recounts his u.s. senate career. from 1953 to 1960. the book is called jfk and the senate. germans recorded at the marshall fund in 2013, it runs one hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> it's great to be around this table once again today because we have got some wonderful breakfast, and the people from all over the world, in due course we will have a chance to visit with all of them. the conversations go beyond breakfast. they continue on until everything going on in the world world. diplomacy might better contract with our congress, our administrations, others in washington, the leaders.

i am excited about this idea. of course, it really follows through with work that course and my friend, john shaw has done an inspired me to have a new chapter in my life after the senate and continuing to think about the rest of the world, think about ways in which those who withdraw for service might be more effective and more humane. let me just say at the outset that this is an exciting day to talk about a new book above john f. kennedy, the pathway to the presidency. it is an exciting book. when i first read i wrote back to him. he may recall this very short letter. john, i wish that i have had this book before i tried to run for president in 1995.

it really has been most instructive, and some of the things i learned from the buck -- book in retrospect, although i do not intend to run again for presidency. i want to reassure you well that you really have to want to do it full time. as this book will illustrate, from the time that john kennedy entered his second term in the senate life he was ready to go for four years. and so therefore everything was aligned in that respect. i remember bob dole running. he was running in the year that i was trying in '95 and '96 and was successful. i remember very well, howard baker ran earlier than that because i was his campaign manager. but both of these individuals were leaders of the party to minority leaders in most cases as opposed to the majority leader's. in the bill very conscientious about doing there duties in the senate. i felt the same way about making

all of the roll call votes and feeling that indiana had only to members of the senate. if one was gone 50 percent of whatever we had was absent. but it is a different style. if you decide to go for the presidency, the senate is there as a forum, you can speak, have books of your own, take time to write those, as john kennedy said -- certainly did, and likewise to have an instructional process in terms of foreign relations. i was delighted to learn from jon's book, for example, that president kennedy was very eager to get on the foreign relations committee. and it took him awhile for his service. i think it was four years or so prior him after he came into the

senate that lyndon johnson to had, at least the power to make these appointments, but among the foreign relations committee. that gave me a good feeling. he was on the foreign relations committee, but he was not there really to spend time running out -- grinding out legislation, having tens of hearings, i presume, for almost every ambassador from the united states to every country, all of the appointments of the state department or so forth. as we celebrated foreign relations committees, a couple of years ago, the historical society gave me an opportunity to point out that the foreign relations committee hold more hearings or at least in those days, then any of the committee. at the time to process all the personnel. likewise, all of the various things that are occurring in the world. president kennedy contributed to these, but this was not a preoccupation.

what was on his mind was the presidency and how he was going to prepare, really, to be a great president, how he was going to prepare, in fact, to be a candidate who would have an opportunity, as a matter of fact he already had experience at the convention prior to the one in which he was nominated in which she was almost the vice-presidential nominee, and he was, i suppose, instructed by what occurred during that time not to at least go through the same mistakes again. i don't want to tell the whole story of john's book but before he has suggested talk again today, but i am excited about it because it does really offered, as he suggests, a pathway to the presidency. facts are, of course, historically, only one other senator had gone directly from the senate at that time, and

only one has subsequently, namely, the president we now have, barack obama. i remember very well the first year that barack obama came to the senate. he was a faithful participant in our hearings. as a matter of fact, he was a junior democratic senator. i was the chair at the time. we recognize back and forth. barack was the last one in the room by the time we finished. it was a two-hour hearing. almost everyone else had left but the two of us. and so i once applauded him relief for his diligence, his constancy in all of this. well, he took me upon it. after i made a complimentary remarks in mid -- it was either april or may of that year he

said, dick, i know you go to russia every year. i would like to go with you this year. i was startled with his interest. out of the blue. i said, well, fine. let's do that. and so, as a matter of fact and the two of us went to russia in august at a time of senate recess and onto azerbaijan. then ukraine, as a matter of fact it now, i visited this past year azerbaijan. they are well aware of the visit , but certainly every picture that has brought obama and it has been elevated to a new status. people are very interested. likewise, even in arms control situation happens in russia, enlarged pictures of barack obama taking a look at missiles being chopped up in the process. it was an instructive time for him, but he was running for presidency, not going to run it for being secretary or chairman

of the foreign relations committee. i admired his ambition, and it was an interesting person with whom to work at that time. i mention all of this because there can only be so many presidents and so many senators. therefore in offering this pathway i am hopeful that the book will be in print for a long time because there will be a number of administrations, along, a number, but i would just say, it is authentic. i can say from my own experience, this is about to you ought to read very early on in your career if you want to be president. [laughter] not everybody wants to be president. some people, as a matter of fact, enjoy being members of the house or the senate or cabinet members, have other aspirations. i appreciate that.

i am one who has thoroughly enjoyed 36 wonderful years there were given to me, but still, it has been important for us to understand the mechanics of government, but likewise, the aspirations that leads people to do great things to take great risk, try to take risks on behalf of their country. what really does mold the presidents, the challenges. i appreciate the writing of this book especially because he has been in valuable in terms of his interest in foreign policy. his work is a contributor to diplomats as well known to most of you. he has always been on hand, have found, in the subway of the senate. i can recall many, many days. i was not trying to date him, -- escape him but i was certainly aware that he was

tracking me down on that occasion. and himself really in his pursuit as a reporter, but likewise, piecing together bit by bit each story to make each thing with accuracy, and likewise, with grace. the book it he wrote about me was very generous, but nevertheless, i don't want you necessarily to skips certain chapters, but there are times in which john appears that i was not quite up to but i ought to be doing. and so, as a matter of fact, he has let me know that, and i have read that loud and clear. no way to retraces, of course, but at the same time palin it does lead you to believe that it is important to have great reporters around to have coverage of the senate. it is important to the american people to have this kind of coverage. and john saw that he was the epitome of this. i appreciated the work that he

did on the statement. coverage. of a very gifted diplomat as he read my diplomat and gave a good idea of what happens to many of you in this room today your ambassadors and how you got here, what you do, how effective you may be, what is going to happen next. a remarkable book. i am confident that john f. kennedy, the pastor of the senate, is going to be successful. not only as it will be well read, but those to read it will profit and benefit by it enormously. it is a great privilege to be with john today here at the german marshall fund. this is the right place to meet. i want to -- just one final personal note, and that is the distinguished ambassador is here from montenegro. i mentioned him in particular

because i just had a great visit to the country. i think it probably originated because it has become a part of our institute, part of our roundtable discussions, and montenegro is a country that is seeking the united states investment. there are american firms and really want to have ties with this country, there really came to love referendum, as you know, in 2006. 600,000 people, but a country of enormous power and beauty. and we dedicated remarkable apartments, the largest american investment made in mt. -- montengegro today, but we also had the opportunity to discuss the nato prospectively with the prime minister and with the president around the table and a beautiful dinner up in the mountains. people gather together. understandably, the press was very interested in all of this. and the press will have to be

determined by them, as to whether there were stabbed, but very clearly their intent now is to help for a nato summit in 2004 which takes up the question. i touch upon this because these are the sorts of events that happen around this table. and the events that john shaw covers because he was over in the senate foreign relations committee room for the rollout of our institute. he wrote a very generous article about that. we were graced by secretary john kerry coming over, now a ranking member of the foreign relations committee, bob corker, my friend by my side turn my final years. these are people who are friends and yet at the same time, we need to talk to each other. cover the events, to understand the world and context in which is occurring. john does this so well. is my privilege to be with them on this very auspicious occasion. thank you so much. [applause]

>> thank you for that kind introduction. as the senator was speaking, the many, many hours we spent talking about foreign policy. it's a five-year project i was working on the book. took a great week off and went to indiana with him and spent ten days in russia, ukraine, albanian. it was a good trip. i have been thinking a lot about the senator's career recently because i've had the good fortune to read a chapter about him in a book that is coming out next year. thinking about the senator's career and his accomplishments will be one of the points to make the end of the book, the good things he has done since he left the senate, you know, obviously the work your the marshall fund, the hoover institute, the hoover center, excuse me, the engine shipper ramsey is working on. i think the press sometimes the

a narrative about people who leave congress and all they want to do is become lobbyists and cash in. there are a lot of people like the senator who do wonderful things when they leave the senate and we don't focus on that enough. so in this article i'm going to just focus of the great things he has done since leaving the senate. that will be fun to do. well, today when i would like to talk about is senator john f. kennedy. and i want to do it in the following way first to give you a sense of how he came to write this book. there were some 40,000 books allegedly on jfk. so you sort of have to ask yourself, is there really a need for another book? and that was sort of the first threshold that i had to cross. and i will explain to you why i thought that there was intelligence to write this book. secondly i want to just describe what kind of senator john f. kennedy was. and then lastly, i want to go into a little bit more stag live -- speculative from.

kind of counterfactual analysis and consider a couple alternatives pass that his career might have taken if the fates it chains just a little bit. and i will do that at the end of my remarks. the book actually arose directly out of my work. i was just at the end of the book. i had not identified all the research and a little bit of the final chapter in a need to put his career into context and understand how we fit in with the course of history. so i had a meeting with the senate historian, and they give me some interesting things to read and think about. one of the things they suggested i look at was a report that john f. kennedy wrote in mid-1950s. as chairman of the special committee to determine the five best senators in american history it was an interesting project, and i will talk about it later, the sense of american midcentury that they would have the audacity to conduct such a study . i'm not sure that the institutional -- institutional system decided that they would launch something like that, but kennedy was assigned to do it, did a really good job, has a wonderful narrative about what it means to be an excellent

senator. so i read that, was thinking about that in the context of senator hoover's career and this file has his back story of just how this committee actually worked. and to no one's surprise, and certainly not senator hoover's was a fair amount of political machinations even to determine the five best centers in american history. i went on vacation. about the second day of vacation she went out. i was sitting by the eastern shore of maryland, by the chesapeake thinking, i wonder if it might be possible to register kind of a simple, narrow book on the kennedy committee showing just how kennedy was in charge of this project, why the start of a project like this was interesting, the back story, the political machination.

during the vacation i sketched out a proposal. and then i came home and i thought about it more and put together a formal proposal, contacted a wonderful legacy, and we started talking about the book. he liked it, but it might should be a little more broad. we talked more and talk to a publisher and decided to write a book on jfk senate career. turns out, of these 40,000 books are so that are out there, there really isn't one on his senate career. and, of course, when you start a project that you sort of say, you know, i would like to think i'm relatively intelligent, but i am not that much smarter than everyone else. why is this the case? why has no one else have gone down this path? and i think it is because they're is a conventional wisdom about kennedy's career which is that it was an inconsequential time, he really didn't do much. he used it as a stepping stone. just passing through. the think like a lot of conventional wisdom there is no man of truth to it.

his senate career was much more interesting than that, particularly in the room a -- realm of foreign policy. he loved foreign affairs. could not get too much of it. in a thinking makes a major contributions to foreign policy debates, very active in labour legislation. he was also, i think, he did a lot to promote the institution of the senate through his work on the kennedy committee. and also interestingly, i think the senate changed him. when he arrived he was this sort of lightly regarded former house member not considered a very serious guy. eight years later he had become the democratic nominee for president. as senator hoover said he became only the second sitting senator to be elected president. and i think it is very, very intriguing how he was able to make that pathway from the senate to the white house. i also argue that i think that it was sort of the kennedy

model, thay barack obama looked at. and i sure that he studied all the nuances of the campaign, but i think he got the basic theme that kennedy was able to articulate and saw how a back bencher could run for president and almost use his inexperience as an advantage rather than a burden. so let me -- with that as a context of what to describe the five ways to think about john f. kennedy as a senator the first, as a colleague, what was he like? there is a pretty substantial record of memoirs. everyone sort of agrees. he was a cool, reserved, polite, formal, distant person. he was not one of the boys. he was somewhat aloof, sick a lot of the time. as i started reading about him and thinking about it, i think his personality type was much

closer to barack obama then his own brother, ted kennedy, who in some sense was almost the exact opposite. and he knows it well. ted kennedy, there would be almost a party around his exuberant, talking, laughing, joking. and then more sensitively he was a patient person who love the legislative process, loves to work it, and i don't think necessarily that jfk had that same sort of mind set. if i could just read a couple of sentences from a wonderful memoir, a gentleman by the name of harry mcpherson who wrote about political education. and the book, among many other some of the characters of the senate at that time. and let me read just a few sentence. he sat in the back row companies against the desk, wrapping his teeth of a pencil and reading the economist and the guardian.

he was treated with affection by most senators, but he was all to elusive, finding his way in other worlds outside the chamber . handsome, bright, well-connected, he seemed to regard senate grandees as impressive but tedious. regarded by them as something of a playboy, a dilettante. his voting record was moderate and sometimes conservative, especially on trade in agriculture matters. he was not a prime mover in the senate. only once, in early 1960's, in handling a labor-management build the scene to emerge as a leader. then he stood in the center of chamber, shattered his opposition challenge them to match his argument. i scarcely recognize that cool, glamorous figure. to lyndon johnson, believes he was an attractive nephew who sings an irish ballad for the

company, but then disappears before the table planning and dishwashing began. to kennedy johnson must have seemed something of a gifted workforce, an original personality, a conventional politician. in comparably wise about the senate and directly uninformed about national politics. they were friends, and their respective order another. i like the way he alludes to the relationship between jfk and lyndon johnson. that was probably kennedy's most important relationship in the senate. johnson was the senate democratic leader during his entire tenure. he and a pretty iron grip on the democratic caucus. he made most of the committee assignments. in fact, i spent time at the kennedy library in boston and there was a very, very thick file of letters that kennedy wrote to lyndon johnson asking for a different committees. kennedy was on the labor

committee and government affairs committee and desperately wanted off the government affairs committee and wanted to be on foreign relations and as a backup on the finance committee. i will talk more about his time in the foreign relations committee, but kennedy finally was able to get on the committee in 1957 after four years, but at that point his presidential ambitions were in full frenzy, and he did not participate quite as actively as some wanted. there's a story, i am not sure if it is 100 percent true, the story has it that jfk was asked if he would be subcommittee chairman of foreign relations committee and he said, do i actually have to hold a hearing? and apparently the answer was, maybe one or two. so he said he would do so. that is about the number of hearings that he actually help. one other piece of kennedy's sort of relationship that was striking, he was a wealthy person, but he served in the military, the navy.

and he had a kind of easy way with some of his colleagues. one that he had with was barry goldwater who was in some ways opposite. but they have this sort of almost locker room tub of conversation relationship. and at one point kennedy was presiding over the senate. it was late in the evening. was about ready to close down for the night. kennedy apparently had a social engagement planned. barry goldwater was on the senate floor just talking and talking and talking. kennedy was getting impatient. apparently he saw that, kept on talking. finally kennedy calls over a page scrawls a note to the page gives it to goldwater. and goldwater looks down and he sees the note.

in the did not take too long to read it. very simple. why are you always such a share -- shit? [laughter] this probably had the effect of to the night, but it's sort of showed the jack killer aspect of jfk. a second dimension of want to talk about with kennedy, a domestic policies and other. i sort of like an it to being a student, do your math homework before you go do literature or social studies and history. it was just something that he knew he had to pay attention to he had won in 1952 on a campaign that just effectively alleged the lodge was so interested in being a globetrotting senator and involved in foreign policy that he was neglecting massachusetts. kennedy's theme was i will do more for massachusetts. it is somewhat ironic because in

some sense kennedy was charging goldwater with being is that really kind of senator he wanted to be. that was what he thought a senator should do a saw that it was electorally a vulnerability. he pushed very are an affront. so when kennedy was elected, as the first thing he did was a symbol of very, very detailed economic plan for massachusetts and new england. he hired ted forstmann who came out of his top aides to assemble is very detailed economic plan. and there had been a steady in the boston federal reserve bank. they had a lot to draw from. they put together this massive document. kennedy in his first month in the senate gave 32-hour speeches -- 3 two hour speeches on his economic agenda for massachusetts. he later turned this agenda into dozens of bills.

160 page book on his agenda for massachusetts. he actually put together a delegation of new england senators. they would meet twice a month to talk among the issues here research shows that kennedy was smart, a shrewd politician and knew that he needed to pay attention to the home front and show that he was attentive to the needs of massachusetts. another domestic issue that was really kind of interesting was the construction of the st. lawrence seaway which was a big issue in the united states in the early 1950's. this was as a way that would link the atlantic into the great lakes. had been discussed for a long time. most members of congress or fort but the new england senators and the seaboard senators thought that it will be harmful for some of the port cities, so they oppose it. kennedy opposes from the house. and he was not quite sure how to go. but then when he arrived in the senate he spent a lot of time thinking about it and reconsidering his opinion. and then in 1954 he decides to switch his position.

and he gave one of the most important speeches of his senate career in which he said camino -- am i certain this will help? i am not. canada is ready to go forward with it. it is going to go. we ought to be on the ground floor to actually help construct the seaway. it is in the national interest, the broad national interest to do this. reading from the news accounts, kennedy supported commented that happening withheld the vote. in the support was considered a sort of pivotal issue or pivotal moment when people started to suspect, that it was going to pass. it also got kennedy some notice, the sense that he was not just a parochial senator but could have a sort of larger, national vision. interestingly tip o'neill, former house speaker, and his said that when kennedy decided he would support this in lawrence seaway was the first

time he was going to run for president. there was a sense, perhaps, some political regulation as well. one of the domestic a share want to touch on briefly was the labor issue, and that was a huge issue. some ways i think it might even be analogous to immigration. it was one of these dominant issues of the kennedy had served 1950's. on the house labor committee for six years. he was on the senate labor committee for eight years. i he was in the senate. was also in a very high-profile committee, mcclellan committee.

this was the one domestic issue. paul douglas, fairness and other who was not very inclined to be complementary. he marveled at his ability to understand the nuances and complexities of labor laws, liberal legislation, and kennedy get involved in this very complicated effort to pass the , 1958, 1959. he passed and the modest bill and the house. it went into a conference committee. he passed a modest bill in the senate. it went into negotiations with the house. a very different bill emerged of what kennedy has some ability shape the final product. and that was when people thought that he had the potential to be kind of a serious, serious policy maker. i think kennedy left that experience and a never going to get involved in that kind of complex domestic issue again. certainly well on rent for president. i think that was interesting. kennedy as a foreign policy senator. think that might be particularly interesting to this group here. as i suggested earlier, kennedy love foreign affairs, history. this was his first love. i had a wonderful interview with harris wofford was a former senator. he was also an assistant of kennedy's when kennedy was a senator. kennedy could not get enough of foreign policy. it was the one issue that just really, really set them. my first real appreciation of kennedy as a foreign policy

senator game. it was the book that he published in 1960 called the strategy of peace, which is a compilation of this in a speech. i was astounded his speeches on his speechesne at on foreign policy because they were really remarkable documents. i mean, he's on and on tough issues. he put them in a really sophisticated, historical context. he would canvas the array of possible solutions and would offer a really detailed plan about how they should go forward on a particular issue. and there's a couple that just want to touch on briefly. the first one, and it is astonishing to read about it, but his role, or his thoughts on the at nam.

vietnam. he was very, very clear in his own head and this is the early 1950's, that france was on a mission that was going to fail in indochina and vietnam. it said there is seen as they're not going to win. colonial occupiers. they're not going to win. as colonial occupiers. they are not going to win. the smartest thing would be cut their losses and get out. and he just had this very precious sense of just how all western power would not succeed in vietnam. and yet surprisingly and perplexing lee command a couple years later when the americans demand the law lot of the sort of skepticism and clear right view that he had to the french announcer: disappeared, and he thought that somehow the americans working with them are going to

be able to make this situation work. and it is, i think, historians still puzzled but just how wise his early speeches were on vietnam and how they -- that they're acuity faded of the years. he knows why, whether he started looking more toward the white house and just not that he needed to be on the hawkish side of the issue or what actually was behind the shift. as you read his speeches, it is really quite striking. another issue, he was in some sense ahead of the curve, the french involvement in algeria. a a number of really powerful speeches. the only really viable thing to do was to a grant algeria independence. what they're doing to try to have kind of a cause i independence that is just was not going to work. and it was very controversial to speak sharply. the french were angry. a lot of the european community was angry. at least the vinson, you know, ally.ing an so his views on an injury or interesting. and i was also amazed that some of his thoughts on the eastern bloc, the soviet union, and he was very, very clear that poland was the weak link in the soviet empire. he thought that the foreign policy statute at that time, the battle act should be amended so that the u.s. to give generous financial assistance, exchange

programs to poland saying, i think, this is a country that might not want to be in the soviet orbit. there might be ways that we can induce them into a little different status. he fought that battle really hard. hi and finally to my think you w foreign policy as sort of the overarching theme to criticize president eisenhower. his view was that the eisenhower ministration was was reactive, slow-moving, was not imaginative in the sort of used his critique of the eyes and our foreign policy to gain

visibility within the democratic party and also to sort of project and self as this kind of aggressive, for cleaning, vibrant, new leader. and another dimension of kennedy as senator was as historian. he loved history. he wrote a pretty good book when he was a senior at harvard on great britain's foreign policy in the he came to the senate in 1930's. 1956, wrote a book called profiles in courage which became a national best seller. in 1957 he won the pulitzer prize. there is, as some of you may know, i have century debate as to how much of the book he actually wrote and how much was written by his assistant, ted sorensen, and others. on the 40,000 books on kennedy, probably about 5,000 have been written about profiles in courage. but in any case, this book gave kennedy a sort of stature within the senate. so in the mid-1950s, they had decided to do this project, to look at senate history and determine the five best senators in american history. one of the things that is most striking about this project is just sort of the kind of vision of the window that it gives you in the united states at that time. there was enough institutional self confidence and national self-confidence that they could

do a project like this and without apology, without expecting chuckles or the public to be sort of rolling their eyes. it was a series project. it was a project that lyndon johnson, as majority leader, was interested in, created, created a special committee that he at first was chairman of, but then he got involved in other legislative matters. kennedy became the chairman, and there is a wonderful letter in the archives in which richard nixon, vice president, president of the senate, writes a letter to senator john f. kennedy, formally naming him chairman of this new committee to probe and to study.

and it was not -- it was in some says the one project that jfk was fully in charge of as a senator. he took it very hard, but theater is really interesting process which they surveyed leading historians and political scientists. they invited comments from leaders across the country. there's a wonderful -- there also indebted comments -- invited, up two former presidents are still living. and this is also in the archives, stumble across rivers larry kennedy. basically says, not really know very much about the senate. maybe henry clay and john callahan. it is all i really have to say. in the next file, there is a long, long memo from harry truman in which she gives -- he

he nominates 42 senators for and there were many sketches this position. and there were many sketches about books they have written to me know, travel interest. german took this as this major project and wrote a term paper on a press herbert hoover spent probably a lot to three minutes and read just a very cursory note. kennedy jumped into this . katie jumped into this project. he loved it, and he presided over a group of very distinguished senators who were part of the kennedy committee. mike mansfield became a legendary senate majority leader on the committee. richard russell, in legendary senator, a german by the name of styles bridges from new hampshire who was one of these quiet forces in the senate and 1950's to be no one really knew very much about him, but he was a real powerhouse. then his son ahmad and ahmad john brinker. five of them got five of them got together and negotiated fee. as the talks unfolded, they quickly came to agreement on three of the five. these are three senators who are very prominent before the american civil war. john callahan, in reply. so they agree quickly on the street, the great triumvirate, but then there were not certain about the other two senators. and they decided to choose a

leading progressive from the 20th-century and a leading conservative. for the conservative they chose robert taft to have passed away, a stalwart republican senator from ohio. when it came to the progress of there were decisions. kennedy very much wanted to select george norris, a very kind of aggressive, popular senator from nebraska. but the current senator from nebraska had had some run-in's and said, you're not going to select him. in fact he wrote a letter was looks an awful lot like a threat of a filibuster if kennedy actually went forward and suggest to him. and also styles bridges was on the committee. so they ended up choosing robert from wisconsin. so this was a project that -- and it was interesting for me to just read the paper work, try to piece together the deliberations of the committee and just see the kind of inquisitive, thoughtful aspect of kennedy. he was writing letters, some of his friends who are historians trying to get there sense of things. it was something that he just really, really loved. i think his work on a solidified his reputation as kind of this sentence, you know, and house historian. i think it was also very politically useful because it helps him land his reputation as is rising and start, but also someone who is steeped in american history, suggested a kind of something that he needed to signalize he was gearing up to run for president. so the final aspect of kennedy's senate career when i talk about -- is president of can it. here, i think, senator hoover said, you know, he had long wanted to run for president. a lot of people think that he decided to run. his brother was killed in world war two. the mantle of the

the mantle of the family was passed him. certainly by the time he entered the senate he was thinking of it i think some people, it is hard to gauge whether political career turned. jfk, and 1956, the senate mentioned was the year. he profiles in courage came out, became a national best seller. he was the star of the 1956 convention, sort of like obama was in 2004. he married a film to introduce the convention. he nominated adlai stevenson. he came within just a handful of votes to become the vice presidential nominee. that fall he became the most popular surrogate on the campaign circuit circuit traveling around the country. ostensibly promoting stevenson's campaign, but probably also interested in increasing his visibility. and, you know, stevenson was defeated soundly by adlai stevenson in early november of 1956. and three weeks later, kennedy was in hyannis port for thanksgiving vacation. he had a little private meeting with his father and came out and told his aides that he would be running for president in 1960, you know, four years down. his rationale was, i came within

a handful of votes of becoming vice president during nothing. if i spent four years, i can certainly get the nomination. i think kennedy's, his four year credit for the presidency is interesting to look at, in part because of the model, largely because it is very rare that a sitting senator can go to the white house, warren harding in 1920, kennedy in 1960, and obama and 2008. but i think kennedy had a really shrewd sense of another use the senate as a launching pad for the presidency. think his first insight was that windows of opportunity in american politics open and close quickly. you can be a hot commodity one day, but you know, the wheel turns. a couple months or years later you are forgotten. i think he had a sense that, you you know, he was hot after 1956,

and there was no one else who was clearly, you know, in line for. he had to -- this was his time, his time to run. several people said we have until he said, it's either going 1964. notappen in 1964 or that is going to happen. he had that sense. coming with that sense of the mission was the single mindedness. as he was fighting for the nomination he and other competitors, hubert humphrey, lyndon johnson, who were both senators, but were much more ambivalent, smart, you know, sort of confused about whether their primary responsibility was in washington or on the campaign trail. kennedy did not have that confusion. he knew where he needed to be. he was on the campaign trail pushing very hard. there is a great moment in the 1960 campaign as kennedy is about to win the democratic nomination in los angeles. and lyndon johnson has entered the race at the last minute. he was then majority leader. johnson still thinks he has a chance to derail kennedy's

nomination. he has his joint appearance before the texas delegation, johnson's delegation. and so johnson, you know, he starts citing all of his legislative achievements and just says come day pass a civil rights bill in 1957. they're working and another in 1960, and he is talking about all the work he was doing. he said i had to fight filibuster's and quorum call after quorum call after quorum call. some people or not your answering quorum call, but i was, a clear reference to kennedy. kennedy comes up and says, want to say, you know, lyndon johnson as a great job answering quorum calls. if you need someone to answer quorum calls, he is your guy, but that is not what a president does. he said, i think he is a great leader and he should stay as the senate democratic leader, said a senate majority leader. and so in a certain way and a kabuki way he sort of turns johnson's experience and

and itnst him, became almost a liability as opposed to an asset. and i think also, i think kennedy in a related way was very, very clear on the perils of being considered as an insider and saw that americans deny typically alexa insiders as president. so he sort of went the other way and said, no, that is not really who i am. i am really a different kind of senator. and he used that as a political asset rather than a liability. let me end with my sort of foray realm.e speculative so much of kennedy's career, used to think of what might have been. it strikes me that there are a couple of points when his career might've gone differently. in first he was elected 1952, reelected in 1958, and won the presidency very narrowly against richard nixon. you wonder what if he had lost. literally 10,000 votes, a couple

of states and nixon would have been president. what would kennedy have done? a school ofere is thought that says you would have just kind of, you know, hunker down and run again in 1964. there are some who think maybe he would have actually redoubled his efforts and try to be a consequential senator. people of that school sometimes cite his brother ted who ran in 1980, was defeated, and then decided that he wanted to put all his energies into being a great senator and became, you know, one of the real dominant senators of the 20th century. i think that is an interesting analysis, but i think the temperament between jfk and ted kennedy were so different that i don't think the analogy really holds. i just don't think that there is really much and jfk's background to suggest, at least at that point his career that he was ready to just jump into being, you know, a senator again. i not sure what he would have am done, but i'm not sure he would have done that. another scenario would have been, if kennedy had lived, and

reelected in 1964 and served out his second term and left the senate and january 1969, what would he have done then? and there are some who say, including a good friend of his, the kennedy talk to him about at some point in the future running for the senate again. and even if his wife said that he had talked about that in a family gathering. the detective he detected that his brother ted was feeling a little uncomfortable because he just won the senate seat. but as we found out later, they may have found another seat in a different state had chosen to go that way, but it is interesting to think that perhaps kennedy might have to you know, after a certain amount of time back to the senate as kind of a senior statesman. the one kind of hint and the one in that direction is his book profiles in courage when he

writes about john quincy adams who had been a president, he was defeated, and then he ran for the house and served a number of years as a very distinguished house member, independent, outspoken, did not feel like he was beholden to anyone. and it might be a kennedy might have thought about doing something like that at a certain time after he left the white house. that is something that, of course, we will never know. it is an area of conjecture that i find interesting. let me just wind up my comments. thank you for listening. i would be glad to answer any questions and hear any comments. [applause] >> first of all, i can't wait and i was not paid to do this, to read the book. i think it is unexamined territory. anyone who has lived here in washington for so long, i can't -- before i ask my questions to

i came here to hear about the book. here in the district of columbia. i don't know if you remember our last conversation. the elevator doors closing. i thanks you for 1978 making d.c. a part of america by voting for the d.c. voting rights amendment which would grant for the first time representation both the house and the senate. there were 16 republicans. you were the last living surviving serving republican senator. and so as a d.c. resident and someone who aspires to join america, maybe this is a belated think you. you also voted for a modicum of democracy when d.c. and utah were going to come in with an additional house seat. senator hatch and bennett, that was in their self-interest to do with. i found it interesting that three republicans who were senators voted for d.c.

i told them, and aware of this, one thing in common. there were former mayors. so accept this as a belated thank you. john, thank you for your indulgence. 1956 was my first political memory. if i can just add to it, maybe in the book, this is when tv did not come on during the daytime. i'm from chicago. this is really hitting home. my grandmother said this young man john kennedy almost got nominated. stevenson threw open the convention. fascinating. the it is fascinating. the other two candidates, as you know, from the same state. kennedy said later, and probably it is in your book. i have not even read it. that was the best thing that ever happen because it would have been a running mate of stevenson. i remember bobby kennedy sang he bought for one because he said christmas cards to all the delegates.

he learned something. and i'm so glad you mentioned it here. that book is the very best. he died about a year ago. he was a wonderful, wonderful writer. those little -- if you synopsis, it absolutely miracle. i'm so glad you said it. so now to the question, you did mention joe mccarthy. and bobby kennedy, his brother, worked on the mcclellan committee. would you address that? and then keeping an character, any mention -- there was a constitutional amendment the provided -- which the senate had to vote they gave d.c. their right to vote for president, the 23rd amendment. what was his interaction with the district of columbia? and then i will close with this mccarthy said

about three senators when he ran. he nominated stevenson in 1960 at the democratic convention, but he thought he should be considered a senator as president. he said i am twice as liberal as humphrey, twice as cap against kennedy, and twice as smart. i wonder if you ever heard that one. >> mccarthy in d.c. mccarthy, did he vote? >> he did not. he abstained. ill a lot.was it was actually ten months from the middle of 1954 to the middle of 1955, where he was gone. he was recuperating. it was december 1954.

so there was a procedure called peering which he could have cast his -- made his views known. but , but it was very complicated relationship because mccarthy was a family friend. he had -- yes. joe mccarthy was a senator from wisconsin who has -- was one of the real sharp cold warriors and involved a lot of accusations about people's patriotism and that sort of thing. so kennedy had, you know, the family knew him well. i think kennedy was at his wedding. i think mccarthy was at kennedy's wedding. there was a history there. kennedy was a shrewd guy. that by the mid-1950's, early 1950's, the mccarthy announcer: was a bit of a toxic senator, and so he kind of kept his

distance. he was very wary. people come up to him, what do you think about joe mccarthy? he would give very terse answers so, you know, kennedy did not vote on the censure. and in the line then was that it was because he was ill. ted sorensen in his memoir in 2008 addresses it in some detail and he says that that is true. he said, had can he really wanted to go on the record he could of called periodic it had made arrangements. sorensen's view was that kennedy made a political decision not to cast his vote. he had a lot of support. so he was a complex figure. kennedy was very careful in how we tried to operate around them when kennedy served in the house who is on the d.c. committee. adelle remember all the details section in the book where i describe the various initiatives that he introduced and pushed regarding d.c., so he was a big champion of the city.

he was very active legislatively on d.c. issues. i remember another political memory. my mind is cluttered with this. in 1958, among the minority leader from california and get when i was a republican governor of california. i will never forget. he ran for the senate bill read a switch positions. the minority leader of the senate ran for governor. being a senator was considered not the pathway to being president. you are supposed to be an executive, a governor, and the irony is they both lost. pat brown and then a few years there committed suicide. his life really unraveled after that. >> i can't wait to read the

book. >> thank you for your questions. other questions or comments? >> is there going to be a prequel been, kennedy and the house? tip o'neill took his seat in the house. what did you learn? you must've started some research on his six years in the house. >> i did. and it was -- i mean, a was an interesting time. kennedy's health was probably the worst of his life at that point. people said that he was like a skeleton. he was emaciated. he had what turned out to be addison's disease. he was considered to be a sort of lackluster, low energy, house member. the one thing he was was an incredible, incredibly interested politically, so he was elected first in 1946.

he briefly thought about running for the senate in 1948. decided that was probably not a good time. from 1948 to 1952, he did something which house members did not really do back then. he went home every weekend. he would go home on thursday night, and he would just, massachusetts and spent four years going to, you know, ice-cream socials and church breakfast. he actually had in his apartment in boston, a map of the state of massachusetts, a highway would put little ns when he would go into a community. he said, as soon as i fill up this number to run for senate. so his house years or interesting, but it really was

-- i mean, they broke the illness and the fact that he really then was looking for the next phase. so some issues that he was interested in. he was very interested in housing. this was a big issue in the aftermath of world war ii. he was also a very sharp critic of harry truman on some foreign policy issues. there was a big debate about who lost china. there was a big debate about who lost china. kennedy went to the house floor ,nd hammered the administration to diplomat specifically, and set these two diplomats have something to answer for. he was liberal on domestic issues, but had a hawkish foreign policy. he traveled a lot, a lot of times on his own dime. he made a five-week trip to europe while the house was still in session. he was meeting with prime minister's and presidents and generals and all, so in the

house years, it was an interesting time. there might be a book to write their, but it is an intriguing phase in his political career. one other point, when you read the memoirs of kennedy -- he was not a natural politician, particularly as a young man. he was reserved. he was quiet. and it was hard for him to -- i mean, he was not the sort of person that just loves to just go up to someone. in fact, at one point in an interview -- he was talking to a friend he said, and the sort of person when i sit on a airplane, i would rather sit and read about and talk to the person next to me. he said to my knowledge my personality is rare for politics. he saw hubert humphrey, the exact opposite, but was the kennedy decided to run this which went on and is reticent, deferential, quiet person threw himself into it. he was going door-to-door. he was just relentless. in the thing about kennedy for all the advantages that he had with wealth and famous family,

he outworked his opponents. he outworked in 1952. he worked humphrey and lyndon johnson in 1960. i mean, he was not a natural politician, but when he decided to run a race, he was a fiercely ,ompetitive, very tough formidable guy. >> question. you mentioned a critique of defense policy in vietnam and the algerian and poland. and obviously what he had said about vietnam and algeria. how was that received in the u.s.? positioning himself for a presidential run? just curious as to how -- it was considered very controversial because the cold war was still in its intense phase and there was a sense that kennedy had sort of transcended

what was appropriate. that there was -- there were several people who said you should not come on the floor of the united states senate and criticize an ally. he actually gave his first speech -- i forget the exact date, but he ended up giving a very lengthy one one week later, saying i have gotten a lot of responses last week, and i feel like and the jury spine, first of all, why give that speech and also to respond to a little bit of the blowback i have gotten. and then the kennedy files in boston there is this huge file on algeria. tons of mail from diplomats. and also, you know, american foreign-policy establishment who said, you know, this is not an appropriate role for junior senator to be coming on the senate floor and, you know, dissing an ally, so it was very controversial. >> i forgot one other subject matter which really does have something to do with his presidential term. he was considered going to slow on civil rights.

he had dealings with seven chairman whoittee were holding up civil-rights. the 1957 bil the 1957 bill was a very weak bill. no wonder if you could talk about from mississippi, walter george, richard russell, and the difference making between his brother who served a short time in the senate and john kennedy, when bobby kennedy was on the judiciary committee, jim eastland had written a book, to seek a newer world. and bobby kennedy had written a book, to seek a newer world. he gave it to eastland, and said, jim, it is not too late. tell me, how was he on civil right? and he was criticized for not moving when he was president of on civil-rights by virtue of the fact that he would lose the support of the south in 1964 and the southern committee chairman. did he build up any

relationships, personally with them where he could move these bills based upon his tenure in the senate with the same people? >> i think the short answer is that kennedy, he he felt like he was on defense on civil rights in the senate. he thought it was an impossible issue politically because he was trying to era have a political base that included both conservatives in the south. he felt like he needed to win in the south to win the presidency, and he also needed liberals. and and just, when you read about just aate years, it was sort of almost nonstop effort to just avoid getting pinned down, and it just -- and several people, paul douglas was very critical. paul douglas held

paul douglas held regular meetings and civil-rights and dollars invited kennedy. kennedy declined to come. so it was a very, very politically controversial issue commanded seemed like he spent most of his energy trying to avoid getting pinned down on that. >> short question. cold war history. but specifically on berlin crisis, strike me that, of course, soviet leaders actually considered kennedy naïve, not experienced. findings, did you find anything interesting to comment 's viewspinions, on the soviet union and soviet leadership? his views on the soviet union

and soviet leadership? >> kennedy became one of the leading critics of president eisenhower and challenged as an hour on the right. eisenhower was too concerned with balanced budgets and trying to, you know, scaled-back the defense establishment. he cited what was then referred to as the missile gap, an alleged gap between the u.s. and the soviet union. so kennedy, in his senate years, was very, very hawkish. and he actually was, you know, something of a conservative, but yes, when he went into the white house, there was a sense -- he was 42, 43 years old. his initial meetings with khrushchev were very, very top. i think he actually walked out of one meeting saying, you know, that is the hardest meeting i have ever been at. he just dismantled me. so there is a sense of personal softness which, again, is somewhat ironic given this is that he was a war hero, incredibly disciplined, a tough person politically, but his early meetings with the soviets were not, you know, were not successful. they thought he was weak, that

they could perhaps push him around. thatw would you say president kennedy would have graded the foreign policies of the government government, especially issues such as syria, ,uch as, you know, israel palestine. one of the questions. i think i think about a lot. perhaps, maybe in the sense of syria, having sort of lay down your markers and then not really adhered to it. so there might have been a sense

that once you have made a commitment that you really have to continue to honor it but it is so hard to really kind of extrapolate that. i think that would be unfair to kennedy and obama if i really were to say much more than that. >> any tangible difference -- yes, without applying it. i do thinkldviews -- that the kennedy temperament was a lot like obama. i really do. it was the same sort of analytical approach to problem-solving. he likes to hear people out. he liked to discuss. he also probably would not be the most tightly organized manager. you know, he had a kind of a free-wheeling white house operation. so maybe in some senses management style was the same, but that is about as far as i can go on that. could you describe which

political goals developed during his time at the senate. as you just laid out, it seems to me, and everything and have written or read, is seems to me that he just made for political decisions. he was an opportunistic politician who was trying to get to the white house. he never confronted, even though he could have. he made those decisions on indochina later in his presidency without really being decisive. he used a completely false accusation, the missile gap, against the eisenhower administration, which was completely unfounded. it seems to me, his presidency, was just crisis driven and

foreign policy terms. we have the bay of pigs, the cuban missile crisis. what were his genuine political goals? >> that is one of the great questions. there is no doubt there was a strong political aspect to kennedy. he wanted the top job. he probably wanted it without having a particularly clear agenda as to what he wanted to defending apart from the nation and so forth. one point on the missile gap, because that is -- there was a big debate about where the united states had fallen behind the soviet union, and i do think you can make the argument that kennedy was somewhat cynical, although there was an opening because eisenhower had appointed this high profile commission that came out with an alarmist report saying the united states had fallen behind

, and kennedy sort of pounced on that. it helped to further feed the narrative that he was arguing, and to have a sort of panel that president eisenhower had chosen , so it gave him an argument to advance, but i i don't dispute that there was a hard political aspect, and i don't know -- on domestic policy i do think that he was committed -- housing. he was a strong supporter of labor, although not an uncritical one. he was also very careful on civil rights as i mentioned and was very politically attuned. i don't really feel like i'm quite -- i read a lot about the presidency, but i don't know i have developed a coherent, final view on what were the main

political goals of john f. kennedy, but maybe that will be the next book. it's a great question. it is an important one. >> thank you so much for the great presentation. i have more of a general question. from your presentation, it seems like jfk became a president through some kind of a predetermined path rather than any success in the senate. would you agree with that opinion? do you think his modest success in the senate did not too much contribute to his election as a but was part of the path he was going through? >> i do think the senate changed him and in some way transformed him. i do think he developed expertise in areas he had not before. he did a kind of a deep dive on some complicated issues, so it was like an advanced graduate

school for kennedy, and i think that he did use his senate years to learn more and he kind of formed a political identity in which he presented himself as politician, a young candidate, but also someone who was very familiar with the american history and understood its traditions and was very steeped in american history. so i think that he put together a very powerful political presence that was a force, but i think it does raise profound -- one of the ironies about the american political system is that the times that you are most electable may not be the times you are most ready to be president. whether it was jfk or president obama or another four or six years in the senate might have done them good, but i think they both realize, you know, clearly that additional time would not make them more politically

viable, so they had to sort of the site this is my time. kennedy often said i wonder if i am ready to be president, and then looked around at everyone and that was running thought i am just as qualified as they are. so that was sort of his assessment. thank you. >> can you order them on amazon? >> yes. my publisher is paul gray mcmillan and you can purchase it from them. >> thank you. [applause] on history bookshelf, here from the country's best

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