Experts on the Fine Arts say they can tell a Rembrandt or Leonardo or any greater master-painting by inspecting any part of the masterpiece. They don’t need to study the whole picture. Even a significant part of the background reveals the master’s touch. The brushwork, the oils themselves, and the way they are applied are like finger-paints. The magic of the artist reveals itself in everything the artist touched.
It is from that perspective that I shall approach this talk concerning the selection of persons who served in high positions in the Kennedy Administration. I think the Cabinet and Sub-Cabinet selections reveal important aspects of President Kennedy’s character, and certain qualitative aspects of his Administration!
I shall attempt to answer “What was it like?” rather than “What did it cost?"; “What was JFK looking for?” rather than “What was our methodology?"; “What were his ideas, and criteria?” rather than “Who found whom?”
So -- let us begin.
It was 10:30 a.m., November 10th, 1960 when the President-Elect met with his closest friends and staff members in Robert Kennedy’s living room in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. Everyone was both exhausted and elated. It had been a long, long night.
I had gone to bed at 3:30 a.m. convinced that the loss of Illinois to Nixon had doomed us. Illinois was my responsibility, the State I was “in charge of”. I stayed up till it was gone, and then slunk off-to bed saying goodnight to no one. I was defeated and disconsolate.
I awoke to the news of victory. Illinois had shifted back to Kennedy. He had won the Presidency. But when we met in Bobby Kennedy’s living room, I was still exhausted. And so was nearly everyone, except, that is the President-Elect. He had wisely gone to bed about 11:30 p.m.. I can remember his father saying: -- “Go to bed, Jack. This thing may drag on for hours, and we can handle it. In the morning you should be relaxed and refreshed. Get some sleep”! But the most wondrous and amazing fact to me is that Kennedy was able to sleep!
As a result, when our morning meeting took place he was fresh. He began quickly. He thanked everyone, made a few quips, and then made his first assignments. One person to this work; another to that.
Suddenly, I heard him speaking to me. He was saying that the most urgent business confronting him was the selection of the top people for the new Administration and he wanted me to take on the job of finding and recommending the best. I nodded my head, automatically, in a sort of reflex action; but I had little comprehension of the scope, difficulty, or opportunity of the assignment. I had never worked at the-higher levels of the Federal Government; I was not a Professor of Public Administration; not an expert on management; not a wise, skeptical, astute practitioner of bureaucratic gamesmanship. So why did he pick me?
Who knows? I’m not sure myself. I never asked him. But I start this talk with this personal example because it shows something about Kennedy, about his selections, about his style, and much about the rapier-like quality of his leadership.
All he said by way of instruction was this: -- “Sarge, we’ve got to find the most dedicated, bright, tough-minded, experienced guys in the country. We’re facing immense problems. And we’ve got to move fast. I’ve got to get a new budget ready for Congress in 60 days”.
What political considerations should be taken into account or what other factors should be weighed? He was decisive on those points: -- “Just get me the best. I’ll take care of the politics. First, he said, you’ve got to find a Director of the Bureau of the Budget. We’ve got to get that job filled immediately”...
Can anyone in this audience believe I knew nothing about the Director’s job at the Bureau of the Budget? Sure, I knew what the words meant. I knew what the job was. But beyond that I knew nothing.
Why did Kennedy choose me for this particular responsibility? I come back to that question because it’s at the heart of my thesis: -
Kennedy was an artist in politics, in government, and with people. Like the painters I mentioned at the beginning of this talk you saw his fingerprints everywhere. He had the insight, intuition, and nerve to initiate projects never attempted before, like putting a man on the moon; and he could give people jobs they had never done before. Somehow he knew they could do what he wanted. There was no guidebook for the way to the moon; and there was no previous organized “talent hunt” for the Cabinet, sub-Cabinet, and administrative leadership for the entire Executive Branch conducted without regard to political affiliations or without regard to previous friendship with the President-Elect. With the single exception of Robert Kennedy, the President never even thought of putting his closest friends or “buddies” into crucial jobs. He never entrusted top Governmental responsibilities and authority to persons who were just, or primarily, his cronies. The orders were clear and simple:
- Get me the best
- Get me the brightest
- Make sure they’re tough-minded
- Make sure they’re dedicated
- Forget politics.
And so the process began. How did I proceed?
Just as you would if you were in deep trouble faced with an assignment you’d never done before. I called my friends and shouted, “Help!” And I got some very good help indeed.
First, I met with McGeorge Bundy in Boston and picked his brains in a first conversation. Why Bundy? Because I knew that as Dean for some years at Harvard, Bundy had been running a “talent hunt” of his own, searching for the most imaginative and profound intellectuals in the world. He knew the names and numbers of all the “first-team” academics everywhere; and he knew their personalities, beliefs, idiosyncrasies, and reputations. Bundy went to work right away. And so did John Kenneth Galbraith whom I asked for help -- especially with that urgent first assignment -- a Director of the Bureau of the Budget.
Then I headed to Washington.
Before I got there the next day, the men who had worked closely with me during the campaign were already reassembling. They gave up their vacations, their families, and their normal jobs and returned once again to action. Not a complaint. Not a turn-down. And within a few days of getting the “talent hunt” job, we were operational. Harris Wofford, a law school professor; Louis Martin, a newspaper editor; Adam Yarmolinsky, an adviser to Foundations; and I, conducted a night-and-day operation. We were a “gang-of-four”.
Notice there was not a professional politician among us, not even a person who had ever run for elective office! We had nothing more than the criteria for selecting people given to us by the President-Elect himself; and we had the inspiration, even the europhia created by his confidence, that we could do something we had never done before, something, in fact, which had never been done by anyone before.
Doesn’t that sound romantic and naive? Doesn’t it seem almost irresponsible for Kennedy to have given this crucial task to persons untried and inexperienced in Government? Possibly it was; but at the beginning of this talk I promised to tell you “What it was like” -- and that’s the way it was. We never stopped to think we couldn’t do the job. We just did what he asked us to do. Everyone we asked to help us responded by doing more than they were asked to do. And their response was also typical of that time. It’s almost 25 years ago when all this took place – a quarter of a century ago. In those days Government was not the enemy. Washington was not a place to, be overcome. Washington was not the source of all our problems. It was not the capitol of an evil empire of bureaucrats and leeches and incompetents. Ronald Reagan was still making movies, money, and make-believe. Jimmy Carter was still in the Navy. Neither was leading a crusade against Washington. In fact, eminent Republicans, just like Democrats, sought power in Washington, in those days, to do good for their country, and for all people. Eisenhower, Taft, Lodge, Stimson, Dulles, Dewey, Wilkie, Saltonstall, Forrestal, Aiken, Patterson, Lovett, McCloy -- these men from Wall Street and wealth, no less than Democrats from those boondocks, wanted to use Washington to renew our country’s life, idealism and prosperity.. And Kennedy was the epitome of that hope and dream.
He never thought, and neither did we, that if we selected a person for service in the administration that we would get a “turn-down”. And we never did. Can you believe that? Today it sounds almost like a myth. But then it was a reality.
One sample will suffice to illustrate this truth.
On November 9, 1960, the very day that Kennedy was elected President, Robert McNamara was elected President of the Ford Motor Co., a job he had been seeking for a dozen or more years, a job at the top when American cars were pre-eminent. One month later I walked into his office and asked him to quit his new job. And he didn’t throw me out!
Try to imagine that situation. McNamara didn’t know me. I didn’t know McNamara. McNamara had just reached the pinnacle of his career. A Harvard Business School Professor had just proven himself a total success in the real world of business itself. McNamara was an independent, not a Democrat. I didn’t even know whether he had voted for Kennedy or Nixon. And I never asked.
What’s more, no one in the “talent search” knew McNamara. Kennedy did not know McNamara. Neither did anyone in Kennedy’s family or among his friends. But we, in the talent hunt headquarters had convinced ourselves, and, of course, President Kennedy, that McNamara was one of the brightest, toughest, quickest, most thoughtful, and patriotic men in America. We had researched his career, his friends, his family, his reading habits. We talked with his competitors, with labor leaders like Walter Reuther of the U.A.W., with golf club caddies, with his Ford Automobile Company driver. We had assembled enough to recommend him to Kennedy.
Kennedy reviewed every detail of our work and then without hesitation told me to go to Detroit and offer him the job as Secretary of Defense.
At the airport just before taking off, I telephoned Kennedy. It was about 8 a.m.. I said..."Jack if you really want t get this man, would you authorize me to make him an unprecedented offer?” “What do you mean?” Jack said. I said, “I want your permission to offer McNamara two jobs, either Secretary of Treasury or Secretary of Defense. McNamara loves history and I want to tell him that no President has ever offered a choice of those two jobs to anyone”. Kennedy said, “It’s . a good idea. Go ahead and try it”. And I did.
That’s exactly the way I put the Presidential message to McNamara.
He responded immediately, graciously, analytically, explaining his reactions to both offers, reminding me of his obligation to talk with Henry Ford, speaking about his family, his work, his finances. He computed out loud what it would cost him to leave Ford. It came to many millions of dollars. Then decisively he said “I’ve already got more money than anyone in the history of the McNamara family, more than enough for my wife and children and me. What I will lose doesn’t matter;" And that was that -- a decision about his financial future: reached in less than three minutes.
After meeting McNamara I telephoned Kennedy to give him a report. He said -- “How did it go?” I responded, “Jack I think I’ve got you either the best Secretary of Defense in history, or the worst. He’s interested. He’s got to talk to Henry Ford, arrange for a successor. He’ll be back to us within the week.” ..."But what do you think?” Jack asked. I said “The man is great -- quick, clear, objective, no ego problems, decisive. He’s almost too good on first impression to be true. But if the first impression holds up, he’ll be sensational.”
Two weeks later McNamara came to lunch with Kennedy at Kennedy’s house in Georgetown ... for their first meeting ... in and out the back door for secrecy. At that first meeting the two of them impressed each other -- Kennedy with his description of the problems in Defense, the need for basic decisions and new directions, and McNamara with his clear answers and long-term view. When lunch was finished, McNamara had only one crucial question still to be answered. He wanted to study the statutes establishing the Defense Department to assure himself that the Secretary of Defense’s office had the legal power to reorganize and control the entire Department. He did not want the job if the legal structure of the Department would prevent him from mastering the armed forces and the existing bureaucrats. And he wanted to talk to Bob Lovett and Tom Gates, both Republicans. Kennedy told him “Go ahead.”
Within another week, he was on board and working night and day to put into place the most remarkable collection of competent men ever to serve in that Department: -- Harold Brown; Cyrus Vance; Ros Gilpatric; John MacNaughton; Paul Warnke; Paul Nitze; Charlie Hitch; Charlie Zwick; Alan Enthoven; Eugene Zuckert; John Connolly; and many others.
A similar story could be told about every Department. The Justice Department with Byron White as Deputy and Nick Katzenbach, Archibald Cox, Bill Orrick, Lee Loevinger, Burke Marshall, John Seigenthaler, Ed Guthman in top positions. Or State with Dean Rusk, Chester Bowles, George Ball, Averell Harriman, Walter Rostow, Abe Chayes, Mennen Williams, Harlan Cleveland, Joe Sisco, Fowler Hamilton., Frank Coffin, Ted Moscosco, Dick Goodwin, Bob Manning, Carl Rowan, Luke Battle, Mike Blumenthal, Francis Plimpton, Philip Klutznick, Adlai Stevenson! In one Department alone: -- 6 Cabinet Members; 4 Ambassadors; 2 University Presidents; 5 Corporation Presidents. Notice a few things about these men: -
- None of them quit.
- None of them was accused of financial wrongdoing.
- None of them was investigated by Congress.
- None of them retired under fire.
- None of them disgraced themselves, their jobs, or their country.
- None of them wrote an unauthorized, insider’s book, and pocketed the profits.
Does this sound more and more like a dream world? Is it only ancient history? I say it’s not! On the contrary I say it’s exactly what made America great at the time of our beginning. It’s what can make America great again.
What is “it”? What is “it”, that characterized those days in 1961, and those people who served this nation then?
First: They were smart, experienced people who knew their business.
The Secretary of Labor -- Arthur Goldberg and his Deputy Willard Wirtz were both distinguished labor lawyers. Wirtz was a professor of labor law. Goldberg spent his life in labor law and union management with sufficient distinction to earn an appointment to the Supreme Court.
The Secretary of Agriculture, Orville Freeman, and his Deputy, Charley Murphy, knew that domain inside and out; and their colleagues, Professor Willard Cochrane, John Duncan, Horace. Godfrey added geographical spread and technical qualifications to the leadership of that Department.
The Secretary of Commerce was not only a successful Governor of North Carolina but an experienced businessman. And so was his Deputy, Ed Gudeman, a top official with Sears Roebuck and Co.
The Secretary of Treasury was a genuine star. Douglas Dillon, an experienced banker and government official, who together with colleagues like Robert Roosa, Joe Fowler and Joe Barr were first-class, financial experts.
Second: --.These men put the country’s interests above partisan politics. Think of these facts:
The Secretary of Treasury was a Republican, and so was the Director of the C.I.A.
The Secretary of State was an Independent, and so was the Secretary of Defense.
The Director of the National Security Council, McGeorge Bundy, was a Republican, and his deputies were distinguished, non-political, academics chosen by Bundy.
The only Democrats at the highest levels of the National Security System in those days were the President himself and his brother, the Attorney-General! Can you imagine that today!
Third: -- These Kennedy appointees had self-control, and respect from their peers in and out of Government.
Compare the professionalism, even the patrician manners, modesty, and discretion of Dean Rusk to the flamboyance and high style of Alexander Haig. Compare Arthur Goldberg, a Supreme Court jurist, with Ray Donovan in the Labor Department.
Stewart Udall with a James Watt in Interior.
This is not to imply that there are no persons of distinction in the current or previous Cabinets. Malcolm Baldrige, George Shultz, Elizabeth Dole and the original Secretaries of Transportation and of Health and Social Services --Drew Lewis and Richard Schweicker, are obviously persons of superior quality in Reagan’s Administration. But the fact remains that the Kennedy Departments from top to bottom, were extraordinary in depth as well as in quality. As an example look at Kennedy’s three-Member Council of Economic Advisers -- Walter Heller, Kermit Gordon, and Jim Tobin, the Nobel Prize Winner. All of them are economists of national, even international fame. Now we have one first-rank economist, Martin Feldstein, who is more maligned than admired by the Administration.
Fourth -- The Kennedy appointees were dedicated public servants. Of the original Cabinet only the Postmaster General, Ed Day, retired to pursue a career as a private citizen. Ribicoff retired to run and win election to the U.S. Senate and Goldberg retired to accept appointment to the Supreme Court. All the others stayed the course, to use .a memorable phrase. None left for more lucrative jobs. None left under pressure. None had to struggle for confirmation.
I could go on with dozens of additional names and stories to bring the atmosphere of those times to life. But time is short. Enough is enough to describe the positive side of what it was like in those days. Harris Wofford in his important book, “Of Kennedys and Kings”, has provided much detail on the actual workings of our Talent Hunt. But the main points I hope are clear: -
Kennedy’s example and leadership, his guidance, his inspiration, his decisiveness, his sensitive touch with people, motivated Republicans, Independents , and Democrats alike to sacrifice their private interests to serve the nation. If you believed in America’s destiny, efficiency, and democratic processes, this was truly a glorious moment to be alive’
“Alive”, - yes - we were, very much, “alive”, so much alive, so young, that we could say with Kenny O’Donnell when he tearfully looked upon Jack’s casket resting in state in the White House Gold Room, “Eee’ Gad’ Jack, we knew it could never last, but why did it have to end so soon, so soon.”
Now what about David Halberstam’s illustrious book, “The Best and The Brightest”? Hasn’t Halberstam proven that this speech is just Camelot revisited? Didn’t Viet-Nam prove that McNamara, Bundy, Maxwell Taylor, John McCone, Cy Vance, Walt Rostow, Douglas Dillon, and all the rest of those Kennedy people were narrow-minded, technocratic imperialists blinded by their class, education, and wealth? Weren’t they, at best, tragic figures ignorant about other cultures, the needs of other peoples, the limits of American power and American political theory? Don’t they now, and didn’t they then, represent what’s wrong with America rather than what’s right? And isn’t my own account of that Cabinet selection, my description of its alleged “successes”, merely another example of blindness? I liked those men, and I liked Kennedy, because I’m one of that crowd myself ... a witness yes, but not an objective observer.
Those are important, even profound questions. I want to deal with them before I come to the end of this talk.
First, let’s admit a few obvious facts. There was not even one woman among these “best and brightest”. Jackie Kennedy was “the” woman of those days, and she, too, epitomized the role of women in those times: -- beautiful; intelligent; an epitome of style, looks and fashion; knowledgeable about literature, music, and the arts; but not a feminist, surely not a Barbara Jordan or Gloria Steinem, not an Elizabeth Dole or Anne Armstrong or Sandra Day O’Connor.
Touche! Let’s agree women should have been chosen. Let’s agree few were considered in this Kennedy Talent Search. Let’s agree that was a mistake. But let’s realize also that in those days very, very few women were in the professions or in public affairs. Congresswoman Edith Green could have been chosen, but she lost out when Abe Ribicoff took the job Mrs. Green wanted. And with that exception there were not many, if any, women to choose from, as we all now know, and regret.
Second: -- Let’s admit that inadequate consideration was given to Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. Bob Weaver made the first team as head of the Housing and Home Finance Administration. Carl Rowan got a significant position in State, and George Weaver got an important position as Assistant Secretary of Labor. But it’s true that the Kennedy Administration in its first days, and in its Cabinet, sub-Cabinet and top administrative jobs, did not select enough distinguished minority leaders. Even Louis Martin’s presence in our “Talent Hunt” was not enough to bring forth candidates of such significant experience, availability, and talent to penetrate the very highest levels with significant Black appointments.
Third: -- Let’s admit that Catholics got short-changed. Except for Bobby Kennedy not one Catholic got a top position. Why? Because we Kennedy people were extremely sensitive to the prejudice against the election of any Catholic to the Presidency. We wanted to give no grounds for criticism to the anti-Catholics in America. If Kennedy had appointed as many Catholics to high office as Ronald Reagan did in 1981, the public and press of those days would have claimed that the Pope was being given control over America.
Fourth: -- Let’s admit that our Talent Hunt is vulnerable to the charge, often made, that McNamara, Rostow and other Kennedy appointees were responsible for the horrendous immorality of the war in Viet-Nam. Not too many years ago McNamara was picketed at The University of Chicago as a “war criminal”. Revisionist historians have rejoiced in maximizing Kennedy’s weaknesses and mistakes, and they have luxuriated in pointing out the pride, arrogance, and blunders of his most brilliant colleagues.
What truth lies in most of these charges?
Not much, I’m prepared to argue.
Surely Kennedy’s men, and Kennedy himself, were not angels. No one is. But, in this century, no abler, more patriotic, or more competent group ever came into the Federal Government at one time. The first-line architects of Roosevelt’s first Administrations may have been their equals, but no other group, from the fathers of our nation till now, can compare in experience, numbers, and ability with the persons Kennedy chose.
Then, why did they fail? I’m not at all sure they did. Which leads me to a major point.
We, the people, elect the President, Vice President, and the Congress. These men and women are the political leaders in whom we repose confidence. Theirs is the awesome responsibility to pick and choose. They make the decisions. Not the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members who, for the most part, have never been elected to anything by anybody. A McNamara is chosen by a Kennedy to build the best Army, Navy, and Air Force in the world. McNamara’s is an appointive job. He’s to do what he’s told to do. By whom? By the elected representatives of the people in general, but by the President in particular. McNamaras can be hired and fired at will.
Can we the people, or we the historians, then blame the McNamaras for the war in Viet-Nam?
Not for a minute, I say. We can blame Kennedy or Johnson; we can blame Speaker McCormick and Senators Mike Mansfield and Bill Fulbright, and everyone who voted for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution; but Bob McNamara was only doing what he was appointed to do: -- create and operate the best War Department in the world. Should McNamara have resigned in protest? Yes, he could have done that; and today he’d be a hero in some quarters. Would his resignation have changed the course of that war? I think not -- no more than Cy Vance’s resignation turned Carter away from his errors in Iran and elsewhere. Look, moreover, at Henry Kissinger and Nixon prolonging the bloodshed long after McNamara.
If we in the United States formed governments as in England and France; if McNamara or Bundy or Rostow or Allen Dulles were first elected to Congress, and only then selected for service in a Cabinet, they might be properly blamed for mistakes of foreign or military policy. But that’s not our way of government. Here responsibility for success and blame for policy failures belongs on, the shoulders of those elected to make the policy decisions. To go in to Viet-Nam was a decision made by politicians.
Responsibility rests not on the backs of those who did the jobs they are ordered to do, be they names on the Viet-Nam Memorial Wall, or members of the Cabinet.
Couldn’t this line of argument be used to exonerate a Heinrich Himmie., a Herman Goering, a Josef Goebbels? Certainly it could be, and it was tried. But without success. Why? Because it was clear that Himmler, Goering, Goebbels and others made the policies along with Hitler. No elected Reichstag or Chancellor existed after 1933. Policy decisions there were made by appointed technocrats, bureaucrats, and ideologues, not by elected officials.
Didn’t McNamara, Bundy, Rostow, Maxwell Taylor and others play pivotal roles in supplying information and ideas to the Presidents involved and to the Congress? Of course, they did. Were they sometimes wrong? Of course, they were. The Pentagon Papers prove that fact. Then weren’t they fundamentally at fault, fundamentally wrong, and; fundamentally failures, the worst and the stupidest, not the best and the brightest?
I think not. Why not? Because they cannot be faulted for failure to know then what we know only now. Anachronistic arguments are always invalid and especially dangerous when they lead to judgmental thinking.
Would that Frances Fitzgerald’s brilliant study of the Vietnamese culture and people, “Fire In The Lake”, had been written 25 years sooner! Would that Asian, Islamic, and Buddhist studies had been required subjects or even offered at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan 50 years ago! Would that America had lost at least one war in our history so that we as a nation would not have suffered from the hubris of invincibility and righteousness! Would that even today we could realize, with humility, that we don’t have the right answers to everything. When our current President can glory in the Grenada affair and arouse American emotions, passions and support with such a lop-sided display of military might, is it any wonder that other Americans in earlier days were susceptible to the attraction of military conquests?
I do not maintain that Kennedy’s Cabinet was composed of perfect people. Nor do I believe that today one could enlist such numbers of our most illustrious personalities in government service. The Kennedy assassinations; the Martin Luther King murder; the Viet-Nam war; the Watergate Debauch have dragged America through the filth of the world. The spirit of our people has been raped and mocked by vulgarians at home and abroad. From the U-2 incident to the Bay of Pigs, to lies about operations in Cambodia, to a President quitting to avoid impeachment, to a Vice-President taking cash bribes in his Vice Presidential office, to 58 members of the Nixon Administration indicted for Federal crimes, serving a total of 130 years in jail, America has been flogged and humiliated. It’s a different place --a wiser place perhaps than it was in 1961. No one today is as well regarded as the Kennedys and their Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members in 1961-1963.
Today Ronald Reagan says proudly that he can get people “to step down” from their jobs in the private sector to work for the National Government, whereas Kennedy appointees thought they were stepping up when they moved from Wall Street, or Detroit, or Berkeley, or Chicago, or Austin, to join the Federal Government.
It may even be true that today’s financial disclosure laws and the Post-Watergate scrutiny by press and TV made it impossible to recruit; the most eminent persons for Federal Government service. But we shall never know the truth, till another leader of the FDR-Kennedy caliber comes along. Till then we can only take comfort in the fact that Abraham Lincoln was preceded by the four worst Presidents in American history: -- Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan.
Maybe, just maybe, Almighty God in His mercy may give America, once again, a leader worthy of its people. But to hope for such a blessing requires penance for our past sins, resolution to stop our nationalistic and imperialistic posturing and pretensions, and confession that we cannot dominate the world and go it alone. If the brilliance and the mistakes of our previous Presidents and Cabinet members teach us to be humble, we will have learned a priceless lesson. Brains, beauty, money, health, and freedom do not make a person or a nation great.
Rather it’s the spirit of public service; it’s the commitment of each person to national, objectives, not private goals; it’s the belief that much will be required of those to whom much has been given.
These are spiritual qualities, even religious motivations. They underlie the words of Kennedy’s inaugural address ..."that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own”.
Let us not forget also that these days were the days of the Peace Corps. Let us not forget that outpouring of volunteers, to help the poor help themselves. And the same President who inaugurated the Peace Corps envisioned a national, systematic, and comprehensive effort to help the poor here at home Moderating the inequities of life by helping our own was applauded in those days. Unrestrained greed in the accumulation of private wealth was not then regarded as a contribution to the national good.
So, those times were different! They were like the earliest days in our country’s history when we possessed little military power but great intellectual, philosophical and moral power. We led by example then. We led by our ideals and ideas. “The shot heard round the world” was a shot fired by revolutionaries not reactionaries, by poor people against rich Tories who even then were “making it” in the salons of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. Those American Tories finally fled to London and Paris, leaving the soil of this nation for cultivation by outcasts.
Today is no different. The jury is still out on the American Experiment. It still is not clear whether revolutionaries or Tories will inherit the earth. Kennedy and his colleagues bet on the people -- even the poor people -- and many of us who were with him will go to our graves believing he was right.
