♪ ♪ (theme music plays) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubenstein and today we're gonna be in conversation with Fredrik Logevall, who is a professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard.

He is also a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and the author of a new book, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century.

Professor Logevall, thank you so much for being with us today.

LOGEVALL: Oh, it's my pleasure to be with you.

RUBENSTEIN: So, I'm sure you have heard this question before, but I can't resist asking you.

Uh, there seems to be more books written about JFK than virtually any president in our history other than Abraham Lincoln.

So why did you think the world needed another book on JFK?

LOGEVALL: Well, there are a couple of reasons I guess I would give.

Uh, the first is just an interest in, in, in JFK and his life and the fact that he lived through such an extraordinary period, 1917 to 1963.

The really, as I see it, the kind of the early years of the American Century.

So I had an interest in this.

But, you know, the second reason is maybe surprising which is that, as you say, we have endless books on, on the Kennedy's.

We have lots of books on particular aspects of JFK's, uh, administration.

The Cuban Missile Crisis has a literature all unto its own.

Of course the assassination, et cetera.

What we don't have, I think, we don't have a lot of biographies, strange as that may sound.

Uh, and in particular what I wanted to do here is to look closely at his early years, which I think are really consequential and we'll talk about those, I'm sure.

Uh, using the, the incredible resources we now have available, uh, at the Kennedy Library and, um, and elsewhere.

RUBENSTEIN: So, what was the biggest surprise to you in doing all the research?

You probably had some pre-conceived notions.

You've written a bit about him before.

LOGEVALL: I think what surprised me the most would be the degree to which he was serious, uh, had a deep interest in the pressing questions of the world and in particular in foreign policy.

I think I had entered this project believing like many people do, that he was kind of a playboy, that he didn't really get serious about things until he was in the House of Representatives, maybe not even then.

Maybe it's when he's in the Senate that he finally decides, "Okay, I gotta make something of myself."

I think it surprised me that, you know, at Choate, his prep school, um, there are flashes of this more serious interest in world affairs.

You know, from a young age because he's sickly he's reading Winston Churchill, huge, fat volumes maybe even as a pre-teenager.

And then continuing at Harvard, he's engaged by these issues.

That, I think, um, that surprised me and maybe second, I would say the fact that he was willing to some degree to separate himself from his father earlier than I thought in terms of his worldview, uh, his, political philosophy and so forth.

That, that, um, that difference between them surprised me.

RUBENSTEIN: So he's born in May of 1917.

Uh, is he born in a hospital or in a house?

LOGEVALL: He's born at the house on Beales Street.

The first, um, the first family home.

RUBENSTEIN: Now think about this, I always wondered, um, you know, it's a wealthy family, why were, was he not born in a hospital?

Were people, even wealthy people were born in houses in those days?

LOGEVALL: I think, I mean, two things.

Yes, I think they were more often born at home.

Uh, even when they were wealthy.

And the second thing is that Joe Kennedy, his father, had not really made his fortune yet.

I think they were relatively comfortable in Brookline but the, the great fortune that Joe Kennedy built really begins to take off, uh, in the early and mid-20's.

So by now Jack is, what, three or four or five years old and then they do move to steadily larger homes.

But even then, the younger siblings tend to be born more often than not at, at home.

RUBENSTEIN: Now Joe Kennedy was one of the richest people in the United States.

At some point people said he's one of the ten richest people in the United States.

I think in your book you say he had the equivalent of $3 billion in today or something like that.

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: So, what, how did he make so much money so quickly, uh, in what business?

And what was his skill-set as a businessman?

LOGEVALL: Well, it's, it's, it's, it's a remarkable thing, I think, that, that this guy who was a mediocre student, really all the way through including at Harvard, uh, as you say, in short order began to accumulate vast wealth.

I think he had a good head for numbers.

He had a, a lack of sentiment.

And you put those two things together and you have somebody who has the potential it seems to me to be really good on Wall Street.

Sure enough, he was.

I think he made most of his money, uh, as an investor.

Interestingly, he had a turn in Hollywood as a producer.

Made a pretty good chunk of money.

And then later, this is mostly post-World War II, he moved into real estate, especially in Midtown Manhattan and proved really shrewd, um, there as well.

RUBENSTEIN: Now Joe Kennedy, uh, became ambassador to England.

We'll talk about that later.

But his real goal, I thought, was to be President of the United States for himself, not his son.

So, was that ever realistic and what would have made him think that in those days a Catholic businessman could have become President of the United States?

LOGEVALL: Yeah, you know, I, I think that he believed, now I don't think he was alone in this, that if the '20s were the decade of, was the decade of, of, of, of Wall Street, of making money.

I think he sensed, especially with the onset of the Depression, that the '30s were gonna be the, was gonna be the decade of, of government, of politics.

And he wanted in on that game.

I think it's why he hitched his wagon to Franklin Roosevelt.

I write about this and about their rather complicated relationship.

And I do think he believed that if Roosevelt chose not to run for a third term, so now we're talking 1938, '39, '40, when he's ambassador to Britain, Joe Kennedy sincerely felt, "I could be the nominee."

I think he probably sensed that it's a bit of a long shot even if FDR doesn't run.

But there were others, you know, there, this was speculated about in the press that Joe Kennedy could be a legitimate candidate for president.

Um, and then I think what, what sunk the idea was the fact, of course, first off, first and foremost that Roosevelt did run.

But secondly, that the ambassadorship turned out to be really quite disastrous, uh, and it scuttled his chances.

And then I think he, after that thought, "No, it's gonna be my sons.

It's gonna be Joe Jr. perhaps Jack who will, you know, carry this, this ambition forward."

RUBENSTEIN: So when John Kennedy was growing up, he was, uh, he had a lot of illnesses as a young boy, is that right?

LOGEVALL: He, oh, he did.

I mean he, the, the, the stories are legion.

The, the evidence is overwhelming about the number of days he spent, for example, at Choate, his prep school, in the infirmary.

Probably more days in the infirmary than any other boy in his, in his year.

And then, uh, at Harvard and even before then, um, you know, when he still, uh, pre-prep school in the elementary grades, um, he is sick a, a great deal of the time.

Many of the maladies were ill-diagnosed and I certainly couldn't get to the bottom of some of them.

But the point is, yeah, he was, um, he was ill a lot of the time.

RUBENSTEIN: So he went from Choate, he actually did not go to Harvard, he went to Princeton initially.

And then I guess because of an illness he had to drop out and eventually he decides he will go to his father's school, Harvard.

But, when he's at Harvard was he a distinguished athlete?

Was he a great scholar?

LOGEVALL: Uh, I think he was neither in the early years at Harvard.

He, he neither excelled and this was to his frustration, he did not excel on the athletic field.

He wanted in particular to shine in, in football.

Um, and it didn't really happen.

He was too, his, his, his build was wrong for it.

He was too, too skinny.

He had a sort of a willowy, um, frame if you will.

Um, um, he was, he succeeded, he was good, he was an excellent swimmer.

Uh, and so he competed more effectively on the, on the Harvard swim team.

LOGEVALL: But he also wasn't a particularly good student, I think it's fair to say.

Or at least he didn't, um, stand out, uh, in his freshmen and sophomore year.

It's really in his junior year that professors begin to say, "Ah, wait a minute.

This is somebody who is got, you know, great potential.

Maybe more so than his older brother who's, who's, who's ahead of him in, in the class of 1938, two classes ahead."

Uh, and then especially Jack's, Jack Kennedy's senior year, when this potential really emerges.

RUBENSTEIN: During his senior year he wrote a senior thesis, uh, called Why England Slept.

Uh, he obviously had some help to do that.

Uh, got access to a lot of people 'cause his father was pretty prominent.

But was it that good a book such that it would become a, a best-seller?

Um, a college senior thesis usually doesn't become a best-selling book.

LOGEVALL: It certainly doesn't.

I think it's, um, I think it's an accomplished piece of work.

I lo...

I, I examined and, examine it in some depth in my book.

Uh, and I look at its origins.

Uh, I'm convinced that it was Jack's own work in terms of the writing of this thing.

I don't think he anticipated that it would sell as, as well as it did.

I think that's in part because the timing was perfect.

It's a book about British appeasement and the failure to prepare as, as he saw it for the Nazis.

People all of the sudden want an explanation, and wanted an explanation for why the French, uh, were defeated.

Uh, how did we get to this stage.

Kennedy's book filled a, a, a need.

RUBENSTEIN: So he graduates and, um, he wants to go into the military service to fight in World War II but he's fairly sickly person, has lots of ailments.

How did he ever pass a physical and why did he wanna go into the military?

Not just the military, but he wanted to be in combat, which some people don't like to do?

LOGEVALL: Yeah, you know, this is a really interesting part of the story.

And here I've gotta, I think we have to give credit to his father because Joe Kennedy wanted desperately for the United States to keep out of the war.

I think this was true before the European war began but even after the European war began Joe Kennedy insisted, uh, upon, uh, American, uh, neutrality.

And also didn't want his sons to serve.

In fact, that was one of the reasons why he was so opposed to U.S. intervention.

And so the fact that he, uh, not only allowed his sons to serve but in fact helped them to get into the service, I think is, is, is quite remarkable.

And in Jack's case, it was really his father's doing, or at least substantially his father's doing, that got him into the Office of Naval Intelligence.

This is shortly before, um, Pearl Harbor.

And then, later, uh, helps to in certain ways at least, even if it's mostly Jack's own doing, helps him to get into, uh, combat or at least get into, um, active service if you will in a war theater in the South Pacific.

RUBENSTEIN: So he gets to be the, a commander of a PT ship, PT boat, which are relatively modest sized boats and not the most well-constructed, you could argue.

How did he manage to survive a Japanese ship, uh, ramming right into and splitting in half, uh, PT-109?

LOGEVALL: You know, the, it's, it's, it's an amazing story.

The fact that this boat is, um, split in two effectively after this ramming in early August of 1943.

Um, and only two, two crew members, uh, are killed.

It's, it's, it's quite astonishing.

Um, I think, certainly he must accept the part of the blame for why this, this PT boat, the very, very advantage of with, of which was its speed, um, why he allowed the boat to be rammed is at least, I think, partly on him.

But it's also true that his boat was not radar equipped.

It's a, it was a moonless, uh, it was a very dark, uh, moonless night.

Uh, and this boat appeared out of nowhere.

So the best that I determine, had six or seven or eight seconds, somewhere in there, to try to get out of the way.

Uh, and that would've been a tall order for anybody.

He didn't, and as a result, this collision occurred.

RUBENSTEIN: So when John F. Kennedy comes back from the war and is, some of his ailments are, are healed a bit.

He decides to run for Congress, uh, from a seat in Boston, a place he really hadn't live, um, though he rented an apartment there.

Was he a good candidate from the start?

Was he a person who knew how to run and really vibrant and connected with people or not?

LOGEVALL: He wasn't, I don't think he when he ran for Congress in 1946, uh, I don't think he was a particularly good candidate.

He certainly was not a very effective speaker.

He tended to speak much too quickly, uh, and he tended to speak at a pretty high pitch.

Later on he was able to lower that.

Um, and when he was on the turf, if you will, of foreign policy, he was pretty comfortable.

But whenever he strayed from that to talk about domestic politics or to talk about what was of biggest interest to the constituents in the 11th District of Massachusetts.

He got nervous and he wasn't particularly effective.

On the other hand, what's evident from his earliest days is that when he was in smaller groups, when he could connect with people in their homes, or, or at least before, uh, smaller audiences, people liked him.

There was something about even young JFK that people took to, that voters initially in the district, um, really liked.

Maybe his varied kind of reserve, 'cause he had a certain reticence... Maybe that worked to his advantage.

The very fact that he was an a little awkward maybe worked for him.

RUBENSTEIN: Well he also had a, uh, charming way with women in terms of that, uh, shock of hair he had, and he was seen as, you know, somebody that was an eligible bachelor and I'm sure that helped, would you agree?

LOGEVALL: Oh, I, I, there's no question that it helped in that first campaign and then also when he ran for the Senate in '52.

I think his aides quickly saw that it was especially female, um, audiences, female voters who, uh, were drawn to him.

Some of them, uh, sort out of a maternal thing.

Um, and others, uh, you know, who, who wanted to marry him.

There was, um, there was a charisma there, there that was evident I think from an early point.

And the campaigns tried to take advantage of that.

RUBENSTEIN: So he's elected in '46 along with, uh, another person named Richard Nixon also elected that year.

Re-elected in '48, re-elected in '50, the same year that Richard Nixon becomes, uh, well I guess Richard Nixon's elected to the Senate in 1950.

And then Richard Nixon goes on the ticket in '52 with Eisenhower, but it is generally thought that Eisenhower's gonna win but nonetheless, uh, John F. Kennedy says, "I'm going to take on an incumbent Republican Senator, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr." Uh, was that a foolhardy mission in some, the view of some people because Lodge was seen as pretty invulnerable.

And, um, why did Kennedy decide to do it?

Why couldn't he wait?

LOGEVALL: I think a lot of people in 1952 thought, "Are you crazy?

You're gonna take on Lodge?

Um, this'll be, um, you know, an impossible, uh, campaign for you."

But I think he felt, JFK felt and his father felt and, and other close associates including people who had worked with him in the House, that in fact, they could do this.

Partly because, and this was a secret of John F. Kennedy's success as a politician I think all the way through, he started earlier, he worked harder than his opposition.

He had started little by little in the late 40's while in the House to accept any and all speaking engagements around Massachusetts.

And so he was working really hard to get name recognition, to become familiar with the state.

And they felt in '52, we can do this.

And even though he and Lodge were formidable, they're actually pretty interesting in that they're quite similar in a lot of ways.

He succeeds ultimately even in a Republican year.

And even when Eisenhower wins Massachusetts by a wide margin, JFK ekes out this really narrow victory against, against Lodge.

RUBENSTEIN: So as a Senator, um, did he have a lot of legislative accomplishments such that you would say, "This man should be President of the United States 'cause he's such a good legislator."

LOGEVALL: I don't think he was a legislator in the way that his brother Ted Kennedy would become in the last couple of decades of, of, of Ted's life.

He would've, of course, become known as the one of the great legislators of all-time.

Jack Kennedy was never that, um, you know, at any point during his Senate years.

I do think though that from an early point, so he's, he enters the Senate in '53, I think that his colleagues could see, yeah he's a little wet behind the ears.

He's a bit young.

He's a little untried.

But I think he got respect from them because he was knowledgeable, he knew his stuff on the issues.

Uh, he was respectful.

He had sense of the sort of the hierarchy of the Senate.

Uh, so he knew that he needed to bide his time.

He knew he needed that, he needed to, to, to treat his, his elders in the Senate with, with, with due respect.

So he, he had a good reputation in the Senate even though I wouldn't say he was particularly notable for his legislative achievement, achievements.

Not at all.

RUBENSTEIN: So he did write a book, uh, while he was in the hospital, I should ask you about this.

He was very ill and in fact he was given the last rites of the Catholic Church at one point... LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Because he had a very bad back ailment.

Uh, that back ailment, uh, led to a complicated operation but while he was recovering he writes a book called Profiles in Courage.

Um, did he really write that book?

Some people say he really didn't and his brilliant legislative assistant, Ted Sorenson, really wrote it.

LOGEVALL: Yeah, it's, it's a controversial issue about, about the, the authorship of that book.

Um, and I deal with this at some length.

Uh, I, I'm comfortable in, in, in concluding that, uh, JFK's own involvement in the writing of that book was absolutely crucial.

Ted Sorenson was enormously gifted, but Ted Sorenson was in his mid-20's.

He did not have even remotely the kind of knowledge of American history and of Senate history.

The book is really a profile of, of senators who in JFK's view showed political courage in defying in some cases the wishes of their constituents or their party or their region for what they thought was best for the, for the country.

Uh, Sorenson didn't have that kind of knowledge.

So what I think is the case is that the book's arguments, the book's architecture, it's organization, is substantially, uh, Kennedy's.

And the introduction and the conclusion, which I think are the most interesting parts of the book for us, are also substantially JFK's.

The, the case studies, the middle part of the book I think is mostly Sorenson.

And, uh, they also had input from, um, a few professors.

RUBENSTEIN: So in 1952, um, Eisenhower wins the presidency, beats Adlai Stevenson.

And something that's hard to understand today, the Democrats re-nominated Adlai Stevenson to, uh, four years later against the same person who already beaten him.

But Stevenson, uh, former Governor of Illinois at that point, uh, gets the nomination and he can't decide, uh, who he should pick as his vice president.

There were several people.

So he opens it up to the convention and says, "Anybody, uh, that the convention wants, I'll accept."

Why did John Kennedy think that he had a chance to be the vice-presidential nominee and how did that effort go to get that nomination?

LOGEVALL: Yeah, you know, his, his father basically said, "Jack, please don't do this."

He used more salty language than that, but he basically said, "Uh, Stevenson's gonna lose.

You will be blamed for this if you are the vice-presidential nominee.

They'll blame you, Jack, because of you're, you're, you're Catholicism.

Don't do this."

Here again as in so many other instances, Jack is willing to defy his father.

I think he wants to do it partly out of a sense of competition.

All the discussion in the spring of '56 and then in the summer, including during the convention is of course about who's gonna be the nominee.

He wants in on this game and he's talked about as a leading contender.

Um, and I think he also believes that if he's gonna have success as a future, including presidential candidate, he should be in this battle.

I think lucky for him, he loses a very narrow, um, convention, uh, vote to Estes Kefauver, uh, and it was a very dramatic moment.

As dramatic as we've had in any, uh, political convention I think over the last 70 or 80 years.

He loses it, and it was probably the best outcome for him in terms of the future because he wasn't saddled with that defeat that then, that then followed in November.

RUBENSTEIN: So in the remaining time we have, let's talk about the personal life of John F. Kennedy because you write a fair bit about it.

Um, he was, uh, when he's a House member and when he was, uh, in the Senate initially.

Uh, he was, um, a bachelor.

LOGEVALL: Yes, correct.

RUBENSTEIN: He, um, you know, was a person, was well-known for seeing a lot of attractive women but when did he first meet the woman that became his wife and was it love at first sight?

LOGEVALL: So he met, uh, Jacqueline Bouvier, uh, at a dinner party in the spring of 1951 at the home of Charles Bartlett, a journalist and his wife Martha.

Um, and, uh, they then became more serious in 1952, although they didn't see each other very much because of his Senate campaign.

Um, and, you know, family members say and, and I, I'm not gonna, um, dispute them, that he was absolutely smitten with Jackie from the, the beginning.

And I do think that they, that they were serious from an early point.

I also think, you know, they were quite different people.

Uh, they had also some interesting similarities that I think were ultimately really important.

But I think as in many relationships it took a little time for the love to really develop.

I think there was mutual attraction, however, from the get-go.

From her part, she liked his, his sense of humor.

His interests in books and history.

His looks.

Uh, he liked some of the same things, uh, uh, uh, about her.

They had a particular shared interest, I think, in books and in poetry, um, that, that mattered in those early, early months.

RUBENSTEIN: So, at some point it's become clear that he has disease called Addison's disease which is a disease of the adrenaline glands and it can be fatal.

How did he deal with that during his lifetime?

How did he treat it?

LOGEVALL: You know, the Addison's disease was not diagnosed until 1947.

So this is early after, uh, after the war.

Uh, it's when he's now a, a, a freshmen member of the House.

And it's actually a British physician who says, "You know what you've got?

You've got Addison's disease."

He had shown symptoms before, I don't think we will, will know ever when precisely one can say he developed Addison's.

He took cortisone for it.

There were various remedies that were coming online that would help Addison's sufferers lead a much better life than in the past.

RUBENSTEIN: So, uh, we have to wait seven more years to get your next book, I guess.

So can you give us a teaser about it.

Uh, what are you most looking forward to re, researching and writing about with the, uh, remainder of his life?

LOGEVALL: Well, you know, I wanna do it much more quickly than that.

Um, but it's gonna be interesting because the first volume is 39 years.

This, this second volume is only gonna be seven years but of course a great deal happens.

So it'll be the campaign.

Uh, it'll be the 1,000 days in the White House.

And it'll be the, the terrible, uh, development in, in Dallas in November of 1963.

What I wanna do is continue to tell the story of his life but also the story of America and it's rise to, to, to incomparable power.

Think about the fact that in '63 when he's killed, the United States is really the greatest military and economic power that the world has ever seen.

So I wanna trace that story in those final seven years.

And of course civil rights comes online, the space race, the prospect of nuclear Armageddon, which of course would be, um, exemplified by the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Vietnam.

Uh, Vietnam, which I, I already write about in volume one is gonna loom much larger, um, and, you know, the marriage to Jackie.

Parenthood, they have children.

Lots that I need to do but I'm, uh, I'm eager to get into it.

RUBENSTEIN: Well, we've been in conversation with Professor Fredrik Logevall of Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor, thank you very much for an interesting conversation about your new book.

LOGEVALL: Well, thank you so much for having me.

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