Lincoln and Kennedy

Striking similarities--and fateful parallels--in the lives of two visionary presidents who governed in crises and were struck down at the height of their powers

The Secret Service phoned from Dallas and asked if the President wanted the men to ride the bumpers of the car. Mr. Kennedy, in the Fort Worth hotel, listened to the question and said no, the people would be there to see him and he did not want Secret Service agents crowding the car. He parted the curtains and looked out and up at the morning drizzle.

A moment later, he was chatting with Kenneth O'Donnell, his appointments secretary. Assassination was in his thoughts. After all, he said, anyone who wanted to exchange his life for the President's could do it. No amount of protection could prevent it. The time was 7:30 A.M. on Friday, November 22, 1963. Mr. Kennedy was five hours from being shot in the back of the head.

President Abraham Lincoln left the White House by the west gate with his bodyguard, Major Crook. The sun was down over Lafayette Park. The President walked slowly toward the War Department building and was almost bumped by a group of shouting drunkards. Crook pushed them away.

"Crook," said the President, "do you know, I believe that there are men who want to take my life." He pulled his thick lips into a small smile. "And I have no doubt they will do it." After a moment, Mr. Lincoln said, almost apologetically: "I have perfect confidence in those who are around me. In every one of you men. I know no one could do it and escape alive. But, it it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it."

The time was 4:30 P.M. on Friday, April 14, 1865. Mr. Lincoln was 5 hours and 45 minutes from being shot in the back of the head.

The parallels between the 16th President and the 35th run deep, beyond the credibility of the word coincidence. In some ways the two men walked together in separate centuries; the older man slow and rheumy at 56, sick of the venality of men; the younger one bouncing and buoyant and new to the job, his granite ideals barely chipped by political chisels.

Less than a month before the assassination, I sat with President John F. Kennedy in his office discussing the final research on a small book. He moved a rocker between the sofas flanking the fireplace and propelled it slowly with gleaming black shoes. We talked of many things and I noted that, on Sundays, he attended Mass at one of three churches--St. Matthew's Pro-Cathedral, St. Patrick's and Holy Trinity in Georgetown--and asked how he made his choice.

"Depends on the crowds," he said. "If there is a big crowd at the cathedral, I order the Secret Service to take me to one of the others." He stopped speaking. I waited. He said that he had read a book of mine about the assassination of President Lincoln. This opened the door to the graceless question. "How do you feel about assassination, Mr. President?"

The smile could be translated into a shrug. "It doesn't worry me," he said, glancing at Mrs. Bishop as though to find additional understanding. "A man in this office must develop a philosophy about it. Mine is the same as President Lincoln's--if anyone wants to do it, no amount of protection is enough. All a man needs is a willingness to trade his life for mine."

The tone was too somber for him. The formal smile broadened into a real one. "In church," he said, "I have a little joke. Two Secret Service men are in the pew in front of me at Mass, and two are behind me. When I am ready to leave, we all get out together. As we walk toward the back of the church, two are in front, and two behind." The smile became a sheepish grin. "I keep bending my knees to make myself smaller. When I get way down, I whisper to the men in front: 'If anybody in that choir loft is trying to get me, they're going to have to get you first.' "

Soberly, he admitted that assassination intruded on his thoughts now and then. On the White House bookshelves, the only repeated literary work was not, as might be expected, Profiles in Courage. It was Carl Sandburg's The War Years. There were four sets of the four-volume series. "Bear in mind," Mr. Kennedy said, "that, in Lincoln's case, fifty-odd coincidences had to occur in sequence. If any of them had not occurred, there would have been no assassination."

The young man seemed to be trying to erase some inner fear; he was selling himself--rather than me--that assassination was difficult. And yet, 28 days later he was hit as casually as a boy might shoot a tin can in an empty lot. The only coincidence necessary was a Presidential order keeping a Secret Service man off the right rear bumper. The man's figure would have screened President Kennedy.

When I sat at a typewriter and ticked off similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy that came immediately to mind, I found I could write about the two Presidents as if they were one man:

"He was in the fruitful middle years when the end came. His heart's desire was to be known as the President who brought peace. He didn't live to achieve it.

"The First Lady had four pregnancies. Two children survived. The President enjoyed the innocent affection of the younger child. The President's wife was fashionable but restive in the White House. She appreciated poetry and music and the company of a small circle of friends. She was suspicious of politicians. Often, she fought her husband to maintain a family life.

"The President consulted the Bible frequently. He could quote from the Old Testament as well as the New. He had strong private feelings about God, and he bristled when these feelings were questioned.

"He was an omnivorous reader until he assumed office. Then he gave up the reading of good books, except those which anesthetized travel time. He devoted most of his reading time to newspapers, and was grievously hurt by what he called 'unjust criticism.'

"His political program was blocked by members of his party. The support he needed came from a coalition of liberal wings. He began his term certain that he could persuade the Congress because he had been a member. After the first year, the President was equally certain that the strong right wings of both parties would sabotage his program.

"In public, he had patience. In private, he displayed petty pique. He saw his own image as a political realist and logician when, in truth, he was an idealist opposed by realists. At his desk he ascribed mean motives to his enemies. Sometimes he wondered why anyone would want to be President.

"He never courted the opinions of his Vice-President and seldom invited him to Cabinet meetings. He was chronically aggravated by the petty politicians who asked for a minute of his time and stayed for 30.

"He was a spare eater who enjoyed plain food. In social matters, he catered to the whims of his wife. In private, he enjoyed a funny story and was not averse to a sexy one. He had an old friend at hand who could always lift his mood with a story. He expected everyone except his wife and children to address him as 'Mr. President.'

"Death came to the President on Friday. The assassin was a political malcontent. The bullet smashed through the back of the President's head. It occurred when the President's popularity was at its zenith. The First Lady was at the President's side when it happened. She diluted her natural grief with undying bitterness. Her husband was succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson."

Lincoln and Kennedy, a century apart, were elected to Congress in '46. Exactly 14 years later, each was elected President. In the campaign, Lincoln debated the issues with Stephen A. Douglas. There were no more such historic debates until John F. Kennedy debated the issues with Vice-President Nixon.

When Lincoln took office in 1861, the person who worried most about his safety was John Kennedy, Superintendent of Police of the City of New York. When John Kennedy became President in 1961, the person who worried most about his safety was his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln.

John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theater. Lee Harvey Oswald was captured in a theater. Both assassins were shot to death before trial. In both cases, the press cast doubt on the assassination; in Lincoln's case they hinted that leaders of the defeated South were behind the plot; when Kennedy died, the press involved the leaders of the Soviet Union.

When Lincoln was buried, his son Robert moved to 3014 N Street, in Georgetown. When Kennedy was buried, his son, John, lived at 3014 N Street in Georgetown. Both widows declined, with thanks, all invitations to the White House. Both could speak French.

Both Presidents will go down in history as champions of the rights of the American Negro. Yet both men were reluctant to face the problem. When serving as Congressmen, neither man uttered a historic cry for freedom of the Negro, but both in time were swept by a tide of public opinion toward strong actions against the South.

Once committed, however, neither President retreated from his position, and both were plagued with it to the end of their days. Lincoln's pre-Presidential feelings are best summed up in a letter he wrote to Congressman John Gilmer of North Carolina: "I have no thought of recommending the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, nor the slave trade among the slave states ... I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation."

He was promising that the status would remain quo. Before John F. Kennedy assumed high office, the May 1954 decision of the Supreme Court that the Negro was entitled, under law, to equal rights--not equal and separate rights--in schools, public conveyances, public houses and interstate commerce had reverberated like an echoing clap of thunder across the nation and men everywhere began to take positive stands for or against, but John F. Kennedy saw the situation as a political liability either way. As the junior Senator from Massachusetts, he could have graced the meetings and marches of those who shouted for "Freedom now," but he didn't.

In 1955, his eye was on Estes Kefauver, Democratic Party favorite for nomination the following year as Vice-President. John Kennedy was out to beat him, and almost did. Four years later, Kennedy was after the Presidential nomination, and he needed the South.

In November 1960, he was shocked to find that he had barely beaten Richard Nixon for the Presidency. It was, he admitted, "a squeaker." Less than 12,000 properly placed votes, out of almost 70,000,000 cast, would have defeated him. A year later, he was being called a minority President because he had lost the endorsement of the Democratic right wing. He did not like the tag, but suffered it in silence.

Lincoln, saddled with the same political contempt, said to Congressman Charles Morehead of Kentucky: "If I am a minority President, I am not the first. At all events, I obtained more votes than you could muster for any other man." Both Presidents learned that there is one virtue in being a minority President: One can afford strong stands on public questions because they quickly divide the friends from the enemies and move the doubters into one camp or the other.

Lincoln became the friend of the Negro and, in 1863, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves and placed the power of the Federal Government behind them. When civil strife became inevitable in 1963, Kennedy placed the power of the Federal Government behind the Negro and urged his brother Robert, then Attorney General, to fight for civil rights everywhere they appeared to be abrogated.

Both men had personal courage. Both saw military service: Lincoln in the Black Hawk War and Kennedy in World War Two. Lincoln was aware that Washington was a "secesh" town and that a great number of people despised him and that some plotted against his life. Still, he never canceled a public appearance after he assumed office.

More than a century later, President Kennedy was conscious of personal danger in visiting Dallas. He knew that Adlai Stevenson had been spat on there and struck with a placard. He also knew that General Walker had been shot at while working in his home in Dallas. Still, he was impelled to go.

The courage that both men showed in fulfilling the demands of their office was undeniable. Kennedy, in the fall of '62, walking the tightrope over the abyss of nuclear war, sifted methodically through the advice offered by his military and political advisors on the best course of action against the Soviet's Cuban missiles, discarded one as too rash, another as too indecisive, then calmly but firmly instituted the quarantine, set our conditions for peace and gave Chairman Khrushchev the opportunity to pull his country back from the brink. At the end of the crisis, Kennedy, showing no outward signs of stress, sincerely but unemotionally thanked the members of his staff (concluded on page 250)Lincoln and Kennedy(continued from page 114) for their work and rejoined his family. And Lincoln, at the height of the carnage in his country's bloody internal conflict, had the courage of his convictions and maintained U. S. Grant as a military leader in the face of Congressional and public cries for his dismissal.

Had Lincoln and Kennedy been contemporaries, they would have enjoyed each other's company--despite their disparate backgrounds--not only for the ideals and humane qualities they shared, but for matching senses of humor. Both found it easy to lean back and laugh heartily. Both were clever at honing their wits on others. Lincoln, fitting his era, told apocryphal stories; Kennedy's wit had the flash of an Irish saber.

One of Lincoln's favorites was about the days whe he practiced law on the Sangamon County circuit. He had to follow a certain acidulous judge from town to town, trying small cases. It seemed as though the judge delighted in finding against Lincoln's clients.

On an afternoon when court adjourned, the judge leaned down from the bench and said that he was afraid that Mr. Lincoln did not trust him. Other attorneys, packing briefs, paused to listen. Lincoln protested that there were few men he trusted more than the judge. "In that case," said the magistrate, "you can prove it tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. You and I will trade horses sight unseen in front of the courthouse."

The listening lawyers howled with laughter. Young Lincoln had been cleverly trapped. In the morning, the wooden sidewalk in front of the court was jammed with lawyers and court attendants waiting to see the Springfield lawyer fleeced. The judge came from one end of the street, towing a wind-sucking sway-backed horse.

Lincoln came from the other direction, coattails flapping, long feet lifting and falling slowly, carrying a carpenter's horse across his shoulders. In front of the court, he handed the wooden horse to the judge, took the bridle reins, and said: "Your honor, this is the first time I've been beaten in a horse trade."

Now and then, he could make his point succinctly. When a constituent asked for a military pass to Richmond, Virginia. Lincoln said: "My dear sir, it would do you no good. I have given General McClellan's Army more than 200,000 of them and not a single one of 'em has got there yet."

Kennedy, who stuttered when he ran for Congress in 1946, became a polished wit by 1960. At the Alfred E. Smith dinner that year, he noted the presence of political enemies:

"Cardinal Spellman," he said, "is the only man so widely respected in American politics that he could bring together, amicably, at the same banquet table, for the first time in this campaign, two political leaders ... who have long eyed each other suspiciously, and who have disagreed so strongly, both publicly and privately--Vice-President Nixon and Governor Rockefeller."

Five days later, in Chicago, he referred to the Nixon-Kennedy debates: "A good deal of comparison," he said, "and most of it unfavorable, is drawn between the Lincoln-Douglas debates and my weekly appearance on 'What's Our Line?' "

Kennedy had a Gaelic appreciation of the ridiculous. When a small boy asked: "Mr. President, how did you become a war hero?" Kennedy said gravely: "It was absolutely involuntary. They sank my boat."

There were bitter moments, too, and in these Kennedy was closer to Lincoln than he knew. Several times, the young man scowled, bounced a pen off a blotter and said: "Anyone who thinks he can do this job better is welcome to it." Almost a hundred years earlier, Lincoln said to his friend Ward Hill Lamon: "In God's name! If anyone can do better in my place than I have done, let him try his hand at it and no one will be better contented than myself."

They had lofty ideals, inner eloquence and goals. Most Presidents assume the office of Chief Executive with many goals. Lincoln and Kennedy each had two, and they were identical: peace at home; peace abroad. Both understood that, in war, there are no true winners and that men's minds cannot be changed at the point of a bayonet. Each believed that men could be persuaded to lay down their arms forever.

Lincoln and Kennedy found that good will and logic are not enough. Each faced internal convulsion and external threat. Each was called "radical" by the far right and lost all support from that direction early. The 16th President faced a long and enervating Civil War and the threat from European nations--mainly Great Britain--to become embroiled on the side of the South. Kennedy faced an ever-growing civil rights crisis from within and the bloodletting small chronic wars from the East.

Neither man lived to see a true peace anywhere. Lincoln died in the bitter knowledge that, although the War closed with victory, the South would not forgive him for having won it. Kennedy died knowing that the civil rights fight had passed from the control of the courts to street fights, billy clubs and protest marches. He thought he had gained the lead in the fight for understanding, from 1961 on; later, he was dismayed and shocked at the enduring hatred of man for man. At Vienna, he thought he might come to a friendly agreement with the Russians, and thus bring an easing of tensions in the world at large. Instead, the Russians shot Kennedy's hopes from under him.

The worlds of Lincoln and Kennedy appeared to lack men of good will. Sometimes the words they spoke were words of men who weep inwardly. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds ... " And the young one, consciously etching an inscription on a future monument: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." Mr. Kennedy's personal credo, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going," found no subscribers at all, except on the team he quarterbacked.

The final words of these men had no special import, except to show that they did not know they were last words. Lincoln, holding his wife's hand in the box at Ford's Theater, heard her say: "What will Miss Harris [Senator Harris' daughter, who was in the box with them] think of my hanging onto you so?"

The President conveyed his fondness in a glance and said: "She will think nothing of it."

Then followed the unconscious voyage toward eternity. As Lincoln lay dying in the Petersen House, his wife was escorted from the room.

President Kennedy was concluding a motorcade through Dallas. The wife of Governor Connally, sitting forward and diagonally to the left of the President, noted the applause and waving from the crowd along the curb. "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," she said. He glanced at her, still waving, and said, "That is very obvious."

Suddenly, a bullet exploded into the great intelligent head and all thoughts, all ideals were done. As he lay dying in Parkland Hospital, his wife was escorted from the room.

The next morning at the White House, the final parallel occurred. Little John ran out on the front porch and a Secret Service agent snagged his wrist. "What's the matter?" the Secret Service man said. "Well," said John, pouting: "some bad man shot my father." He looked up perplexed. "Why isn't he here to tell me about it?"

On a similar Saturday in 1865, cold rain fingered the gaunt black oaks on the White House lawn. The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, stepped inside and shook the rain from his hat. The President's young son Tad was coming down the staircase. "Mr. Welles," he said with strained dignity, "who killed my father?"

Kennedy, in death, rested on Lincoln's catafalque.