Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [108]
On the Supreme Court, the President—
Oh, he loved Douglas Dillon.
Yeah.
But—and he thought a lot of Dave Bell.
Yes, he relied heavily on—did he?—on Dave Bell. When Kermit Gordon became director of the budget, did—was there any particular reaction?44
Well, that's because he wanted what? Dave Bell—
Dave went over to AID.
AID, yeah.
Yeah, but Gordon didn't—
I don't know anything about that. Wasn't he sad that Dave Bell had to leave being director of the budget? Yeah, he was really sad about that.
He felt Dave was the only man who could straighten out the AID situation.45 You remember Fowler Hamilton46 had—
Oh, that's right. And he was very sad, the way it came out about Fowler Hamilton. I can't remember exactly but it looked as if he—oh, no, no. Labouisse.47
Labouisse.
Labouisse. It looked as if he'd been fired for incompetency or something, and he—Jack so badly wanted to have it come that he was being promoted by being ambassador to Greece. However, that story came out, he was sorry for Labouisse—he was sad. It shows a certain charity again.
The President made two appointments to the Supreme Court, you remember. Byron White48 and Arthur Goldberg. Did he talk much about the Court or about—
Well, I remember he was really happy that he'd have two appointments to make and I think he thought both his appointments were good.
Yes.
And I know that Justice Frankfurter, he knew wanted him to appoint whoever it was—Paul someone?
Paul Freund.49
Yeah. And he knew of that wish. He was—he went to call on Frankfurter a couple of times and again once—brought him to his office. But he wanted to put Goldberg in there.
He used to be—he and Bill Douglas used to be—at least, Bill Douglas—was a great friend of Mr. Kennedy.50
Of his father's, and then really of Bobby's. They were always going off all through Russia and everything together. We never really saw Bill Douglas much, but I think he liked him.
He wasn't around the White House much.
No, never.
Never.
But none of those people were. Arthur Goldberg used to be around our house in Georgetown a lot for the time of the labor bill, but that was always for breakfast. And Arthur Goldberg—I said to Jack once—some dinner where I sat next to him—"He is the biggest egomaniac of any man I've ever seen in my life." And it's true. I've never seen a man who never stops talking about himself.
Yeah, he does it with sort of an innocent, joyous way, but it is hard.
Well, I find that horrifying. I'm not sure Jack didn't make a mistake putting him on the Supreme Court because that just seems to make people think they're more and more special.
And as they're out of the newspapers, they feel they have to make up for that by talking more about—
And the decision that I thought this winter—you know, that was made after Jack's death, this case where it's all right to print anything, even libel, about someone in the press. It's a little more complicated than that, but you remember.
The New York Times case.
Yes. But that seemed such an awful thing to do—and Goldberg was the one who held out and said that it could even be malicious and completely untrue. And I thought, that's right after that ad of the day in Dallas, of the picture of Jack—"Wanted for Treason." And there you, his appointee, go and say that everything, even this, is all right? But it's because the Supreme Court is so isolated. They're never affected by newspapers, anything. So Arthur Goldberg's head's going to be even more swelled in a few more years. So, I guess, Jack always said he was the most brilliant labor lawyer that ever was.
What about the President and the press—apart from Charlie Bartlett and Ben Bradlee, who were—
I suppose so many of our friends before the White House were in the press. I mean, there's Rowlie Evans, Hugh Sidey—Bill Lawrence he played golf with.51 You know, he basically liked them. I always thought in Washington, politics and the press—you're both sort of involved in doing something. So many of his friends were