Historian who made history
V. GANGADHAR
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Harvard historian and Kennedy insider Arthur Schlesinger (Jr.) will be remembered for probing the role of intellectuals in American politics.
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The book was not just a political and personal memoir; it was a fascinating study on whether intellectuals and liberals were finally able to play a role in American politics.
Photo: Bloomberg News
Great scholar: Arthur Sclesigner (Jr.).
AS a college student in 1965, I paid Rs. 10 for a special paperback edition of Arthur Schlesinger's personal memoirs, A Thousand Days. President Kennedy encouraged Schlesinger to keep detailed notes on various aspects of his administration, which formed the basis for the 830-page volume.
Schlesinger followed modern American politics rather than ancient history. He produced exhaustive books on two prominent U.S. presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Thousand Days, which won Schlesinger a Pulitzer and the National Book award, was different. He was close to the then President, watched how power functioned from within and played a key role in certain major decisions of the Kennedy administration. He won yet another National Book award for The Life and Times of Robert Kennedy.
Those heady days
The JFK era was different. After eight drab years of the Eisenhower-Republican administration, the U.S. was rejuvenated with the magnetic presence of John Kennedy who promised much. A Thousand Days recounts those heady days, the promises, the frustrations and the failures. The book was not just a political and personal memoir; it was a fascinating study on whether intellectuals and liberals were finally able to play a role in American politics.
Throughout the book, the author's frustration over the President's inability to assert himself is apparent. Schlesinger earlier supported Adlai Stevenson in his unsuccessful bids to the presidency in 1952 and 1956 and again in 1960. But the mood had changed. Adlai was past 70 and the younger generation that could now vote wanted a younger candidate. Roped in by Kennedy to woo American liberals and campus intellectuals, Schlesinger shared the national disillusionment over Stevenson.
The historian found several things unique about Kennedy; even his reading was unconventional. JFK admired Norman Mailer's Deer Park, not the more popular Naked and the Dead, and preferred James Michener's Fires of Spring to Tales of the South Pacific. This must have whetted Schlesinger's intellectual curiosity.
Once campaigning was over and election results announced, Schlesinger found himself at the White House along with intellectuals like Ted Sorensen to work closely with the President whose first job was to fill the 1,200 key vacancies. Here too, JFK's approach was unique, he did not bother if a candidate was a Republican or a Democrat. "Is he able?" was his first question.
Disappointments
It was not always easy to get the right man for the right job. Schlesinger did not hide his disappointment over Dean Rusk's appointment as Secretary of State. Even the diehard liberal, Adlai Stevenson, was not the proper choice as U.S. ambassador to the UN because he often failed to carry the allies with him. Though Schlesinger played a key role in foreign affairs, he was among the few dissenters on the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco where the CIA, the FBI and the Joint Chief of Staff misguided the president in the ill-planned invasion of Cuba. JFK failed in his judgment, says the historian, because he was still new in his job: just 77 days.
Over the next many months, as the U.S. dealt with problems in Latin America, Asia and Africa, Schlesinger found the approach immature, wrong and guided by pre-conceived notions. It is easy to detect Schlesinger's frustrations as the U.S. administration favoured unpopular leaders like Diem of South Vietnam, Tshombe of Katanga and the generals in Thailand, ignoring the more popular leaders like Indonesia's Sukarno, Congo's Lumumba and Egypt's Nasser because of their so-called affinity towards Moscow.
Interesting comments
Schlesinger's more interesting comments concerned India and Nehru. It was a pity, he says, that Nehru considered Kennedy to be immature and appeared bored in his presence. Kennedy discovered Nehru often tapping his fingers on the desk and looking up at the ceiling, clearly indications of boredom. The ill-planned attack of the `liberation' of Goa by the U.S. in the United Nations did not help matters either. Why should the U.S., the champion of democracy, oppose the liberation of a colony from Portuguese dictatorship? Schlesinger did not have any answers in the book. The US-USSR confrontation over Berlin in Europe, the Cuban missile crisis and the White House irritation over the stand taken by French president General De Gaulle on the nuclear test ban issues, are other highlights of the book.
Schlesinger was a great scholar, but his books made easy and compelling reading and are ideal references for serious students of political science.
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