Part 18 (1/2)

Kennedy's successful diplomacy gave the Democrats an advantage in the November elections that he was happy to exploit. The White House welcomed descriptions by Acheson, Bundy, Harriman, Norman Cousins of The Sat.u.r.day Review, The Sat.u.r.day Review, and General Norstad of a president who had been ”extraordinarily skillful,” ”firm,” ”reasonable,” and ”calm.” It also took satisfaction from and General Norstad of a president who had been ”extraordinarily skillful,” ”firm,” ”reasonable,” and ”calm.” It also took satisfaction from Newsweek Newsweek's a.s.sertion that Kennedy ”had given Americans a sense of deep confidence in their President and the team he had working with him.”

The public had only a limited understanding of how resolute Kennedy had been. Health problems continued to dog him during the crisis. He took his usual doses of antispasmodics to control his colitis; antibiotics for a flareup of his urinary tract problem and a bout of sinusitis; and increased amounts of hydrocortisone and testosterone as well as salt tablets to control his Addison's disease and increase his energy. Judging from the tape recordings of conversations made during the crisis, the medications were no impediment to long days and lucid thought; to the contrary, Kennedy would have been significantly less effective without them and might not even have been able to function. But the medicines were only one element in helping him focus on the crisis; his strength of will was indispensable. With so much at stake in the Soviet-American confrontation, he was not about to let personal pain or physical problems deter him from the most important business of his presidency. He undoubtedly had his own experience in mind when he wrote in an article on physical fitness for Look Look magazine in 1963, ”Whether it is the astronaut exploring the boundaries of s.p.a.ce, or the overworked civil servant laboring into the night to keep a Government program going, the effectiveness and creativity of the individual must rest, in large measure, on his physical fitness and vitality.” magazine in 1963, ”Whether it is the astronaut exploring the boundaries of s.p.a.ce, or the overworked civil servant laboring into the night to keep a Government program going, the effectiveness and creativity of the individual must rest, in large measure, on his physical fitness and vitality.”

This is not to suggest that Kennedy was superhuman or to exaggerate his invulnerability to physical and emotional ills. On November 2, he took 10 additional milligrams of hydrocortisone and 10 grains of salt to boost him before giving a brief report to the American people on the dismantling of the Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In December, Jackie asked the president's gastroenterologist, Dr. Russell Boles, to eliminate antihistamines for food allergies. She described them as having a ”depressing action” on the president and asked Boles to prescribe something that would ensure ”mood elevation without irritation to the gastrointestinal tract.” Boles prescribed 1 milligram twice a day of Stelazine, an antipsychotic that was also used as an anti-anxiety medication. When Kennedy showed marked improvement in two days, they removed the Stelazine from his daily medications.

Kennedy burnished his image as the princ.i.p.al architect of Soviet defeat by allowing journalists to draw comparisons with Adlai Stevenson. In December, when Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett published a Sat.u.r.day Evening Post Sat.u.r.day Evening Post article on the crisis, which Kennedy had seen in draft form, they contrasted Kennedy's firmness with Stevenson's soft approach; Stevenson wanted ”a Munich,” they said. It is true that Stevenson exceeded Kennedy's readiness to make concessions, including especially a willingness to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo. But in fact he had been in sync with the president on avoiding an air strike or a premature invasion and was an early supporter of the quarantine idea. When the press interpreted the Alsop-Bartlett article as an indirect request from the president for Stevenson's resignation, Kennedy emphatically denied it, but he left the charges of softness unanswered by refusing to comment on Ex Comm discussions. To boost Stevenson, who was demoralized by the flap, Kennedy released a letter to him praising his contribution at the U.N. Nevertheless, the public depiction of Stevenson as an appeaser strengthened the view of Kennedy as a tough-minded leader comparable to America's best past and present defenders of the national interest. It increased his freedom to negotiate an arms control agreement and weakened the capacity of conservative critics to press him into more forceful military action in Vietnam. Petty revenge for old slights cannot be ruled out as another motive. article on the crisis, which Kennedy had seen in draft form, they contrasted Kennedy's firmness with Stevenson's soft approach; Stevenson wanted ”a Munich,” they said. It is true that Stevenson exceeded Kennedy's readiness to make concessions, including especially a willingness to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo. But in fact he had been in sync with the president on avoiding an air strike or a premature invasion and was an early supporter of the quarantine idea. When the press interpreted the Alsop-Bartlett article as an indirect request from the president for Stevenson's resignation, Kennedy emphatically denied it, but he left the charges of softness unanswered by refusing to comment on Ex Comm discussions. To boost Stevenson, who was demoralized by the flap, Kennedy released a letter to him praising his contribution at the U.N. Nevertheless, the public depiction of Stevenson as an appeaser strengthened the view of Kennedy as a tough-minded leader comparable to America's best past and present defenders of the national interest. It increased his freedom to negotiate an arms control agreement and weakened the capacity of conservative critics to press him into more forceful military action in Vietnam. Petty revenge for old slights cannot be ruled out as another motive.

Kennedy understood that a strong showing in the November elections could make Congress more receptive to his major domestic proposals. Although his administration publicly made much of its legislative record, privately it was unhappy. The president had won between 81 and 85 percent of the roll call votes on domestic proposals in 1961 and 1962. And on roll calls involving foreign policy, he had received 96.5 percent backing. But his overall record was much less noteworthy. Many of the bills Congress pa.s.sed were relatively minor reforms, like temporarily reducing duty exemptions on Americans returning from abroad, authorizing an additional a.s.sistant secretary of labor, extending the Sugar Act of 1948, or reorganizing the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Most of his legislative requests-56 percent in 1962, to be exact-had never emerged from House and Senate committees, where conservative chairmen bottled them up.

Johnson and Hubert Humphrey were so concerned about Kennedy's ineffective congressional leaders.h.i.+p that in August 1962 they suggested ways to improve it. They wanted him to make his presence and influence more visible on the Hill. ”[Both men] were talking quite honestly about the problem of getting effective results,” Bundy told the president. ”I did not detect any personal soreness in either of them, and both spoke in the framework of great commitment to your program and to you.” So did Truman, who wrote Kennedy at the same time: ”The President is just as great as the Congress-and really greater-when he exercises his Const.i.tutional Prerogatives. You are going through the same situations and troubles that Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and I had to meet. Don't like to put myself in that high cla.s.s-but I had a h.e.l.l of a time. You meet 'em, cuss 'em & give 'em h.e.l.l and you'll win in 1964.”

Kennedy saw no point in risking prestige or expending political capital by openly campaigning for particular candidates. Instead, he worked behind the scenes to advance the political fortunes of vulnerable Democrats. Moreover, Kennedy took Lou Harris's advice that his best means of influencing the electorate was to speak ”over and over again” about the measures needed to get the country moving forward. Harris was convinced that the people were eager to be led and that once ”aroused and mobilized, Congress, business, and all groups will respond as a man to the reverberating chorus.”

During the summer and fall, Kennedy crisscrossed the country in support of a Democratic Congress. He said that the nation's well-being-its future prosperity and social advance-depended on electing more House and Senate Democrats who would vote for his programs. Since 1938, the Congress had been more or less deadlocked in its consideration of new progressive measures. He described himself as fighting the same battles Wilson, FDR, and Truman had faced ”to provide progress for our people.” ”I believe we should have the opportunity and not have the kind of balance in the Congress which will mean two ... more years of inertia and inaction. That's why this is an important election. Five, ten seats one way or the other can vitally affect the balance of power in the Congress and vitally affect our future... . So this is not an off-year, it is an important year.” Kennedy catalogued his legislative victories and defeats, pointing out, ”We have won fights by 3 or 4 votes in the House of Representatives, and we have lost fights by 3 or 4 votes.” Ignoring the opposition to his proposals of conservative southern Democrats, he blamed Republicans for his problems: 75 percent of them had voted against his higher education bill; 84 percent of Republican senators had opposed extended unemployment benefits; 81 percent and 95 percent of House Republicans had voted against his area redevelopment and public housing bills, respectively; and 80 percent of House Republicans had resisted increasing the minimum wage to $1.25. ”On a bill to provide medical care for our older citizens ... seven-eighths of the Republican Members of the Senate voted 'no,' just as their fathers before them had voted 90 percent against the social security [bill] in the 1930's.” As he came closer to the election, Kennedy acknowledged that conservative Democrats were also a problem. If liberal Democrats failed to vote, he told an audience in Pittsburgh on October 12, every proposal that we bring before the Eighty-eighth Congress in January 1963, ”will be in the control of a dominant Republican-Conservative Democratic coalition that will defeat progress on every single one of these measures.”

Despite not risking his presidential standing by investing excessively in any single congressional race, Kennedy's general endors.e.m.e.nt of Democrats sympathetic to his legislative agenda tested his personal influence. He approached the campaign confident that his presidential performance had given him a stronger hold on the electorate than he had had in 1960. He understood that, whatever the appeal of his message, the public liked him. His good looks, intelligence, wit, and charm, which were so regularly and exuberantly on display at press conferences, now drew large audiences to hear him on the campaign trail. Some inside the administration could see Kennedy's obvious imperfections-the insatiable s.e.xual appet.i.te contradicting the picture of the ideal family man married to a perfect wife; the manipulation of image to hide missteps; the fierce compet.i.tiveness to win, which made him and Bobby all too willing to exploit friends; and the private physical suffering, which occasionally made him glum and cranky. Yet no one could doubt that Kennedy's two years in the White House had created an imperishable view of him as a significant American president worthy of the office.

Still, the reality was that Kennedy had no real hope of breaking the congressional deadlock. Though preelection polls showed 56 percent of voters favoring Democrats over Republicans, a significant part of this support was for southern members of the party, who were unsympathetic to progressive measures. So, despite a satisfying gain of four Democratic seats in the Senate and the loss of only four seats in the House, which made this, except for FDR's, the best midterm showing for any inc.u.mbent president in the twentieth century, Kennedy acknowledged that ”we'll probably be in a position somewhat comparable to what we were in for the last two years.” If they could maintain the unity of congressional Democrats and win some support from moderate Republicans, he foresaw legislative gains. But he believed it more likely that they would struggle, as they had during his first two years, with narrow margins of victory and defeat. He was gratified that brother Ted had won his Senate race in Ma.s.sachusetts, which he had helped, or at least hoped would help, by appointing Cleveland mayor Anthony Celebrezze as HEW secretary, a choice that appealed to Italian American voters in Ma.s.sachusetts. But beyond Ted's victory, Kennedy saw little to cheer about.

There was other bad news. Despite a 12-point jump in his approval rating to 74 percent and what was being hailed as ”your excellent showing in congressional races and your net pick-up in the Senate,” urban areas in ”pivotal industrial states” had, according to Lou Harris, shown some ”big Democratic slippage over 1960” among Catholic and Jewish voters. To some extent, Kennedy's abnormally high Catholic vote in 1960 made a decline among this bloc predictable. More troubling was the fact that Irish Catholics were becoming more conservative, or Republican, in their voting, while Polish and Italian Catholics, unhappy with recent Democratic failures to provide greater economic benefits, were simply voting in smaller numbers for the party. Moreover, Kennedy's perceived sympathy for disadvantaged blacks, who were in growing compet.i.tion with big-city ethnics for jobs and housing, antagonized blue-collar Catholics. In reaction to civil rights pressures, the traditional Democratic South was becoming more Republican.

DESPITE THE TRENDS, and possibly because of them, Kennedy could not ignore black claims on equal treatment under the law; African American voters remained the Democratic party's most reliable supporters. For both political and moral reasons, then, on November 20, Kennedy finally announced his decision to sign an Executive Order integrating federally supported public housing. and possibly because of them, Kennedy could not ignore black claims on equal treatment under the law; African American voters remained the Democratic party's most reliable supporters. For both political and moral reasons, then, on November 20, Kennedy finally announced his decision to sign an Executive Order integrating federally supported public housing.

While he waited for any backlash that might accompany his signing of the Executive Order, Kennedy worried about increasing negative revelations about his personal life and how they might jeopardize his presidency. He remained confident that the mainstream press would not publicize his womanizing. But when rumors of a Marilyn Monroe-JFK affair began appearing in gossip columns, Kennedy made a concerted effort to squelch them. He asked former journalist and inspector general of the Peace Corps William Haddad to ”see the editors. Tell them you are speaking for me and that it's just not true,” Kennedy said. Haddad later told Richard Reeves, ”He lied to me. He used my credibility with people I knew.” Haddad obviously came to believe the many stories circulated about JFK and Marilyn. Almost as much ink has been spilled over their alleged relations.h.i.+p and one between Bobby and Marilyn as over the Cuban missile crisis. Peter Lawford, the actor and Kennedy brother-in-law, dismissed these speculations as ”garbage.” But numerous phone calls listed in White House logs from Monroe to Kennedy suggest something more than a casual acquaintance. Whatever the truth, Kennedy obviously understood that no good could come to his presidency from gossip about an affair with someone as famously promiscuous and troubled as Monroe.

Kennedy's worries about his public image extended to medical matters. Because he believed that revelations about his health problems were more likely (and more likely to be damaging) than about his s.e.xual escapades, he became more cautious about publicizing his interactions with his many physicians. According to George Burkley, Kennedy was so concerned about not giving the impression that he was ”physically impaired ... and required the constant supervision of a physician” that he shunned having ”a medical man in near proximity to him at all times.”

Kennedy especially felt compelled to quell private concerns about the injections Travell and Jacobson were giving him. Hans Kraus told him in December 1962 ”that if I ever heard he took another shot, I'd make sure it was known. No President with his finger on the red b.u.t.ton has any business taking stuff like that.” In addition, Kraus told Evelyn Lincoln ”that if Dr. Travell was going to continue making suggestions and innuendos concerning the President's health he was going to get out of the picture. He said it had to be 'Yes' or 'No'-that he was not interested in half way tactics.” Eugene Cohen also warned Kennedy that Travell was a ”potential threat to your well-being.” Kennedy agreed to take control of his back treatments away from Travell and turn it entirely over to Burkley and Kraus. To ensure against alienating Travell, however, and risking leaks from her to the press about his condition, Kennedy kept her on as White House physician and continued to identify her as the princ.i.p.al doctor in charge of his health care. In fact, however, beginning in June 1963, she could not order medical services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for anyone at the White House without Burkley's approval.

Nevertheless, though Jacobson and Travell played diminished roles in Kennedy's treatment, neither of them was without some continuing part in his care. Through much of 1962, Jacobson made occasional professional visits to the White House. It is well known that in June Bobby instructed an FBI laboratory to a.n.a.lyze the substance Jacobson was injecting into his brother's back. Bobby was concerned that the president might become addicted to the amphetamines Jacobson was using. Inconclusive lab tests, however, allowed Jacobson to continue treating Kennedy through at least the fall of 1962.

Similarly, for all the limitations Burkley, Cohen, and Kraus imposed on Travell, she remained more than a presence at the White House, though in a diminished capacity, something she complained about to Jackie. Her records indicate that she kept close track of the president's condition and use of medicines and may have had an ongoing part in medicating him. But according to Dr. James M. Young, a thirty-three-year-old marine captain who became Burkley's princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant in June 1963, Travell was without a say in managing Kennedy's health care during the five months after he came to the White House; she was never at twice-a-month medical evaluation meetings Young attended with Kennedy. But Young acknowledged that her records suggest that she may have had a behind-the-scenes role.

Young's meetings with Kennedy convinced him that the president was in ”robust health having no difficulty with his chronic back problems. He was well-controlled on his other medications-even so much as to say finitely controlled,” Young remembered. This is difficult to square with Travell's records, which describe substantial ongoing problems. Was Kennedy setting Young up for a part in the 1964 campaign, when he might want a medical authority to testify to his physical capacity to remain as president? Kennedy's attentiveness to managing his image as someone in excellent health makes such a manipulation plausible.

KENNEDY KNEW that s.h.i.+elding himself from bad publicity to maintain his personal public standing would not give his administration the sort of momentum he hoped to bring to a reelection campaign. The perception of a vigorous president was important, but it was no subst.i.tute for a healthy economy and a record of social advancements. that s.h.i.+elding himself from bad publicity to maintain his personal public standing would not give his administration the sort of momentum he hoped to bring to a reelection campaign. The perception of a vigorous president was important, but it was no subst.i.tute for a healthy economy and a record of social advancements.

”The Congress looks more powerful sitting here than it did when I was there in the Congress,” Kennedy told some journalists in December 1962. If a president puts forward a significant program, he told them, it will affect powerful interests and produce a fight in which ”the President is never wholly successful.” With this understanding, he had to decide whether to focus exclusively on the tax cut or to supplement it with renewed requests for education and health insurance reforms and an Urban Affairs Department. Walter h.e.l.ler also asked him to consider proposing new laws affecting farm programs, immigration, presidential campaign finance, the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, and consumer protections.

Economic advance had to come first. As Phil Graham told him, ”The economic conditions of the Western World are not good. And a sudden shock could lead to a very serious panic... . The greatest force the Communists ever had working for them-greater even than the Red Army-was the terrible depression of the 1930's. The military power of Communism is blocked today. We must not allow them to advance by reason of the chaos and despair of a major depression.”

Whether Graham, who would take his life in the coming year, accurately reflected the state of western economies or his own despair, Kennedy felt he could not ignore the warning. Any sign of a recession or economic slowdown evoked memories for millions of Americans of 1930s breadlines. In the closing weeks of 1962, Kennedy made boosting the economy his highest priority. More than ever, he believed that long-term growth required a tax cut and tax reforms. In December 1962, Kennedy took up the cause of tax reform in another public address, which he compared with his appearance before the Houston Protestant ministers' conference during the presidential campaign: He saw a national commitment to a tax cut that increased federal deficits as comparable to convincing voters that a Catholic could be a good president.

In an attempt to exploit Cold War fears, Kennedy described the country's national security as directly bound up with its economic performance. Addressing familiar concerns that tax cuts would lead to larger deficits and runaway inflation, Kennedy said, ”The lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions... . In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.” He said that ”the hope of all free nations” was riding on the tax cut; America's safety and that of the free world depended on the United States' continuing capacity to outproduce the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, a request to Congress for these measures in January 1963 seemed certain to arouse renewed skepticism and opposition. Wilbur Mills in the House and Albert Gore in the Senate, key Democratic figures in the looming battle over the tax legislation, remained unsympathetic to prompt action. Mills saw no need for a tax bill as long as the economy was not in a recession or slowing down and substantial federal budget deficits continued to threaten confidence in the ”fiscal responsibility of the government.” He was willing to support changes in individual and corporate tax rates as a way to promote long-term economic expansion but not before January 1964 and not unless reductions in nondefense spending matched tax cuts. Gore warned the president that ”a reduction in revenue will set off a howling campaign for reduction in expenditures and your administration will be put in an economic straight jacket. The ax would most likely fall heaviest on foreign aid and on programs that may be needed to stimulate the economy, such as public works.” Gore also feared that tax reform would favor the rich and shortchange the poor. ”People with large incomes would have their take-home pay (income after taxes) increased 50%, 100% and, in some instances even 200%, while the average tax payer would have an increase of less than 10%, most of them only 3% to 5%. This simply cannot be justified-socially, economically or politically. And I hold these sentiments pa.s.sionately! This is something that no Republican administration has dared do; it is something you must not do.”

By late December, it was clear to Kennedy that a tax cut and a bold reform agenda would have little chance of enactment in 1963. Bobby Baker, the secretary to Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, who kept close tabs on sentiment in the Upper House, predicted that ”we are in serious danger of being unable to pa.s.s” the tax cut. Nor did Baker see more than a 50-50 chance of creating an Urban Affairs Department, and even if the Senate approved it, it seemed unlikely to pa.s.s the House. Likewise, the House would be the problem in pa.s.sing medical insurance and aid to elementary and secondary education. Any attempt to create a domestic peace corps would ”cause considerable strain and possibly affect the present Peace Corps... . Temporary Unemployment Compensation will have rough sledding in both Houses.” Baker saw brighter prospects for a ma.s.s transportation law, a higher education bill, aid to medical research, and conservation measures, but, overall, it did not seem like a promising year for presidential reform initiatives.

Nevertheless, Kennedy refused to give in to counsels of caution. A failure to present a bold domestic program would make him look timid and resigned to conservative influence. Besides, if Congress rejected his proposals, it would more clearly set him apart from conservative opponents in a 1964 campaign.

Kennedy also hoped that appeals to the national well-being might sway congressional majorities to support a tax cut and other reforms. In his January 1963 State of the Union Message, he announced a program of changes, which he described as essential to the nation's future. Although the most recent recession was over, with a million more people working than two years before, this was no time to relax: ”The mere absence of recession is not growth,” he said. To achieve greater expansion, ”one step, above all, is essential-the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes... . It is increasingly clear ... that our obsolete tax system exerts too heavy a drag on private purchasing power, profits and employment.” He proposed to lower tax liabilities by $13.5 billion, $11 billion on individuals and $2.5 billion on corporations. Individual tax rates were to drop from between 20 and 91 percent ”to a more sensible range of 14 to 65 percent.” The corporate rate would drop 5 points from 52 to 47 percent. To combat the temporary deficits antic.i.p.ated from the cuts, Kennedy proposed phasing them in over three years and holding expenditures, except for defense and s.p.a.ce, below current levels.

IN OCTOBER 1962, when he prepared his 1963 budget, he privately acknowledged that education reforms, which would increase the annual deficit, were ”not going to pa.s.s.” We should ”just ... start off with that realization,” he told budget director Dave Bell. No one could doubt his eagerness for federal support of elementary, secondary, and higher education. During 1963, he repeatedly quoted Jefferson: ”If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be.” In a seventy-five-hundred-word message to Congress, he described education as ”the keystone in the arch of freedom and progress.” He believed that federal monies could improve the ”quality of instruction” and reduce ”alarming” dropout rates. Federal dollars were also needed to help colleges meet a 100 percent increase in enrollments by 1970, and secondary schools a 50 percent rise in students attending. ”Soviet inst.i.tutions of higher education are graduating 3 times as many engineers and 4 times as many physicians as the United States,” Kennedy said. ”While trailing behind this country in aggregate annual numbers of higher education graduates, the Soviets are maintaining an annual flow of scientific and technical professional manpower more than twice as large as our own.” Yet for all his outspokenness on the importance of education, Kennedy made it a lower budget priority in 1963 than defense and s.p.a.ce, and continuing political tensions over aid to parochial schools and racial integration discouraged the president from stronger support of congressional action. when he prepared his 1963 budget, he privately acknowledged that education reforms, which would increase the annual deficit, were ”not going to pa.s.s.” We should ”just ... start off with that realization,” he told budget director Dave Bell. No one could doubt his eagerness for federal support of elementary, secondary, and higher education. During 1963, he repeatedly quoted Jefferson: ”If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be.” In a seventy-five-hundred-word message to Congress, he described education as ”the keystone in the arch of freedom and progress.” He believed that federal monies could improve the ”quality of instruction” and reduce ”alarming” dropout rates. Federal dollars were also needed to help colleges meet a 100 percent increase in enrollments by 1970, and secondary schools a 50 percent rise in students attending. ”Soviet inst.i.tutions of higher education are graduating 3 times as many engineers and 4 times as many physicians as the United States,” Kennedy said. ”While trailing behind this country in aggregate annual numbers of higher education graduates, the Soviets are maintaining an annual flow of scientific and technical professional manpower more than twice as large as our own.” Yet for all his outspokenness on the importance of education, Kennedy made it a lower budget priority in 1963 than defense and s.p.a.ce, and continuing political tensions over aid to parochial schools and racial integration discouraged the president from stronger support of congressional action.

Medicare presented similar dilemmas. Although he spoke out forcefully at the beginning of 1963 for health reform legislation and health insurance for seniors in particular, the familiar litany of national needs could not break resistance in the House and the Senate to initiating new and potentially costly welfare programs. Special messages to the Congress in February on improving the nation's health and the needs of the nation's senior citizens did no more than put Kennedy back on record as favoring help for America's seventeen and a half million elderly. There was no shortage of talk and goodwill in Congress toward seniors, including thirty-six bills proposing ways to insure everyone over sixty-five. But a focus on Kennedy's suggested tax cut and increased deficits pushed health proposals aside. The House Ways and Means Committee did not agree even to hold hearings on health insurance until November.

By the spring of 1963, Kennedy had accepted the political realities working against legislative health reforms. Between April and October, aside from brief remarks in the White House Rose Garden to the National Council of Senior Citizens urging a congressional vote on medical care for the aged under Social Security, he said nothing in public and put no pressure on Congress to act. In May, he told HEW secretary Anthony Celebrezze, ”There seems to be some speculation that we have abandoned health insurance for this year. While it may be that events will not permit legislative action in 1963, I believe we should proceed on the a.s.sumption that we are attempting to secure it. The failure then will not be ours.” In November, when a reporter asked if he would press Mills to send Medicare to the House floor for a vote, Kennedy replied, ”I think we are going to get that bill out of committee-not this year, but next year-and I think we will have a vote on it and I think it will pa.s.s.” Believing that congressmen and senators would court the elderly in 1964 by backing health reforms, Kennedy predicted that ”this is going to be an 18-month delivery!”

By contrast with education and Medicare, which Kennedy believed would have improved chances of congressional action in the next year, he doubted that a tax cut would gain any legislative momentum in the coming months. There were, granted, some glimmers of hope. The president's appearances in support of tax reform were paying dividends, h.e.l.ler advised. He said he saw ”a lot of willingness to help put the tax program through... . To mobilize this aid and convert it into votes in Congress should be a major part of our tax offensive.” He also reported that a survey of consumers showed 63 percent in favor of a tax cut. Dillon advised Kennedy that concerns about the cut disproportionately favoring the rich were unfounded. But throughout 1963, conventional thinking about the danger of increased deficits from a tax reduction sustained conservative opposition to Kennedy's tax proposals. We ”favor ... a reduction in both individual and corporate tax rates,” Republican legislators declared. ”However, we believe that a tax cut of more than $11 billion, with no hope of a balanced budget for the foreseeable future, is both morally and fiscally wrong.” The prospect of larger deficits so bothered Eisenhower that he joined the chorus of opposition. He declared a tax cut ”highly desirable but only if the persistent and frightening increase in Federal expenditures is halted in its tracks.” Mills's Ways and Means Committee would not budge on the tax bill unless the White House made clear how it intended to reduce federal spending over the next several years.