Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [92]
Well, anyway, I mean, Jack was just upset over the flak of the article. And then I remember—was it later that winter or in February when I went to New York and went to the UN with Adlai? And Clayton65 had told me that it would be so nice if we would ask Adlai to some of our private parties, that that could really make things up. Well, anyway, that really made an awful difference to Adlai when I went to lunch at the UN and I gave him a little watercolor that I'd done. I'd done it—Jack and I were just sitting there one night—of a Sphinx I have, and I just had it in my briefcase. And he framed it and everything, and then he did come down to a party. I mean, you had to do things to sort of soothe his feelings because he—but that did smooth over very nicely, finally. But you know what I was just thinking about the Cuban crisis? The difference between Jack and Lyndon Johnson, and where it's really going to make a difference in this country, is now there's a terrible crisis going on in Laos but nobody really knows it, except in the papers. And where's Lyndon?66 And so these people go out to Hawaii and before they go, Lyndon hasn't met with them for three days. And where is he now? He's running all around Texas, getting high school and college degrees. And the poor man's terrified, in a way. Dave Powers67 says he can't bear to go to Camp David or anyplace he's alone, that now he has beach chairs around the pool, and on weekends, he likes to sit in the pool and they have drinks there—and all his cronies. But he can't bear ever to be alone and face something awful, or discuss with these people. Maybe it's—maybe he wants to disassociate himself so if it goes wrong he can say, "I wasn't there," or "It's McNamara's war." Partly, I think, he's panic-struck and doesn't know what to do. And that man came in—there wasn't a problem for seven months, which Jack had made possible. And I guess it's very good for the country that he could go around and make this air of good feeling and lull so many people into this sense of security, which they wanted after all the tragedy of November. But you know, a president has to be—I mean, that's where the terrible things are going to happen, because every little group is off, you know, having their own different meetings on Laos and they're not think—on Vietnam—and they're not thinking of—I mean, Jack always said the political thing there was more important than the military and nobody's thinking of that.68 And they don't call the people who were in it before in. And so that's the way chaos starts. If you read the story of the Bay of Pigs in the papers now, I mean, the CIA just operating so in the dark, saying, "Even if you get an order from the President, go ahead with it."69 Well, that's the kind of thing that's going to happen again. And, you know, I've seen it from the people I talk to in Washington now, sort of piecing things here and there together—and how Joe Kraft70 told me Lyndon came to some—somebody's house in Georgetown the other night, got very drunk, stayed until three or four, and said, "I just don't know if I'm capable to be president, if my equipment is adequate." It was just in front of—this is off the track, talking about Lyndon, and people will think I'm bitter, but I'm not so bitter now. But I just wanted it to be put in context the kind of president Jack was and the kind Lyndon is. Stupid old Harold Stassen71 said last weekend—and then if only someone else had said it, because it's rather a true thought—that Johnson would be like Harding, and it would be another era of good feeling, and business liked Harding and the senators liked Harding, and he didn't keep too much sort of tabs on the people who worked under him, so they could sort of be a bit corrupt here and there, which again—and then look what happened. You know. And that's what I just—you know that's going to happen. Lyndon can ride on some of the great things Jack did, and a lot of them will go forward because they can't be stopped—civil rights, the tax bill, the gold drain stuff.72 And maybe you'll do something more