Killing Kennedy

Notable for its headrest among a sea of back-high chairs, this chair is the acknowledged center of power. Bobby Kennedy sits on the far side. Twenty-nine civil rights leaders pack the small room. There aren’t enough chairs. Many are forced to stand along the walls. Left unsaid is that there have never been so many black faces in the Cabinet Room.
    For Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, this is the ideal opportunity to show the gathering just who is boss.
    The vice president does so by speechifying, proving to the civil rights leaders that he is their ally. Lyndon Johnson keeps his mouth shut as often as possible when the president presides over a meeting. It’s his way of keeping a tight rein on his passion for grand speeches. But now that he’s in charge, Johnson rambles on and on about civil rights, an issue for which he has become passionate since his speech in St. Augustine. He followed this up with another address, on Memorial Day, at the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania.

    Bobby Kennedy was the driving force behind the president’s new stance on civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders are shown here with Bobby and the vice president on an official visit to the White House in 1963. (Cecil Stoughton, White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
    That eloquent speech was a triumph. Coming at the end of May, it had the effect of placing Johnson in competition with the Kennedys for leadership on the civil rights issue. Upon his return to Washington, Johnson had begged for “fifteen minutes alone with the president,” in order to build on that success. Kennedy granted that request. Johnson used that time to wedge himself further into the civil rights battle.
    Lyndon Johnson’s long-winded Cabinet Room speech does not please Bobby Kennedy. Civil rights are his issue, and it was largely at his urging that his brother joined the cause. Bobby doesn’t just want Lyndon off civil rights; he wants him out of the White House altogether. With Johnson’s political power in the South rapidly declining, the Kennedys might not need him on the ticket in 1964. There is a good chance they can win the state of California, whose thirty-two electoral votes more than make up for losing the twenty-five that Johnson might have delivered with Texas. There is also growing evidence that Johnson has become so weak in his home state that Texas will be lost, even if LBJ remains on the ticket.
    There is even talk of a Kennedy-Kennedy ticket in 1964.
    So Bobby is fearless as he sits across the Cabinet Room table from Johnson—fearless enough to be rude.
    The attorney general crooks a finger, beckoning Louis Martin, a black newspaper publisher. “I’ve got a date,” he whispers as Martin comes to his side. “Can you tell the vice president to cut it short?”
    Martin is terrified. He knows both men are capable of great rage. Martin diplomatically returns to his place along the wall.
    Bobby doesn’t waste any time. He beckons Martin again. “Didn’t I tell you to tell the vice president to shut up?”
    Now Martin has no choice. He owes Bobby Kennedy a favor—a very big favor. When Louis Martin’s good friend Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed for civil rights demonstrations in 1960, Bobby swung support to King’s cause by placing a sympathetic phone call to the reverend’s wife, Coretta. Of course, that phone call also helped the Kennedys politically, swinging the black vote behind JFK.
    The room is not big enough to hide Martin’s discomfort. It’s obvious to everyone around the table that something is going on. Lyndon Johnson is speaking from his bully pulpit in the chair with the headrest, while Bobby has now twice called the fifty-year-old Martin to his side.
    Martin is held in such high esteem that he will one day be known as “the Godfather of Black Politics.” So this is not a minor underling whom Bobby has summoned. This is a man known to everyone. And the attorney general has clearly whispered some angry words in Louis Martin’s ears.
    Martin carefully maneuvers between the many bodies and chairs. Lyndon Johnson pretends not to notice—even though he’s a man who notices everything.
    Martin is cautious. His progress around the table is not fast, and no one takes his eyes off him.
    Lyndon Johnson is speaking as if nothing odd is happening. It’s true that all eyes are upon him—but only because Louis Martin is finally standing behind