Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [20]
That's right. I was an intermediary. There were a number of intermediaries, I'm sure. But I talked to Stevenson a couple of times that winter and spring on the President's behalf—and Stevenson's answer was that he had told Lyndon Johnson in 1959 that he would remain neutral and would not come out for any candidate, and that he had to keep his word to Lyndon Johnson.
But then, I remember one night Jack coming home and rather—not rudely but with that sort of laugh he had, telling me that's what Stevenson had told him, and he thought that Stevenson was hoping to be named as running mate with Johnson. And then he told me something so insulting that Johnson had said to him the day before about Stevenson. You know, he was thinking, "How silly can this man be?" But Jack knew then, I think—I mean, he knew that he was going to get the nomination.
I think Stevenson, although he would not admit it to himself or to anybody else, was holding out for a deadlock in which he would be the presidential candidate. I doubt that he would have wanted to go on as a vice presidential candidate. But he wouldn't admit this, and so we people who had been for him in '52 and '56, as I had, would ask him whether he was a candidate. He would say he was not a candidate, and that released me, I felt, from any obligation. But in all this period, you know, if you've won twice, you keep hoping.
Yeah, oh, it's hard for him. But, you know, he just never had the breadth or depth that Jack did. You know, I just see it all now.
Someone once said that Stevenson was a Greek and Kennedy a Roman.
No. I think Kennedy was a Greek and Stevenson was a, well—
Kennedy was an Athenian and Stevenson from Thebes.50 [laughs]
[laughs] Yes, I don't know, he was a little— He was all right, Stevenson. I mean, he was the first time anyone spoke anything in politics that you could listen—the first time anyone brought anything intellectual to politics.
He helped prepare the way. He helped open up the situation, and the President came along as a kind of climax.
But he couldn't make—I mean, there's no point to talk about Stevenson. Where he couldn't make decisions, or he'd go over his little papers, or he'd carefully take something typewritten and copy it in longhand because he was so proud of everyone saying he wrote all his speeches—I don't know, poor man. It's sort of sad. You know, Jack achieved all he dreamed of in his life, and it must be sad not to have.51
It is sad. After the convention in '56, the President was quite relieved, was he—in not having got—immediately so—I know later, he would say often how pleased he was.
It's funny. There was just—I remember watching it with Michael Forrestal.52 I'd gone to get a Coca-Cola or something, down underneath all those seats, and as I was coming back, suddenly that race started, and all the blackboards, the numbers started changing. I bumped into Michael Forrestal, and he grabbed me into a Westinghouse exhibit, and we watched the whole thing on television. And then we went to Jack's room at the Stockade Inn, or whatever it was?
Yes, Stockyards Inn.53
But he was just let down, like in any fight, and when he went on to say that—and do it so beautifully—just a little let down. Then we flew back—I can't remember if it was that afternoon or the next day—and then he wasn't anymore—he was just exhausted.
Do you remember who were the closest to him at that point at the convention? Torb and Bobby, and Ted Sorensen, I imagine.
Yeah, was he taking a bath over there and watching it on television?