fights by 3 or 4 votes." Ignoring the opposition to his proposals of conservative southern Democrats, he blamed Republicans for his problems: 75 percent of them had voted against his higher education bill; 84 percent of Republican senators had opposed extended unemployment benefits; 81 percent and 95 percent of House Republicans had voted against his area redevelopment and public housing bills, respectively; and 80 percent of House Republicans had resisted increasing the minimum wage to $1.25. "On a bill to provide medical care for our older citizens ... seven-eighths of the Republican Members of the Senate voted "no," just as their fathers before them had voted 90 percent against the social security [bill] in the 1930"s." As he came closer to the election, Kennedy acknowledged that conservative Democrats were also a problem. If liberal Democrats failed to vote, he told an audience in Pittsburgh on October 12, every proposal that we bring before the Eighty-eighth Congress in January 1963, "will be in the control of a dominant Republican-Conservative Democratic coalition that will defeat progress on every single one of these measures."
Despite not risking his presidential standing by investing excessively in any single congressional race, Kennedy"s general endors.e.m.e.nt of Democrats sympathetic to his legislative agenda tested his personal influence. He approached the campaign confident that his presidential performance had given him a stronger hold on the electorate than he had had in 1960. He understood that, whatever the appeal of his message, the public liked him. His good looks, intelligence, wit, and charm, which were so regularly and exuberantly on display at press conferences, now drew large audiences to hear him on the campaign trail. Some inside the administration could see Kennedy"s obvious imperfections-the insatiable s.e.xual appet.i.te contradicting the picture of the ideal family man married to a perfect wife; the manipulation of image to hide missteps; the fierce compet.i.tiveness to win, which made him and Bobby all too willing to exploit friends; and the private physical suffering, which occasionally made him glum and cranky. Yet no one could doubt that Kennedy"s two years in the White House had created an imperishable view of him as a significant American president worthy of the office.
Still, the reality was that Kennedy had no real hope of breaking the congressional deadlock. Though preelection polls showed 56 percent of voters favoring Democrats over Republicans, a significant part of this support was for southern members of the party, who were unsympathetic to progressive measures. So, despite a satisfying gain of four Democratic seats in the Senate and the loss of only four seats in the House, which made this, except for FDR"s, the best midterm showing for any inc.u.mbent president in the twentieth century, Kennedy acknowledged that "we"ll probably be in a position somewhat comparable to what we were in for the last two years." If they could maintain the unity of congressional Democrats and win some support from moderate Republicans, he foresaw legislative gains. But he believed it more likely that they would struggle, as they had during his first two years, with narrow margins of victory and defeat. He was gratified that brother Ted had won his Senate race in Ma.s.sachusetts, which he had helped, or at least hoped would help, by appointing Cleveland mayor Anthony Celebrezze as HEW secretary, a choice that appealed to Italian American voters in Ma.s.sachusetts. But beyond Ted"s victory, Kennedy saw little to cheer about.
There was other bad news. Despite a 12-point jump in his approval rating to 74 percent and what was being hailed as "your excellent showing in congressional races and your net pick-up in the Senate," urban areas in "pivotal industrial states" had, according to Lou Harris, shown some "big Democratic slippage over 1960" among Catholic and Jewish voters. To some extent, Kennedy"s abnormally high Catholic vote in 1960 made a decline among this bloc predictable. More troubling was the fact that Irish Catholics were becoming more conservative, or Republican, in their voting, while Polish and Italian Catholics, unhappy with recent Democratic failures to provide greater economic benefits, were simply voting in smaller numbers for the party. Moreover, Kennedy"s perceived sympathy for disadvantaged blacks, who were in growing compet.i.tion with big-city ethnics for jobs and housing, antagonized blue-collar Catholics. In reaction to civil rights pressures, the traditional Democratic South was becoming more Republican.
DESPITE THE TRENDS, and possibly because of them, Kennedy could not ignore black claims on equal treatment under the law; African American voters remained the Democratic party"s most reliable supporters. For both political and moral reasons, then, on November 20, Kennedy finally announced his decision to sign an Executive Order integrating federally supported public housing. and possibly because of them, Kennedy could not ignore black claims on equal treatment under the law; African American voters remained the Democratic party"s most reliable supporters. For both political and moral reasons, then, on November 20, Kennedy finally announced his decision to sign an Executive Order integrating federally supported public housing.
While he waited for any backlash that might accompany his signing of the Executive Order, Kennedy worried about increasing negative revelations about his personal life and how they might jeopardize his presidency. He remained confident that the mainstream press would not publicize his womanizing. But when rumors of a Marilyn Monroe-JFK affair began appearing in gossip columns, Kennedy made a concerted effort to squelch them. He asked former journalist and inspector general of the Peace Corps William Haddad to "see the editors. Tell them you are speaking for me and that it"s just not true," Kennedy said. Haddad later told Richard Reeves, "He lied to me. He used my credibility with people I knew." Haddad obviously came to believe the many stories circulated about JFK and Marilyn. Almost as much ink has been spilled over their alleged relationship and one between Bobby and Marilyn as over the Cuban missile crisis. Peter Lawford, the actor and Kennedy brother-in-law, dismissed these speculations as "garbage." But numerous phone calls listed in White House logs from Monroe to Kennedy suggest something more than a casual acquaintance. Whatever the truth, Kennedy obviously understood that no good could come to his presidency from gossip about an affair with someone as famously promiscuous and troubled as Monroe.
Kennedy"s worries about his public image extended to medical matters. Because he believed that revelations about his health problems were more likely (and more likely to be damaging) than about his s.e.xual escapades, he became more cautious about publicizing his interactions with his many physicians. According to George Burkley, Kennedy was so concerned about not giving the impression that he was "physically impaired ... and required the constant supervision of a physician" that he shunned having "a medical man in near proximity to him at all times."
Kennedy especially felt compelled to quell private concerns about the injections Travell and Jacobson were giving him. Hans Kraus told him in December 1962 "that if I ever heard he took another shot, I"d make sure it was known. No President with his finger on the red b.u.t.ton has any business taking stuff like that." In addition, Kraus told Evelyn Lincoln "that if Dr. Travell was going to continue making suggestions and innuendos concerning the President"s health he was going to get out of the picture. He said it had to be "Yes" or "No"-that he was not interested in half way tactics." Eugene Cohen also warned Kennedy that Travell was a "potential threat to your well-being." Kennedy agreed to take control of his back treatments away from Travell and turn it entirely over to Burkley and Kraus. To ensure against alienating Travell, however, and risking leaks from her to the press about his condition, Kennedy kept her on as White House physician and continued to identify her as the princ.i.p.al doctor in charge of his health care. In fact, however, beginning in June 1963, she could not order medical services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for anyone at the White House without Burkley"s approval.
Nevertheless, though Jacobson and Travell played diminished roles in Kennedy"s treatment, neither of them was without some continuing part in his care. Through much of 1962, Jacobson made occasional professional visits to the White House. It is well known that in June Bobby instructed an FBI laboratory to a.n.a.lyze the substance Jacobson was injecting into his brother"s back. Bobby was concerned that the president might become addicted to the amphetamines Jacobson was using. Inconclusive lab tests, however, allowed Jacobson to continue treating Kennedy through at least the fall of 1962.
Similarly, for all the limitations Burkley, Cohen, and Kraus imposed on Travell, she remained more than a presence at the White House, though in a diminished capacity, something she complained about to Jackie. Her records indicate that she kept close track of the president"s condition and use of medicines and may have had an ongoing part in medicating him. But according to Dr. James M. Young, a thirty-three-year-old marine captain who became Burkley"s princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant in June 1963, Travell was without a say in managing Kennedy"s health care during the five months after he came to the White House; she was never at twice-a-month medical evaluation meetings Young attended with Kennedy. But Young acknowledged that her records suggest that she may have had a behind-the-scenes role.
Young"s meetings with Kennedy convinced him that the president was in "robust health having no difficulty with his chronic back problems. He was well-controlled on his other medications-even so much as to say finitely controlled," Young remembered. This is difficult to square with Travell"s records, which describe substantial ongoing problems. Was Kennedy setting Young up for a part in the 1964 campaign, when he might want a medical authority to testify to his physical capacity to remain as president? Kennedy"s attentiveness to managing his image as someone in excellent health makes such a manipulation plausible.
KENNEDY KNEW that shielding himself from bad publicity to maintain his personal public standing would not give his administration the sort of momentum he hoped to bring to a reelection campaign. The perception of a vigorous president was important, but it was no subst.i.tute for a healthy economy and a record of social advancements. that shielding himself from bad publicity to maintain his personal public standing would not give his administration the sort of momentum he hoped to bring to a reelection campaign. The perception of a vigorous president was important, but it was no subst.i.tute for a healthy economy and a record of social advancements.
"The Congress looks more powerful sitting here than it did when I was there in the Congress," Kennedy told some journalists in December 1962. If a president puts forward a significant program, he told them, it will affect powerful interests and produce a fight in which "the President is never wholly successful." With this understanding, he had to decide whether to focus exclusively on the tax cut or to supplement it with renewed requests for education and health insurance reforms and an Urban Affairs Department. Walter h.e.l.ler also asked him to consider proposing new laws affecting farm programs, immigration, presidential campaign finance, the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, and consumer protections.
Economic advance had to come first. As Phil Graham told him, "The economic conditions of the Western World are not good. And a sudden shock could lead to a very serious panic... . The greatest force the Communists ever had working for them-greater even than the Red Army-was the terrible depression of the 1930"s. The military power of Communism is blocked today. We must not allow them to advance by reason of the chaos and despair of a major depression."
Whether Graham, who would take his life in the coming year, accurately reflected the state of western economies or his own despair, Kennedy felt he could not ignore the warning. Any sign of a recession or economic slowdown evoked memories for millions of Americans of 1930s breadlines. In the closing weeks of 1962, Kennedy made boosting the economy his highest priority. More than ever, he believed that long-term growth required a tax cut and tax reforms. In December 1962, Kennedy took up the cause of tax reform in another public address, which he compared with his appearance before the Houston Protestant ministers" conference during the presidential campaign: He saw a national commitment to a tax cut that increased federal deficits as comparable to convincing voters that a Catholic could be a good president.
In an attempt to exploit Cold War fears, Kennedy described the country"s national security as directly bound up with its economic performance. Addressing familiar concerns that tax cuts would lead to larger deficits and runaway inflation, Kennedy said, "The lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions... . In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut rates now." He said that "the hope of all free nations" was riding on the tax cut; America"s safety and that of the free world depended on the United States" continuing capacity to outproduce the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, a request to Congress for these measures in January 1963 seemed certain to arouse renewed skepticism and opposition. Wilbur Mills in the House and Albert Gore in the Senate, key Democratic figures in the looming battle over the tax legislation, remained unsympathetic to prompt action. Mills saw no need for a tax bill as long as the economy was not in a recession or slowing down and substantial federal budget deficits continued to threaten confidence in the "fiscal responsibility of the government." He was willing to support changes in individual and corporate tax rates as a way to promote long-term economic expansion but not before January 1964 and not unless reductions in nondefense spending matched tax cuts. Gore warned the president that "a reduction in revenue will set off a howling campaign for reduction in expenditures and your administration will be put in an economic straight jacket. The ax would most likely fall heaviest on foreign aid and on programs that may be needed to stimulate the economy, such as public works." Gore also feared that tax reform would favor the rich and shortchange the poor. "People with large incomes would have their take-home pay (income after taxes) increased 50%, 100% and, in some instances even 200%, while the average tax payer would have an increase of less than 10%, most of them only 3% to 5%. This simply cannot be justified-socially, economically or politically. And I hold these sentiments pa.s.sionately! This is something that no Republican administration has dared do; it is something you must not do."
By late December, it was clear to Kennedy that a tax cut and a bold reform agenda would have little chance of enactment in 1963. Bobby Baker, the secretary to Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, who kept close tabs on sentiment in the Upper House, predicted that "we are in serious danger of being unable to pa.s.s" the tax cut. Nor did Baker see more than a 50-50 chance of creating an Urban Affairs Department, and even if the Senate approved it, it seemed unlikely to pa.s.s the House. Likewise, the House would be the problem in pa.s.sing medical insurance and aid to elementary and secondary education. Any attempt to create a domestic peace corps would "cause considerable strain and possibly affect the present Peace Corps... . Temporary Unemployment Compensation will have rough sledding in both Houses." Baker saw brighter prospects for a ma.s.s transportation law, a higher education bill, aid to medical research, and conservation measures, but, overall, it did not seem like a promising year for presidential reform initiatives.
Nevertheless, Kennedy refused to give in to counsels of caution. A failure to present a bold domestic program would make him look timid and resigned to conservative influence. Besides, if Congress rejected his proposals, it would more clearly set him apart from conservative opponents in a 1964 campaign.
Kennedy also hoped that appeals to the national well-being might sway congressional majorities to support a tax cut and other reforms. In his January 1963 State of the Union Message, he announced a program of changes, which he described as essential to the nation"s future. Although the most recent recession was over, with a million more people working than two years before, this was no time to relax: "The mere absence of recession is not growth," he said. To achieve greater expansion, "one step, above all, is essential-the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes... . It is increasingly clear ... that our obsolete tax system exerts too heavy a drag on private purchasing power, profits and employment." He proposed to lower tax liabilities by $13.5 billion, $11 billion on individuals and $2.5 billion on corporations. Individual tax rates were to drop from between 20 and 91 percent "to a more sensible range of 14 to 65 percent." The corporate rate would drop 5 points from 52 to 47 percent. To combat the temporary deficits antic.i.p.ated from the cuts, Kennedy proposed phasing them in over three years and holding expenditures, except for defense and s.p.a.ce, below current levels.
IN OCTOBER 1962, when he prepared his 1963 budget, he privately acknowledged that education reforms, which would increase the annual deficit, were "not going to pa.s.s." We should "just ... start off with that realization," he told budget director Dave Bell. No one could doubt his eagerness for federal support of elementary, secondary, and higher education. During 1963, he repeatedly quoted Jefferson: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be." In a seventy-five-hundred-word message to Congress, he described education as "the keystone in the arch of freedom and progress." He believed that federal monies could improve the "quality of instruction" and reduce "alarming" dropout rates. Federal dollars were also needed to help colleges meet a 100 percent increase in enrollments by 1970, and secondary schools a 50 percent rise in students attending. "Soviet inst.i.tutions of higher education are graduating 3 times as many engineers and 4 times as many physicians as the United States," Kennedy said. "While trailing behind this country in aggregate annual numbers of higher education graduates, the Soviets are maintaining an annual flow of scientific and technical professional manpower more than twice as large as our own." Yet for all his outspokenness on the importance of education, Kennedy made it a lower budget priority in 1963 than defense and s.p.a.ce, and continuing political tensions over aid to parochial schools and racial integration discouraged the president from stronger support of congressional action. when he prepared his 1963 budget, he privately acknowledged that education reforms, which would increase the annual deficit, were "not going to pa.s.s." We should "just ... start off with that realization," he told budget director Dave Bell. No one could doubt his eagerness for federal support of elementary, secondary, and higher education. During 1963, he repeatedly quoted Jefferson: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be." In a seventy-five-hundred-word message to Congress, he described education as "the keystone in the arch of freedom and progress." He believed that federal monies could improve the "quality of instruction" and reduce "alarming" dropout rates. Federal dollars were also needed to help colleges meet a 100 percent increase in enrollments by 1970, and secondary schools a 50 percent rise in students attending. "Soviet inst.i.tutions of higher education are graduating 3 times as many engineers and 4 times as many physicians as the United States," Kennedy said. "While trailing behind this country in aggregate annual numbers of higher education graduates, the Soviets are maintaining an annual flow of scientific and technical professional manpower more than twice as large as our own." Yet for all his outspokenness on the importance of education, Kennedy made it a lower budget priority in 1963 than defense and s.p.a.ce, and continuing political tensions over aid to parochial schools and racial integration discouraged the president from stronger support of congressional action.
Medicare presented similar dilemmas. Although he spoke out forcefully at the beginning of 1963 for health reform legislation and health insurance for seniors in particular, the familiar litany of national needs could not break resistance in the House and the Senate to initiating new and potentially costly welfare programs. Special messages to the Congress in February on improving the nation"s health and the needs of the nation"s senior citizens did no more than put Kennedy back on record as favoring help for America"s seventeen and a half million elderly. There was no shortage of talk and goodwill in Congress toward seniors, including thirty-six bills proposing ways to insure everyone over sixty-five. But a focus on Kennedy"s suggested tax cut and increased deficits pushed health proposals aside. The House Ways and Means Committee did not agree even to hold hearings on health insurance until November.
By the spring of 1963, Kennedy had accepted the political realities working against legislative health reforms. Between April and October, aside from brief remarks in the White House Rose Garden to the National Council of Senior Citizens urging a congressional vote on medical care for the aged under Social Security, he said nothing in public and put no pressure on Congress to act. In May, he told HEW secretary Anthony Celebrezze, "There seems to be some speculation that we have abandoned health insurance for this year. While it may be that events will not permit legislative action in 1963, I believe we should proceed on the a.s.sumption that we are attempting to secure it. The failure then will not be ours." In November, when a reporter asked if he would press Mills to send Medicare to the House floor for a vote, Kennedy replied, "I think we are going to get that bill out of committee-not this year, but next year-and I think we will have a vote on it and I think it will pa.s.s." Believing that congressmen and senators would court the elderly in 1964 by backing health reforms, Kennedy predicted that "this is going to be an 18-month delivery!"
By contrast with education and Medicare, which Kennedy believed would have improved chances of congressional action in the next year, he doubted that a tax cut would gain any legislative momentum in the coming months. There were, granted, some glimmers of hope. The president"s appearances in support of tax reform were paying dividends, h.e.l.ler advised. He said he saw "a lot of willingness to help put the tax program through... . To mobilize this aid and convert it into votes in Congress should be a major part of our tax offensive." He also reported that a survey of consumers showed 63 percent in favor of a tax cut. Dillon advised Kennedy that concerns about the cut disproportionately favoring the rich were unfounded. But throughout 1963, conventional thinking about the danger of increased deficits from a tax reduction sustained conservative opposition to Kennedy"s tax proposals. We "favor ... a reduction in both individual and corporate tax rates," Republican legislators declared. "However, we believe that a tax cut of more than $11 billion, with no hope of a balanced budget for the foreseeable future, is both morally and fiscally wrong." The prospect of larger deficits so bothered Eisenhower that he joined the chorus of opposition. He declared a tax cut "highly desirable but only if the persistent and frightening increase in Federal expenditures is halted in its tracks." Mills"s Ways and Means Committee would not budge on the tax bill unless the White House made clear how it intended to reduce federal spending over the next several years.
The strength of the economy in 1963 also worked against prompt action on Kennedy"s tax bill. Steady GNP expansion between 1961 and 1963 and stable unemployment at 5.7 percent had convinced congressional majorities that any additional economic stimulus was unnecessary. Kennedy himself acknowledged that over the last two years the GNP had expanded by 20 percent, industrial production was up 22 percent, and personal income had risen 15 percent. Nevertheless, he believed it shortsighted to a.s.sume that strong growth could be sustained without lower taxes. Business cycles in the past decade had produced three recessions, and he expected another downturn by the middle of 1964 unless Congress cut taxes.
In August, when Ways and Means finally voted out of committee a tax bill, Kennedy thanked it for a measure that would "provide much needed jobs for our economy, increase our rate of economic growth, promote balance in our international payments and benefit the individual and corporate tax payer." The long-range result of their action would be "a balanced budget in a balanced full-employment economy. It is clear that this goal cannot be achieved without a substantial tax reduction and the greater national income it will produce... . Let me stress once again that the surest way to alter the pattern of deficits which has characterized seven of the last ten years is to enact at this session an effective tax reduction program."
Kennedy was no less emphatic in private, telling Congresswoman Martha W. Griffiths of Michigan, "We"ve got the best means of insuring that 1964 isn"t a recession year. That"s why I"m hanging on." Despite the likelihood that some corporation presidents favored the tax cut in order "to use the money to try to [beat] us," Kennedy did not "mind that," he told Griffiths, because he believed the bill would be "a terrific a.s.set to us [the Democrats]." He urged h.e.l.ler to pressure labor economists to lobby Congress and "get us some votes for Christ sakes." The oil and gas lobbyists, who were fighting a reduction in their industry"s depletion allowance, which would increase federal revenues and lower the deficit, particularly angered him. "Those robbing b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he told h.e.l.ler. "The day"s gonna come when we"re gonna have the Congress and the President financed by the government" rather than corporations like the oil companies, Kennedy told Mills. "And it"ll be the best thing that ever happened. G.o.d, you know those oil companies... . I don"t mind anybody getting away with some, but what they get away with."
Despite repeated public appeals by Kennedy for prompt action and support from a Business Committee for Tax Reduction organized by the administration and including prominent businessmen like Henry Ford II and David Rockefeller, Kennedy could not get his bill pa.s.sed. A tax cut won a House vote on September 25, but it had been stripped of the reform features that promised to close loopholes and generate $4.5 billion in additional revenues. The likelihood that the deficit would now be that much higher brought Senate approval into doubt. Albert Gore remained a particular problem. He wanted to slow things down by holding extended hearings, and his opposition enraged Kennedy, who repeatedly called him "a son of a b.i.t.c.h" in a meeting with economic advisers on September 30. "If we get a good recession next summer, it"s not going to do him much good, is it?" Kennedy said. By the third week in November, the Senate Finance Committee had still not concluded its hearings, and prospects for pa.s.sage of a bill in 1963 seemed dim. In a conversation with Dillon and Fowler, Kennedy lamented: "If we don"t get that tax bill, [the country] will pay a h.e.l.l of a price for it."
BY CONTRAST WITH HIS BUOYANT PUSH for the tax bill, during the first five and a half months of 1963, Kennedy maintained a cautious approach to civil rights. After issuing the limited housing order in November 1962, he refused to initiate a more comprehensive civil rights program, especially a major legislative attack on segregation, which he continued to believe would make pa.s.sage of his tax, education, and medical reform bills impossible by antagonizing southern Democrats. Though the same earlier strategy had failed to advance these measures, he still a.s.sumed that avoiding a head-on congressional clash over civil rights would at least preserve some chance of getting his other reforms approved. Besides, he continued to believe that executive initiatives could be an effective, if temporary, subst.i.tute for congressional action on advancing equal rights for blacks. for the tax bill, during the first five and a half months of 1963, Kennedy maintained a cautious approach to civil rights. After issuing the limited housing order in November 1962, he refused to initiate a more comprehensive civil rights program, especially a major legislative attack on segregation, which he continued to believe would make pa.s.sage of his tax, education, and medical reform bills impossible by antagonizing southern Democrats. Though the same earlier strategy had failed to advance these measures, he still a.s.sumed that avoiding a head-on congressional clash over civil rights would at least preserve some chance of getting his other reforms approved. Besides, he continued to believe that executive initiatives could be an effective, if temporary, subst.i.tute for congressional action on advancing equal rights for blacks.
If he was legislatively pa.s.sive, he was at least rhetorically aggressive. In his State of the Union Message, Kennedy urged that "the most precious and powerful right in the world, the right to vote ... not be denied to any citizen on grounds of his race or color... . In this centennial year of Emanc.i.p.ation all those who are willing to vote should always be permitted." In his January economic message to Congress, he tied "an end to racial and religious discrimination" to economic growth. The development and effective use of "our human resources" was vital to the national well-being. In February, after receiving a Civil Rights Commission report on a hundred years of racial discrimination, he praised the courage of black citizens fighting to throw off "legal, economic, and social bonds-bonds which, in holding back part of our Nation, have compromised the conscience and haltered the power of all the Nation. In freeing themselves, the Negroes have enlarged the freedoms of all Americans ... . [Yet] too many of the bonds of restriction still exist. The distance still to be traveled one hundred years after the signing of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation is at once a reproach and a challenge." America must not rest "until the promise of equal rights for all has been fulfilled."
At the end of February, Kennedy called upon Congress to eliminate abuses of black rights. The catalogue of wrongs was transparent: Black children were about half as likely to complete high school as whites and had one-third as much chance of earning a college degree or of becoming a professional. They had about twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, with only half the earning power and seven fewer years of life than whites. Discrimination reduced economic growth, hampered our world leadership by contradicting our message of freedom, marred "the atmosphere of a united and cla.s.sless society," and increased "the costs of public welfare, crime, delinquency and disorder." But "above all," Kennedy said, "it is wrong... . It is not merely because of the Cold War, and not merely because of the economic waste of discrimination, that we are committed to achieving true equality of opportunity. The basic reason is because it is right."
He described denial of the franchise as especially egregious. Five southern states had "over 200 counties in which fewer than 15% of the Negroes of voting age are registered to vote. This cannot continue," Kennedy declared. "I am, therefore, recommending legislation to deal with the problem." He also urged the fulfillment of the Supreme Court"s nine-year-old decision on desegregation of public schools, the enforcement of fair hiring and other labor practices, and the end to racial segregation in all places of public accommodation-hotels, restaurants, theaters, recreational facilities, airports, rail and bus stations, and all means of public transportation. "Surely there could be no more meaningful observance of the centennial [of Lincoln"s Proclamation]" Kennedy concluded, "than the enactment of effective civil rights legislation and the continuation of effective executive action."
Yet, since he was still thinking of the consequences for his overall agenda, Kennedy"s actions did not match his words. It was still only in the realm of voting rights that Kennedy actually offered legislation. He refused to risk his 1963 congressional program by supporting reform of Rule XXII, which would reduce the votes needed to end a filibuster from two-thirds to three-fifths-relevant since a filibuster seemed likely in the case of civil rights but not in response to his other reform proposals. Nor did he follow his February message to Congress with specific recommendations for ending southern segregation.
In March, a reporter asked Kennedy to comment on Governor Rockefeller"s a.s.sertion that he had been "appointing "segregationist judges" to the Federal bench in the South." The reporter also pointed out that "that had blunted [to] a certain amount the aggressive stand that the executive branch had taken against segregation." Kennedy responded defensively: "No. I think that some of the judges may not have ruled as I would have ruled in their cases. In those cases there is always the possibility for an appeal." Overall, he said, the southern judges appointed by him and Eisenhower had a "very creditable record." In a telephone conversation the next day with Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Kennedy and Katzenbach were more candid, naming several judges who were problematic. But instead of trying to do something about it, they thought of short-term political equations. Katzenbach pointed out that they had "as much trouble from Republican appointees down there as ... from the Democrats." Kennedy said he wanted the Justice Department "to get up a memo on ... the Republicans and Democrats "cause ... this might get to be one of those issues they keep talking about. So I"ll be able to talk about [the Republican segregationist judges] in case it comes up again." The strategy was to mask his administration"s shortcomings on judicial appointments by demonstrating that Eisenhower"s were even worse or, at least, no better.
At the end of April, Kennedy was on the defensive again about his refusal to accept a Civil Rights Commission recommendation that the federal government cut off funds to Mississippi until it complied with court orders protecting blacks from violence and discrimination. Since Kennedy would not follow the commission"s recommendation, a reporter asked, "Could you discuss with us what alternative steps the Federal Government might be able to take to bring some of these [southern] States into line with the law of the land?" Kennedy replied that his administration had inst.i.tuted lawsuits to remedy the problems. But he accurately described it as "very difficult," because "we do not have direct jurisdiction." He said that "a blanket withdrawal of Federal expenditures from a State" was beyond his powers, but he was using every "legislative and legal tool at our command to insure protection for the rights of our citizens."
By the spring of 1963, Kennedy"s frustration over civil rights was greater than ever. He felt he had exercised stronger executive leadership in support of equal racial opportunity than any administration in U.S. history. His Justice Department had filed forty-two lawsuits in support of black voting rights. He had fought the battle of Mississippi to enroll Meredith in the university. He had appointed forty blacks to important administration posts and elevated Thurgood Marshall to the federal Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Though belatedly, he had signed the Executive Order barring discrimination in federally financed public housing. He had also recommended a voting rights law, but public and congressional apathy had stalled it in committee. But his failure to request a ban on segregation in places of public accommodation had been glaring and evoked continuing complaints that he was too timid and that only a bold proposal for change could end the injustices of discrimination and produce real progress for African Americans.
Tensions in the administration over how to handle civil rights problems produced a running battle between Bobby and Johnson. Bobby was convinced that unless the administration delivered on greater equality for blacks, it would miss a chance to advance simple justice for an oppressed minority, lose liberal support, and alienate millions of voters by appearing ineffective and weak. Fearful that his brother could lose the 1964 election over a failure to produce enough gains on civil rights, Bobby pressed everyone in the administration to do their utmost. Burke Marshall recalls that Bobby "fussed and interfered ... with almost every other department of the government in 1963 ... on their employment policies, and on whether or not Negroes were allowed to partic.i.p.ate in federally financed programs." As head of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, Johnson became a princ.i.p.al target of Bobby"s prodding. Johnson was proud of the committee"s record in 1962 after Troutman had resigned and Hobart Taylor, Johnson"s appointee, had replaced him. The committee had increased black job holding in the federal government that year by 17 percent and doubled the number of remedial actions taken by private contractors in response to complaints from black employees. Johnson also took pride in public statements echoing the president"s call for an end to segregation and racism. Yet Johnson"s rhetoric, like Kennedy"s, was an inadequate subst.i.tute for effective action. The gains made by the CEEO resulted in no more than an upward blip in black employment. Moreover, newspaper stories during the first half of 1963 describing the CEEO"s Plans for Progress as "largely meaningless" persuaded Bobby that Johnson"s committee was "mostly a public relations operation" and that Taylor was "an Uncle Tom." Bobby worried not only about the limited gains in black employment but also about the committee"s impact on the 1964 campaign. "I could just see going into the election of 1964," he said later, "and eventually these statistics or figures would get out. There would just be a public scandal." Bobby also recalled that when he spoke to the president about the problem, he "almost had a fit."
At CEEO meetings in May and July, after police attacks on black demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, had put civil rights back in the headlines, Bobby gave clear expression to White House dissatisfaction with the committee"s performance. According to one observer, he treated Johnson "in a most vicious manner. He"d ridicule him, imply he was insincere." In May Bobby "asked a lot of questions that were impatient, very impatient," Burke Marshall said. "It made the Vice President mad." Bobby blamed Johnson and Taylor for the 1 percent black federal employment in Birmingham, a city with a 37 percent black population. "I was humiliated," Johnson said afterward. At the July meeting, Bobby made NASA"s James Webb the target of his complaints. Webb, who was working closely with Johnson on s.p.a.ce plans, had no information on black employment at NASA, and Bobby castigated him for neglecting the issue. "It was a pretty brutal performance, very sharp," one partic.i.p.ant recalled. "It brought tensions between Johnson and Kennedy right out on the table and very hard. Everybody was sweating under the armpits... . And then finally, after completely humiliating Webb and making the Vice President look like a fraud and shutting Hobart Taylor up completely, he got up. He walked around the table ... shook my hand ... and then he went on out."
The clashes between Bobby and Johnson were partly personal. "No affection contaminated the relationship between the Vice President and the Attorney General," Schlesinger remembered. "It was a pure case of mutual dislike." Seventeen years, six inches in height, and "southwestern exaggeration against Yankee understatement" separated them. "Robert Kennedy, in the New England manner, liked people to keep their physical distance. Johnson, in the Texas manner, was all over everybody-always the grip on the shoulder, tug at the lapel, nudge in the ribs, squeeze of the knee."
Both men were powerful, at times overbearing, tyrannical characters who did not treat opponents kindly. They were tough alley fighters, h.e.l.l-bent on winning at almost any cost. Intimidation and hard bargains were weapons they carried into their political campaigns for high office and legislative gains. They also shared bold, indeed, n.o.ble dreams for the country of better race relations, less poverty, and security from foreign threats. They held a common regard for the national system that had allowed them both to gain prominence and power. But each self-righteously saw the other as less capable of achieving the great ends bringing them together in the same party and the same administration. Although the president kept his distance from the Bobby-Johnson tensions and had little taste for the personal abuse Bobby used against adversaries, he seems to have accepted his brother"s harsh treatment of Johnson as a necessary prod to making him a more effective member of the administration.
IN APRIL, MARTIN LUTHER KING and the Alabama Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched a campaign in Birmingham to challenge the city"s segregated facilities and employment practices. TCI, the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, the city"s leading employer, had only eight black white-collar employees out of a workforce of twelve hundred. Most black men in Birmingham worked in the least desirable blue-collar jobs, while those black women who worked usually served as domestics. The city administration had no black policemen, firemen, or elected representatives. Because it was one of the most racist communities in the South, any sort of victory for equal treatment would represent an opening wedge in the struggle to change the mores of the whole region. And because Eugene "Bull" Connor, the city"s police commissioner, seemed certain to reply with repressive tactics likely to make the national news and draw the Kennedy administration into the struggle, the city became the ideal target for a renewed attack on southern racism. and the Alabama Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched a campaign in Birmingham to challenge the city"s segregated facilities and employment practices. TCI, the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, the city"s leading employer, had only eight black white-collar employees out of a workforce of twelve hundred. Most black men in Birmingham worked in the least desirable blue-collar jobs, while those black women who worked usually served as domestics. The city administration had no black policemen, firemen, or elected representatives. Because it was one of the most racist communities in the South, any sort of victory for equal treatment would represent an opening wedge in the struggle to change the mores of the whole region. And because Eugene "Bull" Connor, the city"s police commissioner, seemed certain to reply with repressive tactics likely to make the national news and draw the Kennedy administration into the struggle, the city became the ideal target for a renewed attack on southern racism.
Connor and the city fathers did not disappoint King and SCLC protesters. On May 3 and 4, when black demonstrators, including many high school and some elementary schoolchildren, marched in defiance of a city ban, the police and firemen attacked the marchers with police dogs that bit several demonstrators, and high-pressure fire hoses that knocked marchers down and tore off their clothes. The TV images, broadcast across the country and around the world, graphically showed out-of-control racists abusing innocent, young advocates of equal rights. Kennedy, looking at a picture on the front page of the New York Times New York Times and TV news coverage of a dog lunging to bite a teenager on the stomach, said that the photo made him "sick." and TV news coverage of a dog lunging to bite a teenager on the stomach, said that the photo made him "sick."
Still, Kennedy"s initial response to the crisis was a moderate urge to compromise. For the sake of civic peace, America"s international reputation, and King"s public influence, Kennedy wanted to negotiate a quick halt to the Birmingham strife.
He viewed Birmingham"s power brokers as unreasonable reflectors of outdated social mores whose unyielding racism threatened their city"s civic peace and prosperity. He also saw an end to racial strife in the South as essential to America"s international standing in its compet.i.tion with Moscow for influence in Third World countries. But at the same time, while he sympathized with the crusade against southern racism, Kennedy also saw King as self-serving and possibly under the influence of communists trying to embarra.s.s the United States. J. Edgar Hoover fanned the flames of suspicion about King or, more to the point, about two of King"s a.s.sociates, Stanley Levison and Hunter Pitts O"Dell, whom he accused of being communists. (Although Levison had ended his ties with the Communist Party in 1956, his history made him vulnerable to Hoover"s accusations. And because Hoover was so emphatic about Levison"s ongoing radicalism, and because the FBI had a reputation for successfully identifying subversives, Bobby and Burke Marshall found it difficult to ignore their warnings.) A drawn-out crisis in Birmingham might persuade Hoover to leak stories to the media that communist subversives were manipulating King in Alabama.
At a press conference on May 8, Kennedy declared that in the absence of violations of federal civil rights or other statutes, he was working to bring "both sides together to settle in a peaceful fashion the very real abuses too long inflicted on the Negro citizens of that community." He intended to halt "a spectacle which was seriously damaging the reputation of both Birmingham and the country." A reporter wanted to know if "a fireside chat on civil rights would serve a constructive purpose." "If I thought it would I would give one," Kennedy replied. But he had his doubts. "I made a speech the night of Mississippi-at Oxford-to the citizens of Mississippi and others," he said. "That did not seem to do much good." Afterward, Civil Rights commissioner Erwin Griswold publicly complained, "It seems clear to me that he hasn"t even started to use the powers that are available to him." An angry Kennedy said privately, "That son of a b.i.t.c.h. Let him try."
Finding a middle ground between the segregationists and the SCLC seemed like an insurmountable challenge. Understanding that King was intent on full integration, in all the city"s public facilities, including its retail businesses, Birmingham"s white leaders viewed any compromises as opening the way to a social revolution repugnant to most whites in the city, state, and region.
Nevertheless, Kennedy sent Burke Marshall to Birmingham to work out a settlement. King believed that the administration wanted him to suspend demonstrations until the Alabama Supreme Court had ruled on the legitimacy of a more moderate city government battling Connor for control of city hall. But King saw delay as defeat. In a famous letter to white clergymen written from the Birmingham jail, where he had been imprisoned after an April demonstration, King expressed disappointment at their opposition to civil disobedience and their counsels of patience. He wrote: ""Wait" has almost always meant "Never." ... When you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "n.o.bodiness"-then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."
King reserved his strongest complaints for white moderates, among whom he included the Kennedys. "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro"s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen"s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice, who ... constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action," who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man"s freedom." King publicly took issue with Kennedy"s a.s.sertion that "there were no federal statutes involved in most aspects of this struggle... . I feel that there have been blatant violations of basic const.i.tutional principles."
During a week of tedious negotiations, Marshall convinced both sides to compromise: The SCLC won agreements to desegregate department store fitting rooms, downtown lunch counters, washrooms, rest rooms, and drinking fountains. Blacks were to fill a small number of white-collar jobs, and a committee would be formed to discuss future racial problems and employment. Under direct pressure from cabinet secretaries Dillon, McNamara, Hodges, and W. Willard Wirtz, and U.S. Steel president Roger Blough, who called Birmingham business chiefs as a way to get back in Kennedy"s good graces, the white power structure agreed to the changes, which promised an end to demonstrations and a return to normal business activity.
But the compromise agitated diehard segregationists. They could not abide a King declaration that the concessions were a great civil rights victory opening the way to the end of discrimination in Birmingham, or Bobby"s description of the agreement as "a tremendous step forward for Birmingham, for Alabama, and for the South generally." Birmingham"s new moderate mayor, Albert Boutwell, announced that he would not be bound by the settlement, and, as King antic.i.p.ated, Alabama"s segregationist press dismissed the agreement as a defeat for the SCLC. On Sat.u.r.day, May 11, Alabama and Georgia Klansmen staged a rally in a suburban Birmingham park, and that night bombs exploded at the home of the Reverend A. D. King, Martin Luther King"s brother, and at the black-owned Gaston Motel, where King stayed during his visits to Birmingham. Blacks responded with attacks on police and firemen, which brought state troopers and city anti-riot forces to the scene. A four-hour rampage by local residents left a nine-block area of the black ghetto a smoldering shambles. The explosion of violence by southern blacks against white oppression was unprecedented in the twentieth century. "The pa.s.sivity and nonviolence of American Negroes could never again be taken for granted," two experts on southern race relations said. "The "rules of the game" in race relations were permanently changed in Birmingham."
Now Kennedy was forced toward a fresh response to the civil rights crisis. His first concern was to stem the violence, which threatened to destroy the compromise agreement. He knew that he could not rely on Alabama governor George Wallace to help. Wallace had begun his political career in the fifties as a moderate and promptly lost a gubernatorial campaign to an out-and-out racist who had openly courted the Klan. Determined not to let any political opponent ever again outdo him as a segregationist (to be "out-n.i.g.g.e.red again," Wallace said), he had won the governorship in 1962 by infamously promising segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. He also personally pledged to stand in the schoolhouse door to block any "illegal" federal court order mandating integration. It was clear that if Wallace controlled the state"s National Guard, they were likely, Kennedy thought, to be "sticking bayonets in people and hitting people with clubs, guns, et cetera." And this seemed certain to destroy black adherence to the Birmingham compromise, as Wallace hoped. Kennedy feared the result would be "rallies all over the country ... with people calling on the President to take forceful action."
If the White House decided to federalize the Alabama National Guard and send troops to Birmingham, it seemed certain to antagonize just about everyone. The guard, after all, would be deployed to counter not white rioters, as in Mississippi in 1962, but the rampaging blacks, who might return to the streets on Sunday night. Yet despite being sent to curb black violence, federal troops would remind southerners of military reconstruction and could undermine Birmingham"s white moderates, who had agreed to the settlement and were already under attack for having allied themselves with the SCLC. "If that agreement blows up," Burke Marshall told the president, "the Negroes will be -" Kennedy finished his thought: "Uncontrollable." Marshall added: "And I think not only in Birmingham."
King now emerged as a crucial, if unacknowledged, ally, in trying to save the Birmingham settlement. Kennedy asked Marshall to find out what King intended. Marshall reported back to Kennedy that King, indeed, hoped to control "his people" and believed he could if there were no other incidents. Kennedy wanted to know if King had said anything about troops, which he had not.
Although he did not underestimate the dangers Birmingham posed to civic peace across the South and to the future of his presidency, Kennedy"s success in managing the Cuban missile problem had given him confidence that he could find a satisfactory solution to the current crisis. He was also confident that the American people would back appeals to equal treatment under the law. He instructed McNamara, Marshall, Katzenbach, and Edwin Guthman, Bobby"s public affairs spokesman at the Justice Department, to draft a declaration promising a restoration of public order and const.i.tutional rights for blacks. Although Kennedy eventually complained that their statement "leaned too much on the side of the Negroes," his announcement left no doubt that he wished to preserve the gains made in the Birmingham agreement. In a televised Oval Office speech to the country on Sunday night, May 12, he praised it as "a fair and just accord," which "recognized the fundamental right of all citizens to be accorded equal treatment and opportunity." He promised that the federal government would not permit "a few extremists" on each side to sabotage the settlement. To facilitate these goals, Kennedy announced the return of Burke Marshall to Birmingham for additional consultations, the dispatch of riot control forces to military bases near the city, and steps to federalize the Alabama National Guard, should they be needed