Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [103]
Oh, really?
Or forgave Mr. Kennedy for it. It was a real slight. And you know, so that's where this queer enmity that Krock had for him, who, after all, he'd known as a young boy and known me and he'd sort of been his mentor—not exactly mentor, but you know, seen him and everything. This sort of bitterness started. And that's when. Mr. Kennedy changing it.
I can remember in the first winter, the dinner at the White House, when the Krocks were there, so there was still a slight relationship then, but then Krock became absolutely hopeless.
You try over and over. You see, he'd been a friend of me growing up, gotten me my job in the Times-Herald, always a friend of my grandfather's—we used to write poems to each other, for both of us. And you try, over and over, to do something about the relationship, and each time you just get slapped in the face with a wet fish, and finally you gave up. He was too bitter, and he couldn't bear to see someone young coming on. And we went out of our way to be nice, and we even went to their house for dinner—as President.30
You did? When was this? In the beginning or—
Yes, sometime that year. I think it was in the spring.
On Vietnam, it was rather interesting that the President should send Cabot Lodge, whom he had defeated in the Senate in 1952 and who ran on the opposite ticket in 1960. Had he and Lodge maintained particular personal relations in this period?
No, the only time I can remember, we asked Lodge to the dinner for Abboud of the Sudan. And Lodge was really nice that evening. I mean, I think Jack had always thought of him as rather arrogant and everything. Well, he seemed so touched to be there and so sort of, well, polite. And I remember Jack walked him to the door. Once he was President, he did these extraordinary sort of thoughtful things, to go out of his way. Lodge was just very nice then, and when we went upstairs I said, you know, he just seemed so nice that evening, and Jack said, "Yeah." I think he probably did it—don't you think?—rather thinking it might be such a brilliant thing to do because Vietnam was rather hopeless anyway—and put a Republican there. I don't know. That's what I read in the papers. I never really asked him why he sent Lodge there.
I'm sure that entered in. I think Rusk suggested it, and I think the President was attracted to it partly for that reason, and partly because Lodge had served as liaison officer with the French army in the Second World War and spoke excellent French.
Oh, that's right.
And partly because he wanted to figure out that we had enough prestige to recapture control of our policies from General Harkins31 and the military. I think all those things may have entered in. I think Latin America was something the President cared about a great deal, obviously. And you mentioned earlier about his admiration for Betancourt and for Lleras Camargo. Did he ever—do you remember Frondizi of Argentina?
No. That was a men's lunch.
That was a men's lunch. Um-hmm. The Brazilian trip was always about to take place.
Oh, we always had our bags packed for that trip. And I remember one so interesting thing that he said about Quadros32 when Quadros resigned. He did resign, didn't he?
Yes, he did.
And Jack shook his head. He was rather disgusted and he said, "You don't have the right to do that." One doesn't have the right to do that. "I mean, you don't have to run again, or something, but you don't have the right, once you're in there and the heat gets too strong, to just get out of the kitchen." So I think everyone had thought quite a lot of Quadros before, hadn't they?—and pinned a lot of hopes on him. And Jack was—well, not horrified, because that's—too strong a word—but that just wasn't in his way of doing things. I mean, when he took on something—just the way he was always prepared to lose this election—I don't think