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- [00:00]
Afwahash
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of Legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wonderry app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello and welcome to the second episode of our series on jfk. We left you in the last episode with Jack Kennedy, the war hero, in mourning for the loss of his big brother, Joe Jr. But Jack is alive, and he wants to make his life count for something, even more so given his keen sense of his own mortality because of his ongoing serious health issues.
- [00:37]
Peter Frankopan
He is ambitious and he's a man in a hurry. And he's living in a country in a hurry. The US with mainland America untouched by the war, has emerged from global conflict in a better economic condition than any country in the world. Its casualties, too, are comparatively lighter than any of the other major participants. There's a real sense of purpose and of anxiety about what the future might bring, but Jack and the country want to leave war behind.
- [01:05]
Afwahash
Now that Joe Jr. Is dead, it's up to Jack to fulfill his father's big dream to put a Kennedy in the White House. But with all that privilege, does Jack have what it takes for the man and woman in the storm to back him at the ballot box?
- [01:29]
Peter Frankopan
From Wandery and Goalhanger, I'm Peter Frankopan. I'm Afwahash and this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [01:54]
Afwahash
This is jfk Episode two Violence at Home and Abroad.
- [02:07]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [03:06]
Unknown
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- [04:11]
Peter Frankopan
So the war's ended, Jack's 28, and Joe Sr. Thinks that his second son has the right ingredients to be a successful politician. In fact, it's a little bit more blunt. He doesn't just say he's going to be a successful politician, he says, joe's dead and it's your responsibility to run for Congress.
- [04:28]
Afwahash
It's not really pressure, more coercion. And Jack says it was like being drafted. My father wanted his eldest son. In politics, wanted isn't the right word. He demanded it.
- [04:39]
Peter Frankopan
But you know, he's 28. He's a decorated war hero, he's served his country, he's written a bestseller, he's traveled around Europe. He's well connected. It sounds like the kind of person one might think would be to the manor born. But when he picks, or rather when the district that he's going to fight is picked for him, the 11th district congressional seat of Boston, his family's old stomping ground. People don't take to him immediately, do they?
- [05:02]
Afwahash
They really don't. And I feel that this is a test that he ultimately passes. Initially, Jack is not a success. He's perceived justly as an outsider from New York, a rich kid in a working man's district. And Jack has to earn the respect of the elector. And he does. He's up at dawn at factory gates shaking hands with workers who start their first shift. He's knocking on doors. He's riding in trolley cars. And his sisters host incredibly successful tea parties to win over female voters, and they end up attracting tens of thousands of women. Probably partly because Jack turns up at these tea parties and sprinkles A healthy dose of JFK charm. And it really does work. He starts to attract votes.
- [05:49]
Peter Frankopan
I think that personal charisma he's got is really important. But what Kennedy's also quite good at doing is explaining who he is and why pick him. And his slogan is the new generation offers a leader. He makes a lot of play about the idea of new throughout his life in politics. And it's a simple way, I think, of capturing the idea that there needs to be a reboot. It's time for a different approach. But, you know, underneath it all, however much you talk about it as being new, it's about the hard cash. It's about support for you from your family. It's about being able to get billboards. In fact, Joe Senior says with the amount of money he spent on Jack's election, he could have got his own chauffeur elected. That's a man of the people speaking, isn't it?
- [06:29]
Afwahash
I think that speaks to their relationship. That's a very belittling thing for his father to have said that anyone could have done it with the financial backing that he had. I don't think it's true. I think that he did work for it and he did tap into something that people want. This is the post war era. It's the beginning of a new cultural time in America.
- [06:53]
Peter Frankopan
In 1946, there's a big national swing in favor of the Republicans, but not in Boston's 11th district. And there you go. Jack Kennedy gets elected and he's off to Washington.
- [07:04]
Afwahash
He'll serve six years in the House of Representatives before deciding it's time to get up to the next step of the ladder, the one that he really values as a prestigious position, the Senate. But before he gets there, tragedy strikes the Kennedy family once more. And this time it's another of Jack's siblings. Peter.
- [07:23]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah. Kathleen Kennedy, better known as kic, comes over to London with the Kennedys. When Joe is made ambassador, she's chosen to be Deb of the Year. Debutante of the Year is presented at court. She's charming, she's quick witted, she's very popular. And she falls in love with Billy Hartington, who is an heir of the Duke of Devonshire, one of the most distinguished, wealthiest, best connected families in the country. But her husband dies very early into their married life and she finds love elsewhere and is flying off to Paris to go and get Jo's blessing to marry her suitor when their plane crashes in 1948. And that's another tragedy within the Kennedy family.
- [08:01]
Afwahash
And it really hits Jack hard. Like his brother Joe's death. He was really close to kic, so it's a real blow for him, and not just an external one, because he's also grappling as always with his own serious health problems, his own mortality. Just a year earlier he'd actually had a priest read him the last rites. He'd fallen so ill that it was thought he was going to die. So he's never that far from thinking of when his own end will come. And now he's got really serious back problems. An X ray shows a collapse of bones supporting the spine. This is probably a side effect of all of the steroid treatments he's had in his teens. And he tells a journalist at this stage that he actually doesn't expect to live beyond 45 and says something that I've heard cited in many personal development books. The point is you've got to live every day like it's your last day on earth. That's what I'm doing. And he is in a rush. He had stood in the Senate on this platform of quite progressive ideas about union rights, housing and healthcare, domestic and social issues. His Senate campaign, now that he's got his eyes on that, it really makes me laugh, Peter, because when I look at that Senate campaign, he sounds like he's campaigning for the presidency, not for a seat in the Senate. He's got this idea that he's selling to the voters, which is Americanism.
- [09:22]
Peter Frankopan
Well, you know, I think that the shock that comes at the end of the Second World War of having seen what really had happened first with the kind of the revelation of the Holocaust and it's the profound suffering not just of war torn Europe, but of the ways in which Europeans had treated each other. Then the kind of the fear of the Soviet Union galvanizing, then China falling into the hands of the communists. But Kennedy is talking about what does this all mean for a changing world where the new world order looks completely different to the old, where you've got the Middle east on the move, you've got the state of Israel being recognized, you've got China, you've got then war in Korea, which looks like confrontation between the so called west and the communist world that might be even worse than the Second World War. So having got to the euphoria of the end of the war in the Pacific and in Europe, it suddenly looks like something worse is coming. And the specter of communism and of nuclear war really concentrates minds. And that's quite a good moment, I think, to Be talking about new leadership, new vision, new interpretations, because the old people can't understand this. Kennedy is also trying to work out what works, what's popular, what messages land. So he goes and travels around Southeast Asia. He goes to look at places like Vietnam, travels to India, and when he comes back to the us he does have a kind of policy. I mean, it's not clear what the outcome should be. But he keeps saying it's not enough to just say the United States opposes Koimi. They have to offer something better to the people of the former colonies, in particular in Southeast Asia.
- [10:56]
Afwahash
I certainly think he has a better understanding than many of his contemporaries about how this works as an ideology that gives people hope. Whereas the American worldview is just good versus evil. American capitalism, good, Communism, evil. But another thing that's important here is that he's accompanied on these travels by his younger brother Bobby, who he didn't actually know that well because there's an eight year age gap. And this is the trip that he discovers. Bobby realizes that he's smart, he's loyal, he's naturally a political ally, that he's somebody that he really can have on his team. And that becomes a huge part of his presidency later on.
- [11:33]
Peter Frankopan
So his run for Senate is successful. He's elected a senator for Massachusetts in 1952. He's just 35 years old and again not for the first time nor the last. The winning margin is very slim. So he wins 51.5% of the vote compared to 48.5. But the key afraid to his success actually in that slim margin. It's not necessarily the working man. Who is it who swings the election for him?
- [11:58]
Afwahash
Never underestimate women. It's the female vote. The tea parties that we talked about, where he and his sisters sat down with women, had tea and cake, listened to them. 70,000 women go to those tea parties. Overall winning margin in the election.
- [12:14]
Peter Frankopan
Go on.
- [12:15]
Afwahash
70,737 votes.
- [12:18]
Peter Frankopan
Amazing, isn't it? So tight and so close. But you know, that's how politics works. You've got to work out where to win your votes and make sure they come out for you. But you also need to understand the machinery of a campaign. And that's where Bobby starts to really earn his spurs. Both in a sort of working relationship with his brother. That's going to be important. But in terms of understanding how campaigns really work and in particular getting the.
- [12:39]
Afwahash
Dirty work done, there's only one thing missing now. Yes, a good senator needs a wife. And popular wisdom says that the public like to trust a steady family man. Of course, appearance and reality are two different things. But it's firmly believed that Jack can't be seen to be this, as they called him at the time, quote, gay young bachelor. He needs to be seen to be a reliable husband and father. And he finds Jacqueline Bouvier.
- [13:09]
Peter Frankopan
Tell us a little bit about her, about Jackie O as she becomes Jackie.
- [13:12]
Afwahash
O as she will later become. She's a socialite from a wealthy Catholic family, and they do fall in love. People close to them feel that it is a genuine connection. And actually, in spite of that, when Jack proposes soon after winning the election, she doesn't give him an immediate answer. She instead fled to London to cover the coronation of Queen Elizabeth as a journalist, which is what she's doing at the time. So you can see how they're from similar worlds. But she is genuinely taken by him and feels that he would be a good husband. And I think she believes in his political vision as well. It's difficult to imagine she could fully anticipate what the reality of being his wife would be.
- [13:56]
Peter Frankopan
There's a sort of cynicism, too, from her side. You know, her father had been a very successful businessman, lost lots of money in the Great Depression, had hit the bottle. Her mother had remarried one of the Standard Oil heirs, so very wealthy, but had also, not unlike Jack Kennedy, been trained, that you're looking for somebody who can form a partnership with. It's not just a romantic life. It's not just about who you're going to be happy with. It's about something that is more transactional.
- [14:23]
Afwahash
September 1953. Newport, Rhode Island. Standing in the doorway of her stepfather's mansion, Jackie smiles and extends a weary hand to yet another dignitary. Looking over Jack's shoulder, she can finally see the end of the receiving line, which earlier snaked across the front lawn. They've been welcoming their 900 reception guests for almost two hours. The lawns are covered with tables strewn with flowers, silverware, and expensive china. This is far from the small, intimate wedding she wanted. As the line ends, Jack chats with the speaker of the House of Representatives, and she catches Joe Senior's eye. He raises his glass to her. This wedding isn't about what she wants. It's a political move from two powerful families. Carrying her heavy sk, she joins her bridesmaids. The traditional dress is another concession to Joe Senior. With embroidered flowers, fitted bodice and full skirt gives her the silhouette of a Southern belle. Jackie had considered wearing something sleeker, more fashionable, but jo and tradition Won out. Surrounded by the excited chatter of her friends, she can't take her eyes off her new husband as Jack is greeted by his groomsmen. She sees them laugh raucously as their eyes land on a pretty young female guest. Her high profile wedding will have other benefits. She's well aware of Jack's reputation with the ladies. Now the whole world will know that he is off the market. Jackie smiles for the photographer, snapping pictures for Life magazine as everyone takes their seat. She adjusts the boning in her corset as she sits next to Jack, who tucks straight into his fruit salad served in a pineapple. She reaches for her husband's hand as they exchange a private smile. In just a few hours, they'll be jetting off to Mexico on honeymoon and their new lives as Mr. And Mrs. Kennedy can really begin.
- [16:38]
Peter Frankopan
Well, you know, it's the wedding of the year. Pictures are in newspapers across the country, thousands of fans outside the church. The wedding is performed by an archbishop. A blessing is read up by the Pope. It's just like a coronation, says one guest. Life magazine calls them Washington's best looking and prettiest couple. And you know, it all looks like it's perfect.
- [16:58]
Afwahash
And on honeymoon in Acapulco, Jack sends a very sweet telegram home to his parents, saying, at last I know the true meaning of rapture. Jackie is enshrined forever in my heart. Thanks mom and dad for making me worthy of her. If only that lasted.
- [17:15]
Peter Frankopan
Well, there are problems pretty much as soon as the honeymoon is finished. One friend says that after the first year, Jackie can be found wandering around looking like the survivor of an airplane crash. Jack often goes abroad, traveling to the Mediterranean, and he's rarely sleeping alone. And in fact, he's caught on tape at his younger brother's wedding, whispering to the groom, saying, being married doesn't really mean you have to be faithful to your wife. So it's not great if you're Jackie. And then on top of that, she has a miscarriage in the summer of 1956. So, you know, the womanizing, the selfishness, the doing things on his own, it's not great for your personal life.
- [17:52]
Afwahash
And Jackie, perhaps as retaliation, becomes a profligate spender. This is within the relative wealth of these families, even by those standards. Jack complains about how much money she's spending. You can't help but wonder if that was really the only outlet she had to vent her frustration and do something that frustrated him.
- [18:13]
Peter Frankopan
Well, her mother had said, power and money equals happiness. That's a pretty Good sort of idea of where she's come from.
- [18:20]
Afwahash
Depressing. Why is Jack so unfaithful? What do you think?
- [18:23]
Peter Frankopan
I don't know. We talked about it in the first episode and about whether partly influence of his, what he'd seen his father doing, part of it of overcoming his own physical frailties. But there must be a degree of loneliness. You're looking for something. It looks like someone who doesn't know themselves very well, that you're looking for comfort in the arms of somebody new every time.
- [18:42]
Afwahash
I love this quote from the Kennedy family biographers Peter Collier and David Horowitz, who said it was less an assertion than a search for self, an existential pinch on the arm to prove he was still there. He is scared of dying. He feels his mortality and his frailty all the time. It's almost a way of proving that he is a man. He has power that he can conquer while all that is going on behind closed doors to the outside world. This looks like a magical marriage of two people living the American dream, which.
- [19:17]
Peter Frankopan
Is a great recipe advert whatever you want for moving up the next rung of the ladder, and that's to get foot in the White House door. So he lobbies and tries quite hard to get a nomination as Vice president for Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign of 1956, which he doesn't get. But it turns out to be a stroke of luck. Stevenson gets absolutely hammered in the election, fighting against Eisenhower, who's the general who'd led the United States army in Europe to victory. And Jack is left untainted by the defeat on top of that. Again, a bonus is that Bobby Kennedy follows the Stevenson campaign around and gets in the hair and annoys the Stevenson campaign because they can't understand why he's there, what he's doing, but he's learning about what a good campaign looks like. And perhaps more importantly, Bobby Kennedy learns what a bad campaign looks like. And the main takeaway that he has is that Stevenson is not able to connect with the common man and woman. He's not able to deliver a message in a way that is sufficiently engaging and that's really helpful. Another thing that is important in getting the Democratic nomination next time is about civil liberties. Tell us halfwell a bit about the civil rights situation in the late 50s in the US and how Jack Kennedy fits into that story.
- [20:30]
Afwahash
If you've been listening to the series so far, you will not have heard a single mention of race in America. The fact that this was an era of absolute terror for black people and that's partly because Jack was growing up in a world of total privileged whiteness. He would not have socialized or interacted with black people except staff. He was completely disconnected. Just like he was disconnected from the financial struggles of ordinary Americans during the Great Depression. He was completely disconnected from the reality of racial violence for African Americans. But yet this is an era where that struggle is really reaching its climax. At Little Rock In Arkansas in 1957, Eisenhower had to send in one of the US's most famous airborne units just to ensure nine black students could attend a previously desegregated school. Just before that, in 1954, the famous Supreme Court case Brown vs Board of Education had ended formal segregation in the school system, which meant that black children were now being bussed into white schools, but not without huge resistance in the south from white people who didn't want integration. They didn't want their children going to school with black children. They didn't want to share public services or restaurants or transport with black people. And because this is after the Second World War where hundreds of thousands of African Americans had served, had lost their lives, and had also experienced the reality of fighting against fascism in Europe that was based on similarly racist ideas, they came back to an America with so much less tolerance of the idea that in their own country they should be treated like that. Why were they fighting Hitler over his racist ideas when they were being treated the same way in their own country? This is the era where black people increasingly take action in an organized way, especially across the South. Leaders like Martin Luther King are emerging. And all of these Jim Crow era laws that formally segregate that deny black people voting rights, that completely institutionalize violence and give immunity from prosecution to organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, many of whom are embedded with local police and government. And for jfk, there's an additional issue that the Democratic Party in the south is associated with some of the most white supremacist political leaders of the time. That many of the Democratic votes in the south rest on upholding those racist laws. So this is not a party that is standing for racial progress in any clear cut way. And black leaders have had enough.
- [23:04]
Peter Frankopan
It's so fascinating, the discussions around race identity in this time in the United States because Kennedy himself has a slightly different Achilles heel of being a Catholic. Would you expect him to find sympathy because the discrimination is something that comes towards him too?
- [23:20]
Afwahash
Yeah, I think this is. It's such an interesting case study in how you can experience unfair oppression, but also not be alert to the unfair oppression that other people are experiencing for different reasons. His Catholicism is a real bar in life. He's so privileged that even at Choate, this elite boarding school, even at Harvard, this elite university, there are private members clubs he's barred from joining because he's Catholic. So you can be privileged and suffering discrimination at the same time. And it's a bit hard to imagine now. And I have to say I didn't realize how big a problem being Catholic was perceived to be in mid 20th century America. There was this sense that a president who was Catholic could never really serve America because he'd always be in the pocket of the Pope in Rome. And lots of evangelical and Protestant Christians stoked those ideas that Catholics couldn't really be trusted, that it was somehow un American.
- [24:13]
Peter Frankopan
So in fact, when Kennedy's campaigning for the Democrat nomination, Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS newsman, asks Jack on air if being a Catholic was hurting his campaign. And Jack decides to address it full on. And in 1959, April, he addresses it while campaigning in West Virginia. And he says, nobody asked me if I was Catholic when I joined the US Navy. Nobody asked my brother if he was a Catholic before he climbed into an American bomber plane to fly his last mission. And although he's not saying it, that's the same for every single African American serviceman.
- [24:41]
Afwahash
Exactly.
- [24:42]
Peter Frankopan
You'd think if you can say a comment like that, that you would understand that all Americans must be equal, not just in front of the law, but in front of the Lord.
- [24:48]
Afwahash
It's important to say that there are, by the way, lots of Irish Catholics in America who have been allies to the black struggle. But there are also lots of people who experience anti Semitism or anti Catholicism who had a complete blind spot for the struggles of black. One doesn't automatically lead to the other. And that's not an accident. That's how race works. It was designed to stop people who should share a common interest uniting and overturning systems of power. It was designed to divide and rule, and it works. So I think that Jack is a victim of that, especially at this stage. And I do think later some of that passion and that sense of justice will serve wider civil rights causes, but not yet.
- [25:29]
Peter Frankopan
So in July 1960, Jack Kennedy secures the nomination at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. He beats Lyndon Johnson, who he quickly appoints as his running mate, which is quite a shrewd choice because Johnson is an old school Deep Souther who's going to bring much of Texas and the south with him. And those are crucial numbers. And then Jack accepts the nomination, stepping out at the LA Coliseum in front of 80,000 people. But it's also the millions more who are watching on tv. And he delivers one of his first great and famous speeches.
- [26:00]
John F. Kennedy
I stand here tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. The pioneers gave up their safety, their comfort, and sometimes their lives to build our new West. And we stand today on the edge of a new frontier, the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. The new frontier is not a set of promises. It is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer to the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. A choice between the public interest and private comfort, between national greatness and national decline. A whole world looks to see what we shall do.
- [26:55]
Afwahash
That gives you a sense of what Jack is offering America, a new leader to take them across a new frontier. But before he can do that, he'll have to, unfortunately, inconveniently beat the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, a man with much more political experience, with impressive foreign policy credentials, who enjoys strong conservative support and has, even by Kennedy standards, unmatched fundraising abilities.
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- [28:55]
Peter Frankopan
So it's Jack Kennedy against Richard Nixon and the prize is the White House. The candidates are neck and neck in the polls to start with. Everything suggests it's going to be a tight fight. But Nixon has, as you mentioned, for lots of advantages. He's vice President, he sat in the White House. Not just that. Eisenhower had a heart attack in the mid-50s and Nixon had basically to play the role of president in Eisenhower's place while he was recovering and got credit at the time for not having tried to take power for himself. Which tells you something about the risks when you have a president, a vice president kicking off. But Kennedy has to fight off slightly predictable attacks, like the fact that he's too young, his Catholicism, his sketchy political record and rumors about his health.
- [29:39]
Afwahash
It's interesting. What's not a problem, and that's womanizing. Even though it's widely known, the fact that he has frequent affairs. Journalists know all about it, but they see it as off limits. It's a boys club. It's what men do. And it's not seen as relevant to his political image. But Jack does have a big advantage and he has emerged at just the right time to be able to use it to full effect.
- [30:08]
Peter Frankopan
It's September 26, 1960, Chicago. In the CBS studios. Bobby stands off camera, taking in the sparse set, two chairs either side of the presenter who sits behind a desk in front of them, just four reporters. He tries not to think about the 70 million people watching at home, or about the fact that Jack has ditched the speechwriter's address in favour of writing his own. Patting his brother jovially on the back, Bobby holds his breath as he watches Jack take his seat as the makeup artist darts in to give the two candidates a final flourish. Jack is dusted with powder. Bobby watches Nixon waving away the makeup artist and her loaded brush. Everything is set. Bobby has managed every last detail of Jack's campaign, but this, head to head, is a big gamble. The last time Nixon gave a speech on national tv, it was a huge success. Jack is the upstart with everything to prove. Bobby wipes his brow as he thinks through the many things that could go wrong. He worked tirelessly to keep Jack's ill health hidden. Will a dusting of powder be enough to convince the American public that Jack is fit for office? 30 seconds. Bobby steps back as the floor manager counts down to going live. Shaking the tension from his hands, he looks over the shoulder of the TV crew to see Jack on the screen. In his dark suit with his legs crossed, his brother looks smart, but he. When they cut to Nixon in his pale gray suit, he looks uncomfortable. Bobby heard that Nixon is carrying an injury to his knee. It's making him sit hunched forward. Jack walks confidently across to the lectern to make his address, silently mouthing along his brother's words. Bobby's breath starts to deepen as he realizes it's going well. Looking straight down the lens, Jack is reaching out to the millions of viewers at home, while Nixon's eye line bounces uncomfortably around the screen. And then Bobby notices Nixon's team in hushed, panic conversation. And he sees that Nixon's face on screen looks pallid and shiny. Bobby watches sweat bead on Nixon's chin. And that's when he realizes Jack is going to win this TV debate. That was the kind of the first time that TV really played a role in shifting people's opinions. And you can't feel that Nixon was a little bit unlucky.
- [32:46]
Afwahash
He was not made for TV debates against Jack Kennedy, who is, as the scene showed, so much more comfortable, better looking, at ease, personable. It's interesting, though, because neither of them were very experienced at tv. It just seems like Jack was really a natural.
- [33:02]
Peter Frankopan
So Nixon's eye line, one of the reasons it kept moving is he kept trying to look at the reporters, talking to them.
- [33:07]
Afwahash
That's what he's used to doing.
- [33:08]
Peter Frankopan
That's what you're used to doing rather than the tv. So not understanding the new media, some of it was. He'd chosen a gray suit, so he's blurred against the background. He injured his knee and had to go to hospital and got infected. And on his way to the studios that day, he'd banged it again. So he was obviously in a bit of pain. And sometimes things can just go wrong. In fact, interestingly, people listening on the radio thought the Nixon had done the better job. I suppose the takeaway from it is that the telegenic, the good looks, the confidence, those skills and those charms we talked about help make Kennedy sellable to the American public.
- [33:42]
Afwahash
Not much has changed in terms of how influential. Not even those debates, those moments. It just takes a clippable moment in the debate or a really resonant image to win or lose an entire campaign for a candidate. Although just to slightly counter what we've been saying, it's not a landslide. The difference in their effectiveness in the televisual medium doesn't decisively give the presidency to Kennedy. It's very close.
- [34:10]
Peter Frankopan
It's tiny.
- [34:11]
Afwahash
Yeah. Kennedy wins by less than 120,000 votes out of 69 million. So he gets 49.72% of the vote. It's the smallest winning margin in America since 1883.
- [34:25]
Peter Frankopan
Okay, so those small margins and his religion, his stance on civil rights, his youth, his wealth, the noise around the Kennedy family, those are cards that somehow fade away by just enough to get him into the White House.
- [34:37]
Afwahash
And now that he's in, there is a new era of oratory. And his victory speech on 20th of January, 1961, freezing cold day in Washington as he sworn in as the 35th President of the United States, is one of the classic speeches of the 20th century, one of the classic political speeches of history.
- [34:59]
John F. Kennedy
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility. I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
- [35:58]
Peter Frankopan
It is a great speech. I'd vote for that. No question. Maybe sometimes political speeches, how they make you feel is more important than what they actually say. If you take them apart, definitely.
- [36:08]
Afwahash
It's also a left field in a way to call on Americans to think about public service. We are entering the era of peak capitalism, of peak consumerism, demanding a better life. This sense of history moving forward and favoring America. This is an interesting time to say that people should not be putting themselves first and should be thinking about what they can give more than what they could get. I think it's not without risk to demand that America still not suffered in the way that Europe did in the Second World War, but has a sense of suffering and loss. And to say that we will take any hardship, we will bear any burden is not necessarily an easy thing for people to hear. So I think that there was courage in saying that. He said it with conviction.
- [36:53]
Peter Frankopan
And what about that line, which I just think is one of the most, not just famous, but the most important and most compelling lines that any leader in the modern age has ever said, which is, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. I mean, I can't think of a better way to encapsulate or frame the kind of relationship between the state and the individual.
- [37:12]
Afwahash
It's so simple, as all the best oratorical devices are. It's simple, but it's powerful. And it has a transformative effect on how he's perceived. Having just won the election by a sliver, the narrowest of margins, now he's polling a 75% approval rate, and he.
- [37:33]
Peter Frankopan
Brings in a whole set of reforms. So he starts to use executive orders to make immediate changes. That's a way in which presidents can bypass Congress. Some people think that's an abuse of power, because the whole point of Congress is to get things done, Although in fact, in reality, that's where bills get bogged down and never move. But he's not afraid to do that. He starts to move on civil rights. He ends discrimination in the hiring of federal employees, increases the number of African Americans employees by the state. He refuses federal contracts to firms that fail to offer equal opportunity. He asks his cabinet to open up opportunities for African Americans across departments. And that's a game changer, isn't it?
- [38:13]
Afwahash
It is. And it's important to point out that the economy is actually in a pretty bad place as he takes office. Bankruptcies are at their highest level since the Great depression. There are 5.5 million people unemployed. That's 7% of the workforce. There is real work to do. And I think that's part of this approval that people want a president who's going to act, who's going to be seen to be decisive, to use their executive power to do something. That's exactly what he does.
- [38:41]
Peter Frankopan
But it's not long until the first real crisis arrives. And that plays into the dread of being seen to be soft on communism or an appeaser. Cuba is just 100 miles off the coast of Florida. It's long been one of the most important political and economic parts of the Caribbean, but in the 1950s, falls to Fidel Castro in effectively a revolution that sees Castro and the hard left take power and generates huge amount of anxiety in the United States.
- [39:08]
Afwahash
There is very little interest or curiosity or even thought in the American government at this point about why Cubans might support Castro. Of course, he had opponents, he had enemies. All of these Cuban exiles in Florida and especially Miami, who have lost their land, their wealth, their status as a result of the revolution. But there are also millions of people in Cuba who have endured centuries of brutal colonialism. And what JFK's government are not doing is really trying to understand how Cubans feel about Castro. What they're doing is seeing him as part of this geopolitical puzzle. This battle that they're in against the Soviet influence and of course seeing it as a threat on their doorsteps. So close.
- [39:56]
Peter Frankopan
So there is a plan that Eisenhower's administration has developed that basically Kennedy takes off the shelf. The plan is to train up some Cuban exiles in secret, land them on the island. Certainly the locals will all rise up to support them. Castro will be overthrown, problem solved, and it'll be a great foreign policy success for the us.
- [40:15]
Afwahash
And crucially, I think the CIA are huge supporters of this plan. They have personally been training these Cuban exiles in Florida. They have been conspiring to turn this invasion of Cuba into the solution to get rid of Castro. They are pressuring Kennedy hard that this will be quick, effective, it will get rid of the problem of Soviet backed Cuba on their doorstep and that any delay will lose this golden window of opportunity to deal with the problem once and for all.
- [40:46]
Peter Frankopan
So Kennedy decides to give the go ahead. The landings start on 17 April, but they are an immediate disaster. There's no local uprising and Castro's forces are stronger than expected. People are dying.
- [40:59]
Afwahash
And because Castro's forces are so much stronger than expected, the CIA and the military tell Kennedy he must send in U.S. troops. That invasion is the only option. Planes, ships, the works. Full scale invasion. We can't afford to fail, they tell him. We must crush this communist threat. So what will JFK do?
- [41:28]
Unknown
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- [41:50]
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- [42:49]
Peter Frankopan
Rocket money.com wondery midnight April 19, 1961 Washington, D.C. in full evening dress, Jack rushes through the corridors of the White House from the white tie reception he's been hosting. Accompanied by his VP Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State, they enter the sparsely decorated cabinet room. Sitting around the large wooden table, Jack loosens his tie and nods as his military advisors, General Lemnitzer and Admiral Burke, enter in dress uniform. Okay, what have you got for me? Asks Jack. Tired and unwell, there's no time for niceties. Lemnitzer and Burke launch into an explanation of how badly things are going in Cuba. Jack sighs. The whole debacle has been a disaster. And what's worse is that Jack knew that from the start. Why did he ever listen to these men? His stomach rumbles. Jack has been on a puree diet for days now. Suffering. Suffering with acute diarrhea and a urinary tract infection. He's got an invasive rectal exploration to look forward to. Probably more fun than this meeting. Admiral Burke leans forward and offers his solution to the mess. Let me take two jets and shoot down the enemy aircraft. Jack sighs. Not this again. He's been receiving conflicting advice on Cuba for months now. Burke wants to shoot down Castro's planes and send a destroyer to shell his tanks. Jack has repeatedly told them he won't engage, but no one is listening. He's reminded of his war days and how unimpressed he was with military leaders back then. Is he going to blindly follow their advice now? Sighing, he makes his decision. Leaning forward, he stabs his finger into the table. No. I told you if it came to this, what my answer would be. For a brief, fleeting moment, Jack enjoys the look of shock on their faces. He knows that whatever public embarrassment he will personally face, there are men on the ground who are paying a heavier price. Giving authorization for an hour of air cover under the order not to engage in air combat or to attack grand targets. He gets up to leave. No more discussion. Jack knows tomorrow he will face more difficult questions. Tonight he's asking himself, how did he let it get this far? It's a perfect failure, fwa.
- [45:22]
Afwahash
It really is. You could not have messed it up more badly if you tried. So the 1,400 Cuban exiles who land at the Bay of Pigs, 1,200 are forced to surrender and 100 are killed. It's a huge gift for Castro. It's embarrassing for the US and it shows for Castro's purposes that he is this plucky revolutionary leader under threat from these colonial bullies. And this hits Kennedy hard and he asks himself, how could I have been so stupid?
- [45:56]
Peter Frankopan
Tell us, Ephwa, about interventions in other parts of the world. The Bay of Pigs gets a lot of attention, partly because it's such a disaster. But at this time, the CIA are incredibly dynamic and self confident, thinking that they can influence the world to shape it into American image, particularly in places like Africa.
- [46:14]
Afwahash
That's a very flattering way of putting it. They're incredibly nefarious and conducting numerous illegal, completely immoral activities to the detriment of the actual global security. So it's interesting when you think about the CIA, which was founded by President Truman to collect intelligence to inform the President. That was initially their goal. By now they have turned into an organization that is planning and executing all kinds of COVID activities to undermine regimes they don't like. And they're completely out of control. They've tried to assassinate Castro by giving him a poison diving suit, poisoned cigars. They asked.
- [46:49]
Peter Frankopan
My favorite one, afa, was the plan to spray LSD while he was giving because he gave very long speeches, much longer than any episode of one of our podcasts, to spray with lsd. So he started rambling, which we would never do, I'd never do, talking erratically, as we would also never do. But what about other parts of the world too?
- [47:04]
Afwahash
So this is the era. Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic first independent president of Congo, had been assassinated just weeks before Kennedy took office. This is the era of decolonization. Many, many African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American countries are coming out from European colonial rule. And now they have agency and sovereignty. They can choose whether they want to align themselves with the Soviets or with America. And in many cases, these leaders like Lumumba in Congo or Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, they didn't have a particular allegiance to either east or West. What they wanted were partners who would help them develop from the underdevelopment of colonialism. So Lumumba, for example, came to America asking for help from the Eisenhower administration, and yet they cast him as a Soviet, as somebody who posed a security threat to America. And actually the CIA conspired to keep Eisenhower from meeting Lumumba because it would have jeopardized their whole narrative that this guy was a threat. And this is what was being repeated all over the world. There's now evidence that the CIA didn't necessarily pull the trigger that led to the deaths of many of these leaders, but was deeply involved in planning for them to be deposed in coups, for them to be assassinated or created, the conditions in the country that would lead to them being pushed out of office. And they would then help install America friendly regimes who often turned out to be the most brutal, long lasting dictatorships on the African continent. So the CIA is doing things that would be difficult to believe if they were made up.
- [48:37]
Peter Frankopan
And there are parallels there of course with places like Iran where something similar happens in 1953 again before Kennedy, but with the CIA engineering a sequence of events that ultimately leads to the chain that gets Ayatollah Khomeini installed in 1979. So these things have long term consequences. Then almost immediately, just a month afterwards, Kennedy faces another violent crisis. And this one is closer to home. The Freedom Rides are interstate bus trips by student activists, black and white. They're designed to test Supreme Court rulings which ban segregation in interstate transportation facilities. The first ride is in May 1961, and once they hit the Deep south, the violence begins. First in South Carolina and then in Alabama where the Ku Klux Klan are given the green light by local authorities to attack without fear of arrest.
- [49:25]
Afwahash
17Th of May 1961, Birmingham, Alabama. 21 year old student Catherine Burks clasps her crocheted handbag tightly as she listens to Reverend Shuttlesworth sat in the whites only waiting room of the bus station. She can feel the unfriendly glares directed at her and her friends. Is she really going to do this? As soon as she heard that violence violent attacks had derailed the first Freedom Riders, she knew she had to help the protests continue. A senior at Tennessee State University, she traveled with friends from Nashville to Birmingham to carry on the rides. All she has to do now is get on the bus. Striding past the press photographers in her smart checkered skirt suit, she holds her head high as they head to the vehicle. She tries not to think about the violent gangs gathering at bus stations, ready to intercept them, or how the police commissioner of this very city has held back police assistance, allowing the mob time to attack. Hands shaking, she mounts the stairs of the bus and takes a seat near the front. Sinking down into the plush leather upholstery, she smiles at the man sitting down next to her. White student James Spegg is the fellow freedom rider. Catherine feels the seat vibrating and notices James leg is shaking with fear. The simple act of sitting together could put both their lives in danger. She remembers joking that she only joined the non violent action group to keep an eye on her boyfriend. Now she's sitting on A bus heading straight for an angry mob of racist thugs. The sensible thing to do would be to not get involved. Like President Kennedy, so far, his presidency has been a masterclass in ignoring civil rights, too worried about alienating his supporters in the South. A decorated war hero running scared. Kennedy's inability to take action is infuriating. And Catherine is fed up of waiting for things to change. The President might be too scared to take action. She isn't opening her handbag. She offers SVEG Mint. As the bus pulls off, Catherine tries not to think about what lies ahead.
- [51:42]
Peter Frankopan
It's just horrific. This is only 60 years ago. The Beatles are playing England, are about to win the World cup football not that long ago. And yet this discrimination, it's genuinely unbelievable. So the riders, the seven men and three women, arrive in Birmingham, where they are arrested. Catherine and the other black Freedom Riders are driven back to the county boundary by Eugene Bull O'Connor, with Catherine joking that she'll see him in Birmingham. James Zweig, who'd sat next to her, continues on to Montgomery, where he is beaten and then hospitalised. When Catherine and the others are released, Greyhound then say that they don't have a driver to take them any further. And when the bus does eventually go on, thanks to an intervention by Bobby Kennedy, the promised police escort promptly disappears. Among those beaten is John Siegenthaler, a Justice Department representative and Kennedy advisor sent to accompany them. That's an attempt by Bobby Kennedy to show both sides where government support lies. Let them know we care is what he said.
- [52:40]
Afwahash
It's not enough. And the situation escalates rapidly. Martin Luther King, who actually initially opposed the Freedom Rides, he didn't think that it was the right approach, but now that they've come under such vicious attacks, is fully in support of their protest and he calls for urgent federal intervention. And it's just a day later, on Sunday, 21 May, that the church he's headed to in Montgomery is surrounded by a white mob. And King rings Bobby Kennedy, who hurries federal marshals to the church. They have to use tear gas to keep this white mob at bay from attacking those inside the church, who end up being escorted out by marshals before dawn. The Freedom Rides continue for the rest of the summer and many of the riders are arrested, many are attacked. Catherine Birx, who you heard about in that scene, continued to volunteer and ended up marrying another fellow freedom Rider, Paul Brooks, and only died last year, age 83. Just really making the point of how much this is in living memory. And when the Freedom Riders went to Washington, D.C. after these protests. They asked to meet the president, JFK, and he refused to meet them.
- [53:58]
Peter Frankopan
Well, it's worse than that, because as well as refusing to meet them, his brother speaks to Ralph Abernath, who's one of the Freedom Riders, and tells him and his fellow Freedom Riders to stop embarrassing the United States in front of the rest of the world. And in fact, is deaf to the situation. He says rather than trying to understand or empathize or fix, he says, I've done more for civil rights than any president in US History. How can any man have done more than I've done? That's. That tells you. Yeah, but the civil rights legacy of Kennedy is one of the areas where his champions say Kennedy was ahead of history on this, that he was trying to make the world a better place. He tried to end discrimination. He did implement some policies, particularly when he became president, but you don't have any sympathy for that. Afua.
- [54:44]
Afwahash
I think he does end up having an impact. But it's important to remember that when he was needed, when he was called upon to take a stance, when all of these white Americans and black Americans who are living with this are putting their lives on the line, he is not only not backing them, he's actively ambivalent. Martin Luther King said that he believed that JFK understood the issue, but that moral passion was missing. And it's not just that at this time as well, JFK is appointing judges in Southern circuits that he knows to be racist. So he definitely doesn't get to be remembered as somebody who always stood on the side of justice. I do think he gets there eventually. But as Martin Luther King kept saying, the time is now. Black people don't have time to wait another day for more people to die or more people beaten or stopped from living their lives because the President doesn't want to offend Southern Democrats. So I feel strongly that he didn't show himself to have deep moral conviction on the issue at this time when it was needed.
- [55:47]
Peter Frankopan
So he's barely been in office for four months, but already Kennedy's problems are mounting. The bear pigs was a fiasco, and the civil rights strife in the south just won't go away, no matter how much he wishes it to. And he's not doing anything to accelerate that at all.
- [56:03]
Afwahash
It's on the international stage that he really wants to make his mark. And June 1961 sees an opportunity to do just that. There's to be a summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Here's Kennedy's chance to show himself as the leader of the free world, the leader he suggested he'd be in that brilliant inauguration address. But not everyone will be impressed. That's next time on Legacy. Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey.
- [57:30]
Peter Frankopan
From.
- [57:31]
Afwahash
Wondering goalhanger this is the second episode in our series about JFK.
- [57:35]
Peter Frankopan
A quick note about our dialogue we can't know everything that was said or done behind closed doors, particularly when we go far back in history, but our scenes are written using the best available sources, so even if a scene or conversation has been recreated for dramatic effect, it's still based on biographical research.
- [57:52]
Afwahash
We've used many sources for this series, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and education Institute and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Archive. Audio is courtesy of Getty Images. Legacy is hosted by ME Afwahash and ME Peter Frankopan. Scene writing by Kirsty Smith for Goalhanger.
- [58:10]
Peter Frankopan
Our series producers are Kate Taylor and Anoushka Lewis. Robin Scott Elliott is Associate producer. Our production managers producers are Izzy Reid and Alex Hack Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pasta and Jack Davenport.
- [58:23]
Afwahash
Legacy is sound designed and engineered by Phil Brown.
- [58:26]
Peter Frankopan
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Fritz and Sync.
- [58:29]
Afwahash
Our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Quinotti Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [58:34]
Peter Frankopan
Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis.