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Kennedy, Congress and Civil Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

John Hart
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President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963 was quickly followed by a wave of instant history, mainly produced by those who worked closely with him in the White House. Sorensen, Schlesinger and Salinger all published their memoirs in the mid-sixties, while O'Donnell and O'Brien followed suit in the early seventies. It was inevitable that their assessment of the Kennedy Presidency would be a favourable one and it was equally inevitable that it would generate a reaction from those who believed that the Kennedy myth needed to be destroyed. The instant history of the sixties has now given way to the instant revisionism of the seventies and John F. Kennedy is getting a distinctly unfavourable press. Leaving aside foreign affairs, it is Kennedy's handling of civil rights to which the revisionists are most antagonistic. Here the relationship between the President and Congress is brought sharply into focus. It is argued that Kennedy did not put before the legislature the wide-ranging and bold commitments on civil rights made during the election campaign; that his approach to the problem was tailored to suit the sensibilities of the southern Democrats in the House and Senate, and that he studiously avoided offering moral and political leadership to the country at large. Thus Henry Fairlie blames Kennedy for “ procrastination and tokenism”; Lewis Paper argues that Kennedy's handling of civil rights “ did not speak well of his success as a public educator ” and Bruce Miroff, perhaps the most outspoken of all the critics, places Kennedy's performance in the context of “ pragmatic liberalism rooted in elite politics ” — an approach which he unhesitatingly condemns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , August 1979 , pp. 165 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

References

1 See, for example, Fairlie, Henry, The Kennedy Promise: The Politics of Expectation (New York: Doubleday, 1973);Google ScholarFitzsimons, Louise, The Kennedy Doctrine (New York: Random House, 1972);Google ScholarMiroff, Bruce, Pragmatic Illusions: The Presidential Politics of John F. Kennedy (New York: David McKay, 1976);Google ScholarPaper, Lewis J., The Promise and the Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy (New York: Crown, 1975);Google ScholarWalton, Richard J., Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy (New York: Viking Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

2 Fairlie, pp. 250–51.

3 Paper, p. 243.

4 Miroff, Ch. 6.

5 See Brauer, Carl M., John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1977)Google Scholar. I do not believe that the well-researched evidence presented by Brauer supports the conclusions he draws from it.

6 Quoted in Brauer, p. 31.

7 The Rights of Man, Report of the Committee on Resolutions and Platforms as adopted by the Democratic National Convention, 20 July 1960, p. 53.

8 The best account of how the 1960 platform was put together and why the liberals came to be in such a commanding position is James L. Sundquist's Oral History Interview at the John F. Kennedy Library, pp. 1–10. Sundquist was then Secretary to the platform committee.

9 Sundquist, Oral History Interview, John F. Kennedy Library, p. 10.

10 See Sorensen, Theodore C., Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 157Google Scholar.

11 See The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy, Presidential Campaign of 1960, Final Report of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress 1st Session, Senate Report 994, Part 1, p. 69.

12 Ibid., p. 70.

13 Ibid., p. 191.

14 Ibid., p. 432.

15 See The Joint Appearances of Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Presidential Campaign of 1960, Final Report of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress 1st Session, Senate Report 994, Part 111, p. 251.

16 The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy, pp. 575–78.

17 See Public Papers of the Presidents, 1961 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 20Google Scholar.

18 Memorandum to the President from Fred Dutton, 9 Feb. 1961, John F. Kennedy Papers (White House Central Files HU Box 358), John F. Kennedy Library.

19 The Kennedy administration's record in this regard is well documented by Brauer, and by Navasky, Victor, Kennedy Justice (New York: Atheneum, 1971)Google Scholar. See also Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times (London: Andre Deutsch, 1978), Chaps. 14–16Google Scholar.

20 Sorensen, p. 339.

21 See Sorensen, Theodore C., The Kennedy Legacy (New York: Macmillan, 1969), p. 220Google Scholar and O'Brien, Lawrence, No Final Victories: A Life in Politics from John F. Kennedy to Watergate (New York: Doubleday, 1974), p. 144Google Scholar.

22 See Congressional Record, 9 Feb. 1961, p. 1965.

23 See Ibid., 30 Aug. 1961, p. 17526.

24 O'Brien persuaded Kennedy to ask Minority Leader Charles Halleck for help on the civil rights bill and Halleck responded positively. See O'Brien, op. cit., pp. 144–47. Halleck confirms this account in his Oral History Interview for the Kennedy Library, pp. 9–14.

25 Wicker, Tom, JFK and LBJ (New York: William Morrow, 1968), p. 89Google Scholar.

26 See Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 14 June 1963, p. 951.

27 See The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy, p. 910.

28 Sorensen, , Kennedy, p. 480Google Scholar.

29 “Kennedy to Delay Executive Order Barring Discrimination in Federally Aided Housing,” The Wall Street Journal, 16 12 1961Google Scholar.

30 See Public Papers of the Presidents 1962 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 21 and p. 544Google Scholar.

31 Sorensen, , Kennedy, pp. 481–82Google Scholar.

32 Lee White, interview with author, 21 Aug. 1972

33 See Memorandum from Lawrence O'Brien to Lee White, 15 Sept. 1962 and Memorandum from Bill Welsh to Lee White, 4 Oct. 1962, Lee White Papers (Housing/Executive Order), John F. Kennedy Library.

34 Memorandum from Lawrence O'Brien to Lee White, 11 Sept. 1962, Lee White Papers (Housing/Executive Order), John F. Kennedy Library.

35 Letter from Martha Griffiths to Lawrence O'Brien, 18 Sept. 1962, Lee White Papers (Housing/Executive Order), John F. Kennedy Library.

36 Miroff, p. 269.

37 Paper, p. 242.

38 Fairlie, p. 364.

39 The Bill was eventually passed the following year in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. President Johnson also signed a Voting Rights Act in 1965 passed by the massive Democratic majorities of the 89th Congress.