From the Professor's Notebook

As a special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, Harvard Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. did some troubleshooting in Latin American affairs, traveled south with a Food-for-Peace mission, served as idea man and occasional speechwriter. And since he was also a Pulitzer-prizewinning historian, his memoirs of the Kennedy years were much in demand. Now, in a LIFE series based on a forthcoming book, Schlesinger offers some intriguing new details regarding two of John F. Kennedy's biggest--and most controversial --decisions.

"He Grabbed." The first was the selection of Lyndon Johnson as Kennedy's vice-presidential running mate in the 1960 election. Schlesinger reports that Kennedy had previously viewed Johnson "with mingled admiration and despair," referred to the Texan as the "riverboat gambler." But, declares Schlesinger, on the night he was nominated Kennedy decided to make the "first offer" of the vice-presidency to Johnson as a gesture aimed at reuniting the Democrats. Because of the bitterness of the Kennedy-Johnson fight for the nomination and Johnson's power as Senate majority leader, writes Schlesinger, Kennedy "was certain that there was practically no chance that Johnson would accept."

To Kennedy's amazement, "Johnson showed every interest in the project." Schlesinger quotes Kennedy as telling a friend: "'I didn't offer the vice-presidency to him. I just held it out like this'--here he simulated taking an object out of his pocket and holding it close to his body--'and he grabbed at it.' " Jack dispatched Brother Bobby to the Johnson hotel suite. Bobby, writes Schlesinger, "said that he was there to report that an ugly floor fight was in prospect. If Senator Johnson did not want to subject himself to this kind of unpleasantness, Senator Kennedy would fully understand. Should Johnson prefer to withdraw, the candidate would wish to make him chairman of the Democratic National Committee."

Relates Schlesinger: "Johnson said with great and mournful emotion, 'I want to be Vice President . . .' Robert Kennedy said cryptically, 'He wants you to be Vice President if you want to be Vice President.' " Later, Bobby leaned "against the wall and said . . . 'My God, this wouldn't have happened except that we were all too tired last night.' "

Asked at his press conference last week about Schlesinger's version, President Johnson maintained that he had truly been wanted. Kennedy, said L.B.J., "asked me on his own motion to go on the ticket with him, and I gave him my reasons for hesitating." Johnson's old friend and congressional patron, the late House Speaker "Mr. Sam" Rayburn, was initially dead set against L.B.J.'s joining the Kennedy ticket; so was virtually everyone else in Johnson's camp. But Kennedy, President Johnson declared at his news conference, "told me he would speak to Speaker Rayburn and others and he did. And subsequently he called me and said, 'Here is a statement I'm going to read on television naming you, unless you have an objection.' I listened to it. After I heard it, I felt that I should do what 1 did."

"Wail of S.O.S.s." Then there is Schlesinger's account of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba's Castro. The idea, Schlesinger recalls, had been inherited from the Eisenhower Administration. Schlesinger says that Kennedy found it distasteful--and so did Schlesinger. Once Schlesinger discussed with the President a White Paper on Cuba that he had been asked to draw up. "As we finished, I said, 'What do you think about this damned invasion?' He said wryly, 'I think about it as little as possible.'" But the plan was favored by the CIA, the Joint Chiefs and most of the Cabinet. In a remarkable portrayal of a President and his top policy officials, Schlesinger describes Kennedy as "a prisoner of events," surrounded by "a collection of officials prepared to sacrifice the world's growing faith in the new American President in order to defend interests and pursue objectives of their own."

On March 11, a month before the invasion, Schlesinger was summoned to a meeting with the President in the Cabinet Room. "An intimidating group sat around the table ... I shrank into a chair at the far end of the table and listened in silence." Kennedy, Schlesinger writes, "insisted that the plans be drawn on the basis of no United States military intervention--a stipulation to which no one at the table made objection." Later, when the "only signal from the beach was a wail of S.O.S.s," the President, in his bedroom, "put his head into his hands and almost sobbed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.