Listening In (43 page)

In this brief call, Peace Corps Director and President Kennedy’s brother-in-law R. Sargent Shriver voices his concern that one of the President’s most idealistic proposals, the Peace Corps, is in danger of being subverted by the Central Intelligence Agency. Kennedy quickly understands the danger posed by this threat to one of his most valued forms of cultural diplomacy and promises to put a stop to it.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PEACE CORPS DIRECTOR R. SARGENT SHRIVER, THE WHITE HOUSE, WEST WING COLONNADE, AUGUST 28, 1961

JFK:
Hello.

SHRIVER:
Hello, Jack?

JFK:
Yeah, Sarge.

SHRIVER:
Hi, how are you?

JFK:
Good. Fine, fine.

SHRIVER:
I’m sorry to bother you.

JFK:
Not a bit.

SHRIVER:
But I’m getting rather suspicious over here that, despite your instructions, that some of our friends over in the Central Intelligence Agency might think that they’re smarter than anybody else, and that they are trying to stick fellows into the Peace Corps.

JFK:
Yeah, yeah.

SHRIVER:
And John McCone has told me on two or three occasions, and Dulles of course did, that they never would do that.

JFK:
Right, right.

SHRIVER:
They sent out messages and the rest of it.

JFK:
Right.

SHRIVER:
But we’ve got a group in training now that looks suspicious, and I’d like to follow whatever you recommend, but I sure in hell want those guys …

JFK:
Well, would you call Dick Helms?
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SHRIVER:
Dick Helms?

JFK:
Yeah. He’s the operations officer over there, and just say to him that you’ve talked to me and that I don’t want anybody in there.

SHRIVER:
OK.

JFK:
And if they are there, let’s get them out now, before we have it. And if there is any problem about it, that Dick Helms ought to call the President about it. That …

SHRIVER:
OK.

JFK:
This is very, we are very, very anxious that there be no, we don’t want to discredit this whole idea.

SHRIVER:
OK, fine.

JFK:
And they, Christ, they’re not gonna find out that much intelligence!

SHRIVER:
That’s right.

JFK:
Now, the other thing is, I notice with these people coming back, can we do anything about seeing if we can get some of them to go into the Foreign Service?

SHRIVER:
Yes. The Foreign Service has already changed their examination schedules, and the kind of exams they give, and the places that they are going to be given, and done everything that they think they can this year to facilitate Peace Corps guys getting into the Foreign Service, and …

JFK:
Yeah.

SHRIVER:
USIA
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has done the same thing, and AID
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is trying to do something.

JFK:
Yeah. Yeah.

SHRIVER:
I think we’ll have to find out by one trial run to see whether it’s successful.

JFK:
OK. Well, I just wanted to be sure. Let me know if there’s anything we can do, but these are the guys I’d like to get into the Foreign Service.

SHRIVER:
OK, fine.

JFK:
OK.

SHRIVER:
Thanks.

JFK:
Bye, Sarge.

MEETING ON INDIA AND CHINA, MAY 9, 1963

Most Americans were trained to think of nuclear war in the traditional way, as a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this excerpt, JFK contemplates a range of other disturbing scenarios, including the unpredictable actions of the Chinese.

JFK:
I gather we’re coming to the defense of Israel, and Saudi Arabia. What I think we ought to think about is, [unclear] it’s desirable (?) for us, to give India a guarantee which actually we would carry out. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this country is determined that we couldn’t permit the Chinese to defeat the Indians. If we would, we might as well get out of South Korea and South Vietnam. So I think that’s what we’ll decide at the time. Now, therefore, I don’t mind making, seeing us make some commitments. Now, if it is politically important …

MAXWELL TAYLOR:
Mr. President, I would hope before we get too deeply in the India question, we take a broader look at where we’re, the attitude we’re going to maintain versus Red China, all the way from Manchuria to [unclear]. This is just one spectacular aspect of the overall problem of how to cope with Red China, politically and militarily, over the next decade.

JFK:
It seems that India is the only place where they’ve got the manpower to really do it.

TAYLOR:
I would hate to think we’d fight this on the ground in a non-nuclear war, if indeed Red China came in and matched us in any part of Asia.

JFK:
That’s right, I think the chance would be much less if they knew we were clearly committed. Maybe they know by our actions last fall that we are, and by our actions in South Vietnam. What I was thinking is, whatever restraint we impose on them, and whatever assistance it would give us politically, we should be prepared to go some distance to give a guarantee, because I think it’d be just like, an attack on India in force would be just as much a red flag as the North Korean attack on South Korea was in 1950.

ROBERT MCNAMARA:
Mr. President, I think General Taylor is implying that before any substantial commitment to defend India against China is given, we should recognize that in order to carry out that commitment against any substantial Chinese attack, we would have to use nuclear weapons.

MEETING WITH SOVIET FOREIGN MINISTER ANDREI GROMYKO, OCTOBER 10, 1963

Following Kennedy’s historic speech at American University on June 10, 1963, in which he proclaimed a desire to work toward peaceful cooperation with the Soviet Union, Russian-American relations took a notable turn for the better. In the fall of 1963, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko came to the White House for a high-level discussion of the relations between the two countries. Kennedy stated repeatedly his desire to move the relationship to a firmer footing based on reduced military spending and minimal frictions. In the course of his meeting with Gromyko, JFK’s children interrupted, leading to a rare belly laugh from a Soviet bureaucrat normally known for his monotone. These excerpts are taken from a long conversation that shows how far the U.S.–Soviet relationship had evolved in a year, since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

JFK:
I don’t want you to get discouraged. You may not be conscious of much progress where you sit. But we’ve been [unclear] the United States for the last three months, and in several directions, and we think we’ve made some progress in our relations with the Soviet Union. We may not get the German question disposed of. We may not solve all the matters. But considering some of the difficulties that both our countries face, internally and externally, it seems to me we’ve done pretty well. So I’m rather encouraged, not discouraged. I don’t want you to be discouraged.

GROMYKO:
[unclear] Well, there is improvement …

JFK:
… There’s only a certain tempo that you can move in these matters. We went ahead with the test ban. We’ve made some progress, which for the United States is rather … Do you realize that in the summer of 1961 the Congress unanimously passed resolutions against trade with the Soviets? And now we’re going ahead, we hope, with this very large trade arrangement. That represents, that’s a change in American policy of some proportions. That’s progress. We’re talking about next week going ahead with this matter on the space, we’re talking about getting the civil air agreement settled, we’ve got the communications. I agree, we haven’t settled Berlin, but considering that we’ve got a lot of problems … you’ve got, you taking out some of your troops out of Cuba, so it’s less of a problem for us here. That’s some progress.

GROMYKO:
You are right, Mr. President, there is change in the atmosphere, in the broad sense of this word, information atmosphere, and in more narrow but important one, that is our relations, relations between United States and Soviet Union, concerned. But the program … unsolved problems are unsolved problems.

[break]

GROMYKO:
Now to formalize officially our understanding of this matter, [unclear] …

Children:
Daddy!

JFK:
Just open the door there, say hello to my daughter and son. Say hello. Come in a minute and say hello. Do you want to say hello to the minister?

GROMYKO:
Hello, hello.

JFK:
Do you want to say hello to John? Do you want to say hello to the ambassador?

GROMYKO:
Well, well, well. They are very popular in our country. [laughter]

JFK:
His chief is the one who sent you Pushinka.
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You know that, the puppies?

GROMYKO:
You do not [unclear] any secrets from them? [laughter] So, Mr. President, I mentioned aggression treaty …