The Art of Manliness - What Made JFK So Compelling？

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.740 despite assuming the presidency from the 20th century's narrowest election victory

00:00:14.760 john f kennedy captivated the american public's imagination even before his untimely death

00:00:19.680 what was it that made jfk so compelling in his own time and continues to contribute to his

00:00:24.680 enduring appeal today we dive into the answer to that question by unpacking some of kennedy's

00:00:29.060 personal qualities and complexities with mark up to grove author of incomparable grace jfk in the

00:00:34.400 presidency we begin our conversation with how jfk's upbringing and war experience shaped him

00:00:38.560 we talk about his leadership style while in office how he intentionally cultivated his cool and

00:00:42.440 appealing image and what his wife jackie added to that image mark explains what was behind

00:00:46.480 kennedy's infamous affairs and how jfk championed physical fitness despite being in tremendous

00:00:51.260 physical pain himself we enter conversation with the trace that worked both for and against jfk's

00:00:56.000 success as president after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash jfk

00:01:00.660 mark up the grove welcome to the show thanks so much for having me brett so you have a new

00:01:20.120 biography out about john f kennedy called incomparable grace and this is about his presidency

00:01:26.320 there's a lot of biographies about jfk out there what were you trying to do with this bio like how

00:01:31.580 is it different from the other ones that you've seen out there you know there hasn't been a good

00:01:35.920 biography on kennedy's presidency for quite some time for a few years i think you have to look at

00:01:42.260 important historical figures from time to time through the lens of the times in which you're living

00:01:47.940 so so that was part of it and part of it too is that i wanted a a brisk take on kennedy's presidency

00:01:54.480 something with a a narrative that was as dramatic as the times that jfk faced during his presidency so

00:02:01.820 the reader could really understand why this president who was just in office under three years

00:02:08.620 is regarded so highly why his presidency still means something 60 years after his death well we'll talk

00:02:16.940 about that like hopefully we can answer that question why he still matters like but why do you

00:02:20.480 think i mean you know the 60 years after he's been president like why do you think jfk still holds so

00:02:25.520 much sway in our collective imagination you know there's something about the kennedy image and that that

00:02:31.060 sort of nods to the title incomparable grace jfk comes into the presidency and captures the imagination

00:02:37.320 of the american people despite the fact that he only captured the presidency by two-tenths of a

00:02:44.000 percentage point 118 000 votes make the difference in john f kennedy being president versus richard nixon

00:02:51.540 so it was a very narrow victory the most narrow of the 20th century but when he becomes president

00:02:59.220 elect the the american people were kind of swept up not only in john f kennedy they're soon to be

00:03:05.120 president but also the kennedy family his wife jacqueline kennedy who has casts this glamorous image of her

00:03:11.940 own his two small children and the larger kennedy family which is so vivacious and and attractive so

00:03:19.680 that's that's part of it the image of kennedy i think continues to captivate us and i think moreover

00:03:26.480 brett he he's the way we want to be seen he's visionary he's eloquent he's elegant he's rampantly

00:03:34.220 ambitious he's youthful he has this vigor that's the way we wanted to be seen when he was president i think

00:03:40.480 in some ways that's the way we want our country to be seen today and i yeah let's dig in because i hope

00:03:46.200 we by the end of this podcast people will have an kind of an idea of why jfk is so so captivating

00:03:52.920 because i think once you look at the details of his life you start to understand like what was going

00:03:56.400 on there so let's start before he was president because as you said his family the kennedy family

00:04:01.300 played a big role in shaping his life in his political career so as a boy as a young man what was

00:04:08.400 kennedy like did he showcase signs that he would you know eventually become the leader of the free

00:04:12.780 world during post-world war ii america probably not this is a kid who grew up wealthy during the

00:04:21.220 great depression his father amassed an enormous fortune during the the greatest economic calamity

00:04:27.100 ever to befall the country so to say the least jfk grew up in privilege he also grew up very sickly

00:04:34.660 and struggled with health issues throughout the course of his youth his father though the

00:04:40.900 ambitious kennedy patriarch joe kennedy not only amassed a fortune but also had political ambitions

00:04:47.460 for himself and for his family as far as he went he really wanted to get in the he thought himself

00:04:55.160 that he might be the first catholic president of our country and eventually as he accrues great wealth

00:05:02.660 franklin roosevelt owes him and asks him what he would like to do and he says i'd like to be either

00:05:08.500 you know secretary of the treasury or the ambassador to great britain in the court of saint james and

00:05:16.040 fdr reluctantly gives the post to the catholic joe kennedy which was a first to say the least to have a

00:05:22.720 catholic be the ambassador united states ambassador to great britain but he becomes an isolationist at the

00:05:29.800 beginning of world war ii he espouses a position of isolationism and that means that he's out of

00:05:36.040 favor not only with roosevelt rather but when we get into the second world war that he was on the wrong

00:05:40.940 side of history more or less so he more or less transfers those ambitions to his children and i think

00:05:47.660 the great hope for the family was joe kennedy jr kennedy's the elder kennedy's namesake who dies in the

00:05:55.180 war and when he dies i think the ambitions that joe kennedy had for his eldest son are thrust at john

00:06:02.320 f kennedy and after the war kennedy throws his hat in the ring for political office and that leads

00:06:08.900 ultimately to his becoming president of the united states well i think it's important to flesh out this

00:06:12.940 dynamic between john f kennedy and joe kennedy jr because joe kennedy like he was the favorite son he

00:06:19.900 was like the all-star the good-looking guy did well in school athlete then he had john kennedy was

00:06:25.240 sort of like yeah you know we didn't have really didn't think much of him he was a bit of a screw

00:06:30.300 up you know versus his brother there was there's this incredible competition between the two brothers

00:06:36.300 and at one point they have a contest to see who can run fastest around the block and they both go

00:06:42.200 in separate directions and whoever hits the base first wins and the two are coming in running toward

00:06:50.000 one another and neither will give way to the other and eventually they end up colliding and joe kennedy

00:06:57.960 wins the race and john f kennedy ends up going to the hospital which is almost a metaphor for what

00:07:04.140 happened in their their youth joe kennedy got all the glory and achieved a great deal and john f kennedy

00:07:11.900 ended up being frequently in the hospital because of health issues not reaching the potential that

00:07:17.220 his brother had reached and then yeah when john f kennedy heard that his brother died he's he like

00:07:22.980 mournfully said he understood what this meant and i think he said the burden now falls to me like he

00:07:27.280 understood like now my dad's ambitions i got to carry that now yeah and i think he felt a certain

00:07:34.300 responsibility himself for carrying the torch of the next generation in some respects irrespective of his

00:07:40.840 father's ambitions for him he had his own ambitions and you know it's important to note brett that that

00:07:47.140 john f kennedy would not have gotten into politics if it didn't suit him as well it happened to suit his

00:07:53.060 father's ambitions for him and other members of his family but it was also something that fit jack

00:07:58.860 kennedy at that point in his life he wanted to be as he as he said later relating to the presidency he

00:08:04.800 wanted to be in the center of the action so for anyone who was ambitious post world war ii it was

00:08:11.560 almost instinctive to want to go to washington so you have these folks coming out of world war ii off

00:08:17.440 the front lines coming back stateside and wanting to make their mark on the world and the way you did

00:08:23.180 that at the time the natural way to do that was to get into elective politics and to go to washington

00:08:28.320 so you have richard nixon and uh gerald ford and others almost instinctively throwing their hats

00:08:36.120 in the ring after coming back from uh the pacific theater or or europe in world war ii well before

00:08:42.500 we move to his political career something we often forget people forget is that kennedy also he served

00:08:47.460 in world war ii and in the navy had wartime experience in fact he wrote a book based off his

00:08:51.920 wartime experience how did his experience in world war ii influence his leadership philosophy

00:08:57.600 you know he captained a pt poke pt 109 and it was split in half by a japanese torpedo in the pacific and

00:09:07.140 and at that point john f kennedy really shows his courage and his leadership metal all of his crew

00:09:14.060 members two two of his crew members die in the blast but it falls to him to help the his crewmates his

00:09:20.980 those under his charge to swim to an island and there's one of his troops who was incapacitated

00:09:27.600 and jfk puts his shirt in his teeth and he literally drags him to shore where ultimately

00:09:34.720 they are rescued but this is a real leadership challenge for john f kennedy and he steps up to

00:09:42.280 the task and i think it gives him much greater confidence that if he hadn't gone through world war

00:09:47.140 ii so he gets back from the war in the 50s he begins his political career where did he get elected

00:09:53.340 first was it representative then senator you know he he makes himself a candidate for congress

00:09:58.340 in the massachusetts district around boston and this is 1946 and gets elected he's terrible on the stump

00:10:06.840 right and if you you look at the legacy of john f kennedy so much of it is around his rhetoric he is a

00:10:12.500 he is a brilliant speaker he captures one's imagination but initially he's pretty awkward on the stump and

00:10:19.820 in fact he says his father thinks he's hopeless but because of the power and prestige of the kennedy

00:10:26.220 family he he wins the election and goes to congress where immediately he sets his sight from the lower

00:10:34.720 chamber of the house of representatives to the upper chamber of the senate and in 1952 in a very tightly

00:10:41.720 contested race it ends up beating henry cabot lodge who is a very prodigious candidate and so that leads

00:10:49.300 to the eight years that kennedy will spend in the senate what was his career like as a senator was he

00:10:55.320 productive you know i think in both the house and senate he didn't have a particularly illustrative

00:11:01.020 tenure he was more or less a backbencher in the senate i think at that point as soon as he got to

00:11:06.760 the senate he was focused on the next rung and and the presidency is he was trying to determine how he

00:11:12.440 might become the vice presidential nominee of his party on the ticket in 1956 that comes close to

00:11:20.480 happening when it doesn't he sets his sight on being the presidential candidate in 1960 and ends up

00:11:27.240 getting the nomination so he wasn't an lbj when he was like a when he's a senator he wasn't good at the

00:11:32.000 the back the back out you know the backdoor deals and things like that you know quite the contrary i don't

00:11:36.860 think he had interest in the legislative process lbj was a creature of power and he wielded it so

00:11:44.680 effectively as perhaps the most powerful senate majority leader in the history of our nation

00:11:49.900 certainly the most powerful of the of the 20th century he had an instinctive sense of things the

00:11:55.560 legislative process really didn't didn't interest jack kennedy all that much in fact the most noteworthy

00:12:01.680 thing he does during the course of his years in the senate is write the book profiles encourage which

00:12:07.280 his father through um you know his purse strings helps to make a commercial success and also through

00:12:13.820 his political connections helps to make a pulitzer prize winner so in the mid-50s kennedy writes profiles

00:12:20.900 encourage it wins the pulitzer prize and that helps to elevate the stature of young john f kennedy

00:12:27.860 so he seems like he has a personality more suited for the executive as opposed to his legislative

00:12:32.100 branch because you highlight here that you know you said he wanted to be in the presidency because

00:12:35.480 that's where the action's at and he wanted the ability to get things done with a minimum of

00:12:39.860 bureaucracy and organizational inefficiency so you just want to be able to say i want to do this and

00:12:43.740 you get it done well that more more or less yeah i think you know what what he says when when ben

00:12:48.960 bradley who was then working for newsweek and would ultimately be the editor of the washington post asks

00:12:55.020 him why he wants to be the president he he likens it to being johnny uninas who played for the

00:13:00.560 baltimore colts at the time the nfl's champion team and uninas is the quarterback and and that's

00:13:07.260 what kennedy wants he see he defines that as sort of the center of the action uninas could play other

00:13:12.940 sports other positions but to be quarterback for the baltimore colts at that time that's the peak of

00:13:18.880 football and it's for kennedy being the president of the united states the the world's biggest

00:13:25.240 superpower in the top position that was about as high as you could get and and that would be the

00:13:31.300 center of the action to your point you didn't have to get consensus in many cases from different people

00:13:37.280 in the in the houses of congress there are many things you could do with the bully pulpit of the

00:13:42.480 presidency there are many things you could do through executive order you didn't necessarily

00:13:46.380 have to go through the sausage making process that is needed to to crank out a law something else that

00:13:53.200 you you point out in the book is when kennedy took office assumed assumed office he was inheriting this

00:13:59.160 from dwight d eisenhower and eisenhower he really he effectively reorganized how the presidency was run

00:14:05.200 he you know had the chief of staff and all that stuff kennedy comes in and he kind of starts mixing

00:14:10.640 things up again what was his leadership style what was his organizational philosophy when it came to his

00:14:15.520 presidency you know dwight eisenhower was a military man and his administration was organized like a

00:14:21.760 military man would would organize something that was stratified and there were different ranks and

00:14:26.820 and you talk to the people below you and they talk to the people below them and etc etc etc and it was

00:14:31.960 a traditional triangular structure with the person at the top and more people at at each layer going

00:14:40.240 down but but extraordinarily stratified and hierarchical kennedy didn't want that kennedy wanted to talk to

00:14:46.160 whoever he wanted at any time and he would poke his head into the offices of those two three levels below

00:14:52.120 him to get their take on things he wasn't much interested in meetings he wasn't much interested in

00:14:58.040 briefings he kind of felt his own way around the presidency much i would i would add to his detriment it

00:15:04.620 wasn't the best way to approach the presidency there are many advisors who tried to get to them who

00:15:10.660 to him who couldn't get to them and at a certain point in his presidency after he's stubbed his toe

00:15:15.700 a time or two we can talk about those early failures his advisors come back to him and say you got to

00:15:21.540 help us out here you have to adhere to some kind of structure in the white house you might not want

00:15:26.360 to hear this but it'll be better for your presidency and it'll be better for us as well yeah that's a

00:15:31.580 recurring theme throughout the book is that kennedy he would stub his toe he would make mistakes and big

00:15:35.860 ones but he always seemed to learn from them yeah i think that's right and and i mentioned jfk capturing

00:15:42.640 the imagination of the american people upon his inauguration we can all remember his soaring

00:15:47.280 inaugural rhetoric ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country

00:15:52.880 and it really galvanizes the country americans really start thinking beyond themselves about what they

00:15:59.320 personally can be doing for their country the the peace corps which is enacted in in kennedy's first

00:16:05.940 year is a manifestation of that us thinking about the greater good and doing something big for our

00:16:11.720 country something something important but he his first few months are not particularly successful

00:16:17.540 the bay of pigs which is a failed incursion of cuba by a former cuban nationalists goes awry it's it's

00:16:27.960 supported by the u.s government although clandestinely and it is an enormous failure over a hundred

00:16:34.620 cubans die over you know a thousand are taken captive captive rather and and it's a big black eye for

00:16:41.960 the administration but it says something brett that when this happens this huge fiasco in world view

00:16:50.560 that john f kennedy's approval rating subsequent to that is an astounding 83 americans doubled down

00:16:59.080 on presidency at a time in the cold war when we knew the russians were were watching and might be

00:17:04.580 emboldened by a foreign policy failure by the united states so kennedy never sees an approval rating higher

00:17:12.120 than that that he sees after this huge mistake the bay of pigs quagmire importantly though nikita

00:17:19.060 khrushchev kennedy's counterpart in the soviet union is watching there and believes based on that and

00:17:25.560 a disastrous summit with the the russian premier just two months later that kennedy is weak and can

00:17:32.940 be exploited and i think that leads to kennedy's greatest crisis which happens in 1962 the cuban

00:17:39.580 missile crisis and we'll talk about that here in a bit but before we do we talk about this this mystique

00:17:44.620 around kennedy this image that he projected and this was intentional like he was aware of it he was

00:17:50.180 very aware of the image he was showcasing to the population i think he saw himself i think i've read

00:17:56.520 you know it's weird in the united states our president is not only like a parliamentary figure like he's in

00:18:01.460 charge of getting stuff done but he's also the figurehead in a lot of other countries the figurehead

00:18:06.220 separated from the parliamentary person so like in the uk you have the queen who's the figurehead then you

00:18:12.080 have the prime minister united states it's it's one it's the president so he's very aware that i'm i'm i

00:18:18.340 represent our country what did he do to project the image that he wanted the the public to have of him

00:18:24.620 you know it's funny because kennedy doesn't consider himself a natural politician he comes from

00:18:29.640 uh political stock including his maternal grandfather honey fits the very colorful mayor of boston who is the

00:18:37.880 the typical you know the stereotypical baby kissing name knowing back slapping politician that is not

00:18:44.320 john f kennedy kennedy was was cerebral he was cool and while he thinks he's in his words the antithesis of

00:18:53.940 a politician which in many respects he is if you compare him to that archetype that his his maternal

00:19:01.320 grandfather personified but he also knows in his words that he fits the times part of that is because

00:19:08.620 of the medium of television the dominant medium of the age he knows he's suited to television he has a

00:19:15.420 cast a sort of glamorous image he's you know he's handsome he's fit he's he's eloquent as i mentioned

00:19:22.120 earlier there's a certain elegance there's a way he carries himself that is incredibly alluring and he

00:19:28.980 knows that that's part of the reason he gets the presidency you probably don't have john f kennedy

00:19:34.380 in the presidency but for the presidential debates with richard nixon this who looks very pasty faced

00:19:40.400 versus you know the very vital john f kennedy and it's probably that image alone that kennedy casts that

00:19:47.580 get him gets him the presidency in 1960 so so much of cool so much of image is ineffable it can't be

00:19:55.140 quite explained and i think that's probably true with kennedy but there is a certain cool

00:20:00.980 that he exudes this incomparable grace as my title would suggest that is just captivating not only

00:20:07.600 among americans but citizens of the world yeah and like you said it's ineffable but he understood that

00:20:13.080 it's there and there's instances you highlight in the book where both him and his brother and some of

00:20:17.920 aids like they were they would always be watching or reading the magazines or the newspaper articles and

00:20:23.040 anytime there was some instance where they kind of spoke badly they're like hey they'd pounce on it

00:20:26.660 like we're gonna we're gonna put on the pr we're gonna change the the conversation about this no

00:20:31.960 question about that i mean he knows the power of photography the power of life magazine at the time

00:20:37.320 you know the there were there were far fewer media properties at the time you had three networks abc

00:20:42.820 nbc cbs you had a few news magazines time newsweek u.s news uh you had life magazine which was almost

00:20:50.960 the people magazine of its day there weren't many and and john f kennedy was determined to dominate

00:20:57.100 them as much as he could but he also knew the power of the moving image as per my comment about

00:21:03.080 television but also the still image and how pictures of his young family could be so advantageous

00:21:11.140 politically in fact when jackie kennedy left the white house on occasion he would bring the kids into the

00:21:16.020 into the oval office and have them photographed him say don't tell jackie he knew the power of that

00:21:22.020 the image of him as a young vigorous father of these very attractive young children the kennedys knew

00:21:29.120 when they were playing touch football on the grounds of hyenas port that that was probably going to be in

00:21:33.580 the magazines and that would be enormously beneficial for them and what was the equivalent of page six at the

00:21:38.880 time so yes kennedy is definitely aware of image and how important that is in his political trajectory

00:21:47.080 we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:21:49.600 and now back to the show well speaking of an important part of his image you mentioned his wife

00:21:56.300 jacklyn kennedy what role did his wife play in his political career well i think first and foremost she

00:22:02.000 was a support to him she wanted him to be a great president she saw the greatness potential in him

00:22:08.780 and wanted him to realize that in the presidency some of what i tried to debunk in this book is the

00:22:14.860 kennedy mythology the story of this camelot image that that comes after kennedy is assassinated and

00:22:22.120 that's really jacklyn kennedy trying to tell the story of her her late husband and trying to romanticize

00:22:28.900 that presidency she too knew the power of image and wanted to help make him a great president

00:22:34.520 she also knew her own value in terms of the image that she projected when the kennedys first go abroad

00:22:42.400 they first stop in france and jacklyn kennedy was a a francophile and a francophone she could speak

00:22:49.420 french and that was very alluring to the french people who could be famously fickle but charles de

00:22:56.360 gall the french president fell in love with her and she helped enormously in casting the right image to

00:23:02.880 the french people she created the white house historical association to build the white house

00:23:09.920 into a thriving place for arts and culture to make it the most beautiful house in the world and she was

00:23:17.620 the right person to do that she had an image for how the the white house should look and made a a huge

00:23:25.320 difference in making that the envy of the world in many respects yeah that was my takeaway from the book

00:23:30.560 jacklyn had a really fine-tuned political instinct that it paired well with her husband yeah i think

00:23:38.060 that's right she was you know she didn't love the political spotlight she didn't love politics she was

00:23:42.840 certainly not a natural politician i will say you know when he was a senator she felt like she was a

00:23:49.840 detriment to him she was disadvantageous because she wasn't the typical political wife just as jack kennedy

00:23:57.760 wasn't the typical politician but she didn't contrive a personality of somebody who was relatable and that

00:24:05.200 probably did hurt kennedy when he was a senator however when she became first lady that became tremendously

00:24:12.040 advantageous her class her refinement her her style sensibility helped to elevate the role of first lady and the

00:24:21.220 white house as the center of power for the american government something i didn't know about jackie and

00:24:27.740 john kennedy is they experienced a miscarriage and a stillbirth how did those personal tragedies affect

00:24:34.480 jfk and his wife well the miscarriage comes in uh in the in the mid-1950s and kennedy is on holiday in

00:24:43.220 capri and actually doesn't come back when he finds out that the child has has died that that has been

00:24:49.240 stillborn and bobby kennedy is the one who ends up tending to jacklyn kennedy that's one of the

00:24:56.660 you know that reflects the blemish on kennedy's character he was not a particularly good or faithful

00:25:02.900 husband and in fact george smathers who is a friend of his in the senate tells him to quote get his ass back

00:25:11.760 to the united states and tend to his wife if he has any presidential ambitions whatsoever and

00:25:17.760 kennedy reluctantly leaves his european holiday and goes back to be by his wife's side by that time

00:25:25.880 the the stillborn child has been buried by because of his brother being you know taking charge in his

00:25:32.260 brother's absence so it's hard to it's hard to understand how kennedy could be so callous and so selfish and

00:25:40.820 reckless but that's an example of it the kennedy's also lose a son patrick in the last year of jack

00:25:49.300 kennedy's life in august of 1963 jacklyn kennedy gives birth to a child prematurely named patrick

00:25:57.600 and the child dies after two days at that point kennedy is by his wife's side and i think that

00:26:04.520 that episode losing a child not only bound the kennedy's closer to one another but bound the

00:26:12.420 american people to to jack and jacklyn kennedy as well so something you tackle in the book is

00:26:18.600 kennedy's womanizing which he's you know infamous for were you able to figure out like what was behind

00:26:23.880 that you know i think there are several factors number one kennedy comes from a father who was a

00:26:30.760 rampant womanizer himself he had open relationships with a number of folks when he for instance split

00:26:37.460 his time between the east coast and hollywood where he was a principal at one of the studios rko

00:26:42.660 which he helped to found and he lived openly with gloria swanson one of the great movie stars of the

00:26:49.540 of the silent and then later sound era he was a quintessential philanderer and so jfk to a large

00:26:57.480 extent learns at the the feet of the master in a way it sort of comes naturally based on the example

00:27:03.980 that his father sets moreover though i think it's it was a means of keeping score in the very competitive

00:27:10.420 kennedy household you know they would brag about their conquests as indelicate as that may have been

00:27:17.960 i also think that jfk wanted to seize every moment of life possible i think he saw his own mortality

00:27:24.860 he could see the fragility of life and as he says frequently you know he wants to make the most of

00:27:31.460 every moment and for them that was the ephemeral thrill of a conquest and we you know those those

00:27:38.360 things are major blemishes on his character but i think those are the reasons that he is such a rampant

00:27:45.360 womanizer yeah how do you make sense of it like how do you incorporate that into the rest of kennedy

00:27:49.960 you know he's very like so many uh great men he's compartmentalized that's just a part of who he is

00:27:59.180 it's it's the most reckless and unattractive part of him i mean there listen it's part of the zeitgeist

00:28:05.940 at the time too so many lawmakers at that time in our history were having uh affairs either you know

00:28:13.560 secretively or openly in washington it was a pretty common thing a kennedy goes step further you can't

00:28:20.540 just rationalize that as being part of the washington zeitgeist there's one thing that i think is

00:28:25.660 particularly unforgivable and that is the relationship he has with a 19 year old intern named mimi beardsley

00:28:32.060 to whom loses her virginity to kennedy just a week into her tenure and he really just objectifies her

00:28:41.380 in a way that simply can't be explained or forgiven this young vulnerable girl being exploited

00:28:47.780 by the president of the united states at one point kennedy asks her to perform a sex act on one of his

00:28:54.800 friends and aids and that just is absolutely unforgivable yeah yeah uh so yeah he kind of he

00:29:03.420 compartmentalized that in his head without question and i think he thought maybe it was his right

00:29:08.320 the divine right of kings in a way to do what he wants i mean he looks at british royalty one of his

00:29:13.580 favorite books has to do with uh the british aristocracy at a certain point in time when they

00:29:18.680 would do their duty in london during the uh the course of the week and then and and weekends go to

00:29:24.340 to manor houses and sleep with each other's wives and girlfriends and those sorts of things it was

00:29:29.600 it was almost the right of the aristocracy to behave in that way and i think kennedy probably believed

00:29:35.920 that as well so something maybe a lot of people don't know is that he spent his life in uh immense

00:29:41.940 physical pain what were his ailments that he had well he had addison's disease one and that was that

00:29:48.000 was something that he had battled throughout most of his life and then he had chronic back pain and

00:29:53.320 there is a cocktail of drugs that he would have on any given day uh in in his tenure as president

00:29:59.160 it is absolutely staggering it is amazing how many injections and how many drugs kennedy was taking

00:30:08.600 to keep his pain at bay and to keep keep his addison's disease from affecting his performance

00:30:14.800 that said you don't really see any examples of of the the drugs or the womanizing for that matter

00:30:21.340 affecting his duties uh in discharging the responsibilities that come as president of the

00:30:26.940 united states yeah he was incredibly he was incredibly stoic about his pain like he'd be in

00:30:31.160 pain but he just wouldn't say he wouldn't talk about it like in fact he had aids who said like

00:30:35.000 i never heard jack kennedy ever complain about his pain his closest friend who knew him since his days

00:30:40.620 in high school said he never heard him complain about it to your point it's amazing so there is a

00:30:45.740 certain stoicism a certain courage that comes from kennedy who you know is suffering in fact there are times

00:30:53.100 when we i think we've seen these wonderful broadcast clips of of kennedy greeting his kids when he steps

00:31:00.180 off marine one the the presidential helicopter on south lawn and they come bounding out on the south

00:31:05.860 lawn to greet him and he reaches down and pats them on the back but he can't pick them up because he has

00:31:11.120 this back brace that prevents him from reaching down and even if he could he probably wouldn't do it

00:31:16.740 because it could further aggravate his very painful back so that pain those medical conditions are

00:31:23.740 constant companions for kennedy throughout the course of his presidency do you think that experience with

00:31:30.040 pain was partly what drove his push for physical fitness i'm gonna say it the way he said it in viga

00:31:35.920 viga viga was a word that sort of defined the kennedy's and if we only knew the medical regimen that

00:31:43.960 that kennedy was under in order just to get out of bed every day it would be staggering but yes i think

00:31:49.620 the kennedy's sort of embody that in many respects they were extremely active playing sports you know

00:31:55.460 that in many ways sports was a way of excelling in the very competitive kennedy family that's that's

00:32:01.820 the way you proved yourself at a certain point in time but they also sailed and they you know they

00:32:07.560 were extraordinarily active so physical fitness i think was a natural part of the the kennedy

00:32:13.880 brand at one point kennedy demands of his cabinet that they all lose 10 pounds you know he's really

00:32:20.820 serious about people being at their very best you know it seems like he because his own health was a

00:32:26.540 struggle he didn't take vigor for granted you know because because he struggled with his health

00:32:31.500 kennedy understood you know how fundamental it was to everything better than anyone and so that's why he

00:32:39.020 really championed the idea of you know sound mind and a sound body and how important health and fitness

00:32:44.840 was for the individual but also for for a citizen and for that reason like he made that a national

00:32:51.200 effort i mean he was one of the he was the guy who really spearheaded the presidential fitness test

00:32:56.180 a president's physical fitness test that's exactly right which many of us took in high school

00:33:00.400 yeah that's that comes from jack kennedy and then he also revived the uh 50 mile march which became a

00:33:06.740 thing like after like in the 60s and 70s people just go for walks for 50 miles and i think bobby kennedy

00:33:12.020 he did the the 50 mile hike in loafers like in the winter that's exactly right that's exactly as as one

00:33:20.400 preppy might but that's that's precisely right it's funny because uh kennedy again he looks so physically

00:33:27.180 vigorous we we had no idea of the the illnesses that he was battling but uh but he really does personify

00:33:35.080 the look of a physical fitness so we mentioned early in his presidency he had the bay of uh pigs

00:33:41.640 invasion that was a fiasco he got his butt kicked at a summit with khrushchev and even admitted that

00:33:47.400 like after that was over he's like i just got my butt handed to me by this guy but then he has this

00:33:52.780 moment uh it's one of it's like a really it's like his greatest diplomatic victory it was the russian

00:33:57.800 missile crisis what did he like what lessons did he take from his previous weapons that was able to apply

00:34:03.400 to navigate the russian missile crisis effectively well he sees in the in the bay of pigs

00:34:09.000 fiasco that that his his military advisors are very jingoistic they are very hawkish they want to get

00:34:17.020 out there and they want to wage war they want to they want to get into the heat of battle and he thinks

00:34:22.100 they've been very impetuous and they've steered him in the the wrong direction with the bay of pigs by the

00:34:27.520 same token he goes before the american people and says that success has many fathers but failure is

00:34:34.340 an orphan but at the end of the day i'm the commander-in-chief and the mistake of this lies

00:34:39.320 with me i'm i'm i'm the the one to blame here and the american people again as i mentioned earlier

00:34:45.260 forgive him partly because he is so humble in that moment and resolves to do better so i think he

00:34:52.340 learns to keep the military at a distance to a certain extent he learns to keep very close counsel

00:35:00.220 which he does during the course of the cuban missile crisis 13 harrowing days when we find out that the

00:35:07.680 soviet union is shipping troops and nuclear warheads to cuba which would represent the first time that

00:35:15.600 soviet weaponry is in the western hemisphere just 90 miles from american shores which means that

00:35:23.140 washington could be hit by a nuclear weapon within 20 minutes so this becomes the central crisis of

00:35:30.760 kennedy's administration staring down the soviet union ensuring in every way possible that they

00:35:37.660 withdraw that those nuclear warheads and troops from cuba so that we don't have a presence of

00:35:44.840 soviet military in the western hemisphere and what do you think was the uh traitor quality that allowed

00:35:51.000 kennedy to handle that crisis and um you know and lent itself generally to what other success he had as

00:35:57.140 president part of it is equanimity and in in the human missile crisis you really see that he meets with

00:36:02.580 dwight eisenhower in the second of his two transition meetings before becoming president and in that

00:36:09.760 meeting eisenhower is enumerating all of the the trouble spots throughout the world including

00:36:15.800 vietnam and and cuba and berlin and and other places and kennedy listens to all this and he could

00:36:23.120 see the relief in eisenhower's countenance to to put these problems on the the desk of another president

00:36:29.980 and he leaves that meeting and says to an aide i can't believe he can stare into the face of disaster

00:36:35.800 with such equanimity but yet it's it's equanimity that helps to save kennedy in the cuban missile

00:36:43.940 crisis which is as close as we have ever come to a nuclear exchange to nuclear war that is the most

00:36:52.280 dangerous hour in mankind's history when we are so close to the possibility of a nuclear exchange but

00:37:01.120 it's kennedy's cool in those moments hence again going back to the ambiguous title of the book

00:37:06.340 incomparable grace there's an incomparable grace that he shows during those desperate hours i mentioned

00:37:13.980 profiles in courage before kennedy's pulitzer prize winning book and he uses a line from hemingway his

00:37:21.980 favorite author to define what courage is and hemingway said that courage is grace under pressure

00:37:29.920 and that's what kennedy shows during the cuban missile crisis a certain grace under pressure

00:37:36.060 which is based on the equanimity that he exudes the calm he doesn't do anything rash he doesn't back

00:37:42.480 himself into a corner he's not impetuous he's not hungry for revenge he waits out khrushchev they have

00:37:49.560 a series of exchanges and ultimately the crisis is resolved through a quid pro quo that we have the world

00:37:57.180 wouldn't know this until much later but the cuban missile crisis is resolved because we tell the

00:38:03.300 soviet union that we will withdraw nuclear warheads from turkey which is in the backyard of the soviet

00:38:09.500 union if they will withdraw their missiles from cuba so the soviets ship those missiles out of cuba and

00:38:18.060 six months later very quietly the americans we americans take our missiles out of turkey

00:38:24.200 did he have any qualities that worked against the success that caused him to blunder

00:38:28.580 well i think it was that impetuousness that we we talked about early on with the bay of pigs

00:38:33.480 there's a certain recklessness i think there was a probably a certain hubris you know no man is

00:38:39.240 prepared to be president but kennedy was probably a little brash when he came in he became humble very

00:38:46.300 quickly to his credit and he learned from the mistakes that you talked about we talked about that

00:38:51.860 disastrous uh summit with nikita khrushchev and in june of 1961 which i believe emboldens khrushchev to

00:39:01.080 ship those missiles to to cuba eventually but kennedy realized and that's how i start the book

00:39:07.640 with what might have been kennedy's weakest moments when he has been in his words savaged

00:39:12.680 mind by nikita khrushchev in these in these meetings but again he has resolved to do better

00:39:18.980 and kennedy works hard to become a better more humble more effective leader what lessons do you

00:39:26.940 hope readers take away after reading your book and how do you hope their idea of kennedy is changed

00:39:32.080 when they close the the book well i don't know what idea they have before they come to the book

00:39:37.300 but i hope they see the the power of leadership i think in particular kennedy shows us the power of

00:39:44.600 rhetoric the power uh that words can have at crucial times i i quote clement atlee who was the successor

00:39:52.700 to winston churchill as prime minister of great britain who said of churchill's great rhetorical

00:39:58.540 ability during the second world war which helped to sustain the british people that he says words at

00:40:05.840 great moments can be deeds and you see that with kennedy words at the great moments of his presidency

00:40:13.240 almost become deeds so when kennedy elevates civil rights to a moral issue which he does in a speech

00:40:21.600 around civil rights in june of 1963 that elevates the cause that's that becomes an almost a an

00:40:29.540 inflection point in the struggle for civil rights in this country when he goes to rice university and

00:40:36.640 says we choose to go to the moon and to do the other things he makes that adventure a uniquely american

00:40:44.120 proposition and rallies american around the the very ambitious and very expensive effort to take

00:40:51.660 americans to the moon when he stands at the the foot of the berlin wall and says ich bin ein berliner i am a

00:41:00.120 berliner because i am a free man and as a free man i say to you i am a citizen of berlin that rallies the

00:41:07.920 world around the cause of freedom and liberty in the face of the soviet threat of tyranny well mark

00:41:14.660 this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:41:18.000 well they can they can certainly go they can buy the book online and at bookstores and i certainly hope

00:41:24.700 they do and i am the president and ceo of the lbj foundation and we do a lot of work on the

00:41:31.120 presidency here including a podcast called with the bark off conversations on the american presidency

00:41:37.400 fantastic well mark up to grove thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:41:40.260 brett thanks so much for having me it's been a been a delight

00:41:43.260 my guest there is mark up to grove he's the author of the book incomparable grace it's available

00:41:48.140 on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about mark's work at

00:41:51.880 lbjlibrary.org also check out our show notes at aom.is slash jfk we find links to resources

00:41:57.820 we delve deeper into this topic

00:41:59.200 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - July 18, 2022

What Made JFK So Compelling？

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