Listening In (16 page)

MEETING WITH GOVERNOR EDMUND “PAT” BROWN OF CALIFORNIA, APRIL 20, 1961

OPERATOR:
Mr. President?

JFK:
Yeah.

OPERATOR:
He’s in a conference room down on the fifth floor. They’ll send for him.

JFK:
OK. No hurry.

OPERATOR:
Thank you.

JFK:
[skips] to it in ’60. Hell, I’d gotten them all in shape, so that [skips] huh?

PAT BROWN:
Well, let me just tell you this …

JFK:
I’ll tell you this, you reduced him to the nuthouse.

PAT BROWN:
Listen, but you gave me instructions and I follow your orders …

JFK:
[chuckling] I understand. But God, that last farewell speech of his …
¹

PAT BROWN:
Wasn’t that terrible?

JFK:
Well, no, but it shows [skips] what’s going to happen [skips] out there?

PAT BROWN:
I don’t see how he can ever recover. [skips] the leaders.

JFK:
Yeah.

PAT BROWN:
Knight
²
walked out on him, [unclear] told me [skips]. This is a peculiar fellow. [skips] I really think he’s psychotic. He’s an able man, but he’s nuts.

JFK:
Yeah.

PAT BROWN:
Like a lot of these paranoiacs, they’re… But [skips] good job.

JFK:
What did Kuchel
³
win by?

PAT BROWN:
Kuchel won by about [skips] thousand. The Cuban thing really helped him. [skips] flew back, why it really helped him. But we have a legislature [skips] out here now, fifty-three, two-thirds majority and we have two-thirds in the senate. So, California [unclear] [skips] I’ll tell you that. We have our responsibilities that I [skips] too.

JFK:
Yeah, yeah.

PAT BROWN:
But I’d like to make it kind of a model of your [skips] legislative program I’d like to move ahead. Why don’t you come out here and spend a couple of days during the—

JFK:
Well, I was thinking of coming out in December. I’ve got to go out to Los Alamos [skips] in December, but I’ll give you a call. [skips]

PAT BROWN:
[unclear] fine [unclear]. Would you just do one thing for me? Would you say hello to my son Jerry,
⁴
who came back from Yale Law School and really put me over at San Francisco?

JFK:
Oh, good. Fine.

PAT BROWN:
[Say] hello to him. This is my son Jerry.

JERRY BROWN:
Hello, Mr. President.

JFK:
Jerry, how are you?

JERRY BROWN:
Fine.

JFK:
I was up there campaigning in November [skips] those fellow [unclear]. [laughs]

JERRY BROWN:
[unclear] the undergraduates [skips].

JFK:
[laughing] I see. Good.

JERRY BROWN:
[skips] you sure did.

JFK:
I told them that, God, [skips] I could only [skips] by less than the [skips].

JERRY BROWN:
Well, you’ll take California by ten times as much as you did [skips] before.

JFK:
Well, we’ll try. Well, listen, good luck [skips]. Take care. Bye, Jerry.

CALL TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ROBERT F. KENNEDY, MARCH 2, 1963

There are a great many tape-recorded conversations between President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, on every imaginable topic. This conversation captures well the intimacy they shared. It is one of the few times anyone used the word “Jack” on the tapes, and it conveys their easy humor, laughing at the idea that their adversaries thought the Kennedys were springing a trap, when they had no idea of its existence. It also reveals an interesting distinction between the two brothers, JFK noting with alarm that his approval rating had declined from 76 to 70 percent, and RFK reminding him that it was still extraordinarily high. JFK’s greater caution supports the claim of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.: “John Kennedy was a realist brilliantly disguised as a romantic; Robert Kennedy, a romantic stubbornly disguised as a realist.”

RFK:
Hello, Jack?

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
The thing, of course, to remember on this, I don’t know how much you’re gonna get into it, but the thing to remember on this, is this, what you did on that day, Tuesday, for Wednesday, was something that was added to the plan.

JFK:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

RFK:
And not something that was taken away or was in a plan that was made inadequate by some deficiency in withdrawal of something …

JFK:
Yeah, that’s right.

RFK:
That you added that on Tuesday.

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
Never been planned before and this plan specifically said this wouldn’t be done.

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
It was something that you added in order to help.

JFK:
You heard about …

RFK:
But I, you know, if somebody’s gonna say something in the Senate about it …

JFK:
Yeah. Well, you know how they make everything look lousy these days. You know, Rowland Evans
⁵
said that he talked to Dirksen.
⁶
Dirksen said, “I don’t quite get this.” He said, “What, you know, just say I don’t know, they, I think the Kennedys are planning something to trap us into this [laughter] ’cause they’re pretty smart down there.”

RFK:
Well, that’s what we have. We haven’t figured how to close the trap yet.

JFK:
Yeah. That’s right. We haven’t quite figured out.

RFK:
But we’ll learn it.

JFK:
It just shows you, boy, what that press is, doesn’t it?

RFK:
But God. Still, the poll.

JFK:
What?

RFK:
What, you’re down to 70 percent?

JFK:
When?

RFK:
Huh?

JFK:
When was this?

RFK:
The Gallup Poll.

JFK:
When was that?

RFK:
Oh, about two days ago?

JFK:
No. I didn’t see it.

RFK:
Yeah. It went 76 percent to 70.

JFK:
Yeah?

RFK:
But with your popularity 70 percent now …

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
You’d break fifty-fifty with a Republican.

JFK:
What?

RFK:
Jesus. 70 percent, 18 percent are against you.

JFK:
Yeah?

RFK:
Well, I mean, I don’t get what the, the press must be doing you some good.

JFK:
Then what, you’d break fifty-fifty?

RFK:
Do fifty-fifty with a Republican.

JFK:
Oh, you mean on approval and disapproval?

RFK:
Yeah. And then the independents.

JFK:
I didn’t see that poll. Was this in the
Post
?

RFK:
I don’t know what paper. I read it going up in the plane Wednesday or Thursday.

JFK:
I see.

RFK:
You think you got troubles, you ought to see what’s happening to Nelson Rockefeller.
⁷

JFK:
Why? What?

RFK:
Well, you know, all the bars, they call every drink a Nelson Cocktail, a Rockefeller Cocktail. Everything’s the same except it’s 15 percent more. [laughter]

JFK:
Do they really?

RFK:
Oh, and all, you walk along the streets, and out in the front …

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
It says, “Come in and buy a Nelson, a Rockefeller Cocktail.” Everything costs 15 percent more. In every bar! How would you like that following you around?

JFK:
Yeah, but he’s lucky those papers aren’t publishing …

RFK:
Well, then, did you see the story about him in …

JFK:
Wall Street Journal
?

RFK:
Wall Street Journal
. That’s not a complete plus.

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
I think he’s really having his problems. Troubles.

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
You’re not. I’ve seen you on television.

JFK:
We’ve dropped 6 percent in a month, have we?

RFK:
Since January.

JFK:
Oh, since that Congress has been back.

RFK:
Yeah, and it gets a little bit more partisan, but imagine 70 percent?

JFK:
Yeah.

RFK:
Better than you were in ’60.

JFK:
OK.

RFK:
Righto.

CALL TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ROBERT F. KENNEDY, MARCH 4, 1963

In this typical conversation, RFK and JFK exchange political gossip about friends as well as enemies; they understand each other so well they nearly finish each other’s sentences.

JFK:
Hello?

RFK:
Jack?

JFK:
Yeah.