For Immediate Release: July 21, 2004
Further information: Ann Scanlon (617) 514-1662
Maura Porter (617) 514-1634
BOSTON–The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum today announced that it has declassified and made available for research 13 hours of presidential recordings that include several meetings and conversations that took place in the Cabinet Room and Oval Office of the White House from April 9, 1963 to April 27, 1963. The release incorporates tape numbers 80 through 83.
These recordings suggest that the international conflicts of 40 years ago—seemingly distant, bygone events—actually mirror the types of foreign policy struggles facing our nation today, including concern over:
- The Arab world’s interpretation of U.S. actions in the Middle East as being pro-Israeli.
- U.S. military moves intended solely to send a warning message might mistakenly escalate tense or fragile situations.
- The influence and impact of a U.S. president’s heartfelt communications here at home and abroad
Historians have often debated and will continue to debate what steps President Kennedy would have taken in Vietnam. On one of the tapes released today, President Kennedy listens to recommendations by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and later that same day, has an informal meeting with U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson during which Stevenson expresses concern that any moves in Southeast Asia might signal a further commitment by the U.S. About the situation, the President says: "When we came in we were at the point of having to go in and fight.…At least we are not going to do that."
Today’s release includes discussions about the Middle East crisis in Jordan; U.S. military moves in Vietnam; the President’s trip to Berlin; and the politics of the1964 election.
The Kennedy Library and Museum is providing members of the media with a CD-ROM that contain approximately 25 minutes of excerpts. Highlights on this CD-ROM include:
The Middle East
This 4/27/63 meeting on the Middle East examines the situation in Jordan involving a possible coup and the reactions of the United Arab Republic (UAR) and Israel. President Kennedy is very concerned that the situation in the Middle East could escalate quickly.
One of the President’s advisors says to him: "Our real problem today in the Near East is that neither Israel nor the Arabs have any kind of plan to get themselves out of the box of active hostility."
The White House is aware that certain moves by the United States may be interpreted by Middle East nations as being too pro-Israeli. President Kennedy says: "Our interest is not solely a concern of Israel but really a concern for their [all of the Middle East] future that there’s going to be a 90-day war and we assume that they [all of the Middle East] don’t really want that.…We want it to be understood in advance that it’s not just because of our concern about Israel. … our concern is mutual because the peril is mutual."
Vietnam
On 4/19/63, 4/20/63, and 4/22/63, President Kennedy meets with his staff to discuss the present military situation in Southeast Asia and the diplomatic and military moves that the United States will make in response. As a chess-move directed at Hanoi and Moscow to indicate how seriously the U.S. is taking the situation in Laos, the U.S. military is moving forces into Thailand, a carrier and destroyers into the Gulf of Tonkin. The Joint Chiefs of Staff discuss depositing a sunken ship across Hanoi harbor to disrupt shipping or destroy rail lines.
The President asks that if the carrier is moved into the Gulf: "What kind of threat would it be to Hanoi?" Later he states: "It seems to me we ought to have a study made of exactly what we could do that would really have an effect. I’m not sure that bombing even Hanoi would do much compared to the risk that it would entail."
This discussion occurs seven months before President Kennedy’s death and sixteen months before President Lyndon B. Johnson would ask Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Germany
On 4/26/63, President Kennedy meets with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Germany Walter C. Dowling to discuss Germany. The President asks for Dowling’s opinion on the President’s upcoming trip to Germany and the possible comparison to French President Charles DeGaulle’s recent trip to Germany.
Today, 41 years later, we know that President Kennedy’s June 1963 trip to Berlin was an enormous success. He made his stirring, symbolic "Ich bin ein Berliner" statement to a huge, triumphant crowd at the Rudolph Wilde Platz in Berlin. (Indeed, the Rudolph Wilde Platz was renamed John F. Kennedy Platz.) However, the tapes reveal Kennedy’s concern prior to the trip about how his trip to Germany would be viewed in comparison to General DeGaulle’s earlier, celebrated German tour.
The President states: "I don’t want to look like I am doing a tour of Germany like De Gaulle. On the other hand, I think any place we go it would be worth it if there’s going to be a reasonable response."
Ambassador Dowling responds by telling the President: "My money’s on you Mr. President."
To which, Kennedy, in uncharacteristic uncertainty, says: "We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see. It’s hard—of course, he spoke German and he had that Franco-German business. But I think we can do it as long as we don’t get into a business where we seem to be comparing—if we keep the press off it."
In addition, the socio-political situation in Germany is mentioned by Adlai Stevenson on the tapes during his 4/22/63 meeting with the President.
Nixon and Kissinger
Re-election politics also play a role in White House discussions. In these recordings, informal discussions provide listeners with the opportunity to hear President Kennedy discuss issues in a personal and relaxed setting—the sounds of the President’s rocking chair rocking can be heard in the background. Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the U.N., and the President have an informal meeting on 4/22/63 to discuss numerous foreign policy issues, including Cuba as the leading 1964 campaign issue for the Republicans, highlighted in recent speeches by Richard Nixon. Nixon is also mentioned in the President’s meeting with writer and editor Norman Cousins (Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, In God We Trust).
In the meeting with Adlai Stevenson, the President refers to a recent Nixon speech as "pure Nixon…he just runs so true to form that he really ought to be preserved." When Ambassador Stevenson asks whether Nixon is really a menace politically, the President responds: "No, he’s no menace.…But the lies. Cuba is obviously the issue."
During the meeting with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Germany Walter C. Dowling on 4/26/63, the President mentions Henry Kissinger’s recent article in The Reporter on the Multilateral Force, commenting, "I think he’s doing this stuff for Rockefeller. " (Nelson Rockefeller was considered to be a likely 1964 Republican candidate for president.)
Women Doctors
On 4/26/63, President Kennedy meets with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Germany Walter C. Dowling. Near the meeting’s conclusion, the President expresses his opinion on women doctors: "I am a great believer in women doctors…of course to be a…like a Negro…you have to be so damn good to get there. It’s like a woman doctor—she has to be terrific to get where she is." (President Kennedy’s White House doctor was Janet G. Travell, M.D.)
Steel Wages and Prices
On 4/11/63, an entry in the President’s appointment book reads: "during the morning, the President met with members of the Staff and others with whom he met on Wednesday re: the Steel situation." In this tape excerpt, the President reads a draft of his proposed statement that he would like to issue "within the next hour." In the statement draft, which was changed in the final version, the President reads: "There is no price or wage control in this country and I do not advocate controls but would preserve private decision-making .… But in a free society parties are also free to do voluntarily what we hesitate to do by law. And responsibility is a partner, rather than the antithesis, of freedom."
Also included in this release is a long meeting between Norman Cousins and President Kennedy where Cousins reports on his most recent visit and interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Other subject areas included in this tape release include the Multilateral Force negotiations, Balance of Payments discussions, the steel industry’s wage and price increases, Haiti, India, and Pakistan.
This complete release totals 13 hours of recordings of which 22 minutes and 21 seconds remain classified. Approximately 80 hours of meeting tapes remain to be reviewed for declassification prior to release. Processing of the presidential recordings will continue to be conducted in the chronological order of the tapes. Please note that on tape #82 there is one meeting, which is currently closed pending further review; this meeting was not listed in the total minutes for this opening.
The Kennedy Library and Museum is providing members of the media with a CD-ROM containing approximately 25 minutes of excerpts. The eleven sound files were selected because of their sound quality and because the subject matter is familiar to most Americans. Members of the media are cautioned against making historical conclusions based on the sound clips alone. They are provided as a professional courtesy to facilitate the reporting of the release of these presidential recordings.
The first items from the presidential recordings were opened to public research in June of 1983. Over the past 20 years, the Library staff has reviewed and opened all of the telephone conversations and a large portion of the meeting tapes. The latter are predominantly meetings with President Kennedy in either the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room. While the recordings were deliberate in the sense that it required manual operation to start and stop the recording, it was not, based on the material recorded, used with daily regularity nor was there a set pattern for its operation. The tapes represent raw historical material. The sound quality of the recordings varies widely. Although most of the recorded conversation is understandable, the tapes include passages of extremely poor sound quality with considerable background noise and periods where the identity of the speakers is unclear.
Today’s release of White House meetings is in tape form without transcripts. The tapes are available for research use in the Library’s Research Room. The hours of operation are Monday – Friday from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm and appointments may be made by calling (617) 514-1629. The recordings and finding guide are available for purchase at the John F. Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, or by calling the Audiovisual Department (617) 514-1617.
To document the life and career of President Kennedy and to provide insight into people, events, and issues of mid-20th century American history, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum collects, preserves and makes available for research the documents, audiovisual material and memorabilia of President Kennedy, his family, and his contemporaries. The Library's Archives includes 48 million pages of documents from the collections of 340 individuals, organizations, or government agencies; oral history interviews with 1,300 people; and more than 30,000 books. The Audiovisual Archives administers collections of more than 200,000 still photographs, 7,550,000 feet of motion picture film, 1,200 hours of video recordings, over 7,000 hours of audio recordings, and 500 original editorial cartoons.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Presidential Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.