SENATOR MCGOVERN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200640004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE ARTICLE

Approved For Relo
OG-ea- t{.. o ?1h,'' .,,a:n '' '" ...... o " ..-..
(From the New Republic, Dec. 4, 19651 t,eremen well, especially Avereil Hnrrimin, her.itatingly, if at all, endeavored to purr his
ILLE,GIB SCIILESINGER'S KENNEDY whose wise and selfless engagement merited Department of its sluggishller'. paroc hl:.lbon,
(By John M. Blum) the unstinted ndmirntlon it receive:;. Some . and banality, Thus Kennedy's statemen5
For Andrew Jackson, so we learned from 30 years the senior of most of his col!cr,ucs, about Rusk's resignation, and thus Schlrs-
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the sun broke Harriman nonetheless shared their ebullient Inger's report.
through the clouds as he set out for his youth. Adlat Stevenson, no Schlesinger p`'r- After the e in Day foreign Pigs, Kennedy's esin;;er
inauguration; for Franklin Roosevelt, the trays him, was less at home In Kennedy's di gn policy, no Schl
mist and wdnd under a sullen sky were wit- Washington, but the picture of Stevenson sees It, derived not from American weakness
Hess to the Nation's applause for buoyant .that emerges captures his spirit, even though i or fumbling but from the strength and will
call to action; for John F. Kennedy, Schlesin- Schlesinger ruefully admits the continual I of adversaries or off-and-on friends, particu-
ger tells its now, "it all begnn lit the cold," uneasiness of Stevenson's relationship with, laxly the Soviet Union and France. The ac-
as so soon thereafter It was all so tragically Kennedy. A lesser President might have counts of Kennedy's trials with Khrushchev
to end. In "A Thousand Days," Schlesinger, failed to enlist Stevenson in the common' and De Gaulle profit alike from Schlesinger's'
as he did before for Jackson and for noose- cause which the older man had defined and' care with details and hie prefatory excursions
volt, brings his sure knowledge, his lucid clarified while the younger was preparing Into the backgrounds of Russian and French
prose, and his unmatched gift for under- himself for the responsibilities of power. policy. Here and elsewhere in the book-for
standing the endless adventure of governing Those who, as Schlesinger describes them,: example, in sections on Latin America,
men to the analysis of the administration of perhaps inert represented the essential quail- Africa, Italy, and Great Britain-the author's
a great President. The book, Schlesinger says ties of Kennedy's use of power, his preferred' grasp of the past enhances his rendering of
at the outset, is "not a comprehensive history processes of government. and his goals for the Immediate. His candor, moreover, ex-
of the Kennedy Presidency. It Is a personal the United States were the trenchant, syste-' poses certain failures of the administration
memoir:' But the intensity of the author's matte, indefatigable McNamara, and the wh!(lit he views more generously than will
personal experience with Kennedy does not, tough, steady Attorney General-hungry to borne of his readers-for one, the lapse in
in spite of the disclaimer, diminish the range, learn, mole and more the most effective and communication with and consideration for
the quality, and the authority of the history reliable liberal in the Cabinet. an ally that intensified British disappoint-
recorded. Schlesinger's is the first account others fnt'e less well. Lyndon Johnson, for ment over the cancellation of Skybolt; for
of the Kennedy years to catch and convey one, whose strength Schlesinger gladly recog- another, the preoccupations that kept Ken-
the spirit and the style of the New Frontier nizes, appears, its he was, at some remove nedy from reversing the flow of decisions
and Its leader. It will be for many years the from the center of affairs-restless, egocen-' 'about Vietnam,. decisions that originated In
account against which all others must be trio, but an Impressively loyal soldier to an large part with various New Frontiersmen.
measured, and on which all others will In. army he had only reluctantly joined. In Los Though no apologist for Dlem, Schlesinger
some degree depend. Angeles in 1900, Schlesinger writes, after 'suggests in the lnfractabie case of Vietnam
Kennedy, as Schlesinger portrays him, Kennedy had won they nomination, Johnson how crippling were the limits of Kennedy's
served both as the Schlesinger and the symbol for.. was "far from Ism .th; and for the heathen available choices. In that and other cases,
.agont an Indispensable reformation of public Schlesinger adds, in a footnote other histort- Schlesinger tends to applaud the practicable
policies as those policies were made and ap- ans will envy, "'come now, and let its reason land meliorative, and tends to deplore the
plied and understood at home and abroad. together.' Isaiah 1:10. L.H.J. passim." But radical and millennial. Hero he reflects the
"Let us," tPresident said of the Alliance Johnson Is the object only of respectful fun. tough but creative mood of the New Frontier.
for us," the h 110 eIty ntllaid n he often said while Donn Runk is the object of exasperated 'Yet that mood leaves, perhaps, too little
of his bwti ebiiiAl' , "hit tiff 61186 ftoaltl trdllll? arise Ahit+tb,+tt f?' I b!I:1ihiallt (fife l;tiliJecG patiiy for thefts theorists who help to 1I1;e^:
form the Amcrloan continent Into a vast of a puckir..t I:ro;,,.:.r tnat pays special re- serve a millennial vision against which the
crucible of revolvtiomnry ideas and efforts-a, ,sped to It,c rti l:ocere) has questioned impact of the practicable can be measur ed.
tribute to the power of the creative energies' Schlesinger's rvcn his patriotism, for And Schlesinger, without being necessarily
f of free men and women-an example to all reporting Kemmedy's private statement that -wrong, Is nevertheless harsh in his asides
w,, J the world that liberty and progress walk hand Rush would be pcrmIttcd to resign. In the about H. Stuart Hughes and those of like
in hand." The Kennedy whom Schlesinger' full context of Schle;,igner's book, that report mind.
reveals believed in those possibilities and. Is neither tasteless nor unpatriotic nor un- Schlesinger's more gentle but still crit-
dedicated himself to their fulfillment, lie; deserved. Schlesinger devotes a major por- -, teal treatment of the radicals in the civil
did so even though his political perceptions;-tion of his total narrative and analysis to rights movement appreciates their success
told him how perilously slow the course of examining the Inertia of the State Depart- - in advancing their cause. At the some time,
progress had to be, and-more important- ment, the Joint Chiefs, and th CI and to the Kennedys and their associates lent con-
even though his reading of history and life explaining Kennedy's efforts -To break siderable thrust to that accelerating move-
consequent sense of irony reminded him nl-. through the depressing influences of those ment, and the Attorney General, in Settles-
ways of the distance that/ lay between the: agencies. ' The crisis for the President arose inger's assessment, receives the credit that
noblest, most vigorous Intentions and their! with the Bay of Pigs, an episode that his detractors have refused to grant him.
Invariably lesser products. That sense of Schlesinger makes a kind of fulcrum for his ' Still, some of Robert Kennedy's admirers,
Irony contributed to Kennedy's humor, which own critique of government as Kennedy in- including Schlesinger, for their part have
he wryly turned against himself, without in . herlted it. The Implications of the story - not discussed the significance of the New
the least reducing Nennody's stamina, born Schlesinger tells are as disturbing now as Frontier's judicial appoinments with the
partly of rare courage. partly of confidence, they must have been to the President at the skeptical detachment of Alexander Bickel In
and essential to his luspcrturbablllty in crisis, time. State,A. and the Joint Chiefs dis- his "Politics and the Warren Court." Over-
Irony has meaning only to man thinking, played an Invincible Inability to question the all, however, Schlesinger's approach to civil
only to an intelleelua, and Kennedy, as premises from which the original planning of rights and other domestic issues is distill.
Schlesinger demonstrates, wins the most In- the operation had proceeded. In a series of , guished by its clarity and balance. Indeed,
cisive intellectual of the whole brilliant small decisions built upon those rigid i his discussion of economic policy provides
galaxy of men whom he summoned to his premises, a series that became Irreversible In a model for any general exploration of tech-
side. More than .any one of them, he com- Its momentum (in precisely the manner des- nical questions. Most important, with
ntanded the entire array of difacult subjects cussed by D. Braybrooke and C. E, Lindblom marked restraint Schlesinger shows conclu-
to which he adverted. Yet Kennedy, even' In "A Strategy of Decision)." they led thelively that Kennedy did get the country mov-
in repose, exuded the poised grace of a mail. now administration to the calamity of the Ing again. The accomplishments of Lyndon
trained and resolved to act. His command; invasion. That affair, shattering the gay Johnson rose from the strong foundations .
of his mind-thorough In its Instruction, confidence of the spring of 1901, opened a Kennedy built, for Kennedy's CCicbr.nted style
Jugular In its drive to the essence -of a prob- long season of gloom that spread with the ' was no trick of public relations but the grace-
lenl-whetted his impatience to be on with troubles in Berlin. Laos. and Africa. But the ful expression of a powerful mind, a powerful
his tasks. The impulse to action, the swift. travesty of the Day of Pigs had reminded person, and a powerful program, admirably
concentration on the practicable, the nl13- Kennedy that specialists in intelligence and timed.
trust of the rhetoric of idealism, the unhesi- weaponry and protocol were al.ttached to the "Is there some principle of nature," Rich-
tating recourse when circumstances so indi- particular Interests they represented and, ?ard Hofstadter asked In a question Schles-
cated to the power of the military or of the with singular excci,tloun, were incapable of inger quotes, "which requires that we never
Irish Mafia-all these led some Intellectuals,; eompreheur'liun or of re.prescnting the gen- know the quality of what we have had until
particularly those who did not know Kennerlyt oral intcrrrts of the Prrtilrir.ncy or the United It is gone?" Perhaps. Those close to Ken-
or who disagreed with him, to misread Mal States. Accordln'tl\', 7:r.:nnrdy turned In-. nedy knew before that dreadful day in Dallas.
high purpose and to underrate his arresting crensingl,y to f;onc'ruilsts In wham he had per- Mnny others did not. It Is the special trl-
.capabllities, to disown their closest kin to sonal confidenr-c, men charged with the dual umph of Schlesinger's book that those who
r y, . Ar ,: .t t. . 1'y... ,.
Approved For Release 2006%07126: CIA-RDP88-0,1350R0Q0200640004-0
hold the Presidency since the time of Thomas ditty of proddhl^, the btire aucraclea to per- I read It, now or years from now, will know
Jefferson. , form at a high level of energy and imagina- the quality of Kennedy. They shoud then
For his part, Kennedy was hurt and puzzled tion, and of traer?cending the advice of bu- conclude, with Schlesinger, that above all
when intelligent but cloistered men in 1000 reaucratlo expertise. As the White House, Kennedy "gave the world for an imperishable
found him neither less nor more than Rich took over the strings of policy Kennedy 1 moms the vision of a leader who greatly
and Nixon, As Schlesinger observes, 2 years, gained the Initiative and scope necessary for undera the terror and the hope, the
later no one could properly any longer con-i his later achievements, especially for his su- diversity and the possibility, of life on this
fuse the adversaries; Kennedy in office had; perb resolution of the second Cuban crisis .planet and who made people look beyond
proved his right to the margin of Support the; and for his delicate diplomacy for the test nation and race to thejuture of humanity."
electorate ultimately awarded to his suc,i ban. - But Rusk, apparently by his own choice, ?In a sense, then, it did not Dome to an end