Killing Kennedy

Thanks to Dave Powers’s insistence on making the most of PT-109, John F. Kennedy is elected to Congress.

* * *

During his first months as president, the coconut on which Kennedy carved the rescue note is a reminder of the incident that started him on his path to the White House.

The coconut is also a daily reminder that JFK owes the presidency, in part, to the sharp political intuition of Dave Powers. The tall Boston native, five years JFK’s senior, has been on the Kennedy payroll since that January night in 1946. As special assistant to the president, he is not a cabinet member, or even an official adviser—just a very close friend who always seems to anticipate the president’s needs and whose company the always-loyal JFK enjoys immensely. Powers has been described as the president’s “jester in residence,” and it’s true: his official capacity in the White House is largely social. Dave Powers is willing to do anything for John Kennedy.

But even Dave Powers, with his remarkable powers of intuition, cannot possibly know what “anything” means—nor can he predict that even as he witnessed John Kennedy’s first-ever political speech, he will also witness his last.

2

FEBRUARY 1961

THE WHITE HOUSE

1:00 P.M.

The president of the United States is naked, and on schedule. Almost every afternoon, at precisely 1:00 P.M., he slips into the indoor pool—always heated to a therapeutic ninety degrees—located between the White House and the West Wing. John Kennedy does this to soothe his aching back, a problem for him ever since he was a student at Harvard. His ordeal with the Amagiri exacerbated his back problems, and he has even endured surgery—to no avail. The pain is constant and so excruciating that Kennedy often uses crutches or a cane to get around, though rarely in public. He wears a corset, sleeps on an extra-firm mattress, and receives regular injections of the anesthetic procaine to ease his suffering. Aides know to look for a tightening of his jaw as a sign that the president’s back is acting up. The half hour of breaststroke and the heat of the pool are part of Kennedy’s therapy. His lack of a bathing suit for many of those swims stems from his notion of manliness. Real men do the breaststroke au naturel, and that’s that.

The White House staff could never imagine the previous president, Dwight Eisenhower, swimming naked anywhere, anytime. The elderly general and his wife, Mamie, were as traditional as they come. Very little unexpected happened in the White House during the eight years the Eisenhowers lived there.

But now everything has changed. The Kennedys are much less formal than the Eisenhowers. Smoking is allowed in the staterooms. Receiving lines are being abolished, giving formal functions a more casual feel. The First Lady is having a stage set up in the East Room, to allow performances by some of America’s most notable musicians, such as cellist and composer Pablo Casals and singer Grace Bumbry.

Still, the White House is a serious place. The president’s daily schedule revolves around periods of intense work followed by restorative breaks. He rises each morning around seven and immediately begins reading the news of the day in bed, including dispatches from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Kennedy is a speed-reader, capable of absorbing twelve hundred words every sixty seconds. He is done with the newspapers in just fifteen minutes, and then moves on to a pile of briefing books covering events going on around the world.

The president then takes breakfast in bed. It is a substantial meal: orange juice, bacon, toast slathered in marmalade, two soft-boiled eggs, and coffee with cream. By and large, he is not a huge eater. He meticulously keeps his weight at or below 175 pounds. But he is a creature of habit and eats the same breakfast almost every day of the week.

Shortly before 8:00 A.M., Kennedy slips into the tub for a brief soak. In the bath, as he will throughout the day, he has a habit of tapping his right hand constantly, as if the hand is an extension of his active thought process.

The president is in the Oval Office at nine o’clock sharp. He sits back in his chair and listens as his appointments secretary, Ken O’Donnell, maps out his schedule. Throughout the morning, as Kennedy takes calls and listens to advisers brief him on what is happening in the rest of the world, he is interrupted by his handpicked staff. In addition to court jester Dave Powers and the quick-witted Kenny O’Donnell, son of the College of the Holy Cross’s football coach, there are men such as the bespectacled special assistant and Harvard history professor Arthur Schlesinger; Ted Sorensen, the Nebraska-born special counselor and adviser; and Pierre Salinger, the former child prodigy pianist who serves as press secretary.

^{President Kennedy and David Powers, his trusted aide and a member of the Kennedy White House’s “Irish Mafia” in 1961. (Abbie Rowe, White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)}

With the exception of the president’s personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, the Kennedy White House is very much a fraternity, with every man deeply loyal to his charismatic leader. Conversation often lapses into the profane, as the president’s naval background lends truth to the saying “swears like a sailor.” “I didn’t call businessmen sons of bitches,” Kennedy once complained about being misquoted in the New York Times. “I called them pricks.”

The tone is courtlier when women are around. The president, for instance, never refers to his secretary as anything other than Mrs. Lincoln. But even then, crudeness can be camouflaged. Once, in his wife’s presence, Kennedy uses a version of the military’s phonetic alphabet to lash out at a newspaper columnist, referring to him as a “Charlie-Uncle-Nan-Tare.”

When the confused First Lady asks the president to explain, he deftly changes the subject.

* * *

Kennedy’s half-hour midday swim is an effective tonic for his pain, but sometimes he also uses the swimming sessions to conduct business, inviting staff and even members of the press to put in laps alongside him. The catch? They have to be naked, too. Dave Powers, a regular swimming partner, is quite used to it. For some on the White House staff, however, the scene is almost surreal.

Enigmatically, the president’s informal aquatic habits belie the fact that he is the polar opposite of his easygoing vice president. Lyndon Johnson is well-known for grabbing shoulders and slapping backs, but Kennedy keeps a physical distance between himself and other men. Unless he is campaigning, a chore he relishes, the president finds even the simple act of shaking hands to be a burden.

After swimming, Kennedy eats a quick lunch upstairs in the residence—perhaps a sandwich and possibly some soup. He then goes into his bedroom, changes into a nightshirt, and naps for exactly forty-five minutes. Other great figures in history such as Winston Churchill napped during the day. For Kennedy, it is a means of rejuvenation.

The First Lady wakes him up and stays with him to chat as he gets dressed. Then it’s back to the Oval Office, most nights working as late as 8:00 P.M. His staff knows that after business hours, Kennedy often puts two feet up on his desk and casually tosses ideas back and forth with them. It is the president’s favorite time of the day.

When everyone has cleared out, Kennedy makes his way back upstairs to the family’s private quarters—often referred to as “the residence” or “the Mansion” by his staff—where he smokes an Upmann cigar, enjoys Ballantine scotch and water without ice, and prepares for his evening meal. Often, Jackie Kennedy puts together last-minute dinner parties, which the president tolerates.

Truth be told, JFK would rather be watching a movie. The White House theater can screen any film in the world, anytime the president wishes. His preferences are World War II flicks and Westerns.

Kennedy’s fixation on movies rivals his other favorite recreational pursuit: sex.

The president’s bad back does not discourage him from being romantically active, which is a good thing,