How did the late Arthur Schlesinger view the matter of conspiracy in the JFK assassination?

In 1967 Raymond Marcus, one of the earliest Warren Report critics, had an opportunity to meet Schlesinger in Los Angeles. Schlesinger was in town for an appearance on a local TV talk show. The program's host, whom Marcus had gotten to know, called Marcus to invite him down to the studio.

Marcus had analyzed both the Zapruder film and the Moorman photograph, and believed he could use them to demonstrate there had in fact been a conspiracy. The talk show host, he recalled, "suggested that I bring my photo materials...

"When I arrived I was ushered into a waiting area, and there I spread out some of the Zapruder and Moorman photos on a table." Schlesinger arrived a short time later and the two men were introduced. "Schlesinger glanced at the photos and immediately paled, turned away and said, 'I can't look and I won't look.' That was the end of our meeting."

Thirteen years later, Marcus went on, Schlesinger provided an endorsement for Anthony Summers' book Conspiracy:

One does not have to accept Mr. Summers' conclusions to recognize the significance of the questions raised in this careful and disquieting analysis of the mysteries of Dallas.

(The above account is derived from Addendum B, by Raymond Marcus, p. 64.)

In its December, 1998 issue, Cigar Afficianado magazine featured a cover story by Arthur Schlesinger called "The Truth As I See It," in which the historian sought to refute "the revisionist version of JFK's legacy."

Cigar Afficianado may seem an unlikely forum for a thoughtful defense of the Kennedy presidency. Perhaps to justify the article's presence, the magazine's cover was an oil painting of a reflective, reclining JFK, thick stogie in hand. Accompanying the text were photos of JFK lighting up while watching naval maneuvers off the California coast, and puffing away as he watched a baseball game. Schlesinger noted, in the article's conclusion, that JFK was "never more relaxed than when sitting in his rocking chair and puffing away on a fine Havana cigar." It could also be that Schlesinger enjoyed the odd Cubano, although he was not identified as a smoker in his brief end-credit.

He was, however, identified as a former special assistant to President Kennedy, and therein lay an obvious conflict, which the author sought to defuse: "I make no great claim to impartiality. I served in JFK's White House, and it was the most exhilarating experience of my life ... I may not be totally useless as a witness."

Generally, he was not. Schlesinger cited a variety of polls showing that JFK remained an immensely popular figure, so many years after his death --- less so among historians, but popular still. Yet Schlesinger sought to dispose of the fanciful notion that Kennedy-era Washington was Camelot. "No one when JFK was alive ever spoke of Washington as Camelot --- and if anyone had done so, no one would have been more derisive than JFK. Nor did those of us around him see ourselves for a moment, heaven help us, as knights of the Round Table."

More substantively, Schlesinger took on a number of what he called "myths" about the Kennedy presidency, starting with the 1960 campaign. Citing the allegation that the Kennedys stole the election in Illinois, he wrote that "Illinois was not crucial to Kennedy's victory. Had he lost Illinois, Kennedy still would have won by 276 to 246 in the electoral collage." Furthermore, Schlesinger declared, if there was any vote theft by Democrats in Cook County, Republicans were equally guilty of stealing votes elsewhere in the state.

In the balance of "The Truth As I See It," Schlesinger:

• refuted stories Joseph Kennedy was a bootlegger;

• downplayed stories of JFK's marital infidelities;

• reminded readers that JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs operation and CIA assassination plots against Castro;

• said JFK believed intervention by non-Asian troops in Vietnam meant a "foredoomed failure"; and

• stated that Kennedy was determined to end the Cold War and stop the nuclear arms race.

Schlesinger's article was replete with citations and opinions that second his own. This was not necessarily a good thing; his faith in the sworn testimony of Richard Helms, for example, that Operation Mongoose was "not intended to apply to assassination activity" is mystifying.

Kennedy certainly made mistakes, including the reappointment of J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles. But Schlesinger believed that JFK's achievements were many, though not always quantifiable --- as in his challenge to a new generation to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. The country had seen nothing like it since the New Deal. Kennedy was, Schlesinger concludes, "the best of my generation."