History with David Rubenstein

(theme music plays) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubenstein.

And I'm gonna be in conversation today with Fredrik Logevall, who is a professor of history and international affairs at Harvard University.

Uh, we're gonna talk about his new biography of President John F. Kennedy.

He has published the first volume; he's about to finish the second volume.

And we'll talk about both volumes.

Uh, we are coming to you from the Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New-York Historical Society.

So thank you very much for being in conversation with us today.

LOGEVALL: I'm delighted to be with you.

RUBENSTEIN: So let's talk about the beginning; like, everyone's familiar with, Joe Kennedy made a fair amount of money; maybe one of the 10 richest people in the United States and so forth... LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: He had how many children?

LOGEVALL: Nine.

RUBENSTEIN: And, uh, how many boys did he have?

LOGEVALL: He had, Joe Jr., Jack, Bobby, and Ted.

RUBENSTEIN: So, when John Kennedy is, uh, in college, um, the role model is his older brother, Joe Kennedy Jr. LOGEVALL: Yes.

RUBENSTEIN: He's a better athlete, he's better looking, he's smarter.

Uh, did that give John Kennedy a sense of, "I'm not gonna be able to do much in life, because everything is gonna f, focus around my brother"?

LOGEVALL: Yeah, I actually don't think he was smarter.

I think that the more, uh, the more intellectually gifted of the two was Jack.

Uh, but you're right: he was in his brother's shadow, really, until Joe Jr.'s death, really, in 1944.

RUBENSTEIN: And, growing up, uh, he wasn't that close to Robert Kennedy because Robert Kennedy was much younger... LOGEVALL: Eight-and-a-half year difference.

RUBENSTEIN: So, they were not really in the same... LOGEVALL: No.

RUBENSTEIN: Social circles.

LOGEVALL: Un, until they traveled together to, uh, to the Far East, uh, in 1951, when Jack is getting ready to run for the Senate.

I think it's really the first time... hard to believe now... but, that Bobby and Jack spend serious time together.

RUBENSTEIN: So, World War II, uh, kind of breaks out.

Uh, and, uh, John Kennedy wants, like most people of his age, and, uh, uh, at that time, wanted to go into the war.

Was it easy for him to get into the military service?

LOGEVALL: No.

No, it was because of his health problems.

Uh, he was turned down, uh, on account of his back.

The Army, the Navy, uh, wouldn't take him.

Uh, and he eventually lands a desk job in Naval Intelligence in Washington.

And so right as Pearl Harbor's happening, that's Jack's position.

Um, he's not i, in harm's way, but he continues to work hard to get into harm's way, which is an interesting part of the story.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, he finds his way to the South Pacific, and he becomes, uh, the commander of a PT boat.

What is a PT boat?

LOGEVALL: It's a, it's a torpedo boat.

It's a small, nimble vessel, not particularly useful actually as a, as a, as a military, um, instrument, if you will.

But it, it, it had flair.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, famously, PT-109 was cut in half by a Japanese ship.

Um, some people say, "Well, how can you be the commander of, of-" LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: "PT-109, and not know a Japanese ship's about to, uh, cut you in half?"

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: What's the reason for, uh, that?

LOGEVALL: Well, I think it's, it's a, it's a moonless night.

His boat did not have radar.

Some of the other boats in the squadron did have radar.

Jack Kennedy's did not.

Uh, and as a result, when this, this, uh, almost like a skyscraper, comes along, uh, and is bearing down on his boat, he doesn't have enough time to evade.

Miraculously, only two crew members died.

Uh, and the rest of them are now left there, sitting there, and they have to decide what to do.

RUBENSTEIN: So famously, he takes a, one of the, uh, crew members on a, effect on his back, and swims several miles; I forget exactly how many miles it was; to an island.

And famously, they were later rescued.

Uh, he goes back to the, to the, uh, continental United States, uh, John Kennedy... LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: And recovers.

But does he go back in the service?

Or what does he do?

LOGEVALL: Not in terms of active service.

Uh, and he's ultimately, uh, discharged.

By the way, we should note; and this helps him in terms of his political career; um, he is called a hero for those efforts in helping to save his crew.

All over the newspapers in the United States.

I think that story, PT-109, will be very important in his political rise.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, there's a congressional seat, uh, in Boston.

LOGEVALL: Yep.

RUBENSTEIN: Cambridge is part of it.

Uh, later, Tip O'Neill, uh, had that seat.

LOGEVALL: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, so somebody decides, "This is a good seat for John Kennedy."

Does he reluctantly say "Yes, I'll get in the race"?

Or does he say, "Yes, I want to do it"?

LOGEVALL: I think it's more of the latter.

I think he is, he is a little uncertain about his prospects.

He, I think, was always his own best critic.

And I think he said, "Okay.

I don't have any political experience.

I don't really know what I'm doing as a candidate.

People will say that I'm a carpetbagger, because I actually haven't lived, other than when I was in college, I've never lived in the 11th District.

RUBENSTEIN: All right.

So, he gets elected in 1946?

LOGEVALL: '46.

Takes office in '47.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

And Richard Nixon was elected to the Congress at the same time.

And does Richard Nixon, uh, get along well with John Kennedy?

Are their offices close to each other?

Or they know each other?

LOGEVALL: They did get along.

So Kennedy had... what we might call Kennedy salons.

He would invite people to his, uh, to his, uh, house in Washington, in Georgetown.

Eunice also lived there, so the two siblings were together.

And he would invite people, often as many Republicans as Democrats.

And they would sit around and they would talk about the issues of the day.

Richard Nixon was one of those who appeared, maybe not frequently, but with some regularity.

Uh, they got along well in Congress, actually.

RUBENSTEIN: So, he gets, uh, re-elected in '48?

LOGEVALL: Mm-hmm.

RUBENSTEIN: And gets re-elected in, uh... LOGEVALL: In '50.

RUBENSTEIN: '50 so, six years in the s, in the House, he says, "I'm ready to be a senator."

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

I think from day one, actually, in the House, he was looking at bigger things.

So he was thinking about the governorship.

His father said, "You know, maybe you should think about running for governor.

You're in a good position to do this now."

So, either the governorship or a senate seat.

And so he decides, "I'm going for this in '52."

And of course, it's an epic race against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. RUBENSTEIN: Henry Cabot Lodge is a very well-respected senator.

LOGEVALL: Yes.

RUBENSTEIN: Um, and, um, do people think that there's any chance of John Kennedy could beat, uh, this incumbent, well, uh, well-respected senator?

LOGEVALL: Two people thought he could beat him.

Jack Kennedy himself and his old man.

RUBENSTEIN: And does Kennedy say, "I'm gonna run on my accomplishments in the House"?

LOGEVALL: No.

No, I think... RUBENSTEIN: Because there weren't that many?

LOGEVALL: There weren't very many accomplishments in the House.

RUBENSTEIN: All right.

LOGEVALL: But, but by now, I think there are two keys to his victory.

And some of this he had shown in '46, and will show again in '60.

He starts earlier, and he works harder than the competition.

This is a theme throughout his political life.

And so here, when Lodge is not even thinking about this, when Lodge is busy in Washington, and he's trying to persuade, you know, Dwight Eisenhower to, to, to make a run for the Republican nomination, Jack Kennedy is in western Massachusetts, small towns, weekend after weekend and I think that's key to his success.

The second key to his success in '52 is that he's turning out to be an excellent politician who, uh, works hard at it.

His speeches that often look kind of effortless, are actually the product of a lot of hard work.

And he's, he shows an ability to connect with voters.

So, uh, n, put those two things together, and then add in his father's money, and the fact that the family campaigns with him.

You can kind of see why it ended up the way it did.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Eisenhower is at the head of the Republican ticket that year.

And he wins, uh, overwhelmingly.

He wins Massachusetts, I think, as well.

But what happened in the Senate race?

LOGEVALL: So, Congressman Kennedy, now gonna be Senator-elect Kennedy, is one of the rare bright spots for the Democratic Party in what is otherwise a pretty miserable, uh, election.

And it's interesting to go back into the, the press accounts.

And journalists will say this.

They'll say, "We don't know much about this John F. Kennedy character.

But wow, he pulled off a stunner of an upset against Henry Cabot Lodge in Massachusetts.

He is somebody to, to, to watch."

RUBENSTEIN: All right.

So he's elected to the Senate and he hires a young man from Nebraska to be his, uh, legislative assistant, speechwriter, uh, Ted Sorensen.

Can you describe how Sorensen, uh, got that position?

And how they, their minds kind of linked together?

LOGEVALL: It's one of the great political partnerships, I think, in American history.

No question.

Uh, Sorensen: idealistic, from Nebraska, as you say, has come to Washington.

Uh, he basically is a finalist for two positions with two, uh, with, with, two senators.

One is "Scoop" Jackson from Washington.

And the other one is Jack Kennedy from Massachusetts.

And he talks to them both.

And decides, that he's gonna, uh, cast his lot... he's gonna, he's gonna pursue the option of going with Kennedy.

Uh, and what's interesting about this is he says in the final interview, "Senator Kennedy, I've gotta ask you why you were not more outspoken in opposition to Joe McCarthy."

Kennedy gives him an answer, which is about, you know, strength of Irish Catholics in Massachusetts, family ties to McCarthy.

Uh, it turns out McCarthy had dated Jack's sisters on occasion, so there were these close connections.

He gives him an answer.

But I guess I'm impressed by Sorensen for raising that question, and Kennedy for still hiring him.

And then what happened subsequently is, as I say, that they start to work together.

And they, they, they just think so alike, and pretty soon it's hard to tell, certainly for me, where one begins and the other ends.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Kennedy's elected to the Senate in 1952.

Um, Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic nominee in '52, and he lost fairly, uh, handsomely to, uh, Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1956, he is, uh, gonna be the nominee again.

I, it's hard to believe a party would nominate somebody a second time after they had lost the race.

But okay.

I guess, I guess it happens from time to time.

So, um, Stevenson says... "Um, you know, I, I don't know who I want to have as my vice president.

I'll let the party decide in the convention."

LOGEVALL: Mm-hmm.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, all of a sudden, does Jack Kennedy say, "I want to be vice president"?

LOGEVALL: It's a really dramatic moment.

Stevenson says, "I'm going to make this really dramatic.

I'm gonna give, give the decision of the vice presidency, of my running mate, to the floor of the convention."

And Kennedy and the other contenders have a few hours to decide: are we gonna get into this thing?

Are we gonna pursue this option?

And the Kennedys, Jack and Bobby in particular, decide, "We're going for it."

He comes within a, a whisker of being the Democratic nominee.

And again, a, a, a feature of John F. Kennedy's life is that he's lucky at certain points.

This is one of those moments where I think he was very lucky not to win it.

RUBENSTEIN: Right.

LOGEVALL: And yet to be considered, because it made him, a, a national figure; the very fact that he was in the race; helped him, I think, down the line.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, John Kennedy's a young senator.

Not that powerful a senator.

Why would he think, um, he could get elected president, or get the nomination in 1960?

And who were the other people who thought they should be president, and they were much more qualified, in their view than Kennedy was?

LOGEVALL: They were.

But his calculation was this: "At the Democratic National Convention in '56, I almost got the thing.

And in fact, I have a lot of support in New England, of course.

Other parts of the country, in the South, and he said, "If I start early," as I said before, "and I work harder," which is what happens.

He and Ted Sorensen already in '57; long before any of the others are even thinking about this; he starts basically to travel around the country to get name recognition to win support.

And little by little, he does.

The others who I think have a serious shot at this; hard though this is to believe, David; Adlai Stevenson.

Third time.

There are many people in the party, especially intellectuals, who would like nothing more than for Stevenson to be the dom, nominee one more time.

This time he won't have Eisenhower to face.

This time Stevenson will win.

So he's one that, that the Kennedys actually worry about.

Lyndon Johnson: powerful senator from, from, from Texas, obviously.

Hubert Humphrey: a firebrand, um, um, liberal from Minnesota.

Stuart Symington.

Um, some of these figures are more or less w, what, less well known to us today.

But I would say that quartet constituted probably the most formidable potential competitors for Kennedy.

RUBENSTEIN: So, did Johnson take Kennedy seriously at all?

LOGEVALL: Early in '60, he did not.

He looked much more to Symington as a threat, potentially Stevenson as a threat.

Did not think Kennedy would, would, would do that.

But I think as Kennedy started to win these primaries, Johns, Johnson thinks, "Uh-oh.

This could be a problem."

RUBENSTEIN: So, so Kennedy wins the New Hampshire primary, which was then first.

Um, and the people said, "That's..." LOGEVALL: New Hampshire RUBENSTEIN: "He's from New England.

Big deal."

So then he has to enter the Wisconsin primary, which is a neighboring state of, uh, Minnesota for Hubert Humphrey.

So is he supposed to win that state as well?

Or not?

LOGEVALL: This one's gonna be a challenge.

Hubert Humphrey is known as the third senator from, from, from Wisconsin.

So, with, so, this is gonna be a, a big challenge for him.

Kennedy thinks, and his team thinks, and by the way, we should note: he's making very sophisticated use of polling.

This is another area in which John F. Kennedy was a, was a pioneer, in a sense.

Not the first to use them, but he's using with Lou Harris in particular.

He's got sophisticated polling in place, including in Wisconsin, that indicates "I, John F. Kennedy, can actually win this thing.

And that will be huge if I can defeat Hubert, in Hubert's own backyard, I'll go a long way to getting this, uh, this nomination."

RUBENSTEIN: So what happens?

LOGEVALL: Well, he did win, but not by the margin that they thought.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay , so the next state is West Virginia.

LOGEVALL: Correct.

RUBENSTEIN: And West Virginia is a state that is very, very Protestant, very few Catholics.

LOGEVALL: About 97% Protestant.

RUBENSTEIN: So Kennedy wasn't happy that he had to compete in West Virginia.

But how did he do?

LOGEVALL: So he wins that one, too.

And, uh, this is a, a really interesting part of the story, I think, because, uh, he's pessimistic, uh, early on.

In fact, he says to himself, "How can I be so stupid to enter this, uh, Protestant state, uh, and have any hope of winning?

So initially, what they do, classic Kennedy style, is they work incredibly hard for a month.

They have about a month to turn this around.

And little by little, partly because he decides to take the religion issue, uh, head-on, he basically says, you know, "When I served this country in, in World War II, nobody asked me if I was a Catholic or a Protestant.

Nobody asked my brother, when he took his fi, fatal final mission, uh, what religion he followed."

He begins to see that religion could help him, including in the general election, should he get that far, as much as it might hurt him.

Which is a key, uh, decision.

RUBENSTEIN: In those days, there were no campaign finance laws.

So Joe Kennedy could put money in a suitcase and distribute it to people, and that was considered, kosher.

LOGEVALL: Yeah, which is in fact what happened.

Quite literally.

Quite literally in suitcases.

RUBENSTEIN: Right.

LOGEVALL: Uh, and, uh, Larry O'Brien and others talk about this.

There was a suitcase under the bed and it would come out.

Uh, and county leaders in West Virginia would be, would be in effect, uh, paid.

Now, the Humphrey campaign also paid.

Interestingly enough, much of that money that Humphrey paid to people came from Lyndon Johnson.

It was the forces of Lyndon Johnson.

Humphrey had no money.

Johnson gave him money to then funnel, funnel to these county leaders.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Jack Kennedy goes on to, uh, Los Angeles, where the convention is.

And it wasn't 100% certain that he would get the nomination.

Pretty much had it locked up when he gets there.

And people increasingly recognize that the big decision people are focused on is, "Who's gonna be vice president?"

LOGEVALL: Ted Sorensen produces a memo in which he lists various candidates.

And one of the people that he lists in a prominent place on that sheet is, of course, Lyndon Johnson.

And what's interesting about this that, is that they have not gotten along well, to say the least, in the winter and spring, and leading up to the convention.

And Johnson is making insinuations about Kennedy's health.

RUBENSTEIN: He's saying he has Addison's disease.

LOGEVALL: He's saying he's got Addison's disease, which, which the, the campaign denies.

Of course, Johnson is correct about that.

So, on some level, you think, "Well, he's never gonna choose Johnson."

And Robert Kennedy, who had already developed a, a, an intense dislike of LBJ, thinks that this would be disastrous.

But Jack Kennedy in fact chooses Lyndon Johnson to be his nominee.

I think, on the understanding that it's quite possible that Johnson will accept.

But Johnson understands that no Southerner is gonna be nominated by the Democratic Party anytime in the 1960s.

His only chance to get at the top prize is in fact to, to, to put himself up for vice president.

I think some part of Jack Kennedy understood this.

And the reason why he chose, uh, Johnson is because his father also says, others say, "you need help in the South.

Whatever help you can get, in November, against Nixon, it, it, that you can get in the South, you've gotta take.

Johnson gives you more of that than any other, uh, candidate."

RUBENSTEIN: So, they emerge from the convention; Johnson's the vice president, uh, Richard Nixon, um, is the, is the Republican nominee.

His vice president is... LOGEVALL: Henry Cabot Lodge.

RUBENSTEIN: Henry Cabot Lodge.

Ironically, he becomes the vice president... LOGEVALL: He's, he's now...

Yes, mm-hmm.

RUBENSTEIN: So, the election goes forward.

In the end, um, Kennedy wins narrowly in the, uh, electoral vote and, and the popular vote.

Popular vote he won by... LOGEVALL: Yeah.

Okay.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, 150,000 or so.

LOGEVALL: Yeah, it's about 100,000.

Slightly over 100,000 votes.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

So, he's inaugurated.

And the early part of the administration, he agrees to support the Bay of Pigs invasion by some Cuban, uh, I guess, refugees.

Uh, why did he do that?

Did he not realize that there was no chance, uh, for those refugees to actually win?

LOGEVALL: It's a plan that had originated under Eisenhower.

And I think he feels, I'm new to the office.

I'm, untested.

"The military, and the CIA, and the outgoing administration are all saying to me, 'You've got to do this.

We have got to get rid of Castro, or at least destabilize his government.

This is a plan that will work.'

And of course, as you say, it ended up being a disaster.

But he pursued it anyway.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so, Kennedy, uh, has to deal with Khrushchev.

He goes to Vienna for the first head-to-head meeting between Khrushchev and Kennedy.

How does that go?

LOGEVALL: It does not go well from John F. Kennedy's perspective.

It's, it's, it's an increasingly tense time in the Cold War, we should acknowledge.

And the issue of Berlin, which has been a festering problem between East and West, between Moscow and Washington, is becoming more of one, for various reasons.

So it's not as though he was unprepared for a difficult meeting.

And yet, he was still, I think, taken aback by the bluster of Khrushchev, by the, by the aggressiveness of the Soviet leader.

And, um, it is a very tense meeting from start to finish.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, Khrushchev, I guess, sizes up Kennedy and says, "He's not that tough, so I can put missiles, uh, nuclear missiles into Cuba.

And Kennedy won't do anything about it."

So, is that what led Khrushchev to put those missiles into Cuba?

LOGEVALL: That's one of the reasons.

He's also, of course, I think, wanting to, to, to right the strategic balance, or the imbalance, that he perceives in terms of, especially nuclear capability.

He's also wanting to show Castro that he's supportive of, of, of the revolution.

He, he's also competing with China.

It's of course, what then launches us into the Cuban Missile Crisis.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

So Kennedy decides to bring together some of his Cabinet, some of his senior advisers.

And I guess the most important one turned out to be Robert Kennedy.

And what does he decide to do?

LOGEVALL: Ultimately, I think against the advice of virtually everybody on the Executive Committee, the so-called EXCOM; including, by the way, his brother, who was much more hawkish early in the crisis than he would sub, subsequently claim, John F. Kennedy says, "We're gonna look for a, some kind of political solution to this."

And what's interesting about it is he says, "We've got to put ourselves in Khrushchev's shoes."

So you see here an example of John F. Kennedy showing a kind of empathetic understanding that I think is ultimately critical to the resolution of the, of the crisis.

The closest we've come to a nuclear war.

RUBENSTEIN: So let's talk about civil rights for a moment.

Uh, s, the, the Brown v Board decision in 1954, said, "With all deliberate speed, we're going to desegregate."

But it wasn't so much, uh, deliberate speed.

And it turns out that, uh, there wasn't really any significant cig, civil rights legislation.

There had been some in '57, but nothing of any consequence.

Why didn't John Kennedy, in the beginning of his administration, go ahead and, as many of the progressives wanted in his party, and propose civil rights legislation?

Or try to get it through the Congress?

LOGEVALL: You know, his civil rights record in the House and in the Senate is, is quite good, uh, in terms of voting for re, or against legislation, whichever way.

But in, but the plight of, of, of African Americans, uh, and the experience that Black Americans had on a daily basis, was not an issue that moved him.

Uh, and it was not an issue that in a way he ultimately cared much about in this period.

What he cared about was, of course, strengthening his own political position, and he thought, prior to the election, that he needed the support of, of Southern Democrats; many of them segregationists.

And so he needed to be very careful on this issue.

The real question, though, is what you're posing: is why didn't he move with greater dispatch once he's president?

I think it's partly the same concern, that "I need to be on good terms with Senate Democrats in particular; they control the k, key committees in the Senate to these Southern segregationists.

So if I'm gonna have any hope of getting legislation passed, uh, ultimately my own re-election will be conditioned in part by how I handle this."

What he does do, however, is come around later in '62, and especially in '63, to a very different position.

RUBENSTEIN: But he was against the March on Washington in '63; he was invited to speak there.

He didn't choose to speak there.

He was very worried it would lead to riots and so forth.

He did greet Martin Luther King afterwards and some of the other speakers.

But he was, I assume, was he not afraid that the South couldn't remain Democratic if he did more for civil rights?

LOGEVALL: You're quite right.

I think he still worried, uh, probably up until he takes that fateful trip to Dallas, about the consequences for him politically.

But we should note: that in his great speech in June of 1963, from the White House, which is an extraordinary address.

He makes civil rights a moral issue, really, for the first time, by a president from the Oval Office.

We shouldn't underestimate the importance of that, of that moment.

RUBENSTEIN: So, the final trip to Dallas.

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Um, it is widely thought that he needs to win Texas.

He needs to solve some problems.

He goes down there.

But why did they, uh, need to go to D, to Dallas, really?

LOGEVALL: Well, you know, it's in part because there are, uh, there's a dispute within the Texas Democratic Party, uh, factions basically in the party.

And so Lyndon Johnson and others want the president to come and maybe help smooth over, help improve those relations.

He's also gearing up for a re-election campaign.

Which, by the way, he's confident he'll win.

He's pretty sure that he will have Goldwater, and he thinks he can beat Goldwater.

But nevertheless, Texas an, is an important state.

Uh, and though there are aides who say, "We have some concerns, Mr. President, about you visiting, uh, in particular Dallas at this point in time," he of course defies them.

And they go.

RUBENSTEIN: So on the day that of, of November 22nd, um, it was supposed to be raining in Dallas.

And when it rained in those days, they had a bubble they had put on the Presidential limousine.

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Kenny O'Donnell, in effect the chief of staff, said, "No, the president wants to be seen.

Don't put the bubble on" to the Secret Service.

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Um, that was obviously a terrible decision.

But why did they publish the route that the president was going to go on?

And do you have any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole, uh, um, assassin?

LOGEVALL: Um, you know, it's, um, when you think about the "what-ifs" of that day: what if, as you say, the weather had been what they thought?

What if the motorcade hadn't slowed down when it turned the corner right underneath the Texas School Book Depository?

Uh, what if Lee Harvey Oswald hadn't been, uh, working on that particular day?

What if, uh, they had t, not published, as you say, the, the route in the paper?

Which I think was fairly standard in those days.

It was a more innocent age, needless to say.

There's so many of these that had this extraordinary effect on... RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

LOGEVALL: On the country and on the world.

Um, and I, I do think that Oswald was the, was the, was the gunman; the only gunman on that day.

RUBENSTEIN: And when Kennedy was shot with the last shot, there was no chance that he could ever survive that shot.

LOGEVALL: No.

And an, another "what-if" I, I guess he was this: he was wearing a back brace that prevented him from going over on the first shot.

RUBENSTEIN: Which went through the neck.

LOGEVALL: Yeah.

And so... RUBENSTEIN: And he, had he not had the back brace, he would have presumably leaned over.

LOGEVALL: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: And then their, the second shot wouldn't have been able to hit him.

LOGEVALL: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: Well, this is an extremely interesting story.

You really, um, make it come to life.

And, um, I want to thank you for coming here for a really interesting conversation.

LOGEVALL: Thank you, David.

(applause) (music plays through credits)