JOHN F. KENNEDY: Post-War American Presidents (3)

[This is a series describing the 12 Post-War American Presidents from a British perspective.]

JFK was only President for a fabled “1,000 Days” but he packed this rather brief period with a high energy performance. A very glamourous figure in his time, JFK’s numerous admirers could point to many initiatives taken and much eloquence expended: hard achievement was more elusive. His early promise was sadly not realised; his assassination caused global trauma and outpourings of grief. As the years passed revelations about his private life and political methods tarnished his iconic status and diminished the high esteem in which he was once held.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963), born in Brookline, Mass, was the second of 4 sons of Joe and Rose Kennedy, (there were 5 surviving daughters), scions of the Irish Catholic Democratic political community in Boston. His father, Joe Kennedy, was a controversial business figure and a rather sinister man, who made a vast fortune in the 1920s on unregulated Wall Street, where insider trading was rife and not illegal. He was suspected of bootlegging during Prohibition but became the legitimate US importer of Dewar’s and Haig whisky after 1933. He moved into property development, owning the largest office building in Chicago, and organised the merging of film studios.

Patriarch, Joe Kennedy

Bizarrely FDR appointed him to clean-up Wall Street and when an aide pointed out that Kennedy was himself a crook, FDR insouciantly replied “It takes one to catch one!” Kennedy was US ambassador in the UK from 1938-40 at the start of WW2 but his defeatist stance provoked him to say “Britain is finished” – very wide of the mark; he was recalled and was never used by the State Department again. He befriended Red-baiter Senator Joe McCarthy, deplored the civil rights movement and made anti-Semitic remarks. Joe Kennedy’s eldest son, Joe Jnr, was killed on active service in 1944 and Joe Snr reposed all his high political ambitions in his son Jack.

Jack Kennedy himself was educated in mainly private schools: he visited London in 1935, and was a freshman at Harvard. He accompanied his father and eldest brother to England in 1938 and toured Europe in 1939. When his father was recalled, he returned to Harvard and in 1940 wrote his thesis on Appeasement, published as Why England Slept. It is not particularly critical of Chamberlain and was well received.

With the US nearing entry to the war in autumn 1941, Jack enlisted in the Navy, after his chronic back problems had him rejected by the Army. Eventually he was given the command of a patrol torpedo boat, famously PT-109, and it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands in August 1943. Kennedy led his crew to an islet where they were rescued; Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his bravery. Jack’s spinal problems saw him removed from active service in November 1944 and after a period of hospitalisation he was honourably discharged in 1945. Being in some respects a war hero naturally helped his political debut.

Jack’s career got under way in 1946 with his election, busily organised by father Joe, as a House member for Massachusetts. He was a Congressman for 6 years before defeating Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, quintessential Boston Brahmin, for his Senate seat. As a senator Jack competed for the Vice-Presidential nomination as Adlai Stevenson’s running-mate in 1956 but lost out to Estes Kefauver.  He gained useful experience as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Jack was viewed suspiciously by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for his failure to denounce Joe McCarthy (his brother Bobby was on McCarthy’s payroll); he was absent quite regularly, beset with concealed spinal problems and the onset of the adrenal disorder Addison’s Disease. 

He kept his name in the limelight by publishing Portraits in Courage, profiles of 8 senators who stood out against the grain. This won a 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Kennedy but controversy surrounded its true authorship; it seems that much of the text was actually the work of Jack’s aide Ted Sorensen; such duplicity was typical of the Kennedy style.

Closest Adviser, brother Bobby

Speechwriter Ted Sorensen

 

In 1953 Jack married Jacqueline (known as Jackie) Bouvier, daughter of a disreputable stockbroker “Black Jack”, but her mother remarried top-drawer Standard Oil heir Hugh Auchincloss and Jackie was part of a rich social set when he met Jack in 1952. Jackie brought elegance and some culture to the philistine Kennedy ménage and she proved a substantial political asset.

Jack and the family clan carefully planned his Presidential bid for 1960. Various Democratic front-runners, Wayne Morse and Hubert Humphrey, were defeated in primaries and Adlai Stevenson and Stuart Symington were outmanoeuvred on the floor of the Convention. Lyndon Johnson, leader of the Southern Democrats was wooed and, against Bobby Kennedy’s advice and the wishes of the liberal wing, LBJ was offered the vice-presidential place on the ticket, which he accepted. Jack delivered a powerful Convention acceptance speech on the New Frontier: 

 "For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won—and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier..... But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them."

It sounded great and no doubt inspired its listeners. Very little emanated from this rhetoric and “The New Frontier” remained a phrase and not a fact.

The election pitted Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge. Nixon was the more experienced politician but he had “something of the night” about him to borrow Ann Widdecombe’s famous phrase. Kennedy was more telegenic and did not spurn make-up before the cameras, while Nixon sweated and showed his “5 o’clock shadow” in one of the first TV debates between candidates. Such things should not matter – but they did. Kennedy won the extremely close-fought election by a controversial whisker. The difference in the popular vote was only 0.2% and although Kennedy’s lead in the Electoral College was more decisive, some electoral fraud was proved in LBJ’s Texas and strongly suspected in crucial Illinois - Chicago Mayor Richard Daley held sway in notorious Cook County where vote-rigging was commonplace. Such Republican challenges as were mounted soon petered out.

Mayor Daley and JFK

Kennedy’s Inauguration in January 1961 was a moment of rekindled hope for America. His Address that day was memorable: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" and he invoked his relative youth: "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans". This idealism did result in the creation of the Peace Corps (under Jack’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver) a few months later – some 200,000 Americans have since volunteered to serve.

His Administration was a vigorous one. His closest adviser, Bobby Kennedy, was Attorney-General even though his legal experience was sparse. Dean Rusk, a cautious character, became Secretary of State – Kennedy was often impatient with him. Robert McNamara was a hyper-active Secretary of Defense, McGeorge Bundy became National Security Adviser and Douglas Dillon at the Treasury presided over a growing economy. JFK’s private retinue included lyrical Ted Sorensen, intellectual Arthur Schlesinger Jnr. and voluble Press spokesman Pierre Salinger.

They were soon tested. Inheriting a CIA plan of the Eisenhower era, JFK authorised in April 1961 a covert invasion of Cuba by 1,500 anti-Castro émigrés. Castro was waiting for them and the Bay of Pigs debacle ended in defeat and humiliation. The Russian success sending Yuri Gagarin into space also in April 1961 triggered off a US-Soviet space race with JFK announcing the creation of NASA and his determination to place an American on the Moon by the end of the decade. Soon afterwards Kennedy met Khrushchev in Vienna, where aggressive Khrushchev dominated; the discussion mainly revolved around the status of Berlin and although Kennedy stoutly defended the status quo there, Khrushchev left believing JFK was a weak President. 

JFK and Khrushchev

JFK and MacMillan

    

The nuclear arms race was a pre-occupation as the Soviets for a time had a lead in ICBM technology. The British were concerned and MacMillan had talks with JFK in Bermuda in December 1961. Although MacMillan tended to over-play the “special relationship” and even fantasised about British Greeks mentoring American Romans, he acutely negotiated the Nassau Agreements of 1962 whereby Britain bought Polaris missiles and became privy to their technology and allowed the US to use the Holy Loch as a nuclear submarine base. MacMillan was also deeply involved in the diplomacy which led to the Limited Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, much reducing tensions between the US, USSR and the UK.

The greatest foreign affairs test came in October 1962. US spy planes discovered that Cuba had allowed the Russians to construct missile silos on Cuba targeted at the US. This piece of Soviet adventurism alarmed the Kennedy administration but needed immediate action. JFK declared a naval blockade of Cuba, vowed to stop and search Russian ships and he demanded all Russian missiles be removed. The Russians were defiant and the prospect of nuclear war seemed imminent. Public opinion in Europe was in a funk and Bertrand Russell et al pleaded that Kennedy back down. In the event the Russians blinked first, agreeing to retire from Cuba provided the US withdrew their missiles from Turkey. JFK had held his nerve but it was a nasty moment and both sides sought less perilous relationships thereafter.

On Kennedy’s watch, US involvement in Vietnam deepened. Dean Rusk was weakly silent and McNamara advocated more tangible support for the South Vietnam regime (although Diem was assassinated in the same month as Kennedy). Some say that JFK intended to end US involvement in his second term, knowing the war could never be won. This is one of history’s many “unknowables”.

Kennedy kept up pressure where possible on communist regimes, following the time-honoured policy of Containment. When Adenauer neared retirement as West German Chancellor in June 1963, Kennedy travelled to West Berlin delivering his fine “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, castigating the East German regime and the infamous Berlin Wall. To those who praised the Communist regime he declared; “Lass Sie nach Berlin kommen.” (Let them come to Berlin). This speech was a Cold War highlight and much encouraged the people of free Berlin.

In US domestic politics JFK was frustrated by a hostile Congress with Southern Democrats often making common cause with the Republicans. JFK had been a rather cautious and tepid supporter of Civil Rights but in June 1963 he gave a moving address, with a background of segregationist violence at Mississippi University. He promised action: 

“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs... are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice... this Nation... will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.... Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfil its promise”

JFK did not live to see his Civil Rights Act pass through Congress, but LBJ adroitly steered it through in 1964. 

The end of Kennedy came suddenly and brutally. On 22 November 1963 all the world remembers the shock of assassination on a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The grassy knoll – Lee Harvey Oswald – the Book Depository – blood-stained Jackie – swearing-in of LBJ – Jack Ruby killing Oswald – the Warren Commission, all this tragedy became only too familiar. 

Kennedy was an enigma, real talent mixed up with cold ruthlessness. After homely Ike and Mamie, Jack and Jackie were a heady power-couple. JFK was idealised by many but he inherited many disagreeable traits from his father. His womanising was appalling; “If I don’t have sex every day, I get a headache” he boasted and a procession of women was provided to sate his priapic obsession. Worse, while women pursued him, his love-making was perfunctory; he was a feminist’s nightmare discarding his women like a soiled tissue. This debased the office of the Presidency.

Yet without doubt JFK energised and inspired a generation. For all his faults, he was much loved and was much missed.

SMD

31.08.14

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014

DWIGHT EISENHOWER: Post-War American Presidents (2)

[This is a series describing the 12 Post-War American Presidents from a British perspective.]

Dwight D. Eisenhower (always known as “Ike”) was a most distinguished US Army and NATO commander, and a thoroughly decent man, who came to the Presidency past his prime and gave a dogged and worthy performance but ultimately failed to inspire his Nation.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969) was the 3^rd of 7 sons of parents originally of Pennsylvania Dutch background. Although born in Denison, Texas, when aged 2 the family moved to Abilene, Kansas which remained the family home. His father was a mechanic; his pious mother had been a Mennonite and then a Jehovah’s Witness. He was brought up in a conservative, traditional household. Always keen on military matters, Ike managed to get to West Point despite his mother’s pacifist misgivings, and he graduated there in 1915, a respectable but by no means brilliant cadet. Ike trained enthusiastically and was upset when his battalion saw no action in WW1 and only arrived in France in time for the Armistice.

Ike was a captain and then 14 years to 1936 a major in the neglected peacetime US Army. He did however serve under fine professionals like Connor, Pershing, MacArthur and Marshall and alongside Patton. His administrative talents were well recognised and he shone on several military graduate courses; he accompanied MacArthur (with whom he quarrelled) to the Philippines in 1935 on a mission to reorganise the Filipino Army. Eisenhower was a genial, diplomatic type popular with colleagues. In 1936 he made lieutenant-colonel and joined the Army department creating contingency plans for a possible war. 

When the US entered WW2, Marshall spotted Ike’s promise and promoted him eventually to head the American Army in the United Kingdom in 1942. Ike’s professional break came when he was appointed commander of the US forces landing in North Africa in 1942. After some stumbling over the fraught relations between Vichy’s Darlan, FDR’s protégé Giraud and Free France’s de Gaulle, the Americans linked up with Montgomery’s 8^th Army and the Axis were expelled from Africa in 1943. Ike’s promotion was rapid.

Ike oversaw the successful invasion of Sicily, deftly managing Bradley and prima donnas Patton and Montgomery. The invasion of Italy itself followed and Ike was recalled to Britain to command (instead of Marshall or Brooke) the planned allied Normandy landings. This massive organisational and diplomatic challenge played to Ike’s strengths: it was a highly perilous exercise and could have gone sadly wrong: the 6 June 1944 D-Day opening of a second front was a triumph for Eisenhower.

Ike encourages his soldiers

Although military historians have criticised Ike’s broad front advance into Germany and his failure to get to Berlin before the Soviets, in the event the Allied armies routed the Nazis comprehensively after dealing with their last fling at the Battle of the Bulge. Ike, like FDR and Truman hoped for a cooperative relationship with the Russians but it was not to be. Ike was briefly military governor of the US zone in Germany but returned to Washington to succeed Marshall as Army Chief of Staff.

For the next 3 years Ike was wooed by politicians asking him to run for President. Ike’s political views were opaque, but anyway he was an all-American hero. Democrat incumbent Truman offered to run as Ike’s vice-president in 1948, especially if MacArthur won the Republican nomination. Ike declined, saying a serving officer should not get involved in politics. In retrospect Ike should have gone for the glittering prize then while his wits were sharper and his health was stronger.  The offer was repeated in 1951 ahead of the 1952 election. The Republicans wanted Ike too, but he was then committed to being the Supreme Commander of NATO from 1950. Finally Ike retired from active service in 1952 and soon announced he had Republican beliefs. Beating off the candidacy of isolationist Robert Taft, Ike was nominated at the Republican convention and the slogan “I like Ike” became a global catch-phrase.

Ike won the November 1952 election against liberal Democrat Adlai Stevenson by a landslide. Ike was quite an old 62, who had served his nation mightily, and to balance the ticket his Vice-President was 39-year-old California senator Richard M. Nixon, the hard-Right favourite of the Republican “Old Guard”. The US would hear much more of Nixon later, but he became caught up in a trust fund scandal and saved his position with his brilliant “Checkers” speech; Ike and Nixon were never close personally but Nixon was given a wider remit than most vice-presidents, doing much of the political in-fighting and often deputising for the President.

Ike’s first cabinet was notable for the wealth of its members, save one – “8 millionaires and a plumber” jeered the Democrats. Ike had a circle of influential big business friends whom he had fostered for fund-raising purposes during his awkward time from 1950 as President of Columbia University in New York; the university academics and Ike were not on the same wavelength. His Secretary of State from 1953-1959 was John Foster Dulles, a Cold Warrior par excellence, blue-nosed puritan, compulsive alliance builder and bane of the alienated Western European chancelleries, especially of France and Britain. Ike knew his allies disliked Dulles but he felt him indispensable. 

Ike, the laid-back President

Ike’s failure during his campaign to challenge Senator Joe McCarthy’s rabid Red Scare tactics infuriated Truman, leading to a bitter breach between the two Presidents. Ike was basically a moderate anti-communist and removed certain suspect officials but was not a crusading fanatic. He made it his business to end the unpopular and deadlocked Korean War which had cost the US 36,000 fatalities and, after visiting the troops, the US negotiated an Armistice in 1953. There was no peace treaty and technically North Korea is still at war with the UN.

Ike and the State Department deplored but wholly misunderstood British and French colonialism. Both European powers wanted to put an end to their empires. The French had fought and lost in Indo-China and a settlement was reached in the delicately balanced Geneva Accords of 1954. Dulles thought these accords gave too much to Ho Chi Minh’s communists and ignored them, instead backing Ngo Dinh Diem’s autocracy in South Vietnam, a disastrous and costly error in retrospect. The French were furious and US policy confirmed de Gaulle’s misgivings when he returned to power in 1958, later to withdraw militarily from NATO.

Relations with Britain were also uneasy. Anthony Eden was an experienced and self-confident foreign secretary and when in 1955 the US oil company Aramco pushed its client Saudi Arabia to seize the Buraimi Oasis, claimed by British client Trucial Oman, the British trained Trucial Scouts ejected the Saudis. As it happened there was no oil at Buraimi, but UK-US relations were damaged. Eden tested US goodwill too far when in 1956, as Prime Minister, he colluded with France and Israel to seize the Suez Canal which Nasser had nationalised for Egypt. Eisenhower was not consulted and sided with Egypt against his supposedly colonialist allies Britain and France. Eisenhower orchestrated a run on the pound and Eden, his career in ruins, had to withdraw. It took painstaking diplomacy by his successor Harold MacMillan to repair the embittered alliance and rebuild the cherished (by Britain only) “special relationship”.

Ike’s support for Nasser and his ally Syria did not earn any political dividend. Nasser’s continued subversion provoked a British intervention in 1957 to bolster friendly King Hussein of Jordan and a major deployment of US troops in 1958 to rescue beleaguered Maronite President Camille Chamoun in Lebanon. Russian influence in the Middle East grew, supported by her prestigious launch of Sputnik. Khrushchev’s aggressive boast to the West “We will bury you” was to some extent countered by Nixon’s effective advocacy of Western values in the “Kitchen Debate” at the American Exhibition in Moscow in 1959.

Ike’s health was delicate and he had 7 heart attacks of varying severity while in office; all needed a period of recuperation. Ike was often an absentee President; especially in his second term he became almost obsessed by golf, often playing at Augusta – Obama seems to have caught the same bug! Ike did not care for summit conferences but was preparing for one in Paris in 1960 when Gary Powers, flying a U2 spy plane at high altitude over Russia was shot down by a Soviet missile.  Khrushchev angrily declined to attend and the meeting never took place. 

Domestically it seemed that politics did not fully engage Ike. True, he sent in Federal troops to enforce a Supreme Court de-segregation ruling for schools in Little Rock, Arkansas when Governor Orval Faubus defied it. But there was little follow-up, no ringing commitment to civil rights from the President himself. Although much admired in face to face encounters, Ike was not quick-witted, eloquent or at ease addressing large gatherings. His only memorable phrase was in his farewell broadcast when he warned the nation “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Eisenhower was succeeded by John F Kennedy in January 1961 and Ike died of heart problems in Washington in March 1969. He had presided over a country enjoying unprecedented prosperity, serving loyally and honestly. His vision of America was rather like a Norman Rockwell painting – motherhood and apple pie – a nostalgia for the old verities. The world had sadly become a more dangerous place and to make political progress required cunning, deviousness and a mastery of camouflage – characteristics that straight-dealing Eisenhower did not possess.

SMD

27.08.14

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014