Oral History Interview – RFK #1, 5/20/1969 Administrative Information
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Wesley Barthelmes Oral History Interview – RFK #1, 5/20/1969 Administrative Information Creator: Wesley Barthelmes Interviewer: Roberta W. Greene Date of Interview: May 20, 1969 Place of Interview: Washington, D.C. Length: 78 pp., 1 addendum Biographical Note Barthelmes, press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) from 1965 to 1966, discusses relations between RFK’s senate office and different news outlets and reporters, RFK’s personality and eccentricities, and his rapport with different groups that he spoke to, among other issues. Access Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed April 23, 1971, copyright of these materials has been passed to United States Government upon the death of the donor. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the Library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Wesley Barthelmes, recorded interview by Roberta W. Greene, May 20, 1969, (page number), Robert Kennedy Oral History Program of the John F. Kennedy Library. Wesley Barthelmes – RFK #1 Table of Contents Page Topic 1 First encounters with Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) 2, 7 RFK’s working style and office culture 3 Joseph F. Dolan 8 Relations with other New York State politicians 9 RFK’s staffing problems 12, 15 RFK’s relationship with members of the press 13, 68 Television news 17 Pigeonholing of RFK by the press 18 Relations with specific reporters and news outlets 20 Relations with “new left” publications 22 Relations with African-American and other ethnic press 24, 69 Barthelmes’ job responsibilities and staff 26 RFK’s relations with the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration and Johnson personally 28 Invitations to speak 29 Speech-writing and editing 32 Giving the press advance notice about speeches 33 Preparing for the response to a speech 36, 72 RFK’s personality, temperament, and eccentricities 38 Groups that RFK made an effort to speak to 40 Conflict with congressman Joseph Yale Resnick 42 RFK’s rapport with different groups 44 Rapport with young people 47 RFK’s messages in speeches to different groups 48 Referencing John F. Kennedy in speeches 50 RFK’s discomfort with campaigning 52 Angela M. Novello 53 Developing press releases 57, 59, 65 “Leaks” or other exclusive communications with individual reporters 58 RFK providing for family of murderer black national guardsman 61 Reporters who did not have access to RFK 63 Reaction of RFK and his staff to unflattering articles 66 Cooperation with book authors 71 Hero-worship of RFK 73 Off-the-record sessions with the press 76 RFK’s interview habits Addendum Subject Index First of Three Oral History Interviews With Wesley Barthelmes Washington, D.C. May 20, 1969 By Roberta W. Greene For the Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Project of the Kennedy Library GREENE: Would you begin by explaining just how you got to the Senator’s [Robert F. Kennedy] office? BARTHELMES: Sure, I’d be glad to. I was then in my third year of employment with Mrs. Green [Edith S. Green], Democrat from Oregon, and I had had some relation with both, then the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy and David Hackett [David L. Hackett] in connection with the National Juvenile Prevention Program [National Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Program], Mrs. Green felt that the legislation had originated with her but that in its unfolding and development by the executive agencies downtown that it had not quite worked out to her satisfaction. As a result, in her usual way, she sent out a flare and up came Dave Hackett. She felt basically it was more comprehensive than she had intended. She wanted individual specific small projects and not city-wide or country-wide projects. This was a matter of legitimate and sincere misinterpretation, I think. Anyway, as a result, I got sent down to the Justice Department building to see Dave Hackett and Don Ellinger [W. Don Ellinger], Barney Ross [George Barney Ross], and on one occasion, the Attorney General. It was out of that experience, I would imagine, that I received a call in February, 1965 from Ed Guthman [Edwin O. Guthman] asking if I’d be interested in coming to work for the Senator, having come from the same state, Massachusetts. [-1-] I was more than pleased to be asked, and we talked about it. And then a week or so had passed, and I was asked if I’d come over and talk to the Senator in his office in the New Senate Office Building. I’d been interviewed for positions before, but I thought it was like many other things that he did--it was a departure from the conventional pattern. It was a most unconventional interview. In the first place it reflected what subsequent events bore out--my impression that he was most interested in some of the physical qualities of people, particularly courage. There seemed less interest in the conventional business of my background as in two things: A) was that I had been in the paratroops, at which point there developed a great fascinating inquiry, almost an interrogation, as to how one was recruited and what one got paid and how it felt to jump. And I expected anytime to be asked to go out on Sunday to Clinton, Maryland, which is here the free-fall jumping is done, and asked to take him up and go out with him. So the job interview was sort of diverted in conventional terms into a discussion of what it was like and where I’d jumped and how many times--just a really great, intense interest in that. Another part of the interview was simply taken up by a repetitive sort of breaking into my chronology, of saying, “So you have any ideas?” as if I’d been retained or had been hired already.” Not, “Do you have any ideas about this or that?” or, “I want to be President. How do I get there?” but, “Do you have any ideas?” He had that great unrelenting and, as I learned later, unquenchable thirst and great openness for ideas and for knowledge, for picking up, scrounging pieces of information from any possible source or person, regardless of where it might be. So that interview lasted half, three-quarters of an hour. And subsequently, Ed Guthman called over and said, you know, “It was fine.” Ed had been wanting to go with the L.A. Times [Los Angeles Times], but he didn’t want to leave without a replacement. He’d been with the Senator for a long time. So I went on with Ed at a time he was still there, which was in about mid-March, I would date it, early March or mid-March of ‘65. [-2-] It was just very different from any other place I had worked. First of all, there were more people than I had ever seen, outside of being in the IBM office on one occasion. It was a matter of plunging. I began without instructions; “what I want, what I expect, what hours.” The usual things that employers say. It was, “Well”, just, “here you are, and let’s go to work”. It was very free form, very free flow. And at that point in time, his having been in the Senate less than three months, it was still somewhat disorganized and there was a large accumulation of unanswered mail. Everyone was sort of dashing about “doing his own thing”, I guess, before that phrase became popular. The main problem as I saw it.... Now this was another thing about free association which I think I might have done if positions had been reversed—“You’re the press fellow, and this is how I see my problem.” But nothing was said along those lines. I think the problem that I saw--and I don’t think it was ever resolved even at Kennedy’s death--was the whole problem of what I felt was a terrible sense of mistaken identity that particularly the press perpetrated on its readers. Television and radio, too. Also, the terrible hang-up that the liberals had about Kennedy. He was sort of the Peck’s Bad Boy of liberalism, I guess. And he was unconventional, and he wasn’t about to be some sort of custodial politician for the New Deal program. He was always looking for different avenues and different fields to explore.