The Politics of Deception: JFK's Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Cuba by Patrick J. Sloyan

Author:Patrick J. Sloyan [Sloyan, Patrick J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250030603
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-02-09T23:00:00+00:00

11

The Proconsul

WASHINGTON

THE WHITE HOUSE, THE INNER sanctum of American power, reminded Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. of his boyhood. When Lodge was still of an age to be sitting on laps, his grandfather, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., took him to meet President Theodore Roosevelt. The senior Lodge and Roosevelt were the closest of friends. Teddy beamed at little Cabot and gave him a bronze lion. Through his family connections, then as a newspaper reporter, a congressman, a U.S. senator, and a soldier, Lodge knew the next six presidents personally. The seventh—Dwight D. Eisenhower—had been recruited for his job by Lodge, the Republican kingmaker. The eighth was the first one younger than he was. Lodge was sixty-two. John F. Kennedy was forty-six.

On August 15, 1963, the 35th president of the United States rose to greet Lodge in the Oval Office. “Cabot,” Kennedy said brightly, “it is so good to see you.” He shook the visitor’s hand with the warmth reserved for friends. They were old opponents but hardly enemies. Kennedy and Lodge were much alike. They were born to wealth and position that eased their passage to the pinnacle of American power. Both were handsome and had an eye for the ladies. Lodge was two inches taller and far more fastidious about his appearance. They attended Harvard and tried newspaper writing before entering public life. They fought heroically in World War II, Kennedy in a PT boat in the Pacific, Lodge in a tank in Egypt. When they competed in the 1952 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, Lodge accepted his defeat with sincere congratulations to Kennedy. Lodge was effusive with well-wishes when the Kennedy-Johnson ticket defeated the Nixon-Lodge ticket in 1960. “I always liked Jack Kennedy,” Lodge said. He was a moderate, progressive Republican, a species now almost extinct. Lodge and Kennedy saw most of the world through the same lens.

In the Oval Office, Lodge sat on the couch. Kennedy pulled up his rocker and took from a manila envelope a glossy copy of the AP wirephoto by Malcolm Browne. It showed a wreath of fire enveloping the Reverend Quang Duc, his face contorted with pain. He handed it to Lodge.

“Look at what they are doing to me,” Kennedy said. He could have meant Browne or the Saigon press corps in general. Or perhaps he was referring to the Reverend Tri Quang and his public relations operation out of Xa Loi Pagoda, as well.

Lodge chuckled to himself. Quang Duc’s pain had seeped into the president’s political bloodstream. Both men knew the photo was a political nightmare for Kennedy. The president’s polls had been declining steadily because of the civil rights movement, and now Vietnam was turning ugly. By appointing Lodge as ambassador to South Vietnam, Kennedy hoped to save his political bacon. The president offered Lodge the post June 12, the day after the AP photo of Quang Duc’s immolation shocked the world.

Republican colleagues were in an uproar because Lodge accepted. If events turned sour in Saigon, Lodge, and by default the GOP, could take the fall.

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