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“Journals: 1952–2000,”
by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Ed. Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger.
Penguin, 2007, 908 pages.
Survival After Death? by Robert Watts Lamon
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917–2007), is a name I first heard and read about in the '50s, when he was a liberal bete noir of the early editors of National Review. I read two volumes of his "Age of Roosevelt," never realizing that they were the frog kicks that kept him financially afloat in the brisk stream of elite-liberal social life. This tidbit and a sea of such minutiae, along with passing comments on issues and events, are contained in Schlesinger's "Journals," a book noteworthy for the string of famous names that runs through it like Rapunzel's hair.
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Robert Watts Lamon is an army veteran and retired research chemist.
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Well educated and with a famous father, Schlesinger entered the halls of power — there's a swinging door for Harvard graduates — which led, at length, to a multiplicity of social attachments and luncheons, dinners, and parties, including the famous Kennedy affairs in which people leaped fully clothed into the swimming pool. Apparently, Schlesinger delighted in these saturnalias. The Kennedys took him into their circle and Adlai Stevenson into his, and he got to know Mick Jagger, Averell Harriman, Pamela Harriman, Joe Alsop, McGeorge Bundy, Antonia Fraser, George Kennan, Jean Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Yakov Malik, Margaret Thatcher, Diana Trilling, Marietta Tree, and so on, and on, and on. So great were his social entanglements that he was never able to complete the final volume of his series on FDR and the New Deal. He preferred the best food and a good supply of strong drink. He hated curry and denounced it tactlessly, and his drinking included a routine lunchtime martini — the Century Club's were hefty — and bourbon before dinner. Amazing that elite drinkers are so long-lived.
Like his hero, Franklin Roosevelt, he preferred the company of women. Toward conservative women — such as Peggy Noonan, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and, yes, the lioness Margaret Thatcher — he was forgiving. Toward conservative men, he was frequently harsh in his judgments, to the point of irrationality. He was likely to find liberal men intelligent, entertaining, with a grasp of the issues; he reserved his bile for neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz and Charles Krauthammer. As for his Harvard '38 classmate, Cap Weinberger: "he had the quiet lucidity of a madman." There were exceptions, one of whom was William F. Buckley, Jr., whose wit and learning matched his own. Another was George Will, an "affirmative government conservative" and hence acceptable. Still, the author of "Journals" liked to repeat stories of Ronald Reagan's supposed goofiness and tendency to bore, even as he treated George Kennan with near reverence. But in the end, it was President Reagan who rescued the West from the fear and uncertainty promoted by the Kennans and the Schlesingers. On this point, Peter Schweizer's book ("Reagan's War," Doubleday, 2002) is worth reading.
Henry Kissinger is often mentioned in "Journals." Schlesinger was his apparent confidant, especially on the subject of Richard Nixon. Kissinger confides that Nixon was "both more evil and
better than people suppose," and further describes him as lazy and weird, but not weak. More: Nixon lied "without point or purpose." Yet the author worries about Kissinger's duplicity: "I cannot rid myself of the fear that he says one sort of thing to me and another sort of thing to, say, Bill Buckley." Kissinger mentions the need to preserve institutional authority. "Lugubrious ruminations," says Schlesinger, "Teutonic habits of thought."
Schlesinger takes out against Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial"; his friend Marlene Dietrich thought it was a Nazi play. Actually, it was a very fine representation of the conflict between an officer's duty to rank and precedence and his immediate responsibilities to an endangered ship and crew. Schlesinger is partial to the character Tom Keefer, writer, intellectual, and
officer-for-the-duration-of-the-war, who, on the witness stand, backs down rather than defend his own opinions. In the end, the defense counsel, Barney Greenwald, throws a drink in Keefer's face. Odd that Schlesinger should side with the craven intellectual, and show no sympathy for the broken old sailor, Queeg.
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Schlesinger entered the halls of power — there’s a swinging door for Harvard graduates.
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I noticed, with a kind of nostalgia, that Schlesinger uses the word "democracy" in the same way that conservatives and libertarians use "freedom" and "liberty." Apparently, he saw majorities as naturally infused with divine wisdom — a common attitude among campus liberals in the 1950s. Indeed, "Journals" effulges with the '50s pragmatic liberalism that radiated from Harvard like a death ray. But pragmatic solutions to whatever the liberals labeled as problems had a way of making things worse, despite the fact that they had at least the tacit approval of the majority of American voters.
The Bay of Pigs fiasco, which Schlesinger dwells on, was a bizarre example of both the pragmatic liberal mind at work and of the way in which government solutions emit unintended consequences like so many neutrons. It was a patchwork operation, relying on rusty old tubs, obsolete aircraft, and a vastly undermanned, underequipped assault force. The idea that the Cuban people would rush to support the landing brigade was a delusion. Castro knew the invasion was coming and rounded up people of questionable loyalty to himself. Once ashore, the Cuban exiles fought with great courage and skill and, man for man, were better fighters than Castro's militia. They deserved better than they got from Washington.
The new Kennedy administration wanted the operation to defeat Castro but also wanted to conceal its American support. It failed to achieve either objective. As James Burnham points out, the operation "used just enough force to assure the worst possible result from all points of view." "Liberalism," Burnham concludes, "is the ideology of Western suicide."
Indeed our foreign policy remained in the hands of nuts-and-bolts pragmatists, as half of Europe and all of China were lost, and our sworn enemies infested the Third World. Schlesinger quotes pragmatic liberal Clark Clifford: "Every other President has tried at some point to get along with the Soviet Union. This President [i.e., Reagan] has chosen not to get along with the Soviet Union." As Peggy Noonan might say — that was Reagan's secret.
But "Journals" seldom comments at length on the issues. Its tone is chatty, and its commentary more casual than detailed. Although Schlesinger resented the post-mortem gossip about President Kennedy, the sales of "Journals" will likely derive from the same curiosities that were fed by Ben Bradlee and Seymour Hersh. The Schlesinger gossip is relatively tame, although it occasionally startles, as when he reveals Adlai Stevenson's delight at the death of President Kennedy. Startling, too, but not surprising, are the insults hurled at Attorney General Robert Kennedy by James Baldwin, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, and their associates. The adulterous habits of Nelson Rockefeller are far more sad than interesting.
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Schlesinger was likely to find liberal men intelligent, entertaining, with a grasp of the issues; he reserved his bile for neoconservatives.
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Given the tenor of "Journals," the author's omissions are curious. Perhaps he was too gallant to mention the strange case of Mary Pinchot Meyer and too much a friend to mention Philip Graham's ordeal prior to his suicide.
Mary Meyer was an elite Leftist, a follower of Timothy Leary, and the ex-wife of a CIA official. She was also the mistress of President Kennedy at the time of his death. Eleven months later, on Oct. 12, 1964, while walking along an old towpath in Georgetown, she was shot to death. The murder remains a mystery and the source of predictable speculation.
Phil Graham was married to Katharine Graham and became President and CEO of the Washington Post. Given to strong drink and mood swings, he took a mistress to an editors' convention, uttered provocative words there, and, in the process, revealed the affair between Mary Meyer and JFK. For such conduct, he was bound in a straitjacket and hauled off to a psychiatric hospital. Thus we treat unhappiness. On Aug. 3, 1963, after his release for good behavior, he took his own life with a small-bore shotgun.
Certainly, as history, the Mary Meyer and Phil Graham cases are far more interesting than Cy Coleman's opinion on the Gulf War, which, for some reason, the author (or his editors) chose to include.
Schlesinger does mention Jacqueline Kennedy's evaluation of Richard Nixon — "that scurvy little thing." Nixon is a persistent villain in "Journals," and his faux pas are always fair game. At de Gaulle's funeral, did he really say, "This is a great day for France"? As the author's new neighbor in New York City, Nixon was worthy only of scorn, rather than a courteous welcome and a handshake. Perhaps the author's Kennedy friends had tied his hands.
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Apparently, he saw majorities as naturally infused with divine wisdom — a common attitude among campus liberals in the 1950s.
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Even Nixon's greatest claim to achievement — the opening of Communist China — is denied him. The two Communist powers, China and the USSR, had separated for their own reasons, "Journals" informs us; the United States had nothing to do with it. But didn't Nixon's pilgrimage widen the schism and use it to our advantage? For some years, the Soviets and the Communist Chinese had differed over the proper posture to take toward the Free World. China under Mao Tse-Tung was actually the more bellicose. In light of this, Nixon's accomplishment becomes obvious. In a moment, he transformed our most determined enemy into a nation leaning away from the Soviets, with a tilt toward the West.
Nixon was a poor man's son. I suspect this led to the awkwardness he displayed in the sophisticated world in which he later traveled. And he lost two brothers to tuberculosis. TB is a demon that never stops pursuing the family it strikes, and it likely added to his sense of isolation. He was shy, introverted, yet he forced himself into public view, even in college, and eventually sought the most public job on earth. I've often wondered about Nixon's struggles, about how he must have steeled himself every day of his political life. By comparison, Schlesinger's life was only semi-public, a life among the educated elite begun under his father's tutelage. He was, to a degree, sheltered by the regiment of prominent people who were his friends.
He was a whisperer to the political horses of modern liberalism, especially to the Kennedys, who remained the great white hope of American liberals until the Chappaquiddick disaster dimmed, though didn't quite extinguish, the Kennedy glow. Ted Kennedy ran dutifully for president, even though it was clear that the incident at Dike Bridge had made victory impossible. He was nudged along by the Kennedy entourage and certainly shared their snobbish disdain for Jimmy Carter. Carter appeared too conservative and was one of those "Southern bastards." Odd that Jacqueline, who had predicted Robert Kennedy's death when he ran for president, should have been "rather thrilled" by Ted Kennedy's challenge to Carter.
Speaking of attacks on men's lives, Schlesinger manifests his anti-conservative bias in his response to the assassination attempt against President Reagan: "I could care less about Reagan and am sure Bush would make a better president, but the whole business rekindled old emotions and left me surprisingly upset." Surprisingly upset? By the shooting of President Reagan? Perhaps we should be grateful for such civilized emotions, even though they took him by surprise.
Inevitably, "Journals" takes us through the dreary debate over the Vietnam War. Schlesinger, a McGovernite dove, describes Ralph Ellison's complaints about being isolated for his hawkish position on the war. In her book "Innocents of the West," Joan Colebrook details the isolation of James T. Farrell, who believed our victory in Vietnam was essential. It may be that the elite Left wasn't granting its dissidents the same tolerance it granted to any hooligan who kicked in a storefront window.
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The Schlesinger gossip occasionally startles, as when he reveals Adlai Stevenson’s delight at the death of President Kennedy.
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Schlesinger reveals that Sen. J. William Fulbright — an early opponent of the war — was President Kennedy's first choice for secretary of state. But as a Southern segregationist, he could have, as a nominee, excited black and Jewish opposition. Adlai Stevenson, who wanted to be secretary of state more than he wanted to be president, was rejected as too controversial. And so, Dean Rusk assumed the office and during his long tenure, with its endless war and endless promises of victory, became a chief villain to the doves. Half a war was worse than none.
I suppose that, with all his credentials, awards, enormous writer's oeuvre, and wide circle of friends, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., spent much of his life missing the point. He certainly overestimated the stability of the Soviet Union. His deeper thinking, when it wasn't wrong, produced little that didn't arise from the obvious flow of events. The same can be said for his friend and Harvard colleague, John Kenneth Galbraith, who extended pragmatic liberalism to the point of Saint-Simonianism.
As to Schlesinger's justification for welfare — "the price we pay for social peace" — it's just plain nonsense. Paying people to be poor produced an enormous underclass, whose warrens became oceans of unrest, especially during that "slum of a decade," the '60s. When President Clinton signed the Republican welfare bill in 1996, he was simply acquiescing to the public mood, as expressed in the 1994 elections and, to a degree, created by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Wasn't the Clinton signing an example of democracy as Schlesinger himself envisioned it?
"Journals" will appeal to New York's elite society and its buffs, the Vanity Fair readership, and their Washington counterparts. (They should beware the typos in the hardcover edition — perhaps the price of rushing a timely book into print.)
P.J. O'Rourke sees the book as on its way to being forgotten, along with its author, but his witty review for the Weekly Standard may underestimate both. The Schlesinger series on Roosevelt may well remain an important contribution to historiography and to letters. And "Journals" should thrill those who remain nostalgic for the days when the Kennedys were America's royal family, and statist liberalism was its political cynosure.
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