the worst days, the last day, how something got loose over alas alaska. the russians might have thought that we were sending it in and that could have been awful, i remember him telling me about that. i don't know if it was afterwards or before, but all that thing and then i remember just waiting for that blockaid, it was like an election night waiting, but worse. a ship was coming and a big fat freighter turned back but it had nothing on it but oil anyway and all these ships cruising forward and hearing that joseph p kp kennedy, and saying did you send it and he said no. and finally some ship turned

backs or was boarded or something and that was the first relief or something. and i can't remember the day finally when it was over, he said to me, and bundy said to me, that if it had just gone on maybe go more days, everyone really would have cracked. all of us were awake nice and day. taz shepard in the situation room or something. pirm i had something to and ask once -- it's just, i wrote a letter to mcnamara which i showed to jack and everyone had worked to the peak of human endurance. >> how did the president feel about the restoration? >> the restoration?

>> of the white house. >> well, he thought, you know, he was interested in it. he always got so interested in anything that, you know, i cared about him, but it was nervous about it. i mean, he wanted to be sure it was done the right way, so he sent clark clifford to see me and clark clifford was nervous, he persuaded me to not do it. and he said you just can't touch the white house. he said it's so strange everyone, america feels so strangely about it and look at the truman balcony, it will just be like that. and i said it won't be like that. so as it went along bit by bit and how you set up the committee and certain legal things and clark was good good setting up the guide book. once jack saw it going along with good council, he was so

excited about it. >> was there criticism of the things that punish did in the white house? >> never, no, the most pin credible interest. and then the tours would start going. and every night he would come home saying we had more people today, this would be after you had found the monroe table or something. then the eisenhowers had in their first two years, the guide book was selling, and we were teasing mcnally about it, he was so proud. i was so happy that i could do something that would make him proud of me. because i'll tell you one wonderful thing about him. i was really, i was never any different in the white house than i was before but suddenly everything that was a liability before, the hair, that you spoke french, that you did not just adore to campaign and did you not bake bread with flour up to your arms, then we got to the

white house and all this things that i had always done was wonderful. and i was so happy for jack that he could be proud of me then. made him so happy p made me so happy. so those were happy years. [ applause ]

thank you. nope. >> good evening, can you hear us all right? >> yes. >> in her foreword care line said of her parents it was a gathering of the most fascinating people that you could meet, and because of these interviews we are privileged to attend a gathering of the fascinating people from the past. and at the center of this gathering is a family living in a home that has famously not been welcoming to its inhabitants, has been likened to

a prison. you have studied many presidencies. were you struck by how many times the word happy came up in these conversations? >> i was. and something, you know, she is nothing if not frank throughout the interviews, and one thing that she says more than once is that when her husband was elected in 1960, she had a reaction unlike most first ladies, she was terrified and depressed, partly because she had just given birth and partly because she thought it would be such a fish bowl and so many pressures and was afraid it would wreck her family but was happy to see it had the opposite reaction. so, president kenny was gone almost every weekend, for the first time they were in that house seat, and worked in the

oval office, they were together more. so, i think there was an excitement, finding that contrary to what she expected they were happy years. >> we heard of her style of campaigning in wisconsin -- >> she loved wisconsin as carolyn said. it's good that there's not elections going on in wisconsin. she is very fond of wisconsin. >> in fact, there's a word in your transcript, i wondered how to spell in describing wisconsin in the winter she says ewww. she said that, i think that she do not like a single person that she met in wisconsin except for the people that worked for jack and in west virginia, she liked almost everyone she met. >> that is right, dick,

obviously she was an asset from well before the election how did, in the daily work of politicing, how did the staff feel about her? >> she is great. and i'm sorry that she was not as happy about wisconsin as i saw her. because we were in the main street, broken down store house. and that was the headquarters. and i remember her being there with writing and things and at least entertaining the people who came, they found out who she was and they wanted to visit with her and they did, so i do not remember her bad part of that. i do remember that there was a

pester salesman for a newspaper. and kept bothering her and bothering her and eventually she was riding with the president because kenny o'donnell told me this and she said you know, that fellow, i bought an ad, and he said, well, what money -- he said that is my money and it was not what they had hoped it would be. but thereafter in west virginia of course, she was great and she was marvelous, the best part about it was if you got an assignment for her, it was done completely and as beautifully as it possibly could be. so that if you were on the committee, you had better make sure that you did everything proper. but she was very good in that

area. >> one of the fascinating things was that there was a film crew doing a documentary of the wisconsin primary which i think most of you have seen, to give you a sense of how far she came in such a short period of time. she is stand engine a grocery store almost begging people to say hello and they are shopping and not paying her attention, so i think that may have had some influence on her wisconsin tour. when the book was published there was a huge amount of immediamedia tension, and a lot of attention was paid to her remarks about the duty of a wife to subscribe to the opinions of her husband, a fairly uncontroversial statement and thank god somebody just laughed. thank you. and yet on the feminism meter that was coming into existence,

and as you mentioned the feminine mystic is published in 1963, she has very independent thoughts, she is a sharp judge of human nature and of all the people populating the white house and the actions happening all around her and she later did work and so, where do you see her as a feminist in evolution? >> i would say she was an unwitting feminist in the early 1960s and she said in the oral history, i'm not a feminist like tish bauld -- this is someone who as caroline said well, she came to the white house and found for herself a huge project which was restoring the white

house which was probable really three careers at the same time she had young children and she did the job of first lady which was her very own choice. by the definition of feminism that we now suggest, i think she was an early feminist, but her political instincts would have caused her to say no i'm not a feminist. >> that your sense as well, dick? >> there was no question she was a feminist, she just basically took over and did a job that under others, somebody may have assigned it to a man, because when she undertook the remodels or remaking, the correction of the mistakes that were made in the white house, she did it with a strength and an intelligence is that captures everyone. so, it is not, you know, i would not dismiss her on any count,

but certainlily not for her lack of wishy washiness, but that was not her style. >> one of the observations that jumped out at me reading this book was the extraordinary degree of physical pain president kennedy was in for much of his adult life including much of his presidency. dick, if i could continue with you, as someone working in campaigning, was that constant pain you picked up on as a staffer in the white house? >> no, he never complained of pain. he complained about lack of having sufficient hot water or something in order to get a bath to relieve the back pain, but did he not complain about what was happening to him and indeed, i was really struck by the book

because dr. travelle was sort of offer herself as the corrector of all illnesses, including with the sam rayburn, and obviously it was not giving him the relief that he should have had. the later thing with the doctor that taught him straining and stretching was what gave the relief. but he was not a complainer about anything. >> he was a stoic and mrs. kennedy tells two things that, she talks about after this two back operations in 1954 and 1955 and one of the things was she describes what torture it was and how he went through this and she said we later found out it was absolutely unnecessary. the following summer he went

back to the senate and was walking around is senate floor and go back to bed at night in a hospital bed. the other thing, is when he was president p i think that dick would confirm that, the number of times we know he was in pain, you never saw it. one image of that was their first foreign visit to canada and he planted a tree and he had been told to bend his knees not to aggravate his back and he forgot to do it and essentially almost ripped his back and put himself in terrible pain. if you see the video of it, he goes a bit like this, but he was such a stowic and did not want to make people uncomfortable, even the people close to him did not know what had happened.

>> do you think any other president had such physical discomfort? >> hard to think of one, for instance robert kennedy says in his preface to do memorial edition, he said half his day on earth were spent in physical pain. if that is the truth, more than radi roosevelt, absence approximately. >> you must have been thinking of arthur's questions, he was a friend of all of ours, were there questions did he not ask that you wished he had? >> did, but everything is always 20/20 and hindsight, in those days, most historians would not have thought to ask her a lot about her own experience, a first lady in those days, was sort of a side event. so there's less on her and the

purpose of the oral history was to talk about president kennedy. but caroline and i have discussed this too, there are things that since we know what happened late or, we sure wish he would have asked what would he have done in vietnam, and other issues that were not important in 1964 which now are important. >> it seems like by asking arthur and there was no one else to ask with better skills and training as a historian, a decision was made to take a certain path to the story which was the path of the harvard elites that came down to that white house and dick, did you feel that there were stories that were not told in this? >> yes, including anything that arthur told, because arthur was the greatest author or about stories about himself, i know

specifically because kenny o'donnell told me, when dean rust came to see the president, he delivered a message, get ar sure schlessinger off the list of people that get my cable. why? because he was a party going person. because russ said listen, anything you get by cable is around town by night fall. and then he said to kenny, no, you better not, i'll have to do it. you are going to come out poorly in his book as it is. >> and one thing she says in here is how in many ways compartmentalized his life was, she mentions the staff. >> yes, and one of the things that i found remarkable but it's

real. nobody in the staff really did business in memos. we communicated by phone and conversation and that is it. so, there are not great records. >> one reason the oral history program. >> that is right. and it made it very refreshing when you could know that something that you had seen or done was not recorded. but you could also see -- >> was there anything in particular that you would have been referring to, it's not too late, dick. >> no, no, i have saved up for my book. the thing that i remember best about all of that was when we came -- oh, no.

it was really about getting some stuff done at the white house. and everybody would get all excited about why is so and so writing a memo or why are they doing that? we don't need a memo, we just get things done. i think that dave powers remarked that we should have no historian, just some people give a report of what went on. because that was -- his personal look at the president's attempt to deal with people on the staff. but the people on the staff dealt very, very generously with one another. i mean, generously or not so generously but critically. you bet.

and but, not in an offensive way. not were we offensive to one another. although i could have been. but, the most important memory i have of the thing was that, the formation and the -- of the campaign for the presidency. and that really began with the fight for the control of the democratic state committee in massachusetts. >>s in onions burke, not edmonds burke. >> yes, and he got to be known as onions because they had an onion patch. >> he was an onion farmer and a bar tender. >> that was not untypical of leadership of the party.

but it -- >> hasn't changed either. >> no. no. but it started because that was when we determined that this guy who had just been elected to the senate and should take a shot at getting control of the mechanics of the party. now, that is really where you get recognition nationally. nobody cares who is chairman of the democratic party in new hampshire or any place else. but, who are the offices, but if you are getting ready for a convention, the people who care about who are the party leaders, want to know who is in charge. even though they find that being in charge doesn't put you in charge of much. but they did, so that was when we started the campaign for the control of democratic state

committee. it was a event that went on and on and on, i remember clearly that it was on mother's day in the year in which the election was held when we were in the hotel park plaza, and the president was interviewing the people of the state committee and asking if they supported him or not and if they did, we thought they were wonderful people. and if they seemed a little hesitant we went to find out. >> and you found out who was for you and against you. >> oh, yes you do. oh, you remember yes. and if you wanted to get a ticket to go to the white house, you better have been on the right side. >> in 1956. >> yes. and -- but that is when it began and it was a crucial campaign.

i mean we did not have onions burke and juicy gwanara >> who is julesy gwanara? >> ms. kennedy talks about these people that were a part of their life, and another man that was referred to as a china doll. tell about them. >> that goes back to the hotel bellevue, and the hotel bellevue which apparently no longer exists was at that time the -- right a block from where the president's apartment was. and right across from the state house. it was the buzz word of all that were around and they were in and out and we did not have -- >> mayor fitzgerald had his headquarters there? >> perhaps, you know, it was not

a place where you do not have e-mails and twitters and all of that type of thing. because you just met, and you -- we have a fellow at home we called whispering eddie smith. >> why did you call him that? >> because he whispered. >> thank you. >> they would spread rumors as quickly as you could spread a disease and they frequently did, what they spread was a disease. as we were getting ready for the fight for the control of the state committee. we had mayor listen of summerville which was our champion and they had onions burks which was the champion of the mccormicks, and eddie mccormick's father was on the

state committee. >> he was the brother of the state majority leader? >> yes, and he was as different as a speaker as you could make. he was course and rough and tough and i remember when his son was withdrawing from a campaign for the attorney generalship or something of that nature and the father stood in the middle of the i'll in the mechanics hall yelling sit down, that's a stupid thing to do. so he was not what you would call the wise counselor that you would think is in the back of a lot of these things. but, we got through this fight and everybody was convinced that there were big piles of money because the kennedys were going to buy this and i think how much are you getting and how much -- so i went home and said, gee, i hope something is waiting for

me. dinner was waiting for me. but that was the meter of the day to determine who was good and who was bad. but p that continued on and everybody is correct, people will recall where were they in the fight for lynch or o'neil or burke and they never did get it solved. because people were still mad, much, much later, and they never ever would stop that. >> i think they were still mad about 1980, or so. >> i had high hopes of talking about it's fun to faulk about onions burke. there are fascinating what ifs in the story, michael, there's the hint that an opening to china was anticipated in the mid

'60s and a quote of mao and a trip to russia -- >> it was interesting but it's the first time we had evidence from the prime witness. john kennedy was beginning to plan his second term and two of the things he was planning was going to the soviet union, first time a president had been there believe it or not. and a trip to china, which was a huge thing. he used to say in private, face it those are subjects for a second term after i'm re-elected. >> right. and lyndon johnson, whom you've worked with, doesn't fare that well in this treatment, there's a story about him going out in george town and had a bit too much to drink and felt he was not up to the job, does that track with your sense of where lbj was? >> i think mrs. kennedy if she

had read this later on would have felt she was a bit hard of lbj, this was spring of 1964. lbj had just become president, she was not happy that he was overturning things that were the president's intentions, and i think if she were here, the one note she would want on the front of the book is this is a snap shot in time, what she may have thought in the spring of 1964, may not have tracked with her feelings later on and late or she said in an oral history, she came to resume her old fondness for lbj, she was close to lady bird. so what you have have to remember is some of the more fascinating opinions, she did not always keep them years later. >> right. one interesting insight into his political temperament and, dick, this is almost the oppe