Episode 206: Leadership

This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today's important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. Today we are talking with a great author, good friend, and really outstanding thinker about a topic that we all confront every day. What is good leadership? How do we understand what it means to be an effective leader, as well as a persuasive and ethical?

In the world of social media, the world of flaming the world of difficult, difficult issues and difficult opposition to getting anything done. Our guest, Mark Updegrove, has written a number of books on presidential leadership. And his most recent book is really an. Excellent elegant study of John F. Kennedy and uses John F. Kennedy in many ways as a window into the possibilities and the limits of leadership in our world. It's a book. I hope you all will pick up and read. It's an eminently readable and deeply researched book. It's called Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency. Mark, thank you for joining us.

Always a pleasure, Jeremi. Good to hear your voice after so long.

It is nice to be able to have a conversation. Mark is a presidential historian. He's the author, as I said, of five books on the presidency; he's also interviewed, I believe, just about every living president, except for Donald Trump. Is that correct Mark?

That's that's correct. Except the guy down to Mar A Lago.

Whoever that is.

Whoever that is.

Mark serves now as the president and CEO of the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, I get to consider him a neighbor. We don't see each other often enough. And, before that, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library.

Mark is also a presidential historian on ABC News. And, earlier in his career, among other things, he was a publisher of Newsweek. And if you read his newest book, you'll find out that he had a very close relationship with Hugh Sidey, who was the, I guess, the editor of Time Magazine. Is that correct, Mark?

He was, you know, he was the Washington bureau chief. Jeremi, but it was such an out, it had such an outsized power. He might as well have been the editor of Time Magazine as John Kennedy, knew as so many other presidents that he just had an incredibly important vantage point on the presidency.

As a consequence, those presidents really looked to his column in so many ways to see how they were doing.

Well, for those of you who buy and read Mark's book, there's some wonderful insights from Hughes Sidey, that Mark shares as well as insights from Scotty Reston, and many other journalists of the time. Before we get into our discussion with Mark, we have, of course, Zachary's scene sitting poem.

What is today's title Zachary?

Never Again the Same.

Let's hear it.

Never Again the Same. Let's hear it. Sometimes there are words when whispered they are meaningless, but they mean the world when you shout them in the shadow of a wall or on a football field under a hot sun which obscures the moon. Sometimes there are places when you see them on a map they seem hollow, a couple of old municipal buildings and a square in the town.

But you can see in the video recorded hazy from across the lawn how this was once for a few moments the center of the world. Sometimes there are moments when described to you they are meaningless, they seem so abstract, so absurd, unexplainable, a bullet flying unimagined. But you would have had to be there, had to have seen the way she held him as he was dying.

What would we give not to remember how it really was, to stay in that imagined moment when we all cried at the same time, to stay forever remembering the promise that was never fulfilled, the hope that was never realized, words and places and moments that never really were and would never again be the same.

I love it. Zachary, what is your poem about?

My poem is about the huge mark that John F. Kennedy, his presidency, his assassination left on the American psyche, but also the ways in which he and his family have sort of become mythologized. And we remember them in hindsight perhaps differently than we experience them as a country.

I think that's such a wonderful opening mark to discussing your fantastic book. Why did you write this book on John Kennedy? So many other books have been written. What did you have to say that others haven't said?

Well, first of all, Zachary, what a magnificent poem. And we'll come back to this, I'm sure, Jeremi, but just that phrase, a bullet flying unimagined, is just an incredible way of depicting the unimaginable assassination of John F. Kennedy when it occurred in 1963. But to answer your very good question, Jeremi, yeah, there's an old adage, write the book you want to read.

And I had read a lot of books about John F. Kennedy, some voluminous and very comprehensive, but not the book about Kennedy that I really wanted to read. And he is such a fascinating and enigmatic subject and led us through such consequential, turbulent times, triumphant in many ways, tragic in others.

And I wanted to give the reader a sense of that, sort of this cinematic glimpse of Kennedy and all that he's dealing with on any given day, internationally and domestically. I wanted the readers to feel those vicissitudes. And I hoped I achieved it with a brisk, but dramatic take on the two years and 10 months that John F. Kennedy spent in the White House.

Well, you absolutely succeeded, at least for this reader, in both of the things you just mentioned. It's a brisk read, as you said, but it's also a moving, cinematic, but more than cinematic, rueful and thoughtful account of his life. You open with one of the low points of his presidency, which might surprise a lot of readers, the Vienna Summit of 1961, when in a certain way, the leader of the Soviet Union embarrasses this young president. Why did you start there?

Because you mentioned Scotty Reston, who was the renowned columnist on the presidency for the New York Times. After this two-day summit that happened in early June of 1961, Kennedy, as you said, has just been ravaged by Nikita Khrushchev through these two grueling days, where Khrushchev is just constantly nipping at his heels and getting the better of Kennedy. Kennedy knows he's been bested.

He talked about the great chess match of leadership, and he knew he was outmatched by Khrushchev during those two vital days, and knows that Khrushchev leaves that summit emboldened, thinking that Kennedy was, in Khrushchev's words, too intelligent and too weak. By too intelligent, he means he's book smart, but he's not street smart. I can exploit this guy, Khrushchev thinks, coming out of this.

Kennedy knows this. He goes back to the American embassy in Vienna and talks off the record to Scotty Reston, and he admits to Reston that he has been savaged by Khrushchev. He realizes until Khrushchev doesn't respect him that there could be a crisis that emerges out of Khrushchev's deep confidence that he can outmaneuver Kennedy.

And he admits to Restin that he has been savaged by cruise Jeff. And he realizes until cruise Jeff doesn't respect him that there could be a. That emerges out of, uh, cruise Jeff's deep confidence that he can out-maneuver Kennedy. So that becomes this crucible in, in Kennedy's leadership. He knows he needs to show Chris Jeff, that he is a strong leader or Cru Jeff will move to exploit him. That becomes this crucible in Kennedy's leadership. He knows he needs to show Khrushchev that he is a strong leader, or Khrushchev will move to exploit him.

In your vivid description of this, and it really is vivid, and you bring out Kennedy's words, you bring out his emotions, it does resonate with, I think, the central challenge of contemporary leadership, what President Biden must live with every day, which is the sense that you're in the most powerful office in the world, but you have almost unceasing opposition from external actors of Vladimir Putin or Nikita Khrushchev, internal actors, in Kennedy's case, the military that doesn't trust him.

You're really detailed in your description, Mark, also in former President Eisenhower and others who really don't think this man is up to the job, this man who barely wins the presidency in the closest election, as you say, in the 20th century. How does Kennedy deal with that? How does he move forward in this almost unwinnable situation?

You know, you've written about this, Jeremi, you talked about the challenges of modern presidential leadership in the impossible presidency. It's a really difficult task. Kennedy, as you said, comes into the presidency with this very narrow victory, the narrowest of the 20th century, 118,000 votes to the difference between a President John F. Kennedy or a President Nixon in 1961, and yet he moves very quickly to get the American people rallying around him, partly through his iconic inauguration speech, which is so indelible, in which he says, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, which instantly becomes this eternal expression of the American ideal, thinking about something greater than ourselves.

But while he had the country rallied around him, he quickly stumbled with the Bay of Pigs and the failed incursion of Cuba as we tried to oust Fidel Castro from leadership. And yet, and this really says something, Jeremi, and yet in that desperate hour in his presidency, so soon into a very auspicious run in the White House, he sees his approval rating at 83%. This is after the Bay of Pigs.

Only 5% of the American public disapprove of his job performance. And it shows an American far more unified than today. I mean, how different is that than today when so many people are rooting against a Joe Biden as our president?

But we also realize that it was so important to have a strong leader at a time when the Soviet Union was vying for hearts and minds across the world and trying to dominate much of the world landscape. That was the central crisis of the age. In that moment, Jeremi, and then at that desperate moment in his presidency, I think Kennedy shows to some degree his character. He's humble. He takes accountability. As he says in a press conference, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with me, as Truman might have said. He took responsibility and vowed to the American people to do better. And he does.

He learns from that very important lessons that help him to circumvent the challenges in his most desperate hour in the presidency, which would come the year after with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Why do you think Kennedy was able to become such a unifying figure? I mean, in the years following one of the closest elections in American history, probably nearly every American who was eligible to vote in 1960 remembers voting for John F. Kennedy. How is it possible that he could have become such a unifying figure? It seems almost unimaginable today.

Yeah, it does, Zachary. I've always appreciated, like your father, as an author, I appreciate the power of words. I do public speaking a lot, and we get how words are enormously powerful in conveying ideas and inspiring people and getting people to coalesce.

There's a wonderful quote from Clement Attlee that I relate in the book, and Attlee was the successor to Winston Churchill, and he's talking about Churchill's rhetorical splendor during the Second World War when it was so vitally important. And he says, words at great moments can be deeds. And Kennedy shows us this.

He doesn't accomplish a great deal in the presidency, particularly compared to his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who was a legislative genius and promulgated the Great Society, which fundamentally changed America. But those ideas that Kennedy put forth so artfully, so elegantly in the speeches he gave made us believe in ourselves as a nation, and I think made citizens of the world believe in the United States as a leader, as a beacon of freedom. He goes on this rhetorical hitting streak at a last year of his life that is tantamount to Ted Williams in 1941. It's remarkable, all these speeches back to back to back in different areas that fundamentally change who we are in many respects.

And I think made, made. Citizens of the world, believe in the United States as a leader, as, as a beacon of freedom. And there, you know, he goes on this rhetorical hitting streak at a certain point in 1963, the last year of his life that is, you know, tantamount to, you know, Ted Williams in 1941. , it's remarkable all these speeches back to back to back that in different areas that fundamentally change who we are in, in many respects.

I'm so glad you brought that up, Mark. It's one of the lasting lessons for me from your book, and the quote from Attlee, which is on page 226, I had not actually seen before, and I'm going to use it now and cite you also, obviously. How does one do that?

I want to dig a little deeper, and you have so many nuggets in your book about this, because every president, of course, tries to be eloquent. Kennedy was in some sense trying to be Franklin Roosevelt, and every president since Kennedy tries to mimic Kennedy or mimic Reagan. Why is it that some presidents are able to do this and others aren't? And why was Kennedy able to do this, and even his successor, who interestingly comes on stage late in your book, Lyndon Johnson, why was he unable to do this?

It's interesting, because at one point there's an interview that Kennedy does with Ben Bradley, who was then the cover of the presidency for Newsweek. They were good friends, and before a dinner party, Bradley starts interviewing John F. Kennedy, and you can hear this interview at the JFK Library, but Kennedy calls himself the antithesis of a politician, and by that he means he's not the kind of baby-kissing, back-slapping, name-knowing politician that his maternal grandfather, Honey Fitz, the very colorful mayor of Boston was.

And yet at the same time, Kennedy concedes that he fits the times, and I think what he was suggesting is that he understood that he could master the medium of television. Great politicians, whether for good or for ill, master the mediums of their age. Jefferson did it with partisan newspapers. Lincoln did it with the written word. He was a wonderful writer and had these memorable speeches, but very few people heard those speeches. You read those speeches in newspapers.

He understood the importance of the art of photography, which he used in his successful presidential campaign in 1860. Roosevelt, who you just mentioned, mastered radio, which was the medium of his time, talking to people directly. Kennedy did that with television.

The television age was coming into prominence when Kennedy came into office, but for television, it's likely that Kennedy wouldn't have been chosen as our 35th president. The debates, the first presidential debates in history, were held on television between Kennedy and Nixon, and many of us as presidential nerds can summon those images of a very pasty-faced, five o'clock shadowed Richard Nixon versus this glowing, handsome, leading man type in John F. Kennedy, and that image really mattered.

So, good politicians understand the importance of the mediums of their time, and they understand the importance of image. Kennedy got both of those things very vividly. Just in terms of the speeches he gave, Jeremi, let me just give one example, if I may, of why Kennedy was so effective, and it comes in 1963.

Kennedy had reacted largely to the crisis of civil rights. He wasn't proactive at all. He was trying, in fact, to tamp down the Civil Rights movement because it exposed not only the nation but to the world to the worst of American apartheid at a time when, as I mentioned, we were trying to compete for hearts and minds across the world with the Soviet Union. That made us look bad, like we weren't living up to our ideals as a nation.

You call it disengaged at one point

Absolutely, Jeremi, and you and I have talked about this, how Kennedy was so reactive on this, but eventually, he sees the crisis brewing in Birmingham where Martin Luther King had brought his campaign, the most segregated city in America. He finally realizes he's got to go on TV to ensure that George Wallace, who is standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama trying to prevent its integration, does not get the headline that night, does not get the lead story on the 6 o'clock news. He is encouraged by his brother Bobby to go and speak to the issue of civil rights on television.

Ted Sorensen, his speechwriter, tells Kennedy he doesn't have enough time, in eight hours, to write a presidential primetime speech, but Bobby encourages his brother to go on anyway and to speak from his heart. This very iconic speech about civil rights is largely extemporaneous from Kennedy, who had the courage to go on national television and speak his mind about the issue of civil rights, and in so, he calls it a moral issue, elevating the cause of civil rights to a moral issue for the first time in our history, and it is a turning point in the struggle for civil rights.

And as you show, civil rights leaders who had been, let's say, lukewarm on Kennedy, like Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and others, they themselves see it as a turning point at that time.

Uh, as Martin Luther King says, uh, of Kennedy after the speech that white boy just hit it out of the park.

I wanted to point out also, Mark, that one of the many things I learned from your book is how effective Kennedy's press conferences were as well, which I think is another version of what you're talking about now, his ability, yes, to use the words that Sorensen and other speechwriters, Richard Goodwin, had put together for him, but his ability to own the words and often to extemporize off the cuff and connect with an audience. You say, it's extraordinary, this is around page 60 in the book, that about 18 million people on average saw his press conferences, 90 percent of Americans, 90 percent of Americans watched at least one of his first three, according to a 1961 poll. That's extraordinary, that's the Twitter of its time, isn't it?

That's exactly right, and I think the American people were able to see Kennedy in his element, going toe-to-toe with some of these wonderful journalists. Kennedy had been a journalist himself at the close of the Second World War when he left the military, he went and worked for Hearst Newspapers in Europe covering the war, and he had great respect for journalists. That didn't mean he always agreed with what they wrote about him, and it certainly took exception to a lot of what they wrote, but he was so beguiling, and I think the American people could see his facility with language, with the English language, his extensive knowledge of the issues, and frankly, this was the must-see TV of its time in many ways.

We were just so beguiled, the press included, with this young, elegant, auspicious president. It's interesting, five days after his inauguration, I believe a third of all Americans tuned into that first press conference because we were so entranced by him, and among other things, Jeremi, he had to tell the American people to stop sending letters and telegrams because the West Wing was becoming overwhelmed.

I think one of the biggest concerns that a lot of young people like myself have is that maybe the skills today that are required to run for political office, to win the presidency, to campaign so effectively and win so many people over are not the same ones that are best adapted for governments. How did Kennedy's skills as a communicator translate or connect to his skills in government and as a legislator, not as a legislator, but as someone with a legislative agenda?

Well, I think he was able to convey those ideas very effectively and successfully to the American people and to a large extent the world. When Kennedy stands in front of the Berlin Wall and says, Ich bin ein Berliner, I am a Berliner because I'm a citizen of freedom, hence a citizen of Berlin, that makes a marked impression. But I think you're right, Zachary.

Those are two fundamentally different skills. On the one hand, you have somebody who needs to convey ideas to the American people, to the press, and on the other hand, somebody who has to work behind the scenes to get his agenda done. Your dad mentioned LBJ earlier and why LBJ was not able to effectively communicate as JFK did.

I think, and I just want to add to that, Kennedy, we have this word as though it's a brand new concept in 21st century America, authentic. We had other words that were just like that, sincere or genuine, but Kennedy was authentic. He didn't pretend to be anything that he wasn't.

He knew he was a child of great wealth. In fact, he gave a press conference where it was expected that he would be running for president. He whipped out of his pocket an imaginary telegram from his father and it read, Dear Jack, don't buy any more votes than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide. He didn't contrive a personality that he thought would fit the American people. He was very much himself.

Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, while he was incredibly effective behind the scenes, perhaps no one was more effective than him in the 20th century, contrived this ostensibly presidential personality that simply was not authentic. It was disingenuous and it really in effect tamped down the Lyndon Johnson that was so powerful behind the scenes. I think that was part of Kennedy's appeal. He was really the genuine article. He was the real deal and part of that was his authenticism.

Mark, that's so well said. I think your book lives up to its title. Your story is a story of policy, of course.

It's a story of an individual. It's a biography. It's an analysis of the presidency, but it is really a story of how Kennedy uses his grace to lead.

Of course, it's the oldest story in the world that the great leaders, whatever that means to be a great leader, that they have grace. Franklin Roosevelt had a certain grace about him. I think you capture that.

You describe that as well as anyone I've read on this. I wonder, though, how then you think about that in light of many of the other things you include in the book as the honest historian you are that run against this. I mean, the test of any book is does it capture the complexity of a life and yours certainly does.

In particular, you very honestly and in great detail talk about Kennedy's affairs and it's hard to have a conversation about Kennedy today without talking about that, particularly the story of Mimi Beardsley, which we only learned about, I guess, a decade or two ago, this 19-year-old intern who I think it's fair to say is sexually exploited by the president. Yet there's the image, of course, of Camelot and Kennedy and Jackie and the children. You're also very clear that Kennedy was not the most engaged father.

This is not a book on that. Kennedy is not a model of child rearing. I'm just curious how you think about this. All lives are contradictions in a way. How do you think about this in relationship to the grace that you also describe?

Yeah, it's a fair question, Jeremi, and I had to wrestle with that too, as you do with any biography. Kennedy stands on feet of clay at times and shows flashes of greatness at others, and I think that his great moral failing is his womanizing. That said, I'm certainly not rationalizing womanizing, but I remember talking to Gerald Ford years ago and he was talking about Washington in that age.

He said that it was quite common. In fact, it was the general rule that a lawmaker on Capitol Hill had affairs, illicit or otherwise. Some were very open. Gerald Ford certainly did not. I think he was faithful to his wife. They had a very close relationship, but most of his contemporaries, most of his peers did.

Kennedy was certainly no exception. In the testosterone-filled Kennedy household, it was almost a way of keeping score, a way of competing with his father and his brothers, and to some degree, so you can chalk it up to being part of the zeitgeist. By the same token, there is that relationship with Mimi Beardsley that you referenced very astutely.

You just can't get over that. He not only exploits her, he really objectifies her. He makes her almost this concubine, and in fact, at one point commands her to perform a sexual act on a friend in aid. That just can't be chalked up to the zeitgeist. That is just a deep, deep personal flaw, and it's really hard to get around. By the same token, you see Kennedy in leadership and in these pivotal moments in the presidency, and as you suggested, Jeremi, he does show a certain grace that helps us to circumvent the crises that he was laden with during the course of his presidency.

Right, and you certainly show that very well, in a really well-described few chapters, I think, on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I want readers to read the book. I don't want us to share all that with them. I want them to buy the book to read that, because I think the Cuban Missile Crisis, as you say, is probably the most significant Cold War crisis.

I'd like us to close, Mark, on the natural place to close, the assassination, and not so much what happens. I think everyone knows the story, but more how we should think about it today. Is it really a turning point in our history, and how do you look upon it?

It's one of the things I think you do that's very new in this book. You're looking upon that assassination now, not just about 50 years hence, but also from the perspective of what's happened in the last decade or two, to the nature of American democracy. How do you look upon that moment right now?

It's a great tragedy. We have seen this president through almost three years of, again, this incredibly consequential time in our history, and he is showing tremendous promise. Kennedy is cut down, I'm going to use Zachary's words here, by a bullet flying unimagined when he is in his prime.

He's 46 years of age. He's gone through perhaps the most dangerous hour of humankind with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and stands on the world at that point unparalleled. There is nobody who has the stature of John Fitzgerald Kennedy when he is killed in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963.

I think there are myths that spring up about Kennedy partly because he's martyred, Jeremi, that get in the way of remembering Kennedy, perhaps as we should. We imagine what Kennedy would've done had he faced Vietnam or civil rights or other things. And I think my guess is there would've been travails that affected Kennedy that would've diminished our view of him in time.

There were these daunting crises that he would've faced. And we can think of Kennedy and what he would've done and imagine the very best of outcomes, but by no means would Kennedy have necessarily been able to deliver them.

I think in, and you were alluding to this earlier, in so many ways, Kennedy is also a symbol of what it is to be free.

Because of the, soaring rhetoric of his administration, including the iconic addresses he makes at the foot of the Berlin Wall and American University and, at his inauguration, we think of him in some ways as symbolizing what it is to be American and what American democracy means to the world.

I think there's a lot to that. And, our final question, Mark, and it's the one we always ask, and I know it's one you think about deeply. What should we, what should young listeners in particular, take from Kennedy's life? What are the lessons for leadership today?

You know, I think we look at the, what a perilous state democracy is in right now, I know that this is what this podcast is ultimately about, Jeremi, and we understand its fragility now more than any time in at least a generation.

But there were existential crises that democracy was going through in Kennedy's era, as well as again, we were at the height at that time of the Cold War and we saw Soviet tyranny, and to a large extent Chinese tyranny, posing a threat on the world stage.

I think that this is nothing new and we can get through it if we resolve to make this country as strong as possible. And the one thing I would urge young people in particular to do is get involved in the electoral process. Jeremi, I mean, you're married to an elected official, you know how important this is.

I would urge them to certainly to vote, but also to get to, to, volunteer at the polls, to volunteer on campaigns, to get educated on the issues. There are other things you, we can do to strengthen our democracy, but there's nothing more important than voting the right people into office.

Absolutely right, and it's one of the central messages of our podcast, the importance of participatory democracy and that means getting involved in all ways that one can, Zachary is Mark's description of Kennedy and this discussion does it open avenues for young people, you think?

I think so. And I think what's powerful about his analysis is that. It's very much aware of Kennedy's flaws. And I think we have to remember when we look back on our history, that it is not the story of a few perfect moments we've never managed to achieve again, but of a number of flawed and yet, and yet very successful, hopeful moments in our history. And we have to be able to learn from both the enormous achievements of those moments, but also also the failings

I think, Mark that Zachary has given the perfect answer for why people should read your book. What do you think?

Zachary I owe you big time, by the way, I think you should run for office, but that's a whole separate conversation.

We have that conversation quite often. And our listeners often tell me that too. Mark, thank you so much for joining us and for writing this book, I wanna remind our listeners, it's Incomparable Grace by Mark Updegrove, and it's a fantastic book. It's a thoughtful and deep read, but also a quick read.

And I encourage you to, and a quick read in the best sense in that it's a book you don't put down and you begin it, in New York City and you land in Los Angeles and you've finished it, which is the mark of a good book in my mind. Mark. Congratulations.

Jeremi Zachary. Thanks so much. It's been a delightful conversation.

Thank you, Zachary for your poem, and thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week's episode of This Is Democracy.

This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts LAITS Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This Is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. See you next time.