Surrounded by Enemies (23 page)

Although the dates do not perfectly line up with the seasons of the calendar, the nearly six months of intense drama in Washington, D.C. became known as the “winter of our discontent.” The phrase gained greatest traction when President Kennedy used it himself in a February 1, 1966 news conference, causing it to be immediately picked up by the press and the public, and applied retroactively to the constitutional crisis that culminated during the end of 1965 and beginning of 1966.

The nation was dealing with a great nor’easter blizzard that had unleashed fourteen inches of snow on Washington, D.C. from January 30 to 31, and up to two feet along much of the East coast. The weather had turned rapidly raw after the New Year, with snowdrifts forming and arctic air settling in and dropping temperatures into the teens.

President Kennedy had taken a question from Tom Wicker of the
New York Times
about the impact of the blizzard on transportation and the resulting effect on the economic recovery that everyone agreed was needed. Kennedy famously replied, “I’m just relieved, Tom, that the winter of our discontent you’re asking about is meteorological and not political.”

William Shakespeare coined the phrase, of course, in the first two lines of his play,
Richard III
: “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York.” But it was author John Steinbeck who had introduced the phrase into common parlance by using it as the title of his last published novel. The book was a meditation on morality in America, and had been reviewed widely in the first year of the Kennedy administration as an exploration of the cultural malaise of the 1960s and its far-ranging implications: social, familial and personal. John Kennedy had read the book and liked it.

In any case, after an excellent briefing on how the storm’s intense, drifting snow would keep roads closed for several more days, Kennedy discussed the restoration of crippled transportation lines and the by-products of a food shortage and rationing. He was at his best — less wonkish than President Bill Clinton would be in the 1990s, yet competent and reassuring.

The next question came from
Newsweek
’s Karl Fleming, who picked up on Kennedy’s metaphor, baited the President with the idea that “January came in mild and left with this blizzard. Do you think that’s a metaphor for impeachment?”

Kennedy pointed out that starting the year as the first President to stand impeached by the House of Representatives since Andrew Johnson was hardly “mild” and, if it was to be considered as such, he would not be looking forward to the upcoming Senate trial, where he believed he would find sufficient support to remain in office.

During the winter of 1966, as the country prepared itself emotionally for their President’s bad behavior to be fully explored and perhaps severely punished, in the U.S. Senate, journalists and Beltway insiders began using the term
Century Club
to refer to that legislative body. The term had a double meaning. Its primary usage came from the idea that it was almost a full century ago that President Andrew Johnson was impeached and his case sent to the Senate for trial. The secondary usage referred to the cozy little club of one hundred (since Alaska made it fifty states times two senators in 1959) that would be deciding the President’s fate.

To begin the proceedings, each senator took the following oath:

The trial began in the manner of an ordinary criminal trial, with the defense and the prosecution each allowed to give an opening statement. Both sides then presented and cross-examined witnesses and could introduce evidence. Senators could submit written questions or motions to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whom the Constitution placed on call throughout the procedure to clarify any points of law. A simple majority vote could overturn any of Chief Justice Warren’s decisions on matters of evidence or procedure. Clark Clifford once again represented the President.

Republicans overplayed their cards when they introduced framed photos that had surfaced of President Kennedy frolicking naked in the Lincoln bedroom with two naked and masked women. The photos had apparently been moved secretly for framing to the Mickelson Gallery, where they were found by Senate investigators, who had been tipped off by an anonymous source. All members of the Senate were allowed to see these and other similar exhibits in a closed evidence room. In the end, this probably offended a few senators enough to stick with the President, but it was not a decisive moment, not at this stage of the deliberations.

Realizing that they fought and lost the impeachment vote in the Judiciary Committee by arguing the facts, the President and the attorney general decided a change of tactics was needed. They had been stunned by the building chorus for the President to step down and spare the nation the trauma of a Senate trial that had the potential to embarrass the nation and, worse, to make public certain U.S. security procedures and private White House discussions. People wanted to see the entire mess go away.

Still, the President’s men decided they would fight in the Senate based on the big-picture assassination conspiracy, and attempt to make the vote about that, instead of the alleged crimes and misdemeanors the President may or may not have committed. They decided to go on the offensive yet again, as crusaders for justice and American principles.

The Kennedy brothers felt strongly that JFK’s best chance lay in the relationships he formed in the Senate in the 1950s. If the trial could be framed as a vote on the dangerous levels of power held by the nation’s intelligence community and military-industrial complex, they could win. They resolved to use the trial to do what the Warren Commission, JCAAP and the Oswald trial could not — shine an intense, unwavering light directly on the conspirators, and make them pay.

The longer John and Robert Kennedy fought the march to impeachment, the stronger their belief grew that history would record not the President’s personal failings and physical ailments, but instead would focus more on the profound menace to democracy that the conspiracy represented. That was the gamble they made.

Once again, the one-vote margin of control in the House of Representatives was up for grabs. On February 5, 1966, with two seats vacant, the GOP led the Democrats 217-216. That day, Democrats regained one seat, when Walter B. Jones won a special election in North Carolina’s First District. The House of Representatives was officially a 217-217 tie as a result, and would stay that way for three days.

On February 8, control of the House all came down to Republican Congressman John Lindsay’s seat in New York. If any Republican could be said to have a Kennedy’s looks and charisma, it was Lindsay, who had just used these natural advantages to get elected mayor of New York City. In the special congressional election to replace him, liberal Republican Theodore R. Kupferman was in a neck-and-neck race with liberal Democrat Orin Lehman. Under ordinary circumstances, both men would probably have voted the same on most issues. The main difference between them was that one of them would vote to organize with the GOP and the other with the Democrats.

Both parties threw everything they had into the New York race. For more than twenty years, it stood as the most expensive congressional campaign ever waged, adjusted for inflation, and featured television ad coverage that rivaled any presidential election. Both parties drafted their top vote-getters in the state to walk point. Governor Nelson Rockefeller campaigned nonstop for Kupferman, while Senators Jacob Javits and Kenneth Keating took turns doing the same for Lehman. The White House was silent at the request of the Democratic congressional committee.

As often happens in New York politics, fringe and third-party candidates can upset the mix, serving as game-changing anomalies. In this case, the wild-card was right-leaning journalist Jeffrey St. John of the Conservative Party. The pressure was so intense for St. John to throw his support to the Republican candidate, he literally checked into the Plaza Hotel under an assumed name to consider what to do. St. John somehow came down with food poisoning from room service (Republicans always blamed Democrats) and was not well enough to make any endorsement before the election. When the votes were in, Lehman had 47 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Kupferman and 7 percent for St. John. This tipped the House to the Democrats by the same margin Republicans had enjoyed all year, 218-217, making Massachusetts Congressman John McCormack the Speaker of the House by virtue of some undercooked chicken.

Seeing this in isolation, it is possible to say that while control of the House was a big deal for the two-party system in 1966, it had nothing to do with the political struggle being waged in the upper-house of the U.S. Senate. Yet, as it turned out, it had everything to do with it. The new Speaker of the House, John McCormack, was now in line to advance to the presidency instead of Gerald Ford if John Kennedy were to go, but only if the Democrats retained or expanded on their one-vote lead.

The so-called “clean-slaters” were Democrats who, while personally loyal to President Kennedy, had reached the conclusion that only his removal from office could wipe the slate clean and allow the party to still compete in the next election. The rise of this group was a recognition that the White House strategy seemed to be weakening by the day. At one point, President Kennedy had hoped to defeat the articles with a majority vote. Eventually his team came to realize they were playing for a lesser victory, depriving Republicans of passing the articles by the two-thirds vote requirement and, thus, staying in office. But to achieve even that much, the ranks of the clean-slaters had to remain small.

Senator Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) led a delegation of these political pragmatists to the White House. The group of Democratic senators were becoming vocal about the need for President Kennedy to step down so their party’s candidates would not be tarred in the upcoming midterm elections by the aftermath of an ugly Senate trial.

John Kennedy had argued with his advisers about even letting them come to visit. The media would cover it as an ultimatum. Bobby convinced him to hear them out on the theory that they might be bringing the outlines of a deal. Maybe the Senate could still be convinced to formally censure the President and allow him to remain in office.

The senators started the meeting over coffee in the Oval Office by agreeing with Kennedy’s stated position that the greatest crime had been done to the American nation by the forces that conspired to murder a sitting president. “We get a lot of mail here, senators,” said Kennedy, pointing to a pile of letters that had been arranged on a side table. “And most of it lately is from constituents who wonder how it works that someone tries to kill the President, but we put the target on trial.”

“What those evil men, those plotters with murder in their hearts, have done to their country can never be forgiven,” Morse agreed. In the end, though, Morse countered that the venality of the conspirators simply didn’t matter. They would be held accountable for their behavior but so, too, would Kennedy. The rule of law had to be maintained.

Morse, speaking from notes hammered out and agreed to in a caucus, stated that sufficient numbers of senators now felt they could no longer support JFK’s acquittal, given some of the blatant missteps made by the President and the team working for him.

Kennedy smiled, by all accounts. “Thank you, senator,” he said, “it’s always nice to know where the Senate stands on the issues of our day.” The President had heard nothing about a bargain, and nodded to his brother.

Bobby was blunt. “Senator Morse, if you have come to the White House simply to tell us we have lost your vote, I believe we could all have used our time more wisely. I had been led to believe that the censure option was still viable.”

Morse put aside his notes and shook his head. He did not address his answer to the attorney general but to the President. “With time, you will be seen as a whole man and, on that measure, you will do very well.” Morse paused, placed a paternal hand on JFK’s forearm, “We still need a clean slate, Mr. President.”

On February 10, President Kennedy swam in the ninety-degree waters of the White House pool. When the President emerged this time, he was wearing trunks. Since the “Secret Life” story had broken the year before, there had been no more nude swimming, let alone in the company of White House interns with names like Fiddle and Faddle. While the President toweled off, Bobby Kennedy showed him a handwritten sheet of numbers and names, all sketched out, erased and redone again and again. Bobby watched his brother and waited.

“You certainly seem to have done your homework,” said the President, handing the paper back to his brother.

“Every way you can look at it.” The attorney general, always one to preempt one argument with his own, simply stated the one essential fact. “The numbers just aren’t there for us.”

For us
. The President would later say he was touched by this phrasing. It would have been so easy for his younger brother to say “for you,” but he held back.

The two men, these brothers who had gained the political authority of the most powerful nation on Earth, were about to have it taken away. Still, their lives had been spared.

“You were always better at math than I was,” said Jack Kennedy, still managing a trace of a grin. Bobby noticed how old he looked, how tired.

“Jack, the math doesn’t get any simpler than this.”

“What if you’re wrong about some of these yes votes? They might not be as firm as you think they are,” said Jack Kennedy, knowing Bobby never missed his count. “We only need to turn two or three.”

Bobby shook his head and bit at his pencil. Jack could see in his eyes the cold, unforgiving finality of political reality. Both of them knew what had to be done. Bobby reached for the phone. “We’re going to need a secure line and then to dictate a letter.” The President asked the attorney general if perhaps Ted Sorenson should come in and work his magic. “It’s not that kind of letter,” said RFK.

Evelyn Lincoln stated that Robert Kennedy, referring to notes he had made about resignation letters for the encounter with Lyndon Johnson over a year ago, dictated the actual letter. President Kennedy stared out the window behind his desk, turned to suggest a few words, but mostly remained silent. After it was done, she typed it up at her desk, dabbing at her moistening eyes with Kleenex.

She gave it to the President first. Lincoln said later that he read it and pursed his lips, something she’d seen him do many times when he was experiencing a twinge of severe pain from his various conditions. Then he handed the document to his brother and said, “Getting out of Dallas was the easy part.”

That night, President Kennedy dismissed his staff early and spent the night alone in the White House Oval Office. Evelyn Lincoln stayed outside, refusing to leave him alone. Bobby contacted the White House Secret Service agent-in-charge and told him to assign extra agents to the President’s watch and to keep him updated hourly throughout the night. It was, as Bobby put it, “just in case.”

Closing arguments were made by Clark Clifford for President Kennedy. Melvin Laird and Leslie Arends spoke for the House, specifically the House Republicans.

During the non-televised, closed session, each senator had fifteen minutes to speak in the debate. Looming ahead were separate votes to be taken on each article. If a single one passed with a two-thirds majority, Kennedy would be convicted and, under Article Two, Section Four, of the Constitution, must step down. If the senators were feeling particularly harsh, they could take a further vote to bar Kennedy from future office.

If Dallas had come to be known as “the day JFK dodged a bullet,” then February 24, 1966 would become “the day JFK bit the bullet.”

The Senate was close to wrapping up the comments from individual senators. All that was left was a short wait and then instructions from Chief Justice Warren. The vote was scheduled for the next day.

At that moment, Senator Edward Kennedy approached the Senate leadership and spoke quietly with them. Soon he left the room. Within a half hour, all the seats in the Senate were taken by their elected occupants.

Although it was never photographed, the image of Senator Kennedy escorting his oldest brother, President Kennedy, into the Senate chambers was never forgotten by anyone who had seen it. Teddy opened the door, and JFK strode through it. There had been no formal announcement, nothing from the sergeant-at-arms introducing “the President of the United States,” as was the custom.

In this daring climax, President Kennedy stood at the lectern before one hundred members of the U.S. Senate, all of whom were extremely mindful that their own careers, too, would be in jeopardy in the next election. He began speaking without notes. Those who heard him said there was no hesitancy, no fumbling for words, no gathering of thoughts. In a stirring speech, Kennedy demanded the accountability of all the senators before him in the cause of preserving democracy. It was perhaps the most passionate speech of his career, and it came to be known as the “Finish What You Started” speech.

At the end, President Kennedy said he would discuss the details of his resignation that night with “the American people who put me in this office, rather than now, with the members of this body who would ask me to leave it.” Because the Senate deliberations were closed, Kennedy was thus guaranteeing that history would never record a vote on the matter of his Senate trial, but would maintain a color TV archive of his final words. The bottom line was still that, within twenty-four hours, the country would be President John McCormack’s to run. The Speaker of the House was next in the line of succession, given that the nation had no Vice President with Johnson in jail.

The Kennedy brothers left the Senate chambers together and rode in the presidential limousine to the White House. There, President Kennedy prepared to address the nation from the same desk from which he had told them about the Cuban Missile Crisis three and a half years earlier. In a statement barely four minutes long, he revealed that he would tender his resignation, as the Constitution stipulated, to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, effective noon Friday, February 25. The speech is famous for this concluding statement that JFK supporters in a Boston bar dubbed the “White House Fuck-Off,” a crude name that, nonetheless, has always had more currency with the public than “the speech he made before he quit.”

After the speech, Kennedy was driven by the Secret Service to the Georgetown apartment of Ben and Toni Bradlee. There he had dinner with his estranged wife, Jacqueline, and the Bradlees. When asked what they had discussed by reporters who had been waiting outside, Kennedy replied, “We talked about the children.” Observers of the scene said they’d never seen John Kennedy as visibly disturbed as he seemed at that moment.

The next day at 9 a.m., Kennedy gave a farewell talk to an East Room assembly of White House staff and selected dignitaries, including the entire Cabinet and Speaker John McCormack. Many eyes were on the seventy-five-year-old Speaker, a tall, thin, teetotaling Irishman, whose House leadership had been challenged repeatedly by unruly Democrats. He also had history with the Kennedy family. His favorite nephew, Edward McCormack Jr., had been defeated by the President’s brother, Edward Kennedy, in the 1962 Democratic senatorial primary.

While there was some concern from Robert Kennedy, Kenneth O’Donnell and others, that the occasion could descend into maudlin emotion, it instead turned out to be classic JFK. He shook hands, exchanged hugs and kisses, and smiled a lot. The most memorable moment came when he took Evelyn Lincoln aside, apologized for what he had put her through, asked for her forgiveness, and kissed her hand. When it was done, he signed the letter of resignation and handed it to Secretary Rusk. The nuclear codes were left in the care of Speaker McCormack.

The now-former President Kennedy then was escorted by his senator brother and his attorney general brother to the Marine One helicopter that flew the trio to Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One waited to take JFK to Palm Beach, Florida. Bobby had urgent matters to take care of at the Department of Justice, but Teddy announced that he needed a vacation from the Senate and asked John if he’d mind a little company. The President was surprised but said yes.

The ride in Air Force One began the reshuffling of the deck for the Kennedy brothers. While Jack and Bobby always remained close, forged by fire as their relationship had been, they needed a break. John Kennedy and Edward Kennedy began to spend more time together, something neither one of them had ever seen coming, let alone anyone else in the family.

Once the Kennedys were in the air, the White House staff began preparations for McCormack’s swearing in. More chairs were added for a larger crowd of invited guests to witness the oath as administered by Chief Justice Earl Warren. President John McCormack addressed the nation shortly thereafter from a lectern in the East Room.

With McCormack’s spare 112 words delivered, the new President met with the Cabinet, asked them all to stay on the job until he could determine what combination would work best to the advantage of the United States. President McCormack then took his daily nap. He was awake before his predecessor’s plane had touched down to his new life far from Washington.