Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [42]
What do you remember about the formation of the cabinet?
Well, it's rather difficult because I was in the hospital all the time, so I'd just see all those people—pictures of them all, standing in the snow outside our house, and then he'd come over and tell me about some of them—McNamara3 and everyone. I remember when we went down to Florida, December 20, Dean Rusk4 came that first night. We had dinner—it was just Jack and I there then. We had dinner alone with him. And then, I think, Jack was either trying to get him then—or had Dean Rusk accepted and they were talking?
The President was for a long time uncertain as between Rusk and Bill Fulbright.
That's right. I remember. Then that conference in Florida, where Caroline walked in with her shoes on. That was when Senator Fulbright5 was there, I suppose, to tell him he couldn't be or something?
THE CABINET IS SWORN IN BY CHIEF JUSTICE EARL WARREN, JANUARY 21, 1961
Hank Walker, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
I think that Bobby was opposed to Fulbright on the ground that Fulbright, because of his position on segregation, wouldn't be, you know, hot for Africa.
Oh, what do you think? Do you think it's too bad that Fulbright wasn't chosen?
My personal view is yes.
Me too.
How did Rusk strike you? The President had not known Rusk before.
No. Well, he was very quiet—you know, they were talking. I just sort of stayed for dinner and then went back to bed. You see, that's a time that I won't be very good on because I was really quite weak and we had one little bedroom in the back of the house—and then the Kennedys all came back and then it was just a madhouse. So I'd really see Jack in our room and—I was really in bed most of the time. Dean Rusk, you know, I thought he was—he seems to be a rather compassionate man. I've always thought that about him and—I don't know. When you meet him, you think much more of him than when you know things he could have done and isn't doing.
That's absolutely right because he gives the impression of great intelligence and he's always awfully good in defining a situation. He's much less good in saying what should be done about it.
He's terribly scared to make a decision. I think what you really need is a strong secretary of state. I can't remember, we did speak about that in the tape before—but how it used to drive Jack crazy in the White House—how he'd ask for some routine answer to something the Russians had done. I think this was after Vienna.6 It was taking six weeks to get it out or eleven drafts and he used to say, "Bundy7 and I do more work in the White House in one day than they do over there in six months." And Dean Rusk seemed to be overtaken by that apathy and fear of making the wrong decision that so many people in the State Department have. So he really turned out not to be so satisfactory. But Jack—he was loyal and, you know, Jack just felt a terrible guilt—I mean, he wondered—I know I told you this before—of how he could get him out the next time without hurting him.
No, but you told me—but not on the tape, so go ahead.
Well, he was always wondering who he could have as secretary of state the next time. He was toying with so many people in his head. McNamara was one, but that wasn't really definite—Bundy?—but just someone strong there. And then he would feel so badly about Dean Rusk and I'd say, "Couldn't he go back to the Rockefeller Foundation?" and Jack would say, "No, no" —you know—"he's really cut his bridges there." He was so kind. He didn't want to hurt the man, but he just knew something had to be done there. And now I keep reading in the papers—I don't know if it's true or not—that Lyndon loves Dean Rusk.
I think Johnson will find the same thing and that—the trouble is the contrast between Rusk and McNamara, because McNamara always has the capacity, first, to control his own department and then to make recommendations, and speak about things with clarity, come up with ideas