 Greetings from the National Archives Flagship Building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I'm David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this conversation with Mark Uptegrove. Mark Uptegrove is the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation in Austin, Texas, where he previously served as the director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, an important part of the presidential library system of the National Archives. In that role, he curated and hosted two important summits, one on civil rights with four presidents and one on the Vietnam War with John Kerry and Henry Kissinger. Mark thinks big and delivers. He's a renowned interviewer, having sat with seven presidents, five First Ladies, two vice presidents, and three Supreme Court justices, just to name a few. Incomparable Grace is Mark's fifth book, following indomitable will, LBJ and the presidency, baptism by fire, eight presidents who took office during times of crisis, second acts, presidential lives and legacies after the White House, the last republicans inside the extraordinary relationship between George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. It's great to have you here, back in Washington, Mark. Thanks, David. So let's talk about your new book, since we're sitting here in the National Archives, where people from all walks of life come to do research. Tell me about the research that went into creating this book. Well, with my first book, Second Acts, which you mentioned, I had occasion to work with all of the different presidential libraries under the National Archives system, and it was an extraordinary experience. These are national treasures, which is why I wanted to be the director of a presidential library. I know what they offered, a scholarship into history, into our national landscape. But, you know, having sitting in the LBJ library was a great advantage, because there's so much you can derive about Kennedy through Lyndon Johnson as vice president. But I worked with the extraordinary staff at the archives of the JFK Library, which you know so well. And I was able to access, among other things, in addition to the primary source materials, the extraordinary collection of oral histories that they have there. And while there are very few people from the Kennedy administration left, there are these wonderful oral histories, and there are so many that some are largely untapped. So that was an enormously helpful resource. You also did a lot of interviews, and it's clear that people were pretty open with you in terms of their comments. Was that difficult? Was there reluctance? Were there areas that people, without getting specific, of course, were there areas that people didn't want to talk about? You know, there's a Camelot myth, and I think that people are reluctant to say negative things about John F. Kennedy. He's one of our martyred presidents, and there's a hallowed space in history for those presidents who were cut down by assassins bullets of Abraham Lincoln being another notable president in that regard. But I will say that the farther we get from the Camelot era, the more unvarnished people's take on Kennedy become. Among others, I talked to Andrew Young about John F. Kennedy, and he was very frank about John F. Kennedy, his possibility where he thought he was not delivering on civil rights. Those were pretty illuminating conversations, and through the course of my career, I've been able to interview other folks, if not for this book, just generally, and those interviews came to bear in the book ultimately as well. Surprises in the research? Things that you weren't prepared for? One of the things that surprised me, David, is how Kennedy finally rallies around the cause of civil rights and elevates it to a moral issue, which is really a turning point in the crisis of civil rights in this country. Kennedy, in the first couple of years of his administration, is really reacting to the civil rights movement in large measure. He's trying to protect the demonstrators, but he's not doing anything proactively to further the cause of civil rights. I wondered why. Why in 1963 is he compelled to give a speech that's largely extemporaneous on national television? He very suddenly says, I'm going to address the American people when George Wallace is standing in the door of an administration building at the University of Alabama to prevent the integration of that institution. He decides that night to go on television. I wondered why. The reason is Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy was John F. Kennedy's closest advisor and his conscience in many areas as well. Bobby Kennedy hadn't embraced the cause of civil rights until he goes to New York to a gathering of black artists and intellectuals co-hosted by James Baldwin. He asked James Baldwin to round up some folks. These folks talk very directly to Bobby Kennedy about the civil rights struggle. Bobby Kennedy is put on the defensive immediately. He's almost hit between the eyes by how unvarnished and frank these comments are. He tries to defend his brother and says, I'm from an Irish family and the Irish were persecuted too. They say, hold on now. Our family has came here long before years and we are still on society's lowest rung. It's on and on and on and he's inundated for two hours. He comes back and he is very bitter at first. Then he realizes, wait a minute, if I were in their shoes I'd be saying the exact same thing. I think this has an effect on his brother too. Finally, the brothers rally around the cause. Then John F. Kennedy makes that very memorable speech, which I was surprised David is also, as I mentioned before, largely extemporaneous. Ted Sorenson, Kennedy's speech writer, is tasked with writing this speech. He has about four or five hours to do it. He can't do it. Tells the president he can't do it. Bobby tells Jack, just go out there and speak from your heart and that's what he does. So it's a really interesting moment that I hadn't realized before. So the book is divided into four periods where you tell the story of his tenure in the White House with interesting section titles, The Torch, The Fire, The Brink and The Peek. So why those words? Well The Torch is obvious for anyone who knows Kennedy's famous inauguration speech. The Torch was passed from Dwight Eisenhower to John F. Kennedy. And while it was a transition of power that's the hallmark of our system, it was also very symbolic because you had the oldest outgoing president in history of that time handing the presidency over to the youngest president-elect that we had ever had. So there was a symbolism to it. And that speech captured the imagination of the American people in the world. It's difficult to realize now that John F. Kennedy won the election in 1960 in a squeaker. He won by two-tenths of a percentage point. But for a few votes in Illinois and Texas, he would have lost the election to Vice President Richard Nixon. But he wins the election and in between when he was president-elect, the American people are sort of captivated by not only John F. Kennedy, but his very vivacious family. But is that speech that he makes that really gets the American people rallied around him? So much so that in five days afterwards when he gives his first press conference, relatively banal in nature, a third of the American people tune in. But it's just stunning. 65 million Americans tune in. So that's the torch, this very auspicious beginning for this young and vigorous and ambitious president. The torch had been passed but the fire was to come and very soon into Kennedy's presidency, he sees the fire of the presidency, the Bay of Pigs in particular, the quagmire, the military quagmire where we backed the incursion of Cuban nationals to take back their country from Fidel Castro who had overthrown the Batista government two years earlier in 1959. It goes awry and it's a huge black eye for John F. Kennedy. He goes on to a summit with Nikita Khrushchev and that's not a whole lot better. Kennedy confesses that he was savaged by Khrushchev and it emboldens Khrushchev to be very ambitious, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis. That comes the next year and that's the brink. We come to the brink of nuclear holocaust as the Russian people ship, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, missiles, nuclear missiles to Cuba, 90 miles from American shores. And we stare down Khrushchev at that moment. Kennedy stares down Khrushchev and ultimately they back off. But we come perilously close in those 13 harrowing days to a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. And then finally there's the peak. Once that's resolved peacefully, John F. Kennedy stands unparalleled on the world stage. He is the esteemed world leader and of course in November of 1963 he is cut down in his prime. You mentioned the squeaker election and I was surprised to be reminded of how close that was. And comparing it to contemporary elections, I was also surprised to learn Richard Nixon's posture. He could very well have challenged the election. And if you look at today, is there any doubt that he would have challenged the election? And I think he had a pretty good case. In fact, even Dwight Eisenhower said he could find the money to make a legal challenge. And Richard Nixon to his credit says, look, we are at the height of the Cold War right now. And our system would look weak if we were to challenge it. And so he backs off. It's a very noble moment for Nixon. There's a funny story in there, David. Nixon leaves the inauguration on January 20, 1961 having ceded the vice presidency to Lyndon Johnson. And he actually drives his own car from the Capitol home. But on the way to his car he sees Ted Sorenson who helped to write the speech. And he says to Sorenson, I wish I had said some of those things. Sorenson says, what do you wish you had said? Thinking it would have been something like, ask not. And he says, the part that begins with I do solemnly swear. Wow. So, Mark, you've been steeped in LBJ history, culture, behavior for a while now. So you're in a good position to talk about the relationship between LBJ and JFK. A lot's been written about that. A lot of speculation on both sides. What do you think? You know, we tend to think of the relationship between the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson being sort of fractious. But it depends on which Kennedy you look at. Jack Kennedy, I think, had enormous respect for Lyndon Johnson. When he was a largely unproductive senator from your home state of Massachusetts, if he needed to get anything done, he had to go through Lyndon Johnson. He was the all-powerful minority leader and then majority leader. Perhaps the most powerful majority leader we've had in the history of the country. Lyndon Johnson had an instinctive sense of the legislative process and of power in general. And Kennedy knows this. And the reason I think he chooses him in 1960 is for two reasons. Number one, he needed Southern balance on the ticket. There was no question that Kennedy, given that very narrow victory, that he probably wouldn't have won if he had had someone else on the ticket who did not have a presence in the South. And Lyndon Johnson gave him that, that Boston-Austin ticket that they had between Kennedy and Johnson. But moreover, Kennedy chose Johnson, I think, because he knew he would be able to fulfill the duties of president if something were to happen to him. In fact, there's this amazing moment two months before Kennedy dies. Almost like he has a premonition that he's going to die. And he's on the Nantucket Sound in his sailboat where I think he was always most at peace. And he asks one of his friends, out of the blue, how do you think Lyndon would do if I were killed? But I think that the reason that he chose him is because he knew that Lyndon Johnson understood Washington, he understood power, he had been around the presidency, and he would be able to fulfill those duties. Where the Kennedy-Johnson thing really comes into play as a fractious relationship is with Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy despised Lyndon Johnson. And that contempt was more than returned in kind by Lyndon Johnson. So service over self was the watchword of that administration. Where did that come from? What in JFK's background led him to be so passionate about that? I think it was his family, David. Obviously, the Kennedy family grew up extraordinarily privileged. Joe Kennedy largely self-made. He came from a pretty middle-class Irish Catholic background in Massachusetts. His wife, Rose Kennedy, was the daughter of the very famous Honey Fitz, who was the mayor of Boston and before that a congressman from his district. So they grew up relatively privileged themselves from the Irish. But Joe Kennedy becomes one of the richest men in the world through his various business enterprises. But they instill in their kids a sense of service that I think resounds with the Kennedy family. No matter their privilege, they understand that it's important to put country first. So, for instance, even though Joe is a staunch isolationist in World War II when he's the American ambassador to Great Britain, which ruins his political prospects, his children go to World War II. And that's where Joe Kennedy loses his first son in namesake, Joe Kennedy Jr., for whom he had aspirations to be president. And those aspirations are turned to John F. Kennedy, who pursued them not because it suited his father, but because it suited himself. But he had spent a great deal of his life serving his country, Jack Kennedy. In World War II, where he nearly was killed and emerges a hero, he wants instinctively to get into politics, has the money to do so, becomes a congressman from his district in Massachusetts and then a senator quickly in 1950 emerges to the presidency. You're pretty honest, I think, in this portrait on the character issues. Can you talk a little bit about the private versus public character of JFK? You know, JFK becomes this public hero. And so much of it is because of what you're suggesting, David, this notion of service over self. He personified the ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, ideal, which is an eternal expression of American ideals to a certain extent. We are, I think, our greatest aspiration as a people is to reach beyond ourselves and to help our nation. And he really embodies that in so many respects. But the private, John F. Kennedy, you can't ignore the fact that he is deeply flawed. And his womanizing in particular, I think you have to, this was the mad men era and we look at it through a me to lens because there have been generational shifts and I think very positive in our culture. And so some of it was part of the culture of Washington. People just womanized. That was what you did. Jerry Ford, I remember talking to me about this, and he was saying that most of his colleagues had dalliances. It was just, again, it was part of the culture. But Jack Kennedy's womanizing is a little reckless, more than a little reckless. And I think the revelations from Bob Dalek, a fellow historian, in his book The Unfinished Presidency of Kennedy having an affair with a 19-year-old intern, Mimi Beardsley, they're particularly disturbing. She is certainly objectified. And for the President of the United States to abuse somebody like that, that's hard to forgive. So there are certainly marked blemishes on his character. But they don't affect his duties to discharge the responsibilities of the presidency from what I can see. And in your research and in your writing, you do spend some time on Jackie and Jackie's role. And surprises there for you? One of the things that surprised me, David, is how much time she spent away from the White House. She was gone more than a third of the time, I believe, traveling abroad for months at a time and going to the house they rented in Middleburg, Virginia, or up to Cape Cod during the summers. So she wasn't around a lot. Despite the outsized mark that she makes on the White House and American culture writ large, she's not in Washington a whole lot. She lived in Washington as a young girl. So this was home for her in a lot of ways. But the fishbowl of the White House didn't suit her. She understood her value on the world stage. It's interesting. You know, Jacqueline Kennedy was not your basic politician's wife. And nor was Jack Kennedy the back slapping, baby kissing, name-knowing politician. And she believed that she was a political liability to her husband when he was in the Senate. And she may have been right in terms of her unwillingness to contrive sort of this man of the people's wife's personality. But she also realized that she was a tremendous asset for him as First Lady. And she was pleased that her husband could be proud of her contributions. And indeed, she did make a major mark, including, of course, establishing the White House Historical Association to preserve the people's house. So... Legacy? You know, I thought a great deal about that, David. And rather than shoot from the hip, I'll read you what I wrote in the last chapter of the book, The Epilogue, which I think captured it as well as I could possibly do. And I wrote throughout the course of his restless abridged reign in the White House, he dealt with the pressures of the office, standing on feet of clay at times, showing flashes of greatness at others, but all he did indelibly, honor and grace, edging out recklessness and abandon, calling forth the best in all of us. And I think that's why Kennedy still stands so tall in our memory. He was martyred. That's part of it. He was cut down in his prime when, as we talked about, he was at the peak of his power and influence as president. He casts this alluring glow from history just as he did in his time. He's beguiling. He's attractive. He's eloquent. Those words last. I think there's a quote in the book from Clement Attlee, who was the successor to Winston Churchill, who talks of Churchill's great gift for oratory during the Second World War. And he says, words at great moments can be deeds. Jack Kennedy didn't accomplish a lot legislatively, but his words at crucial moments in his presidency became deeds. I talked about the elevation of civil rights to a moral issue, which is profoundly important in the advancement of civil rights, but also his wanting to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon and he talks to the American people about why and they rally around this cause. So these words, again, going back to the inaugural address, ask not that 63% of Americans could think of something more that they could be doing for their country after he made that speech. So those are an important contribution that he makes and those words have wings. They last through history. They certainly impacted me. As a kid growing up in Massachusetts, I was certainly impacted by those words. It led to me volunteering for the military and it certainly influenced me in deciding to take this job. Well, you know, one of the reasons you were kind enough to agree to do this interview and one of the reasons I wanted you to do it because you have such a connection to JFK coming from Massachusetts. I know you were inspired by him and I'll ask you about that in a moment, but before I do, I just want to congratulate you on 13 enormously fruitful years as archivists in the United States where you elevated this institution and contributed so much to this country. But there's a wonderful story, David, that goes back to the beginning of your tenure as archivist of the United States that has to do with John F. Kennedy. Would you mind relating that story? So when I met with the directors of the presidential libraries for the first time, you among them, we were, I think we were at the Carter Library and as you went around the room to introduce yourselves, Tom Putnam, the director of the Kennedy handed me a copy of a letter that a kid wrote to the president asking for information about the proposed Peace Corps and it's a letter from me. But you taught that when I visited the LBJ and you handed me a copy of a letter that I wrote to LBJ, congratulating him for signing Kennedy's Civil Rights Act. Well, you say I taught that but I remember what you told me. You looked at me and you said, Tom Putnam beat you. Thank you for joining me today, Mark. And congratulations on this new book. David, thanks very much.