The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [420]
As Kennedy sought to mobilize the nation behind him, the truth was an unruly companion that he did not want tagging along too closely. He asked about the possibility of “putting holds on the press” or at least requesting newspapers to still their reporters’ hunger for stories.
Kennedy lived in a geopolitical world where unwary wolves became sheep, and sheep might metamorphose into wolves. The missiles in Cuba made America vulnerable to enemies and allies alike. Kennedy, like his predecessor, had opposed de Gaulle’s grand scheme of rebuilding France’s faded glory with an arsenal of nuclear weapons; now he pondered “that in the days ahead we might be able to gain the needed support of France if we stopped refusing to help them with nuclear weapons project.”
While these events transpired, Kennedy tried to create an image of normality not only for the world but also for himself. That Sunday the president called the first lady and his two children back from their weekend home in the Virginia hunt country. His wife knew very little of what was going on or why he had asked her to return. Kennedy was not a man given to darkly pondering his alternatives by himself for endless hours. He preferred convivial company, even at a time like this. He loved the company of British aristocrats as much as his wife loved French haute couture, and this evening he invited the Ormsby-Gores, the duchess of Devonshire, who bore the title that his sister Kathleen would have had if her husband had not died, and Robin Douglas-Home, nephew of another old British friend, William Douglas-Home.
The president was constantly being called to the telephone. When he returned, it was not to muse morbidly about Cuba and nuclear war but to exchange some witty repartee. Kennedy peppered the others with questions about the lives of those he found interesting, seemingly unconcerned about anything but his charming dinner guests.
Now that the president had decided on a firm policy, he had to tell the American people on television of the magnitude of the crisis that faced them. As he left the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, October 22, where he had gone over Sorensen’s words, Kennedy overheard his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, talking on the phone to Ed Berube, who was asking for some autographed pictures. Berube had a feisty authenticity about him that had amused Kennedy when the bus driver worked for the young congressman in his first senatorial race in 1952. The president had invited Berube to his wedding and as president named him postmaster in his hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts.
“Who’s that? Eddie?” Kennedy asked his secretary, as if this were the most normal of presidential days. “Let me talk to him…. How’re you, pal? How are you, Mr. Postmaster?”
“Oh … uh … uh … Mr. Senator … Mr. Congr—… Mr. President.”
“How’s your office? Anything I can do for you?”
“No, you’ve done enough for me now, Mr. President. We’re all so proud of you. You’re doing a wonderful job.”
“Well, you keep up the good work. I hear some good reports about you.”
The president needed the support of Congress, and when he briefed eight senators and seven senior congressmen at 5:00 P.M.., just before his television speech, there was in some of their shrill voices a harbinger of the jeers and shouts that would greet him if his policies failed. This afternoon the most esteemed and knowledgeable experts on foreign policy in Congress, Senators Richard Russell and J. William Fulbright, did little but argue feverishly for war.
“It’s a very difficult choice that we’re faced with together,” Kennedy told Russell, “Now, the …”
“Oh, my God, I know that !” Russell interjected. “A war, our destiny, will hinge on it. But it’s coming someday, Mr. President. Will it ever be under more auspicious circumstances?”
The Georgia senator was a thoughtful man, but today he sought only to