Studies in nuclear danger

Since petty secrets tend to be hoarded in Washington as signals of personal importance there’s no guessing what trivialities may turn up in long-classified documents now being opened regarding the Kennedy assassination.

But conspiracy preoccupations miss the point. Of greater consequence is not how John F. Kennedy died but how he governed.

Some years ago, I came by a story of Kennedy’s manner that few have heard when I was researching a book about Joe Alsop who was, with Walter Lippmann and a few others, the most influential Washington columnist of the 20th century. I knew Joe, thanks to relatives of his who were also old friends. I have rarely known anyone so colorful.

Here is the story.

At the time of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when Nikita Khrushchev tried to sneak medium-range nuclear weapons into Castro’s island, Joe and his wife, the former Susan Mary Jay Patten, were Kennedy buddies – the slang term fits. On the night of his inauguration, Jan. 20, 1961, JFK, in white tie, appeared at midnight at Joe Alsop’s Georgetown house, prompting newspaper headlines and an early-hours feast of turtle soup. That was one measure of their intimacy.

Small wonder that the Alsops were entertaining President and Mrs. Kennedy one October evening in 1962. Susan Mary Alsop had planned an intimate dinner in honor of the great Soviet expert Charles (Chip) Bohlen, who was scheduled to leave shortly for Paris as the new U.S. ambassador.

Mrs. Alsop, with her keen historian’s eye, noticed a couple of oddities strikingly uncharacteristic of Kennedy as she knew him.

“John Kennedy,” she told me when I was interviewing her for my book on her late husband, “had impeccable manners; he was the soul of consideration. And he had a quick and retentive mind. If he asked a question, he absorbed the answer and did not ask again.”

But on this occasion, the president seemed to forget both his manners and his habits of perception.

As they gathered for pre-dinner drinks on the back terrace, JFK collared Bohlen and, leaving the others, retired to a distant place on the back lawn where they walked up and down in close confabulation while the others waited. And waited. This continued for some 45 minutes, while their hostess worried that her chef might overcook the roast and Mrs. Bohlen endured her painful back – respect for the president demanded a wait that was uncharacteristically inconsiderate. When the president and his ambassador-designate returned, and the six sat down for dinner, Susan Mary Alsop noticed other atypical behavior. Again and again, the president spun variations on the same question: How might the Soviets react when caught in mischief which they expected to keep secret? Bohlen, as one of the two or three pre-eminent State Department professionals on Russian political and historical behavior, patiently responded. Mrs. Alsop recalled the obsessive repetition of the Q&A.

Knowing Kennedy she was puzzled. What she did not know, in common with the other guests aside from Bohlen, was that Kennedy had seen conclusive evidence – aerial photos – that the Russians were building a strategic nuclear outpost 90 miles from Miami. Within hours, Khrushchev’s reckless folly precipitated the most dangerous of Cold War crises. We know these many years later how John F. Kennedy resolved the crisis without nuclear war and initiated, with a chastened Khrushchev, a turn toward sanity in nuclear-age relations.

I think of Susan Mary Alsop’s riveting account now that another president, with none of JFK’s brains, restraint, judgment or experience, has turned another nuclear problem into an adolescent shoving match with the erratic tyrant he calls “rocket man.” The contrast is stark. At a comparable stage of his presidency, JFK brought many resources to the missile crisis. He had fought his country’s wars in uniform, had written a publishable college thesis on another prewar crisis and another prizewinning book about Senate statesmanship. He had served in both houses of Congress, and knew and respected the Washington journalists and political figures of importance. Not least, he was on personal terms with magisterial advisers like Bohlen.

His successor, Donald Trump, has no comparable resources at all and has spoiled his secretary of state’s attempt to develop a back channel to North Korea.

Consider the contrast and tremble.

Contributing columnist Edwin M. Yoder Jr. of Chapel Hill is a former editor and columnist in Washington.

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 9:19 AM with the headline "Studies in nuclear danger."