Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [79]
Yeah, no, I mean from the summer of 1961. It began the summer of Vienna and it went from there until the Cuban crisis, really, in November '62.
Well, when did he make his Berlin speech?
He made his speech in June 1961, after he got back from Vienna. He made the speech calling for an enlargement of the military, of the defense budget.
But is that when he said, "We do not like to fight but we have fought before."
Um-hmm.
And "They said that Stalingrad was untenable and free men have always fought"—yeah, and "They said Stalingrad was untenable," and this and that, and "We do not like to fight, but we have fought before."4 Anyway, I could just remember one of the few times—I always thought with Jack that anything, he could make—once he was in control, anything, all the best things would happen. In this childish way, I thought, "I won't have to be afraid when I go to sleep at night or wake up." But you could see after that Khrushchev meeting, I mean, he was really in a gloom, which he wouldn't talk about, but you could just tell by a sort of—a certain quietness and lowness. So, I thought—I remember a couple of times, just a little shooting pain of fright going through me, thinking is—"Cannot even Jack make this turn out for the best?" And so this mounting thing—and then, when he was going to go on television to speak of Berlin, all the tension and everything around the White House. And I can remember again him march—and scribbling on the pages and, you know, for a few days before. And maybe he'd read me a line or something. But, and then I can remember that day, looking out—my dressing room window looked on the Rose Garden—and his office and all the television cables, and I remember thinking, "Shall I go over in his office and watch it?" But then I thought, "No, that might make him more nervous," or "People would start taking pictures, or something. I'd better just watch it up here." And, well, that was one of the grimmest speeches I've ever seen him make.
It was probably the grimmest speech he gave.
Yeah. And you just couldn't believe that you were sitting there thinking that, well, you really might have to go to war. And then—
Grimmest speech except, of course, for the Cuban Missile speech.
That was sort of the first one, so it almost frightened me more because by the time of the missile crisis—of course, you were scared all through it, but, you know, Berlin was the first one and then it did turn out all right. So, well, that's what I remember about that.
Yes, Berlin was the—really the big thing in the summer and fall of '61, and then as a result of our reaction, you remember, Khrushchev then extended the deadline and so—
That's right.
In, I believe, November.
And then, I remember thinking a couple of times how true it was—something rather interesting about Jack that he had by nature, and in politics I used to see it, this conciliatory nature, which never meant that you sort of sucked around people or tried to curry favor, but—what did he say? Pol—"In politics you don't have friends," or something, "you have colleagues," or—
Interests—was it?
No, it's—is it "You don't have friends or allies, you have colleagues"—well, you can look it up. But I often used to say to him, some man would come to dinner, a newspaperman or a politician, and I'd say, "But you were so nice to him," or "You're speaking nicely about him, and I was so mad about him for what he wrote two weeks ago or said two weeks ago that I've been cutting that man dead all day, and now I'm meant to be nice to him?" And Jack would say, "Of course, you know, that's all over, and then he did this and that." So, you know, his relationships always changed and he never made it hard for anyone to come back and be forgiven or, you know, go on in a new relationship with him. Which was so true in marriage too. It just carried him to every phase. And I remember thinking, "Thank God he has that side and not that old funny Dulles side where nobody, you know, where you'd have to make people grovel so!"5 And I remember thinking