[ laughter ] but, you know, at the end of the day, you have to what is it . Theres the word hope. You hope. What was his name . Leonard cohen, the writer, leonard had something about a crack in the a crack in the sunlight or a crack in the whatever. And he said, theres something about that thats the reason we have cracks. So we can let the light through. And somewhere in people like lincoln and douglass they could let the light. Get your perfect offering, theres a crack in everything, thats how the light gets thats how the light gets in. What a perfect way to end this session. I just want to say thank you to richard, david, and craig for joining us today, for todays cabinet conversation and thanks to everyone for watching. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past. Cspan3, created by americas capable Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. We cre featuring American History tv programs as whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight a look at programs from the Kansas City Public Library in kansas city, missouri. We begin with a talk about the life of hollywood artist millicent patrick, author and filmmaker Mallory Omeara discusses her book. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through the Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas cable Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Next on the presidency andrew cohen looks at two days in jfks presidency that defined his response to the Nuclear Arms Race and civil rights. Mr. Cohen is author of two days in june, john f. Kennedy and the 48 hours that made history. The White House Historical association provided this video. Andrew, tell us about your book which focuses really on two days in the kennedy presidency, june 10th and 11th, 1963. Why did you decide to write a book focused on only two days of the kennedy presidency and why did you pick those two days to focus on . Thank you, colleen, and its a great honor to be here with you and the White House Historical association similarly meaningful to me because it was founded by Jackie Kennedy and in the white house 60 years ago. I had been looking for a way into the Kennedy Administration for some time. One of the most seminole days of my life was november 22nd, 1963, when i was an 8yearold i learned of the assassination of president kennedy. It isnt unusual for someone like me or anyone of my generation to remember where he or she was, but it developed for me a fascination. As i grew up, my friends were interested in captain cook. I was interested in jfk and the new frontier. Through my career as a journalist and a student before that, i had been looking as a washington correspondent as well for a way into the kennedy story. Of course, colleen, there were monumental biographies, there were heavy memoirs, academic studies, there was scarcely a part of jfks legacy that had not been dissected and inspected and examined. I wondered, though, if there was nothing knew to say. And then i came upon in a sense these two days in june. We were on the eve of the 57th anniversary of june the 10th and 11th, 1963. What could i say that was new . And i said to myself, two extraordinary speeches, one on the one at an American University, one on civil rights, the evening of june the 11th, 1963, those would be two of the most extraordinary speeches of what was a rhetorical presidency. Between them and they are the pillars of this study, but theyre also the parentheses. In between, i saw an opportunity to explain, illuminate the presidency hour by hour in a granular way that would try to give a reader who did not know much about jfk, like the students i teach, for example, who are of another generation, what it was like to be jfk, what it was like to be president of the United States and what it was like to make the decisions he did on the two pivotal issues, his presidency, his decade or generation, civil rights and nuclear arms. When i saw the opportunity of those two days and when people ask me what two days would you pick, they talk about the cuban missile crisis, the bay of pigs. Its these two days what i call the high noon of the kennedy presidency. When the book begins, kennedy is waking up from on air force one. Hes flying back to washington, d. C. From hawaii where hes just given a speech. And only a few hours later, he will be at American University giving a monumental speech on foreign affairs. Can you tell us about the substance of that speech and why kennedy wanted to give it at that moment in time . Well, to give us a little bit of context, colleen, this is the spring of 1963. John f. Kennedy has been in office 2 1 2 years. And i think its fair to say his record was mixed as president. His first year in 1962 he authorized the disastrous bay of pigs. He watches the berlin wall go up in august of 1961. By the end of that year when a reporter says i would like to write a history of your first year in august, kennedy says, why would you want to write a history about disasters. By 1962, things are changing. He faces down the executives of big steel who were trying to raise prices. And by 63 hes feeling confident about his presidency. But he knows that america is at a turning point, but at the height of the cold war around nuclear arms and civil rights. But lets deal with nuclear war. I had just mentioned the cuban missile crisis of 1963. 13 perless days when historians say we came as close to Nuclear Annihilation as we have before or sense. Kennedy was shaken by that. And kennedy in the winter of 1963 and into the spring is looking to change the channel. Both of them felt that america and the soviet union having come to this near Nuclear Apocalypse or armageddon had to find a way through. A back channel has been established, the pope is involved and theres an attempt by both parties to come to some conclusion or to begin some process that would lower the temperature and begin a certain process of disarmament. Kennedys big gambit is a speech. It will come to be called the peace speech. The speech is written over four to six weeks. It isnt a secret, but its done by a tightly a tight circle of trusted aides. Kennedy does not share what hes going to propose because its almost subversive. He doesnt share it with the joint chiefs of staff, he does not consult the cia and he leaves out the joint chiefs of staff and congressional the leadership, all people who he might have consulted giving what will become the major Foreign Policy speech of his administration. He is dealing with it that way because kennedy is going to say things about the russians that no american president has said since the cold war now 18 years of cold war. And he will, in that speech, hell arrive at America University at 10 30 a. M. As youve said, colleen, having flown across america, across the pacific, nine hours, having left hawaii the night before, touching down at Andrew Air Force base at about 8 50 a. M. , getting on marine one, chappering into the white house. Within 100 minutes of dropping on that tarmac, he will be dressed in a gown before an audience at American University in northwest washington where he will make a speech in which for the first time hell talk about the russians in very human terms. He will compliment the russians, humanize the russians, talk about their achievements in industry and their economy, in science and american space. Americans are very familiar with what just happened because sputnik has gone up in 1957 and theres a great sense that america has fallen behind the soviets. He will talk about the russians contribution in the second world war. 20 million of all that the russians have done as a society. He will put aside the rhetoric of the cold war of soviet treachery, of the big russian bear, of all of that that had become the standard, the staple of american politicians. Hell do that in very carefully worded address. Its 98 degrees at American University that day. People are wilting and theyve set up triage stations because people are fainting. And there hell not only talk about that, but hell make an offer. He will invite the soviet premier to enter with the United States in negotiations of a test ban treaty. It isnt comprehensive. But kennedy is proposing that as we as the cold war goes on and as we both stockpile weaponry which can kill us many times over, why dont we simply stop testing so no tests in the atmosphere, no tests under the ocean, no tests in space. And it is all a radical idea that kennedy knows is not going to go down well with many elements in congress and elsewhere who are hardline communists. Its important to know that jfk is no slouch when it comes to communism. His inaugural address which is seen as hawkish. Judge him by what was to be called the peace speech. The rhetoric, the tone, when kennedy says in the final analysis we all inhabit the same planet, we all we all breathe the same air. We all cherish our childrens future, were all mortal, he is almost universalist in his appeal, this kind of language had not been heard from the mouth of a president since Franklin Roosevelt was dealing with stalin in 1944 and 1945 and when he hears this several hours later, while the speech is broadcast live in the United States, it takes a lot longer to make its way to moscow, he cannot believe what hes hearing. There will be there will be a negotiation and six weeks later, just to show you as you know, sometimes things do happen from speeches. There will be the limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty, the most important Foreign Policy decision and Foreign Policy achievement of the Kennedy Administration. And almost a few hours later, after this really transformative Foreign Policy speech that kennedy gives at American University, your book details about how hes pivoted two hours later to another major pressing National Issue concerning governor George Wallace and desegregation at the university of alabama. How does kennedy begin to prepare himself to handle this crisis and why does he think that it might be a Pivotal Moment in civil rights history . Well in the velocity of these 48 hours, i call them these feverish 48 hours, he does pivot. He pivots on both issues. And he has to pivot within the days so he leaves American University, its about five or six miles from the white house. Jumps into the Lincoln Continental that the can he understand kennedys have designed and roars back to the white house. His thoughts turn from diplomacy and the cold war and nuclear arms to George Wallace, civil rights and the university of alabama. Down in alabama George Wallace, the bantamweight has announced that he will refuse to integrate the university of alabama. He will refuse personally to admit two black students, james hood and vivian malone, who the court has ordered are to be admitted to the university of alabama and George Wallace to make a show of it will stand as he says, as the schoolhouse door and prevent physically those two from entering. Now the court has ordered this. The kennedys know it and so does wallace. But wallace is determined to make a spectacle of this and the kennedys realize they have to allow him to do that. They will not bring the two students to the front door. They will admit them through a side door. But there will be a confrontation which will also be carried live, not necessarily on american television, but certainly on radio. And the kennedys have been preparing for this for some time. As the roots of the peace speech are the cuban missile crisis, the roots of the civil rights speech and whats happened today are seven months earlier at the university of mississippi when ross barnett, the governor of mississippi is refusing to integrate the university of mississippi. These are the last of the great big public universities in the south. All others have been integrated at this point. In 1962 the kennedys have to send in the National Guard to preserve the rights of James Meredith to enter that university. It does not go well. Theres a 15hour riot. Two people are killed including a french journalist. Hundreds are issued. Ross barnett has not done what he said he will do. The kennedys feel betrayed and theyre not going to let that happen again. Before the showdown at the door of the university of alabama, the kennedys led by Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general of the United States, jack kennedy, his closest adviser, Robert Kennedy has been working at the Justice Department to ensure nothing goes wrong. Theyre gaming scenarios, how would they remove George Wallace if he refuses. What will happen if he does refuse . Should they hold him in contempt of court. Theres a court order ordering the integration of the university. How will they handle that . How will they preserve the dignity of the two black students who after all just want an education. And so the kennedys have been preparing for this. Theyve studied maps provided by the United States foresty service. They have even positioned a boat on the Black Warrior river at the edge of campus in case a lynch mob chases those two away. There was a threat of tens of thousands of klansmen outside the gate of the university. This is happening that day. Kennedy is preparing for this. The confrontation wont take place until thursday. But on monday hes gaming this. And one advantage i had in writing the story is and i didnt know it until well into it, there was a documentary film team filming kennedy in the white house, led by robert drew, and i had access to that to the raw footage which is held in hollywood. There i could see, i could watch the negotiations, the consultations that were going on in the white house both on monday after the peace speech, which is june the 10th and in the morning of june the 11th. You see how seriously the kennedys were taking this and how they were preparing for the confrontation with George Wallace. In your book as you explained earlier, its about two days but you really use those two days as a lens into some of kennedys most intimate and personal and most political relationships that he maintained. And one person that you feature in the book, quite extensively, is ted sorenson. Can you tell us about ted and why you included him in the book . Ted sorenson who deserves a biography of his own, is kennedys speech writer. Ted sorenson leaves nebraska and arrives in washington and jack kennedy leaves the house and goes to the senate in 1953. Sorenson doesnt know kennedy. Hes interviewing with henry jackson, the senator from washington, and hes interviewing with jack kennedy. The speech writer is interviewing the senator. Ted sorenson was considered so good out of nebraska. He led his law class. He was young at the time in his early 20s that he is advised to go with jackson but chooses jack kennedy. And there begins an association of 11 years which i would argue is the most Extraordinary Partnership between a president and an associate in the history of the modern presidency. There isnt anything that ted sorenson wont do for jfk. He reveres him. Hes a master craftsman and a wordsmith. He works for jfk who himself is a writer and values writers, had written with ted sorensons help, profiles in encourage but had begun his career as a journalist, appreciated eloquence and made eloquence and rhetoric a centerpiece and style of the Kennedy Administration. With ted sorenson, with kennedys sense of occasion and ted sorensons facility with a pen, they were magic the two of them. And so at this time ted sorenson is not just writing the peace speech, hes writing a number of speeches including the speech that jfk will give in berlin two weeks later and hell be writing under different circumstances the civil rights speech that jfk will deliver on june the 11th. They are an extraordinary combination. It doesnt mean theyre friends. They dont socialize together and ted sorenson is devoted to jfk. It comes at some cost. It will destroy his marriage and ravage his health and shake his selfconfidence and he will never recover from the death of john f. Kennedy 5 1 2 months later. But while theyre together, and on these particular two days is the height of for me, in looking at this administration, which it was an administration where words mattered, the height of their rhetorical flourish. Another major player that you highlight in the book regarding jfks decision in the university of alabama. Ted sorenson used to like to say he was the third most powerful man in washington because Robert Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy was the second. And nobody could displace bobby. Bobby is a lot younger than jack. Bobby has been drafted by joseph p. Kennedy, the kennedy patriarch to serve his brother. Bobby didnt want to be attorney general in 1961 and joe kennedy said to jack, you will make bobby your attorney general. And jack famously introduces bobby saying i see no reason not to give him a little legal experience before he practices law. Bobby was a wonderful attorney general and kennedy is an extraordinary effect drawing some of the leading lawyers and leading thinkers in america. Hes more than a lawyer and more than an adviser to jack kennedy, particularly over these two days. If he was a Prime Minister on other days, today hes a field marshal. Hes almost a copresident. When it comes to whats handling whats going on in mississippi, bobby is executing the moves, one of his trusted colleagues is the person, the road scholar who appears in the pictures, towering over George Wallace who George Wallace kept in the son while George Wallace was in the shade. Theyre stage managing everything, that is the kennedys in response to George Wallace. And Bobby Kennedy is following everything on a phone from his office and there is a film crew to record it. Theres not only one with president kennedy and the white house, theres one with Bobby Kennedy at the Justice Department and one with george walls and the two students in alabama. So Bobby Kennedy is something of a show runner before the word was used. Hes a choreographer. Nobody knows how all of this will unspool. But bobby has ensured that if anything he has thought of everything and nothing will go wrong if he can help it. And he does think of everything and nothing does go wrong and that university after George Wallace turns away nicholas in the morning, the kennedys mobilize the federalize the National Guard, send it in. They arrive at 3 30. And at 3 30 in the afternoon in alabama, 5 30 in washington, theres a twohour time difference, the university will be integrated. Vivian malone and james hood, who dont want to overthrow the system, they just want to join it, will enroll at the university of alabama as students and then the thinking is, what is next . And the next of course is the civil rights speech that night. Can you tell us a story of the speech on june 11th, 1963 . How was this speech drafted and why does kennedy think this is the time in which to include the moral argument about civil rights . This speech is written entirely differently from the careful drafting of the peace speech the day before. Its extraordinary. There had been talk of a speech the day before, that perhaps if things went well at the door and the crisis subsided, jack kennedy would make a speech. After all, the kennedys recognized a crisis and they were never going to let a good crisis go to waste. But really they werent persuaded they were going to do that. And so at 5 30 in the afternoon on june the 11th, wednesday, jack kennedy turns to ted sorenson and said, ted, i think were going to give that speech tonight. Ted sorenson says, what speech . There is no speech. And the president says, well, i booked all three networks for 8 00 p. M. So i guess there has to be a speech. Bobby kennedy alone among the circle of kennedy advisers wanted jack, his brother to make that speech. He felt it was time. Many people it is the kennedys were much criticized m criticized for their garage lichl on civil rights. The day before, when kennedy is flying back as early editions of newspapers, when hes flying back from hawaii. And on the front page of the New York Times is Martin Luther king castigating kennedy for his record. He says, you know, all youve done is offer an inadequate performance for a miserable one, the miserable one being dwight eisenhower, kennedys predecessor. Kennedy is new to civil rights. His focus entirely is on the cold war. If you look colleen, there are three words about domestic United States, three words about human rights, human rights at home. Not even civil rights. Human rights at home. Kennedy is absolutely predock pi preoccupied as mississippi and alabama are beginning to tremble as the Civil Rights Movement is beginning to gain traction and will accelerate in 1962. By 1963 when it explodes in birmingham, alabama, in may, this is considered to be the education of jfk. And remember, colleen, jfk is a white irishman from boston. He does not know people of color. He is a he is from brooklyn and georgetown and palm beach and harvard and the all white navy and the all white congress. He is slow and unaffected, in a sense, by this Great Movement that is convulsing america. But by may, he understands it. And people told me how physically revolted he was when he saw the images which weve all seen, of the snarling dogs and the High Pressure water hoses which were turned on black men, wives and children. In three weeks, his and bobby, bobby is confronted at a fatal meeting at his apartment in new york with members of the black community including James Baldwin and kenneth clark, the psychologist, where kennedy, for three hours, listens to the raw impassioned pleas of black americans who are they werent just wrought in passion. They were in many places so emotional that they attacked kennedy in a way that he just couldnt expect. One n particular, does that. And lorraine hinsburg just gets up from the meeting and leaves. Hendy is left sullen and silent. Were now at june 10th. Kennedy realizes that having turned wallace back from the door, he has an opportunity. He has an opportunity to Say Something and to do something because the speech will not just be about rhetoric, as the speech he gave the day before was not just about rhetoric. He will that night introduce the Civil Rights Act of 1963. It will become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He wont live to see it. The most sweeping piece of social legislation since the emancipation proclamation. So, that night, hell do it. And he used language that had not been used by an american president. And kennedy, he had humanized the russians the day before will attempt to humanize the American Negro as theyre then called, black americans the next day. Hell talk about the plight of a black american in 1963 and having less chance of finishing high school, almost no chance of going to college, making less money, more susceptible to disease and having a Life Expectancy seven years less than that of a white person. Kennedy does this in language that is so raw and so stirring that people cant believe that this white irishman from boston is actually saying that. But he does. To use a word i think he used earlier two or three times in this speech, he talks about morality. But just to go back a sec, the speech was barely finished. Ted sorensen is scribbling away in his office at 7 00. Bobby kennedy is concerned that there wont be a speech. He and jack were paired in a room. They began to work on their own version of a speech. Kennedy does something he had never done before, just a few minutes before he and bobby meet in the cabinet room, he goes to Ted Sorensens office. The president doesnt go to the speech writers office. The speech wryer goes to the president s office. He said how are you doing ted. He said it was coming out of the typewriter right now. It was not coming out of the typewriter right now. Ted has to scramble to find the words. By the time hes sitting in the oval office, he has a draft from ted, draft from bobby, and some of it is on a piece of paper in front of him. When the light goes on, kennedy becomes masterful and talked in an impassioned way in 11 minutes. By 11 minutes, he runs out of the speech, so he begins to improvise. If you have the speech in front of you, you can see it. If not, you probably wouldnt. He finishes at 13 minutes. Hes talked about the morality of civil rights. He says it is old as the scriptures and as clear as the american constitution. And at 13 minutes, he says good night to americans. When Martin Luther king sees that speech, hears that speech, he says to people around him, i cant believe that white man just stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. Our last question before we go, we have a lot of great audience questions. So, i want to make sure we get to them. Our last question has to do with what you learned from writing the book. Theres been a lot of books written about jfk, but did you learn something that surprised you when you learned it in your research for the book. And did your opinion or your viewpoint of john f. Kennedy change when you were researching and writing the book . It did change. I began as an admirer. Not everybody was or is. I got to know the investigative journalist seymour her sh in 1997 when i was a correspondent in washington. And he was writing a book, an investigative book, not a flattering one called the dark side of camelot. I so recall with great energy and emotion, he pulls a memo frommal his files and puts it in front of me and he says, here. Heres my jack. And his jack was somebody who wasnt the person i was seeing, wasnt a person of honor, nobility, was somebody else. I said, well, you have your jack and i have mine. And mine, i like to think i try to bring to some kind of cautiousness in this book. Its a jfk who changes, who understands the two great forces pressing down upon him in his generation, 1963, the threat of nuclear war and the arrival of civil rights. How is he, as president , to get ahead of that . He finds ways and hes not afraid because he, after all, is a student of history. Hes someone whos read history, written history, and now more than anything he wants to make history. So, when he thinks of the cold war, its not the same rhetoric he used before. He doesnt want to win the cold war, he wants to end it. So i saw in him a moral president with his flaws. Colleen, its the Sheer Velocity of his presidency, how much he does in one day. Its not that hes changed to his desk at 6 00 a. M. Its not that he doesnt go for a nap at 3 00 in the afternoon. It isnt that he doesnt swim twice a day. Hes desperate to run against the clock. By 1960, kennedy had had several brushes with death. He didnt think he would have a long death. He thought he would finish his presidency, but he didnt think he would have a long life. He had on more than one occasion had last rights read to him. Hes racing against the clock and the calendar. Every day, if you look as i did in these 48 hours, one of the advantages who can hover over two days and 48 hours and find all kinds of things that perhaps people had missed before because its a luxury to be that close, you see just how much he was doing, his appetite for change, what he and jackie are thinking about not just in he thinking about Great Affairs of state, but how can we save Lafayette Square, which is current today . How can we redesign the white house . How can we develop a new air force one . Why dont we send americans into space and return them to earth before the decade is out . Why dont we send Young Americans into the world in something called the peace corp. Hes not going to miss an occasion to do anything, so my respect for him grew. This is someone who loved what he did. It is said that not all president s loved being president. He loved being president for what he could do with the power he had. Okay, now were going to go to some very good audience question. The first question is from steve. Everyone can quote a line from kennedys inaugural, but not from the peace speech. Do you have a favorite line in it . Yes, i do. And i may not get it all right. But i said it earlier. In a final analysis, we all inhabit the same planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our childrens future, and were all mortal. The russians and americans and everyone else live on the same planet. Its almost an early environmental sense of the world, but they called it universalist. I would urge everybody to go to youtube. I think we put up pictures of jfk that day in American University and listen to the speech and read the speech and im sure you will find lots of memorable lines. From marshall, Vice President johnson was often the point of contact for the administration when dealing with the south. Can you speak of any role he played during those two days . Actually, none at all. And this was a source of real agony to Lyndon Johnson. It was said of the vice presidency that its where you went to die. At least up to it certainly was when Teddy Roosevelt became vp to kennedy. Of course the president then died. Thats what happened to lbj. Lbj was not happy as Vice President , and kennedy had isolated him not so much jack, but bobby, who there was a raging contempt for each other. And because bobby was closer to jack, Lyndon Johnson was shot out. Hes not part of these two days. Although he makes a very memorable speech about 30 days before in which he uses morality and talks about the morality of the american presidency and what it should be doing for the american lack. On these two days hes not president. And o and actually hes not present in the space program. And many visits were brought in the administration which is an extremely difficult time for him. He was shrunken and almost invisible in the Kennedy Administration. Although jack kennedy did try to make him feel at home, but really at the end of the day didnt really trust his question that he probably should have because Lyndon Johnson would become the great civil rights president within a year. From rick nelson from ontario, do you believe the assassination of civil rights leader ned guard everies just one day after kennedys june 11th speech was some kind of statement to jfk . Well, it was. June 11th, 1963, may well be the most the singular single most important day in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. We have what happened at the university of alabama and its integration. We have jfks introduction of the civil rights speech, Civil Rights Act of the 1963. And we have in the early hours of june the 12th, 12 20 a. M. To be exact, medgar evers, the unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement, shot from behind in his driveway in a segregated subdivision. Kennedy was asleep. He awoke that morning to find in a sense perhaps the reason he had given that speech and the consequence of that speech. I dont think kennedy, medgar evers murder, byron had heard that speech that night, but kennedy understood the very raw passions, what he called the fires of frustration that are burning in American Cities and how this kind of thing would unleeu unleash them and how this kind of thing and he was very he didnt know medgar evers. Medgar evers had tried to get his attention. But when he heard about this, he drafts a letter to mrs. Evers. He invites her he uses his office to persuade the family that medgar evers should be buried at the National Cemetery which as a veteran hes entitled to. He invites mrs. Evers to the white house and talks about civil rights and later says i cannot understand the south and how it thinks. He says to mrs. Evers, there is an element out there that got your husband, will probably get me. And five and a half months later, they did. Our question from jackie, i think mrs. Kennedy was involved in restoring Lafayette Square. What do you think she or jfk would think of the events this past week . Well, they were more than involved in restoring. They saved Lafayette Square as we know it. Lafayette square as we see today, if you can see it today, if you are able to walk there today. I understand the barricades prevent one from actually entering the president s park, as it was called. But it is a very elegant 19th century array of townhouses. In 1962 the head of the General Services administration tells jfk, well, we need to build new Office Buildings for the growing federal government. And were going to put them in Lafayette Square. And kennedy says, really . Jackie says, really . That means youll have to tear down these townhouses. And the way kennedy did things, he simply intervenes. And as it happens, as the story goes, a friend of his who was an architect called john Carl Wernicke happened to be visiting washington around this time. He a friend of jfks brought him to jfks attention. He said what do you think . What do you think of the plans . This was an architect summary now in the United States at the time. He goes to the library. He meets jfk the next day. He places in the cabinet room an array of books, very visual, shows jfk what the square was, what it could be, and what the plans turn it into. Jfk thanks him. The day the General Service Administration Calls him and says what did you tell the president . The president wants something new and wants you to design it. So, john wernicke designs very much the square we see today. There were federal buildings behind it, but the kennedys, had they not intervened in 62, there would not be that square today. Jfk would be appalled of whats happening today. He would never ever turned himself and the white house into a fortress. It would have embarrassed him. This was a decorated hero of the second world war. This was someone who physical courage was never in question. Who felt the president should be close to the people. Who when told by the secret service maybe you shouldnt get in an open car. He would never have allowed himself to go to the white house shelter. He just would have said im sorry, im not doing it. And we have one more question because were running out of time. The last question is from jonathan. Do you believe that the Civil Rights Act would have passed had kennedy survived . Johnson used kennedys memory to put pressure on legislatures to pass it. I believe it would have happened to jonathan, but it would have taken longer. There is no doubt that as a legislature, Lyndon Johnson was far more skilled than jfk. And there was, of
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