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Authors: David Halberstam
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worthy of succeeding him in that lofty office). No doubt he would use that same issue once more against the Democrats, should they show any small sign of weakness. So Kennedy moved toward the right to reassure America that he was just as tough as Nixon, that he wanted a firm foreign policy, that he cared as much for Quemoy and Matsu as Nixon did, and in fact charging that the Eisenhower Administration was, yes, soft on Cuba. Since Cuba was a Democratic issue in 1960, Lyndon Johnson, working the South for Kennedy, said he knew what to do. First he’d take that Castro fellow and wash him. (Cheers.) And then shave him. (Cheers.) And then spank him. (Wild cheers.) And as Kennedy worked this issue he moved away from the positions of his principal foreign policy adviser and the Stevenson wing of the party, and the Stevenson imprimatur became increasingly suspect inside the Kennedy camp after Los Angeles. After the campaign was over, the Stevenson people were assigned to work up a series of foreign policy papers. George W. Ball, a Chicago lawyer who was originally a Stevenson man, had prepared them, and they were really Ball papers, not Stevenson papers; nevertheless, Ball was so uneasy about the Stevenson taint that he let a deputy take the papers to Palm Beach for Kennedy’s perusal.
Bowles’s influence had diminished steadily during the campaign. Early during the race the question had arisen of whether he should seek re-election to his Connecticut congressional seat, and something of an Alphonse-Gaston charade took place. Kennedy asked Bowles to run. Bowles deferred, saying that if he was not going to serve out his full term it would not be fair to the good voters of Connecticut’s Second Congressional District, nor to his protégé William St. Onge, who wanted the seat. Then Kennedy argued that if Bowles dropped out of the race, the Stevenson supporters would think a deal had been made that Bowles was to be Secretary of State; hence they would not work as hard for the cause. Bowles then insisted that the Stevenson people were made of sterner stuff, and pushed very hard for Kennedy’s permission not to run. Implicit in all this, of course, was the idea that if Bowles did not run, the Administration was committed to giving him something very high, perhaps even State. Kennedy did not like to be crowded and he was uneasy with Bowles’s request, and he did not give his approval to the Bowles withdrawal. Bowles, who did not like the House of Representatives, dropped out of the race anyway. This irritated Kennedy, who felt Bowles had gone around him, and whatever chance Bowles had to be Secretary of State, which had never been great, diminished appreciably.
The real problem of course was that the mix between the two was not very good, either personally or professionally. Bowles spoke in long, quasi-theological terms and the Kennedy people spoke in shorthand, almost a code, the fewer words the better, for tartness and brevity showed that you understood the code, were on the inside. Bowles spoke in terms of idealism, of world opinion, of political morality, wearing his high hopes for mankind right there on his sleeve, and the Kennedy people, if they thought that way—and some did and some did not—thought the worst thing you could do was confess openly to high idealism. Bowles, though wealthy, lacked the aristocratic style one might find at the dinner party of an Alsop or a Harriman, and at the Bowleses’ one was likely to find Indians, Africans, American Negroes and others; in an Administration which placed great emphasis on style and, ironically, would be remembered more for its style than its achievements, there was a feeling that Bowles had the wrong style; his wife, after all, was given to wearing Indian saris. All this was a problem, and so too was the fact that his basic view of the world, which had remained unchanged despite the pressures of the McCarthy years and the Cold War, had given him an image of being fuzzy and
Bowles’s influence had diminished steadily during the campaign. Early during the race the question had arisen of whether he should seek re-election to his Connecticut congressional seat, and something of an Alphonse-Gaston charade took place. Kennedy asked Bowles to run. Bowles deferred, saying that if he was not going to serve out his full term it would not be fair to the good voters of Connecticut’s Second Congressional District, nor to his protégé William St. Onge, who wanted the seat. Then Kennedy argued that if Bowles dropped out of the race, the Stevenson supporters would think a deal had been made that Bowles was to be Secretary of State; hence they would not work as hard for the cause. Bowles then insisted that the Stevenson people were made of sterner stuff, and pushed very hard for Kennedy’s permission not to run. Implicit in all this, of course, was the idea that if Bowles did not run, the Administration was committed to giving him something very high, perhaps even State. Kennedy did not like to be crowded and he was uneasy with Bowles’s request, and he did not give his approval to the Bowles withdrawal. Bowles, who did not like the House of Representatives, dropped out of the race anyway. This irritated Kennedy, who felt Bowles had gone around him, and whatever chance Bowles had to be Secretary of State, which had never been great, diminished appreciably.
The real problem of course was that the mix between the two was not very good, either personally or professionally. Bowles spoke in long, quasi-theological terms and the Kennedy people spoke in shorthand, almost a code, the fewer words the better, for tartness and brevity showed that you understood the code, were on the inside. Bowles spoke in terms of idealism, of world opinion, of political morality, wearing his high hopes for mankind right there on his sleeve, and the Kennedy people, if they thought that way—and some did and some did not—thought the worst thing you could do was confess openly to high idealism. Bowles, though wealthy, lacked the aristocratic style one might find at the dinner party of an Alsop or a Harriman, and at the Bowleses’ one was likely to find Indians, Africans, American Negroes and others; in an Administration which placed great emphasis on style and, ironically, would be remembered more for its style than its achievements, there was a feeling that Bowles had the wrong style; his wife, after all, was given to wearing Indian saris. All this was a problem, and so too was the fact that his basic view of the world, which had remained unchanged despite the pressures of the McCarthy years and the Cold War, had given him an image of being fuzzy and
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