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Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-RFK-01
In this interview Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] discusses beginning John F. Kennedy's [JFK] presidential Administration with no political obligations; carefully picking Cabinet members, specifically Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury; RFK’s decision on what role to play in JFK’s Administration; JFK’s unhappiness with Dean Rusk as Secretary of State; JFK’s advisers and other presidential appointments; Cabinet meetings; Department of Justice organization under RFK; the first 100 days of the Kennedy Administration; the role of the Vice President, according to RFK; JFK’s relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson and why JFK put Johnson on the ticket in 1960; what JFK was most concerned with as President; domestic programs versus foreign affairs in the Kennedy Administration; Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.’s role during JFK’s presidency; the Bay of Pigs, the aftermath, and its effect on JFK; how JFK approached problems as President; dealing with Georgi Bolshakov; negotiating with the Soviet Union in Vienna, over Laos and Cuba, etc.; JFK’s relationship with foreign heads of state; State Department staff and U.S. Ambassadors; the military coup in Vietnam; the Berlin crisis of the summer of 1961 and the Berlin Wall; RFK’s 1961 trip to the Ivory Coast; and Soviet and American nuclear testing, among other issues.
Photograph
Burke Marshall Personal Papers
BMPP-037-006-p0011
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy holds a press conference in his office upon signing the Treaty of Cambridge, an agreement between civil rights activists and city leaders to end segregation and put an end to violence in Cambridge, Maryland. (L-R, seated) Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Burke Marshall; Attorney General of Maryland Thomas B. Finan; civil rights activist Gloria Richardson; Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; and Mayor of Cambridge Calvin W. Mowbray. (L-R, standing) Unidentified man (with bow tie); Dr. Arthur S. Parker, Cambridge City Commissioner; Charles Awdry Thompson, counsel for Commissioners of Cambridge; and Reginald Robinson, field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Photograph
Burke Marshall Personal Papers
BMPP-037-006-p0010
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy holds a press conference in his office upon signing the Treaty of Cambridge, an agreement between civil rights activists and city leaders to end segregation and put an end to violence in Cambridge, Maryland. (L-R, seated) Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Burke Marshall; Attorney General of Maryland Thomas B. Finan; civil rights activist Gloria Richardson; Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; and Mayor of Cambridge Calvin W. Mowbray. (L-R, standing) Unidentified man (with bow tie); Dr. Arthur S. Parker, Cambridge City Commissioner; Charles Awdry Thompson, counsel for Commissioners of Cambridge; and Reginald Robinson, field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).