Killing Kennedy (5 page)

*   *   *

Less than six months after the war ends, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of ten candidates running in the Democratic primary of Boston’s Eleventh Congressional District. The veteran politicians and ward bosses of the deeply partisan city don’t give him a chance of winning. But JFK studies each ward in the district, reveling in his role as the underdog. He recruits a well-connected fellow World War II veteran named Dave Powers to help run his campaign. Powers, a rising political star in his own right, is at first reluctant to help the skinny young man who introduces himself by saying, “My name is Jack Kennedy. I’m a candidate for Congress.”

But then Powers watches in awe as Kennedy stands before a packed Legion hall on a cold Saturday night in January 1946 and gives a dazzling campaign speech. The occasion is a meeting of Gold Star Mothers, women who have lost sons in World War II. Kennedy speaks for only ten minutes, telling the assembled ladies why he wants to run for office. The audience cannot see that his hands shake anxiously. But they hear his well-chosen words as he reminds them of his own war record and explains why their sons’ sacrifice was so meaningful, speaking in an honest, sincere voice about their bravery.

Then Kennedy pauses before softly referring to his fallen brother, Joe: “I think I know how all you mothers feel. You see, my mother is a Gold Star Mother, too.”

Women surge forth as the speech concludes. Tears in their eyes, they reach out to touch this young man who reminds each of them of the sons they lost, telling him that he has their support. In that instant, Dave Powers is convinced. He goes to work for “Jack” Kennedy right then and there, forming the core of what will become known as Kennedy’s “Irish Mafia.” It is Dave Powers who seizes on PT-109 as a vital aspect of the campaign, mailing voters a reprint of a story about that August night in 1943 to show the selfless bravery of a wealthy young man for whom some might otherwise not be inclined to vote.

Thanks to Dave Powers’s insistence on making the most of PT-109, John F. Kennedy is elected to Congress.

*   *   *

During his first months as president, the coconut on which Kennedy carved the rescue note is a reminder of the incident that started him on his path to the White House.

The coconut is also a daily reminder that JFK owes the presidency, in part, to the sharp political intuition of Dave Powers. The tall Boston native, five years JFK’s senior, has been on the Kennedy payroll since that January night in 1946. As special assistant to the president, he is not a cabinet member, or even an official adviser—just a very close friend who always seems to anticipate the president’s needs and whose company the always-loyal JFK enjoys immensely. Powers has been described as the president’s “jester in residence,” and it’s true: his official capacity in the White House is largely social. Dave Powers is willing to do anything for John Kennedy.

But even Dave Powers, with his remarkable powers of intuition, cannot possibly know what “anything” means—nor can he predict that even as he witnessed John Kennedy’s first-ever political speech, he will also witness his last.

2

F
EBRUARY 1961

T
HE
W
HITE
H
OUSE

1:00 P.M.

The president of the United States is naked, and on schedule. Almost every afternoon, at precisely 1:00
P.M.,
he slips into the indoor pool—always heated to a therapeutic ninety degrees—located between the White House and the West Wing. John Kennedy does this to soothe his aching back, a problem for him ever since he was a student at Harvard. His ordeal with the
Amagiri
exacerbated his back problems, and he has even endured surgery—to no avail. The pain is constant and so excruciating that Kennedy often uses crutches or a cane to get around, though rarely in public. He wears a corset, sleeps on an extra-firm mattress, and receives regular injections of the anesthetic procaine to ease his suffering. Aides know to look for a tightening of his jaw as a sign that the president’s back is acting up. The half hour of breaststroke and the heat of the pool are part of Kennedy’s therapy. His lack of a bathing suit for many of those swims stems from his notion of manliness. Real men do the breaststroke au naturel, and that’s that.

The White House staff could never imagine the previous president, Dwight Eisenhower, swimming naked anywhere, anytime. The elderly general and his wife, Mamie, were as traditional as they come. Very little unexpected happened in the White House during the eight years the Eisenhowers lived there.

But now everything has changed. The Kennedys are much less formal than the Eisenhowers. Smoking is allowed in the staterooms. Receiving lines are being abolished, giving formal functions a more casual feel. The First Lady is having a stage set up in the East Room, to allow performances by some of America’s most notable musicians, such as cellist and composer Pablo Casals and singer Grace Bumbry.

Still, the White House is a serious place. The president’s daily schedule revolves around periods of intense work followed by restorative breaks. He rises each morning around seven and immediately begins reading the news of the day in bed, including dispatches from the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
, and the
Wall Street Journal
. Kennedy is a speed-reader, capable of absorbing twelve hundred words every sixty seconds. He is done with the newspapers in just fifteen minutes, and then moves on to a pile of briefing books covering events going on around the world.

The president then takes breakfast in bed. It is a substantial meal: orange juice, bacon, toast slathered in marmalade, two soft-boiled eggs, and coffee with cream. By and large, he is not a huge eater. He meticulously keeps his weight at or below 175 pounds. But he is a creature of habit and eats the same breakfast almost every day of the week.

Shortly before 8:00
A.M.,
Kennedy slips into the tub for a brief soak. In the bath, as he will throughout the day, he has a habit of tapping his right hand constantly, as if the hand is an extension of his active thought process.

The president is in the Oval Office at nine o’clock sharp. He sits back in his chair and listens as his appointments secretary, Ken O’Donnell, maps out his schedule. Throughout the morning, as Kennedy takes calls and listens to advisers brief him on what is happening in the rest of the world, he is interrupted by his handpicked staff. In addition to court jester Dave Powers and the quick-witted Kenny O’Donnell, son of the College of the Holy Cross’s football coach, there are men such as the bespectacled special assistant and Harvard history professor Arthur Schlesinger; Ted Sorensen, the Nebraska-born special counselor and adviser; and Pierre Salinger, the former child prodigy pianist who serves as press secretary.

President Kennedy and David Powers, his trusted aide and a member of the Kennedy White House’s “Irish Mafia” in 1961.
(Abbie Rowe, White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

With the exception of the president’s personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, the Kennedy White House is very much a fraternity, with every man deeply loyal to his charismatic leader. Conversation often lapses into the profane, as the president’s naval background lends truth to the saying “swears like a sailor.” “I didn’t call businessmen sons of bitches,” Kennedy once complained about being misquoted in the
New York Times
. “I called them pricks.”

The tone is courtlier when women are around. The president, for instance, never refers to his secretary as anything other than Mrs. Lincoln. But even then, crudeness can be camouflaged. Once, in his wife’s presence, Kennedy uses a version of the military’s phonetic alphabet to lash out at a newspaper columnist, referring to him as a “Charlie-Uncle-Nan-Tare.”

When the confused First Lady asks the president to explain, he deftly changes the subject.

*   *   *

Kennedy’s half-hour midday swim is an effective tonic for his pain, but sometimes he also uses the swimming sessions to conduct business, inviting staff and even members of the press to put in laps alongside him. The catch? They have to be naked, too. Dave Powers, a regular swimming partner, is quite used to it. For some on the White House staff, however, the scene is almost surreal.

Enigmatically, the president’s informal aquatic habits belie the fact that he is the polar opposite of his easygoing vice president. Lyndon Johnson is well-known for grabbing shoulders and slapping backs, but Kennedy keeps a physical distance between himself and other men. Unless he is campaigning, a chore he relishes, the president finds even the simple act of shaking hands to be a burden.

After swimming, Kennedy eats a quick lunch upstairs in the residence—perhaps a sandwich and possibly some soup. He then goes into his bedroom, changes into a nightshirt, and naps for exactly forty-five minutes. Other great figures in history such as Winston Churchill napped during the day. For Kennedy, it is a means of rejuvenation.

The First Lady wakes him up and stays with him to chat as he gets dressed. Then it’s back to the Oval Office, most nights working as late as 8:00
P.M.
His staff knows that after business hours, Kennedy often puts two feet up on his desk and casually tosses ideas back and forth with them. It is the president’s favorite time of the day.

When everyone has cleared out, Kennedy makes his way back upstairs to the family’s private quarters—often referred to as “the residence” or “the Mansion” by his staff—where he smokes an Upmann cigar, enjoys Ballantine scotch and water without ice, and prepares for his evening meal. Often, Jackie Kennedy puts together last-minute dinner parties, which the president tolerates.

Truth be told, JFK would rather be watching a movie. The White House theater can screen any film in the world, anytime the president wishes. His preferences are World War II flicks and Westerns.

Kennedy’s fixation on movies rivals his other favorite recreational pursuit: sex.

The president’s bad back does not discourage him from being romantically active, which is a good thing, because, as JFK once explained to a friend, he needed to have sex at least once a day or he would suffer awful headaches. He and Jackie keep separate bedrooms, connected by a common dressing room—which is not to say that John Kennedy limits his sexual relations to the First Lady. While happily married, he is far from monogamous.

*   *   *

The president’s philandering aside, unquestionably the biggest change between the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations is in the lady of the house. Jackie Kennedy, at thirty-one, is less than half the age of Mamie Eisenhower. The former First Lady was a grandmother while in the White House and a known penny-pincher who spent her downtime watching soap operas. By contrast, Jackie enjoys listening to bossa nova records and keeps fit by jumping on a trampoline and lifting weights. Like her husband, Jackie keeps her weight constant, a slim 120 pounds to compliment her 5-foot, 7-inch frame.

Her one true vice is her pack-a-day cigarette habit—either Salems or L&Ms—which she continues even throughout her pregnancies. As her husband does with his physical ailments, Jackie Kennedy keeps her smoking a secret—during the recent presidential campaign, an aide was charged with staying within arm’s reach with a lighted cigarette so Jackie could sneak a puff anytime she wanted.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, pictured here at a 1962 inaugural party, brought glamour to her role as First Lady.
(Abbie Rowe, White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

Jackie’s parents divorced before she was twelve, and she was raised in wealth and splendor by her mother, Janet. She attended expensive girls’ boarding schools and then Vassar College before spending her junior year in Paris. Upon her return to the United States, Jackie transferred to George Washington University, in D.C., where she got a diploma in 1951.

Throughout the First Lady’s developmental years, she was taught to be extremely private and to hold thoughts deep within herself. She likes to maintain “a certain quality of mystery about her,” a friend will later note. “People did not know what she was thinking or what she was doing behind the scenes—and she wanted to keep it that way.”