Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency JFK Nuclear Arms Race Civil Rights 20240712

Next on the next on the presidency, presidency. Andrew cohen andrew looks at two days in jfks cohen looks at two days in jfks presidency. Presidency. June 10th and june 10th and 11th, 11th, 1963, that defined 1963. It defined his response to the his response Nuclear Arms Race to the nuclear arms and civil rights. Rice and civil rights. Mr. Cohen is mr. Cohen is author of two days authors in june. John author of two days in f. Kennedy and the june, 48 hours that jfk and the made history. 48 hours that made the white house history. The White House Historical association Historical Association provided this video. Provided this video. And you, tell us about andrew, tell us about your book which your book. Focuses it focuses on on two days in the two days in the Kennedy Kennedy presidency. Presidency. June 10th and june 10th and june 11th, june 11th 1963. 1963. Why why did you did you decide to decide to write a book write a book focused focused on only two days of the on only two days of the Kennedy Kennedy presidency presidency and why did and why did you you pick those pick those two days two days to focus on . To focus on . Thank you thank you,. Its colleen. Its a great honor to be here a great honor to be here with you and with you and the at the White House Historical White House Historical association. Association, very meaningful particularly meaningful to to me because me because as i just said it was founded by it was founded by Jackie Kennedy Jackie Kennedy in the white house 60 years 60 years ago. Ago. I had i had been looking for been looking for a way a way into the into the Kennedy Kennedy administration for sometime. Administration for sometime. Part of it is maybe part of this to believe that one of the most seminal made days of my to be believe life was. One of the most seminal days of my life was november 27 22nd 1963. Its an november 22nd, eightyearold, i 1963. As an learned of the eight year old, i learned assassination of president of the assassination of kennedy. It president kennedy. It is not unusual for isnt unusual for someone like me or someone like me or anyone of my anyone of my generation to generation no remember where he or she was, matter where here she was but it did, but it did seem to me to seem to me to change something change something. And it a developed for me developed for me a fascination a fascination. As i as i grew grew up, up. My friends were my friends who were interested in interested in captain cook, and the captain cook and the final final frontier, frontier, i was i was interested in interested in jfk and the new frontier. Through my career jfk in the final as a journalist frontier. Through my career as as a journalist a student and student before. That, i had been looking for a way into the kennedy story. Of course, colleen, there were monumental biographies. There were heavy memoirs. There were academic studies. There was scarcely a part of jfks legacy that had not been dissected and inspected and examined. I wondered if there was something new to say. Then i came upon these two days in june. We are on the eve, is suddenly, of the 57th anniversary of june the 9th and june the 10th and 11th 1963. What could i say that was new . When i thought about it, i said to myself, my goodness, two extraordinary speeches. One at America University on june the 10th, 1963, in the morning. One on civil rights on the evening of june the 11th, 1963. Those would be two of the most extraordinary speeches of what was a rhetorical presidency. Between them, and they are the pillars of this study, but they are also the parentheses. Because in between, i saw an opportunity to explain, to illuminate the presidency, hour by hour in a granular atmospheric away that would try to give a reader who did not know much about jfk, like the students i teach for example who are of another generation, what it was like to be jfk. What it was like to be president of the United States and what it was like to make the decisions he did on the two a little issues of notch of his era, civil rights of nuclear arms. When i wonder what two days to pick. They invariably talk about the bay of pigs. These two days are what i call the high news of the kennedy presidency. When the book begins, kennedy is waking up on air force one. He is flying back to washington d. C. From hawaii where he has just given this speech. Only a few hours later, he will be at American University giving a monumental speech on foreign affairs. Can you tell us about the substance of that speech and why kennedy wanted to give it at that moment in time . To give us a bit of context, colleen, this is the spring of 1963. John f. Kennedy has been in office two and a half years. I think it is fair to say his record was mixed as president. His first year in 1961, he authorized the disastrous bay of pigs. He had a difficult meeting with nikki to khrushchev in vienna where he was bullied in a sense. He watches the berlin wall go up in august of 1961. By the end of that year, when a reporter says i would like to write a history of your first year in office. Kennedy turns to him and says, why would you want to write a history about disasters . By 1962, things are changing. He faces down the executives of what we call big steel who were trying to raise prices. He faces down the key to khrushchev at what is the given missile crisis. By 1963, hes feeling confident about his presidency. He also knows that america is at a turning point. At the height of the cold war around nuclear arms and civil rights. Lets deal with nuclear war. I had just mentioned the cuban missile crisis of 1962. 13 perilous days in the autumn of 1962, when historians still say today that we came as close to Nuclear Annihilation as we have before or since. Kennedy was shaken by that and so wasnt the key to khrushchev. Nick in the winter of 1963 and into the spring, jfk is looking to change the channel. Both of them felt that america and the soviet union, havent come to this near Nuclear Apocalypse or armageddon, had to find a way through. So a back channel has been established. The pope is involved. Evening reviews involved. There is an attempt by both parties to come to some conclusion or to begin some process that would lower the temperature and begin a certain process of disarmament. Kennedys big gambit in the spring of that year is a speech. It will be called a strategy of peace, but it will come to be called the peace speech. It is written over 46 weeks. It isnt a secret but its done by a tightly knit circle of trusted aides. Kennedy does not sure what he is going to propose because its almost subversive. It is not shirt with the joint chiefs of staff. He does not go to the state department or department of defense. It does not consult the cia and leaves out the joint chiefs of staff and the congressional leadership. All people who he might have consulted given what will become the major Foreign Policy speech of his administration. He is dealing with it that way because kennedy is going to say things about the russians that no american president has said since the cold war. Now 18 years of cold war. He will, in that speech, he will arrive in America University a 10 30 am after having flown across america and the pacific, nine hours, having left hawaii the night before. He touches down at Andrews Air Force base at about 8 50 am and gets on marine one and choppers to the white house. Within 100 minutes of landing on that tarmac, he will be dressed in a gown and mortar board. Again, he wont wear the hat, before an audience of convocation at America University in northwest washington where he will make a speech in which, for the first time, he will talk about the russians in human terms. He will compliment the russians. He will humanize the russians. He will talk about their achievements in industry and their economy. In science and space. Americans are very familiar with what just has happened because sputnik has gone up in 1957 and theres a great sense that america has fallen behind the soviets. He will talk about the soviets, or the russians contribution in the second world war. 20 million as the figure was then, its actually even higher than that. Of all that the russians have done as a society, he will put aside the rhetoric of the cold war, of soviet treachery, of the big russian bear, of the gulags, of all of that that had become the standard, and staple of american politicians. He will do that and very carefully worded in a carefully worded address under repressive heat. It was 98 degrees at American University that they. People are wilting and they set up triage stations because people are fainting. There, he will not only talk about that, but he will make an offer. He will invite the soviet premier to enter with the United States in a negotiation over a comprehensive test ban treaty. It isnt comprehensive in the end, it would be limited, but kennedy is proposing that as the cold war goes on and as we both stockpile weaponry which can kill us many times over, why dont we simply stop testing . No tests in the atmosphere. No tests under the ocean. No tests in space. Where it is all a radical idea that kennedy knows is not going to go down well with many elements, conservative elements in congress and elsewhere, who are hard line communists. Its important to know that jfk is no slouch when it comes to communism. His inaugural address, which is seen as quite hawkish. John calibrate has always said dont judge kennedy by his inaugural address, judge him by what will become known as the peace speech. When kennedy says in the final analysis, we all inhabit the same planet. We all read the same air. We all cherish our childrens future. We are all mortal. He is almost universalist in his appeal. This kind of language had not been heard from the mouth of a president since perhaps Franklin Roosevelt was dealing with joseph stolen in 1944 and 1945. When khrushchev heres this several hours later, because while the speeches broadcast live in the United States, it takes a lot longer to make its way to moscow. He cannot believe what he is hearing. There will be a negotiation, and six weeks later, sometimes things to happen from speeches. There will be a nuclear limited test ban treaty. The most important Foreign Policy decision and Foreign Policy achievement of the kennedy administration. A few hours later, after this really transformative Foreign Policy speech they kennedy gives at American University, your book details about how he has pivoted two hours later to eight another major pressing National Issue concerning governor George Wallace and desegregation at the university of alabama. How does kennedy begin to prepare himself to handle this crisis and why does he think that it might be a Pivotal Moment in civil rights history . In the velocity of these 48 hours, i called them these feverish 48 hours. He does pivot. He pivots on both issues. He has to pivot within a day. So he leaves American University. Its about five or six miles from the white house. He jumps into the Lincoln Continental that the candidates have designed and kennedy has started using. He goes back to the white house. His thoughts turn from diplomacy in the cold war and nuclear arms to George Wallace, civil rights and the university of alabama. Because down in alabama, George Wallace, the band to wait a small man with a very big complaint, has announced that he will refuse to integrate the university of alabama. He will refuse to personally admit to black students. James hood and vivian malone, who the court has ordered, are to be admitted to the university of alabama. George wallace, to make a show of it, will stand at the School House Door and physically prevent those two from entering. The court has ordered this. The kennedys notice and sodas wallace. Wallace, however, is determined to make a spectacle of this and the candidates realize that they have to allow him to do that. They will not bring the two students to the front door. They will admit them through a side door, but there will be a confrontation, which will also be carried live on radio. The candidates have been preparing for this for sometime. As the roots of the peace speech or the cuban missile crisis. The roots of the civil rights speech are seven months earlier at the university of mississippi when ross barnett, the governor of mississippi, like George Wallace, is refusing to integrate the university of mississippi. These are the last of the great big public universities in the south. All others have been integrated at this point. In 1962, the candidates have to send in the National Guard, shades of today, send in the National Guard to preserve the rights of James Meredith to enter that university. It does not go well. Theres a 15hour riot. Two people are killed including a french journalist. Hundreds are injured. Ross barnett has not done what he said he would do. The candidates feel betrayed and they are not going to let that happen again. Before the show down in alabama, the kennedys, led by Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general of the United States will, he has been working at the Justice Department to ensure nothing goes wrong. They are gaining scenarios. How would they remove George Wallace if you refused . What will happen if he does refuse . Should they hold him in contempt of court . Because there is a court order, calling, ordering the integration of the university. How will they handle that . How will they preserve the dignity of the two black students who, after all, just one and education . So the candidates have been preparing for this assiduously. They have studied maps provided by the United States forestry service. They have even positioned a vote on the Black Warrior river at the edge of campus in case a lynch mob chases those two away, they were worried about that. There was a threat of tens of thousands of class men outside the door of the university, outside the gates of the university. This is happening that day. Kennedy on monday is preparing for this. The confrontation wont take place until tuesday, but on monday he is gaming. This one advantage we had of writing the story and i did not know it till well into it, there was a documentary film team led by robert drew one of the earliest cinema very tail filmmakers. I had access to the raw footage, which is held in hollywood. There i could see, i could watch the negotiations, the consultations that were going on in the white house both on monday after the piece speech which is june the 10th, and in the morning of june the 11th. You see how seriously the kennedys were taking this and how they were preparing for the confrontation with George Wallace. In your book, as you explained earlier, it is about two days, but you really use those two days as a lens into some of canadas most intimate and personal and most political relationships that he maintained. One person you feature in the book quite extensively is ted sorensen. Law can you tell us a little bit about this ted whole sorensen and why decided to heavily profile him and include him in the book . Ted sorensen, who deserves a biography of his own, which i have started to write and hope to return to. His kennedys speech writer ted sorensen leaves nebraska and arrives in washington and jack kennedy leaves the house and goes to the senate in 1953. Sorensen does not know kennedy. He is interviewing henry jackson, the senator from washington and his interview with jack kennedy. Interesting mainly enough the speech writer is interviewing the senator. Ted sorensen was considered so good out of nebraska. He was young, at the time in his early 20s. He is advised to go with jackson, but chooses jack kennedy. Theyre begins in association of 11 years, which i would argue is the most Extraordinary Partnership between a president and an associate in the history of the modern presidency. There isnt anything that ted sorenson wont do for jfk nikki. Hes a master craftsman and a words smith. He works for jfk we himself is a writer and values writers and had written with Ted Sorensens help profiles and courage. He admired writers and called them his friends. He appreciated eloquence and made eloquence and rhetoric a centerpiece of the style of the kennedy administration. With sorenson, and kennedys sense of occasion and sorensens facility with a pen, they were magic, the two of them. So at this time, ted sorenson is not just writing the piece speech, he is writing a number of speeches including the speech that jfk will give in berlin two weeks later. He will be writing under different circumstances, which im sure we will get to, the civil rights speech that jfk will deliver on june 11th. They are an extraordinary combination, which does not mean they are friends. They do not socialize together. Ted sorenson is absolutely devoted to jfk. It comes at some cost that will destroy his marriage and ravage his health, and shake at times his self confidence. He will never recover from the death of john f. Kennedy five and a half months later. But while they are together and on these particular two days, is the height, for me, and looking at this administration which was an administration where words mattered, the height of their rhetorical flourish. One of the Major Players your highlight in the book regarding jfks decision in the university of alabama . Ted sorenson used to like to say he was the third most powerful men in washington, because our if kennedy, robert kennedy, Bobby Kennedy was the second, and no one could displace bobby. Bobby is a lot younger than jack. Bobby has been drafted by joseph pecan 80, the kennedy patriarch, to serve his brother. Bobby did not want to be attorney general in 1961, and joe kennedy said to jack, you will make bobby returnee general. Jack famously introduced lobby saying i see no reason to give him a little experience before he goes out to practice law. This was the chief Law Enforcement officer of the United States. Bobby was a wonderful attorney general and Kennedy Justice is an extraordinary combination of passion and effectiveness some of the leading lawyers and legal thinkers. He is more than a lawyer. He is more than an adviser to jack kennedy, particularly over these two days. If he was a Prime Minister on other days, today he is a field marshal. He is almost a cool president , because when it comes to handling what is going on in mississippi, bobby is executing the moves through the Justice Department. One of his trusted colleagues, Nicholas Katzenbach is the person, the gangly tall road scholar who appears in the pictures towering over george while this, we georgia all this kept in the sun while George Wallace was in the shade. They are stage managing everything. That is the kennedys response to George Wallace. Bobby kennedy is dictating everything on a phone from his office, and there is a film crew to report it. There is not only one there is one with abe kennedy and the Justice Department and one with George Wallace and the two students and alabama. Bobby kennedy is something of a show runner before the word was used. He is a choreographer. Nobody knows how all this will unspool. Bobby has ensured that if anything, that he has thought of everything and nothing will go wrong if he can help it. He does think of everything and nothing does go wrong. That university, after George Wallace turns away nicholas in the morning, the kennedys localized, mobilized, federalize the National Guard. They arrive at 3 30 end at 3 30 inured noon in alabama, 5 30 in washington. There is a span of two hour time difference. The university will be integrated. The two students who do not want to overthrow the system, they just want to join it, they will enroll at the university of alabama. Then the thinking is, what is next . Next of course is the civil rights speech. Can you tell us the story of the speech on june 11th 1963 . How was this speech drafted, and also, why does kennedy think this is the time in which to include the moral argument about civil rights . This speech is written entirely differently from the careful drafting of the peace speech the day before. It is extraordinary. There had been talk of a speech for the day before, that perhaps if things went well at the door and the crisis subsided, jack kennedy would make a speech. After all, the candies would make recognize the crisis, and they would not let a good crisis go to waste. Really, they were not persuaded they were going to do. That at 5 30 in the afternoon on june the 11th, wednesday, jack kennedy turns to ted sorenson and says ted, i think we will give that speech tonight. Ted sorenson said what speech . There is no speech. The president says i have booked all three networks, so i guess there has to be speech. Bobby kennedy, alone among the circle of kennedy advisers wanted his brother to make that speech. He felt it was time. Many people, and the canadians were much criticized for their gradualism on civil rights. The day before when kennedy is flying back, he has early editions of newspapers when his flying back from hawaii, and on the front page of the New York Times is Martin Luther king, castigating kennedy for his record. He says all you have done this offer an inadequate performance for a miserable one, the miserable when being the dwight eisenhower, kennedys predecessor. Kennedy is new to civil rights. When he arrives in 1961, his focuses entirely on the cold war. If you look at his inaugural address, there are three words about domestic United States, three words about human rights at home. Not even civil rights. Human rights at home. Kennedy is absolutely preoccupied as the freedom riders are getting on the bus in 1961, and mississippi and alabama are beginning to tremble as Civil Rights Movement is beginning to gain traction. It will accelerate in 1962. By 1963, when it explodes in birmingham alabama in may, this is considered to be the education of jfk. Remember, jfk is a white irishman from boston. He does not know people of color. He is from hyannis port and brooklyn, and georgetown, and palm beach, and harvard and the choke school and the all white navy and the all white congress. He is slow and unaffected in a sense by this Great Movement that is convulsing america. But by may he understands it. People told me how physically revolted he was when he saw the images, which weve all seen of the snarling dogs and the High Pressure water hoses that were turned on black men, women and children in birmingham. And his education has begun. In three weeks his and bobbys, by the way. Bobby is confronted in a fabled meeting at his apartment in new york with members of the black community, including a lorraine hands free and james baldwin, and Kenneth Clark the psychologist. Kennedy, for three hours listens to the raw, impassioned pleas of black americans. They were not just rock and impassioned, they were in many places so emotional that they attacked kennedy in a way he could not expect. One in particular does not. Lorraine gets up and leaves the meeting. Kennedy is left sullen and silent, but aware. His education begins. We are now at june the 10th. Kennedy realizes that having turned wallace back from the door, he has an opportunity to Say Something and to do something. Because the speech will not just be about rhetoric as the speech he gave the day before it was not just about rhetoric. He will, that night, introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1963. It will become decelerate act of 1964. He will not live to see it. The most sweeping piece of social legislation since the emancipation proclamation. That night he will do it, and he used language that had not been used by an american president , and kennedy, as he is humanized, the russians the day before, well attempt to humanize the american negro, as they are called, the next day. He will talk about the black american. To be a black american was tablets chance of finishing high school, almost no chance of going to college. Making less money. More susceptible to disease. Having a life expensed and see seven years less than a white person. Kennedy does this in language that is so raw and so stirring that people cannot believe that this white irishman from boston is actually saying that, but he does. To use the word two or three times in that speech. He talks about morality. Just to go back a second, the speech was barely finished. Ted sorenson is scribbling away in his office at 7 00. Bobby kennedy is concerned that there wont be a speech. He and jack begin working on their own version of the speech. Kennedy does something he has never done before just a few minutes before him and bobby he goes to ted sorensons office. The president doesnt go to the speech writers office. He says how are you doing, ted . Ted says its coming out of the typewriter right now. It was not coming out of the typewriter right now. He has to scramble to find the. Warrants by the time kennedy is sitting in the oval office he has a draft from sorenson without a real ending. He has what he and bobby are going to do. Some of it is actually on pieces of paper in front of him. When the light goes on, kennedy becomes absolutely masterful, and he talks impassioned for 11 minutes. By 11 minutes he runs out of speech. So he begins to improvise. If you had the speech in front of you, you can see it. If not, he probably would not. He finishes at 13. He is has talked about the morality of civil rights. He says it is as old as scripture and as clear is the american constitution. At 13 minutes he says goodnight to americans. When Martin Luther king sings here is that speech, he says i cannot believe that white man just stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. Our last question before we go we have a lot of great audience questions and i want to make sure we get to them. Our last question has to do with what you learn from writing the book. There has been a lot of books written about jfk. But did you learn something that surprised you when you learned it in your research of the book, and did your opinion or view point of john f. Kennedy change when you were researching and writing the . Book it did change. I began as an admirer. Not everybody was or is. I got to know the investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch in 1997 when i was a correspondent in washington, and he was writing a book, an investigative book. Not a flattering one called the dark side of kamala. I recall with great energy and emotion, he pulls a memo from his files and he puts it in front of me and says, here is my jack. His jack is somebody who was not the person i was seeing. He wasnt a person of honor and nobility. He was somebody else. I said you have your jack and i have mine. Mine, i would like to think, i have tried to bring to some kind of consciousness in this book. It is a jfk we changes. Oh understands the two great forces pressing down upon him. And his generation in 1963, the threat of nuclear war and the arrival of civil rights. How was he as president to get ahead of that . He finds ways. Hes not afraid because after all, hes a student of history. He is someone who has read and written history. Now more than anything, he wants to make history. When he thinks about the cold war it is not using the same rhetoric as before. He does not want to win the cold war, he wants to end it. With civil rights he wants to recast it. No american president had used that language before. I saw and him a moral precedent with its flaws and as you go through this book, it is not uncritical of president kennedy as we follow hour by hour, and i do. But also, colleen, it is the Sheer Velocity of the discrepancy. How much he does in one day. It is not that he has changed at 6 am. Its not that he does not go for a nap at three in the afternoon. Its not that he does not swim twice a day. But he is desperate to run out against the he has had several brushes with death. He did not think he would have a long life. He knew he would finishes presidency the did not think he had a long life. He had on more than one occasion, he is racing against the clock and the calendar. Every day, and if you look as i did hes 48 hours. I wanted the advantage of being someone who could hover over and two days and 48 hours and final kinds of things that perhaps people had missed before because its a luxury to be that close. You see how much he was doing. Its appetite for change. What he and jackie are thinking about. Not just him thinking about Great Affairs of the state, but how can we save Lafayette Square . How can we redesign the white house . How can we develop a new air force one. Why dont we sent americans into space and return them to earth before the decade is out. Why dont we sent out americans in the developing world and something called the peace corps . He wont miss an occasion to do anything. My respect for him through not just in his sense at the time and morality, but in his commitment to the top. This is someone who loved what he did. It is said that not all president s loved being president. He loved being president. He loved it for what he could do with the power he had. Now we are going to go to some very good audience questions. First questions from steve. Everyone can quote from kennedys integral, but not from the piece speech. Do you have a favorite line and it . Yes i do. I may not get it all right. I said it earlier. And the final analysis, we all inhabit the same planet. We all brief the same air. We all cherish our childrens future and we are all mortal. The russians and americans and everyone else live on the same planet. It is almost an early environmental sense of the world but they then called it universalist. I would urge everybody to go to youtube and i think we put out pictures of jfk that day. Listen to the speech and read the speech. I assure you you will find a lot of memorable lines. From marshall, Vice President johnson was often the point of contact for the administration when dealing with the south. Can you speak of any role he played during those two days . Actually, not at all. This was a source of a real agony to Lyndon Johnson. It was set of the vice presidency that it is where he went to die. At least up to it certainly was when Ted Teddy Roosevelt became but of course the president then died. Lbj was not happy as Vice President. Kennedy had isolated not so much jack but bobby. There was a raging contempt for each other, because bobby was closer to. Check Lyndon Johnson was shut out. He is not part of these two days. Although he makes a very memorable speech about 30 days before and what she uses morality and talks about the morality of the american presidency and what it should be doing for the american black. On these two days, he is not president. Actually, he is not much present beyond the Space Program and which is an extremely difficult time for him. He was shrunken and almost invisible to the kennedy administration, although jack kennedy did try hard on several occasions to make him feel at home, but really at the end of the day did not trust his advice on this question and he probably should. Have Lyndon Johnson would become the great civil rights president within a year. From rick nelson from wellington, ontario. Do you believe the assassination of civil rights leader just one day after kennedys june 11 speech was some kind of statement to jfk . It was. June the 11th, 1963 may well be the most singular, single most important day in history of the Civil Rights Movement. We had what happened in the university of alabama and the integration. Jfks introduction of the civil rights speech. The Civil Rights Act of 1963. We have in the early hours of june 12th, 20 am, to be exact, the unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement, shocked shot from behind in his driveway. In his home in a segregated subdivision in jackson, mississippi. Kennedys 48 hours largely ended by. That he was asleep. He walked that morning to find in a sense perhaps the reason he had given that speech and the consequence of that speech. I do not think kennedy had heard that speech that night. But kennedy understood the very raw passion. What he called the fires a frustration that are burning in American Cities and how this kind of thing would unleash them. How this kind of thing it was very he did not know edgar. Edgar was trying to get his attention, but when he heard about this he drafts a letter to her. He uses his office to persuade the every family that edgar should be buried at the National Cemetery as a veteran. He was entitled to. He invites mrs. Evers to the white house with Charles Evers who is still alive today. Talks to them about civil rights and later says i cannot understand the south. How it thinks. He says to mrs. Evers, there is an element out there that got your husband will probably get. Me five and a half months later, they did. A question from jackie. I think mrs. Kennedy was involved and restoring Lafayette Square. What do you think she or jfk would think of the events this past week . They were more than involved in restoring. They saved Lafayette Square as we know it. Lafayette square that we see today, if you can see it today if you are able to walk there today. Im not in washington but i understand the barricades preventing one from actually entering the president s part as it was called. It is a very elegant 19th century array of town houses. In 1962, the head of the General Services administration tells jfk that we need to build new Office Buildings for the growing federal government and we will put them in Lafayette Square. Kennedy says really . Jackie says really . That means you will have to tear down these town houses. In a way, kennedy simply intervenes. As it happens, as the story goes, a front of his who was an architect called john moore nikki happened to be visiting washington around this time. A friend of jfk brought him to jfks attention. He said what do you think . What do you think of the plants . This was an architect of some renown in the United States at that time. He goes to the librarian meets jfk the next day. He places in the cabinet room and array of books, very visual. He shows jfk what the square was, what it could be and what the plans would have turned it into. Jfk thanks him. The next day the Administration Calls him and says what did you tell the president . The president now want something new. More than that, he has asked you to design it. So jon carr more nikki designs very much the square we see today. Therefore federal buildings behind. It the kennedy, said theyre not intervened in 62, there would not be that squares it is today. As for what jfk thinks and what would happen today, he would be appalled. He would never ever have turning himself and the white house into a fortress. It would have embarrassed him. This was a decorated hero of the second world war. This was someone for whom physical courage was never in question. He felt the president should be close to the people. When told by the secret service maybe you should not be an open car, he said i have to be. If somebody wants to get me, they will get up on a Tall Building with a rifle and they will. Which is what happened. But he would never have allowed himself, i think, to have gone to the white house shelter. He would have said im sorry. Im not doing it. Unfortunately, we have one more question because we are running out of time. Jonathan. Do you believe that the Civil Rights Act would have passed at kennedy survived . Johnson used kennedys memory to put pressure on legislature to pass it. I believe it would have happened to jonathan, but it would have taken longer. There is no doubt that as a legislator, and in johnson was far more skilled than jfk. There was of course a great element of sympathy and a feeling that this was unfinished business. Lbj deserves all the credit that he later claimed for piloting, navigating, guiding the civil rights bill and passage alive 1960 he signs it. Kennedy deserves credit as the Kennedy Johnson bill. It had Clear Committee in the house of representatives by the date jfk was killed. Jfk had made alliance not with democrats but with midwestern republicans. He had reached out to them and they were supporting particularly in the senate. He had gone to i think it would have gotten through. It might not have gotten through then, that eventually might have taken till 1965. Kennedy would have gotten the Civil Rights Act, but full credit to Lyndon Johnson for doing what he did, but i dont think he could have done at the same way with the same success without the death of jfk. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Once again, the book is two days in june. I learned so much from it. Its an incredible read. For people who like to read books that have a little bit of pros to themselves. You are watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan three, explore our nations past. Cspan 3 created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Chief historian at the New York Historical society. Boy featured in their joint publication the civil war in 50 objects. In this program, they discuss a bike ordered by abolitionist john Brown Abraham lincolns hand. Due to the coronavirus pandemic this event took place virtually