This is Democracy – Episode 115: Young JFK: Lessons for Democracy Today

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] This’ll is Democracy, a podcast that explores the interracial inter generational and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy. Welcome

[0:00:20 Speaker 1] to our new episode of This Is Democracy. Today’s episode. We’re going to focus upon young John F. Kennedy and the lessons and insights from his early career for our somewhat difficult and partisan political moment today. What can we learn? And what do we take away from John F. Kennedy’s early career? We have with us his biographer, who is a very distinguished historian and good friend and someone who’s written quite a lot about American foreign policy, American politics and the lessons of history for contemporary affairs. This is Fred Logevall. Uh, Fred. Good morning.

[0:01:02 Speaker 3] I’m delighted to be with you, Jeremy.

[0:01:04 Speaker 1] It’s our pleasure to have you. Fred is the author of 10 books. He’s the author and editor of 10 books on American politics and Foreign Policy. Among my favorites and those which I know everyone has read, uh, choosing war, the Lost Chance for peace and the escalation of war in Vietnam, which really transformed our understanding of Lyndon Johnson’s choices for war in 1964 65 America’s Cold war. The Politics of Insecurity, which Fred co wrote with Campbell Craig, another historian, which looks at the influence of domestic politics on American Cold War foreign policy. Members of war. The Fall of an Empire in the Making of America’s Vietnam, which is really about early French and American activities in Vietnam. Before we would, we traditionally called the Vietnam War in the United States. Embers of War won the Pulitzer Prize as well as many other rewards and then his most recent book, which I hope all of our listeners will read and I know you’ll be reading a lot about soon as well. JFK coming of age in the American Century, when Fred is not busy scribbling. He is, uh, the Lawrence D. Belfer professor of international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history at Harvard University. And as I said, uh, Fred is, ah, longtime friend and really ah, major figure not just in historical circles but in scholarly and public intellectual circles in the United States. So before we turn to our discussion of JFK and this really fantastic and fun new book, I really found it fun to read a new book that Fred has just published. We’re going to turn to Mr Zacharias. We always do each week for his scene setting poem. Zachary. What’s the title of your poem? The ghost of JFK? Who? I’m a little scared now. Let’s let’s hear about the ghost of JFK.

[0:02:55 Speaker 4] The ghost of JFK yielded its head today as I spoke with my teacher of memory. As I spoke with my teacher of memory, he told me of the fateful day when he was to see JFK on the aged steps of the Capitol on the aged steps of the Capitol. I stood on afternoon in May and watched all the Children play as we marched past to the capital door as we marched past the capital door. I thought of the man that day when he bled to death in a limousine and all hope went away. It was not like the oceans had parted. The seas were still stable that day, and no constitutions were carted away. No ceilings fell in, no highways collapsed. The army didn’t stop playing taps. It was you that was killed from the book depository on the square in Dallas by the grassy hill. It was youth that was killed in Dallas, and we’re waiting again for it.

[0:03:46 Speaker 1] I love the arc of that poem. Zachary really all taking us all the way to the tragic end of JFK’s life. What is your poem about?

[0:03:57 Speaker 4] My poem is really about trying to ask what May JFK such a symbolic figure in American history and what made him so important in the memory of his generation, even Onley, having served a few years as president?

[0:04:11 Speaker 1] Well, that is the perfect spot to turn to President Kennedy’s biographer, Fred. We live in such a cynical age. Your book, as I read it is in some ways a wonderful antidote to that cynicism. And I think the place to start is Why did John F. Kennedy this this person born to such privilege? Such wealth? Why

[0:04:32 Speaker 0] did he

[0:04:32 Speaker 1] get in to get involved in the dirty world of politics?

[0:04:36 Speaker 3] Well, let me just say, Jeremy, that that was a wonderful poem we just heard. That was just marvelous. So hats off to you exactly. I’d love toe here more of your stuff. Maybe I will, um,

[0:04:48 Speaker 1] each week each week he opens every poem every every episode, Fred.

[0:04:51 Speaker 3] Oh, fantastic. Oh, this is such a such a great, um, thing. And that one was was I thought, really powerful. Um, you know, I think it it comes for Jack Kennedy from in part a bedridden childhood. He was sick a lot as a kid, and Red became a voracious reader and his preferred genre, the things he liked to read about were, in fact, politics, especially European politics, diplomacy, statecraft, tales of adventure and chivalry. He was drawn to that stuff, and I think also his mother, I think she encouraged his interest in politics. She was the daughter of Honey Fitz Fitzgerald and legendary Boston politician and who, by the way, was also close to his grandson S O. So he and Jack were close. So he took something, I think from Honey Fitz. Even though they became very different kinds of politicians, JFK was much more sort of reserved, um, much more urbane, as as a political figure. But those air, too early influences, and then I think it it it grew from there. It developed in college, um, his wartime service, which we could discuss. But you do see these early influences a swell

[0:06:12 Speaker 1] well, and and let’s turn to his wartime service. Much of your book actually covers that, and I have to say it’s a really riveting part of the book and and an area where I think you have a lot of new, many new things to say about both his wartime service and his travels. I was really taken with the many quotations you have from his travel diary, Fred. So tell us more about how how the travels and the World War Two experience contributed to to his development as a political animal.

[0:06:38 Speaker 3] Yeah, I mean, one of the one of the things that I that I suggest in the book is that he developed both the historical sensibility but also an international sensibility. And here again, I think Rose, who often doesn’t get enough credit, it seems to me in the scholarship, his mother, um, encouraged him toe have this wider lens to look to the outside world. It’s not that Joe Kennedy, his father, didn’t have that or didn’t urge that, but maybe not to the same degree, and, as you say, he traveled beginning in a serious way in 1937 with his good friend Lem. Billings. Uh, during college, they traveled through Europe. And then there was a major excursion, which I think it’s really consequential. In 1939 right on the eve of war, where young JFK is traveling in about a dozen countries, meeting with officials, seeing the sights he was in, he was in Berlin, basically right on the eve of war. I think it has a really big impact on him and then, as you say, Jeremy, he is in the South Pacific in 1943. This is after graduation after he publishes his senior thesis on basically development of the development of British appeasement policy, Uh, in the 19 thirties. Then he’s in the service. Um, and I think it is probably like it was for many people who were in combat. It was, I think, a profound had a profound effect on Kennedy made him in two different ways. The first was that it made him, I think, wary of the military instrument Azaz a means of solving political problems that I think he had, and I traced this in the book. He continued to have this really for the remainder of his life. But secondly, I think he came out of the war convinced that the United States had to play a major leadership role on the global stage. So it’s in some ways almost a kind of contradictory, Um, or they don’t they don’t. The two theory, too, attributes the two conclusions don’t necessarily mesh perfectly, but I think it’s part what part? Partly what he took from the war. No question,

[0:09:04 Speaker 1] and it’s worth underlining the fact. And this is a point you make that that really the most of the leadership of American society for the next 50 years would have come out of this experience of World War Two of figures like obviously Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Although it does seem Kennedy is different from them, that’s another point you’re making that he’s off his context in time. But he’s also exceptional. What do you see is his exceptional qualities, Fred.

[0:09:33 Speaker 3] Well, you know it za strong word to use, and I do think one sees certainly similarities between him and say, George H. W. Bush Thea Elder Bush, in terms of the commitment to service the kind of low key, um, low key approach to their own wartime service in terms of how they talked about it. But I do think that that JFK believed strongly that he himself, um, had a role to play on. He, by the way, I think, made his own decisions to seek political office in in the early aftermath of the war. I don’t think this was something that his father, you know, insisted that he do, which is often claimed Kennedy was. JFK was really his own master when it came time when it came to his political decisions and his career decisions. But I think he felt that this wartime generation of which he was a part, would now in the aftermath of the war, in the late forties and beyond, have a very important role to play. He decided he was going to be part of this. Um, I don’t think it was inevitable that, you know, politics would be his chosen career, but it was a decision he made on his own on he formed, I think a distinctive um, how should I put it? Political philosophy. Early on, it was a kind of pluralist liberal outlook which was idealistic in some respects, but also leavened with a certain pragmatic realism. Um, that, I think, proved to be a ah winning one for him if I could put it that way.

[0:11:21 Speaker 1] I think this is really one of the stunning parts of your book, Fred. Unlike most of the other authors and commentators that that I’ve encountered, at least, uh, you give a lot less attention and influence to the father figure here. We’ve gone almost 10 minutes into this. Discussion is the first time, uh, Joseph Kennedy has has come up. What? What can you tell us about that relationship between father and son?

[0:11:45 Speaker 3] Well, he was certainly devoted son on. I think previous authors have been absolutely correct to talk about the fact that Joe Kennedy was a giant figure in the lives of his Children, including including young Jack. He was He was a towering father figure, no question. But yeah, I think it was striking to me in the in. The in, the in the research, Jeremy in the in the voluminous letters that we have and other documents that we have in the oral histories, etcetera. The degree to which the second son, Jack was was willing to separate himself from his father in a way that the Golden Child, the oldest son, Joe Jr. Who was killed in the war in 1944 was never able to do never willing to dio. And so the most dramatic example of this, I think, is the in effect, the split between the father and the son between Joe Sr and Jack on the issue of US intervention on the issue of If You Wanna Put It This Way. Isolationism versus Interventionism, where Joe Sr. As ambassador to Britain and then long after having been ambassador to Britain, was, ah, kind of a new varnished, was unapologetic Peter and isolationist Andi Jack decided he could not be. And I think this is where the Harvard years are especially illuminating because you see that gradually, clearly. But gradually but clearly, this shift away from the father’s position really interesting

[0:13:29 Speaker 1] and let let’s talk a little bit about JFK’s distinctiveness from his father, his critique of appeasement, his critique of the isolationism and even somewhat pro Nazi tendencies of his father. How would you characterize his his emerging, shall we say, a Cold War viewpoint?

[0:13:50 Speaker 3] Well, I think he decided, and this is partly on the basis of discussions with his professors in college. Um, not so much the student body. I was surprised to learn of the degree To which isolationism, if we want to use that term Excuse me. The degree to which isolationism really held pretty firmly, uh, pretty firm within the student body at Harvard. But the professors, his own reading, I think his travels that we’ve discussed all of them, I think convinced JFK. Bye, Let’s say, by late 1940 or by the middle part of 1940 around the time that he put that he completes his thesis publishes the book that it’s really an untenable position that his father holds that in order to really be able to thwart the Germans and the Japanese, the United States has to commit itself, has probably to enter the fight at some point. It certainly has to support the British and the French to a very large extent. Andi therefore, his father’s position, which is that you can have a kind of fortress America in which the country more or less seals itself off from the rest of the world, just is not going to fly and he is willing. As I’ve said in a way, Joe Jr is not to actually confront his father with this position.

[0:15:21 Speaker 1] So it’s It’s fascinating to me, Fred, how that lesson for John F. Kennedy and so many others. And this is something many of us have written about you in particular, how those lessons of appeasement carry forward. And, of course, one of the things both you and I teach and write about are the dangers of an analogy from one historical time being brought into another context. This is something I thought you were playing around with in very thoughtful ways. In the last part of the book, Can you same or about what Kennedy takes from what you just described so well, his emerging internationalist outlook. You called it earlier, a liberal internationalist outlook to some extent tempered with realism. How does that affect his emerging views of international affairs when he’s a member of the House of Representatives and then a senator after World War Two?

[0:16:12 Speaker 3] Well, he it’s It’s an interesting one because it’s kind of a complex picture that, at least for me, emerges because on the one hand, I would say that John F. Kennedy, as I say in the book, is a He’s an original cold warrior. He is on Dhere. The difference between the father is again pretty interesting because Joe Kennedy articulates positions that at least some historians would later come to hold. Namely, the Soviets are not out to invade anybody. The Soviets are not immortal threat to the existence of the United States. We can afford, therefore, to take a sort of, you know, standoffish approach. That’s Joe seniors position. Jack, I think, is very much committed to what Truman is trying to do In 46 47. He’s he endorses the Truman Doctrine. Hey, is wholly supportive of ah, of a kind of expansive American global posture, Um, but alongside this emerging, I think in 1950 51 thereafter is also a nuanced understanding of, uh, the power of decolonization, the power of nationalism in the developing world. And, he argues, I think, quite presciently when he visits Indochina in 1951 for example, but also other parts of Asia that the United States, if it wants to be on the right side of history and if it wants to succeed in the broader super power struggle needs to be attentive to what the’s voices are clamoring for and including people like coach Eamon Andi and that I think tension in Kennedy’s position is there really through the remainder of the decade? I would argue, and I havent written volume to yet, so this is still sort of preliminary. But that tension in some ways exists right through to the end. He argues in his inaugural address, Um, for for a way often think of that addresses being, ah, kind of Cold War called to arms, but I don’t think it really is. If you look at the address in its entirety, it’s really quite conciliatory in tone on, he says. We shall never let us never fear to negotiate. So, um, it’s a complex picture, Jeremy, but one that I think, um, I hope in the second volume to further flesh out

[0:18:46 Speaker 4] what makes JFK such an appealing presidential candidate, but also ah, congressman and and the Legislature. What can we learn from his rise to about what kind of politician we should be nurturing today?

[0:19:01 Speaker 3] Oh, it’s such a good question. I think that, um I think that what people saw right away, maybe even in that first congressional campaign in 1946. And I do think this is this hold something for us today is they saw somebody who believed in politics, loved politics. Even then, I think I think there’s there’s no crime in loving politics. And one of the reasons he loved politics from an early point was precisely because he believed that it was important that in a democracy what we expect, what we demand of our elected officials can have, Ah, hugely important effect on our lives. And I think he believed, developed a philosophy which basically said that government can’t solve all of our problems, But it has a vital role to play in creating, um or just in, um or eco equitable society. And I would say one more thing here and this is he. This is something he develops in his book Profiles in Courage in 1956. But you see it much earlier. In fact, I think I show that you see it again in this first campaign, and that is the vital importance in a democracy off, uh, compromise of reasoning from evidence, um, off seeing political opponents as adversaries rather than enemies. This is something that I think he stressed on. I think it’s a It’s a very important notion for us today. I think that democracies need to be ableto handle moments of conflict and needs Thio. Politicians need to be able to focus, speak to common interests and boys that hard today and in this country. But I think it’s a more important message than ever.

[0:21:01 Speaker 1] It’s it’s so crucial, Fred, and it’s one of our key themes week in and week out, over more than 100 episodes we’ve seen, I think, uh, in such a range of figures, how important those precise qualities that you just highlighted so brilliantly, uh that those qualities of compromise and attention to evidence and deliberative, deliberative policy making how crucial they are to to a democracy. How did Johnson Lyndon Johnson interact with John F. Kennedy? Because one of the issues that comes up quite often in some of our prior discussions and in a lot of the scholarship is you know better than anyone is this rivalry between Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy family. We could also talk about Joe McCarthy, but I thought we’d focus on Lyndon Johnson. How did JFK handle that? Differently from politicians today. And what can we learn from that?

[0:21:53 Speaker 3] Well, I mean, you know, it’s in some respect, I guess, a preliminary answer, Jeremy, because this is one of the things that I really want to delve into and it will need to delve into in Volume two. What I can say to this point is that, you know, it’s pretty evident. Well, a couple things are evident. One is that Kennedy respected LBJ’s unsurpassed skill at maneuverings in Washington, his his ability to buttonhole lawmakers and to get them to do what he needed them to do. This is evident even when he’s obviously, uh, the chieftain in the Senate, and and I think Kennedy, um, rightly marvels at this ability on respects Johnson Ford One of the things that one of the appealing aspects of John F. Kennedy’s, I think he respects, um, people who are really good at what they do, regardless of field. And he could see this in Jones. On the other hand, you know, it’s clear that when he becomes vice president on arguably has an important role to play in securing this razor thin victory against Nixon in the election in 1960. Um, you know, he and his team, they don’t treat Lyndon Johnson very well in terms of his role as vice president, the kind of the kinds of duties that they give him the degree to which they include him on important policy decisions, especially in foreign affairs. Um, you can see one can see why LBJ becomes resentful. There’s, of course, a special friction with Robert Kennedy, which, of course, I also need to delve into as I get into this research. Um, but a I think Kennedy understands Johnson’s importance to him. I think he does credit him with helping him win. Arguably, this was one instance in recent US history in which the vice presidential choice actually did matter in the outcome, but then a problematic relationship thereafter.

[0:24:00 Speaker 1] Well, what I love about this first volume is I can see how you’re laying the seed bed for for where you’re going to go with these issues forward. I want us thio close as we always do by looking toward our listeners today, particularly young listeners and what they can take away from your book in this fraud political moment wearing today. But before I do that, uh, Fred, I I can’t let us get to that concluding point without asking the question. I know everyone is going to ask you. What should we make of of Kennedy’s extramarital affairs that you discuss a bit in the book on the question of morality and political leadership? If Kennedy is perhaps a model for political compromise and as you say, working with adversaries without making them enemies, his personal behavior is probably not something that we would put up a za model for others. How does that affect your judgment of him? Is an early politician.

[0:24:56 Speaker 3] Yeah, Iet’s something. Obviously, that I grapple with a lot. Jeremy and I will continue to grapple with as I work on Volume two, because one of the things that I conclude is that he shows a CA path capacity for empathy, empathetic understanding, which I think is critical in a leader. And we see it maybe most notably at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, where he’s actually able to put himself into Khrushchev’s shoes, which is what empathy is to be able to see things from the other side. He’s not able to do that. He does not show that empathetic understanding with respect to to his wife, Jackie. He cheats on her before the wedding. He cheats on her afterward. Um, and if I’m gonna argue, as I do in the book that he is his own man. When it comes to politics that he’s not under his father’s control that he’s willing to separate himself from Joe Sr. Then I can’t very well say, Well, you know, he became a chronic womanizer because his father was. It’s because of the example that his father said, and his father certainly did set an example. He said. I been, in so many words that he expected Joe Jr and Jack to follow in his footsteps to view women as objects to be to be conquered. Um, but I can’t I can’t give him credit for his independence in one area and say that he didn’t have it on the other. So it’s a it’s a really good point on bond. Um, this is one that, especially as I think, as I get into Volume two and he becomes in a strong power position, which makes this still more problematic, I have to reckon with.

[0:26:42 Speaker 1] Well, we will all look Look forward to that. It strikes me that you’re approaching it exactly as you should is a historian, which is different from ah journalist in this element in so faras his personal behavior matters to us, It seems to me as it relates to his role as a politician, your book is his young JFK, his own man. But politician on DSO you know, if people are interested in his in the lurid details of his affairs, that’s not what you’re writing about. You are writing about how those affected him is an individual in so far as he becomes a politician and and I think that’s the right way to approach. I think it’s actually refreshing in a certain way, without in any way diminishing the enormity of this issue as you as you just pointed out so well. Eso Fred, we like to finish every one of our episodes, Uh, by really, really speaking directly to our audience, which which includes a lot of young people, and I’ll include you and I is still young people who are concerned about our world today concerned about democracy. We started this podcast a year and a half ago. We do it every week because we’re trying to bring historical knowledge and a t least maybe some historical inspiration to thinking about reforming and improving our democracy in a in a nonpartisan way. Um, and I know you and I agree. We’ve talked about this many times that history has a lot to offer us, but it doesn’t offer us a road map and offer us offers us thoughts and knowledge and wisdom. We hope for moving forward. You’ve spent a good part of your life now, writing about John F. Kennedy, you’re going to continue doing that. What do you want? Young people, People who are concerned about our politics today? People who want to change our politics today. What do you want them to take away from the work you’ve done? And from this wonderful volume?

[0:28:31 Speaker 3] I think I want them to take away um that, um, government can have the capacity to speak to society’s highest aspirations. That may be kind of a nim possible thing to believe, given how corrosive Lee cynical we have become, but I think it’s absolutely true. I think it’s something that John F. Kennedy really based his political career on this idea that, um, that it is absolutely vital that we have a strong functioning democracy. And, he says in one of his college papers, This is when he’s 20 years old. Um, that that and I’m paraphrasing that in effect on less democracy can produce capable leaders. It is in serious trouble, and I think that’s true. But on a more hopeful note, I would also say that in his inaugural address, I think a kind of theme of that address is that everyone can make a difference on. I think it’s important for young people in particular to grasp that toe, understand that if they become involved in public life, maybe choose even a career in public service, they can make a difference. That democracy in some ways hinges on this democracy hinges on having a well informed citizenry paying attention to the issues and at least to some degree but getting involved in those issues. I think that, too, is a message that JFK flawed figure in many ways somebody who had both successes and missteps as a politician. But this is something I think he both believed and he lived.

[0:30:28 Speaker 1] So Zachary, your wonderful poem this morning was the ghost of JFK. And one of the early reviewers of Fred’s book mutual friend of Ours, David Kennedy talks about how how John F. Kennedy still beguiles us and that in some ways Fred’s book is a wonderful analysis of that Zachary Does John F. Kennedy still inspire young people like yourself? And what inspiration do you take from this? And from our conversation with Fred?

[0:30:55 Speaker 4] I think that John F. Kennedy is still universally, universally powerful to young people because of his youth and because of what he represents as a someone who believes he can use government to help people. I always find it very interesting whenever I ask people who their favorite presidents are. John F. Kennedy is always near the top of the list, which, which is very interesting, seeing that he only served for a couple years. And so I think that his his short time the forefront of American politics continues to inspire young people and will continue to inspire young people.

[0:31:32 Speaker 1] Well, I think that’s a perfect spot for us to come on, Fred, Did you wanna make the last comment on that No, I

[0:31:38 Speaker 3] just want to say that Zachary, that’s really well put on if you know, as the saying goes, from your lips to God’s ears. I think that if this is indeed what especially the people of your generation and they say the generation above the young people, if they can see in JFK and in other politicians of both parties in this country, um, somebody to somebody to look to, to try to emulate in some way and, more importantly, just to become involved and become informed and engaged and and and and commit oneself to good faith, reasoning and bargaining, I think we’ll be fine.

[0:32:24 Speaker 1] That’s so well said. And I think what your book displays really in wonderful ways in entertaining ways to Fred is that we have that capacity within us. It’s it’s John F. Kennedy is his own man. But John F. Kennedy as such a quintessential product of American society, product of the mixing of different groups and our politics, which produces this messiness but also this capacity for compromise and evidence based creativity. So, Fred, thank you for joining us today. I know you’re very busy out and around, or at least virtually on your book tour. Thank you for stopping. Stopping in with us virtually. I hope all of our readers and listeners will read, uh, Fred’s exciting new book, John F. Kennedy. It’s available, Um, on Amazon. It’s available at all of your local independent bookstores. Just look up logo ball JFK, and it will come right up. Zachary, Thank you, as always for your poem and most of all, thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy

[0:33:34 Speaker 0] Things

[0:33:34 Speaker 5] Podcast is

[0:33:35 Speaker 0] produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the

[0:33:39 Speaker 1] University of Texas at

[0:33:40 Speaker 0] Austin. Theme music in this episode was written

[0:33:43 Speaker 1] and recorded by Harrison

[0:33:44 Speaker 0] Lemke, and you can find his music at Harrison

[0:33:47 Speaker 1] Lemke dot com.

[0:33:48 Speaker 0] Subscribe

[0:33:49 Speaker 2] and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday, featuring new perspectives

[0:33:53 Speaker 0] on democracy.

[0:33:59 Speaker 1] Yeah