Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [95]
The self-assertion.
Yeah. I told you about the Profiles in Courage thing, and well, I mean, he was doing it to Larry O'Brien, everyone. That's just so sneaky.
He was a little better in the White House, though, wasn't he?
Oh, yes. But I mean, I just—
Well, that's such a petty thing. To—
Someone said he loved himself and finally he loved one other person, which was Jack.82 And he also had such a crush on Jack. I can remember when he first started to try to speak like him or dare to call him Jack, and he'd sort of blush. And I think he wanted to be easy all the ways Jack was easy. The sort of civilized side of Jack, or be easy at dinners or if girls like you, and men. Because he knew he wasn't quite that way in the beginning, it almost went into a sort of a resentment. I mean, it was very mixed-up in his own inferior—he had a big inferiority complex, so you can see the thing sort of all working back and forth, but—and I never saw him very much in the White House.
He was very rarely invited—
Never.
Never.
I guess he came to a state dinner or so, but never a private one. Or maybe, maybe he came to one or two of the dances, I think. But that wouldn't have been—I mean, as he and Ted had the problems all day, that would be the last person you would invite at night.
One thing that mystified people over in the West Wing was the way George Smathers survived. The President would get very mad about Smathers, about Medicare, foreign aid, and say, "This will be the final test." Then Smathers would vote against it and then there he'd be again.
And I used to get so mad at that—and hurt. Then he'd say—well, he just had such charity. His friendship with Smathers was before the Senate, really, and before he was—I mean, in the Senate and before he was married. And I guess they'd see each other a bit, off and on in the summer or in—you know, Stockdale was a friend of Smathers.83 They weren't seeing each other so much lately. And it was really a friend of one side of Jack—a rather, I always thought, sort of a crude side. I mean, not that Jack had the crude side, but you could laugh or hear a story—you know, the kind of stories sort of Smathers tells—I don't know, but he didn't want to stick it to someone who'd once been a friend. And he knew when Smathers was hurting him, and he knew Smathers—
Kenny84 hated Smathers.
Yeah, and I didn't like Smathers. But he wouldn't go back against someone who'd been his friend. And he was hurt by him and he wouldn't—he didn't see him as much and everything personally but he just wouldn't ever—finally say, "O.K.—you're out—now we're enemies," because he was just too kind. So he just let things go on.
Mansfield, he thought, was doing an excellent job in the Senate. And McCormack, all right. Boggs, did he ever mention?85
Well, I know he liked Hale Boggs very much, yes. Hale Boggs had been our friend before the White House. We used to see them. You asked me before who we saw. And Mansfield we saw. He always loved Hale Boggs.
He looked forward to the legislative breakfasts, did he?
Yeah.
They were rather—they were fun. On—unreel this. Shall I send you this list—typed—with anything else that occurs to me?
Oh, just give me the little thing that—you don't have to type it. Just give me the scribbling.
Then I'll make a copy of it myself.
Do you want a piece of paper? Oh, here, I've got a whole pad.
Oh, really? Good. Thanks. [chatting after the formal interview]What was this you said about Johnson doing a kind of, on tape, a confession on how inadequate he was?
Oh, no, no. Joe Kraft said that someone who had been at that house got so frightened and was so, you know, rocked by seeing Johnson in his cups at four in the morning, saying he doubted if he had the equipment to be a president.