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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 folder
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-1963-06-12-A
AR38, ST25
Photograph
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-AR7970-J
President John F. Kennedy (at microphones) delivers remarks at the presentation ceremony of the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service. Standing to the right of President Kennedy (left to right): Chairman of the Distinguished Civilian Awards Board and Under Secretary of State, George Ball; member of the Awards Board and Deputy Secretary of Defense, Roswell L. Gilpatric; Executive Secretary of the Awards Board and Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, John W. Macy, Jr. Standing in the background (left to right): award recipient and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, Dr. Alain C. Enthoven; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara; award recipient and Deputy Commandant for Foreign Affairs of the National War College, Ambassador Winthrop G. Brown; award recipient and Associate Administrator of the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Sherman E. Johnson (in back, mostly hidden); unidentified; award recipient and Director of Air Traffic Service for the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), David D. Thomas; Secretary of State, Dean Rusk (partially hidden); Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Leonard Carmichael (in back); Military Aide to the President, General Chester V. Clifton; Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, W. Averell Harriman. Rose Garden, White House, Washington, D.C.