The promise of the Kennedy administration ended with his assassination. Since then, we've learned a lot about his darker side, including the political enemies — and allies — who disliked him.
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00:00The promise of the Kennedy administration ended with his assassination. Since then,
00:04we've learned a lot about his darker side, including the political enemies and allies
00:09who really hated him. A lot.
00:12If you think the person who despised John F. Kennedy the most in the 1960 presidential
00:16race was Richard Nixon, that'd be a no. Wrong side of the ticket. Turns out that LBJ hated
00:22JFK. Now, it's no secret that Lyndon Baines Johnson clashed with Kennedy's brother, Attorney
00:27General Robert F. Kennedy. That makes sense, given that RFK was his brother's chief lieutenant,
00:32a job that should have gone to the VP, and Johnson, as an alpha male and Texan, didn't
00:37like being brushed aside. Word around Washington was that he despised having to serve as vice
00:42president at all, like he was above it.
00:45Jackie Kennedy had a pleasant relationship with the Johnsons, but she later outed Jack's
00:49real feelings about Lyndon and Lady Bird. Apparently, Kennedy didn't think Johnson was
00:53contributing anything to the administration, and he even doubted his fitness to be president.
00:58Jack felt so strongly about it that, in the months before the assassination, he talked
01:02with Bobby about ways to prevent Johnson from becoming the Democratic nominee in 68. So
01:07at least the feeling was mutual.
01:10Johnson thought the Kennedy brothers were snobby coastal elites, and he seemed to resent
01:13living in Kennedy's shadow even after the assassination. Apparently, the phrase,
01:17"'Kennedy wouldn't have done that,' followed Johnson for the rest of his life, to the point
01:21where he was recorded complaining about it long after the presidency was behind him.
01:26Kennedy wasn't crazy about Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the feeling was mutual. It wasn't so much
01:31their 27-year age difference as it was a clash of personality, at least on Kennedy's part.
01:36You see, Jack found the old general to be cold. Eisenhower, on the other hand, didn't
01:40like the idea of a young, inexperienced Jack Kennedy replacing him in the most powerful
01:44office in the world.
01:46Kennedy, he thought, was just a junior senator from Massachusetts who was a novice, who knew
01:51nothing about the world at large."
01:54There was also the part where he disagreed with nearly every major decision Kennedy made
01:58while president. But as a military man, Eisenhower understood the chain of command. Therefore,
02:03his lack of confidence in his successor reinforced his determination not to undermine Kennedy
02:07publicly, and to offer support and advice where and when he could. In fact, Eisenhower
02:12was among those Kennedy consulted during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
02:16Two years after the Kennedy assassination, the general saw a poll in which American historians
02:20were asked to rate the president. He resented what he perceived as an attempt to establish
02:24the late president as a seminal figure in American history by what he called the Kennedy
02:29cult. If Ike knew how bad those rankings got today, he'd be spinning in his grave.
02:34Throughout his life, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev insisted that he both liked and
02:38respected Jack Kennedy. The two met in 1959 when Kennedy was in the Senate, and Khrushchev
02:43was reportedly impressed. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to run roughshod over
02:47him one-on-one. He aimed to embarrass America during their 1961 Vienna summit, and truthfully,
02:53he probably did. He generally threw Kennedy for a loop with his brazen requests, like
02:58taking all of Berlin and putting it under East Germany's control.
03:02In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, Khrushchev allegedly boasted that Kennedy
03:05was spineless and incapable of facing a Soviet challenge. And Kennedy didn't entirely disagree.
03:11He admitted to his aides and even to the American press — off the record, of course — that
03:15he'd been well and thoroughly had. But when it came time to write his memoir, Khrushchev
03:20remembers, the Soviet Premier glossed over this encounter, preferring to write about
03:24his fondness for Kennedy and his preference for Kennedy over Nixon or Dwight Eisenhower.
03:29He called Kennedy's death a great loss that damaged U.S.-Soviet relations.
03:34J. Edgar Hoover hated Jack Kennedy
03:36That's it. We can move on to the next subject.
03:39All right, fine. Here's a bit more context. Even though Hoover and Joe Sr. respected each
03:44other, it didn't stop Hoover from collecting a file of compromising information on Jack.
03:49The crazy part is, he started collecting dirt on Kennedy's affairs as early as 1942. When
03:54Kennedy became president, Hoover could barely hide his disdain for his philandering and
03:58wasn't too fond of the new president's politics, either.
04:02The bad blood between Hoover and the Kennedy brothers was mutual. While JFK maintained
04:06a public show of respect toward Hoover, he neither liked nor trusted him. For obvious
04:11reasons, he had concern over his vast surveillance network. Kennedy reportedly wanted to fire
04:16Hoover, so it came as a surprise when just one day after his election in 1960, he announced
04:21that Hoover would stay on. This more than likely had to do with the leverage Hoover
04:25had collected on him over the years.
04:27Kennedy enjoyed getting little doses of revenge by barging in on Hoover when he was nappy,
04:31or taking him to lunch at working-class diners instead of the fancy D.C. joints Hoover preferred.
04:37But as much as Jack disliked Edgar, the real tension was between Hoover and Bobby, who
04:42feared Hoover's power, opposed it when he could, and deeply resented his political machinations.
04:48If anyone has a reason to be ticked off at JFK, it's Sam Giancana, at least if you believe
04:53the Chicago outfit stole Illinois and therefore the 1960 election for Kennedy as part of a
04:58deal with his father.
04:59"...to tell us whether if you have opposition from anybody that you dispose of them by having
05:04them stuffed in a trunk, is that what you do, Mr. Giancana?"
05:07It didn't get that far, well, unless you're all in on that Oswald theory. Since conspiracies
05:12are fun, let's lay it out again for you.
05:14RFK brought down heat on the mafia, and after all they did to get JFK elected, the nerves
05:19of him. So bosses Carlos Marcelo and Santo Trafficante went to Sam Giancana for help.
05:26The mobster and the president did have one thing in common, a mistress.
05:29"...I can at this time emphatically state that my relationship with Jack Kennedy was
05:35of a close personal nature."
05:38Her name was Judith Campbell Exner, and she later claimed Giancana bragged about putting
05:42Kennedy into the White House. One associate even claimed that Giancana confessed to arranging
05:47the president's assassination.
05:50Throughout his presidency, Kennedy faced significant opposition from within his own party. The
05:54Dixiecrats were a group of Southern Democratic politicians who were hostile to the Kennedys'
05:59civil rights agenda. Chief among the Dixiecrats was Alabama Governor George Wallace, who,
06:04in his 1963 inaugural address, famously declared,
06:07"...segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."
06:14He was so violently opposed to admitting Black students to the University of Alabama that
06:18he threatened to defy federal court orders and swore there would be rioting if that were
06:22to happen.
06:24The stand in the schoolhouse door is best remembered for the scene in Forrest Gump,
06:28but it really happened. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy intervened, and thanks to his efforts,
06:32the university was successfully integrated without violence, and Wallace's sanctioned
06:36chaos in the South was narrowly averted. Needless to say, at the time, George Wallace hated
06:42all the Kennedys.
06:43JFK followed up this achievement with a speech to the nation in which he announced his intention
06:47to pass a civil rights bill.
06:49This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle
06:55that all men are created equal."
06:58In an often-forgotten twist, Wallace denounced his segregationist views and worked to educate
07:02those who thought as he once did.
07:05George Wallace wasn't the only Dixiecrat to come into conflict with Kennedy over civil
07:09rights. 47-year South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond became infamous for staging a 24-hour-plus
07:15filibuster to prevent the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. It was a failure, and
07:20the bill was passed two hours after he finally stopped talking.
07:24Thurmond kept pretty much mum about race back in the 1940s when he was governor of South
07:28Carolina, but by the time he reached the Senate, he was a full-throated racist. He detested
07:33Kennedy's civil rights bill and seemed to despise Kennedy himself so much it made him
07:37half-crazy.
07:38For example, Thurmond insisted JFK was planning to surrender the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal
07:44to the United Nations. This was such an outrageous conspiracy theory that even newspapers that
07:48circulated in his home state of South Carolina went after him.
07:52In another odd twist, Thurmond also had a change of heart, and after flipping political
07:56parties in 1964, later became the first senator from a deep South state to hire an African
08:01American to his staff.
08:03You'd be remiss to not give a little credit to the changes Kennedy made to the overall
08:07attitude of the country with his policies.
08:10You might think the people we already mentioned hated JFK, but they've got nothing on Bertrand
08:15Russell. Here's how he described Kennedy.
08:17"'Much more wicked than Hitler. They are the wickedest people who ever lived in the history
08:22of man, and it is our duty to do what we can against them.'"
08:26So who in the blazes is Bertrand Russell? Well, he was a British philosopher and mathematician,
08:31a socialist, and really liked inserting himself into world problems. During the Cuban Missile
08:35Crisis, Russell sent telegrams to both Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. Notably, Russell didn't
08:41criticize Russian policy regarding Cuba in his message to Khrushchev, but did reprimand
08:45Kennedy for America's blockade. He was a socialist, so at least that's on point.
08:51Russell rushed Khrushchev's conciliatory reply to Kennedy, who didn't appreciate Russell
08:55involving himself in an international crisis. When the crisis passed, Russell expressed
08:59regret for not taking a gentler tone with Kennedy, but he still thought JFK messed up
09:04during the crisis.
09:06In yet another twist, third in a row, after Kennedy's assassination, Russell weighed in,
09:11criticizing the makeup of the Warren Commission and its handling of the evidence. In short,
09:15he likened Oswald to the Dreyfus Affair from 1800s France. In other words, he thought Oswald
09:21was a patsy.