Arthur Schlesinger Jr. person
also: Schlesinger, Arthur Schlesinger, JFK's court historian, private advisor, author Schlesinger, The Harvard historian, the White House historian, the historian, the new frontiersman, White House advisor
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
John F. Kennedyperson · 46CIAintelligence service · 35Allen Dullesperson · 25United Statescountry · 17Soviet Unioncountry · 8Washington, D.C.place · 7McGeorge Bundyperson · 6Robert Kennedy assassinationevent · 6Lyndon B. Johnsonperson · 6Trump administrationorganization · 6Theodore Sorensenperson · 5Cheddi Jaganperson · 5Guyanacountry · 5Richard Helmsperson · 5United Kingdomcountry · 5Bay of Pigsoperation · 5Dallascountry · 4Henry Taylorperson · 4Belgian Communist Partyorganization · 4Robert F. Kennedyperson · 4Fidel Castroperson · 4Italycountry · 4Operation Plutooperation · 4U.S. State Departmentorganization · 3
Claims (24)
CIA funded
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. documented
“Unquote. Many artists and intellectuals fell into the ranks of the CIA generously funded culture war, including author Schlesinger Jr., Mary McCarthy, Robert Lowell, Dwight McDonald, Daniel Bell, Isaiah Berlin, George Plimpton, Peter Mathes…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 15 @ 41:42
James Jesus Angleton framed
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. book_quoted
“offered sanctuary in Harvard's history department to anti-Mussolini exile Savamini, an Italian socialist politician and historian. Angleton was so furious about the new tilt in favor of an open government that he began telling people that S…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 21 @ 6:43
Noel Field proposed
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. documented
“Field met the young OSS officer, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the future historian and Kennedy White House aide. Field proposed that the OSS subsidize the recruitment of left-wing German refugees in France who would be dropped inside liberated a…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 7 @ 32:25
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. exposed
Noel Field documented
“But an ardent anti-communist immediately sniffed out Field's proposal as a scheme to give the Soviet Union a head start. Schlesinger took a strong disliking to Field. Years later, he would describe him as a Quaker communist filled with idea…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 7 @ 32:51
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. covered_up
Noel Field documented
“His pious dedication to the Soviet cause did little damage to the interests of the U.S. Nonetheless, after his Paris meeting, Schlesinger strongly advised the USS against buying into Fields' scheme for post-war Germany. Dulles ended up fund…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 7 @ 33:21
Henry Taylor spied_on
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. host_asserted
“that Southern congressmen were especially interested in the fact that Ethel Kennedy, sister-in-law of the president, twisted with Harry Belafonte. You know, because he was black. You're not allowed to do that. Henry Taylor, a syndicated new…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 25:55
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. spied_on
Belgian Communist Party host_asserted
“As an OSS analyst, Schlesinger had been stationed in the London and Paris office. He held strong anti-communist views. After the war, Schlesinger became the leading architect of the Cold War liberalism, joining the anti-Soviet propaganda ca…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 29:27
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. member_of
CIA documented
“toward drastic reorganization of the intelligence services. But it was Schlesinger whom Kennedy tapped to develop an ambitious CIA reorganization plan, while Taylor was limited to the Bay of Pigs inquest. The historian was able to convince …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 43:19
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. exposed
Cheddi Jagan documented
“at this conference. Schlesinger said that it was his recommendation to the British that led to the proportional recommendation change in the Constitution. And here's a quote for him, the little bastard. I felt badly about my role 30 years a…”
▶ Operation Gladio-British Guiana (Guyana) 1953-1964 @ 44:05
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. convinced
John F. Kennedy book_quoted
“It was author Schlesinger who convinced President Kennedy to break with Eisenhower's policy and support Italy's opening to all parties in the country. He would be quoted as saying, my impression is that they have honestly broken with commun…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 21 @ 6:10
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. proposed
CIA documented
“While I am far from a professional in the field, I am definitely an experienced amateur. Schlesinger threw himself into the CIA study with scholarly dedication, amassing a thick file that contained critiques of the organization by Washingto…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 43:46
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. exposed
CIA documented
“compiled essays and investigative features about Dulles' reign from the liberal press. The White House advisor completed his memo for revamping the CIA on June 30th. He acknowledged that his proposal implies a fairly drastic rearrangement o…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 44:11
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. member_of
CFR host_asserted
“George Kennan, Julius Holmes, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, Paul Nitz, Adolph Burrell. Those are just some of the notable ones. Is Warhamster here? He'd be going, skull and bones, skull and bones. Okay, that's just cr…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner_ The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot Part 1 @ 41:03
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. member_of
American Civil Liberties Union host_asserted
“J. Robert Oppenheimer, Elmo Roper, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Moving on. We're just going to go through several of these. National Conference of Christians and Jews. The late Charles Evans Hughes, a CFR member, and S. Parks Cadman, former p…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot Part 5 @ 33:24
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. explained_decision_of
John F. Kennedy book_quoted
“Kennedy later explained to author Schlesinger that considering his slim margin of victory, he didn't feel he had sufficient political capital to uproot Washington pillars like Hoover and Dulles. Jettisoning the national icons, as Schlesinge…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 17 @ 11:27
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. followed
Robert F. Kennedy host_asserted
“Bobby's courage gave strength to those around him, to those ambitious, idealistic men who had served his brother and were now following the RFK into his perilous path. His heroism inspired their own, men like Schlesinger, who could not brin…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 26 (Final) @ 32:25
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. member_of
John F. Kennedy book_quoted
“This attempt at regime change, filtered through America's Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, was the latest in a long series of CIA covert operations. Jagen became both victim and exemplar. Quote, we misunderstood the whole struggle d…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy CIA Secret Wars Part 1 @ 5:00
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. covered_up
Guyana Project book_quoted
“actually helped keep the CIA out of the act, objecting that the covert initiative could easily get in the way of overt policy. JFK sided with Schlesinger. He was not interested. A second round of talks with the British took place in London …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy CIA Secret Wars Part 1 @ 15:43
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. targeted_for_regime_change
Forbes Burnham book_quoted
“At informal secret talks, the Americans presented their action program. You know, the one that Kennedy said don't do. McMillan still rejected the most energetic measures, but decided he could abide by some CIA efforts to manipulate Guyana's…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy CIA Secret Wars Part 1 @ 33:14
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. framed
Cheddi Jagan host_asserted
“summarized the concept. Schlesinger was impressed with Burnham, not knowing he was already on the CIA's payroll in a Washington's visit. He told JFK in a memo dated June 21st, I agree that the evidence shows increasingly that Jagen's heart …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy CIA Secret Wars Part 1 @ 51:35
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. founded
The Craft of Intelligence documented
“to publication of the Schlesinger and Theodore Sorensen's memoirs on Kennedy. With their description of the president's concerns about the CIA plans, Dulles wrote drafts of a reply, hundreds of pages, but never published. The rebuttal shows…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 23 (24) @ 15:48
Grayston Lynch criticized
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. documented
“that a big mistake had been Dulles' absence from the scene. Going to Puerto Rico created a problem. Among smaller fry, Grayston Lynch, in 1998 memoir, published a fierce diatribe aimed primarily at Schlesinger, Sorensen, and the journalist …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 23 (24) @ 17:15
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. funded
CIA host_asserted
“CIA under the presidential control, which neither Truman nor Eisenhower had been able to do. It took courage for Schlesinger to confront his old friends at the spy agency, some of whom denounced him as a traitor. The battle to take over the…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 41:53
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. spied_on
Time Inc. host_asserted
“had his stamp of approval calling it a convenient way of checking on the communist-controlled groups. Though Schlesinger was an avid New Dealer, he was also pampered by American elite. The son of an esteemed Harvard historian, Arthur Schles…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 19 @ 30:58
Mentions (120)
▶ 22:17
And he went on to talk to Kennedy during this meeting. Author Schlesinger Jr. was there. And basically, it said that for the most part, everything Joggin said that he wanted to do, everybody was fine with. Even when it was slightly like the…
▶ 22:43
Health care and stuff like that tended to be a little bit socialistic. None of it was communistic. But there was a particular journal called the Monthly Review that he said that he read. And that supposedly, according to Schlesinger, sealed…
▶ 43:42
The Queen's government waved a hand over a piece of paper again, enacting another amendment to their constitution, closing a loophole that made Joggin have to leave. In 1990, at a conference in New York City, author Schlesinger publicly apo…
▶ 44:05
at this conference. Schlesinger said that it was his recommendation to the British that led to the proportional recommendation change in the Constitution. And here's a quote for him, the little bastard. I felt badly about my role 30 years a…
▶ 44:20
According to Kennedy advisor and biographer, author Schlesinger, opinions on both sides of the issue were expressed in terms of hindering the supposed Soviet communist designs in the Congo. They had none. There was no communist presence the…
▶ 22:31
the United States had been cultivating for many years. JFK's former aide, Arthur Schlesinger, had written, quote, anxious to strengthen the anti-communist forces, especially the army, in order to make sure if anything happened to Soekarno, …
▶ 44:55
By writing the article, Dulles had set out to rebuke charges made by JFK loyalist Theodore Sorensen and author Schlesinger Jr. that Kennedy had been tricked by his intelligence advisors into the disastrous Cuban adventure. But instead, in t…
▶ 34:34
received more votes than any other candidate. Author Schlesinger recorded the response of the U.S. to this election. Quote, Washington decided to install a reliably pro-Western regime. CIA spooks put in their appearance, set up a committee …
▶ 17:42
a master spy and an asset to his administration. Now he did not. At lunch with Arthur Schlesinger and James Reston during the last days of the Pluto operation, the president said, quote, Dulles is a legendary figure and it's hard to work wi…
▶ 18:37
Later, Dulles reacted angrily to the publication of the Schlesinger and Theodore Sorensen's memoirs on Kennedy and wrote several drafts of a reply which were never published. The rebuttal demonstrates, according to an analysis by political …
▶ 5:00
This attempt at regime change, filtered through America's Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, was the latest in a long series of CIA covert operations. Jagen became both victim and exemplar. Quote, we misunderstood the whole struggle d…
▶ 5:31
had made Latin America one of his special interests. Guyana had become Schlesinger's special mistake. Of course, Schlesinger had helped. In fact, he had initially held a relatively relaxed view of Jagen as a Gaiwanese leader. The CIA was no…
▶ 15:16
Within days of election, the State Department sent President Kennedy a proposal that involved two tracks, open cooperation with the Gaiwanese in hopes of inducing Jagen to align with the West, but a CIA covert political action against Jagen…
▶ 17:19
Any covert operation. Author Schlesinger saw Dean Ross Cable to Ambassador Bruce and objected to the term sleeper. He said that had a specific spy connotation because, of course, it did. Prime Minister Jagen, perfectly aware the American of…
▶ 27:32
And there was no arms on the vessels at all. At the White House, Arthur Schlesinger warned JFK that both the CIA and the State Department had the notion that the president had made a firm decision to get rid of Jagen. On March 8, 1962, Pres…
▶ 28:36
in a National Security Action Memorandum, which is a directive. I can't tell you how unusual that is. It was also striking in that where action memorandums were supposed to dictate action, this one mandated inaction. Many Kennedy National S…
▶ 33:14
At informal secret talks, the Americans presented their action program. You know, the one that Kennedy said don't do. McMillan still rejected the most energetic measures, but decided he could abide by some CIA efforts to manipulate Guyana's…
▶ 37:25
were mostly aware of the CIA's origin of the plots that they were carrying out. Agents were always left somewhat in the dark in case they were to spill the beans. But political action like Guyana, over time, they became transparent. The obj…
▶ 51:35
summarized the concept. Schlesinger was impressed with Burnham, not knowing he was already on the CIA's payroll in a Washington's visit. He told JFK in a memo dated June 21st, I agree that the evidence shows increasingly that Jagen's heart …
▶ 52:45
In particular, Bundy said, I think it is unproven that the CIA knows how to manipulate an election in Guyana without a backfire. Schlesinger also joined the choir telling JFK the plan made him nervous, especially with prospects rated at les…
▶ 21:24
Allen Dulles encouraged the president, treating him to another round of the disposal problem. Quote, don't forget, we will have to transfer the Cuban exiles to the United States, and we can't have them wandering around the country telling e…
▶ 24:01
Kennedy's decision on the visibility of the invasion is the second of the choices that had marked him with authorship of the disaster. Commentators on the Cuba operation often write that the Trinidad plan as if it represented a solution, th…
▶ 27:20
On March 15th, both options were outlined at the White House. JFK, to Schlesinger's mind, listened carefully, again rejecting Trinidad as a World War II assault operation. He ordered the Bay of Pigs plan to be reoriented for a night as oppo…
▶ 29:42
Oxygen had to be administered. Esterling sweated bricks that they would need a hospital, which meant that there was a security risk to the plan. President Kennedy continued wrestling with the go-no-go decision for a few more days, consultin…
▶ 32:13
author Schlesinger, to brief the ambassador together with the CIA and State Department. Schlesinger arrived late for the meeting in Stevenson's suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel the morning of April 8th. As a consequence, Tracy Barnes, the…
▶ 15:18
Allen on until the completion of the new CIA headquarters building in Langley, the construction of which had been one of Dulles' great dreams. And then he pulled the rug out and fired him so that he never got to be in the building officiall…
▶ 17:15
that a big mistake had been Dulles' absence from the scene. Going to Puerto Rico created a problem. Among smaller fry, Grayston Lynch, in 1998 memoir, published a fierce diatribe aimed primarily at Schlesinger, Sorensen, and the journalist …
▶ 12:16
had excellent contacts in Cuba, and had proven himself an acute observer. That summer, he had reported through author Schlesinger a private conversation with Castro after the Bay of Pigs. The only other person present at his Oval Office cha…
▶ 24:21
something not evident to the Cuban agents left to flap in the wind as Castro's security services hunted them down. Records of the CIA director's morning staff meetings indicated the agency began planning new activities for Cuba within a wee…
▶ 24:51
the White House commissar of the secret war on Castro, that the CIA's notion of island-wide resistance under its own banner represented a focus on convenience rather than success. Because again, they have no idea. The same discrimination ag…
▶ 21:36
Ironically, Jagen would die in Washington at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 1997 while still in office. Schlesinger said, in retrospect, we misunderstood the whole struggle down there. He wasn't a communist. The British thought we were overre…
▶ 41:42
Unquote. Many artists and intellectuals fell into the ranks of the CIA generously funded culture war, including author Schlesinger Jr., Mary McCarthy, Robert Lowell, Dwight McDonald, Daniel Bell, Isaiah Berlin, George Plimpton, Peter Mathes…
▶ 1:01:27
Kennedy had little respect for Eisenhower, seeing him as a disengaged leader who would rather play golf with his millionaire cronies than confront the world's emerging new realities. Quote, I could understand if he played golf all the time …
▶ 11:27
Kennedy later explained to author Schlesinger that considering his slim margin of victory, he didn't feel he had sufficient political capital to uproot Washington pillars like Hoover and Dulles. Jettisoning the national icons, as Schlesinge…
▶ 11:56
chattering classes. Schlesinger, ever eager to put Kennedy's actions in the best possible light, later called JFK's decision to include prominent Republicans such as Dulles and C. Douglas Dillon, who was appointed Treasury Chief, part of th…
▶ 12:25
and liaison to the liberal and intellectual circles, which JFK had a complicated and prickly relationship with. Here's author JFK remarked one evening as his advisor casually joined the staff in the Oval Office. He used to be a liberal. May…
▶ 12:57
with Schlesinger often using him as a sounding board for new ideas and appointments. When Schlesinger communicated to Kennedy, liberals growing concern about his political appointment, the president told him he understood, but they shouldn'…
▶ 38:43
deployed two of his most passionately loyal White House aides, Sorensen and Schlesinger, in the war on words with Dulles. Both men brought a cunning eloquence to the political duel. The week after the Bay of Pigs, Schlesinger, who had adama…
▶ 39:12
in a day that Kennedy had been laboring patiently and successfully to build in three months. Dulles knew that JFK was maneuvering to dump him, but he made it clear that he was not going to go without a fight. On May 23rd, Schlesinger discus…
▶ 39:39
There would be serious difficulties about procuring the resignation of Alan Dulles. According to Bundy, Dulles believed that his only mistake was not in having persuaded the president to send in the Marines. As JFK's national security advis…
▶ 40:09
He told Schlesinger that Dulles actually had more misgivings about the project than he ever expressed to the president and that he had not done so out of loyalty to Bissell. These people are so evil. Bundy added he personally would not be a…
▶ 13:21
But as Walter Lippmann told Schlesinger, Kennedy will not begin to be president until he starts to break with Eisenhower. Continuity in Washington was no longer the new president's concern. Shaken by the traumatic events in Cuba and France,…
▶ 24:55
His house on Q Street had already became the headquarters for a government in exile, just like he set up when his coups didn't work. By the evening of June 16, 1962, author Schlesinger Jr. went tumbling fully closed into a swimming pool at …
▶ 25:26
That was their version of the Georgetown set. Senator Edward Kennedy, the president's baby brother, had emerged from his own swimming pool baptism at that place. The Kennedy Circle unrestrained merrymaking was now regarded as unseemly. They…
▶ 25:55
that Southern congressmen were especially interested in the fact that Ethel Kennedy, sister-in-law of the president, twisted with Harry Belafonte. You know, because he was black. You're not allowed to do that. Henry Taylor, a syndicated new…
▶ 26:24
Taylor accused Schlesinger of violating White House code of ethics by moonlighting as a freelance writer, churning out political essays for publication in the New York Times and Saturday Evening Post. It turned out that the White House had …
▶ 26:52
attack on Schlesinger, in which he had warned of the liberal historian's influence on Kennedy policy, spread to other media outlets like Time Magazine, like they're running a hit job on him. They poked fun at Schlesinger over his participat…
▶ 27:22
FDR's legendary advisor and longtime Washington power broker didn't like the beating that Schlesinger was getting in the press. He phoned him at the White House and Corcoran said, I sense a manhunt. The play they had given that swimming poo…
▶ 27:53
that he had heard Republicans were spreading vicious stories, that they had found someone claiming to be an old Harvest classmate of Schlesinger's, and he will swear that you knew then that you were a member of the Communist Party. Come on.…
▶ 28:24
On a different matter, JFK asked him how he was holding up. He said, it's been a bad couple of days. JFK said, don't worry about it. Everyone knows that Henry Taylor is a jerk. All they're doing is shooting at me through you. The media atta…
▶ 28:54
Henry Taylor, too, had ties to the Dulles brothers, having served in John Foster's diplomatic corps as ambassador to Switzerland. Huh, no kidding. On first glance, Schlesinger seemed like an unlikely target for the Dulles network, since he,…
▶ 29:27
As an OSS analyst, Schlesinger had been stationed in the London and Paris office. He held strong anti-communist views. After the war, Schlesinger became the leading architect of the Cold War liberalism, joining the anti-Soviet propaganda ca…
▶ 29:57
If you're in the way, they will run you over. Schlesinger was a passionate believer in New Deal liberalism, which he saw as the only way to civilize capitalism. He was an equally ardent anti-communist, viewing it as a plague. Schlesinger be…
▶ 30:28
effort by Loose Life magazine, which the young Pulitzer Prize winning historian sometimes wrote for, to develop a blacklist of celebrities that the magazine believed belonged to the Communist Party. And of course, all of them, like Albert E…
▶ 30:58
had his stamp of approval calling it a convenient way of checking on the communist-controlled groups. Though Schlesinger was an avid New Dealer, he was also pampered by American elite. The son of an esteemed Harvard historian, Arthur Schles…
▶ 30:58
had his stamp of approval calling it a convenient way of checking on the communist-controlled groups. Though Schlesinger was an avid New Dealer, he was also pampered by American elite. The son of an esteemed Harvard historian, Arthur Schles…
▶ 31:26
Warhamster and I have talked about that. That is one of the grooming schools. And a graduate of Harvard at 20, at 27, he had already won a Pulitzer Prize. Schlesinger had been coddled by the East Coast establishment and subsidized by CIA fr…
▶ 31:56
Following the epic destruction of World War II, Schlesinger insisted, in his view, the Soviet Union was a messianic state whose ideology compelled a steady expansion of communist power. Even after the collapse of Stalin's regime, Schlesinge…
▶ 32:25
remote relations with Dulles throughout the 1950s. Schlesinger counted a number of top CIA officials as his friends, including Helms, Wisner, and Bissell. He had been part of the Georgetown cocktail circuit. Schlesinger had his differences …
▶ 32:54
cheerfully consorting with people like Reinhard Galen. There was something wrong with consorting with Nazis who had recently been killing us, whose sacrifices had made the Allied victory and against the Russians who had made the Allied vict…
▶ 33:23
about the Republican reign. The Dulles brothers were self-righteous and egomaniacs. By the time Kennedy took office, Marion Schlesinger, the product of the same Cambridge background as her husband, regarded Alan Dulles in not a good light e…
▶ 33:50
whose Wall Street republicanism and bullying foreign interventionism represented everything the historian opposed. Schlesinger made an effort to maintain cordial relationships with the CIA chief. Schlesinger wrote a favorable review of Germ…
▶ 34:16
Nobody in Washington was better positioned than author Schlesinger Jr. to observe the growing split in the Kennedy government. But they wanted a Cold War consensus, but that consensus began to shatter early in the Kennedy presidency. And Sc…
▶ 35:16
talking about Curtis LeMay. He's the guy that wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons everywhere. He dismissed their persistent pleading for nuclear confrontation and instead pursued a test pan treaty aimed at slowing down the race. That's b…
▶ 35:48
ray klein and cord meyer continued to keep him appraised of the agency's mood meanwhile kennedy despite his occasional bemusement at schlesinger's ivy tower liberalism increasingly drew the historian into his inner circle schlesinger had ea…
▶ 36:14
but by resisting the temptation to crow about his wisdom in the press. Kennedy soon began seeking his advice on other things. One of the liberal critics was Alfred Kazin, K-A-Z-I-N. When Kazin arrived at the White House, JFK was at his best…
▶ 36:48
but he still fell short with the scholar, who later described the president as devoid of vision. When Schlesinger reminded him that the left-wing intellectuals said the same thing about FDR, Krasin replied that he was one of those who did, …
▶ 15:29
To be a smell of burning in the air, Khrushchev wrote. He denounced the militarist who had sought a nuclear confrontation. Kennedy read aloud part of the speech to Schlesinger, adding Khrushchev certainly has some good writers. The feeling …
▶ 18:01
The crusty old millionaire was touched by the neighborhood welcome. Harriman told Schlesinger that by picking him for the mission instead of one of the Cold War envoys, Kennedy had persuaded Khrushchev that we really wanted an agreement and…
▶ 6:10
It was author Schlesinger who convinced President Kennedy to break with Eisenhower's policy and support Italy's opening to all parties in the country. He would be quoted as saying, my impression is that they have honestly broken with commun…
▶ 6:43
offered sanctuary in Harvard's history department to anti-Mussolini exile Savamini, an Italian socialist politician and historian. Angleton was so furious about the new tilt in favor of an open government that he began telling people that S…
▶ 8:17
I can see the banners now. But, and basically it's an Italian saying of Kennedy is with Khrushchev. Frustrated by the stubborn bureaucratic resistance that Kennedy was seething from within his own government to his shifting policy in Italy,…
▶ 38:14
By then, Kennedy was dead and could not protect Italy's fragile experiment as he intervened against the French military punch in 61. When Nenni anxiously asked Schlesinger, who visited Rome in 64, whether the new American president, LBJ, co…
▶ 47:52
Kennedy was quoted as saying, for every nation knows that Ireland was the first of the small countries in the 20th century to win its struggle for independence. By standing up to foreign domination, Ireland is the example and inspiration to…
▶ 53:52
So I just thought it would be interesting to point out, we mentioned, you mentioned Schlesinger at the beginning of the show, and he is an interesting character. You know, he's kind of like Walter Reuther. There's kind of like two different…
▶ 56:17
Pretty darn interesting things to say about, you know, this 1963 to 1968 period, both Schlesinger and Reuther. And but since they're so dangerous, the effect on the fake control left is because I remember Noam Chomsky saying, oh, Schlesinge…
▶ 57:42
Therefore, all of his comments on the Kennedy years, when this is the guy who actually planned the rewrite of the CIA, that's kind of noteworthy that our leading fake leftist, who's now been revealed as many other things, perhaps, is saying…
▶ 1:40:28
And that's why I find this particular book fascinating because like you pointed out earlier, Schlesinger is one of those people that kind of had his feet, as Illini was saying, in both pots and was watching this unfold in real time around h…
▶ 1:03
today's day over what we've had the last couple of days any day. All right, so you got to get yourself grounded, which is what I try to do on those walks. We are on chapter 18, the big event. Let's dive in. October 1963, Dulles sent Arthur…
▶ 1:31
Schlesinger assigned copy of his new book, The Craft of Intelligence, to give to President Kennedy. Schlesinger found the inscription that Dulles had scrolled in the book a little tepid. By now, the White House historian clearly saw through…
▶ 2:00
but still committed to maintaining civil relationship with the CIA crowd for his own good and that of the president. Schlesinger typed up an agreeable thank you letter for Kennedy to send to Dulles, ending the vaguely teary words, I hope yo…
▶ 22:17
By 1963, however, it was Johnson who was the ghost, the once commanding figure whose future grew dimmer by the day, and he knew it. In March, Susan Mary Alsop, Joe's convenient wife, told Schlesinger that LBJ had unburdened himself to her h…
▶ 22:47
and his prospects. Schlesinger added his own observation about LBJ. Quote, he really has faded astonishingly into the background and wanders unhappily around. A premature elder statesman, unquote. Johnson began even to physically fade as th…
▶ 23:16
In January of 63, after listening to Bobby Kennedy deliver an inspiring speech at the National Archives celebrating the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, civil rights lawyer Joe Raw passed Schlesinger a note. It read, Poor Lyndon…
▶ 5:44
Dark calls of conspiracy had begun circulating within the Kennedy ranks immediately after Dallas. But with the exception of Dick Goodwin, no one dared voice them in public. Author Schlesinger was cast adrift by Kennedy's murder. The scholar…
▶ 6:10
Working in the Kennedy White House not only gave Schlesinger a voice in global affairs, it offered him the intellectual, as an intellectual, a chance to rub elbows with everyone. He gossiped over lunch with actresses and actors about Frank …
▶ 6:39
Schlesinger was sipping midday cocktails with publishing queen Kay Graham and her Newsweek editors who had flown him to New York to advise them on a magazine makeover. Schlesinger soon realized that he was the odd man out in the anti-intell…
▶ 7:09
Not a request to do anything, nor an invitation to a single meeting. The entire mood of the White House suddenly shifted under Schlesinger's feet. LBJ differs from JFK in a number of ways, he said. Most notably, perhaps, in the absence of i…
▶ 7:39
Supreme FDR JFK gift of keeping a great many things in his head, remembering them all, and then demanding to know new things. Schlesinger's early resignation from the Johnson administration, which came seven months before Bobby Kennedy's ow…
▶ 8:10
From Bobby and Jackie and members of their entourage, Schlesinger heard disturbing reports about events in Dallas. RFK told him that he was wracked with the suspicion about what had happened to his brother. Even CIA Director McCone thought …
▶ 9:08
Schlesinger took an interest in the first wave of Kennedy conspiracy articles that began appearing in the press, sending RFK a piece titled Seeds of Doubt from the December 21, 1963 of the New Republic. Nobody was more aware than Schlesinge…
▶ 9:35
Quote, certainly we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff, unquote. And he knew from his futile efforts to reform the CIA, the Kennedy White House perhaps had even less control over it. But despite Schlesinger's inside knowledge of Wash…
▶ 10:06
In the years after the assassination, Schlesinger secured his reputation as the official historian of Kennedy's Camelot with his Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Thousand Days. In 1965, the 1965 bestseller, which carefully avoided the unanswe…
▶ 10:36
and opened new doors at cocktail parties. His bold-faced name popped up in New York gossip columns, including the sighting at a Norman Mailer party in January of 67. Schlesinger was frequently invited to appear on talk shows that year. He f…
▶ 11:07
The host asked Schlesinger whether he would be willing to meet backstage with Ray Marcus, a respected Warren Report critic. Marcus, who had concluded that the official report was the most massively fraudulent document ever foisted on a free…
▶ 11:32
Former Kennedy officials like Schlesinger examined his photographic evidence. He was certain it would convince the new frontiersman that there had been a conspiracy. But when Schlesinger set eyes on Marcus's display, in which the Zapruder f…
▶ 12:02
This was a perfect summation of the attitude among the Kennedy crowd. It was best not to linger on the horrors of Dallas. Despite bad blood between Kennedy and the CIA, Schlesinger managed to maintain relations with the spy set after Dallas…
▶ 12:28
Schlesinger even commiserated with the spymaster over Hugh Trevor's Roper's disgraceful piece in the London Sunday Times in which the eminent Oxford historian denounced the Warren report as suspect. After listening to the letter, Schlesinge…
▶ 12:59
dissection of the Trevor Roper article for the CIA-funded Encounter magazine. Perhaps if you are feeling up to it, Schlesinger said, I could come by and see you one of these afternoons. Schlesinger's courtship of Dulles in the midst of the …
▶ 13:28
suffered a bit of a strain in the summer of 65 when Life magazine ran an account of the Bay of Pigs that was excerpted out of A Thousand Days. In his book, Schlesinger put the onus for the disaster on the CIA, which he accurately wrote had …
▶ 14:20
President Kennedy had done the honorable thing and taken responsibility for it, he told journalists. He would leave it at that. By November, Dulles had resumed relationships with Schlesinger, sending him condolences on the death of his fath…
▶ 14:48
a revisionist historian who suggested that the spymaster had helped kick off the Cold War by going around Stalin's back to cut a deal with Nazi commanders in Italy, which of course he did. Quote, I was so irritated by the wild review that I…
▶ 15:18
Poor old Alan Dulles. Nothing the US could have done in 1945 would have dispelled Stalin's mistrust, short of the conversion of the US into a Soviet-like country. When it came to fighting the cultural Cold War, Schlesinger and Dulles were s…
▶ 15:46
with the Georgetown CIA crowd. By then, some of the skeletons in the CIA closet had already came out. When it was opened just a crack by post-Watergate congressional investigations, in 78, seated at an awards banquet next to Jimmy Carter's …
▶ 16:17
Many of the CIA director's astonishing tells related to Jim Angleton, who though deposed three years earlier, still cast a shadow over the agency. Turner obviously regarded Angleton as a madman and cannot understand a system under which he …
▶ 16:47
with whom he had been friends ever since the days together in the OSS. Schlesinger characterized the relationship as rather wary friendship, since they both knew that there were matters on which they deeply disagreed. But for the sake of th…
▶ 17:20
One evening, Schlesinger's son Andrews accompanied him to a Helms barbecue. Quote, I remember feeling kind of weird about being there, but my father thought he was the most honorable of the CIA people. Unquote. By 91, however, Schlesinger h…
▶ 17:47
It is a terrible story of CIA recklessness and arrogance, compounded by an unwillingness to assume responsibility that went to the point of destroying incriminating documents, Schlesinger wrote in his journal. Helms was a central figure, bo…
▶ 18:16
who had been convicted of one felony of lying to Congress and undeniably should have been prosecuted for more. But the historian held his tongue, quote, in view of my long truce with Dick Helms, I certainly did not want to bring up the CIA …
▶ 32:25
Field met the young OSS officer, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the future historian and Kennedy White House aide. Field proposed that the OSS subsidize the recruitment of left-wing German refugees in France who would be dropped inside liberated a…
▶ 32:51
But an ardent anti-communist immediately sniffed out Field's proposal as a scheme to give the Soviet Union a head start. Schlesinger took a strong disliking to Field. Years later, he would describe him as a Quaker communist filled with idea…
▶ 33:21
His pious dedication to the Soviet cause did little damage to the interests of the U.S. Nonetheless, after his Paris meeting, Schlesinger strongly advised the USS against buying into Fields' scheme for post-war Germany. Dulles ended up fund…
▶ 37:40
who had just beat him for president. Nixon intended his book to be a leadership manual, but it only highlighted his neurosis. Many observers thought Nixon's desperate attempts bordered on hysteria. Writing in his journal after the book's pu…
▶ 38:11
But as usual, Nixon's opponents underestimated him. Nixon may have suffered a tortured psyche, but it made him acutely sensitive to the nuances of power. He had a Machiavellian brilliance for reading the chessboard and calculating the next …
▶ 30:35
but fought off his discomfort by concluding that it was essential. We had to have it. Mills also struck a sensitive chord with Cold War liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., whom he accused of abandoning their intellectual independence by j…
▶ 32:38
of the established order. Schlesinger was partly right about Mills. Though he was a rigorous researcher and careful craftsman, the power elite did indeed resound here and there with a prophet's moral urgency. Mills, who was deeply concerned…
▶ 41:03
George Kennan, Julius Holmes, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, Paul Nitz, Adolph Burrell. Those are just some of the notable ones. Is Warhamster here? He'd be going, skull and bones, skull and bones. Okay, that's just cr…
▶ 32:53
Theological Seminary, which, according to him, was also a communist frontier organization, and Roger Baldwin. Patrick Malin, a member of the CFR, had been director of the ACLU since 1952. Other CFR members who was known to be officials in t…
▶ 43:04
Arthur Schlesinger again. This guy's very busy. Here are some of the policies that they advocated for in 1961. Abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Don't look at treason and spies in the United States. That needs to stay o…
▶ 7:43
It also says that they had several members of the CFR on their staff as well. And then he lists them. I'll just name a few of them. Arthur Schlesinger, and Hubert Humphrey. The World Population Emergency Campaign, you know, the eugenicist c…