JFK, Dick Goodwin, and a speech that would be remembered in history
JAN. 9, 1961
John Kennedy’s first speech as president-elect was scheduled for the Boston State House 11 days before his Washington inauguration. Since Kennedy’s chief speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, was at work on the inaugural, Kennedy tasked his junior speechwriter (and my future husband) Dick Goodwin to begin drafting the Boston speech. By this point, having come through the primaries and the election, Dick had learned to decipher Kennedy’s manner of giving directives, however indirect or roundabout:
“I was always fond of [Abraham] Lincoln’s goodbye to his fellow townsmen in Springfield, Illinois,” Kennedy had remarked. “It’s from his heart, and it’s short. That’s important.”
“But, Dick,” he concluded with a nod and a smile, “less
God.”
Dick set to work reading and rereading Lincoln’s adieu until he had committed it to memory. In the decades that followed, he would often recite Lincoln’s “Farewell Address,” along with choice passages from Shakespeare, Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” with its “shot heard round the world,” “Casey at the Bat,” Edward Lear’s “Owl and the Pussy-cat,” and countless others. Whenever he saw fit, Dick would draw from his wide and eclectic repertoire and declaim in his sonorous voice — whether at the ballpark, on walks with me, at our favorite bar, or simply waking up in our bedroom to greet the day.
“My friends,” Lincoln began from the train platform as he set forth on Feb. 11, 1861, for a 12-day journey to Washington. “No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing, when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail.”
The historian Arthur Schlesinger had forwarded a memo to Kennedy suggesting an excerpt from John Winthrop’s sermon to his shipmates on the flagship “Arabella” as they landed in New England, facing the task of building a new government on a perilous new frontier. “We must always consider that we shall be a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.” These words, “the city upon a hill,” delivered more than three centuries before, are how John Kennedy’s farewell to Massachusetts would be remembered in history.
It was an emotional speech to write. If it was a nostalgic farewell for Kennedy, it was a trip down memory lane for Dick as well. Massachusetts was Dick’s home, the place where he was born, the place he went to college and law school, the place where his mother and brother still lived. Kennedy had often joked with Dick that they were two Brookline boys. Both had deep emotional investments in Massachusetts.
The night before his address to the State House, Kennedy slept in his old apartment on Bowdoin Street where Dick had first met him during the spring of 1958. The tiny apartment — across from the State House and next to the Bellevue Hotel where local politicians gathered — had been Kennedy’s official Boston residence since his first run for Congress 12 years earlier. A kind of introductory interview had been arranged by Sumner Kaplan, the state representative from Brookline who had championed Dick’s first forays into politics during a rent control struggle and a fight to prevent discrimination in local fraternities and sororities.
A few days after this short Bowdoin Street encounter, Dick wrote his best college friend, George Cuomo:
“I recently had an interesting meeting with Senator Kennedy when he was in Boston. He intimated strongly that he would like to have me come to work for him next January after he finishes running for re-election for Senate.
“However, even if he wants me to work — and this is not at all certain — I am not sure. Work for him, no matter how interesting, is bound to be a sort of dead end for one so young.”
“I bet it didn’t seem such a dead end that morning of January 9th,” I remarked.
“Anything but,” Dick said. “I had changed a lot in those last two years and so had he.”
Despite the bitter cold morning, loud hurrahs and screams of hundreds of people greeted Kennedy as he emerged from his apartment at 10 a.m. before crossing the Charles River to attend a meeting of the Harvard Board of Overseers. There, an equally enthusiastic crowd trailed him through Harvard Yard. “Speech, speech,” they cried. Grinning as he climbed the steps to University Hall, Kennedy jested, “I am here to go over your grades with President Nathan Pusey, and I’ll protect your interests.” That touched off an explosion of applause. After lunch with the overseers, Kennedy spent the afternoon at Arthur Schlesinger’s house where he met with a small group of professors.
He then returned to the great domed Bulfinch building for his address to the joint session of the Legislature. Following ancient tradition, two sergeants-at-arms — in frock coats and top hats, carrying white and gold maces, were granted permission from the presiding officer to admit the presidentelect. He had briefly addressed this body only once, 15 years before as a decorated Navy hero, accompanied by his grandfather and the former Boston mayor, John Francis Fitzgerald.
The president-elect was in “a nostalgic mood” as he began his speech. “For 14 years I have placed my confidence in the citizens of Massachusetts. … For 43 years — whether I was in London, Washington, the South Pacific, or elsewhere — this has been my home; and God willing, wherever I serve, this shall remain my home. It was here my grandparents were born — it is here I hope my grandchildren will be born.”
On the draft of the speech, Kennedy had made several annotations, crossing out and inserting new words. Those small changes revealed a huge shift in perspective. They delineate an astute distinction between the days before the election and the day after. No longer was he placing his confidence in the voters, as the draft had read, but rather in the citizens. He was not asking for votes. There were no sides now. We were all working together.
This tribute from a native son produced tumultuous applause in the packed chamber. His delivery barely resembled the clipped voice from the early primaries, and his leisurely pace was not that of the candidate who had raced through his talks as if he were a young student giving a report, anxious to get back to his seat. This was the president-elect returning to his home state, channeling Abraham Lincoln, promising that as he created his new administration, he would be guided by John Winthrop’s recognition that “we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.”
And then he turned to the future, to the hope that when
“the high court of history” came to sit in judgment of his administration, it would note that he had surrounded himself with men of courage, judgment, integrity, and dedication.
“These are the qualities which, with God’s help, this son of Massachusetts hopes will characterize our government’s conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead,” Kennedy concluded. “I ask for your help and your prayers, as I embark on this new and solemn journey.”
Abraham Lincoln never came back to live in Springfield. Nor would John Fitzgerald Kennedy return to reside in Boston.
Excerpted from “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. © 2024 by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All Rights Reserved.