John F. Kennedy and the American City: the Urban Programs of the New Frontier, 1961- 1963

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JOHN F. KENNEDY AND THE AMERICAN CITY: THE URBAN PROGRAMS OF THE NEW FRONTIER, 1961- 1963

William A. Foley, Jr.

Submitted to the Faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Indiana University December, 2005

Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

______Joan Hoff, PhD, Director of Dissertation Research

Doctoral ______Committee: James H. Madison, PhD, Chair of Committee

______George I. Juergens, PhD, Third Reader

______Irving Katz, PhD, Fourth Reader

Date of Oral Examination: December 20, 2005

iii

Dedication

To the Foley Families of Massachusetts and Indiana, “May the Road Rise to Meet You, May the Wind Be Always at Your Back, (and) May the Sun Shine Warm Upon Your Face.” An Old Irish Blessing…

Acknowledgements

Many individuals and institutions contributed to the completion of this dissertation, and I wish to acknowledge them. First, my parents, the late William A. Foley and Miriam E. Foley, helped in so many ways, with encouragement, advice and financial assistance when we were starving graduate students, that the debt of gratitude is overwhelming. To my wife of 39 years, Mairin T. Foley, the debt is equal and even more significant. She not only typed this whole manuscript, but as well helped reproduce huge amounts of material, and further when I was unable due to other requirements to work on it, remained faithful to the cause and encouraging to the end, until completed. To our children, William M. Foley and Sonya F. Berle, extensive and special thanks are due for the same like kind encouragement over the years, and support, plus ideas. Additionally, I owe them both a huge debt for all the good times missed when they wanted to do things, but could not because the dissertation had to be completed. I wish to thank our son-in-law Bob Berle who offered many great ideas and much encouragement, and an enthusiastic “thank you” goes to our grandchildren William and Michael Foley, and Lila, Adeline, Miriam and Beatrice Berle. Particular thanks are in order to our oldest two Grandchildren, William for “typing” and helping design the “book cover,” and to Lila for art work along the same lines, and for carefully helping align documents for writing sequence. Dr. Joan Hoff has been outstanding in all of this as chairperson and a true academic mainstay of solid support, excellent ideas, plus always willing to listen to my problems, no matter how trivial. Moreover, she contributed greatly to my views regarding the Kennedy administration and its policies, and performed marvelous editorial work. Additionally, in the human dimension, one could not ask for a finer chairperson and mentor. Dr. James H. Madison provided excellent advice and support on this dissertation, and I wish to thank him for his assistance with my graduate program over the years, and for his friendship. Dr. George I. Juergens served as an outstanding advisor and mentor regarding American social, intellectual and urban history, and has provided exceptional encouragement over the years in completing this dissertation. Dr. Irving Katz’s role has been truly significant as well, providing continuous excellent advice and support throughout, mixed with enlivened discussion and sprinkled with humor. A special thanks is as well given to Dr. Jeanne Peterson as a member of my coursework committee in British history, for her fine assistance and marvelous help with historiography. At Indiana University, recent past Chairs and Directors of Graduate Studies, deserve special thanks for their faith in me and for their continued support. I humbly wish to acknowledge Dr. James Madison again, Dr. Michael McGerr, Dr.Alex Rabinowitch, the late Dr. William Cohen, Dr. Carl Ispen and Dr. Peter Guardino for their support, advice and assistance.

And very importantly, Ms. Alexia Bock, Administrative Assistant and Graduate Secretary, has been has been a true inspiration in all of this, and over the time it has taken me to finish, she has become a fine confidante and grand facilitator. I also wish to thank the Archivists at the John F. Kennedy Library. William Johnson, Sylvie J. Turner, Larry J. Hackman, William Moss, Magan DeNoyers, Suzanne K. Forbes, Alan B. Goodrich, Steven Plotkin, John Stewart and Tim Fitzgerald. My thanks also go to all the Archivists at the National Archives and Records Administration, in Washington and College Park. As well, I wish to thank William Capron, Lee White, Bob Weaver, Dan Fenn, Dave Powers, Ted Sorensen, and Fred Hayes, of the Administration, whom I met, communicated with, at times worked with, and have the greatest respect for, because they helped move America into a better place, and they helped keep her there. To all the poverty planners of the Kennedy administration, whom I met at the Brandies Conference in June 1973, my thanks for your bravery, hard work and your compassion in framing a “war on poverty.” Finally, to my thousands of students, in 26 years teaching American History at Harvard, Boston, Simmons, Curry College, Emmanuel College, the JFK Library, Indiana University, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Ball State University, and the Army War College, thanks so much for all the great intellectual collaboration, discussion, and for your ideas. In addition, a “happy day,” to Dr. Robert G. Gunderson, who cannot be present at my defense, but more than anyone, built the American Studies Program at Indiana University at Bloomington. I also wish to thank Jon Haywood of Boston University, Dan Delvecchio of Boston and Harvard University, and Drs. Kevin Reynolds and Clay Chun at the Army War College, collectively for providing great work environments and encouraging completion of this dissertation.

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Preface

Since this dissertation is long, the preface shall be short. I had the honor to teach, to the best of my knowledge, the only complete history course on the presidency and administration of John F. Kennedy anywhere in the country, from the fall of 1973 through the spring of 1980, at Harvard University, Boston University, Simmons College, Emmanuel College, and lecture on the subject at Curry College and in JFK Library workshops. While doing that, I became somewhat a regular at the JFK Library, and had the true honor of serving on several committees or participating in certain Library sponsored conferences, and actually contributing to other “teaching workshops.” No group of professionals ever so warmly welcomed me, as did the JFK staff, and I shall always remember them, as “the best of times.” My students came to the JFK with enthusiasm and left the same way. Treated so very well, particularly by the amicable and outgoing Dr. Dan Fenn, Dave Powers, John Stewart, Larry Hackman, Megan DeNoyers, Alan Goodrich, Will Johnson, Bill Moss, Joan-Ellen Marci and all the archivists, they left with magnificent impressions of the Library, its staff and its ambience, as well they should have. I have yet to meet a finer group at any presidential library. They did not try to “fool” anybody, and collectively, they simply represented character and still do. However, although my parents took me while in early high school to see JFK, the young candidate for president in the autumn of 1960, I firmly wanted to believe what the event appeared to be in the press: that the New Frontier stood for good things, later simply stopped by dark and malevolent forces from accomplishing greatness. Graduate School altered some of that impression, but regarding the cities, I continued that somewhat “wishful” view, until I finally completed this research. In urban affairs this story is hard to tell simply because it is a painful revelation of illusion versus reality, and the late president does not come out well. Others do, but not JFK. Covering all aspects of urban affairs and housing, from the “central administration level at the White House and HHFA,” over three years down to the “city level” in certain cases, any one chapter could constitute a complete dissertation if expanded. However, although warned, I chose to do it the hard way, by covering most of the entire urban program, and succeeded only after great effort. I hope you find this interesting, because there are some real causes, and heroes and heroines here, who tried to advance effective federal policy for America’s cities in the first half of the 1960’s.

December, 2005 William A. Foley, Jr.

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Abstract

William A. Foley, Jr.

John F. Kennedy and the American City: The Urban Programs of the New Frontier, 1961-1963

Out of necessity in 1960, John Kennedy promised to find the “workable solution to urban problems.” Yet he failed to do so, because his interests lay elsewhere. Balancing his

1963 budget for Congressional approval to gain a 1964 tax cut meant more than an effective urban program. Had Kennedy exercised leadership and emphasized implementing his promise through combining new and existing programs, he might have found the elusive workable solution. Contrasted against JFK’s lackluster leadership in urban affairs, the hard work of Dr. Robert C. Weaver, his Housing and Home Finance

Agency staff and later the “reformers” also becomes a focal point. Collectively, they came closest to finding the solution. They tried to reshape urban America using available programs without being able to fully implement their newer ideas, before the “fires” came. In addition, this dissertation highlights seven themes. In urban affairs,

JFK remained an enigma, and he wanted it that way. Secondly, he used his office as a

“modern” president, but thirdly, he presented many serious policy contradictions.

Further, Kennedy had a tough time with Congress some due to his own making.

Consequently, political tradeoffs undercut his own urban program. Last, blatant open racism also permeated the early 1960s and affected political choices everywhere.

But lastly, in spite of this, Weaver plus JFK’s “reformers” under Robert Kennedy fostered new ideas, that if combined, implemented and funded, could have led to the

workable solution. This dissertation studies Kennedy’s entire urban program: JFK’s 1960 urban message; formation of his White House and urban team; the 1961 Housing Act; his failed effort to gain HHFA cabinet status; his urban budget and the tax cut maneuvering;

Kennedy’s vast suburban housing “boom;” public housing and urban renewal; his open housing executive order; and the early “war on poverty.” Researched at the John F.

Kennedy Library and the National Archives and Records Administration, this dissertation adds to the historical record in three ways. It traces JFK’s level of involvement in urban affairs and clarifies his interest; it shows the effort made by many key members of his administration to achieve a workable solution to urban problems in spite of their leader; and it explains the overall importance of Kennedy’s program in American urban history.

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Table of Contents

Title Page Acceptance ii Copyright iii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v, vi Preface vii Abstract viii, ix Table of Contents x Chapter I: Introduction 1-30 Chapter II: John F. Kennedy: The 1960 Campaign and the Urban Theme 31-62 Chapter III: The New Frontier and the City 63-110 Chapter IV: Stimulating the Economy and the 1961 Housing Act 111-170 Chapter V: The Department of Urban Affairs and Housing 171-223 Chapter VI: The Budget Wars and HHFA 224-277 Chapter VII: “Little Pink Houses:” The Kennedy Housing Boom and FHA 278-342 Chapter VIII: Public Housing and Urban Renewal in the 1960s: Poverty Versus Affluence in America’s Cities 343-417 Chapter IX: The Executive Order on Open Housing: The Stroke of a Pen 418-488 Chapter X: Poverty and the Elusive Workable Solution to Urban Problems 489-575 Bibliography 576-589 Curriculum Vitae xi-xviii

1 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Now that the trumpet summons us again… embattled we are [in] a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out…a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.1

In domestic affairs in the two years, ten months and two days he held office, John F.

Kennedy will be remembered more for what he said than for what he did. This is not to say that all of Jack Kennedy’s domestic policies lacked substance. Rather, it is to underscore that based on the high level of “anticipation and hope” he presented while campaigning, only a few of his domestic programs could be called genuinely successful when he left for Dallas in that late November of 1963. The question is why? Why in

1961 with all the resources available and with such a talented staff, should Kennedy’s overall domestic programs be so piecemeal and so limited? This dissertation investigates that in one significant domestic area - urban affairs.

The thesis of this dissertation is that out of necessity, Kennedy promised to find the overall solution to urban problems. Like most of his recent predecessors, he put urban affairs high on his domestic agenda in the campaign. But once elected, he faced three choices for dealing with the urban crisis: keep the old programs; find new solutions while maintaining the best of the past; or strike out in bold new directions and come up with the comprehensive, workable urban program he promised while running. Publicly he appeared to choose the latter theme which his 1960 Task Force on Housing and Urban

Affairs strongly recommended he should pursue, and that emerged from his campaign message. Headed by Joseph P. McMurray, that Task Force sent an ominous message to 2 Kennedy. It implored, “No administration in the past has...attempted to fashion a comprehensive program of well planned, coordinated activity to replace the individual, haphazard, old-fashioned, fragmented approach that has characterized the housing and urban renewal program to date.” It concluded by warning that, “Our Task Force believes that day is over.”2 Indeed, as would soon be seen in “the long hot summers” following

Dallas, they were right.

But another aspect of my thesis is that John F. Kennedy deliberately did not deliver

on his promise to solve the crisis of U.S. cities. Kennedy is criticized for being

somewhat short sighted in his ultimate solution to urban problems and also for having

great difficulty getting his programs through Congress. However most importantly and

in direct contrast to his campaign pledges, his interest in urban affairs was low, at times

bordering on complete indifference. And the late president was willing to “trade off,”

even cut his own urban program to advance his political agenda: a balanced budget that

would gain a tax cut from a skeptical Congress in 1963, to please voters for the 1964

general election.

Yet in spite of limited progress, “reformers” in his administration, much more liberal

than he, proposed several significant elements of a workable urban formula that if

combined at the White House level with other existing programs and resources, might

have succeeded. This constitutes a final aspect of my thesis. Had Kennedy exercised

proper leadership and placed effective emphasis on coordinating and funding these

efforts and combinations, the elusive workable solution to urban problems might have

3 been found. There is both danger and excitement in stressing that impact. 3 His “reformers’” efforts offered major changes in the direction of federal “social city” programs and if combined with some of JFK’s successful “physical city” initiatives, under an already existing framework supported by strong presidential leadership and proper funding, a “workable solution” to urban problems could have been found. And to make matters worse for Kennedy’s legacy in urban affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson changed

JFK’s fragmented program, when he became president, and not for the better.

This study explores what Kennedy proposed in relation to what he actually delivered. The emphasis is on federal policy and on the interaction of Kennedy with his urban staff, specifically Dr. Robert C. Weaver, Administrator of the Housing and Home

Finance Agency (HHFA) and his Agency in implementing it. At the federal level, planning is described, implementation discussed and results are measured against

Kennedy’s expressed goals. It emphasizes housing programs and community development directed by Kennedy and managed through the Housing and Home

Financed Agency (HHFA), which later became the Department of Housing and Urban

Development (HUD). Additionally, this dissertation examines all aspects of the

“physical city” as seen in public housing, urban renewal, and suburban growth, plus looks at “social city” issues as well, like open housing, urban civil rights and poverty programs. Transitional programs as area redevelopment, mass transit, community development, and open spaces are touched upon also.

This dissertation adds to the historical record about John F. Kennedy and the city in three ways: it traces JFK’s level of involvement in urban affairs and clarifies what he really valued; it shows the effort made by members of his administration to advance a 4 workable solution to urban problems in spite of the president’s indifferent leadership; and it explains the overall importance of the Kennedy program in American urban history.

In my analysis, seven themes emerge. First, John F. Kennedy remains a public enigma and in a way he wanted it so. Kennedy’s public image changed often and where he stood on many issues remained evasive. His life and presidency “mixed myth, theory and saga into an unfolding tale carefully self presented,” which produced a hero and a politician simultaneously.4 With his assassination, he immediately became a legend.

The hero fed on receiving America’s second highest award for valor in combat, Harvard

football, six published “works” under his name and a Pulitzer Prize, overcoming youthful

disease, plus the Kennedy charm, education and money. The politician in him grew out

of his campaigns, fourteen years in the House and Senate, his political network and his

well developed political agenda.5 Publicly, Kennedy could easily shift his image to fit

the political occasion and to his advantage. As many scholars have noted, with an

adoring press corps, he remained the last president who could easily get away with that,

as the killing fields of Vietnam permanently altered America’s relationship between the

presidents and the press. Kennedy, however, got so good at this he “clouded” who he

was and what he stood for. For example, in the McClellan Committee hearings on the

Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959, he “straddled the fence with such absolute brilliance that

he sustained the political support of both pro-labor liberals and anti-labor

conservatives.”6 Actually, John as well as Robert Kennedy thought conservative

7 businessmen and political liberals both to be “SOBs.” After the assassination Robert

changed somewhat regarding the latter. And not unlike many politicians, JFK’s overall

goal remained simply getting reelected and staying in power and the way he led the 5 nation always remained subordinate to that.8 Kennedy maintained his power base by

9 making himself the ultimate domestic centrist.

Secondly, Kennedy can be classified as a “modern president.” He used “increased

unilateral policy making capacity at home and abroad,” centralized, and set a “national

agenda,” utilizing “increased media visibility” while furthering presidential “reliance on

growing numbers of White House advisors” and professional politicians.10 These

advisors, known as the “best of the brightest,” were the “faceless, nameless, non-elected

bureaucrats around the president” who manifested a “know-it-all, arrogant, technocratic”

behavior that produced “the packaged passionless presidency.”11 For the media,

Kennedy of course appeared “passionate” and openly “exercised power” in public.

However, his technocrats who shaped policy were willing to readily change and even

more ready to jump ship “ideologically” should their leader’s position begin to falter in

the polls.12 They caused Kennedy problems with an old and conservative Congress, set

in its ways from a racist past, and he did little to correct this dilemma.

Third, John Kennedy presented many serious political contradictions regarding

what he said versus what he did. In the 1960 campaign, he “over promised” and over

stated what could be accomplished. He created a public impression the New Frontier

would become another New Deal, wherein the political climate at the time would never

have permitted that. In a way, Kennedy created exaggerated expectations.13 Kennedy

also made misleading assertions that he cared equally about domestic problems as he did

foreign issues. In reality, he unabashedly favored foreign affairs over domestic maters.

Not only did he neglect some domestic programs, he quickly compromised others to

advance foreign policy interests. Regarding the cities, Dr. Robert C. Weaver, who 6 incidentally held three degrees from Harvard, stated that Kennedy “was more housing, than urban, if at all.”14 Actually, Kennedy had a relatively low interest in city problems, which meant that key subordinates would develop the president’s program around him or without him, but this is not what he led urban voters to believe in 1960.

Fourth, John F. Kennedy had an unusually tough time with Congress. The

arrogance and inefficiencies of his staff and legislative team, often coupled with

inexperience, plus his own lackluster leadership in legislative affairs created huge

problems. Kennedy also suffered from only a small working majority, “on paper” in both

the House and Senate and even with the 1962 elections, failed to shape that into an

effective coalition. He could not build consensus with them because conservative

southern and mid-western Democrats formed stronger informal coalitions with mid-

western Republicans to kill his most progressive legislation.15 For example, even though

Democrats had a 263-174 advantage in the House and a 64 to 36 one in the Senate,

“conservatives” held the real power. In the House, Jack Conway, who will be discussed

later, lamented he could count on only 164 “hard” votes that would support Kennedy and

needed 218 to move legislation.16 Kennedy had a “fear” of “losing” in Congress, which

in my opinion, prevented him from giving full legislative support to certain issues.17 He said citing Thomas Jefferson, that “great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.”18 As Weaver points out “early on Kennedy became over cautious” with

Congress.19

So Kennedy, having a terrible time with Congress, used his broad executive power

to bypass it, make some changes, many grudgingly and a few willingly, of both substance

and symbolism. He issued Executive Order 10925 to establish the Committee on Equal 7 Employment Opportunity in 1961, although its results were mixed.20 He also appointed

several African-Americans to high government positions, in part to impress his newly

formed African-American constituency from the 1960 election. He established White

House Regional Conferences on government and planned a White House conference on

urban affairs for 1963, then backed off. He appointed the Commission on the Status of

Women.21 Further, he extended the Civil Rights Commission, and established the small

President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency by executive order, plus endorsed provisions of the Fair Employment Practices Commission. In addition, after receiving much pressure to do so, headed by brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, JFK initiated suits to reapportion segregated congressional districts.22 Lastly, after extreme

pressure from civil rights groups, in November 1962 Kennedy finally issued his long

awaited executive order against discrimination in housing. Called “The Executive Order

on Open Housing,” it proved very limited in scope. Further Kennedy capitalized on

building a political base outside Congress, with the “youth movement” of the post World

War II baby boom generation. By 1961, they constituted seventy million young people

under the age of twenty, equating to an overall population surge of seventy-eight million

23 from 1945 through 1964. He “motivated” them to come into public service through

programs, messages, and commissions ranging from Youth to Fitness and the Peace

Corps, through to VISTA, which LBJ later implemented.24 They were of course

emerging as a potential voter block for his second term as well, but he did “inspire” them.

Fifth, unfortunately Kennedy sold out his city constituents to the urban developer

and suburban construction business through compromises on key legislative proposals. It

8 has been argued that these compromises helped some of his housing and urban affairs legislation pass, but the net result remains that those involved in building the new urban and suburban architecture of the early 1960s became the true beneficiaries. Moreover, his desire to offer the 1964 voter a tax cut in 1963, with a congressionally mandated balanced budget required, caused him to cut or curtail some of his own urban programs to save money. This was not what he promised in 1960.

Sixth, as a theme, open racism permeated society then much more than it does today, and many of Kennedy’s decisions are studied in relation to that overriding political variable of his times. JFK “choices” are reviewed in detail regarding his urban program versus the segregation and discrimination of his era, in relation to Congressional or business interests he wished to appease. Segregation, discrimination and racism are roundly examined in relation to the suburbs, open housing, public housing, urban renewal, and poverty.

Finally, my concluding theme is that despite compromises, the Kennedy administration revived the reform tradition in federal urban planning, absent throughout the 1950s. Despite JFK’s ambivalence, his reformers fostered new ideas, proposed and tested concepts, and began implementing limited demonstration projects. Had these been combined with existing efforts, a workable solution to urban problems might have been found. The cumulative effort started there, brought a constant tension into the arena of public action, until Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty began. The Kennedy reformers brought federal activism back to the cities, in spite of their leader.25

The cities in America desperately needed some help by 1960. By the mid 1950’s,

for nearly thirty years the suburban edges around U.S. cities had been encouraged to 9 prosper while the centers deteriorated.26 Starting with the New Deal, segregated

suburban housing and towns developed by federal subsidies, blossomed into commuter

communities under the Eisenhower housing boom and with the start of federally

27 subsidized highways. Early strip malls prospered and the workplace itself began to

move to the suburbs. By John Kennedy’s Senate years, many urban centers had become

28 “disassembled ingredients of city sprawl.” This became particularly noticeable in

Western U.S. cities.

Another problem, called the nightmare of numbers hit western states as well,

particularly California. In 1960, that state had fifteen and a half million people, a one-

third increase over 1950 and by 1980, California's population numbered thirty million. In

the 1960s, the Golden State alone gained fifteen hundred people daily. Eighty-five

percent of these people flocked to cities where ninety percent of California's total

population resided on only five percent of the land. In 1960 during the height of the

recession, California tried to “study the problem away” but it only grew worse. Fifty

experts cumulatively spent “twenty months and four thousand man-hours,” resulting in

29 no good ideas. They concluded “Washington” needed to help them.

But urbanites no longer had Franklin D. Roosevelt’s two economic centerpieces -

30 community based service jobs and/or the right kind of earnings supplements. Thus, two

anxieties began to build. Fear of the loss of self government regarding the direction

urban America would take, became heightened by a feeling that as the job base shifted,

31 urban communities at anytime could unravel neighborhood by neighborhood.

However, other changes were under way in urban America in the very late 1950s

and early 1960s. In Ike’s last couple of years, developers with money decided renovation 10 of the urban core could be very lucrative. Excluding the suburbs, quick zoning modifications to America’s downtown created a two dimensional city by 1960 with a core business district and a frame around it. Certain political leaders, housing authorities and corporations “became the gatekeepers,” shaping that “urban form.”32 Powerful

individual planners and developers concocted schemes to put hundreds of millions of

dollars of both private and public money into the core development of cities leaving the

frame around it to develop on its own. Changes in the “Golden Triangle” of Pittsburgh,

massive renovations in Baltimore, Hartford, Cleveland, St. Louis, and San Francisco all

produced substantial functional, cultural, technological, and political improvements along

with great profits.33

But the old linkages within downtown districts fell apart. An “ecology of power”

developed based on money and tax incentives. With it came a dynamic fusion of

corporate and state power which “blended with the new private money of transportation

and communications interests, banking and security managers, energy and technology

elites” to create a new breed of urban developer.34 Social assimilation within the central

city core thus took on new dimensions in the 1960s. If, as Henry Adams charged, his

generation “was mortgaged to the railways,” urban America in the 1960s became

mortgaged to the “developer.” The development of urban geography would “dominate

35 race and culture.” But there would be a high price for this “progress.”

The price hit three-fold. First, community cohesion - “that commonness of feeling,

thought, tradition and commitment would be lost,” at least for two decades.36 Secondly,

the cost of municipal redevelopment strained city budgets to unparalleled breaking

points, akin to the 1930s. Even with federal money and matching funds, by 1960 the 11 shrinking tax base due to job displacement and suburban growth, hit many old

37 municipalities so hard, some fell into severe financial trouble. David Potter describes

recent American political history as a “grab bag of isolated events, strung together

chronologically, garnished with personalities and spiced with anecdotes.”38 This also

applies to urban policy in the 1950s.

In the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan a third price paid was born by “the urban

subset.”39 The velocity of massive downtown redevelopment in the very late 1950s cut

hard into the urban poor, both white and non-white, but chiefly non-white.40 Where free

enterprise reigned, “social needs became secondary.” A third municipal revolution

would have to take place to correct this, coming a decade later pitting class against

power.41

The civil rights movement taking place in the South created another problem for the

cities as it gave the impression that all areas nationally were being affected and

subsequently improved which was false. In fact, although the civil rights movement had

a dramatic impact on relieving severe structural inequities in Dixie, helping the rural

southern and middle class African-Americans, it had little impact on the extensive social

problems of urban America.42 In the big cities by 1960, segregation became the norm

with eighty-two percent of all public housing being segregated.43 For example, from

1954 to 1967, 99.4 of the Chicago Housing Authority family units were divided by

race.44 According to the 1960 U.S. Census, African-American families had been

increasingly concentrated in the central cities of metropolitan America, where 73.7

percent resided.45 Yet that central urban core where they lived soon would be displaced

by urban renewal. Although aimed chiefly at African-Americans, segregation also 12 excluded Hispanics, the Latino-Americans who came to the United States in the early

1960s by the hundreds of thousands fleeing Fidel Castro’s 1959 coup. They quickly became segregated as well even though this evil’s chief victim remained African-

46 Americans. Created by public policy at all levels, racially based ghettos formed while

simultaneously cities overall lost population and tax base revenue due to white flight.47

Some of that public policy also catered to the great “Federal Bulldozer” of urban

renewal which caused a housing crisis for the poor. From 1949 through 1963, 177,000

homes were demolished by urban renewal, but only 48,000 new ones replaced those

destroyed in urban renewal zones.48 Eisenhower’s urban policy funded “re-housing”

programs at such minimal levels and required such an extensive application process, that

it serviced only a small percentage of city needs. But individual city public policy was

often worse. In Chicago for instance, although the windy city appeared well managed by

the affable Democratic Mayor Richard J. Daley, his political machine actually

“maintained shamefully segregated housing and public schools, and an apartheid union

structure” while simultaneously growing a stable and successful white population and

creating a dependent and subservient African-American one.49 It would take Supreme

Court litigation in Gautreaux v. the Chicago Housing Authority to change some of this.50

Regardless, African-Americans continued to flood to cities, both north and south, but chiefly northern. The bulk of the African-American northern migration which took place in this last century happened between 1940 and 1970. In 1940, eighty per cent of the African-American population lived in the south and two-thirds in the rural south. Yet by 1970, eighty-one per cent of African-Americans lived in urban areas, and half resided in northern cities. The average annual migration rate northward swelled to 135,815 13 yearly, representing more than two and half times the annual average for the previous thirty years. This brought the total urban population in the United States to nearly one

51 hundred and twenty million Americans by 1960. Minority population shifts resulted not

only in segregation but also re-segregation, as seen in cities as Cleveland, Baltimore and

Milwaukee and around Chicago. By statistical percentage, in 1960 the levels of

segregation in these cities reached all time highs for the Twentieth Century.52 Gunnar

Mydal’s contention in An American Dilemma that racism in the United States constituted

a vicious cycle seemed validated.53

These changes brought far reaching consequences to urban America. A new and

widespread kind of urban poverty developed. Unlike previous generations of urban poor,

this poverty, based on racial segregation, created “block upon block of wretched housing,

abandoned buildings, littered lots and dilapidated schools which sat like fortresses behind

high fences.”54 In human terms, high unemployment among African-American youth

and a high dropout rate from school, both at nearly fifty per cent, caused another urban

pathology called large-scale “juvenile delinquency.”55 More than half of all African-

Americans lived in “substandard housing, nearly three-fourths had only one parent

present,” and that coupled with a high infant mortality rate, plus “half the total population

and nearly three-fourths of the children living below the poverty line, led to a tripling of

crime.” As the mean streets of the “enduring ghetto” prevailed, a “poverty of lost

56 expectations” also settled in. Gone for decades would be the African-American inner-

city communities that prior to 1960 passed “a sense of community, neighborhood

identification, explicit norms, and sanctions against abhorrent behavior, reinforced by the

adults.”57 By 1960, the African-American middle class became another casualty, 14 abandoning the inner city. The “doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals of the

African-American community which had been the stabilizing force,” left in droves.

Determined to get into transitional neighborhoods somehow, their exodus from the

“enduring ghetto” left behind a severe leadership void.58 Although Michael Harrington

in The Other America called this to the attention of white Americans, massive “passive

poverty” in a nation of plenty continued.59

Extensive homelessness loomed as another unresolved issue. A new “kind or

breed” of homeless emerged by 1960 in substantial numbers. Whereas the homeless of

the previous generation slept in parks under newspapers, yet got a meal on Skid Row in

Chicago or in New York’s Bowery, their condition actually resulted from a shift in the

economic order they could not immediately overcome. But the new homeless who

emerged in 1960 in staggering numbers became a constant, growing, social problem, that

would not go away.60

Thus, in attempting to fix all of this, massive changes in public policy would be

needed. Yet since the end of the Great Depression the effectiveness of old public

policies, which included small housing programs, improvements to the general economy

that supposedly benefited all, and numerous kinds of urban renewal programs plus

limited community development plans, had run its course.61 Everyone in 1960 looked to

the federal government for a stronger if not newer response.

However in a way, government at all levels had already responded and had been

unable to resolve the urban crisis. The search for an urban consensus, finding a viable

and workable urban formula for federal aid to cities remained on the national agenda for

decades. Placed there in the early 1930s, every administration since the New Deal had an 15 urban policy. But by 1960, no national, workable formula had been discovered and neither consistency nor cohesion in federal programs existed. An entire cycle from urban

“laissez faire” under Herbert C. Hoover, to direct federal aid by Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower had ended without reaching a consensus on how best to cope with city problems. Further, by 1960, certain kinds of urban difficulties became far too big for states or municipalities to solve on their own. Many cities had already tried, and in most instances, failed.

Even the private sector had intervened but without consistency. Improving the life cycle process of cities suggests that “a city can sustain and grow by nurturing and attracting new and innovating industries.” Yet, if regional industries dominated, limited to one product or line, city employment was “corner-stoned on that industry” and it

62 became “subject to its market cycles.” Neither business nor government had figured

out by 1960 how to create a diversified urban job base. As a model, an effective

marriage of federal, state, municipal and private resources had not been successfully

located.

One reason for this failure stemmed from the fact that the two layers of sovereign

government in America (federal and state) often had competing agendas “directly

affecting the geographical distribution or the internal spatial development of urban

63 communities.” To 1960, Eisenhower came closest to correcting some of that with his

1954 Housing Act’s Workable Program for Community Development, which blended

policy into a known framework, but membership was too small. The only “consistent”

exceptions then were federal road projects that traveled through cities or financial 16 guidelines for spending federal urban renewal and public housing money. This was not an overall national policy.

Uniquely, the municipalities most often attempted to effectively control their own city landscapes with large amounts of federal money, were also the most often vulnerable to strong private interests. Those interests then shaped a city’s destiny based increasingly on private agendas, not public ones. In housing, for every dollar spent in federal housing programs, one went to housing the poor and ten dollars provided housing assistance to the non-poor.64 Historically, in the creation of the modern western city, massive

government intervention never developed the real means to ensure most of its money

reached those who really needed it.65 But since federal level intervention is highlighted

in this dissertation, a short prologue to the Kennedy years is important.

Before 1932, Washington showed little interest in cities and many urban centers truly

felt the same about Washington. Yet the impact of the Great Depression changed that.

So profound became the financial situation that cities appealed to the states and

subsequently begged for help from the federal government itself.66 Franklin D. Roosevelt began his New Deal for urban America in March of 1933. He became the first president to place the federal government squarely into the business of helping cities. Although the

New Deal targeted saving the national economy, plans quickly ensued to put people back to work and to bail out financially troubled cities. His landmark 1937 Housing Act, while recognizing that too many slums existed, planned on replacing them with low rent or subsidized middle-income housing at the same locations.67 Harry S. Truman

continued Roosevelt’s programs and after his own election, he passed his most

significant 1949 Housing Act. Under its Title I, cities were permitted to reuse cleared 17 68 urban land for whatever purpose they wanted. Private enterprise enthusiastically

“jumped in” to help clear that land. Although Truman also had a strong “public housing” provision imbedded in his 1949 Act, his varied “local” use clause for renewed land created many future problems. While establishing broader and more flexible slum clearance and urban redevelopment possibilities, unfortunately much of this highly valuable urban land could now be developed into new enterprise zones catering to the interests of the well healed. For many reasons the supposed companion expansion of public housing did not happen, and poor people cleared from renewed sites, continued to

seek adequate housing.69 Martin Anderson leveled a severe criticism of this process in

his classic The Federal Bulldozer.70 Even though significant progress under Truman

reduced the number of substandard housing units across America, the very poor still

received very inadequate housing.

The two most important federal city agencies created during the Great Depression did

not help much either. The Federal Housing Administration established in 1934 became

the government’s cornerstone for providing mortgage insurance coverage to financial

institutions, that subsequently made loans. The U.S. Housing Authority, originating in

1937, apportioned public housing, and became the Public Housing Administration.71 But neither really targeted the massive need for federally assisted housing in relation to the numbers of poor requiring it. Indeed, by 1960, while the FHA can be given credit for building the middle class by broadening home ownership, in many cases, FHA actually subsidized the well off. Regarding public housing, much of America has always maintained some “distance” from the poor, but as racial stereotypes began to be assigned to being poor, hostility toward public housing dramatically increased in the late 1950s.72 18 Dwight D. Eisenhower championed a small policy revolution in housing and urban

affairs, but with a conservative view that supported government intervention only “to

protect or enhance the opportunities of the market place, rather than forcing market

participants to reallocate resources,” urban America’s serious problems continued to

grow.73 As he tried to influence “urbanization,” he created “sub-urbanization.”74 Ike’s

Housing Acts of 1956 and 1959 chiefly continued older federal programs, but his

landmark 1954 Act brought public housing, slum clearance and urban renewal itself into

one “workable program for community development” while creating the Urban Renewal

Administration (URA).75 That was important.

Under his “Workable Program,” cities received grants for planning urban

improvements, albeit through an exceptionally complex application process that often

stifled participation.76 Those cities qualifying for money, channeled it through a new

kind of big builder, a significant trend for the future, called the “community developer.”

These firms worked with all businesses as well as all levels of government throughout a

city. But older yet strict government codes “constrained what could be done in each

segment of planning or construction.”77 Thus, cities developed “in parcels” based on a given developer's plans and the city’s rules, but developers slowly gained the power.

Eisenhower’s chief accomplishment remains creating the first extensive and

prolonged suburban housing boom in the twentieth century. Albert M. Cole, his most

effective Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), deserves

credit for that. He did this through changes to private sector incentives and mortgage

financing, as he literally forced the FHA and the Federal National Mortgage Association

(FNMA) into broadened lending and monetary practices.78 By 1960, 53 million 19 households comprised urban and suburban America, an increase of fifteen million from

1950. Yet African-Americans would be deliberately left out of this housing boom and as the swift development of the central core of cities continued and the suburbs prospered, the segregated city poor suffered from “urban euthanasia.”79 By 1960, areas with the

highest concentrations of segregation and poverty “became the urban crisis.” Except for

civil rights, “city” became the code word for what most consistently troubled America in

1960 in domestic affairs.80

Thus, on a very cold January 20, 1961, when John F. Kennedy took the oath of office

in Washington D.C., he inherited the responsibility for the well-being of the country’s

cities, but not the solution to its problems. After nearly thirty years of spending federal

money, creating agencies, planning and experimenting, no agreed upon solution to urban

problems existed.81 Public housing had proven woefully inadequate to the actual need, with urban renewal bogged down hopelessly in red tape. In many major cities, it took six to twelve years to complete less than half the urban renewal projects already approved.82

Almost all cities lacked effective mass transit. Urban blight, dilapidated housing, and the injustice of racial zoning worsened. Whites fled to newly constructed suburbs and city revenues declined due to the dramatic move of urban businesses to suburbs. Completely broken down, social programs suffered while the czars of urban development prospered with new renovations to the city core, and this dichotomy often referred to as the “social versus physical city widened.” Lastly, a great need existed for federal coordination in its diverse, existing, yet fragmented urban programs.

Thus, these difficulties required a comprehensive solution, which the new Democratic administration promised to provide. Kennedy stated, “We as a nation have before us the 20 opportunity...and the responsibility...to remold our cities, to improve our patterns of community development, and to provide for the housing needs of all segments of our

83 population.” But he did not deliver.

In the thirty-four months of his truncated presidency, John Kennedy and his

administration went through a cycle - from promise to limited success and back to

promise. By Dallas, the substance of most of his urban program remained promise and

his record marginal. JFK’s chief contribution to cities turned out to be a continuation of

Ike’s massive suburban housing boom.

Yet his record has a positive side. Kennedy slowly improved the quality of life in

American cities and suburbs and his administration stimulated the housing market. It set

in motion patterns for urban planning for the entire decade: experimentation and

demonstration; increased community participation; and a revival of the federal

commitment to public housing. Further, JFK’s reformers had procured more good ideas

at the end of the administration than at the beginning, in spite of their leader’s lack of

interest.

In any appraisal of the Kennedy years, as well, some subjective factors must be

considered as well. John F. Kennedy’s administration ended as an unfinished presidency.

Cut short by an assassin’s bullet, Kennedy in early November of 1963 rode the crest of

legislative “anticipation” for the next session in 1964. Coupled with almost assured

Democratic landslides in 1964, historians favorable to Kennedy can point with some

credibility that had he lived, his record would have improved.84 However, Kennedy’s

presidency, simply put, ran out of time. 21 Another hard to measure aspect of the Kennedy presidency is what value to place on his tremendous popularity. In the Gallop Polls, Kennedy held the highest positive percentages for any president in the second half of the twentieth century, except for

George Bush just after the first Gulf War, and Kennedy’s ratings remained elevated throughout his administration. In 1961, he hit a high of eighty-three per cent approval, carried seventy-nine percent as the average approval rate for most of 1962, and stood at about sixty per cent in the fall of 1963.85

Kennedy also maintained “public” credibility and remained one of the last presidents

to do so. Had the public known about his almost daily affairs, the Marilyn Monroe

scandal, his wild parties with mob associates, his problem with a possible illegitimate

child, his Addison’s disease and his drug addictions, JFK’s approval ratings might have

been different. Kennedy’s private life had so many secrets and possible major

controversies, that he lived just “one news story away from cataclysmic political

scandal.” He associated with people who moved “easily through Hollywood, Democratic

politics, and organized crime.”86 But the public knew of none of this.

Therefore, when Kennedy spoke of things that needed to be enunciated by a president

during his time, people believed him. Even though he did less overall than Lyndon B.

Johnson and perhaps even Richard M. Nixon in civil rights, his messages fostered hope

that help was coming. After his “grand-standing” on the King phone call, he became

accepted by African-Americans as the candidate who would help them the most, and he

received a startling almost seventy percent of the African-American vote in 1960, while

maintaining that level of support or higher, throughout his entire presidency. A large

block of his African-American support also came from his urban constituents, because a 22 bonding took place between those who lived in the “enduring ghetto,” to both Kennedy and his program.87 Although an early version of the “long hot summers” began in 1964,

with “the flames” clearly visible in every year of the 1960s thereafter, Kennedy’s urban

“disturbances” occurred in small numbers and for different reasons.88 By Dallas, the

urban poor still believed John F. Kennedy would deliver.

But what the average city voter, particularly the poor did not know, was that JFK

actually had no agreed upon plan at the start of his administration to cure the woes of

urban America and, with the exception of his small group of reformers, ended the same

way. Moreover, they did not know that he was uninterested in social city problems; that

his favorite urban program was an unsuccessful middle-class housing one even though he

did create another suburban housing boom; that he was absolutely not going to push

Congress for significant changes; that he would directly cut or curtail expansion of his

own urban program in several areas in favor of a politically driven balanced budget to

hopefully appease Congress into approving his 1963 Tax Cut, aimed at the 1964

elections; and that most of his urban program, save for a few measures to be discussed as

the failed DUAH and Mass Transit bills, were “retreads” of previous programs. With

urban renewal, it was simply easier to make the physical city look and function smoother.

Moreover, JFK so frequently delayed issuing his long expected open housing order that

he almost made his “limited” executive order politically laughable. Only his small group

of reformers, just before Dallas, unlocked keys to an effective “urban solution,” but they

did so in spite of their boss’s lackluster leadership. Kennedy failed to creatively integrate

those remaining pieces into his existing programs which might have resulted in an overall

“workable solution,” with proper emphasis and funding. Consequently, some of the 23 blame for the “flames in the cities” in all years of the 1960s after Dallas falls on JFK’s, as well as LBJ’s shoulders. Johnson foolishly rushed into spending, billions on a program not fully tested, to improve his chances in November’s 1964 elections.

Firsthand, and after the assassination, even Lyndon Johnson a true civil rights champion saw the Kennedy legacy and image. He described visiting a poor family and discussing his war on poverty with them. Johnson remarked:

They had seven children, all skinny and sick. I promised the mother and father I would make things better for them...I told them of my hopes for their future...But then as I walked toward the door, I noticed two pictures on the shabby wall. One was Jesus Christ on the cross, the other was John Kennedy. I felt as though I had been slapped in the face.89

End Notes to Chapter One

1. United States Government, Public Papers of the President of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, Vol. I (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 2. This quote is from Kennedy's Inaugural Address delivered on January 20, 1961.

2. Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs, “Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs for the President-Elect, 12/30/60,” Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs 12/30/60, 6, The John F. Kennedy Library; See also Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 309, 310, 312, 315, 316, regarding McMurray and the Task Force.

3. James Goodman, ed., Letters to Kennedy: John Kenneth Galbraith (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 2; Also, regarding the term “reformers” Mark Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 321, uses that term for the “liberals,” who will be discussed later as do Daniel Knapp and Kenneth Polk, Scouting the War on Poverty: Social Reform Politics in the Kennedy Administration (Lexington: Heath, 1971), which served as the base reference book for the Florence Heller School of Social Work, Brandies University and The John F. Kennedy Library Joint Conference, “The Federal Government and Urban Poverty” June 16-17, 1973, and part of the participants’ reference packet.

4. John Hellman, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), ix, x, 33.

5. James Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, l992), 283.

6. James W. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 122.

7. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Schulman, eds., Robert Kennedy In His Own Words (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 203, 204.

8. Hilty, Robert Kennedy, 271.

9. Ibid., 280.

10. Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 9, 10.

11. Ibid., 10.

12. Ibid., 11. 25

13. Victor Lasky, J.F.K. The Man and The Myth (New York: Dell, 1963) and Louis J. Paper, The Promise and the Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975), were the first to discuss the “Politics of Promise;” James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 461.

14. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, I, 24, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library.

15. Patterson, Grand Expectations, 465.

16. Robert E. Gilbert, "John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights for Black Americans," Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, no. 3 (1982): 393.

17. Patterson, Grand Expectations, 465, 466.

18. Ibid., 466.

19. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, IV, Reel 1, 4, KLOHP, TJFKL.

20. Elliot Zashin, “The Progress of the Black Americans in Civil Rights: The Past Two Decades Assessed” Daedalus 197, no. 1 (1978): 251.

21. David Steigerwald, The Sixties and the End of Modern America (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1995), 20.

22. Memorandum for the Attorney General, August 28, 1962, Chronological Files, August 1962, Burke Marshall, 1, TJFKL.

23. Special Message to Our Nation's Youth, February 14, 1963, Legislative Files, Special Message 2/14/63, President’s Office Files, 52, TJFKL.

24. Ibid., 1.

25. Margaret Wrightson, “Interlocal Cooperation and Urban Problems: Lessons for the New Federalism,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 22, no. 2 (1986): 261; Terrance J. McDonald, “The Problem of the Political in Recent American History: Liberal Pluralism and the Rise of Functionalism,” Social History 10, no. 2 (1985): 342.

26. John O. Norquist, The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Center of American Life (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1998), vii.

27. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 101. 26

28. Norquist, Wealth , vii, 11.

29. Report of the Governor's Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems, December, 1960, 1, 6, 14, White House Staff Files, General Files, Urban Affairs, 11/60- 06/62, Meyer Feldman, Box 20, TJFKL.

30. Norquist, Wealth, 73.

31. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 1, 269.

32. Larry R. Ford, Cities and Buildings: Skyscrapers, Skid Rows, and Suburbs (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 4, 5, 6.

33. Ibid., 11, 12, 13, 45, 46, 47.

34. Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics, 1945-1990 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 1, 102.

35. John Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America, Revised Edition (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1984), 202.

36. Thomas Bender, Community and Social Change in America (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986), 8, 9.

37. Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Urban Wilderness: A History of the American City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 35.

38. Terrence J. McDonald and Sally K. Ward, eds., The Politics of Urban Fiscal Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1984), 17.

39. Daniel P. Moynihan, “Urban Conditions: General,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 371 (1973): 161.

40. Sherwin B. NuLand, “The Uncertain Act,” The American Scholar 67 No. 4 (1998): 125.

41. Deborah S. Gardner, “American Urban History: Power, Society and Artifact,” Trends in History 2, no. 1 (1981): 54, 59.

42. James Edward King, “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on the Urban African-American Families from 1930 to 1966: A Case Study” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1991), 11-15; Moynihan, “Urban Conditions,” 159-163.

27 43. Modibo Sidy Coulibaly, “Segregation in the Subsidized Low-Income Housing Program of the United States” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1992), 256.

44. Frederick A. Lazin, “Policy, Perception, and Program Failures: The Politics of Public Housing in Chicago and New York City,” Urbanism Past and Present 9 (1980): 2, 3.

45. King, “Federal Housing Policy,” 1.

46. Raymond A. Mohl, “Shadows in the Sunshine: Race and Ethnicity in Miami,” Tequesta 49 (1989): 65.

47. King, “Federal Housing Policy,” 12.

48. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1990), 122-129.

49. Ross Miller, Here's the Deal: The Buying and Selling of A Great American City (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 4.

50. Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Low-Income Housing: Suburban Strategies (Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1974), 202.

51. Richard Stuart Fleisher, “Subsidized Housing and Residential Segregation in American Cities: An Evaluation of the Site Selection and Occupancy of Federally Subsidized Housing” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, 1979), 14, 17.

52. Richard Henry Sander, “Housing Segregation and Housing Integration: The Diverging Paths of American Cities” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1990) iii, 3, 17.

53. Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Racial Change and Social Policy” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 441 (1979): 115.

54. Richard C. Wade, “The Enduring Ghetto: Urbanization and the Color Line in American History,” Journal of American History 17, no. 1 (1990): 9.

55. Ibid., 10, 11.

56. Ibid., 9, 10, 11.

57. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 3.

58. Ibid., 14. 28

59. Lawrence M. Mead, “The New Politics of the New Poverty,” Public Interest 103 (1991): 9, 11, 15, 18; Brian Balogh, ed., Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structures and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Turbulent Decade (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 36, 37.

60. Charles Hoch and Robert A. Slayton , New Homeless and Old: Community and the Skid Row Hotel (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989) 103-106; Peter H. Rossi, Down and Out in America: The Origins of Homelessness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 120, 185; James D. Wright and Julia A. Lam, “Homelessness and the Low-income Housing Supply,” Social Policy 17, no. 4 (1987) 48- 50.

61. Clarence Taylor, The Black Churches of Brooklyn (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) 111, 131; Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged, 125, 126, 131.

62. Ross J. Gittell, Renewing Cities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 22.

63. Edwin S. Mills, “Non-Urban Policies as Urban Policies” Urban Studies 24, No.6 (1987): 561.

64. Kevin Leslie Kramer, “Fifty Years of Federal Housing Policy: A Case Study of How the Federal Government Distributed Resources” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1985), 3.

65. Howard Gillette, Jr., “Rethinking American Urban History: New Directions for the Post Urban Era,” Social Science History 14, no. 2 (1990): 210, 211.

66. Peter Fearson “Urban Strife in Twentieth Century America: A Review Essay,” Urban History Yearbook 17 (1990): 110, 111.

67. George M. Raymond, Malcolm D. Rivkin, Herbert J. Gans, “Urban Renewal,” Commentary 40, no.1 (1965): 72.

68. Ibid., 72, 73.

69. Mary K. Nenno, “Housing Allowances Are Not Enough,” Society 21, no. 3 (1984): 56.

70. Peter Hall, “The Turbulent Eighth Decade: Challenges to American City Planning,” Journal of the American Planning Association 55, no. 3 (1989): 280.

71. Robert C. Bratt and W. Dennis Keating, “Federal Housing Policy and HUD: Past Problems and Future Prospects of a Beleaguered Bureaucracy,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1993): 4.

29 72. Allen Hayes, The Federal Government and Urban Housing: Ideology and Change in Public Policy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 26-30.

73. Ibid., 31-34.

74. William W. Goldsmith and Harvey M. Jacobs, “The Improbability of Urban Riot: The Case of the United States,” Journal of American Planning Association 48, no. 1 (1982): 53, 54.

75. Gertrude Sipperly Fish, ed., The Story of Housing (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1979), 305.

76. Clifford C. Ham, “Urban Renewal: A Case Study in Emerging Goals in an Intergovernmental Setting,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 359 (1965): 46.

77. Martin Mayer, The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 90, 112.

78. M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems: HUD Successes, Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 240-242.

79. Jon C. Teaford, The Twentieth Century American City (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1993), xi.

80. Ibid., 3.

81. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 79-83.

82. Report of the National Commission on Urban Problems to the Congress and the President of the United States, Building the American City (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 165-167.

83. Message from President John F. Kennedy Relative to Our Nation's Housing, March 9, 1961, Legislative Files 3/61, President’s Office Files, Box 49, TJFKL.

84. In areas of secondary importance, Kennedy's overall domestic legislative record in Congress showed slow and gradual improvement from 1961 to 1962 and through the last session of 1963. The primary bills though, remained bottlenecked.

85. Presidential popularity, Gallup Poll results, Eisenhower versus Kennedy, 1961 and 1962 in comparison to 1953 and 1954 on a monthly basis, Undated, Polls-General Polls-Race for the U.S. Senator-Indiana, President’s Office Files, Box 105, TJFKL.; Robert Dallek, Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents (New York: Hyperion, 1996), 25.

30 86. Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), 8, 142.

87. George S. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Volume III (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 1691, 1694.

88. Riots have created a rich literature. In an early but important study Stanley Lieberson and Arnold R. Silverman, “The Participants and Underlying Conditions of Race Riots” American Sociological Review 30, no. 6 (1965): 889-896, researched race riots from 1913 through 1963. The authors reveal that abhorrent police behavior and unresponsive city councils caused most of those during Kennedy's term. In more recent studies as Susan Ozark and Suzanne Shanahan, “Deprivation and Race Riots: An Extension of Spilerman's Analysis,” Social Force 74, no. 3 (1996): 932-941, their research defines the causes of ethic and racial collective action in 204 cities from 1954 through 1993. Results show that in the very early 1960s, problems occurred when a sustained absence of local control over city government and services, particularly education, caused minority expectations to drop. Kennedy of course kept those expectations high. The overriding cause of mid-1960s riots remained police violence. In the later 1960s, poverty, unemployment and housing discrimination led to riots only because minority expectations had plummeted as these problems appeared they would not be resolved. This is of course paradoxical because LBJ and Richard Nixon were spending billions of dollars under Model Cities and its successor programs. Simply put, President Johnson lost the public relations battle for the cities and Kennedy did not.

89. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: 1991), 340-341.

CHAPTER II

JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE 1960 CAMPAIGN AND THE URBAN THEME

Once again we must take uncertain risks - sail uncharted seas - explore unconquered territory. I have called this challenge the New Frontier. I have made it the theme of my campaign… Will you join me in this endeavor…I pledge an administration that will get this nation moving toward a new and better world.1

When the men and women of United States forces returned from World War II, they

became the new generation, which would lead America. They may have been America’s

greatest generation, “coming of age during the Great Depression” and winning the

Second World War, they “went on to build modern America and were the men and

women whose everyday lives of duty, honor, achievement, and courage gave us the world

we have today.”2 Sixteen million men and women served but with the war’s end, demobilization, retrenchment and reform also brought retooling, retraining and high

inflation.

In late 1945, America also became a land with key shortages in consumer items.

Housing remained in dangerously short supply as during World War II, non-defense construction virtually stopped and utilization of private housing as well as rental housing strained to near capacity. Housing shortages soared with each troop ship that disembarked. President Harry S. Truman enforced temporary wartime controls, but

Congress would be key to continuing them, controlling inflation and easing the housing crunch. Lobby groups lined up for the fight. In a way this would become a contest between the “comfortable and the concerned,” but one decided by the politicians.

The Kennedy family wanted a son in politics. Their choice Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., on his last air mission was shot down and he would remain “forever young.” Their hopes passed to the next eldest son, John F. Kennedy. After a primary struggle, with his

father’s money, he won the fall election in 1946 and became the freshman Congressman

from the Eleventh District of Massachusetts.3 Lower and middle class Irish and Italian

Americans lived in the Eleventh District and many had served in one of the two world

wars. Adequate housing had always been a problem and the war made it even worse.

Kennedy expressed some overall interest in veterans housing, public housing, and

city problems and politically not to do so would cost him his seat. In tracing his housing

and urban affairs efforts it should be noted JFK never approached the topic with the zeal

of an “urban houser” nor that of social progressives of two generations earlier. JFK’s record in this area on his road to the White House, presented a mixed signal, ranging

from of some interest and effectiveness, often for political reasons, to no interest at all

and to producing only marginal success.

Yet, in January 1947, he became a leading spokesman and co-sponsor for the

continuation of rent controls, which helped limit housing inflation and focused his efforts

on passage of the 1947 Housing and Rent Control Act. But a large, stronger coalition of

Midwestern Republicans and Southern Democrats opposed this act and offered two

alternate, more conservative bills. In sum, these called for increases varying up to fifteen

percent over then current rates, at the discretion of the FHA or local VA, even with rent

controls in place. Along with other Democrats, the fight over these bills consumed

Kennedy’s energy throughout the spring and early summer of 1947, but his version the

1947 Housing and Rent Control Act, extending rent controls for certain groups, finally

passed the House in June of 1947.4

More importantly, during the 1947 session, a bipartisan effort launchd a new bill for

thousands of federally subsidized low income and moderate-income housing units. This

would become the famous Taft-Ellender-Wagner (T-E-W) legislation and young

Kennedy quickly signed on as a co-sponsor, another wise political move. T-E-W

represented the most dramatic increase in housing for the poor and working poor, plus veterans housing assistance since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s landmark 1937 Housing Act, and Kennedy labored hard for its passage, both in Washington and in his district. On

April 16, 1947, he flew to Boston to drum up support, at the invitation of Lew Weinstein,

a major contributor to his 1946 campaign. Scheduled to speak at Faneuil Hall to the

Allied Veterans Housing Council, on the way there he learned the American Legion national headquarters opposed public housing, but that most of their leadership sat on the boards of national real estate associations. After a rousing welcome, he opened with,

“Our worst enemy in our fight for veterans’ public housing is the national office of the

American Legion.” He paused, then continued “The American Legion hasn’t done a damned thing for the American veteran since World War I - if ever.”5 Although a bold

statement for a World War II veteran, this attack did not hurt him at all with most of the

World War II survivors and nearly all the World War I ones, who felt the same way JFK

did about the American Legion and had since 1919.

Kennedy’s housing stand against the American Legion brought him national

attention, but it would not be enough to save the 1947 version of the Taft-Ellender-

Wagner Act, which expired in late summer of 1947. JFK spoke bitterly of the defeat

saying, “I was sent to this Congress by the people of my district to help with the most

pressing problem facing the country - the housing crisis. When they ask if I was able to

get them any houses, I will have to answer, not a one - not a single one.”6

In 1948, Congressman Kennedy worked longer hours for the Taft-Ellender-Wagner

housing bill, speaking repeatedly in favor of it on the house floor. In June, he and

Congressman Jacob Javits (D - NY) sent each member an in-depth position paper on how

the public housing section of the 1948 version would significantly decrease the housing

shortage. Kennedy based his study on extensive research from the results of the 1937

Housing Act. Revealing that this Act produced “190,000 single but adequate

homes…which lower income families can afford,” Kennedy claimed the new legislation

would double that.7 Charles Abrams who authored the acclaimed The Future of Housing also supported Kennedy and strongly endorsed Federal intervention to help, chiefly in cooperative housing.8 Yet the bill became bottled up in the House Committee on Rules

and Kennedy countered by signing a discharge petition to bring it to the House floor for a

vote. Yet in a bitter fight, the entire 1948 program met defeat.9 He was outraged:

I would like to protest this high-handed action of the leadership of this House in bringing about the defeat of the comprehensive Taft-Ellender- Wagner housing bill. The sellout to the real estate and building lobbies that have swarmed over this Hill for the past two years, is complete - public housing for the benefit of veterans and low income groups is gone - slum clearance to rid this country of slums that are a stench in the nostrils of every American, has been put aside.10

In 1949, Kennedy again co-sponsored the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill again and

passage looked quite favorable, due to the results of the 1948 election. In April, he

introduced into the House Record another lengthy, detailed position paper entitled, “Is

there a Housing Shortage?” which of course argued one existed.11 In early June, JFK

blasted the real estate lobby working feverishly against the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill, calling their views “total propaganda.” He reemphasized that the housing “shortage is not being solved by private enterprise…and the slums are still increasing” and offered documentation that “speculative builders are only reaching the richest third of the population.” He concluded that if “a real housing program was badly needed in 1946,

1947, and 1948, it is an absolute necessity today.” On June 23, 1949 Kennedy made an emotional address registering his “unqualified support” for H.B. 4009, now re-titled “the

1949 Housing Act.” He said that this bill would “help meet the needs for low-rent housing in this country.” Finally as passed in 1949, it proved to be a major housing triumph of the Truman Administration.12

After passage of the 1949 Act, in housing and urban affairs Kennedy spent his

remaining years in the House pushing for extensions of rent control and made numerous

other speeches on the subject. However, his level of involvement with these matters lessened, as he turned his attention to getting into the Senate. In his haste to get there though, he often took negligible interest in housing and urban matters and importantly,

this set a pattern he would continue throughout his presidency. For example, Marie

McGuire, who later became Kennedy’s Public Housing Administration Commissioner,

recalls she wrote an urban speech for him which he had not even read before meeting the

press and subsequently delivering it at the National Housing Conference.13 Nonetheless,

he did express some interest on the record for rent controls being extended from

December of 1950 through June of 1951. Yet that legislation went down to defeat.

Elected to the United State Senate in 1952, Kennedy immediately supported issues he

thought would gain true public notoriety, but in so doing he accomplished some things

for the cities as “sidelights.” He, along with Senators Joseph S. Clark (D-PA) and

Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), championed the more “glamorous” area redevelopment

and labor reform initiatives while Kennedy served on the Senate labor committee.14

Many of their bills had some impact on urban unemployment, but only as a sidelight. He

further co-sponsored or floor managed several area redevelopment bills such as Senate

Bill 2663 in 1956 and Senate Bill 772 in 1959 which extended that coverage to large

geographic portions of the country and of course, to their voters. These bills also

contained some measures for the urban poor in their public facilities loan provisions.15

Additionally, in early 1954, he helped stop the conservative 83rd Congress from capping existing housing programs, and he always worked against caps throughout his Senate career.

Yet his overall Senate record in housing and urban affairs must be considered inconsistent and ineffective. A bill in 1956 to place a limit of 35,000 on the number of annual low rent public housing starts passed the Senate 66-16 anyway. In 1957 Kennedy supported a bill to construct 200,000 more low cost public housing units, but the Senate saw otherwise by a vote of 54-20. In 1959, two additional housing bills, which Kennedy endorsed, met defeat, one because of a presidential veto and the other by Senate vote.

Toward the end of that year, a Kennedy bill to boost urban renewal funding from 300 million dollars to 450 million also failed. Further, in 1960, a housing bill Kennedy supported went down to defeat on June 16.16 But even though having little success, his

political efforts in housing and urban affairs drew notice to him from several national

urban organizations.

Capitalizing on this, Senator Kennedy heavily courted the major city groups, of

course representing huge voting blocks. He targeted those organizations favoring

changes in public housing and in urban renewal, as the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO), the National Association Against

Discrimination in Housing (NCADH), the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), the American Municipal Association (AMA) and the National Housing Conference

(NHC). With them, he let them know he supported their position either in person or in

writing. In 1957 due to illness, brother Robert Kennedy spoke for him at the convention

of the United States Conference of Mayors. As by now an accomplished public speaker,

in 1958 in Denver and in 1959 Kennedy gave rousing speeches to the American

Municipal Association (AMA) and made extensive promises. In his 1959 AMA address,

he quoted from an article he wrote in the New York Times entitled “The Shame of the

States.” There he criticized state legislatures, particularly rural ones, for failing to

adequately fund their cities. He also blamed the federal government as well for not

forcing states to reapportion.17 When declaring for the presidency in December 1959,

one of the reasons he gave for running, sprang from state legislative failures to

adequately fund urban programs. He said he would change that as president.18

After the Democratic National Convention, JFK proudly made it known that he and

his running-mate Lyndon B. Johnson would test their agenda publicly in the Congress

during the “short session” between the end of the conventions and the start of the

presidential campaign. Kennedy said his legislation would measure whether or not

positive change could win against entrenched Republican “stand-patism.” For the short

session he and Johnson announced their priority legislative list in a joint press

conference on July 30, 1960 with a list of twelve priorities.19

On their list of domestic priorities, Kennedy and Johnson placed housing and urban

affairs second and widely advertised that all their legislation would be passed. To the

national press in a series of releases from August 8 through August 10 Kennedy called

for a significant expansion of public housing construction. But Congress, along with

conservative organizations as the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB),

the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the National Association of

Manufacturers (NAM) and the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks (NAMSB)

would have none of it. Kennedy’s housing bill failed to clear the House Committee on

rules and died with the end of the short session.20 His maneuvering in trying to get this

legislation passed can be described as undistinguished and in the words of James

MacGregor Burns represented a “profile in caution and moderation.”21 Yet in the press

he scored heavily when he exploded publicly about the outcome, which gained great

notoriety for him with the voters. With some, Kennedy began to be recognized as “the city man.”22

However, in crafting an urban message to capitalize on being “the city man,”

Kennedy’s developed slowly and cautiously, throughout the primary and general election

campaigns and it became the product of many advisors. Kennedy had no firm set of

beliefs he brought to the table about urban programs, save for what appeared to be

popular at the time or would improve his overall chances in the campaign. Thus he piecemealed his urban message to fit the circumstances of the campaign, and tailored that to his local audiences.

To understand the Kennedy urban message, terminology must be clarified. After failing to become the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1956, Kennedy’s interests immediately focused on winning the presidency. Thus, in public statements he carefully selected his terminology so as not to alienate anyone. This is important. In general, his mode of expression reflected moral rather than political imperatives but in reality,

Kennedy aimed solely at getting votes rather than leading the nation. Specific words were carefully selected.

Kennedy’s political speech writers played an important role. “Cities” conjured impressions in voter’s minds of things they wish to forget. In 1960, cities represented

“gathering points for minorities, the poor, the infirm” and a challenge to the public’s conventional conservative values. Cities created a mental image “that neither life nor the

American Dream is all that secure.”23 Thus “urban” became the preferred word when referring to cities. It certainly appeared less irritating and spoke to everyone’s circumstances who lived in or around a city or town, “no matter how desperate those conditions actually were.”24 “Housing” pleased everybody and if deliberately left vague, included everybody. Accordingly, “urban” and “housing” dominated the rhetoric of the

1960 campaign for both Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, due to the

“Balkanization” of local city governments in the late 1950s, plus Eisenhower’s tight money policy, many urban politicians and urban construction bosses, felt comfortable with this language as well. Any terminology in the public limelight other than “rural” pleased these groups to no end.25

Some of the advice which built Kennedy’s urban message came from the private sector. In February 1960, sensing a possible Democratic victory that fall, Chicago’s Field

Foundation of the Marshall-Field Department Stores and the Sears and Roebuck

Company sponsored a national conference on “Housing the Economically and Socially

Disadvantaged Groups in the Population.” Chaired by Philip M. Klutznick, a previous

head of the Public Housing Administration and vice-chaired by Warren J. Vinton a

former ousted Eisenhower public housing consultant, other luminaries among the thirty attendees included Albert M. Cole, Ike’s recently resigned HHFA administrator and Neal

J. Hardy of the National Association of Home Builders, who would soon become

Kennedy’s FHA appointee. This will be discussed later. But the conference concluded that only the federal government with its extensive resources and revenue raising capabilities could resolve America’s urban dilemmas. This paralleled the 1957 National

Housing Conference (NHC) recommendations and went completely against Ike’s concept of “transfer it all to the state and local governments.”26 It also fit nicely into Kennedy’s

definition of federalism with increased centralization, and he happily adopted the

recommendations.

Two other advisory bodies helped develop the Kennedy urban message as well. The

first one comprised twenty-two scholars, chiefly from Harvard and MIT. Headed by

Professor Robert C. Wood of MIT, Martin Meyerson of the Harvard - MIT Joint Center

for Urban Affairs, and Albert M. Sacks of Harvard, this became the academic “Advisory

Group” which drafted several position papers for Kennedy.27 They also provided the

urban material for Kennedy’s January 1960 speech in Milwaukee which kicked off his

primary campaign.28 The Democratic National Committee’s Advisory Committee on

Urban and Suburban Problems constituted the other urban advisory body for the

campaign. It sent information to all six candidates vying for the nomination. Called the

“Advisory Committee” and chaired by New Haven, Connecticut Mayor Richard C.

Lee, it handled urban and housing issues for the campaign. The “group” worked for

Kennedy and the “committee” for everybody.

On January 2, 1960 the primary campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination began in earnest. Vague is the best way to describe the start of Kennedy’s urban message. He made some references in his Milwaukee and Denver speeches to how he would correct “urban” problems over five, then subsequently ten years if needed. But real specifics were not there. His intention remained focussed on getting the nomination in states which at that time had a diversified means of pledging delegates; the popular primary, the write-in, and the delegate caucus. Not all these states had big cities.

With his father’s money and through good organization Kennedy established himself as the frontrunner by convention time. He had a good campaign organization in all fifty states. On January 5, he got Ohio’s Governor Michael V. DeSalle to commit seventy- four delegates to him, as a “favorite son.” In April, Kennedy “won” the write in field in

Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In May, two other big delegate victories came his way: as he won Indiana and on the 12th; and key leaders in New York’s delegate convention pledged all one hundred fourteen members to him a week later.29 Along the way, he also won outright the popular vote primaries of New Hampshire, Wisconsin and

West Virginia. He also had a strong delegate base in other big non-primary caucus states as New Jersey and California.30

After securing the nomination, at the convention his urban message began to take shape within the platform itself. James B. Sunquist, administrative assistant to Senator

Joseph S. Clark (D - PA) and Abram J. Chayes, a professor at the Harvard Law School

wrote most of that.31 Kennedy’s supporters packed key drafting committees to ensure

what he wanted got into the platform.32 Chester W. Bowles, a Kennedy man chaired the

Committee of Resolutions and Platform and Arthur Goldberg, Theodore Sorenson, Paul

Ziffren, Jeb Davidson, and Thomas Quimby managed the writing and Meyer Feldman played a leading role, as he later would in the administration. Feldman, a former lawyer from Philadelphia and previous Counsel to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, joined Kennedy’s senatorial staff in 1958 and wrote significant portions of the platform.

Through these people, Kennedy influenced platform drafting directly. Senator Clinton P.

Anderson (D - NM) stated “we had certain positions that we took that they, [Kennedy representatives] one or another of them said ‘No, Senator Kennedy wants this or that, or the other.’” Entitled the “Rights of Man,” the resulting fourteen-page platform spoke in strong, progressive, reform terminology, some even calling it the most liberal to that date, regarding urban affairs and civil rights.

In housing and urban affairs, the platform insisted on the “right of every family to have a decent home.” It called for building two million homes a year for ten years.33

Referring to itself as the new “economic Bill of Rights,” it promised to eradicate poverty

and juvenile delinquency. While organizing the “policy making machinery of the executive branch to provide vigor and leadership in establishing national goals,” it also

promised that a new Democratic administration that would give the cities a “voice” at the

Cabinet table.34

Further the Rights of Man proclaimed the Democrats if elected would “create a new

atmosphere…to deal with racial dimensions and inequalities including ending

discrimination in…voting, education,…housing and employment.” The platform assured

“access for all Americans to…housing and public facilities.” It made a public contract

to provide Federal assistance to implement Constitutional rights “in housing and

employment.” It concluded, “the new Democratic administration will take action to end

discrimination in federal housing programs, including federally assisted housing.”35

Kennedy stated later to his regret, that some of these promises could be kept by issuing executive orders “with the stroke of a pen.” In sum, the Democrats at Los Angeles placed the federal government back into the city, its housing market, low income housing, and urban development. The Republican platform made no reference at all to low income housing of any kind.36

One voting “community” liked most of the platform, but not the nominee. For

African-Americans the problem was not what the platform said but rather with what the nominee had not said. Kennedy’s Catholic faith had not openly embraced African-

Americans and the Democratic party’s legacy of states rights and slavery caused most

African-Americans to vote Republican save for FDR, and Kennedy’s record on civil

rights issues in Congress could not be called progressive. In his effort to become the

ultimate “centrist” he had overlooked their concerns. Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary

of the NAACP stayed so mad at Kennedy over his legislative compromise on enforcing

school desegregation rules in 1957 that he would not even return Kennedy’s phone calls.

He called Kennedy a “compromiser with evil.”37

Frankly, Kennedy lacked the support of nearly all prominent African-Americans.

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell began as a LBJ supporter. Baseball legend Jackie

Robinson refused to have his picture taken with Kennedy and proclaimed to be a Nixon devotee. Singer Harry Belafonte supported Stevenson, Roy Wilkins - LBJ, and although

Dr. Martin Luther King remained neutral, his father strongly endorsed Nixon. So did

most of the African-American press. Thus to capture the African-American vote

Kennedy would have to do more than simply endorse a strong platform.38

In the 1960 presidential campaign twelve domestic issues overall were involved, with the economy, a comprehensive minimum wage, civil rights, medical care, education, and housing and urban affairs comprising the major ones. But neither Kennedy nor Richard

M. Nixon, Vice-President and the Republican nominee, discussed how extensive slum clearance had “uprooted thousands of families and had exposed long festering social

chasms and racial cleavages” nor how to resolve that.39 The minor issues consisted of

area redevelopment, the farm surplus, job retraining (overcoming automation),

conservation, public works (impacted money) and the status of small businesses. In his

post convention organization Kennedy appointed political “issues” people to provide

ideas for each topic in the campaign. Under the direction of R. Sargent Shriver, Adam

Yarmolinsky who would later serve in the administration, headed the urban affairs area.40

As an overall summary the 1960 presidential general election campaign saw Kennedy

slowly and barely pull away and win, and housing and urban affairs remained an issue.

Kennedy began his housing and urban message in vague terms but finally ended in

specifics. He eventually made quite detailed recommendations at just the right time,

causing urban affairs to become a real hot campaign issue. Not to do so would have

produced little interest about city problems and only by assigning urgency and

“criticality” to the issue could Kennedy gain the voters attention. This paralleled what he was doing with other campaign issues. Overall, JFK developed his urban message though quicker and more effectively than his opponent, forcing Richard Nixon to take an

unwanted stand on urban affairs. Then with the two candidates both holding

announced public positions on city matters beyond their platforms, Kennedy convened a major urban conference during the campaign. That stroke of genius gained him the urban

vote and it almost forced Nixon into a fifth debate on “city problems.” In October 1960,

at this “Pittsburgh Conference,” Kennedy finally set forth his “comprehensive”

urban program, at least the campaign version of such. The specifics of this campaign are

a story in themselves, which follows.

Kennedy’s urban theme in his 1960 presidential campaign evolved in unique phases.

His message went through several stages, developed by the candidate as well as for the

candidate. The initial phase of Kennedy’s urban message began in early August 1960 and ended on Labor Day. That consisted simply of attacking the Republican controlled

House Committee on Rules for defeating his housing bills. He followed that with an

assault on the Eisenhower administration for not using “a stroke of the pen” to end

discrimination in the federal housing program; for its lack of initiative in urban affairs

and housing.41 At Hyde Park, New York on August 14, 1960, in a speech

commemorating the signing of the Social Security Act, Kennedy blasted the Republicans

for having no housing program for the elderly.42 On September 1, he chided them for not

taking executive action to end inequality in federal housing programs. On September 3

in San Francisco he talked emotionally about losing his housing bill in the short session

and denigrated the Republican “tight money policy.” This basically constituted his early

“all purpose urban speech.”43

Starting with the campaign’s traditional Labor Day “kick-off” on September 5,

Kennedy changed his urban message and began generally discussing what should be done

for American cities. In Detroit he began this second phase of his urban message calling for “better homes”…” new housing programs” and said “the new frontiers at home lie in revitalized and beautiful cities with good homes for Americans to live in.”44

He claimed America’s cities had fallen into breeding places for juvenile delinquency and called for a “rebirth of our cities.” Traveling to Flint, a General Motors town, he suggested more direct federal aid for housing would create a better life for all

Americans.45

As he traveled west, Kennedy called for a business partnership for the cities and

promised to create another housing boom. Courting the housing construction industry, in

a letter to Texan Harry Blackmon, appointing him to the Democratic National Committee

of Business and Professional Men, Kennedy praised the private housing sector. He said his administration would make the economy healthy enough to “enable us to build two

million homes per year, in wholesome neighborhoods, for people of all incomes.” He

promised “a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.”46

In Oakland, California he promised that with private and public cooperation, fifteen

million homes could be built and poverty wiped out. He virtually promised everything to

everybody.

Upon returning to the Capitol on September 9, 1960, the Democratic nominee started

the third phase of his urban message which emphasized making urban housing and urban

affairs enough of a campaign issue to force Nixon to take a stand. His advisors urged

him to increase the urban theme’s frequency and visibility while simultaneously attacking

Nixon for his silence on urban affairs. Kennedy responded by calling an “Urban

Problems Press Conference” in Washington D.C. where he said, “he was getting to work

now to bring this, the urban issue, home to the American people.” He advocated that

housing and urban problems are “one of the greatest challenges of the next decade,”

stating “we are losing the race against spreading slums.”47

Kennedy also announced on September 10, that a month later he would hold a

“showcase” urban conference in Pittsburgh to consider what should be done “about the

urgent human problems of American cities and suburbs.” Pennsylvania Governor David

Lawrence and New Haven Mayor Richard C. Lee would chair that event. The conference

would make Kennedy the clear advocate for the cities in the 1960 campaign and he hoped

to use its announcement as the means “to draw Nixon out” into an open public debate on urban affairs.

By the end of September, Nixon still had not accepted Kennedy’s urban challenge,

even though the race stagnated into a virtual dead heat and thus Kennedy increased his

attack. Lambasting Nixon for opposing all of “the great domestic issues...of the last eight

years,” JFK told a Denver audience that “the housing bill [was] defeated because we

could not get a single Republican on the House Rules Committee to vote to send it to the

House floor.”48 In Chicago on September 26, the day of the first “Great Debate,”

Kennedy blamed Nixon for all shortcomings in the housing industry, and called for all

building trades to support the Democrats and for a national debate on urban issues.49 In the first of the “Great Debates,” he challenged Nixon again by proclaiming he would ensure by 1970, the United States led in education, health, home building, and in economic strength. He boldly concluded that only the Democrats could do that.50

This finally drew Nixon out. The vice president accepted Kennedy’s urban challenge,

which is what the Democratic nominee wanted, because to remain silent would be

politically damaging. On September 29, in a full-page “position paper” in the New

York Times, Vice President Nixon countered Kennedy by setting forth his own housing

and urban affairs program which deviated significantly from the Republican platform.

Nixon proposed improving urban America with outright federal grants for urban renewal

projects, which he would do later as president in a modified form in revenue sharing.51

He also proposed liberalization of federal credit policies, constructing more single-family housing and additional suburban starts. He emphasized the need for improved mass transit and touched upon the plight of minorities displaced by federal projects. While emphasizing that the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) should be made more powerful, conversely he did not endorse cabinet status for it. Nixon concluded with

“obviously we need a general federal urban policy.”52

For the next ten days before Pittsburgh Urban Conference, Kennedy repeatedly

attacked Nixon. He had two trump cards, one being Nixon’s new position paper and the

other Nixon’s old voting record on urban affairs dating back to 1946. Kennedy called

Nixon’s urban proposal nothing new, politically opportunistic, and too little, too late. He

labeled it a worn out effort just to get votes and accused the vice president of “leap year

liberalism,” quipping “Mr. Nixon as a Congressman had voted against the Housing Act

of 1949 and all public housing for our people.” Reminding the voter that as vice

president, Nixon cast the deciding negative vote “on a bill which would have decreased

the interest on GI home loans,” and he castigated Nixon as the nominee of the party that

caused slums and substandard housing to grow while good housing decreased overall.

When Nixon criticized the Democratic platform’s urban plank as too costly, Kennedy in

Indianapolis asked the audience “how can you measure the cost of no juvenile

delinquency in slums which have been torn down by an effective urban renewal

program?”53 Although this statement overstated what could be done, Kennedy felt

comfortable in promising it, as it looked good to an increasingly attentive public.

The Pittsburgh Conference on urban affairs detailed Kennedy’s solution to city woes.

It opened October 10 with Edward J. Logue, administrative assistant to Mayor Richard C.

Lee of New Haven, Lee himself and, Hugh Mields, Jr. at the speaker stand. They, along with Robert C. Wood planned it over the late summer and early fall at Ed Logue’s summer place on Martha’s Vineyard. Robert Hazen staffed an office in Washington D.C. to work out the administrative details.54 William Slayton and William L. Wheaton

headed the policy making team,55 but Dr. Robert C. Weaver, because of the Hatch Act,

remained in New York.56 The “Pittsburgh” plan called for approving a comprehensive

urban program beyond the Democratic platform which Kennedy would embrace in the national spotlight at the conference’s conclusion. Proposals from the 1958 United States

Conference of Mayors and the 1959 meeting of the American Municipal Association flowed throughout the literature. Statistics were updated and planks already part of the

1960 Democratic platform were improved with new ideas from big city mayors and city organizations. The Conference aimed at specifying an urban agenda for the 1960s.57

Kennedy arrived for the conference’s final planning session fresh from his second

debate of October 7, while enjoying a slim lead over the vice president.58 He “warmed

quickly” to the approximately 450 mayors, urban planners and urban builders in

attendance.59 Using the recommendations of the conference, as the cameras rolled he

delivered one of his best and most definitive campaign speeches. Here he presented his

vision for urban America, and in the view of Robert C. Weaver, also made the real

commitment for a Department of Urban Affairs and Housing.60

Kennedy quickly came to the heart of the matter. He offered to create a partnership

between the federal government and local communities, with each municipality planning

its future. This was a big change which the reformers had influenced. He wished to

combine the resources of federal, state and city government to solve urban problems over

a ten year period and stressed that cooperative federal assistance and local planning

would be the key to eradicating slums through five distinctive approaches.61

The first step would be to “marry” urban renewal to a mix of federal, state, city and private money. Those displaced would be resettled on or near the site. Secondly, he pledged to find an “appropriate” balance between the construction of high, moderate and

low income housing and use federal authorities and incentives to create that. Thirdly, he

called for another housing boom, which would build half again more homes every year

than in 1960 and as a fourth point, mass transit planning would receive new emphasis and money. Kennedy intended to spend millions to help metropolitan America build mass transit. Lastly, he wanted to preserve urban open spaces as parks, recreational facilities, and city lakes to help eliminate juvenile delinquency. To implement this plan, he called

for a Department of Urban Affairs and Housing (DUAH) for coordinating all federal city

activities and concluded that the cities deserve a seat at the cabinet table along with the

Department of Agriculture which “was created ninety-eight years ago to serve rural

America.”62

Kennedy’s solution to urban problems could not be called new or radical. But this

ten-year, five-point plan if enacted, with an urban department, represented the most

comprehensive city program since the 1949 Housing Act. Increasing local community

participation in federal urban planning represented a significant change. It stood as a

rejection of the centralization recommended by the February private sector conference in

Chicago but then again, Kennedy was in front of an audience of community mayors. The

cost though was a first. In 1961 dollars, this program would require two and a half billion over Kennedy’s first four years, based on HHFA “from year of start estimates” plus a doubling of urban renewal funds over the same period.63

But Kennedy’s Pittsburgh ideas lacked a social conscience. Kennedy chiefly

addressed only solving the problems of the physical city. Those favoring programs to

resolve the grinding poverty of the “enduring ghetto” would only be listened to later in

his presidency. Ideas from those willing to experiment with social redesign were not

included, in my opinion, because JFK wished not to offend “conservative voters.”

Moreover, urban civil rights and urban housing matters were not mentioned.

However, some people would be heard from whether Kennedy wanted it or not. At

the urging of the NAACP, CORE and the National Urban League, on October 20 the

Democratic National Committee added several additional specifics regarding urban civil rights. These included two concrete pledges for minorities, completely banning racial discrimination in public housing and promising direct federal action to assist minorities in finding decent homes. Without much enthusiasm, Kennedy subsequently issued separate statements endorsing these additions. Because the Pittsburgh conference had been planned since August, one would assume these kinds of statements would have already been included. Yet, Kennedy in his “centrist” role had overlooked them.

Thus a pattern emerged for Kennedy’s presidency even before his election, which he maintained throughout his administration. John Kennedy remained cautious on social issues until forced by others to take a stand, or the issue required a stand, or it looked good in the polls. This is not to say he held conservative views on social issues or that he would not take a moral stand. Rather it is to underscore that he did not intend to become the standard bearer of reform for the 1960s social agenda. His caution would later prompt Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP to quip, “the New Frontier looks like a dude ranch with Senator James Eastland (D - MS) as the general manager.”64

To counter African-American suspicions regarding his urban civil rights position,

after the Pittsburgh conference he spoke at a NAACP political meeting but received only lukewarm response. African-Americans were still not ready to take Kennedy on an act of

faith. Then he and brother Robert Kennedy stumbled through an event, which in the end,

would secure him the presidency.

Arrested on October 19 in a protest of segregated facilities at an Atlanta department

store, Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed and further prosecuted for a minor traffic

infraction over an Alabama drivers license. Sentenced to four months of chain gang labor, he was transferred in the middle of the night from Atlanta’s jail to the Georgia

State Penitentiary. After the continual and almost frantic urging of Harris Wofford, the campaign’s civil rights advisor, Kennedy finally called King’s wife, Corretta Scott King, to offer his sympathies. The press interpreted this call as an offer of help to King.

Simultaneously, brother Robert Kennedy called the judge who sentenced King, to question the legalities of the sentence. Having already received pressure for King’s release from Atlanta Mayor Hartsfield, Robert’s Kennedy’s call provided enough impetus

to get King out of jail and Jack got the credit for it. Subsequently he also got the full

endorsement of Martin’s father, the Reverend King, Sr. and as African-American press and churches began to hear about this, Kennedy started receiving their endorsements. To ensure nobody forgot, the Kennedy campaign established a front organization which issued a “blue pamphlet” to these groups explaining Kennedy’s help.65 This one gesture

gained him seventy percent of the African-American vote that fall.66

The Pittsburgh conference and the King “phone call” provided the momentum

Kennedy needed to capture urban America. Now, with his urban proposal on the table as

well as Vice President Nixon’s, Kennedy compared the two relentlessly throughout the

remaining days and nights of the campaign. He hammered Nixon’s urban proposal as

well as Nixon’s follow through “white paper” on urban affairs which the vice president

wrote to rebut Kennedy. Having won a narrow victory in all four debates, by late

October Kennedy tried to get the vice president into a fifth one on housing and urban

affairs. But Nixon kept issuing “fact sheets” while delaying any decision about a fifth

debate and Kennedy countered by emphasizing Nixon’s willingness to debate “by

mimeograph but not in front of seventy million on television.” He also accused Nixon of

having a “housing credibility gap” which Kennedy later called the “Nixon Gap.”67

On November 8, l960, the campaign ended and the voting began. John F. Kennedy

had been hoping for a political mandate the next day that would sweep him and his party into the White House and the Congress. He had covered carefully selected northern, mid- western and western states with repeated appearances and huge sums of money. Lyndon

B. Johnson, the other half of the ticket, capitalizing on his southern background, made extensive appearances throughout the south. There he aptly mixed his brand of “down

home” politics and southern wit, to appeal to that Democratic voting tradition. Thus,

in the autumn of 1960, John Kennedy kept together the remnants of the New Deal

coalition and Lyndon Johnson the majority of the “solid south,” for the last time.

Yet Kennedy produced a razor thin victory. In the closest election in the century to

that date, he defeated Richard M. Nixon by 49.72 percent to 49.55 percent of the popular

vote. Kennedy’s margin stood at 119,450 votes in 68,836,385 ballots cast. Yet he

carried only twenty-three states to Nixon’s twenty-six, with one remaining independent.

Michigan, with a heavy turnout, put him over in the early morning hours of November 9,

1960. And like in Michigan, the voters nationally turned out in record numbers. Of a

total of 107,000,000 eligible voters, sixty-four percent went to the polls. This marked the

election of 1960 as the highest participatory election, by percentage as well as numbers in

the nation’s history.

But the 1960 election of John Kennedy still has a cloud over it. Illinois, in particular

Chicago, under staunch Democratic Mayor Richard J. Daley, probably produced

fraudulent voting and in numbers large enough to have turned the outcome.68 Daley would be the second official visitor to the Kennedy White House on January 21, 1961, following only behind former President Harry S. Truman. Throughout Kennedy’s presidency, Daley received innumerable political appointments he wanted and had free access to the President.69 Michigan, Texas and Louisiana also may have produced some

irregularities with a few of these by type, continuing into the 1962 off-year elections.70

Overall had Kennedy not received seventy-seven percent of the Catholic vote, nearly

seventy percent of the African-American vote, sixty-four percent of the labor vote, fifty-

four percent of the youth vote, and fifty-two percent of the women’s vote, he would not

55 have become President.71 Kennedy also owed a significant debt of gratitude to

American cities. He captured the urban vote in both older industrial cities and in many new urban centers and did this, not only because of the traditional Democratic Party machinery, but because of his urban message. For the first time since Al Smith’s unsuccessful bid in 1928, urban America “thought” they finally had a genuine “city man” on the way to the White House. Kennedy captured twenty-nine of the thirty-nine major cities and ran very well in the suburbs. He ran so well in the suburbs of the top fourteen major cities that he bested Stevenson’s 1956 tallies by eleven percent across the boards.

The cities truly gave John Kennedy their endorsement.72

However, what the urban voters though they were getting in the election of John F.

Kennedy as president was in reality, something less. What Kennedy would or could deliver for the cities in the “thousand days” to begin on January 20, 1961, did not live up to his urban message. There are three reasons for this beyond the fact that Kennedy

“overpromised.”

Initially, John Kennedy did not get the mandate he wanted. He won, but neither he nor his program were widely endorsed. In addition, the Democrats lost twenty-two seats in the House and one seat in the Senate while Kennedy eked out his narrow victory. This placed Kennedy’s entire program on shaky ground before he ever entered the Oval

Office.73

Second, Kennedy failed to educate the urban voter about the depth of opposition to a big urban program from within his own party. Short of a miracle, the conservative

Democrats of the 87th and 88th Congresses would greatly slow his domestic initiatives or kill them. Along with their Republican counterparts they would put brakes on anything

in the “New Frontier” which appeared radical, liberal or progressive and had already

done so for almost a quarter of a century.74 There would be only a short “honeymoon”

for Jack Kennedy in urban affairs but it would not last.

Most importantly and unbeknown to the city voters, John F. Kennedy’s real interests

lay elsewhere. As a young Cold Warrior elected president, he decidedly favored foreign

policy which had a serious effect on the attention he gave to domestic matters.75 Thus the urban voter had been mislead. For when aspiring to the White House, in the primaries, the campaign, the debates, and other means of expressing his ideas, Kennedy alluded to attending equally to both foreign and domestic issues. When trying to get elected, he made himself the champion of the “politics of expectation” in all areas. He promised to find a workable solution to urban problems. Hinting at bold designs and new programs, he painted the picture of an administration equally active across the boards.76 This was

not to be the case.

So the nation and the city voted in 1960 for a new leadership which promised to

deliver a comprehensive urban program. John F. Kennedy retired to his Palm Beach

estate to begin planning how to lead that nation. In his campaign travels, he discovered

three important things: poverty in America; how serious the civil rights struggle had

become; and the extent of the deterioration of American cities. Kennedy would embark

on a journey where he promised great things to correct these problems. Sandwiched

between the stoic 1950s and the riots and turmoil of the Johnson years, the New Frontier

offered great hope for the United States and its cities. It promised comprehensive

solutions to complex problems, without easy answers. It would take a great effort, in a

long struggle to try and accomplish Kennedy’s ten-year urban plan for the 1960s, and

neither the candidate nor the public knew how hard that would be.

But on November 9, many in America’s cities waited with genuine hope and

excitement for the New Frontier to begin. They would greet Kennedy’s inauguration with a new sense of public service, good will, patriotism, and exuberance. Tom Hayden recalled about Kennedy’s call to serve one’s country, “Nobody ever asked me to do anything before, and then Kennedy did.”77 Thus, many readied themselves to get started,

but unknown to them, the question remained whether Kennedy was really up to the task

or could deliver on his promises.

End Notes to Chapter Two

1. Senate Report 994, Part I, 87th Congress, 1st Session, The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy, August Through November 1960 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 994.

2. Thomas Brokow, The Greatest Generation (New York: Random House, 1998), i.

3. Kennith P. O’Donnell, David F. Powers, Joe McCarthy, Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), 44, 47-51.

4. Senate Document 79, 88th Congress, 2nd Session, The Speeches of JFK in Congress (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 7, 10, 11.

5. Lewis H. Weinstein, “John F. Kennedy: A Personal Memoir, 1946 - 1963,” American Jewish History 75, no., 1 (1985): 9.

6. Senate 79, Speeches, 11.

7. Ibid., 23.

8. R. Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Fall of the U.S. Welfare State” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkley, 1994) 141.

9. Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 1960, CQ Fact Sheet on John F. Kennedy, (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Publishing, 1960), 838.

10. Senate 79, Speeches, 28.

11. Ibid., 972 - 974.

12. Ibid., 48, 975, 976, 977.

13 Oral Interview of Marie C. McGuire by William McHugh, 25, April 3, 1967, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library.

14. Quarterly, Almanac, 836.

15. Senate 79 Speeches, 459-463, 798, 799.

16. Quarterly, Almanac, 838.

59 17. Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 292-295.

18. Ibid., 292-295.

19. Of the thousands of students I have taught, one undergraduate honors history student I co-advised at Boston University who also took my Kennedy course, and later became a “readings” student researched a truly marvelous History 492 paper I wish to credit. His paper is referenced with his pagination, but as unpublished, with the cites as well. Richard W. Mable, “The Pre-Presidential Leadership of Senator John F. Kennedy: Politics, Promise During the Summer of 1960,” (History 492, Boston University, May 15, 1978), 29, 30, and cites; Memorandum, Joint Release of Senators Kennedy and Johnson, July 29, 1960, Kennedy/Johnson Meeting 7/29/60, Updated Materials 1-4, Democratic National Committee Files, TJFKL; and “Nobody’s Winning,” Newsweek (August 22, 1960) 17, 18.

20. Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports, Vol. XVIII, No. 36, Week Ending September 2, 1960 (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Publishing, 1960) 1505-1506.

21. James MacGregor Burns, John Kennedy: A Political Profile (New York: Avon Books, 1960), 250.

22. Mable, “Pre-Presidential Leadership,” 45, and cites: Editorial, “Charges Fly As Congress Accomplishes Little” Business Week 10 September 1960, 33; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 297.

23. M. Carter McFarland, The Federal Government and Urban Problems: HUD Successes, Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westwood Press, 1978), xiii.

24. Ibid., ix.

25. Ibid., 6.

26. Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis Since 1930 (New York: Universe Books, 1973), 134, 135.

27. Oral Interview of Robert C. Wood, by John E. Stewart, 6, January 29, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL.

28. Ibid., 15, with Memorandum from Deidre Henderson to Dick Goodwin, 1, March 25 1960 as an insert.

29. Quarterly, Almanac, 334.

60 30. James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1991), 16-17; Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003), 229-260; Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Athenaeum House, Inc., 1961), 145-148.

31. Oral Interview of Senator Joseph S. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, 52-54, December 16, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

32. Mable, “Pre-Presidential Leadership,” 20, 21, and cites: Oral Interview of Camille Gavel by John Stewart, 52, 53, May 23, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL, and Oral Interview of Senator Clinton P. Anderson by John Stewart, 25, 26, April 14, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

33. Democratic National Committee, The Democratic National Convention: 1960 Official Proceedings: The Proposed Democratic National Platform (Washington: Proceedings Publications, 1964), 68, 69.

34. Ibid., 69, 70; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 274, 275.

35. Ibid., Democratic National Committee, Platform, 72, 73.

36. James King, “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on the Urban African- American Families from 1930-1966: Model Cities, A Case Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1991) 64; Keith, Politics, 137.

37. Harry Golden, Mister Kennedy and the Negroes (Greenwich: Fawcett, 1964), 112.

38. Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (New York: Simon & Schuster, Touchtone Books, 1989), 304-308, 312-324.

39. John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 183.

40. Oral Interview of Harris Wofford by Berl Bernard, 15, November 29, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

41. National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, A Call on the President of the United States for the Insurance of An Executive Order Ending Segregation in All Federal Housing Programs (New York: NCADH, 1961), 7.

42. Report 994, Speeches, 18, 20.

43. Ibid., 97.

44. Ibid., 109, 110.

45. Ibid., 116, 117, 985, 989. 61

46. Ibid., 995.

47. Ibid., 1005, 1006.

48. Ibid., 334.

49. Ibid., 364, 365.

50. Stanley Kraus, The Great Debates: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 365.

51. Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 69.

52. Warren Weaner, Jr., “Housing Program Offered by Nixon,” New York Times 29 September 1960, 1, 20; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 301-305.

53. Report 994, Speeches, 490, 496.

54. Oral Interview of Robert C. Wood by John Stewart, 9, 10, January 29, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL.

55. Oral Interview of William L. Slayton by William M. McHugh, 2, 3, February 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

56. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, Volume I, Interview I, Reel I, 16, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

57. Interview, Clark, 53, 54.

58. George S. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Volume III (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1975), 1686, 1687. The results of the first presidential polls conducted from September 28 through October 2 showed Kennedy with a 49 to 46 percent lead with five percent undecided.

59. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 303.

60. Interview, Weaver, Vol. I, Int. I, Reel I, 16.

61. Report 994, Speeches, 552.

62. Ibid., 553.

63. Housing Message from President John F. Kennedy, March 9, 1960, Legislative Files, 3/61, President’s Office Files, Box 49, TJFKL.

62 64. James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 474, 475.

65. Branch, Parting Waters, 352-378.

66. Patterson, Expectations, 440.

67. Report 994, Speeches, 739, 740, 743, 828.

68. David Steigerwald, The Sixties and the End of Modern America (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1995), 11.

69. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Schulman, Robert Kennedy In His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollection of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 38, 42, 208, 213.

70. Damon Stetson, “Fair Vote Group Rouses Michigan” The New York Times 30 October 1962, with Honest Ballot Association Memorandum, Attorney General's Correspondence, Civil Rights 8-62/ 11-62, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 9, TJFKL.

71. Gallup, Poll, 1684-1697.

72. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 306.

73. Breakdown of House and Senate Seats, Polls-General, Presidential Office Files, Box 105, TJFKL.

74. William E. Leucthenberg, A Troubled Feast: The Kennedy-Johnson Years and the 1960s (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 17.

75. James W. Hitly, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 412.

76. Henry Fairlie, The Kennedy Promise (New York: Harper, 1973), 16-19.

77. David Chambers, And The Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle For Social Change in the 1960s (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 38.

CHAPTER III

THE NEW FRONTIER AND THE CITY

…As a historian, I predict that we are on the threshold of what will be called the Kennedy Era, that the whole atmosphere of the country will now change as it changed when Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, and that the new era will be one of the most constructive …in our annals.1

After his election on the evening of November 11, President-Elect John F. Kennedy

began a short working vacation at Palm Beach in Florida. He received thousands of

congratulatory telegrams and letters ranging from average citizens as the corresponding

secretary of the El Cerrio, California Democratic Club to corporate executives and

foreign leaders. Others as Samuel H. Beer, National Chairman of Americans for

Democratic Action added his endorsement to a long list of well wishers welcoming the

end of eight years of Republican control of the White House.2

Many placed demands on the new president-elect. Still doubting the depth of his

civil rights commitment, Roy Wilkens Executive Secretary of the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People felt obliged to spell out for Kennedy a few

important things a president can fix. He called for an immediate liberalization of the

Senate filibuster rule, significant changes to the House Committee on Rules, plus he

reminded the president-elect of his now famous “stroke of the pen” commitment. He

warned Kennedy that seventy per cent of African-Americans voted for him and that he could jeopardize that support through inaction.3

Before January 20, Kennedy had to write an inaugural address, Congressional

messages, a legislative agenda, State of the Union Address, and select or approve nearly

two thousand federal appointments.4 Kennedy had to make very careful selections in 64

domestic affairs for two reasons. One reason stemmed from the fact that America “at

home” in 1960 had very serious problems. On the date Kennedy would take office, more

people were out of work in the United States than at any time since the Great Depression,

juvenile delinquency had significantly increased, poverty remained more widespread than

assumed, and a quickly emerging national civil rights movement would grab his attention, whether he wanted it or not.5 The other reason came from the fact that known

only to Kennedy, domestic affairs would not receive anywhere near the same attention as

foreign policy, so those appointed would have to handle domestic matters themselves,

often with only general guidance from the president.

Kennedy wanted the transition of power to be smooth and to ensure this, early in

August, he established a transition team. Clark Clifford, with extensive government

experience during the Truman years, became the budget and staffing director. Kennedy

told Clifford that “If I am elected, I don’t want to wake up on the morning of November

9th and have to ask myself, what in the world do I do now?”6

Desiring a list of priorities for an effective transition, Kennedy assigned that task in

early fall 1960 to Professor Richard E. Neustadt of Columbia University. On October 30,

Neustadt responded by providing him two position papers entitled “Organizing the

Transition” and “Staffing the President-elect.” Neustadt’s chief recommendation focused

on “establishing conditions” which would foster real accomplishments right after the

election. By conditions he meant “postpone whatever is postponable” regarding small

issues and concentrate on the important ones.7

Important issues for Neustadt focused on “establishing liaison with the outgoing

regime,” “organizing the reorganization,” and “installing a shadow government in 65

Washington” early for “arranging the physical take-over.” “Designating White House

aides, executive office aides, cabinet officers, and heads of agencies” came next. Other

appointments “as in national security” and “below cabinet rank” would then evolve.

Further, Neustadt recommended Kennedy should do some fence mending by “reassuring

the [Washington] bureaucrats, business, Congress and the Republicans that he would

work with them.” Neustadt thought the best way to do this would be by sound

appointments and good communications. Indeed, Kennedy selected a larger proportion

of his appointments from big Fortune 500 corporations than did Eisenhower, by sixty-

five to fifty-six percent.8 Neustadt also assigned high priority to “giving Congress a preliminary agenda” via press conferences and staff visits, and writing the actual program shortly after the inaugural. He recommended “Task Forces” should be established in twenty-nine critical areas for preparing a comprehensive plan.9

However, Neustadt had an important warning for Kennedy. He cautioned “one hears

talk all over town about ‘another Hundred Days.’” Neustadt warned Kennedy talk of that

kind “is good only for a first impression of energy, direction, action and

accomplishment.” But he noted “‘the Hundred Days’ analogy can also be taken -- and is

being taken -- as an expectation of [the] fulfillment of every sort of legislative promise in

the platform and in the campaign.” He cautioned with some foreboding, that “in

legislative terms, it is 1949 not 1933, that offers an analogy -- and warnings -- for

1961.”10

Regarding recruiting, R. Sargent Shriver handled a large portion of that chore.

Shriver followed recommendations from Clifford and Neustadt on who to get and at what salary. To Shriver, Neustadt’s advice that “the staff you put together now in the days 66

after the election, must be regarded as the core of your official staff…during your early

months in office, not a continuation of your campaign,” seemed reasonable.11 Further,

Neustadt believed that the staff must be able to “meet two kinds of needs: on the one hand, [the] needs of the President…on the other hand, [the] needs of other government officials, [i.e.] the bureaucracy.”

Both Neustadt and Clifford emphasized Kennedy should organize his staff more like

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s than Dwight D. Eisenhower’s. They recommended Kennedy act

as his own “chief of staff.”12 He followed this and became “the first modern president to

break with the traditional cabinet based system” by attempting to control the extensive

executive bureaucracy himself.13 He also dismantled Eisenhower’s military style

national security bureaucracy and attempted to create “lines of power…all coming from

him.” The net result created a certain climate of disorder which Kennedy liked because it

made people “work harder to stay abreast.” But he intended to “control” and exercise the full, specified powers of his office as well as “some that were not.”14

During his tenure as a modern president, Kennedy also participated in some of the

early nuances of the post-modern presidency, such as the beginning of the recent national debate on federalism, replacement of some traditional lobby groups as the American

Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with ones from “outside politics,” particularly in civil

rights, and waging local “turf protection” wars in urban planning.15 Regarding poverty,

the battle for the possession and interpretation of federal policy would take place during

the Kennedy presidency.16 The poor would become “visible” during his years. As

Michael Harrington wrote in The Other America in 1962, “clothes” served as costumes 67

making the poor invisible because to be reasonably dressed remained much easier than

to be decently housed and fed.17 Their invisibility was about to come to an end.

In making appointments, Kennedy had to deal with deeply divisive political opinions

between three divergent groups. A tension existed between the “old left,” “new left,” and

“conservatives” vying for nominations. Rooted in fundamental political, social and

economic differences, resolution of these conflicting views would not be resolved by

Kennedy in the appointments process. Rather he made a montage of nominations, which

included people from all three groups.

The old left consisted of radicals who came of political age during the New Deal supporting trade unions, democratic socialism, creation of a Jewish state and although occasionally borrowing ideas from Karl Marx, remained strongly anti-communist.18

They also valued capitalism. Concerning social programs, they built a structure, actually an infrastructure, within which the federal government had functioned since 1933.

On the other hand the emerging new left of the late1950s and early 1960s prided itself on being undogmatic while still having a social conscience that staunchly defended civil liberties but at the same time mandated strong state intervention in specific areas.19

These liberals viewed the poor as suffering from a “pathological” condition called the

culture of poverty and defined it in social rather than economic terms. They called for

state “activism” to correct the problem. Conversely the conservatives in1960 considered

the poor to be victims of their own “improvidence, incompetence, or corruption” and felt

the way to end poverty lay in creating more jobs under the banner of the “free market”

system.20 All three groups believed in continuing Roosevelt’s “benevolent state” where

government, by varying degrees, looked out for its citizens’ welfare, but the level and 68

method of government involvement differed widely.21 In appointing people from all

three camps Kennedy produced a maintenance of the old federal programs, along with

some reform possibilities, but the overall result was a diluted product. Nonetheless it

would be an interesting journey.

In housing and urban affairs Kennedy faced a significant challenge with staff appointments. Since he knew he would give housing and urban affairs low priority, his

appointments must be of quality as they would be running a large majority of the

activities and providing most of the leadership.22 Yet, he could not tell those considering

nomination of his intentions, as his pro-urban philosophy from the campaign, promising

meaningful departure from Eisenhower’s “reign of the bland,” still reverberated in their

ears.23 Thus, he had to act carefully.

Those appointed in domestic affairs including urban policy, fell into four broad categories: White House appointments, agency selections, administrative hires, and regional selectees. Kennedy wanted the most outstanding staff he could find, perhaps even a “brain trust,” akin to when he later greeted a group of Nobel laureates at the White

House, saying “they represented the greatest collection of minds ever assembled there except for when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”24 He hoped his appointees would be

comparable. In sum, all would be very well educated, bright, loyal, but chiefly short on

real government experience. They would however by their credentials bring some

“status” back to city planning which was needed. Recently cities had been losing status

and important political clout to the suburbs where the “spirit of the supermarket…

homogeneous extensions of stainless surfaces and psychoanalyzed people, packaged 69

commodities, and ‘ranch homes’ reigned supreme.”25 Kennedy always valued status although at he pretended it did not count.26

Filling the White House staff came first and controversy surrounded some selections.

The initial one to come under heavy scrutiny concerned John Kennedy selecting his

brother Robert Kennedy for Attorney General. Based on JFK’s view of politics in

Washington, his brother was a reasonable choice for this position. The younger Kennedy

could serve as a sounding board for the President’s ideas and as an insider for

information. Moreover, he would be a confidant in the cabinet.27 The final push to have

him appointed came from the president-elect’s father who stated flatly “this is the only

thing I am asking for and I want it.”28 Thus his thirty-four year old younger brother,

Harvard and Virginia Law educated and former council to the McCarthy Committee,

became the nominee for attorney general. He would play a leading role in domestic

policy and urban affairs. After the assassination RFK would also begin to flirt with genuine social reform in urban planning. Robert Kennedy came to the job with few political and business obligations, but with several enemies and Vice-President-Elect

Lyndon B. Johnson headed that list.29 Over time and through to the end of 1964, Robert

Kennedy remained the second most important man in Washington.30 But initially he simply served on a cabinet of “nine strangers and a brother.”31

Designated for Special Counsel to the President, Theodore C. Sorensen inherited the

“de facto” White House “Chief of Staff” job and was the best person there with whom to

discuss domestic legislstion.32 He served in JFK’s campaign and presidency as the chief

speech writer and according to Kennedy as his “intellectual blood bank.”33 Sorensen, who hailed from Nebraska and received his law degree from the University of Nebraska, 70

had previously served on Kennedy’s senatorial staff. As a prolific writer he also

helped JFK write most of his best seller, Profiles in Courage.34 In the administration,

Sorensen assumed a “central advisory roll” and acted often as a “de facto” “chief of staff”

for domestic matters, and sometimes for foreign policy ones.35 He would write many of

JFK’s now famous speeches.36

Sorensen had two assistant special counsels, Lee C. White and Myer Feldman, both

reporting to him. Lee White, a fellow Nebraskan and also an attorney, served on the

Hoover Commission in 1954-1955 and as Counsel to the Senate Small Business

Committee later. He would play a leading role in housing and urban affairs.37 Through

his proximity to Sorensen, he received regular attention from the President.38 Myer

Feldman, the other assistant special counsel, joined Kennedy’s senatorial staff in 1958

and served as liaison between JFK’s staff and Lyndon Johnson’s during the campaign.39

Educated at the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School,

Feldman’s role in the administration would be to handle legislative proposals and domestic programs, as he did along with Sorensen during Kennedy’s late senate years.

Later, as Kennedy’s congressional legislative liaison team began to falter, Sorensen,

Feldman and White handled all domestic matters for the White House, except the

economy and civil rights.40

In the White House, civil rights issues were managed by Harris L. Wofford, Jr. who

did an extraordinary job getting Kennedy to take notice of the subject during the campaign. Born in New York City and educated at the University of Chicago and Yale

Law School, Wofford taught law at the University of Notre Dame prior to joining the

Kennedy campaign. Hired to manage both urban and rural civil rights, with his 71

appointment into the White House came a true civil rights advocate who would

pressure JFK to be more forceful and forthcoming about the subject. Enjoying some

early success, Kennedy “endorsed all the items on Wofford’s agenda, but he consistently

drew back from their exection.”41 For a time, Wofford chaired the Subcabinet Civil

Rights Group, composed of key deputies from the executive departments and charged

with surveying and coordinating all civil rights aspects of public programs.42 However,

power would slowly slip away from Wofford, to Burke Marshall, Chief of the Civil

Rights Division of the Department of Justice.43 Wofford subsequently resigned in late

1962 to take a Peace Corps position in Ethiopia, but when I spoke with him in 1980 while

he was a guest on the “Larry King Show,” he still sang Kennedy’s praises.44

Frederick Dutton and Ralph Dungan, two other special assistants to the president

played important roles in shaping domestic policy and remained part of the close knit

Sorensen click. Since Kennedy depended much less on the Cabinet than did Eisenhower,

he thus relied more on his White House staff and frequently worked directly with Dutton

and Dungan.45 Both of these men would also work the housing and urban program.

For the critical job of congressional relations, Kennedy selected six former campaign

workers and would pay dearly for that choice. Headed by Larry O’Brien, other members

of the congressional liaison team included Richard K. Donahue, Charles U. Daly, Claude

DeSautels, Michael N. Manatos and Henry H. Wilson. They may have done great things in the campaign but they would be, and O’Brien in particular, out of their “element in the halls of congress and had no more idea than a small child of its complexities and

Byzantine courtesies.”46 Mike Mantos came from Wyoming and worked the Senate.

Henry Wilson, from North Carolina did the same in the House. Dick Donahue and 72

Charles Daly got assigned the urban and industrial state members for both Houses.

Claude DeSautels helped where needed.47 At the time, all were young, bright, energetic,

and very, unprepared.

But their leader would also let them down. Kennedy repeatedly asked that “people

be kept from him so he could clear his desk and concentrate on a domestic agenda. But it

never happened.”48 That would require he “renegotiate endlessly…with business, with

labor, with governors, and particularly with Congress,” and he simply did not have the

interest.49 So his liaison team would pay the price, compounded by their own

shortcomings.

The Justice Department employed several people important to the cities during

Kennedy’s years. Except for Robert Kennedy, Burke Marshall held the most power

there. He rose from an assistant attorney general to Chief of the Civil Rights Division

during a turbulent and violent era.50 Once the President finally came around to issuing

his Executive Order, Marshall enforced those policies aimed at stopping discrimination in

some federally assisted housing. He dealt directly with civil rights in urban areas. Byron

“Whizzer” White, a former football standout and “friend of Jack’s” became a deputy

attorney general on his way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Norbert Schlei served as legal counsel to the Justice Department and John Doar, subsequently to head one of the country’s leading law firms, became first assistant to Burke Marshall in the Civil Rights

Division.51

Budget, Commerce, Area Redevelopment, and Defense received appointments

important to urban affairs. David C. Bell, new Director of the Bureau of the Budget

(BOB) became a leading proponent for funding experimental urban programs as did 73

Walter Heller, Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA).

These two entities played a leading role in juvenile delinquency and poverty programs.

William L. Batt Jr., a long time supporter of strong social agendas, headed the Area

Redevelopment Administration (ARA) and it along with HHFA, ran a few joint programs to help the urban poor. Hyman H. Bookbinder remained a friend of the cities as Special

Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce. Adam Yarmolinsky, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, transitioned a non-housing job into a national housing campaign to improve defense housing. As a true zealot for equal housing as well, his stands later got him into trouble, when Major General Edwin A. Walker in testimony before the Special Senate

Preparedness Subcommittee, said he was a communist, but subsequent investigations

proved nothing.52 Yarmolinsky would be one of the real reformers of the Kennedy years

and later quite important in the early “war on porverty.”53 At Defense, he was “the

housing man” for everything from “high rises to fall out shelters.”54

Staffing the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), the “hub” of urban policy,

was crucial. The Administrator of the HHFA served as the chief urban planner for the

United States and although at sub-cabinet level in 1961, shouldered cabinet level

responsibilities. Established by Reorganization Plan Three on July 27, 1947, the HHFA ran housing and urban affairs for the President. Further reorganized in 1954 by

Eisenhower, in Kennedy’s time it had five subordinate agencies uniquely called

“constituent administrations.”55 By 1960, within its headquarters, local, state and federal

offices it employed almost fifteen thousand people.56

Being Administrator of the HHFA required the performing of staggering responsibilities. Not only did the Administrator set and implement policy, but he or she 74

was also responsible for the supervision, management, and coordination of five large and very expensive constituent administrations, which spent millions and later billions of tax payer dollars. They included the Federal Housing Administration (FHA); Public

Housing Administration (PHA); Urban Renewal Administration (URA); Community

Facilities Administration (CFA) and the Federal National Mortgage Association

(FNMA). To make matters worse, many of these administrations had become quite independent from HHFA by 1960.

Additionally, the head of the HHFA served as the Director of two important boards:

The National Housing Council (NHC) and the Advisory Board for Agency Policy

Coordination in Housing (called the “Advisory Board”). On the NHC he or she sat with

the Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which used to be HHFA’s sixth

constituent agency, the Director of the Veterans Administration and the Assistant

Secretaries or Special Assistants to the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture,

Commerce, Labor, Defense, and Health, Education and Welfare. The Advisory Board

consisted of the five actual constituent administrators of the HHFA.57 Thus, in

organization, the HHFA represented a splendid bureaucracy empowered by law to

influence all aspects of America’s most vital market, the housing industry.

The HHFA intervened daily in that market through its policies and programs.

Among those, ten were critical for the domestic economy. The Voluntary Home

Mortgage Credit Program helped rural and urban poor get mortgages. The Community

Disposition Program sold former or current federal properties and housing. The

Workable Program for Community Improvement, which used to be called “Community

Development,” provided federal money to local communities to plan for and implement 75

community improvements. Those included the big ticket items of urban renewal, slum

clearance, and relocation of those displaced.58 Kennedy would add a new FHA below

interest market rate (BIMR) program of insured loans to help lower income families get

mortgages. He also added a FNMA program to purchase original mortgages for low and

middle income families and to service those at below market rates. Under Kennedy,

HHFA gained the authority to finance the planning and construction of local mass transit

facilities, but the fight to pass appropriate Congressional funding would engage much of

the Administrator’s time and energy.59 The “Senior Citizens Housing Act of 1962” created programs for low and moderate cost housing for the elderly.60 Under the new

president, HHFA and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) would stimulate the

private sector to start another suburban housing boom.61 And lastly, HHFA played a minor role unfortunately, which should have been very much larger in the development of America’s biggest urban anti-poverty program in history, through some interaction with the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency (PCJD). These ten programs, plus the hot issue of open housing and cabinet status for the cities, placed serious demands on the HHFA Administrator. What time he or she had left would be spent in

HHFA’s interdepartmental role in managing the forty federal grant programs in the nation’s largest cities, that in 1960 allocated $3.9 billion annually.62

In the nominating process, an unfortunate exception took place for President

Kennedy from the old “inside politics” of the 1950s where Congress generally deferred to

presidential selections, shielding nominees from an outright public fight, as contrasted to

the post-1960s “outside politics” conformations where opposing groups relentlessly 76

demonized the candidate.63 That exception happened when John Kennedy chose Dr.

Robert C. Weaver, an African-American to be Administrator of the HHFA.

The late Dr. Robert C. Weaver was an excellent choice. He held three degrees from

Harvard, the last one being a Ph.D. in Economics, and represented a transitional figure

between the old left and the new left. His experience and credentials were solid but his

race would become a hot issue. The maternal great-grandson of North Carolina slaves, in

1933 with Harold Ickes’s backing, Weaver became the number two person in the Office

of Negro Affairs of the Interior Department. He came into that position after co-founding

the Negro Industrial League which informed the NRA of the concerns of poor African-

American workers in textile, lumber, steel and construction. In 1934 Weaver consulted

for the Public Works Administration’s new housing program and later served as its number one advisor on Negro affairs.64 When the 1937 Housing Act transferred PWA

housing function to the new United States Housing Administration (USHA), Weaver took

charge of the Office of Race Relations. There he played a major role in expanding

African-American membership in local USHA Housing Authorities. In late 1940, he

became assistant to the Director of the National Defense Advisory Commission and when

President Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practices Committee 1941, Weaver

accepted the job of Chief of the Negro Training and Employment Branch (NTEB).

During the War, Weaver’s Branch became the Negro Manpower Service Branch of the

War Manpower Commission.65

However in January 1944, seeing little significant progress in civil rights and feeling

some of his functions were “irrelevant, unimportant…and…yes man” in nature, he

resigned for a position in Chicago city government. Thus, ended over ten years of federal 77

service during which he also was a member of the “Black Brain Trust” or “Black

Cabinet,” a group of African-American advisors in federal government.66 He became the

first African-American appointed to an advisory position in the Federal service.67 But,

not all African-Americans viewed Weaver as a champion of civil rights. The Chicago

Daily Defender called him a de facto race advisor to official functions of a segregated

institution (the federal government).68 Some other African-American newspapers also felt the same way.

In Chicago, as Executive Director of the Committee on Race Relations under Mayor

Ed Kelley, Weaver served as “housing facilitator” in the planning of Chicago’s post

World War II housing program and later as Director of the Community Services Division

of the American Council on Race Relations. In 1946 he published his first book, Negro

Labor: A National Problem. In 1948, after making a major contribution to open

occupancy in Chicago, he published his second book, The Negro Ghetto, and its success

led to a job in New York City.

Weaver was offered and took a position on the New York State Commission on

Discrimination in Housing. In 1950, he became the Chairman of the National Committee

Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) and an elected member of the National

Board of Directors of the NAACP. He would later become its Board Chairman. His

good work at NCDH soon provided the opportunity to be Deputy Housing Commissioner

of the State of New York and an advisor to and subsequently Director of the Rent Control

Board. There he became a member of HHFA’s Advisory Committee on Urban Renewal

in the late 1950s, and further served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation while

lecturing at New York University. While at Rent Control Weaver played a key role in 78

the establishment of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of Harvard and MIT.69 His last

job during the Eisenhower years was Vice-Chairman of the Housing and Redevelopment

Board of New York City.70

John Kennedy wanted to appoint one African-American to a really high position and

Weaver would be the one. William H. Hastie’s name surfaced, and as a Harvard Law

graduate and circuit court judge, he would receive a Federal Appeals Court job. Andrew

Hatcher, Carl Rowan, and Thurgood Marshall also got nominations from Kennedy,

among over forty African-Americans he appointed to reasonably high posts, and Louis E.

Martin moved from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to the job Harris

Wofford wanted at the Justice Department. But none would be as high as Weaver’s assignment until Thurgood Marshall joined the Supreme Court.71

Weaver’s selection surprised him. He hardly knew Kennedy, supported Humphrey, and only met JFK once in July of 1960. He had no further contact with him except for one inconsequential meeting in “late October or early November.”72 After the election,

Louis Martin of the DNC talked to Weaver about a Washington post, but he “thanked

Louie and forgot about it.” Thus Weaver’s appointment did not stem from the president- elect courting an old friend, supporter, colleague, or close compatriot, but rather one

where Kennedy wished to appoint an African-American and Weaver fit the bill. Weaver

himself surmised: “I think the Administration felt they had to have a Negro in a high

position. And I think there was a question of finding the Negro, and then finding the particular area that the particular Negro had some competence in. I think for some reason

I was the guy that they found, and housing was the area.”73 79

On a snowy December 26, New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner called Bob

Weaver and asked if he would come to City Hall. Weaver thought the Mayor would be

offering Borough President of Manhattan to him. But Wagner told him that President-

Elect Kennedy wanted his services as either Commissioner of the Federal Housing

Administration or Administrator of HHFA. Weaver told the Mayor he would take the latter.74

Back in November when he talked to Louie Martin, Weaver told him if he took any

job in Washington with Kennedy, there would have to be some set pre-conditions for his

employment. After meeting with Wagner, Weaver began to negotiate these. He would

accept the HHFA job if Kennedy agreed to issue an executive order on equal opportunity

in housing and he wanted assurances that if HHFA achieved cabinet rank, he would be

the Secretary. Lastly, Weaver wanted guarantees he would have the authority to tighten

Agency control over the five HHFA constituent administrations. On December 29, he

flew to Palm Beach to meet with Kennedy to finalize these pre-conditions. Kennedy assured him the executive order would be issued and that “if there is a Department of

Urban Affairs, he [Weaver] would be the logical candidate for Secretary.” Promises were also made to Weaver by Kennedy’s staff assuring him he had the authority to tighten Agency control over the constituents.75

Weaver wanted guarantees from Kennedy because, like Roy Wilkens on civil rights,

he never really felt comfortable with Kennedy’s commitment on urban affairs. He felt

comfortable with Kennedy as a person, but regarding his leadership on urban issues, he

considered Kennedy “over cautious.”76 As well, Weaver thought JFK would have a hard

time getting legislation passed.77 In the words of Roy Wilkens, “Kennedy was so hot on 80

the Department heads, the cabinet officers, and agency heads that everyone was

scrambling around trying to find himself a Negro in order to keep the President off his

neck.”78 Additionally, Weaver was more of an integrationist than Kennedy would be and he knew it.79 Kennedy would always be considered by the civil rights movement as slow

to act, yet ironically by 1963 due to actions by his Justice Department he became the

most hated president in the deep South since Lincoln.80 So with a set of assurances most

nominees did not receive, at 11:00 on December 29, Dr. Weaver, the president-elect, and

presidential press secretary Pierre Sallinger met the media and announced his

appointment. This also happened to be Weaver’s fifty-third birthday.81

Mixed emotions greeted Bob Weaver’s nomination. Traditional conservatives were

against it, particularly the Southern ones. Thinly veiled racism was the primary reason.

The National Association of Real Estate Boards and the National Association of Home

Builders offered a technical explanation about Weaver’s lack of expertise in the private

sector, but they said they certainly would give him a chance. The old left felt vindicated

that an urban “houser” like Weaver received the nomination. The NAACP became

overjoyed that one of its members got nominated, particularly after the Congressman

William Dawson debacle for Postmaster General.82 Martin Meyerson of the

Harvard/MIT Joint Center wrote to Weaver that “you have more imagination and clear

headedness than any other candidate to head HHFA and eventually a cabinet department

of urban affairs….I expect a vitality in the program of your agency which it has never

shown before.”83

But the African-American new left felt otherwise. They called Weaver’s nomination

a sellout to the private interests in the federal housing program. Weaver, a light skinned 81

African-American and married to a woman of the same racial characteristics, was well

off through education and hard work, and also kept housekeepers. He was not one of

their favorites.84 John H. Senstacke in the Chicago Daily Defender wrote, “Dr. Weaver,

doubtless is a capable administrator, but we will be most interested in his politics…as a

test…to whether his appointment is mere window dressing.” He concluded that “we will

watch with interest to see if Dr. Weaver will concern himself with enforcement of the

law…for the benefit of the population as a whole.”85

Weaver’s confirmation hearing turned out to be a real fight. He wrote Ralph Dungan on January 11 that…“I think that it is desirable prior to any hearing for a group of us to sit down and have a dry run in which all of the difficult questions will be raised and some sensible answers…developed.”86 It took him three weeks to prepare for hearings due to researching things like where he was twenty-five years ago and what he said. On January

24 he met with Vice-President Johnson about what position he should take on the open

housing order. Johnson suggested that a good stand would be to tell the Committee that

“the timing of such an order was within the jurisdiction of the President and not within

my jurisdiction.” Regarding the scope of an open housing order and who or what should

be covered, Johnson further suggested that Weaver testify that “the President would issue

the order and not I.”87

On February 1, Johnson called a meeting in Senator Mike Mansfield’s (D-MT) office

with all Democratic members of the Committee to lay out the administration’s position

concerning Weaver. To Kennedy’s credit this was one nomination from which he would

not back down. The nomination was already the talk of the town in Washington not only 82

because of Weaver’s race but also in response to press leaks from conservatives that

Weaver was soft on communism.88

A coalition of conservative Southern Senators laid in wait for Dr. Weaver on the

morning of February 7 when he walked into the chambers of the Senate Committee on

Banking and Currency. This Committee reviewed housing nominations and had the

important Sub-Committee on Housing. Weaver’s dilemma consisted of being forceful

enough to obtain the appointment without permanently alienating the Committee which

would jeopardize future housing legislation. Composed of fifteen members and chaired

by Senator A. Willis Robertson (D-VA), others included Senators John D. Sparkman (D-

AL), Wallace Bennett (R-UT), George Smathers (D-FLA), William Blakey (D-TX) and

Robert Byrd (D-WVA). Weaver’s appointment could not be counted as a forgone

conclusion. He realized several senators would be playing this hearing for “local consumption,” i.e., their Southern constituents.89

After personally failing to get Weaver’s name withdrawn, Robertson started with a

demand President Kennedy issued a letter to the Committee validating that his nominee

was not a security risk before he would convene the hearing. He claimed to have assertions about Weaver which associated him with communists in the 1930s.90

Kennedy complied and the hearings started late, but Robertson’s demand angered the moderates which helped Weaver. The moderates had previously selected their own

candidate for the job, Joseph P. McMurray, a staff member of the Committee itself and former New York State Commissioner of Housing when Weaver served as Deputy.91

They had planned, if things went poorly for Weaver, to side with the southerners in favor of McMurray. Now they were more sympathetic to Weaver. 83

But Weaver himself carried his own day at the hearings. As a former college debater, he accepted the fact that he would be in the debate of his career and rose to the occasion.92 He opened eloquently with a strong affirmation that housing consisted of

more than just shelter. According to him, it made communities, created adjacent sites,

spawned transportation routes and produced various other facilities. He concluded with

“when you talk about housing…you are talking about people.”93 This set a very positive

tone. With prepared answers he also effectively side stepped numerous questions on

integration, open housing and civil rights. Then Senator William Blakely (D-TX)

brought up the issue he thought would kill the Weaver nomination.

Weaver had been to the Soviet Union, written articles favorable to Russian civil

rights for minorities and his book, The Negro Ghetto, and his book had been

recommended by a communist bookstore in New York City. Blakely confronted Weaver

with these facts. The NYU professor said he did go to the Soviet Union but so did many

people at least until recently, that the articles he wrote specified his views at the time about housing there, and any bookstore which wanted to recommend his book was free to do so.94 The questioning though went on for hours and well into the next day.

Weaver very greatly resented this intense cross-examination and considered much of

it to be “irrelevant…demeaning and…indicative of the fact that Negroes in America are

still not first class citizens.”95 But at he end of the day on February 8, his very effective

testimony plus support from Committee moderates insured his nomination. To guarantee

this, Kennedy called out the “heavy hitters” the night before, with Vice-President Lyndon

Johnson and Senators Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), Jacob Javits (R-NY), Paul Douglas

(D-IL) and Joseph S. Clark (D-PA) making numerous telephone calls before the final 84

vote. On February 8, confirmation of Weaver took place by a vote of eleven to four in

the Committee and by a voice affirmation in the Senate.96 He was sworn in on the

afternoon of February 11, 1961 as the highest ranking African-American office holder in

American history up to that time.97

Staffing for the HHFA supposedly would be turned entirely over to Weaver. Yet a

unique situation existed as Commissioners of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA),

Public Housing Administration (PHA), and Urban Renewal Administration (URA)

required presidential appointment. Through negotiation with Theodore Sorensen, Ralph

Dungan, Lee White and Adam Yarmolinsky, Weaver received Kennedy’s go ahead to

appoint his own staff.98 Yet during this process, Kennedy reversed himself and informed

Weaver that he wanted to be the key player in making the appointments. Kennedy did

this because he had some commitments he had not told Weaver about and it seems also,

because he did not entirely trust Weaver. He scarcely knew him and had never worked

with him.

Created by the National Housing Act on June 27, 1934 and made a constituent

agency of HHFA in 1947, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) originally

approved housing standards and provided a system of mortgage insurance.99 It grew in

the quarter century to 1960 into a very significant influence on the housing and mortgage

market and slowly gravitated from serving the public to serving itself and the private sector, growing quite independent. Weaver stated, “I felt very strongly that the most key appointment of all was the Commissioner of FHA.” He noted disapprovingly that FHA had become “a separate and distinct operation from HHFA…with…strong industry

forces…which want to keep it separate.”100 But both he and the White House agreed the 85

best choice for FHA would be Neil J. Hardy. Hardy came from the HHFA, had previous private sector housing experience and represented the best chance to bring FHA

back into the fold and keep it there.101 He had been an HHFA assistant administrator

during the Truman administration and gained quick industry approval by virtue of his

seven years of dutiful service in a top office of the National Association of Home

Builders.102 The FHA under Hardy was not going to be in the vanguard of housing

reform during the Kennedy years but at least Weaver felt he could control it.

The Urban Renewal Administration (URA), created in 1954 under Eisenhower’s

important 1954 Housing Act, had the responsibility for slum clearance and urban

redevelopment under Title One of the 1949 Housing Act. The URA managed and

awarded grants to state, city, and regional planning boards under Section 701 of the 1954

Housing Act. To these public enterprises, it provided planning advice and money for programs to eliminate blight, slums, and help relocate those displaced. Most importantly, it experimented with new ways to eliminate and control slums through a “demonstration grants” program, Section 314 also of the Housing Act of 1954. The URA carried out field operations through regional HHFA offices.103

The appointment of URA Commissioner did not go as smoothly as FHA. Weaver

believed very strongly that the person holding this job should be “people oriented,”

because “this was a program which took poor people, pushed them out, and put in a

redevelopment activity of a different type.” Having long been an urban renewal critic, he

wanted to effect positive change. For Commissioner, Kennedy desired former Baltimore

Mayor Anthony D’Alesandro, and at Weaver’s swearing in ceremony, Kennedy had

“more or less made the commitment to him.”104 Weaver though, wanted a more liberal 86

commissioner, as William Slayton whom he had already asked to do the job at

Kennedy’s Inauguration.105 This became a quite awkward and embarrassing. At both

respective appointing ceremonies, the two key policy players promised the job to two different people. Good communication between Kennedy and Weaver started out poorly and would not improve much. One can also question why with his progressive campaign rhetoric, Kennedy did not want the more liberal Slayton. Speculation was he did not want URA to move too far or too fast from where it was; moreover, he liked the control he had over D’Alesandro.

Slayton came with solid experience. Previously with HHFA, and while a member of

the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO), had served

as vice-president of an urban renewal contracting firm in Washington D.C. On the other

hand, Weaver had nothing personally against D’Alesandro but felt “a good mayor is not

necessarily a good Commissioner of Urban Renewal.”106 Anthony D’Alesandro

remained on Kennedy’s “IOU” list from the election and represented nothing more than a

potential political appointee, yet Kennedy would not budge and neither would Weaver.

The solution came as Weaver simply left the job open and appointed no one. He just

“out waited” Kennedy until the President gave the former mayor another job and then he

appointed Slayton.107 Fortunately for Weaver, by then JFK’s interests had now shifted to

his forte, foreign policy, where he had engulfed himself in plans for an invasion of Cuba

and the forthcoming a summit with Khrushchev. While Kennedy was thus occupied,

Weaver and Slayton further established a new deputy position in URA, Assistant

Commissioner of Relocation and selected James T. Banks.108 Banks would introduce 87

progressive ideas into relocation and had ten previous years experience in relocating

families and businesses in the Washington D.C. area.109

Within HHFA, the Public Works Administration (PHA), loomed as the third most

important agency. Established as a constituent of the HHFA by Reorganization Plan

Three in 1947, the job required managing all of the government’s public housing

programs including federally assisted low-income public housing, authorized under the

1937 United States Housing Act, as well as programs to improve it.110 Marie C. McGuire became the agreed upon nominee for PHA Commissioner. From San Antonio, Texas, she had been an innovative and dedicated public housing designer and manager. She also had been the very successful Director of the San Antonio Housing Authority.111

Appointed on March 11 and confirmed by the Senate on April 23 she took office on April

25.112 Her appointment was a “concession to Lyndon Johnson,” but over time she would

become reasonably independent of his influence as she had in San Antonio and joined the

ranks of the reformers on the urban team.113 In gaining her appointment, it also did not

hurt that she wrote some urban speeches for JFK during the campaign.

The fourth HHFA constituent instrumentality, the Community Facilities

Administration (CFA) held lesser importance. Weaver had more latitude in selections

and fewer problems with Kennedy from here forward. Created on December 23, 1954

the CFA directed a wide range of programs that included providing technical and financial assistance to state and local agencies in the planning of community facilities plus some multi-unit housing as college housing, public works projects, housing for the elderly, school construction, and defense community housing. The CFA managed research and demonstration projects and the prefabricated housing program. It 88 supervised the public facilities loan program, the Lanham Act wartime public housing program, the Alaskan housing loan program and managed the public facilities portfolio for HHFA.114 Weaver selected Sidney Woolner for Commissioner of CFA. One of G.

Mennen “Soapy” William’s (Governor of Michigan) assistants Woolner came highly recommended by the members by the White House Staff.115 Considered a hard worker,

Woolner would be effective but had a rather dour personality and little innovative spirit.116

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), nicknamed “Fannie Mae” but called the “Association,” was originally chartered on January 10, 1938, and subsequently redesigned under Eisenhower’s 1954 Housing Act. It remained the last agency with appointments to be filled. FNMA developed the secondary market for home mortgages by purchasing outstanding older ones from the primary sector, thus freeing funds there.

As FNMA moved purchases from the primary market, it increased its capital worth and stood ready to provide emergency capital for the entire home mortgage market if needed.

FNMA could also assist special groups, as minorities in getting home financing, if directed to do so by either the President or Congress. Lastly, FNMA maintained and liquidated its own mortgage portfolio. Underwritten by preferred stock sustained and held by the Secretary of the Treasury, it also held common stock issues for mortgage lenders in the secondary market.117 With little difficulty, Weaver selected J. Stanley

Baughman to head the Association. Baughman had managed the FNMA from its inception.

Three major problems confronted Weaver in selecting staff for HHFA headquarters and the regional offices of the five administrations. One was organizational, the other 89

political, and the last monetary. CFA and URA maintained a parallel structure to the

HHFA central administration and ran all of their regional programs directly through

HHFA regional offices, generally in the same buildings. On the other hand, FHA, PHA and FMNA had separate regional offices across the country. FHA had one field office in

every state. Weaver had to make appointments in these offices for all senior

administrative, managerial and research staff. Lines of communication and lines of

loyalty would thus be hard to define under this archaic structure.

The HHFA head also had less control over regional selections than he wanted.

Weaver believed that “the biggest problem was getting really competent people in the

really key spots, [like] State Directors of FHA.” He estimated his “batting average was about forty per cent in getting around politics with good people.”118 He would not “take

anyone he could not live with…but certainly haven’t taken the best guy that I wanted in

many instances.” Along with local politics, he had to contend with Senatorial

preferences where occasionally people with minimum qualifications got endorsed by

powerful Senators. Weaver often had to hire them and lamented they were not “the top

people we want to run that activity.”119 Lawrence Katz in Milwaukee and Lester Eisen in

New York, stood out as two significant exceptions.120

Different is the word to describe Weaver’s administrative philosophy in HHFA

central office selections. In total, he had seventeen “Schedule C” appointments from the

Eisenhower administration on hand when nominated. He fired all of them before he even had met them, as he wanted people loyal to him and loyal to the new administration. He

wanted them to be “part of the administration” and even though all were quite competent,

Weaver wanted to avoid a power struggle.”121 His philosophy of management was that 90

when a new administration came in “the policy people ought to be all…or

mostly…new people because the old ones unconsciously…identify…the past with their

own integrity…and changes hurt their ego.”122 Thus Weaver appointed an all new

HHFA central office staff. For program continuity, this may not have been the best

course of action but it gained him loyalty.

Then the unexpected problem arose about acceptable salaries. Low government

wages caused serious difficulties and several people “went through the pain of the

damned wanting to be part of the new administration,” but not being able to afford a

salary cut to take the job. For example, former Boston Mayor Edward Logue who ran

urban renewal there, made $30,000.00 a year but the job of URA Commissioner paid

only $20,000.00 annually. Many qualified individuals simply could not afford

appointments.123

Of the ones who could, Weaver made some outstanding choices for the central office. Jack T. Conway, the newly appointed HHFA Deputy Administrator, had known

Weaver for many years and came to the Agency from the United Auto Workers Union.

Highly recruited by the transition team, Conway spoke extensively with Ralph Dungan,

Kenneth P. O’Donnell and others about several jobs. He considered Ambassadorships,

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Under Secretary of Labor or Deputy

Administrator for HHFA. Hailing from Detroit, he represented one of Walter Reuther’s

“boys” but Reuther, head of the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW), was locked in a power struggle over Kennedy appointments with the more powerful George Meany of the

American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). 91

Reuther lost, and Meany blocked any serious consideration of Conway for the Defense

and Labor jobs with President Kennedy. Those went to Meany’s people.124

Thus Conway took the HHFA position and HHFA would be better for it. Conway

became a good second in command for Weaver who “was going to need some strong

backup because he’d be vulnerable due to his race.”125 Conway became the tough guy at

HHFA, particularly negotiating the poverty program and also handling the “personnel

stuff in the Agency, all of the shifting and changing” and most “of the politics.”126

But Conway was at HHFA for another reason as well. He would not only help

Weaver, but he could also report on how things were going there to his friend the

Attorney General. Always very close to Robert Kennedy, Conway consistently advised him on organized labor throughout the 1960 campaign. He was present at the confused and heated meeting that offered the vice presidency to Lyndon Johnson and warned

Bobby not to do it. As the housing representative on the President’s Committee on Equal

Employment Opportunity (CEEO) while reporting to Weaver he also reported what transpired directly to Robert Kennedy as well, particularly after the latter left the

Committee because of a dispute with Lyndon Johnson.127 After Jack Kennedy’s death,

he would become one of Robert Kennedy’s leading zealots in the poverty program.

Another good selection Weaver made included Milton P. Semer for General Counsel

of the Agency. He came to HHFA from the staff of the Senate Banking and Currency

Committee.128 It handled all housing and urban legislation and would be critical to the

success of the 1961 Housing Act.129 Frederick A. Forbes, appointed as Assistant

Administrator for Public Affairs and Morton J. Schussheim, Assistant Administrator for

Public Policy, along with Semer played leading roles in the development of the 1961 92

Housing Act. Schussheim came to HHFA from New York, having worked previously

with Weaver in public policy research at the Rent Commission, and was a member of the

Weaver clicke within HHFA. Hugh M. Mields filled the post of Assistant Administrator

for Congressional Liaison and joined the HHFA from the League of Cities. There he

developed strong ties with what some thought to be too many city bosses, but Weaver

thought not. Sidney Spector gained the job of Assistant Administrator, Housing for

Senior Citizens. Lastly, Weaver appointed a liberal, Harvard educated, urban sociologist named Nathan Glazer, for HHFA research and policy development.130

Nathan Glazer and his subsequent collaborator Daniel P. Moynihan, studied ethnic

consciousness in neighborhoods in old mid-western and eastern cities. They concluded

in Beyond the Melting Pot (1963) this was rising rather than declining, which went against the conventional view at the time.131 Glazer’s data became important in planning

the poverty program for “maximum neighborhood participation” which capitalized on

that consciousness, particularly in African-American communities. Even though it had

been declining there, they predicted it would rebound.

Regarding poverty, Dave Hackett, a fellow Milton Academy classmate of Robert

Kennedy, would work with HHFA under the auspices of the President’s Committee on

Juvenile Delinquency (PCJD). In so doing, he and others unearthed the idea that creating

neighborhood opportunity reduced delinquency. They used demonstration programs to prove it. But this had to be credible opportunity, localized to known problems in specific urban neighborhoods. Washington could only learn this by listening to those who lived there. With Joseph Heller from the Council of Economic Advisors and Lloyd Ohlin and

Richard Cloward of the University of Chicago’s Sociology Department, who collectively 93

wrote Delinquency and Opportunity (1960), a miniscule program stated which would

set in motion the massive “war on poverty” after Kennedy’s death. Unfortunately,

Lyndon Johnson changed the methodology during his “accidental presidency.”132 This

also changed the outcome.

Most appointees took office by the end of the third week of January. Kennedy, just

before his inauguration returned to Georgetown from Palm Beach and began pouring

over the twenty-nine task force reports. In urban affairs and housing, two major task

force reports crossed his desk.133 One came from the existing housing bureaucracy, and

Kennedy commissioned the other. Some minor ones also came his way from the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, American Municipal Association and National Housing

Conference.134 Others evolved from individual states like California.”135 Through such

task forces Kennedy ensured he would have ample, good, and solid advice.

The first report consisted of an analysis from the outgoing Eisenhower

administration. Headed by Lawrence B. Robbins, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury,

Oscar H. Nelson, Director of the Office of Budget and Management, Department of

Commerce and Charles B. Brownson, Assistant HHFA Administrator for Public Affairs,

and it studied “Coordination of Federal Metropolitan Area Development Activities.”136

Written by this Ad Hoc Committee on Metropolitan Area Problems of the permanent

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, it comprised forty-six pages of fairly good ideas. and as presented on January 9, 1961 offered some excellent

solutions.137

The Eisenhower report traced the development and evolution of increased

government activity in cities and the subsequent loss of program control that ensued. It 94

noted very serious coordination problems between the interstate highway program,

urban renewal, PHA, and FHA in efforts to “rehabilitate the now decaying central cities.”

According to the report, “current highway law and administration is so rigid it prevents

the use of highway funds for local mass transit purposes while itself disrupting mass transit planning.”138 Additionally, the problems of reapportionment, gaps between

federal and state programs, and the tendency of federal agencies to draw away from each

other creating parallel programs, needed to be corrected immediately. Three

recommendations concluded the study. Initially, a “real focal point must be established in the White House…for dealing with…activities affecting metropolitan areas.” This could be designated the “Office of Executive Management within the Executive Office of the President” and under it regional offices should be set up to coordinate federal efforts at state and city levels.139 Further, HHFA should be substantially strengthened and given

Cabinet status.140 Lastly, Ike’s administration felt the Advisory Commission on

Intergovernmental Relations should conduct an active program designed to encourage

state and local jurisdictions to deal with metropolitan problems “in a coordinated

fashion.”141 Nothing was done with these recommendations except for the attempt at

Cabinet status for HHFA.

Kennedy’s report entitled, “Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs

for President-Elect John F. Kennedy” submitted on December 30, 1960 was written by

members of the Urban Advisory Group of the campaign. The Task Force served under

the direction of ex-Baltimore Mayor Joseph P. McMurray, who happened to be the

Senate Banking and Finance Committee’s choice for HHFA Administrator, with John

Barriere of the House Banking and Currency Committee serving as senior writer. Dr. 95

Robert C. Wood, of the Harvard-MIT Joint Center, contributed many of the ideas. A

pair of bankers, Harry Held and Charles Wellman rounded out the authorship.142 They

basically took the ideas of the Pittsburgh Conference, added a couple of new ones and

costed everything out over four years.

This eighty-five page document presented solutions to thirteen significant issues

facing America’s cities in the 1960s. These were costed out over four years while also

keeping in mind Kennedy’s ten-year campaign pledge. The report championed HHFA

receiving Cabinet level status as soon as possible. Secondly, it recommended an entirely

new program for subsidizing low income family housing through both public and private

participation. Third, FHA authorizations should be increased and coverage expanded to form a more diverse housing market. To do this liberalization of FHA mortgage terms

plus a new FHA mortgage insurance program needed to be created. The Task Force

suggested sweeping changes for the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), with new special programs and a revised central mortgage banking system. Fifthly,

federally assisted housing for the elderly must be expanded. Here, significant funding for

a direct loan program to non-profit corporations constructing elderly housing was to be

incorporated and financed into the public debt. A dramatic increase in college housing

loans up to $500 million annually comprised the sixth recommendation and seventh topic

addressed urban renewal.143 In Kennedy’s first four years, two billion, six hundred

million would be recommended for urban renewal, including relocation money. The

eighth recommendation offered changes in the community facilities program for

broadening eligibility, more money for public works and increasing funding for water

pollution control. Transferring that program from HEW to HHFA was suggested and 750 96

million dollars in grants proposed. As an urgent priority, the Task Force stressed that the mass transit problem should be immediately investigated by a Presidential Study

Commission with an initial outlay of 100 million dollars for public facility loans.144

The second from the last recommendation concerned suburban and rural housing.

Quizzically this report recommended orderly suburban development could only take place if it became a potential federal project. Here a series of planning grants and a limited number of loans topped the list of ways to help suburban communities acquire and improve land. For farm housing, the Task Force thought the current farm housing program should be extended for four additional years. They codified farms for 450 million dollars in direct loans as “adequate farms,” 110 million dollars to “potentially adequate ones” and 50 million dollars to improve sanitation on small family size ones.

The final topic focused on research and recommended a substantial funding increase.

Innovation and experimentation were encouraged and a commission ordered. The Task

Force suggested four research sub-groups to investigate standardization of mortgage instruments, the special problems of residential mortgage credit, standardization of local building codes, and studying the tax policies of federal, state, and local governments affecting cities.145 In costing out the Kennedy program over four years a truly significant amount of money was proposed. Eight billion, seven hundred twenty-five million dollars became the price tag over Kennedy’s first term. According to the Task Force, three billion, nine hundred million dollars would be grants and slightly more than three billion, five hundred million should be repayable loans. It also recommended one billion, three hundred million dollars for subsidized low income housing.146 97

However, the Task Force report could have made other and stronger

recommendations. For instance, the leading urban social problem was racial segregation in housing. Of 179.3 million Americans in 1960, 20.5 could be classified as non-white and almost seventy-three per cent of these lived in the central city.147 Forty-four per cent

of the housing occupied by these Americans remained substandard by official

classification.148 The same federal government which classified this housing as

substandard, also openly advocated segregation in housing through to 1948.149 Since seventy-five per cent of the non-white housing had been constructed before 1939, the federal government helped segregate people into now substandard housing by its own admission. The FHA underwriting manual of 1938 recommended using restrictive covenants to “stop inharmonious racial groups” from moving into white neighborhoods.150 The PHA regularly segregated African-Americans in the 1950s

through “racial equity” clauses and by 1961, over eighty per cent of all public housing

could be called segregated.151 If an African-American in 1961 could get an FHA loan,

the chances were ninety-eight to two that he or she would be barred from what was then

considered a “good neighborhood, through the practice now called Red-lining.”152 For an entire decade the housing industry produced over a million homes per year, but only three per cent of these “newer homes” were available to non-whites.153 Segregation in

housing virtually assured segregation in schools, recreation and community facilities.154

Kennedy’s Task Force failed to mention open occupancy, by Executive Order or any

other method, because it knew that was low on Kennedy’s agenda.155 It was also low on

the “average” voters’ agenda in 1960. 98

The Task Force report also overlooked urban poverty. In 1961 no real social

program existed and jobs were hard to find in the central city with few new ones being

created. Leon Keyserling, a well known contemporary economist estimated “that in

1961, thirty-eight million people live in poverty and another thirty-nine million live in

deprivation [near poverty].”156 No mention of how to address this filled the Task Force pages. According to Keyserling high unemployment in cities continued because of

Eisenhower’s attempt to “balance the budget without regard for the health of the economy.”157 Joseph A. Peckman, Director of Economic Research for the Brookings

Institute, told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in December of 1960 that, “in my view, the major impediment to economic growth…has been a combined monetary and fiscal policy which placed excessive restraints on the growth of aggregate demand.”158 All economic indicators in cities had declined by 1961 with over five

hundred billion dollars worth of real property in the United States needing renovation,

with the rate of improvements slowing from the previous year.159 Construction of public

housing units fell from 21,939 in 1959 to 16,401 in 1960 and new home starts slipped

from 1,494,600 in 1959 to 1, 230,000 in 1960. The percentage of the market insured

under VA mortgages fell from 27.8 in 1959 to 24.4 in 1960 and many of the urban poor were veterans.160 Specific social programs for “battling the culture of poverty” by

creating opportunity, could not be found in the Task Force Report either.

Lastly, the report failed to discuss the management of federal programs affecting

cities like the Eisenhower report had. Since 1949 urban renewal displaced hundreds of thousands, with the federal highway program ranking a close second.161 Regarding

urban renewal, obtaining land caused people who lived there to be displaced, but only 99

nine per cent of the proposed projects on that land could be completed in three years, fifty per cent took three to nine years, and ten per cent, twelve to fifteen years. Thirty- one per cent never got finished at all but the people were gone.162 A clamor from the

housing industry existed for the establishment of national construction building codes similar to those in Canada. Across the country, lack of uniformity cost the housing industry a billion dollars annually. Other than proposing a commission to study this problem, the Report failed to address it at all.163 Moreover, most cities in 1960 had no

“metropolitan master plan” and looked to the federal government to draft one, based on a model for individual city size and geography.164 Yet while the Kennedy administration

called this Task Force the most comprehensive in history, its leading contributor Dr.

Robert C. Wood remarked, it was no more than “pushing out some ideas that were still in

pretty rough, crude form, and forcing the bureaucracy of the departments and agencies to

work on them.”165 It seemed that was fine with the president-elect as comments about

the Report’s comprehensiveness looked good in the press.

One final event though needed to take place which the press would also cover in

depth. On a cold, bright Friday, January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy became the thirty-

fifth President of the United States. Surrounded by his family, well wishers and his

nominees, he stated “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the

final success or failure of our course.”166 No truer words were ever spoken. For while

his nominees were preparing early drafts of his new omnibus housing bill, his special

urban message to Congress, and ghosting his urban mayoral telegrams, Kennedy was

busy elsewhere. During the inaugural festivities and inaugurals balls, he had slipped 100

away to private rooms more than a couple of times “to be with Angie Dickinson, a twenty-eight year old actress.”167 Truly the New Frontier was now launched.

101 End Notes to Chapter Three

1. Letter to the President-Elect John F. Kennedy from Allen Nevins, November 14, 1960, “The Expectations for the New Administration,” 51, Educational Resources, Unit Number 7, The John F. Kennedy Library.

2. Telegram to the President-Elect John F. Kennedy from Dorothy Elmlinge, January 16, 1961, “The Expectations for the New Administration,” 5, Educational Resources, Unit Number 7, TJFKL.

3. Remarks by Roy Wilkins, December 2, 1960, Wilkins, Roy, 1/21/60-8/16/61, White House Staff Files, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL.

4. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (Boston: Harper and Row, 1965), 229, 230.

5. Daniel P. Moynihan, “The Professors and the Poor,” Commentary 46, No.2 (1968): 19, 20.

6. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1965), 121.

7. Richard E. Neustadt, “Memorandum on Organizing the Transition: A Tentative Checklist for the Weeks Between Election and Inaugural,” 10/30/60, 1, Staff Memos; Hopkins-Rostow (Neustadt), President’s Office Files, 64, TJFKL.

8. Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics 1945-1960 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 107.

9. Neustadt, “Memorandum,” 2.

10. Ibid., 2, 3.

11. Ibid., 2, 3, 4.

12. Ibid., 1, 5.

13. Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 53.

14. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 45, 52, 53, 54.

15. Hugh Helco, “The Sixties False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements, and Postmodern Policy-Making,” in Brian Balogh, ed., Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structures, and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Turbulent Decade (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 53-56; Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay 102 Winter, A Question of Numbers: High Migration, Low Fertility, and the Politics of National Identity (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), 144.

16. Earl Lewis, “Connecting Memory, Self, and the Power of Place in African- American Urban History,” Journal of Urban History 21, No. 3 (1995): 348.

17. Andre Bernard, “Commonplace Book,” The American Scholar 68, No. 1 (1999): 11.

18. David Steigerwald, The Sixties and the End of Modern America (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1995), 121.

19. Ibid., 122.

20. Ibid., 201, 202.

21. Peter Marcuse, “Housing Policy and the Myth of the Benevolent State,” Social Policy 8, No. 4 (1978): 21, 22.

22. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, Volume II, Interview II, Reel I, 146, 147, June 16, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

23. William E. Nelson, “Federal-City Relations: The Failure of the Urban Reform,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 13, No. 1 (1977) 119; Steigerwald, Sixties, 8.

24. Robert Dallek, Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents (New York: Hyperion, 1996), 131.

25. Harvey M. Choldin and Claudine Hanson, “Status Shifts Within the City,” American Sociological Review 47, No. 1 (1982): 134; Steigerwald, Sixties, 10.

26. Michael Knox Beran, The Last Patrician: Robert Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1998), 39.

27. James E. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1991), 21.

28. Reeves, President Kennedy, 29.

29. Letter to Robert F. Kennedy from Jack F. DeWitt, January 11, 1961, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, Civil Rights, 01/61-06/61, Attorney General’s Correspondence Files, TJFKL; Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud that Defined a Decade (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 66-69.

30. Oral Interview of Norbert A. Schlei by John F. Stewart, 22, February 20-21, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL. . 103

31. Reeves, President Kennedy, 29.

32. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffry Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy In His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 312.

33. Shesol, Contempt, 26.

34. Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 41.

35. James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1991), 62.

36. Discussion with Theodore C. Sorensen by William A. Foley, Jr. 1, Conference, John F. Kennedy: Person, Policy, Presidency, University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, October 18, 1986 .

37. Oral Interviews of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Volume II, Interview II, Reel I, 132, June 16, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 339.

38. Shesol, Contempt, 24, 79, 81.

39. Ibid., 58.

40. Ibid., 100.

41. Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 587.

42. James W. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 299 . 43. Guthman and Shuman, Robert Kennedy, 57.

44. This discussion with Larry King took place in the early fall of 1980 concerning review of Wofford’s book, Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1980).

45. Giglio, Kennedy 33.

46. Shesol, Contempt, 100.

104 47. Giglio, Kennedy, 36,37.

48. Reeves, Kennedy, 276, 277.

49. Ibid., 276, 277.

50. James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 477.

51. For Byron White, Burke Marshall and John Doar, see Short Bibliographies and Job Descriptions of Kennedy Administration personnel, TJFKL; Regarding Schlei, see Carl M. Brauer, John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 190, 245-246, 307.

52. Guthman and Shulman, Robert Kennedy, 137.

53. Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 77, 110, 111.

54. Hilty, Robert Kennedy, 184, 221, 435.

55. Gertrude Shipperly Fish, The Story of Housing (New York: Macmillan, 1979), 288, 289.

56. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, Volume I, Interview I, Reel I, 47, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

57. Office of the Federal Register, United States Government Organization Manual 1961-1962 (Washington: The United States Government Printing Office, 1962), 438, 439.

58. Memorandum for Harris C. Wofford, July 7, 1961, Civil Rights Progress Reports, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA File No. 2, White House Staff Files, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL.

59. M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, HUD: Successes, Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: West View, 1978), 21.

60. Fish, Housing, 334.

61. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1990), 143-151.

62. Jon C. Teaford, The Twentieth Century American City, Second Edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 137.

105 63. Helco, “Sixties,” in Brian Balogh, Integrating, 54.

64. Alma Rene` “Williams, Robert C. Weaver: From Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet” (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University of Saint Louis, 1978) 12-36.

65. Ibid., 37-54; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 309, 310.

66. Ibid., Williams, “Weaver,” 56-61.

67. Ibid., 58-61.

68. Ibid., 59-60.

69. Ibid., 67-99.

70. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Volume I, Interview I, Reel I, 3, 27, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

71. Giglio, Kennedy, 41, 163; David Burner, John F. Kennedy and a New Generation (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 121.

72. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Volume I, Interview I, Reel I, 1, 2, 13, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

73. Ibid., 20, 21, 27.

74. Ibid., 14.

75. Ibid., 15, 20, 29.

76. Ibid., Volume IV, Interview IV, Reel I, 7, October 1, 1964.

77. Ibid., IV, Reel 1, 8, 9.

78. Giglio, Kennedy, 163.

79. Steigerwald, Sixties, 190.

80. Burner, Generation, 120, 121.

81 Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 15, 20, 29, KLOHP, TJFKL.

82. Branch, Parting of the Waters, 342, 343; and Giglio, Kennedy, 21.

106 83. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Martin Meyerson, 1, January 3, 1961, Weaver, Robert C. 01/21.59-10/13/61, White House Staff Files, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL. . 84. Willaims, “Weaver,” 31.

85. John H. Senstacke, “The Weaver Appointment,” The Chicago Daily Defender, January 5, 1961, p. 12.

86 Letter to Ralph Dungan from Robert C. Weaver, January 11, 1961, 2, Weaver, Robert C., 01/21/59-10/13/61, White House Staff Files, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL.

87. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 57, KLOHP, TJFKL.

88. Williams, Weaver, 110, 111.

89. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 59, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 312.

90. Ibid., Weaver, 56, 60, 68, 69, 70.

91. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 309.

92. Williams, “Weaver,” 7-20.

93. United States Senate, Nomination of Robert C. Weaver: Hearing before the Committee on Banking and Currency, U.S. Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session, on the Nomination of Robert C. Weaver to the Housing and Home Finance Agency Administrator, February 7 and 8, 1961, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 6-9; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 312.

94. Ibid., 95-100.

95. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 60, KLOHP, TJFKL.

96. Ibid., 56, 60, 68, 69, 70.

97. Gelfand, Nations of Cities, 313.

98. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 68, 69, 70, 71, KLOHP, TJFKL.

99. Office of the Federal Register, United States Government Organizational Manual 1961-1962 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), 442.

100. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 30, 31, KLOHP. TJFKL.

101. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 314. 107

102. Oral Interview of Jack T. Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 57, April 10. 1972, KLOHP, TJFKL.

103. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 36, 37, KLOHP, TJFKL.

104. Ibid., 38.

105. Ibid., 39.

106. Ibid., 40.

107. Ibid., 41.

108. Oral Interview of William Slayton by William M. McHugh, 4-6, February 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL; Oral Interview of James T. Banks by William M. McHugh, 1-3, December 14, 1966, KLOHP, TJFKL.

109. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 338.

110. Register, Organization Manual, 445, 446.

111. Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis Since 1930 (New York: Universe, 1973), 140.

112. Memorandum, Senate Banking and Currency Committee, “Nominations Hearings, Marie C. McGuire,” Legislative Files, 04/18/61, President’s Office Files, 49, TJFKL; Oral Interview of Marie C. McGuire by William H. McHugh, 1, 46, April 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

113. Oral Interview, Jack Conway, 57, KLOHP, TJFKL.

114. Register, Organization Manual, 439, 440.

115. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 33, KLOHP, TJFKL.

116. Oral Interview, Jack Conway, 58, KLOHP, TJFKL.

117. Register, Organization Manual, 446, 447.

118. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 40-46, KLOHP, TJFKL.

119. Ibid., 40-46.

120. Ibid., 40-46.

108 121. Ibid., 47-54.

122. Ibid., 47-54.

123. Ibid., 47-54.

124. Oral Interview, Jack Conway, 56, KLOHP, TJFKL.

125. Ibid., 55, 56.

126. Ibid., 57, 58.

127. Slesol, Contempt, 51, 81, 85, 86.

128. Oral Interview, Jack Conway, 58, KLOHP, TJFKL.

129. Ibid., 57, 58.

130. Oral Interview, Robert Weaver, 40, 41, KLOHP, TJFKL.

131. Steigerwald, Sixties, 234.

132. Giglio, Kennedy, 118; Shesol, Contempt, 168; Steigerwald, Sixties, 202-205, 234; Beran, Patrician, 32, 33; Carl M. Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson, and the War on Poverty,” Journal of American History 69 (June, 1982): 110-114.

133. Letter to President John F. Kennedy from Stanley Mosk, February 2, 1961, HS Housing 01/20/61 to 09/30/61, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

134. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 315.

135. Report of the Governor’s Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems, “Meeting Metropolitan Problems,” December 1960, General Office Files, Urban Affairs 11/60- 06/62, White House Staff Files, Meyer Feldman, 20, TJFKL.

136. Report: “Coordination of Federal Metropolitan Area Development Activities,” January 9, 1961, Page 29, General Office Files, Urban Affairs 11/60-06/62, White House Staff Files, Meyer Feldman, 20, TJFKL.

137. Ibid.,1.

138. Ibid., 11, 12, 26.

139. Ibid., 29.

140. Ibid., 28, 29. 109

141. Ibid., 29, 30

142. “Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs for President elect John F. Kennedy,” December 30, 1960, Introduction, 11, Reports, TJFKL.

143. Ibid., 1, 2.

144. Ibid., 2, 3.

145. Ibid., 3, 4.

146. Ibid., 69, end tables I and II.

147. The Non-White Population, A Summary of Salient Statistics, Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, 11/20/62, 1, White House Staff Files, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

148. Ibid., 1.

149. The Princeton Conference on Equal Opportunity in Housing, “Federal, State and Local Action Affecting Race and Housing,” October 1962, 3, 4, C-R File, Housing Executive Order Background - The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62-10/18/62, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL.

150. “The Emergency of a Policy,” the 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report, 3, 13, 16, 18, 88, C-R File, Housing Executive Order Background - The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62-10/18/62, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL.

151. Proposals for Executive Action, Housing, August 29, 1961, 58, C-R File, Leadership Conference in Civil Rights, 08/29/61, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL.

152. The Conference Report of the Princeton Conference on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 8, 15, C-R File, Housing Executive Order Background - The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62-10/18/62, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL; A Call on the President of the United States for the Issuance of an Executive Order Ending Discrimination in Housing, September 1961, 2, 8, Civil Rights, Housing Executive Order Background , 01/04/63-07/26/63, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL.

153. Letter and Report to John F. Kennedy from Henry Steeger of the National Urban League, Undated, Housing Executive Order Background, 04/12/62-07/26/62, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 21, TJFKL.

154. “Proposals for Executive Action, Housing,” C-R File, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 08/29/66, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL. 110

155. “Facts About the Housing of the Non-White Population,” Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, November 20, 1962, White House Staff Files, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL; Conference Report: The Princeton on Equal Opportunity in Housing, October 1962, 6, C-R File, Housing Executive Order, Princeton Conference, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL.

156. Memorandum for the President from Walter W. Heller, December 12, 1962, “Selected Facts on Low Income Population in the United States,” Staff Memos - Dutton - Holborn, President’s Office Files, 63, TJFKL.

157. “The Role of Fiscal and Monetary Policy in the Recessions of 1958 and 1960: Some Outside Views,” 3, Legislative Files, 05/63, President’s Office File, 53, TJFKL.

158. Ibid., 3.

159. 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report, The Emergence of a Policy, 18, C-R File, Housing Executive Order Background, The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62- 10/18/62, White House Staff Files, Lee White, 22, TJFKL; Letter to President John F. Kennedy from Carroll K. O’Rourke, Chairman of the National Home Improvement Council, January 9, 1963, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

160 Report of the National Commission on Urban Problems to the Congress and to the President of the United States, Building the American City (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1968), 13, 107.

161. Ibid., 82.

162. Ibid., 166.

163. The Editors of House and Home, “An Open Letter to the President,” House and Home Magazine, April 1961, 4, HHFA 02/02/61-12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee White, General Files, 6, TJFKL.

164. Report of the Governor’s Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems, “Meeting Metropolitan Problems,” December 1960, 15, General Files, Urban Affairs 11/60-06/62, White House Staff Files, Myer Feldman, 20, TJFKL.

165. Oral Interview of Robert C. Wood by John Stewart, 11, January 29, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL.

166. United States Government, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy 1961 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1962), 1.

167. Reeves, Kennedy, 35, 36. 111

CHAPTER IV

STIMULATING THE ECONOMY AND THE 1961 HOUSING ACT

Within fifteen years our population will rise to 235 million and by the year 2000 to 300 million people. Most of this increase will occur in and around urban areas. We must begin now to lay the foundations for livable, efficient and attractive communities.1

Activity at the Kennedy White House began early on Saturday, January 21, 1961.

The new President and his staff arrived at 8:50 a.m. and swearing-in started immediately.

Official visitors followed, led by Ex-President Harry S. Truman and Chicago Mayor

Richard J. Daley, the most influential person in the country in guaranteeing Kennedy’s

razor thin victory. Telegrams and congratulatory letters poured in from across the world

and nation. In the early months, the Kennedy White House averaged 35,000 letters per week, with most of them discussing the economy.2

This chapter covers that early robust activity, discussing JFK’s initial plans for

emergency relief which drifted into a full blown anti-recession package and into his

“urban” plans as well. This paralleled Weaver’s efforts to gain control and streamline

HHFA to play a major role in city development, and unbeknown to him, he would act as

a conduit for JFK’s anti-recession program as well. JFK’s desire to saving the economy

and Weaver’s efforts toward improving cities and housing, merged and as the final

subject of this chapter, culminate in the 1961 Housing Act which is discussed in detail.

As an astute politician, Kennedy was also concerned with the domestic economy

and he both took minor and major steps to improve it immediately, which would please

voters. He began with a series of swift, minor actions. As his first official act he issued

Executive Order Number 10914, distributing food to the rural poor of Appalachia.3 112

Releasing funds into areas of high unemployment to construct federal facilities as

post offices came next, pouring money into “impacted areas” of high defense activity,

and releasing government insurance dividends early to American veterans rounded out

these minor initiatives.4

Kennedy even did his part to save money, eliminating seventeen Eisenhower policy

panels costing $301,375 annually. Yet at the same time, he increased the White House

Staff to 476 over Ike’s 388 of 1960.5 But eventually, he decided to balance his budget for

his 1963 tax cut effort, so that remained short lived. But as previously mentioned,

economic issues were critical to the country in 1960, with housing and urban

development at a dangerous low, so new initiatives were needed. New private home

starts in 1960 declined eighteen percent from 1959, one out of six construction workers

endured long term unemployment, and urban renewal remained at its lowest ebb in

years.6

So Kennedy’s major initiatives consisted of a series of stimulus programs to

“prime” the economy. He wanted quick results and so did the voters.7 In the January

11, 1961 Gallup Poll, sixty-three percent of Americans believed “Holding down prices and preventing inflation” should be the number one concern of the new administration and Congress.8 In late January, JFK met with his White House Staff, Council of

Economic Advisors and his Bureau of the Budget personnel, laying out a plan called “A

Program to Restore Momentum to the American Economy.” Comprised of three main features, this initiative supposedly would improve the national economic climate and bring the country out of recession. Housing construction, automobile production, and farm income would be energized and the major market sectors supplying them, 113

stimulated. The timber, steel, and coal industries became focal points as did their

supporting rail, truck and air distribution systems.

To help voters directly, Kennedy offered a new minimum wage of $1.25 per hour

(Minimum Wage Act), a program to increase employment in poor rural and some urban

areas (Area Redevelopment Act), and legislation to retrain and reemploy those laid off by

plant closings (Manpower Redevelopment and Retraining Act). He also “suggested” the

Federal Reserve not raise the prime rate and that businesses, particularly steel, “hold the

line” on prices. None of his economic initiatives though could be labeled brilliant, bold

or daring but rather represented a thoughtful effort to focus federal action on managing an

economic crisis. For Kennedy, stimulating America’s massive housing construction and

urban redevelopment business would be key to ending the recession and he would begin

that effort shortly.

It should be noted however, Kennedy viewed all domestic programs except civil

rights as catalysts for economic growth. Thus, if urban social programs had to be cut in

favor of economic stimulus, they would be. This held particularly true later when he

made an effort to balance the budget while simultaneously pushing for tax cuts aimed at

voters in 1964. Over the course of his administration, those favoring increased capital

mobility waged an internal struggle against those supporting economic conservativism.9

This fight at the national policy level would be about the “proper” kind of

macroeconomic intervention.10

Kennedy’s urban policy people split into two groups as well: planners who wanted

Eisenhower’s program to continue; and reformers who clung doggedly “to a vision opposed to private redevelopment,” if the poor continued to be displaced. If as Lewis 114

Mumford wrote, “the city…is the point of the maximum concentration of power and culture of a communit,” then it would also be in the city where the values formed in that

concentration would be tested. Both conservatives and reformers favored federal

assistance in resolving persistent social problems, but differed as to the ways.11 For most

of Kennedy’s presidency conservatives prevailed, yet at the end he began to listen more

to reformers. The sounds of social unrest on the horizon plus political pressure from

liberal and civil rights groups with large voting blocks caught his attention in the early

fall of 1963.

Regarding urban planning, Kennedy was no visionary. In order to give him a moniker one must assume he qualified for one. Kennedy only held general beliefs, that it

would be good for cities if he stimulated the national economy, ended the recession

particularly in cities, and achieved high urban employment while creating another

housing boom. That would please voters while improving urban life. To do this he

needed a housing act, with one of its chief goals a “massive” FHA middle income

housing program, expanded urban renewal, increased community facilities spending, and

some kind of mass transit assistance. A small public housing program would also help.

A Department of Urban Affairs and Housing (DUAH) should be created to manage all of

this while also renovating downtowns, creating parks, and handling special housing

programs for the elderly, Native Americans, veterans and college students. A small

poverty program might evolve, and with these generalizations, a little bit of

reapportionment, Kennedy believed all would be well in urban America.

As an overview, not much regard for the “social compact” of the campaign can be

seen in Kennedy urban policy. His enthralling blend of social action and progressive 115

rhetoric in the campaign remained exactly there. No “values based” legislation would be immediately forthcoming and his long awaited housing order would not be issued until

Thanksgiving of 1962. It must be remembered that in the early Kennedy years, nobody making decisions saw that they stood less than four years away from social and political protests the likes of which had not been seen since Progressivism, nor witnessed since.

On the other hand, Robert C. Weaver, a progressive African-American, would have been willing to “rock the boat” but the president was not ready. By the end of January 1961,

Kennedy enmeshed himself deeply into foreign policy where he remained, save for off- year elections and when civil rights issues were forced upon him. Moreover, in achieving the goal of getting elected, he promised so much to so many people, he would be very hard pressed to fulfill it all. Meyer Feldman, a speechwriter and later presidential special assistant, drew up a summary of all promises and commitments Kennedy made in the campaign, and with analysis that filled five hundred pages. When Feldman showed it to him, Kennedy responded with surprise, saying “Well, my God Mike, what’d you get me into?”12 He then had aids prepare his major anti-recession policy.

Meanwhile, at the start of the Kennedy years Weaver concentrated on wresting

control of the vast empire known as the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA).

Located in numerous buildings across Washington D.C., with regional offices scattered

robustly throughout the country, HHFA constituted a splendid bureaucracy that had

“drifted” during the latter Eisenhower years. It routinely spent billions of dollars, creating mountains of paperwork while dramatically altering America’s urban landscape, without possessing a soul. It suffered from a benign yet inbred social insensitivity.

Revealing in its annual Congressional reports, slow but determined progress in improving 116

the “physical city,” it nonetheless had no effective measuring device for what

happened to the “wretched” it displaced, evicted or relocated in the “social city” context.

When Weaver took over it had no mechanism for intra or inter-agency cooperation in coordinating urban programs. HHFA basically, chugged along making and implementing urban policy and unless Weaver gained control, it would simply continue on without him.

HHFA’s dysfunctional nature could be seen in its duplicating and overlapping

programs. Public and private housing belonged to the Federal Housing Administration

(FHA), the Public Housing Administration (PHA), the Communities Facilities

Administration (CFA) and the Urban Renewal Administration (URA). Elderly housing

fell under the FHA, PHA, CFA, URA and the Federal National Mortgage Association

(FNMA). Relocation of poor people became the simultaneous business of URA, PHA

and CFA. Mass transit planning grants had to go through URA, PHA and CFA and this

became easy compared to obtaining outside agency approval. The Workable Program for

County Improvement (WPCI), managed by the HHFA’s central Office of Administration

(OA), spanned all five constituent administrations but often ran into direct conflict with

the Department of Agriculture and the Area Redevelopment Agency.13

In trying to provide vision and synchronization, Weaver first had to set priorities.

Strengthening agency interaction, improving HHFA field activities, obtaining an

adequate budget, preparing presidential messages to Congress, drafting important

legislation, bringing reform to elderly housing, pressuring the president for executive

orders, getting mass transit off the ground, reforming urban renewal, dealing with a spate

of civil rights complaints, doing the same with equal housing issues, and creating a larger

public housing program, headed his list. Conflict of interest and ethical conduct issues, 117

regional personnel difficulties, and budget problems constituted secondary ones.

Lastly, compliance with Federal reporting requirements, improving agency space in principle cities, energizing the housing demonstrations program, working with new ventures like preventing juvenile delinquency, and defending the agency against litigation, constituted the next grouping. Interacting with the five HHFA administrations, responding to important constituent mail, national magazines, and resolving local planning disputes comprised his daily activities.14

Weaver initially sat on or contributed to numerous commissions, committees or

boards. Bodies as the Federal Executive Board’s reorganization committee, the

President’s Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, President’s Council

on Aging, President’s Committee on Minority Labor, President’s Committee on

Consumer Interest, President’s Committee on Children and Youth Protection, and nine

others captured his time and attention. Under Executive Order 11004 he shouldered

Department of Defense responsibilities as an emergency preparedness officer for human-

made or natural disasters and these Cold War duties made him the president’s chief

advisor for rebuilding America’s cities after nuclear attack. Weaver managed a cadre of

“executive reservists,” experienced non-government or governmental retirees, who

assumed HHFA responsibilities when a nuclear attack disabled the federal government

killing key leaders as himself.15

Both Weaver and Kennedy became transitory figures between the old way of

conducting public policy and the new. In the past, politicians, bureaucrats and lobbyists, particularly popular politicians were given more of a “free pass” by the press for making

“attempts” to resolve public policy issues, without the results being carefully measured. 118

They operated more in isolation from political movements around them in relation to

the postmodern era where being really well attuned to the surrounding political culture

remained paramount for staying in office.16 By the time the “New Frontier” ended in

Dallas on November 22, 1963, “old line” agencies as the HHFA no longer remained

insulated from the great political moments sweeping the 1960s. Advocacy groups, bent

on changing inherited institutional power, judged those agencies with suspicion and

hostility. By the end of Kennedy’s presidency, Weaver and his agency would be on the

cutting edge of new urban politics that no longer debated process, but measured only

outcomes. Simple persuasion that progress was “in process” no longer counted.17

Before Weaver could make improvements, he had to master HHFA’s archaic

structure, refine its organization, and revamp the central office. Staffed with a deputy

administrator and ones for community improvement, inter-group relations, audit,

international housing, program policy, public affairs, congressional liaison, general

counsel, elderly housing, compliance, security, mortgage credit, and community

disposition, the HHFA maintained a sizeable central office called the OA. This “OA”

managed budget, personnel, finance and administrative support plus the Workable

Program for Community Improvement (WPCI) and the Voluntary Home Mortgage Credit

Program (VHMCP). It provided field office support to seven HHFA regional offices covering all states and territories with Region I in New York, Region II in Philadelphia,

Region III centered in Atlanta, Region IV in Chicago, Region V in Fort Worth, Region

VI in San Francisco, with Region VII located in Puerto Rico.18 Each regional

headquarters had a regional administrator and deputy, plus assistant regional directors

for each of six major functional areas. 119

Weaver commenced revamping the HHFA central office from a well conceived plan. From Maurice H. Stans, Ike’s last Bureau of the Budget Director and also from

Norman P. Mason, Ike’s last HHFA Administrator, he received sets of personnel books

(files) and operating budget data.19 Due to his confirmation delays, acting commissioners operated urban renewal, community facilities, federal housing and technical standards at the beginning of the Administration and Weaver had time to read and prepare.20 While these acting commissioners performed daily business, Weaver strengthened his policy position, scheduling regular meetings with the five acting commissioners and key OA staff. He began physically centralizing as many HHFA staff into the headquarters as possible. He established a uniform HHFA orientation program for new employees and strengthened staff evaluations as well as quality assurance reviews. He channeled all contracts with the White House through his office including those with Budget, required all important public announcements to go through him, and caused all subordinate personnel changes to cross his desk.21 In determining what positions actually reported directly to him, he found that twenty-seven did, while others reported to commissioners and then to him, and some reported to both. Weaver ordered all of these latter ones to report directly to him.22 The White House intervened with a forty-eight hour pre- approved speech clearance rule, and also directed that all requests for intervention from them be given serious consideration only if “the group can be helpful to us.”23 Weaver implemented both of these policies as well.

The HHFA administrator also had to reshape conflict of interest rules and standards of conduct policy, particularly in light of a brewing scandal. Former Acting FHA

Commissioner and subsequent Deputy Federal Housing Administrator, James B. Cash, Jr. 120

proved an embarrassment and later in 1961, Weaver dismissed him. This happened when Drew Pearson broke a richly detailed story in the Washington Post about how Cash

lost $7,000.00 during an all night poker game to a San Diego real estate developer at the

1960 Home Builders Convention in Chicago. The developer in turn had Cash’s I.O.U.

“torn up” by a Washington real estate lobbyist.24 This could not be permitted.

Another directive Kennedy issued in anticipation of his major economic stimulus

effort required Secretaries and Agency Heads to “tighten up” regional administration and

Weaver complied. Thus, after establishing his priorities and gaining some control over

the agency, Weaver began that journey. Within regional offices, levels of authority

varied greatly and problems abounded. Roles needed to be redefined, and in some cases

regional administrators needed more authority and in others, less. Weaver wanted

regional administrators to actually exercise direct authority in field operations, and

through their directors, make decisions without relying so much on him. Over reliance

on the central office caused delays and confusion and since regional administrators

represented him, once they understood his goals, they should implement them.25

Regional administrators in URA and CFA exercised responsibility and managed agency-

wide programs well, whereas the leaders of PHA and FNMA field operations exercised

less power and initiative, while FHA maintained its own secular empire. Weaver tried to

balance this.26

In a strange congressionally mandated carry over from the past, two of HHFA’s five administrations worked directly within HHFA, but the other three conducted business separately while reporting to it. The URA and CFA constituted the duo operating within 121

HHFA and FHA, PHA and FNMA operated separately, possessing neither the same

organizational structure nor physical locations as their parent HHFA.27

The largest of the three mavericks, the Federal Housing Administration, chartered to

provide mortgage loan insurance for seven major housing programs and itself as powerful

as HHFA, amazingly divided the country into six “zones” rather than HHFA’s seven regions. The FHA central office in D.C., itself a plebiscite bureaucracy, had a commissioner, deputy, and six primary assistants who managed nine assistant commissioners, who in turn supervised seventeen directors and all their support staff.

Uniquely the six zone commissioners also located themselves in D.C. rather than in the

“field.” So the largest housing program in the free world managed itself from one central location while maintaining seventy-five scattered FHA Field Insuring Offices (FHA-

FIOs) in the largest seventy-five American cities and towns. These also came with healthy cotories.28

Unfortunately, Weaver could only make minor changes in FHA regional

administration because the big ones, fully reorganizing that confusing structure, were

reserved by law for Congress. The long-standing regulatory language of the National

Housing Act of 1934 required that any FHA reorganization, must go before Congress.

Thus, until the departmental status bill passed, Weaver could only initiate limited changes. He improved communication and consolidated FHA-HHFA field activity wherever possible.29 He began holding regular “FHA” meetings and exchanging all basic

market data, economic studies and housing market analysis.30 He required FHA zone

offices to be located at least in the same cities and hopefully in the same building as 122

regional HHFA offices and tasked Neal J. Hardy, new FHA Commissioner, to obtain

GSA authorization to begin that consolidation.

The Public Housing Administration (PHA), home-based in D.C. as well, had

regional offices in the same regions and cities as the HHFA, but in separate locations and buildings. Weaver streamlined internal reporting structures, improved communications,

and made some regional personnel changes. Those constructing and managing housing

for low income Americans received assistance from PHA, either in direct loans or federal

guaranteed loans, plus help in paying their long-term bond issues. The managers of low

income public housing incorporated themselves into Local Public Housing Authorities

(LPAs), some being public, municipal or state owned but most remaining private. During

the Kennedy years LPAs fluctuated numerically, based on their financial viability,

litigation over poor construction, or from revelations about discrimination, all of which

ended up in court.31

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) also headquartered in D.C.,

managed three important programs: supplementing private secondary mortgages by

purchasing and selling FHA/VA insured mortgages; purchasing “special” mortgages

which improved national economic stability; and when the economy required, liquidating

its special mortgage portfolios. FNMA had regional offices in six of seven HHFA regions, but not in the same cities in half of them. Also a FNMA affiliate managed by the

HHFA’s “OA,” the National Voluntary Mortgage Credit Extension Committee

(NVMCEC) located in D.C., fielded its Voluntary Home Mortgage Credit Program

(VHMCP) in five of the seven HHFA regions, sometimes in the same city. Weaver improved internal reporting and communications within them. 123

Keeping track nationally of this astonishing bureaucracy required a “score card”

which Weaver kept as an organizational chart in his office, with an “X” marking the

current city location of each agency and by program.32 Beyond its complexity and

inherent disfunctionality, Weaver’s capacity to provide direction and leadership were

stifled by this archaic organizational architecture. Unless the Department of Housing and

Urban Affairs (DUAH) legislation passed, it would remain so for the entire Kennedy

presidency.

All regional inter-agency processing needed improved coordination. For example,

when a FHA zone office delayed mortgage applications in an urban renewal area, URA

approvals fell behind and CFA infrastructure improvements slowed. Joint planning

ventures between FHA and URA for housing the relocated in urban renewal areas never

went smoothly and an Agency-wide phenomenon called “red tape” bled into all

programs. That could also be seen where outside federal agencies constructing airport,

rail terminal or harbor projects, became delayed by CFA because forms and processing

procedures differed.33

While Weaver finished the sometimes infuriating task of attempting to gain control

over HHFA, Kennedy launched the major element of his anti-recession package which consisted of using the big American housing and urban development business as the means. He wanted to do three things: manipulate interest rates and monetary policy to

stimulate the housing market; dramatically accelerate HHFA completion of current

projects putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy; and enact a Housing

Act which would stimulate growth. As with most measures, the president on February 2,

1961 show-cased the subject by holding a major press conference. He informed the 124 public that telegrams would be sent to mayors of all major cities along with an economic message to Congress. In his press release, “A Program for Economic

Recovery and Growth” Kennedy emphasized that the federal government would stimulate home buying by increasing aggregate demand through decreasing both short term and long term interest rates and by providing incentives for more credit.34 The

Congressional economic message, “A Program to Restore Momentum to the American

Economy,” detailed how Kennedy saw housing and urban development as pivotal in bringing the country out of recession. He stressed “no part of our domestic economy is more significant in terms of future economic growth and the well-being of the nation than that of housing and urban development.”35

In the most dramatic domestic expansion since World War II, building the suburbs as vast rings around all U.S. cities, “required a national exertion greater than that of clearing the wilderness.” By 1960, housing and home construction headed the list as

America’s greatest single industry, employing over five percent of all citizens and the largest single sector of capital investment. It affected the entire credit structure of the

United States, tying up $116,000,000,000 in private mortgage money.36 From the late

1940s through the early 1960s, over thirty million new private homes had been built increasing American home ownership from forty to over sixty percent.37 And these really were “new” homes with seventy-five percent of all existing U.S. housing in 1960 being built since the end of World War II.38 Increased capital mobility was critical to this housing explosion.39 Yet private housing as an industry suffered the most from recession.

This is where Kennedy’s anti-recession package met Weaver’s HHFA restructuring head on in hopes of bringing the country out of recession. JFK wanted HHFA to be the funnel 125

or conduit for his plan. To do this, JFK would involve all six major programs of all

five HHFA constituent administrations, handling three and one half billion dollars in vested and “roll over” public funds.

Kennedy started with interest rates and monetary policy, attempting to enlist

national support for lower rates. His advisors believed lower interest rates, longer term

mortgages and a reduction of government portfolios would be required, along with

changes in how savings and loans (S and Ls) did business.40 The prevailing monetary policy impacting financial relationships between the Federal Home Loan Banking Board

(FHLBB), FHA, FNMA needed to be “improved.” In 1961, Savings and Loans, life insurance companies, commercial banks and mutual savings banks in order, accounted for eighty percent of mortgage financing. All had become trapped in “contra-cyclical” economic behavior where regardless of the economic cycle, mortgage borrowers competed with larger ones for the same “pot of money.” The mortgager usually came in second to the more powerful corporate borrowers who even in a bad economy, could afford to pay higher interest rates.41 The other part of contra-cyclical financing was that

even with a recession when housing demand dropped, conventional mortgage rates did

not.

Initially, Kennedy instructed Weaver to reduce the maximum permissible FHA loan

rates from five and three-quarters to five and a half percent.42 He would eventually

reduce it again in June to five and one quarter percent.43 Simultaneously he dispatched a

White House team headed by C. Douglas Dillion to meet with major banks and S and Ls

about reducing interest rates.44 In mid February, Kennedy through Weaver, instructed

FNMA to raise its selling price on mortgages by two points to stop investors from 126

purchasing older FNMA mortgages and force them to buy new ones in the

conventional market.45

On March 1, Kennedy held a follow on press conference about interest rates. He

announced that Joseph McMurray, Chairman of the independent Federal Home Loan

Bank Board would now join the national team canvassing the country to reduce housing

interest rates. McMurray concentrated on S and Ls, urging them to reduce rates and

began in the West which had the highest ones nationally.46 On the advice of HHFA,

McMurray wanted S and Ls to reduce dividends paid on savings which were artificially high, forcing S and Ls to charge more for mortgages to offset paying these dividends.

After lengthy discussions with savings and loan officials in Los Angeles, San

Francisco and other cities, McMurray recommended the Federal Home Loan Bank Board

reduce the rate it charged S and Ls from four and one quarter to three and a quarter

percent, which took place on March 15.47 McMurray also increased the FHLBB’s

available credit line for savings and loans by seven and a half percent, which produced

one billion dollars in additional credit nationally.48 His efforts were warmly received by

the S and L community with executives pledging to do “everything in their power to

reduce interest rates.”49 The United States Savings and Loan Association League estimated that because of McMurray, a reduction of one quarter of a percent in conventional mortgage costs nationally would take place by late spring. However, a brief

but unexpected rise in discount points occurred and Kennedy flirted with controls, as

previously tried by Ike in 1957, but he decided rather to continue to use Dillion and

McMurray in “jaw boning.”50 127

Throughout the late spring, slight improvements could be seen. A greater supply

of funds became available for FHA issued loans at lower rates. The same applied to VA

guaranteed loans and a decline in conventional rates soon followed.51 On March 24, the

President served notice, in another formal “Message on the Budget and Fiscal Policy to

the Congress of the United States,” that when the economy improved, he would balance

the budget, thus further “curtailing inflation, reducing the debt, and freeing funds for

private investiment”.52 This caused the stock market to rise.

Kennedy began this second phase of ending the recession using housing and urban

renewal as a catalyst, by instructing Weaver to dramatically accelerate completion of

every currently approved HHFA projects even though Weaver remained skeptical of the

outcome.53 He further asked Weaver’s constituent administrators to accelerate

acceptance of new projects and quickly approve “fully planned ones,” “particularly in

areas of chronic unemployment.” Further, he wanted all project starting dates moved

forward substantially.54 The idea was also that as federal money began to flow, private

sector investment of a similar if not larger sum could be expected, and both would help end the recession.55

Acceleration started with urban renewal. The president wanted the two billion

dollar federal commitment already allocated spent as soon as possible, along with the

expected billion dollar private sector contribution.56 Specifically, early acquisition, and

speedy site clearance, accelerated construction, swift disposal of land to redevelopers,

quick land reconditioning, and a hastened loan approval process constituted the effort.57

Kennedy described this in telegrams to two hundred ninety-seven mayors and received

solid support.58 Regional HHFA administrators received favorable mayoral 128

correspondence and an increase in applications as well. In one Region, over a

hundred new urban renewal applications arrived just after the president’s telegram.

In some cases, Weaver directly worked urban renewal project acceleration for the

president in the HHFA regions, personally advancing completion dates 90 to 120 days

while in others he left it to the regional administrators. In the heavily industrialized northeast, Region I Administrator Lester Eisner held an emergency meeting with mayors and urban developers from the fifty-eight largest cities at the Hotel Commodore in New

York on March 3. Attended by 250 people it headlined luminaries as Mayors Robert

Wagner (New York), Richard Lee (New Haven), Frank A. Sedita (Buffalo), and Ed

Logue representing Boston. Eisner emphasized how accelerated urban renewal would create “more new jobs and put more money into the economy.” To prove his point, using his own reorganization, already underway before the President’s February message,

the result produced “a near doubling of production.”59

However, the worthiness of some of those projects fell secondary to the “need” for

speed. Land acquisition, demolition, and expedited redevelopment took place in a flurry.

Eisner alone accelerated 597 million dollars in urban renewal money.60 The downside of these accelerations however, fell on the very poor who quickly became victims of removal.

But speed prevailed. Region I sent a Task Force on March 9 to the field to make on

the spot “accelerations” to “eliminate bottlenecks.” The senior task force engineer

received authority to approve demolition and site improvements “on the spot” from the

HHFA Region I Administrator. In Cambridge (MA), immediate approval to spend ten million dollars in urban renewal money took place even though all agreed doing it 129

constituted a “calculated risk” as the city council, state government and regional

planning authorities had not yet approved the site. That site might be used for a federal highway route favored by of the Bureau of Roads. Other swift approvals followed for

New York City, New Haven, Springfield, (MA) and Buffalo.61 Ending the recession,

extremely popular with voters, meant more to Kennedy than the careful urban planning

he voiced in the campaign.

The use of “Letters of Consent,” a HHFA Regional document authorizing the start

of federal projects, became a tool for acceleration as well. In Region I, Eisner granted

full project approval using consent letters only, a rarity during initial planning phases,

based on “special presidential justifications.” He also authorized early title search and land acquisition even before the initial planning phase, which was even rarer.62 In

Region II, the mid-eastern states, the Administrator there conducted a comparable meeting in Pittsburgh on March 7 with similar outcomes.63 Daily “acceleration” meetings followed and urban renewal throughout the mid-eastern states emulated the same pattern as in Region I.64 Nationally in all seven HHFA regions urban renewal spending

dramatically increased.

The Community Facilities Administration (CFA) accelerated its activities also.65

After the president’s telegram, on February 6, CFA project approval rates jumped.66

College housing, public works planning, and public facility loans all picked up in volume.67 The CFA reduced its interest rates on government loans and removed

population requirements for loans so smaller cities could apply.68 In one Region, CFA

“revised” its “Field Service Manual” allowing its field engineers to approval bids on the spot. This transaction could be completed with only a phone call to Region.69 In total, 130

Region I accelerated twenty seven million dollars in CFA college housing money.70

In the mid-western and border states of Region IV hastened the spending $60 million dollars.71 Field engineers out west in Region V approved spending $51 million dollars in public facilities money on the spot and an outrageous $268 million in college construction money.72 This method of “fixing” the economy by any quick measure, continued nationally with abandon. Although many of these projects merited consideration, others were approved simply to spend money. The CFA’s program became so successful, Kennedy would later introduce a separate accelerated public works bill to extend the program’s life.

Using the president’s anti-recession message, the FHA developed an accelerated plan akin to URA’s and CFA’s. On February 2, the FHA wired field insuring offices to drop the interest rate from five and three quarter to five and a half percent and by May

29, 1961, to five and one quarter percent.73 FHA also quickly implemented a program they had previously developed. That consisted of sending “mortgage contact teams” of housing specialists out to broaden the market. FHA teams descended upon rural communities under 25,000, already in trouble from the recession in coal, timber or agriculture and pre-qualified people for housing coverage.74 This gently expanded the number of eligible families. The PHA began expediting construction of 60,000 already approved public housing units worth $700,000,000 and sent its regional staff to several new field locations to approve on the spot bids.75 PHA also expedited planning for the additional 75,000 low rent public housing units under contract, but awaiting funding but of course these great PHA ideas, to be discussed later, remained chiefly as ideas.76

FNMA joined the anti-recession bandwagon increasing by half a percent what it would 131

pay for mortgages covering elderly housing and urban renewal housing.77 FNMA led

the nation in the purchase of conventional mortgages.78 Lastly, the OA expedited applications for the Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI) and did the same for re-certification of community programs with lapsed status.79 Commencing in

February, to track all of this, Kennedy required Weaver to submit weekly reports directly to him on all HHFA activities and this requirement lasted for the entire course of the administration.80 Kennedy was determined that HHFA would take the lead in ending the

recession.

Yet only minimal results in slowing the recession could be seen by July 1961. New

monthly FHA home loan applications increased slightly from 222,000 in February to

227,000 in May. FHA existing loans in effect slowly rose from 485,000 a month in

February to 556,000 in May. Private housing starts in January numbered 1,105,000 yet

by May had improved to only 1,298,000.81 Urban renewal, community facilities, and the

Workable Program volume only gradually increased. Weaver had been right, there

would be no quick fix.

Yet in his haste to end the recession, Kennedy jeopardized the continuity of

Eisenhower’s past urban policy without defining the quality of the outcome.82 In

hindsight, most of this was already doomed from the start as the country suffered from

what would later be called “stagflation.” In international economics, the poor U.S.

balance of trade, balance of payments, and the gold flow drain caused some of this. But

at home in the stagnant domestic market, it had more to do with high prices not falling,

wherein firms simply cut production but did not drop prices, then laid off workers but did

not cut the wages of those remaining at relatively high salaries, while at the same time 132

worker productivity across the entire economy continued to fall.83 No amount of tampering with housing programs would change this.

Accelerating housing and urban development spending to improve the domestic

economy also created a false perception. Many felt this flurry of activity improved urban

life, but often quite the opposite resulted. Regarding poverty, as none of this made much

difference to the very poor, rapidly approving projects actually resulted in urban developers receiving more latitude to complete work quickly with less regard for human

conditions. Implementing the anti-recession package, further put the HHFA into a state

of turmoil, with some Regional Administrators holding daily meetings, and executing actions quickly which previously had received greater consideration. Other tasks

remained undone.

Moreover, if federal grant money to cities supposedly made an immediate

difference, in 1960 that accounted for only 3.9 percent of all city revenues. It would take

another twenty years until 1980 to reach approximately twenty percent of city revenues.84

To make substantial improvements, really big dollars would be needed and Kennedy was simply not going to propose spending that kind of money, nor frankly would Congress have approved it. He simply tampered with the existing programs in hopes of

stimulating something that might work and also please the voters, by “shoving” anti-

recession money through HHFA.

Yet serious economic politics were being played out here. As a stimulus Kennedy

believed in growth rather than redistribution.85 Under this school of thought when the

economy went “bust” Washington either spent more, cut taxes, or did both to stimulate

expanded private investment and increased consumer consumption. Kennedy saw clearly 133

how Eisenhower’s recessions cost Republicans control of Congress in 1954,

significant Senate and House seats in 1958 and the White House in 1960.86 He did not

want that to happen to the Democrats.

Yet the cities had other problems which growth side economics simply would not

correct. In 1960, most city revenues were unfortunately based on corporate and

household property taxes, which continued to decline.87 Where whites left cities, in every

urban business sector, employment and profits fell, particularly in manufacturing,

wholesale trade, and retail trade. In the twenty-five largest Standard Metropolitan

Statistical Areas (SMSA)s, new jobs dropped below 1948 levels.88 Yet while work declined in cities, poor African-Americans continued to flock there and from 1950 to

1960, the African-American population of the twenty largest cities increased by fifty-two percent, with eighty-three percent of those Americans living in the central city, a location of the very worst poverty.89 However, Kennedy “ploughed forward” as a conservative

Keynesianist would eventually introduce across the board tax cuts for both individuals

and corporations.90 The urban poor needed some “redistribution” themselves, through a poverty program but under Kennedy that came too late.

As a prelude to introducing the 1961 Housing Act which itself was the third major

means of using housing and urban renewal as an anti-recession package, Kennedy

assigned to Weaver the task of drafting a special Congressional message which spelled

out the entire urban program and explained the housing legislation. Its purpose was to

create public support and test Congressional reaction.91 So while Weaver drafted the

housing legislation, he also composed the Special Message.92 Kennedy’s Special

Message on Housing and Community Development discussed all four areas where he 134

wanted Congressional action: the omnibus housing bill, the urban departmental status

bill, the urban mass transit legislation and it ever so briefly touched upon the small anti-

poverty initiative. It left out the Executive Order on open housing, with its main focus on

the housing act.

In writing the message Weaver received help from Mort Schussheim, assistant

administrator for public policy; Saul Klayman of the National Association of Mutual

Savings Banks; Neal Hardy, FHA commissioner; John Frantz, HHFA budget officer; M.

Carter McFarland, HHFA director of economics and program studies, and Milt Semer,

HHFA general council.93 What Weaver wrote, Kennedy readily approved and when he

brought it to the White House, Weaver met with Ted Sorensen who said it was either

“damn good or else he was awful tired,” and then they, Lee White and Larry O’Brien

took it to the President. Kennedy said he “thought it was alright and he would… send the message up.”94 Weaver vividly remembered two things about that meeting. First its

singular significance stood out as on only one other occasion would he ever formally

meet with the president. That happened by accident in connection with a mass transit

measure. Kennedy’s housing and urban affairs chief only set foot in the Oval Office

twice in the nearly three years of his presidency.95 It seemed the president was too busy

with foreign policy to spend a lot of time with Weaver regarding America’s cities.

Secondly, in this meeting Kennedy did not even read the entire message before he

approved it.96 That of course reflected his interest level in urban affairs.

Thus on a warm March 9, 1961, the first ever “Presidential Special Message on

Housing and Community Development” was read before the Senate and House. It

outlined in rather sweeping objectives the 1961 Housing Act, spelling out what 135

Kennedy’s desires “to renew our cities, provide decent housing for all our people”

while “encouraging a prosperous and efficient construction industry as an essential component of general economic growth.”97

The message incorporated campaign excerpts from Kennedy’s Denver speech, the

Pittsburgh Conference material and ideas from both Task Force Reports, into a montage

of promises and expectations. Though discussing the 1961 Housing Act, the message

revealed little new in urban planning except the price tag, which would be a record to

date.

Regarding metropolitan planning, Kennedy wanted to increase the federal share of

community development to two-thirds.98 For mass transit, he wanted a study group to

immediately assess what the federal role should be and he called for a massive increase in

urban renewal funding with home rehabilitation being allowed on urban renewal sites.

Increased money would be requested for urban open spaces.99

In “providing decent homes for all Americans” Kennedy proposed a new FHA middle income family housing program with no down payment forty year mortgages and government rehabilitation of older homes for middle income families.100 In 1961, middle

income meant your household made $5,000 to $7,000 annually. Low income amounted

to $2,500 to $4,999 per year, and those families could “rent” their way into the middle

income program. Poverty defined those whose incomes fell below $2,500 per year, and

Kennedy wanted an additional 100,000 units of public housing for them. Although an

increase over Ike’s program, it remained miniscule in relation to the need. Kennedy also

proposed demonstration grants so communities could conduct their own low income 136

housing research.101 But public housing’s lack of popularity with voters meant

Kennedy would not propose the needed massive low income federal program.

Other initiatives in the Housing Message consisted of direct loans for more elderly housing, and monthly rent subsidies for the elderly who in 1960 numbered sixteen million Americans averaging only $3,000 annually. Government guaranteed mortgages at five and a quarter percent would also be offered to veterans, and in a joint HHFA-

Agriculture venture, to farmers.102 Kennedy wanted to create another housing boom through an expanded FHA and FNMA program.103

Reaction to the special message was both positive and negative. The New York

Times and other papers ran front page stories praising Kennedy’s “vast housing aid to

combat slums and to revitalize cities while helping families of low and moderate incomes.”104 The Times cost out the program which Kennedy had not, so as not to alarm

Congress, at over 3 billion dollars in loans and grants covering five years and over $800 million a year for other programs. This sum represented twice the money over four years that Eisenhower spent.105

But not all press coverage was favorable however. House and Home, a magazine for private contractors, stated in an open letter to the President, “the program you propose is far too small to cure the vast need you state.” They warned that $7.5 billion over four

years constitutes “too much money in the wrong place, yet too small to solve the major

problems” and cited as evidence that the 100,000 public housing units would meet just

two-thirds of one percent of the need; that the FNMA special assistance program would

only cover one-third of one percent who needed help, and that the elderly housing plan

would meet less than one half of one percent of the need.106 House and Home’s analysis, 137

although decidedly biased, stimulated the White House into several rebuttals as their

figures were correct, and the debate between to two continued publicly through late July

1961.107 For Kennedy’s program to be effective, not just the $7.5 billion he proposed but

rather the billions which both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon later spent, would be

required all at once. In 1961 Kennedy had no intention of making an economic and

political statement of that magnitude nor did Congress.

Others also criticized the message. Civil rights organizations asked why open

housing, mentioned so prevalently during the campaign could not be found in the special

message. They wondered publicly why the now famous stroke of the pen, legalizing open

housing by executive order, was not addressed. More conservative organizations as the

National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) called Kennedy’s housing program a

“fix-up and paint-up activity”…“completely inadequate...to accomplish the purpose” of

revitalizing America’s multi-income housing program. Yet surprisingly, NAHB called

for more private construction of low income family housing, stimulated by significant

regulatory changes which Kennedy was not about to make.108 Uniquely Eisenhower’s

out going FHA commissioner stressed now was the time to make dramatic changes to

FHA financing, substantially broadening coverage, and even offered an inventive

condominium plan.109

In analysis though, the special message represented a political impulse to an

economic problem. No coherent effort at shaping the contours of a national housing

policy could be found in it, other than to pour more money into a loosely coordinated

composite of programs from the recent past headed by hopefully a new urban department.

Yet it effectively laid the groundwork for introducing the housing legislation. 138

The first piece of major urban legislation introduced by Kennedy would be the

1961 Housing Act, also called the “omnibus housing bill” since it had something in it for nearly everybody. As an economic growth stimulus package it reflected the ideas of the

“physical city” planners over those, to exclusion, of the urban social planners. If as

Kennedy often quipped “a rising tide floats all boats,” then this bill represented the high tide of macro-economic stimuli.110

Drafted by Weaver, a task force of Milt Semer serving as “drafting manager” and

Hortense Gable as a major contributor and editor, Mort Schussheim, Saul Klayman, John

Frantz, M. Carter McFarland, Jack Conway, Fred Forbes, and all five HHFA

administrators rounded out the talented group of contributors. Neal J. Hardy, FHA

Commissioner, played a major role and the bill’s drafting was completed in record

time.111 When Weaver brought it to the White House, Sorensen said “Well, at least it’s literate,” a comment which irritated Weaver, as it represented a form of deprecating humor aimed at the poor housing and urban folks from down the street. Nonetheless it went to Kennedy who as with the special message, signed it, and sent it to the Hill without completely reading it.112 His interest level had not changed.

Conceptually the bill presented some realistic as well as symbolic proposals.113 It

recognized that creating more housing remained the underlying principle.114 If well done,

that would help tremendously in bringing the nation out of recession. Imbedded in that,

could be found the idea that making housing more affordable, represented the ultimate

objective leading to national prosperity. Income class rather than ethnicity would be the

variable manipulated. The Act placed its emphasis on the middle class rather than on the

lower class, the latter being where the need for good housing was highest, but voter 139

participation was lowest. The middle class also had more spendible, income so this

would emphasize FHA over PHA.

Thanks to Weaver, some progressive features found their way into the legislation.

Weaver wanted to create more elderly housing, humanize urban renewal, and expand public housing.115 In the past, when public housing grudgingly received approval, low

out year appropriations cut the number built. Conversely, private sector housing

remained the bastion of local influences while urban renewal cleared poor people off sites

and into limited public housing with abandon. Elderly housing drifted slowly into a sea of

difficulties similar to public housing and most housing of any kind continued to be built

without regard for urban mass transit links. Demonstration and effective experimentation

remained virtually non-existent.116 These constituted the issues Weaver wanted to

address and improve with the new act.

Getting the 1961 Housing Act through Congress would be a test of domestic diplomacy. Both the Senate Housing Subcommittee Chairman, John L. Sparkman (D-

AL) and the House Housing Subcommittee Chairman Albert J. Rains (D-AL) came from the deep south, yet uniquely both wanted the legislation passed. However their respective bosses, the full committee chairs, came from the “deeper” south and were not as enthusiastic about the legislation. All had to play to their southern constituents while having no open or tacit agreement with Kennedy that he might not at any time issue an open housing executive order or propose strong civil rights legislation.117

The Senate would be where the 1961 Housing Act stood the most immediate chance

of passage. There, Senator A. Willis Robertson (D-VA) Chair of the important Banking

and Currency Committee and one of the “deeper southerners,” granted his permanent 140 housing sub-committee chair, John J. Sparkman, virtually autonomous status and active oversight.118 Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AK), one of many Democrats who previously served on the full committee, held the honorary title of “service chairman.”

The reason this held importance was most of these Democrats were Senators who Vice

President Lyndon B. Johnson could readily influence, as could his chief influencer,

Bobby Baker.119 Baker, an accomplished liar according to Senator Joseph D. Clark (D-

PA), and soon to be investigated on numerous charges, still held significant clout.120 So if influence was needed it was quite available.

As the HHFA readied the legislation, eighteen other “housing and urban affairs” bills reached Senate and House committees. This phenomenon represented not only the usual business of Congress, but also Kennedy’s indifference, so Senators and

Congressmen form urban states or areas wrote legislation with relish to impress their constituents. Six bills hit the docket in January, the first being Senator Jacob K. Javits’

(R-NY) call for FHA rate reduction and expanded CFA college housing coverage. Other bills ranged from Senator George A. Smather’s (D-FLA) request for an expanded FHA role in covering Savings and Loans, to Prescott Bush’s (R-CT) request that the federal share of urban renewal funding substantially increase to Clifford P. Case’s (R-NJ) desire that HHFA fund federal highways in urban renewal areas, to Estes Kfauver’s (D-TN) called for a complete revamping of the CFA. Weaver responded to each bill that the forthcoming administrative one would address it, which often placed him in the embarrassing position of having to testify against a good faith, card carrying member of his own party.121 141

On March 29, 1961 Kennedy introduced the Housing Act into both Chambers accompanied by a vast public relations campaign. That campaign focused on marshalling public support, with key administration officials appearing on the big television news shows like “Face the Nation,” the “Dave Garroway Interview” and NBC’s “Meet the

Press.” On April 9, Weaver appeared on the latter show and performed marvelously.122

Fred Dutton and Ted Sorensen of the White House staff spelled out what Kennedy wanted to see during these interviews.123 A central pool of representatives including

Weaver, Ribicoff, Goldberg, Hodges, Udall, Heller, Day, Freeman, Conally, Zuckett,

Star, McNamara, Seaborg, and Dillion got the word out.124 Upcoming Congressional testimony followed the same process. Senate hearings commenced on April 4 before the

Subcommittee on Housing of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee. Housing subcommittee members included Chair John T. Sparkman (D-AL) with Paul H. Douglas

(D-L), Harrison Williams (D-NJ), Edmund S. Muskie (D-ME) and Homer E. Capehart

(R-IN) among the notables.

Conflict began early. Capehart of Indiana warned against going too far with government intervention and cautioned Congress would not approve a massive new federal program. Sparkman countered that a decent home for every American remained

“a goal” not a mandate and Weaver, surrounded by representatives from all five HHFA administrations, responded with the “company line.”125 In opening the ten days of testimony, Weaver called the Kennedy program a valuable blend of old and new with the fresh ideas being the moderate and low income housing program, forty year mortgages, big dollars for urban renewal, the effort to improve mass transit planning, elderly housing subsidies and the open spaces program. 142

Forty year mortgages and open spaces caused most of the debate.126 Paul

Douglas (D-IL) felt the forty year mortgages might lead to “purchasers finding

themselves holding a mortgage but not having a house after forty years.” Weaver

explained the program would be experimental, but it would significantly reduce monthly

payments for moderate and low income buyers and should be tried. In his housing

message, Kennedy said “open spaces” constituted the most imaginative part of his urban

program.127 If he really believed that, then cities in the 1960s were in trouble. Yet since

he neither wrote nor fully read the housing message, one could easily question this

statement. Others felt open spaces represented a small, but unneeded measure in relation

to the severe problems facing American cities. They were right.

Testimony favorable to the administration followed that of Weaver. Mayor Richard

J. Daley of Chicago proudly endorsed Senate 1478, the 1961 Housing Act, calling it a

“turning point” in urban history. Of course he had been the turning point for Kennedy in the 1960 election, and “had done as much as one politician could do for another…rounding up a few thousand crucial votes from Democrats who died between presidential elections.”128 Among his other pronouncements, Daley proudly proclaimed

that by 1971 he “would achieve the goal of removing Chicago’s slums and blight.”129

Mayor Richard Lee of New Haven explained his success with urban renewal and pointed out how Kennedy’s billions would improve things even more. Speeches and discussions by mayors from Boston, Norfolk (VA), Philadelphia and numerous other cities ensued.

Along with an endorsement from the American Municipal Association, all generally

praised the legislation or offered only minor changes. Nobody took aim at the 143

legislation’s Achilles heel, i.e. how “comprehensive” it actually was in fixing the

problem.130

That came on the morning of April 14 from the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP sent its Housing Secretary, Jack Wood instead of its president or board chairman so as not to completely alienate Kennedy, whom they did not entirely trust, but nonetheless wanted to remain intimate with if possible. Wood said Federal housing programs strongly influenced and increased racial segregation. He cited cases where lenders would not make home loans to African-

Americans and criticized the FHA’s lackluster leadership in correcting the problem. He said Congress should define and enforce a policy of complete nondiscrimination, which could also be construed that the NAACP did not have a lot of faith in the White House to do so. Wood further contended that the FHA should refuse guarantees to lenders who would not make minority loans. He concluded by reading a list of all the states which had passed open housing and nondiscrimination legislation while the White House and

Congress did nothing.131 This was a strong attack upon the administration’s inaction. In

his response to open housing accusation, Kennedy set in motion a sequence he would

follow through to Thanksgiving of 1962: that he agreed something should be done; that

he was planning action; and that the Executive Order would be issued at the proper time.

Weaver of course, as former Chairman of the Board of the NAACP was well aware of these facts as well as Kennedy’s cautious position and publicly stated the Executive

Order should be released immediately.132 This did not move the president but did not get

him in trouble either. 144

Comments from Monsignor John O’Grady of the National Conference of

Catholic Charities followed Wood and O’Grady criticized the public housing program as too small, too limited, and only capable of “providing relief for about a year.”133 He of course, was also correct. Leon H. Keyserling, the renowned economist who drafted the

1949 Housing Act, who representing the Americans for Democratic Action, critiqued

Kennedy’s legislation as a “kiddie kart bill” of piecemeal items which would not change much. Kennedy called for 100,000 units of public housing over four years; Keyserling said we needed a 100,000 per year. Kennedy envisioned 1.3 million new homes per year;

Keyserling wanted to see 2 million. According to Keyserling, Kennedy’s standard for defining “middle income” needed to cap at $7,000 and baseline at $4,000 annually.134

These latter criticisms from Wood, O’Grady and Keyserling signified they, representing

“progressive” organizations did not think of Kennedy’s legislation as very progressive.

They were however persuasive, leading sizable voter blocks of civil rights, public charities and liberal organizations. Yet they did not hold much of power on the Hill that spring.

On the other hand, those who held the power there, the conservatives, did not like

the Act either. Curtis Huber, of the National Association of Real Estate Boards

(NAREB) started quizzically “we will never win the fight against slums unless and until we can make slums profitable,” and criticized the bill further in colorful detail. He wanted FHA’s coverage decreased and the middle income range reduced, which would allow more private sector financing. He wanted all below market interest rate (BMIR) programs cut so as to encourage low income private financing.135 H. Manning Bowen of the Life Insurance Association of America, representing the number three means of 145

mortgage financing in 1961, stood fast against the forty year mortgages and wanted

the middle and low income program “stripped to its essentials.”136 E. J. Burke, Jr.,

president of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) called the low and

middle income plans propaganda “embarking the FHA and FNMA on a welfare

program.”137

While Sparkman, Williams and others listened to witnesses from the left and right, an emerging pattern could be seen by Weaver. If housing legislation would pass in 1961,

it must have something in it for both those with persuasion and power on Capital Hill.

Wood, O’Grady and Keyserlig could persuade the most voters but the developers

controlled the most power. Not far from Huber, Brown and Burke’s positions stood those

of the prestigious U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Insured

Savings and Loans, the American Institute of Architects, National Apartment Owners

Association, and the American Hospitals Association.138 Not far from the views of

Wood, O’Grady and Keyserling fell those of the national municipal and city leagues, the

public housing organizations and urban reform groups, so everybody needed to get something.

Weaver returned for a final word before the Subcommittee on April 26 went into

executive session after a final word from Weaver.139 In executive session the

Subcommittee made the forty-year, no down payment mortgages really “experimental” and put more eligibility restrictions on it. It also gave the president discretion as to whether or not to release funding for forty year mortgages in the budget “out years.”

That would be important later as it gave Kennedy significant political and financial leverage. The Subcommittee retained the 100,000 units of public housing to be built over 146

four years and added fifty million dollars to elderly housing, while approving the

miniscule open spaces plan and increasing federal participation in urban renewal funding

to five-sixths.140 Weaver felt those last changes would discourage state participation since cities could now afford the one-sixth without a state commitment, but he let it go.141

Late on April 27, the Housing Subcommittee reported the bill to the full Committee.

Commencing on May 7 the full Committee made their changes. They increased the

direct loan program for elderly housing by another 100 million dollars, added 100 million

dollars to open spaces which Senator Sparkman liked, and 350 million to the college

construction loan program. On May 10, they voted ten to five to send S.1478 forward.

Senators Homer M. Capehart (R- IN), Wallace F. Bennett (R-UT), J. Glen Beall (R-MD),

William A. Blaley (D-TX) and Committee Chairman A. Willis Robertson (D-VA) voted in the negative.142

Thus full Senate debate on the Act became anti-climatic as it now was really

“omnibus”. Most members had already made up their mind and only peripheral issues as

open spaces received much debate. On June 12 the administration won in the Senate by a

64 - 25 margin.143 Kennedy had also been prudent in following the advice of Senator Joe

Clark (D-PA) in not placing the departmental status issue into the housing legislation.144

In the more conservative House though, no guarantees existed. The bill might not ever get out of the House Committee on Banking and Currency chaired Brent Spence (D-

KY), even if it cleared the Housing Subcommittee headed by supporter Albert Rains (D-

AL). Spence was the other “deep southern” thinker. Further, no guarantees existed the

bill would clear the House Committee on Rules nor survive a floor vote. Thus, the

administration approached the House differently than the Senate. The sales “pitch” 147 remained the same but emphasis shifted. How the fact that the 1961 Housing Act would stimulate the economy remained paramount. Weaver worked up several papers on this subject for Ted Sorensen who farmed them out to “talking heads.”145 How the bill had something in it for everybody, particularly smaller communities also received more attention. In the words of Al Rains, since you could not pass housing legislation on big city votes alone, some sugar on the bill would be needed for “congressmen whose towns don’t have renewal or public housing programs.”146

The HHFA team itself played a larger role selling the bill in the House than in the

Senate, which would become the key difference.147 The successful passage of the bill then depended on how well Weaver, Milt Semer, and Jack Conway worked with individual members of the Committees rather than just Kennedy’s liaison team. Weaver spent a lot of time with Rains, and consumed a lot of catfish with Wright Patman, the

Democratic Congressman from east Texas. Because of direct lobbying by Weaver,

Committee staff members also joined the Kennedy bandwagon as did Frank Horton (R-

NY). Milt Semer, then HHFA general counsel and formerly from the Senate Banking and Currency Committee staff helped with previous House counterparts. Getting the key

Committee staff members behind the bill constituted a great idea. Further, Jack Conway,

HHFA deputy administrator, with strong labor ties going back many years, worked three

Congressmen himself.148

Weaver and crew provided detailed information to favorable interest groups regarding who in the House needed more persuading. There, William Widnall (R-NJ), all

Congressional personnel from North Carolina, particularly Congressman Charles R.

Jonas (D-NC), and all members of the South Carolina delegation required some 148

“convincing.” Literature from organizations like the National Association of Housing

and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and others flowed into their offices.149

Back in the late winter upon his appointment, Weaver had started a regular

correspondence with Brent Spence explaining the advantages of the bill. Although he did

this with Sparkman as well, Weaver emphasized to Spence how H.R. 6028 would

“stimulate country-wide activity in home improvement,” through “a new and broadened

FHA insurance program, including an extensive low and middle income one…at local

discretion on a case by case basis.” He continued to emphasize this through early

summer, espousing the value of expanded communities facilities programs for rural,

semi-rural and suburban communities. Even though many southern states had few big

cities in 1961, they had many small towns.150

In the more conservative House, Area Redevelopment and the 1961 Housing Act

were debated simultaneously and which federal agency would run area redevelopment

became a dispute. HHFA, Commerce and Labor were choices but the outcome became

creating a new agency. This was Kennedy’s choice because it would increase his power

base and visibility. A “memorandum of agreement” between HHFA and ARA clarified

how the agencies shared responsibilities.151 Professor Robert C. Wood of the Urban

Task Force provided some advice on this.152

Not unlike in the Senate, extensive debate over HR 6028, the 1961 Housing Act, took place throughout the House. Before the Act ever made it into committee,

Congressman Thomas M. Pelly (R-WA) cost out the entire program at seven billion, 173 million over four years and publicly called it a “tremendous boondoggle at high cost.”153

He threatened and subsequently did introduce his own version of the bill.154 But as a 149

series of federal grants, guarantees and loans under nine titles covering eleven areas,

even if the Act was the most expensive urban program to date, others saw what Pelly

missed.

This legislation would both stimulate the economy and please voters. Every

president since FDR had passed a housing act when the economy got into recessionary

trouble and Eisenhower passed three of them. Since the Act represented nothing new or radical, constituting non-threatening legislation, the same old machine mayors, construction bosses and urban developers would benefit. Every city mayor had a pet project and favorite location, called “local scattered site,” for the increased money in

public and elderly housing. These sites of course would help ethnic voters as the poor

Irish of Boston, the low income Italians of New York, the poor Portuguese of

Philadelphia, and the disadvantaged Polish of Detroit and all of the above in Chicago.

But only small amounts of this money would go to poor African-Americans of the central

city.

The same private sector representatives who spoke before the Senate also provided

House testimony, plus a few new ones, many of those coming from the private sector.

Edgar V. Hall, Executive Director of the Home Improvement Council testified that

applications for the housing program remained too complicated and officials from the

National Association of Apartment Owners, Home Improvement Council, and National

Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials called for broadened FHA

coverage.

When Weaver testified on April 24 his speech represented a brilliant effort at not

being provocative.155 It was almost to the point of being conciliatory.156 He wanted 150

House members to see the value of the Title I housing provisions targeted at middle-

income home buyers and voters. Eleven million families fell into the middle income

category, and those at the bottom often purchased America’s sub-standard homes. These

sixteen million houses comprising twenty-seven percent of the available market. Weaver

emphasized how the Act, broadening FHA eligibility and with new FHA thirty-five year

and forty year mortgages, would also provide incentives to lenders and buyers alike. The

Act tailored financing, eligibility, and coverage of certain kinds of new houses to specific

FHA and VA rules and FNMA would establish a special secondary market program for

them. The now famous Section 221 (d)(3) provided FHA loans of one hundred percent

of the cost of constructing rental housing for middle and lower income families who

could not get the new FHA/VA mortgages. Interest rates on these loans to nonprofit

cooperatives and limited dividend corporations would be at “below market interest rate”

(BMIR). All of this could happen both in and out of urban renewal areas and could be

included in a Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI). Weaver did his

best to sell this “down home.”157

Al Rains helped immensely by working in something that would “sell in the country

as well as in the city.” He increased community facilities money by $450 million beyond

the administration’s proposal and upped college housing by $100 million per year. He doubled farm housing, while adding $575 million to the available FNMA portfolio and

$50 million more for elderly housing. Rains also cut urban renewal money which sold well in the country.158 This displeased Weaver but he let it go.

However the overall increases did not please Kennedy, who down the road wanted a

balanced budget and across the board tax cuts. In a masterful display of mismanagement, 151

his White House liaison team tried to get Rains to recant the changes, and failing that,

attempted to substitute the Senate version of the bill to Spence and the full Committee, in

lieu of Rain’s Subcommittee one. This ill-conceived effort lost by a 13 - 5 vote before

the full Committee.159 It so permanently angered Rains, that he would not attend the

Bill’s signing. Kennedy had placed his economic interests over those of old city friends

once too often.

Yet the bill still remained in some trouble in the House Committee on Rules

(HCOR) as well as the full House.160 Kennedy though, had a trump card to play.

Weaver and his HHFA team headed by Jack Conway, had written into the legislation

some particularly “tough and restrictive language” which adversely affected Saving and

Loan Associations “notoriously tied into the Republicans and Nixon especially in

California and Chicago.” Weaver and Conway always intended that this would be removed but no “quid pro quo” existed. However, the trade off came when “eight to ten congressmen,” feeling pressure from the S and Ls, said they would support the Act if the

Saving and Loan provisions were withdrawn. This was done with the “concession” approved by Dick Donahue at the White House. Conway called this an example of the trade off called “What the hell happened to my project?” versus “Well, what the hell happened to your commitment on this piece of legislation?” He also called it a “kind of legalized extortion.”161 The Kennedy legislative team further went to undecided House

members one by one and showed them in grand detail the “importance” of this legislation

for their respective districts.162 Subsequently, the HCOR released HR 6028, the 1961

Housing Act, and it passed on a critical House vote, 168 - 141.163 152

In Senate/House Conference Committee in early June, the administration backed

away from changes which might upset the fragile balance it had achieved. Regarding a

later balanced budget attempt to gain a tax cut, Kennedy received latitude to release

supplemental funding for the forty year mortgages or not to do so, at “presidential

discretion.”164 He thus could actively withdraw some funding for his urban program to

help balance the budget to justify cutting taxes, both popular for the 1964 elections,

should he choose to go forward with those ideas. So after eliminating the land bank

portion of open spaces, House changes prevailed with no major opposition and the

Conference bill returned to Chambers, passing the Senate 64-25 and the House 235-

178.165

The 1961 Housing Act became law for a number reasons. Kennedy’s “honeymoon”

was real and Weaver quickly produced a well written and erudite piece of legislation

before it ended. As introduced, the Act represented a neutralist document free from

controversy which could have polarized conservatives. Party loyalty still meant

something then and, some Democrats seeing eighty-seven percent of Senate Republicans

and eighty-four percent House Republicans voting against it, recalled what party they

represented.166 The HHFA legislative team headed by Weaver and Conway expertly

worked both chambers and together with White House staff and Congressional liaison,

bested the opposition by effective weekly strategy meetings in the White House Fish

Room.167 Cloaked in the attire of an anti-recession measure, the Act also presented a less

vulnerable target and had something in it for nearly everyone. Lastly, its language

provided the big urban developers and suburban contractors a green light and plenty of money for a middle class housing boom. The “concessions” also fostered this. 153

Chiefly, what the 1961 Housing Act represented was a doubling of Eisenhower’s federal city spending to nearly seven and a half billion dollars over four years. It included adding 2.5 billion more for urban renewal, bringing that available total to 4.5 billion. In spending the money, Section 701 urban renewal planning grants could be used by a city regardless of whether of not it had a Workable Program for Community

Improvement (WPCI), which survived as a major change, and housing could be rehabilitated directly on an urban renewal site.

Further, the Act helped older political metropolises to economically leap beyond the

boundaries of their central city, and changed the tax structure of municipal America, causing hundreds of government units to spring up nationally each with much needed tax authority.168 As amended later these suburban communities formed units of government and councils. Thus the Act spread government and brought into power a new generation of municipal leaders.169 Through increased capital mobility, the Act also fostered the

growth of interlocking urban communities particularly on the coasts, made famous in

Jean Cottman’s Megalopolis.170 Thus, it not only helped build suburbs, but it also spread

cities out. In 1950, thirty eight cities had densities of 10,000 people per square mile, but

by 1990 that number had dwindled to fifteen.171 This Act created suburbs and cut

density.

The Act subsidized a covert welfare program for the middle class and suburban

developers under the 221 (d)(3) Below Market Interest Rate [BMIR] program.

Contractors for FHA middle income housing now obtained guarantees at the federal fund

rate, below market, and when finished could sell the mortgages to FNMA at the market

rate, with the government absorbing the loss.172 In 1960 the federal government held 154

five percent of the debt for homes and by 1979, eighteen percent, and the Act helped

create this outcome.173 The omnibus bill also provided the elderly with a first time

subsidy of $120 annually which became the mainstay of many local housing authorities

income.174 Low income housing came out intact with its minimal funding, as did large

amounts for the popular college housing and small sums for mass transit planning and

demonstration programs.

Still the Act represented a piecemeal approach to urban problem solving and it lacked both a conscience and soul. By mid summer 1961, time was rapidly running out to solve the problems of the “enduring ghetto” peacefully. It would be just a few more summers before central cities would burn, hundreds would die with thousands injured, and billions in capital worth would be destroyed. Yet the Act did not address racial issues, open housing, urban reapportionment, housing construction code enforcement, or a poverty program. In Kennedy’s defense presenting these issues then would have killed the bill. Yet nobody even tried. The Act also was not comprehensive as three other pieces of legislation would be needed to supposedly make Kennedy’s urban formula “fit that description.”

With a reception following in the Rose Garden, at noon on a resplendent June 30,

1961, John F. Kennedy signed into law the 1961 Housing Act. He called it “the most far

reaching federal legislation for housing and community development”…in a long time

and…“that it recognizes the forgotten families.”175 Neither statement was quite true.

Among the hundreds of invitees ranging from the Vice President to city mayors, two

seats remained vacant. Those would have been filled by Senator John Sparkman and

Congressman Al Rains, the two key individuals in the bill’s passage, but neither came. 155

Sparkman supposedly absented himself so his Alabama constituents would not see him pictured at the signing of a housing program managed by an African-American.

Rains, because of Kennedy’s high-handed tactics with his House subcommittee, chose to be elsewhere that day. The significance of those absences meant that the honeymoon was over and regarding John Kennedy’s city program and Congress, perhaps the marriage as well. 156

End Notes to Chapter Four

1. Special Message on Housing and Community Development to the Congress of the United States, 1, March 9, 1961, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central Subject Files, 356, The John F. Kennedy Library.

2. Memorandum for Record from Frederick G. Dutton, 1, August 16, 1961, Staff Memos: Dutton - Holborn, President’s Office Files, 63, TJFKL.

3. United States Government, Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 840.

4. Press Conference materials, dated January 1961, 1, Press Conferences - General, POF, 54, TJFKL.

5. Charles E. Walcott and Karen M. Hult, “White House Staff Size: Explanations and Implications” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, No. 1 (1999): 640-643.

6. Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis Since 1930 (New York: Universe Books, 1973), 141.

7. Oral Interview of Joseph C. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, 33, December 16, 1965, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, TJFKL.

8. George A. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935 - 1971, Vol. III 1959- 1971 New York: Random House, 1972), 1700.

9. Glenn Yago, “Urban Policy and Political Economy,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 12, No.1 (1983): 125.

10. Howard Gillette, Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 160, 208.

11. R. Allen Hays, The Federal Government and Urban Housing: Ideology and Change in Public Policy (Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1985), 39, 40.

12. Oral Interview of Meyer Feldman by Charles T. Morrissey, 302-304, Seventh Interview, May 29, 1966, KLOHP, TJFKL.

13. Position Papers on the Organization, Functions and Structure of HHFA and Field Offices in Relation to the New Departmental Status Bill, Section-Field Structure, 1-3, May 15, 1961, Subject Files - Department of Urban Affairs -1961, RG 207 Department

157 of Housing and Urban Development, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, Nation of Citiesal Archives and Records Administration. This is a series of documents numbering 65 pages with different sections.

14. Letter to Brent Spence from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, October 3, 1961, 1961 Banking and Currency, Senate-House, Records Group 207, HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

15. Executive Order 11004, Assigning Certain Emergency Preparedness Functions to the Housing and Home Finance Administrator by John F. Kennedy, February 16, 1962 and Executive Order 11105, Transferring to the Housing and Home Finance Administrator Certain Functions of the Atomic Energy Commission Under the Atomic Energy Community Act of 1955 by John F. Kennedy, April 18, 1963, both from TJFKL World-Wide Web Educational Documents - 1999: Transmittal Slip with attachments to Mrs. Gilbert from Robert C. Weaver, 1, April 5, 1961, Executive Reservists 1963, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 114, NARA. Mrs. Gilbert kept track of Executive Reservists in HHFA’s OA.

16. Hugh Helco, “The Sixties’ False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements and Postmodern Policy-Making,” in Brian Balogh, ed., Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structures, and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Turbulent Decade (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996) 54.

17. Ibid., 53-56; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 314.

18. Report of the Active Working Force, February 17, 1961, 1-4, Administration- Agency Personnel - January 1 - June 30, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

19. Letter to Maurice H. Stans from Norman P. Mason, 1, January 13, 1961, 1961 Bureau of the Budget January 1 - June 30, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA; Letter (with attachments) to Maurice H. Stans from Norman P. Mason, 2, January 19, 1961, 1961 Bureau of the Budget January 1 - June 30, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

20. Notices designating Acting Commissioners by Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, January 24 - January 27, 1961, General Counsel - Delegation of Authority, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 61, NARA.

21. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, 1-3, February 24, 1961, Administration 1961-Policy Memos 1-1 to 12-31, RG 207 HUD, Subject

158 Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA. Lewis E. Williams was an Administrative Assistant in the HHFA Office of Administration (OA).

22. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, 1, 2, March 16, 1961, Administration 1961-Policy Memos 1-1 to 12-31, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

23. Memorandum for Federal Housing Administrator from Kenneth O’Donnell, Special Assistant to the President, and attached letter from Ted Baggelman, past president Sacramento Historical Society, 1, 2, March 11, 1961, 1961 White House Staff January 1 - June 30, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 72, NARA; Memorandum to Mr. Weaver from Fred A. Forbes, 1, March 17, 1961, 1961 Public Affairs (Memos), RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 66, NARA. Mr. Baggelman wrote Kennedy to plead that the building in Sacramento where the first U.S. transcontinental railroad started, be spared from the Federal urban renewal bulldozer. But it appears from the draft reply that the White House felt his “usefulness” was not great enough to save the building.

24. Memorandum to James B. Cash, Jr. from Robert C. Weaver with attachments, 1- 9, November 20, 1961, Administration - Agency Personnel, July 1 - December 31, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA; Memorandum to Department and Agency Heads from Timothy J. Reardon, Jr., 2, December 11, 1961, Administration - Personnel, Outside Activities 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA; Memorandum to Jack T. Conway from Milton P. Semer, May 8, 1961, Meetings with Commissioners, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA. Mr. Reardon served as Special Assistant to the President.

25. Confidential Memorandum with attachments to Robert C. Weaver from Francis X. Servaites, 1-6, Meetings with Commissioners - 1961,RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA. Mr. Servaites served as Deputy PHA Commissioner. The Confidential Paper discussed HHFA regional administration problems.

26. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, 2, March 16, 1961, Administration 1961, Policy Memos 1-1 to 12-31, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

27. Position Papers, Section - Organization and Structure HHFA, 2-5, Weaver, 70, NARA.

28. Ibid., Sections - Field Structure of the Department, 1, 2, and Specifications, 7, 8; Federal Housing Administration Organizational Chart, 1, May 17, 1961, Administration Agency Personnel, July 1 - December 31, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

159 29. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, 1, February 24, 1961, Administration 1961, Policy Memos 1-1 to 12-31, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence File, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

30. Transmittal Memorandum to Mr. Weaver from Mort Schussheim, 1-3, December 13, 1961, Meetings with Commissioners - 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

31. Position Papers, Section-Organization and Structure HHFA, 1-7, Weaver, 70, NARA.

32. Ibid., 1-9, 11, 16, 24, 38, 41.

33. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from J. S. Baughman with attachments, 4, 5, July 28, 1961, Meetings with Commissioners - 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA; Memorandum to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 1, July 7, 1961, Bureau of the Budget 1961, July 1 - December 31, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA. Mr. Bell served as Director, Bureau of the Budget.

34. Press Release with attachments by Pierre Salinger, 1, 2, 9, 10, February 2, 1961, White House Press Statements - 1961, RG207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 73, NARA.

35. Ibid., 9; Message to the Mayors of 297 Cities by John F. Kennedy, 1, February 2, 1961, HHFA - February 2 - December 12, 1961, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

36. R. Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Rise and Fall of the U.S. Welfare State” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkley, 1988), 206.

37. Michael E. Stone, Shelter Poverty: New Ideas on Housing Affordability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 125.

38. William G. Grigsby, “Housing Finance and Subsidies in the United States,” Urban Studies 27, No. 6 (1990): 835.

39. Ross J. Gittell, Renewing Cities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 26.

40. Memorandum for the President from the Council of Economic Advisors, 1, February 23, 1961, Press Conferences, 2/15/61, POF, 54, TJFKL; Letter and Report to Senator Jacob K. Javits from Robert C. Weaver, June 26, 1963, HHFA Microfilm, Reel 1, TJFKL.

160 41. Paper, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates by Robert C. Weaver, 1- 4, 10-12, undated, Articles and Statements for publication 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 69, NARA.

42. Memorandum with attachments to Joseph P. McMurray from Milton P. Semer, March 3, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

43. Statement by John F. Kennedy, 1, 2, May 26, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

44. Briefing Paper on the Reduction in Interest Rates and Increase in Discounts on FHA - Insured Home Mortgages to Frederick G. Dutton from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, March 20, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

45. Ibid., 2; Memorandum to the President from the Council of Economic Advisors, 2, February 23, 1961, White, 6, TJFKL.

46. Excerpts from President Kennedy’s Press Conference, 1, 3, March 1, 1961, McMurray - Semer Correspondence, March 3, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

47. Press Release of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of San Francisco, 1 of Set 1,March 11, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

48. Briefing Paper on Rate Reduction, Weaver, March 20, 1961, HHFA, White, 6, TJFKL.

49. Press Release FHLBB, 1 of Set 2, 2 of Set 2, March 11, 1961, HHFA, White, 6, TJFKL.

50. Forward, Memorandum to Lee C. White from Kermit Gordon, 1, April 7, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

51. Paper, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgages, Weaver, 38-40, Articles, Weaver, 69, NARA.

52. Message on Budget and Fiscal Policy to the Congress of the United States by John F. Kennedy, 1, 3, March 24, 1961, White House Press Statements, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 73, NARA.

53. Memorandum to Lee C. White from Robert C. Weaver, 3, January 27, 1961, Anti- Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. Dr. Weaver believed “the present

161 state of the housing economy is such that it is not feasible to bring about a sharp, early upturn in private housing construction as an anti-recessionary force.”

54. Press Release with Attachments by Pierre Salinger, Section 11, Accelerating Procurement and Construction 1-3, February 2, 1961, White House Press Statements, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 73, NARA; Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Sidney H. Woolner, 1, February 24, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions, Administrators Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

55. Press Release - News Release from HHFA, 1, February 2, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

56. Ibid., 2, 3.

57. Policy Letter, Acceleration of Urban Renewal Activities to Stimulate the Economy from C. L. Oswald, 1, 4, February 2, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 71, NARA. Mr. Oswald served as Acting URA Commissioner.

58. Letter to Ada F. Mage de Colon from Robert C. Weaver, February 7, 1961, Anti- Recession Actions - Administrative Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. Mr. Mage de Colon was Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

59. Report to the Administrator on Region I’s Special Meeting on the Acceleration Program, March 10, 1961, Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Lester Eisner, Jr., 2, March 10, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. This report totaled 32 pages and included several separate issues.

60. Ibid., News Release, 2.

61. Ibid., Press clippings from the Boston Globe and New York Times, 3-6.

62. Ibid., Letter to Weaver from Eisner, 4.

63. Letter and Report to Robert C. Weaver from Thomas O. Meredith, 1, 2, April 28, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. Mr. Meredith served as Acting Regional Administrator of Region II.

64. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Thomas O. Meredith, undated, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files,

162 Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. The letter is dated but the “stamped date” cannot be read. However, it follows chronologically the April 28, 1961 correspondence.

65. Note regarding Accelerations by John F. Kennedy, undated, Press Conferences, POF, 54, TJFKL. This note was located in early February 1961 chronological material.

66. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Thomas O. Meredith, 1, February 17, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

67. Report to Weaver from Eisner, March 10, 1961, Letter 2, New Release I, 3; Memorandum on Acceleration of Agency Programs, to Robert C. Weaver from John P. McCollum, 1, 2, March 2, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. Mr. McCollum held the position of Region IV Administrator.

68. Press Release - News Release from HHFA, 3, February 2, 1961, Anti - Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

69. Memorandum to All Field Engineers from Henry G. Creel, Jr., February 6, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA. Mr. Creel held the position of Regional Director, Community Facilities, Region I.

70. Report to Weaver from Eisner, March 10, 1961, New Release II, 2.

71. Memorandum from Robert C. Weaver from John P. McCollum, 1, 2, February 27, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

72. Memorandum to CFA Commissioner from John A. Forester, 1-5, February 21, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

73. FHA New Release, 1, May 29, 1961, FHA 1961 Policy Memos, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 60, NARA.

74. Memorandum on Communities Suffering Economic Decline, to Robert C. Weaver from Morton J. Schussheim, 1, 3, March 9, 1962, Office of Program Policy (OPP), Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 92, NARA.

75. Press Release - News Release from HHFA, February 2, 1961, 4.

163 76. Memorandum to Lee C. White from Robert Weaver, 3, 4, January 27, 1961, Anti- Recession, Weaver, 57, NARA.

77. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, February 27, 1961, Anti- Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

78. Paper - Policy, Weaver, 20, 22, 25, 33-38, Articles, Weaver, 69, NARA.

79. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from John P. McCollum, 1-6, April 5, 1961, Anti-Recession Actions - Administrator’s Office 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

80. Memorandum to Staff from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, February 16, 1961, Books, Memorandums and Letters 1961, RG207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 59, NARA.

81. FHA Draft for New Release on Homebuilding and General Economic Activity, 1- 3, Undated, Office of Program Policy, (OPP) - Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

82. Kevin Leslie Kramer, “Fifty Years of Federal Housing Policy: A Case Study of How the Federal Government Distributes Resources” (Ph.D. diss., The University of Michigan, 1985) 25-28.

83. R. Allen Hayes, The Federal Government and Urban Housing: Ideology and Change in Public Policy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 40-43.

84. Jon C. Teaford, The Twentieth - Century American City (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 141.

85. Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 121.

86. Ibid., 118-120.

87. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 144.

88. Joseph D. Mooney, Housing Segregation, Negro Employment and Metropolitan Decentralization: An Alternative Perspective, Quarterly Journal of Economics 83, No. 2 (1969): 301.

89. Ibid., 304.

90. McQuaid, Uneasy Partners, 88, 123.

164

91. Memorandum to Frederick G. Dutton from Jack T. Conway, 1, Undated, Accomplishments of 1961, HHFA Microfilms, Reel 1, TJFKL.

92. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 82-84, Interview II, June 16, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

93. Ibid., 80, 81.

94. Ibid., 82, 98, 99.

95. Oral Interview of Milton Semer by William McHugh, 42, September 10, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 345.

96. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Dr. Morton J. Schussheim, 15, December 19, 1985, KLOHP, TJFKL.

97. Special Message on Housing and Community Development to the Congress of the United States by John F. Kennedy, 1, March 9, 1961, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

98. Ibid., 5.

99. Ibid., 2, 3.

100. James Edward King, “The Impact of Federal Housing on the Urban African- American Families 1930 to 1966: Model Cities, A Case Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1991) 65-70.

101. Special Message, 3, 4, March 9, 1961, TJFKL.

102. Ibid., 4, 7.

103. Ibid., 8.

104. Peter Braestrup, “President Urges Vast Housing Aid to Combat Slump,” New York Times, March 10, 1961,Volume CX, No. 37, 666, pp. 1, 14.

105. Ibid., 1, 14.

106. Editors, “An Open Letter to the President,” House and Home, 1, April 1961, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

107. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Perry I. Prentice with attached Letter to Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-NY), 2, July 27, 1961, House and Home 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject

165 Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 63 NARA. Mr. Prentice served as editor of House and Home.

108. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Martin L. Bartling, Jr., 2, January 11, 1961, Subject File: NAHB - 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 69, NARA. Mr. Bartling held the position of President of the Association of Home Builders.

109. Letter to the Administrator, HHFA from the Acting Commissioner, FHA, 2, January 3, 1961, General Counsel - Federal Housing Administration - 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 61 NARA.

110. George Sternlieb, “Planning, American Style,” Society 25, No. 3, (1987): 22, 23.

111. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 80-83, Interview II, KLOHP, TJFKL.

112. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Dr. Morton J. Schussheim, 15, December 19, 1985, KLOHP, TJFKL.

113. Martin Mayer, The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978), 53.

114. Michael E. Stone, Shelter Poverty: New Ideas on Housing Affordability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), I.

115. Oral Interview, Weaver by Schussheim, 6-10, TJFKL.

116. John M. Goering and Modibo Coulibably, “Investigating Public Housing Segregation: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 25, No. 2 (1989): 271-273.

117. Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Gwirtzman, 63, Interview II, May 26, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

118. John F. Biggy, “Committee Characteristics and Legislative Oversight of Administration,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 10, No. 1 (1966): 85-87; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 336-339.

119. Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 40-44.

120. Oral Interview of Senator Joseph S. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, 62, December 16, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

166 121. United States Senate, “Proceedings and Debates of the 87th Congress, 1st Session,” Congressional Record March 29 1961 107, No. 4 (1961): 5111.

122. Memorandum to the President from Frederick G. Dutton, 1, February 28, 1961, Staff Memos: Dutton - Holborn, POF, 63, TJFKL.

123. Memorandum to Cabinet Officials from Frederick G. Dutton, 1, February 4, 1961, Files, Legislative Meetings, 1961, White House Staff Files, Theodore C. Sorensen, 57, TJFKL.

124. Memo to the President from Dutton, 2, 3, February 28, 1961, TJFKL.

125. Senate, Congressional Record March 29, 1961, 5110; Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 87th Congress, 1st Session, Hearings on Housing Legislation 1961 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 3, 4; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 318, 319.

126. Ibid., Hearings, 245-252; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 319.

127. Memorandum on Land Reserve Proposals in the President’s Housing Message to Lee C. White from P. S. Hughes, 1, April 6, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files - Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL. Mr. Hughes worked for the Bureau of the Budget.

128. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profiles in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 110.

129. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 1, April 7, 1961, Legislation Hearings - House-Senate 1478 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA. In this and the next several footnotes, Semer, Schussheim, and McFarland provided Weaver with summaries of testimony.

130. Memorandum to Morton J. Schussheim from M. Carter McFarland, 1-3, April 7, 1961, Legislation - Hearings House-Senate 1478 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

131. Ibid., 3; Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 1, 2, April 14, 1961, Legislation, Hearings - House-Senate 1478, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

132. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 158, KLOHP, TJFKL.

133. Ibid., 3.

167 134. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 2, April 10, 1961, Legislation - Hearings House-Senate 1478, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

135. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 2, 3, April 12, 1961, Legislation Hearings - House-Senate 1478, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

136. Memorandum to Morton J. Schussheim from M. Carter McFarland, 4, 5, April 12, 1961, Legislation Hearings - House-Senate 1478, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

137. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 2, 3, April 6, 1961, Legislation Hearings - House-Senate 1478, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 65, NARA.

138. White House Legislative Notes Number 59, 1, 2, April 10, 1961, Legislative Files, 4/3-17/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

139. White House Legislative Notes Number 62, 1, 2, April 21, 1961, Legislative Files, 4/3-17/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

140. Memorandum to Theodore C. Sorensen and Larry O’Brien from Meyer Feldman, 1, 2, March 14, 1961, Legislative Meetings 1961 - 1/24/61 - 3/28/61, White House Staff Files, Theodore C. Sorensen, 30, TJFKL; White House Legislative Items Recommended to the President, 1, April 24, 1961, Legislative Files 4/18-28/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

141. Memorandum to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget from Fred Hayes, 1, May 9, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

142. Memorandum to Larry O’Brien from Lee C. White, 1, May 5, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; White House Legislative Notes 85, 1, May 17, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; White House Legislative Notes 86, 1, May 18, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

143. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 320.

144. Letter and Attachments to President-elect John F. Kennedy from Senator Joseph S. Clark, 3, December 15, 1960, Legislative Files 1960, POF, 49, TJFKL.

145. Memorandum to Robert C. Weaver from Theodore C. Sorensen, Undated, Chronological Files 1961, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 1, TJFKL.

146. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 320.

168 147. White House Legislative Notes 54 and 67, Legislative Files 4/3-17/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; Legislative Items Recommended to the President, 1, May 1, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

148. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Dr. Morton J. Schussheim, 12, 16, 17, KLOHP, TJFKL.

149. Ibid., 14, 18.

150. Letter to Brent Spence from Robert Weaver, 1-3, Undated, Bureau of the Budget Jan. 1 - June 30, 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA; Letter to Albert Rains from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, May 2, 1961, 1961 Banking and Currency Senate-House, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 59, NARA; Letter to Brent Spence from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, May 22, 1961, 1961 Banking an Currency Senate-House, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 59, NARA.

151. Memorandum of Agreement between the HHFA and Area Redevelopment Administration and the Department of Commerce, April 1961, HHFA Microfilms, HP 2, TJFKL.

152. Letter to Professor Robert C. Wood from Frederick Hayes, 1, 4, Undated, Subject File: Legislation - Agency-Wide 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 69, NARA.

153. United States House, “Proceedings and Debates of the 87th Congress, 1st Session, Congressional Record March 13, 1961 Vol. 107, No.3 (1961): 3828, 5302.

154. Ibid., 5302.

155. Statement of Robert C. Weaver HHFA Administrator Before the Subcommittee on Housing of the House Committee on Banking and Currency on Housing and Urban Development Legislation, 1, 8, 14, 18, April 24, 1961, Subject Files: Department of Urban Affairs 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

156. White House Legislative Notes Number 59, 1, 3, April 25, 1961, Folder 4/3- 17/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

157. Statement of the HHFA Administrator on Provisions of H.R. 6028, 87th Congress, Housing Bill of 1961, 1-5, April 24, 1961, Subject Files: Department of Urban Affairs 1961, RG 207 HUD, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 339.

158. White House Legislative Notes Number 89, 1, May 24, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; White House Legislative Notes Number 90, 2, May 25, 1961,

169 Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; Report to the Director, Executive Office of the Bureau of the Budget from Frederick Hayes, 1, May 25, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

159. White House Legislative Notes Number 91, 1, 2, May 26, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

160. Legislative Items Recommended by the President to 6/5/61, 1, Undated, Legislative Files 6/61, POF, 49, TJFKL; White House Legislative Notes Number 97, 1, June 7, 1961, Legislative Files 6/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

161. Oral Interview of Jack T. Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 62, 63, KLOHP, TJFKL.

162. Memorandum to Evelyn Lincoln from Phyllis Maddock regarding those the President would call just after passage of the Housing Act, 1, June 23, 1961, Legislative Files 6/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

163. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 319, 320.

164. Memorandum for the Director of the Bureau of the Budget from Fred Hayes, 1, May 9, 1961, HHFA 2/2/61 - 12/12/61, White House Staff Files - Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

165. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 320.

166. Degree of Republican Opposition on Key Issues, House and Senate, Undated, Legislative Files 11/62, POF, 52, TJFKL.

167. Oral Interview of Jack T. Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 58, KLOHP, TJFKL.

168. Carl Abbott, Urban America in the Modern Age: 1920 to the Present (Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1987), 89.

169. Ibid., 91; Elsie Marie Barnes, “The 1974 Housing and Community Development Act: An Analysis of Private Sector Interest Groups Influence” (Ph.D. diss., Lehigh University, 1982), 17.

170. Glen Yago, “Urban Policy and Nation of Citiesal Political Economy” Urban Affairs Quarterly 19, No. 1 (1983) 125; Abbott, Urban, 93.

171. David Rusk, Cities Without Suburbs (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 8.

172. R. Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Rise and Fall of the U.S. Welfare State” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkley, 1994), 213,

170 214; Diane E. Gold, Housing Market Discrimination: Causes and Effects of Slum Formation (New York: Preager Publishing, 1980), 274.

173. Kevin Leslie Kramer, “Fifty Years of Federal Housing Policy: A Case Study of How the Federal Government Distributes Resources” (Ph.D. diss., The University of Michigan, 1985), 183.

174. Eugene J. Meehan, Public Housing Policy: Convention Versus Reality (New Brunswick: Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey Press, 1975), 58.

175. Remarks of the President at the Signing Ceremony of the 1961 Housing Act, 1, 2, June 30, 1961, Legislative Files: Department of Urban Affairs 4/61 - 6/61, White House Staff Files, Meyer Feldman, 29, TJFKL.

171

CHAPTER V

THE DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AFFAIRS AND HOUSING

…The reason given by President Lincoln for establishing the Department of Agriculture was that agriculture was at that time a leading interest of the Nation. …for one of the leading interests of the Nation, housing and urban affairs… cabinet rank is necessary to give proper weight to those interests among the overall interests of the Federal Government.1

As the 1961 Housing Act inched its way through Congress, John Kennedy as part of his urban package, prepared another bill. That consisted of establishing a federal

Department of Urban Affairs and Housing (DUAH) to manage national urban programs and eliminate the organized chaos of HHFA. Along with the 1961 Housing Act, a meager mass transit scheme, a small poverty program and his limited executive order, it would count as step two in his campaign pledge to “formulate a workable and comprehensive urban program.” Yet it would also become Kennedy’s most bitter congressional fight and most embarrassing defeat.

Politically, the departmental status bill became connected to the controversy surrounding JFK’s lingering but overdue “threat” to issue an executive order banning housing discrimination and his nomination of Dr. Robert C. Weaver, an African-

American, for DUAH secretary. This made Kennedy the first president to date to play the

“political race card” with both voters and Congress, on two concurrent federal actions, one executive and one legislative. To smooth the transition to introducing the DUAH legislation to create a new department, Kennedy wisely used his executive authority to implement a plan to improve how existing departments functioned. The new president wanted to force federal agencies to communicate more effectively at the local level.2 172 To do this in early 1961, Kennedy established a “Federal Executive Board”

emphasizing “presidential management policies…in the field.”3 Comprised of the special

assistant to the president for interdepartmental coordination, the executive assistant

director of the bureau of the budget, and the chairman of the civil service commission, the Board traveled the country meeting in cities, some of which had over a hundred different federal field offices. The Board’s mission became making them communicate more effectively.

To implement his “share” of these changes, Weaver had to move quickly. The HHFA

had regional offices in seven of the largest cities and field offices in most others.

Kennedy wanted Weaver’s regional directors to serve on a regional “board of federal

executives” headed by the civil service commissioner in each city.4 Not surprisingly, the

Board also managed several aspects of Kennedy’s communications with the local media,

civic, business, and professional groups “to reinforce special programs,” in a way

providing a federal lyceum for JFK's domestic initiatives.5

In its meetings the Board produced one bright spot, recruiting southern minority

students for federal service. Spearheaded by Douglas E. Chaffin, HHFA Director of

Personnel, young African-Americans were solicited for federal service. But this was done with little White House emphasis or enthusiasm, because Kennedy did not want to cause a revolt within the Southern congressional hierarchy. As a result, the students

slowly became aware that “the federal government talked a lot about equal employment

opportunities” but concluded it was “better to stick to ‘teaching and preaching’ if they

really wanted jobs.”6 173 Weaver also hosted a series of public relations efforts for HHFA. In a feature Look

Magazine story, which hit the newsstands on March 28, 1961, he enthusiastically

highlighted his reformation of the agency. On April 9, he appeared on “Meet the Press”

discussing among other things, how the 1961 Housing Act would make urban America a

better place and on June 9 with Senator Joe Clark (D-PA), he endorsed numerous urban

renewal improvements in Pittsburgh as a model for the country.7

Kennedy considered Weaver a loyal member of the administration. Yet the former

NCAAP Board Chairman represented a potential challenge to Kennedy’s desire to play

both sides against the middle, while going slowly on civil rights.8 Operating somewhat

as a loner in the chiefly white Camelot, Weaver tried not to be absorbed by it while still

being a leading team player. According to HHFA General Counsel Milt Semer, even though there was no real “professional intercourse between the president and his chief housing man, except indirectly through Ted Sorensen and Lee White…Bob Weaver's reputation as a [Negro] grew in the White House…because he was not [a] bother and he got his work done [and] stayed out of trouble.”9 Semer continued that “one of the

concerns on the Hill was, could a Negro get housing legislation enacted, [and] the way it

worked out he [Weaver] got the biggest piece of domestic legislation of anybody, the

1961 Housing Act.”10 Kennedy liked how this arrangement worked, but Weaver did

not.11

Weaver completed his headquarters restructuring, in anticipation that DUAH would pass, but built some new “super grade” positions in case it did not. For his final revamping, he proposed several GS-16 through GS-18 positions to start just after the

1961 Housing Act passed. He established a commissioner for multifamily housing as 174 well with an assistant multifamily housing commissioner, in total upgrading or adding

thirty-five current or new positions. Six of the GS-18 positions would manage program

policy and urban transportation for HHFA.12 Weaver’s initiative also followed

Kennedy’s anti-recession directive to add federal employees working with distressed

areas. Although later cutting federal jobs except in the White House to balance the

budget, JFK did not start that way. By June he had 37,102 more people working for

Uncle Sam than under Ike the previous June.13

But after completing staffing, many variables were at work which from the start,

lessened DUAH’s chances even with White House and HHFA staff now stabilized.

Congress headed that list, and managing it required handling three things - numbers,

perception and intensity, and Kennedy came up short on all three. Filled with “unknown”

coalitions, the chambers of the House and Senate did not constitute comfortable turf for

Jack Kennedy. To gain congressional approval for an urban department with a probable

African-American secretary and with a housing anti-discrimination order looming, would require good political management, a carefully conceived and artfully written bill, and a relentless effort. None of this transpired. Kennedy wanted the organization, control and additional federal power DUAH provided, as well as what it would do for city management, but remained unwilling to pay the political price and unable to find ways to force others to do so. Yet, it did not have to end as it did.

As a political entrepreneur, Kennedy’s key with Congress would be to preserve the

New Deal coalition, while adding new urban African-American representatives, as well

as the emerging suburban ones.14 Hanging onto southern Democrats would be critical. 175 Although constituting a nearly impossible task, he had nonetheless every opportunity to form a coalition and the 1962 and 1964 elections offered chances to purge the unfaithful.

Had Kennedy built this coalition and really tried to implement “a workable solution” urban America in the mid and late 1960s might not have been in flames. The four year lead-time, provided by a 1961 DUAH instead of the 1965 HUD, could have been critical to urban stability. The perception and some of the reality that urban problems were actually being addressed might have prevented many from loosing their lives during the

“long hot summers” of the Johnson presidency. Kennedy has been called by some the president of liberal affluence and the politics of adjustment.15 DUAH in 1961 might have given some of both to cities at just the right time.

Yet the numbers Kennedy had for coalition building were worse than he thought. In the Senate, the 87th Congress had 66 Democrats and 34 Republicans and that chamber was perceived as the more receptive one for urban legislation. The Senate had sixteen standing and six special committees, some chaired by Kennedy supporters. Yet, it valued rules, protocol and procedure much more so than the House, even though Senators regularly filibustered civil rights legislation. From 1917 to 1960, 23 cloture votes were attempted to end filibusters designed to kill bills prohibiting poll taxes, civil lynching, and advancing civil rights, and nearly all failed.16 Early as president, by remaining mute during the introduction of three unsuccessful anti-filibuster resolutions and a cloture measure, all from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), Kennedy offered no leadership for the Senate in correcting those problems.17

Regarding the Senate’s unique respect for protocol, provoking John L. McClellan (D-

AR) over procedure would prove fatal for DUAH and McClellan and Democratic 176 Senators from the deep South had little use for Kennedy. From January through October

1961, only one of them, Estes Kefauver (D-TN), voted with the president 100% of the

time and the rest regularly voted against him.18 Additionally Senate Republicans voted

51.6% against area redevelopment, 66.6% against aid to agriculture, and 80% against

Kennedy on minimum wage.19

But the House constituted an even tougher problem. Its 87th edition had 261

Democrats and 174 Republicans. A paradox between the erudite and well educated versus the backward, unimaginative and discriminatory existed, and both powerful elements had deep roots back into the Depression ridden 1930s, surviving both the war torn 1940s and somber 1950s by forming coalitions. By today's standards, a startling

number of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, elderly males from the rural south held

extensive power. Through the House’s seniority system, twenty-five percent of them

controlled ninety percent of the key positions on twenty-two standing and eight special

committees.20 One hundred and six congressmen came from southern states which, only

99 years ago had flown the Confederate battle flag in combat, and most had few urban

constituents. This group often voted bygone interests and sided with mid-western

Republicans to form a strong conservative coalition.21

Moreover, party loyalty meant little to southern and border state Democrats in the

House who voted regional rural interests. Of thirty-five key White House backed domestic bills, from January 20, 1961 through May 17, 1961 only thirty-two

Congressmen voted “with the president” 100 percent of the time and none came from

“Dixie.”22 Across the South, Congressmen voted with the White House in

embarrassingly low percentages, ranging from 14% for South Carolina, through 23% for 177 Florida Democrats to a high of only 66% for the somewhat more progressive North

Carolina. The entire Georgia delegation answered the president’s call only 55% of the

time.23 Still more worrisome, House Republicans demonstrated exceptional cohesion.

They voted 88.8% against a social security increase; 88.6% against public works acceleration; 81.5% against the area redevelopment, 80.7% against the minimum wage bill; 84.8% against the 1961 Housing Act and 85.7% against water pollution control.24

To get a majority in the House, 219 votes would be required and there were only 157 northern and western Democrats. Conversely, 280 members came from a combination of

106 southern Democrats and the 174 Republicans.25 By the most favorable count,

Kennedy had only 164 hard-core votes in the House at any one time.26 Truly he needed

to work Congress skillfully if DUAH stood a chance.

To overcome this mathematical handicap, for DUAH the administration’s launched a

two pronged strategy. That consisted of a public one which differed from the legislative

version and both would be managed simultaneously. But the strategy itself was ill

conceived and further, poorly implemented.

Using his popularity, Kennedy appealed to public support for DUAH from the press,

national municipal organizations, urban redevelopers, the housing industry, the average

citizen and African-American voters in that order. His goal was to exert specific pressure

on Congress to pass DUAH, and failing that in 1962 or at the latest in 1964, to vote out

the opposition. Thus, the administration viewed DUAH as a long-term struggle.

His public relations strategy built DUAH support on “popular support for Kennedy”

and by the end of April 1961, Jack Kennedy was immensely popular. Gallup Polls had

him at 83% in late April and 70% throughout most of 1961. His April numbers reflected 178 the artful and very successful “spin” he and his aides put on the Bay of Pigs Disaster. By

year’s end, he stood at 77%, higher than Eisenhower’s 71%, Truman’s 50%, and FDR’s

69% at the end of their first year.27 Capitalizing on his strong television image, Kennedy used “press conferences” as one of his chief means to engage the public. He even changed how these were scheduled. Initially, he held only one weekly, but when he learned that his Neilsen percentages and Arbitron ratings grew if the networks aired these live, he changed their times and frequency to increase his audience.28

In maintaining his favorable image, Kennedy had to convince the public he was succeeding. In May, he began releasing a series of short statements and media position papers which “confirmed” how well the New Frontier was doing.29 These releases

alluded to extensive congressional Democratic support but his numbers were

considerably inflated. As reported, his percentages often included a mix of precommittal

votes, conference votes, and sometimes even appropriations votes, rather than final tallies30 This infuriated Republicans and began to irritate some Democrats. Even though looking good in the press, Congressional insiders began to perceive the administration as deceitful and willing to trade headlines for evidence. During the week of September 14,

1961 Larry O’Brien and Ted Sorensen held off-the-record briefings to thirty Washington

news correspondents in a private D.C. home. They show-cased Kennedy’s

accomplishments to date citing thirty-three major bills passed, and compared that to just

twelve for Eisenhower, and only eleven for FDR during the New Deal’s first “hundred

days.” As temperatures rose on both sides of the isle, incensed Republicans labeled this

“brain washing” and cited Kennedy “successes” as a montage of retreads and minor 179 legislation, while calling his percentages “a fable.”31 Regardless, still a darling in the

media, he received positive press coverage which is what he wanted.

But one nagging issue crept into his public relations campaign. The harder Kennedy

pushed DUAH, while not issuing this open housing order, the more doubt he created with

African-Americans and the more fear he kindled among white southerners. His public

strategy attempted to get both blocks to forget about the executive order. He would

eventually nominate Weaver to appease the first block, but was afraid and unable to

effectively deal with the southern Democrats. This was a mistake.

Deep within his legislative strategy, Kennedy had two choices: pressure southern

Democrats to support him or pressure moderate Republicans. Overall as it happened,

Kennedy chose initially to exert pressure on southern Democrats, even though more

Republicans came from urban states. But he never played “hard ball” with them and

when exerting only slight pressure on elderly southerners who preferred mint juleps to

mixed housing failed, he then shifted to the Republicans. When that also proved

insufficient, he blamed the GOP for all his legislative short comings. Managed like a

“campaign,” his DUAH legislative strategy only ended in angering nearly everybody.32

Kennedy began this legislative strategy by attempting to collect political IOUs from southerners. For example, just after issuing his executive order on equal employment opportunity but before regulatory policy was set in place, director of the bureau of public roads and federal highway administrator Rex M. Whitton ordered strict state compliance for highway contracts. In Louisiana, one state highway engineer complained to Senator

Russell B. Long (D-LA) and Congressman Hale Boggs (D-LA) that they were being

"sand-trapped” and “…the administration was doing them dirt” forcing them to hire 180 African-Americans. Long complained to Kennedy, who had Meyer Feldman investigate.

Feldman found “a little freedom here” in that “the Bureau of Public Roads could be tough

or they could be a little bit lenient.” Kennedy said, “will you tell them for God's sake on

my say so not to insist on anything…don’t require them to do anything until the

regulations are done,” and he continued “Now get those guys together [the federal

highway people] and make sure that they understand what is required of them, and don’t

put any burdens on them [the state highway people] that are not absolutely essential.”

Long gleefully received the news, relayed it to state officials, and contracting in

Louisiana went back to the old ways of doing business.33 Kennedy now had I.O.U.s from

Long and Boggs for DUAH.

He also met regularly with Democratic congressmen in small groups for breakfasts

and coffees. During a September 12, 1961 coffee he attempted to charm “supporters” as

Congressman William M. Colmer (D-MS) and fourteen other southerners.34 He was not

against using stronger beverages, as during one evening social prior to passing Kennedy’s

House Committee on Rules (HCOR) packing plan, it “was necessary to get one key

congressman drunk before the voting.”35

Clearly the president wanted to win DUAH. It not only represented the proper thing

to do for managing urban problems, but it also provided a strong mechanism to control

budget resources. A strong DUAH at the cabinet level also gave the White House

additional authority over cities. Concerned about his “historical record,” DUAH would

also add to JFK’s legacy.36 Further, it brought a sense of national unity to urban affairs.37

It resolved the basic clash of philosophy over common goals in urban planning.38 But, in the minds of the southerners, lurking behind DUAH stood the specter of JFK’s 181 forthcoming executive order on open housing, with the outcome being managed by an

African-American secretary, if DUAH became law.39

In attempting to synchronize his DUAH legislative strategy, Kennedy made several

mistakes. Initially, trying to court southern Democrats first represented his biggest error.

Kennedy over estimated his persuasive abilities with them and when unsuccessful,

conversely was unwilling to go to total war with them, though a party purge had been

recommended.40 He should have written them off and concentrated on big city

Republicans completely, because when he finally attempted to woo them, it was too late.

Too much time had been wasted on the southern Democrats. Secondly, Kennedy handled

Weaver’s nomination for DUAH secretary in an abysmal fashion, first by pretending

Weaver was not the nominee, then at the height of the fight over his Reorganization Plan which will be discussed, proudly announcing Weaver was the nominee. Moreover in never clarifying his position on the open housing order, he failed to build support for it connected to DUAH, but as well he failed to abate the fears of the opposition because they did not know what his intentions were regarding it. His last mistake with Congress though, simply put, consisted of sending up to the Hill poorly written legislation, which cost him his “legislative effectiveness.”41

In drafting DUAH, at the start everyone remained enthusiastic. Weaver as the titular

author drew from a rich heritage and legacy. Since1933 an urban department had been

bandied about and during Eisenhower’s presidency, it had been attempted several times

under different titles, without his approval. In one of these instances, Albert C. Cole,

Ike's HHFA administrator, wrote to then Senator John F. Kennedy, chairman of the senate subcommittee on reorganization of the government operations committee, eight 182 full pages explaining why a cabinet department was needed, even though he could not

support it.42 Kennedy’s 1960 Task Force Report, submitted by McMurray but written by

Dr. Robert C. Wood, also provided Weaver with numerous ideas. The Report justified

creating a department to arrest rapid urbanization, coordinate social and physical city programs, and to improve the urban economy while providing a unity of purpose for urban affairs.43

Many problems could have been resolved by a successful DUAH. Born from

historical accident, the HHFA grew out of the National Housing Agency (NHA), FHA,

and PHA, while leaving sizeable statutory authority behind with the latter two

administrations. Formerly created under Reorganization Plan Number 3 of 1947, the

HHFA administrator had complete authority over only URA and CFA. FNMA sprang

from the Reconstruction Financial Corporation (RFC) and maintained independent status

even though the administrator appointed its president. “Muddled” became the best word

to describe HHFA’s lines of operation. If a community received a “workable program,”

HHFA's office of administration (OA) processed the application, URA handled the

renewal projects, and PHA managed the displaced families’ housing plan, while FHA

helped with home insurance. Any agency that delayed part of the process, delayed

everything.44 HHFA’s operating 213 regional or field offices in 147 cities and towns

also magnified the problem.

Selecting the appropriate title for the new department proved to be bothersome. The

administration discussed everything from a Department of Urbiculture coinciding with

Agriculture, to a Department of Urban Development, but rejecting the latter because it

abbreviated to DUD. Everyone finally agreed “housing” should be in the title and 183 Kennedy settled upon “urban affairs and housing” as it would be less threatening to

Congress.45 Housing and urban development (HUD) had been Wood’s choice.

A committee wrote the DUAH legislation. Under Weaver’s leadership, general

counsel Milt Semer, public affairs administrator Fred Hayes, and deputy administrator

and tough guy, Jack Conway did the actual writing. White House assistants Lee White

and Meyer Feldman formed the rest of the committee with all working about two months

part-time to come up with a short 13 page bill. But the hidden hand behind the final

revision was Bureau of the Budget Director David E. Bell. With DUAH in draft,

Kennedy placed special trust in Bell, to revise the legislation. On February 4, 1961, the

White House issued guidance to all departments and agencies preparing legislation, that

before the president received it, all bills must go through Bell and he would present them

to the president. This gave Bell extensive authority to write anti-recession measures into

legislation and Kennedy’s unannounced but forthcoming balanced budget attempt as

well.46

Kennedy of course, emphasized the need for DUAH in his State of the Union Address

on January 30, 1961, and paid special attention to it in his March 9 Congressional

Message on Housing and Community Development.47 However he received advise from

Professor Richard E. Neustadt on November 3, 1960 warning against an early

announcement of the nominee for department secretary and further caution over how

FHA should be restructured, but no evidence exists that he heeded this guadance.48 Both these matters would return to haunt him.

Two problems shaped the timeline for submitting legislation. First, Kennedy wanted to ensure his 1961 Housing Act was well on its way before releasing DUAH. Secondly, 184 he decided not to issue the executive order on open housing until after DUAH’s baptism

by fire, and nominate Weaver publicly only if he had to resort to a reorganization plan,

but he told no one of the latter idea. Even after the Freedom Rides in 1961 the

administration believed “the Negro and his problems were still pretty invisible to the

country as a whole,” and Kennedy was not about to rock the boat with an early executive

order or Weaver’s announcement. Most senior Democrats, including Senate Majority

Whip Mike Mansfield (D-MT) shared this view.49

The bill itself contained several bombshells. DUAH did not alter HHFA field

operations but once passed, gave the secretary the power to do so. That constituted a ploy

by the administration to avoid a committee fight about revamping field operations, but it

back-fired. Many in Congress had close ties to the FHA, and wanted to know exactly

what was going to happen. The DUAH legislation stated that FHA would move its zone commissioners from D.C. to the field and all administrations would be in the same building in the same cities, but left actual field “functioning” up to the imagination.50

What the bill specified worried rural Congressmen even more. Under Section 8, the

FHA and PHA would be abolished and Sections 5(b) and 7(b) transferred FNMA’s

functions to the DUAH secretary. Although abolishing FHA and PHA was only

procedural in nature since all their functions carried over, by the legislation the new

secretary now had authority over FHA and could later “revamp its field operations.” The

only aspect of FNMA’s charter remaining in effect was mixed ownership of common

stock within its secondary mortgage market operations.51 URA and CFA would be

transferred intact. Abolishing the HHFA central office with its office of the administrator

(OA), and National Housing Council, and replacing them with a DUAH secretary, under 185 secretary, three assistant secretaries, a general counsel, an administrative assistant

secretary (GS-18), plus “Commissioners” for FHA, PHA, CFA, URA, and a “president” for FNMA rounded out the changes. Salary increases were proposed for all.52 In

practical terms, DUAH represented only a moderate change to HHFA’s structure, so

Kennedy should have had an easy congressional sell.

But many in that august body could not accept that FHA authority, even with a titular

“commissioner,” would be vested in the new secretary. It pleased Congress even less that the departmental status bill allowed the DUAH Secretary to delegate other responsibilities yet to be defined, for the Workable Program for Community

Improvement and Urban Renewal Relocation Program.53 The perception that they were going to lose control, due to the vagaries of “leadership to be exercised by the secretary…[as] determined by the president personally” greatly concerned them. That the president could further assign “independent status” to forthcoming programs bothered them as well.54 As written, the bill was too “gray” for many Congressmen.

During a recession, economy in government would not sell DUAH either. A

recapitulation of new “top level” positions showed $64,000 more would be needed

annually. None of this included the thirty-five new “super-grades” (GS16 - GS18) which

Weaver had initiated as part of his separate HHFA reorganization.55 These latter jobs

were presented to Congress in a different package which constituted a very poor sales

approach and looked duplicitous, to say the least.

In attempting to appease rural interests, DUAH left out farm housing, veterans

housing, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and some other local programs. The idea

here was not to cause heated debate, but uniquely the omissions provided serious 186 rationale not to vote for it at all by those who wanted more recognition for programs left

out. And during drafting, Kennedy let it be known publicly that a federal “reorganization

plan” might be used if the bill failed.56 This was a very bad idea.

The most significant controversy about the legislation though came over a fascinating

policy statement boldly embossed on page one. It, the “Declaration of National Urban

Affairs and Housing Policy” sent shivers down the spine of rural Representatives and would cause lively debate. Chiefly the handiwork of Dave Bell from his April 17 influential memorandum to Kennedy, the declaration called “for full recognition and consideration of the problems…of our urban and metropolitan areas.”57 Lee White, Ted

Sorensen, and Myer Feldman approved this bad idea but BOB’s Bell created it in a series

of “executive sessions,” deep within his Legislative Reference Department. There,

during several meetings, Bell, Phillip S. Hughes and John Seidman framed it with only

the “consent” of HHFA general counsel, Milt Semer.58

The declaration boldly stated “that the welfare and security of the nation requires the

sound and orderly growth and development of the nation’s urban communities.” It asked

Congress to openly endorse this concept as national policy and to affirm the federal

government’s requirement to assist local communities in developing programs for

comprehensive community planning including “local educational and cultural pursuits.”

In a 13 page bill, the declaration itself took up three.59 Regarding it Weaver stated, “I

don’t think it could have been handled much worse than it was.”60 In the words of

Senator Joseph S. Clark (D-PA), who managed the Senate bill after Senator John L.

McClellan (D-AK) declined, DUAH “could have been passed if it had been handled

right.”61 Conservatives fell over one another to proclaim how this strong federal policy 187 statement would usurp state authority, crumble local determination, build a stronghold of federalism, drain the treasury, and stifle city government.62

Accompanied by Bell’s memorandum, on April 18 Kennedy sent his formal

transmittal letter with HR 6433 and S.1633 to the respective chambers.63 Trouble started

early. Kennedy’s legislative sponsors were all second string. Unknown Congressman

Dante B. Fascell (D-FL) led the fight in the House and the only slightly stronger Clark in

the Senate. This sent a dubious message of weakness. Most considered Dante Fascell

such a housing lightweight that Milt Semer suggested that Fascell seek advice from Al

Rains.64 But Rains was still angry about the administration’s maneuvering on the 1961

Housing Act.

Both bills went to their respective government operations committee (GOC). The

House GOC had thirty members, chaired by African-American Representative William

L. Dawson (D-IL) who had been “considered” for Postmaster General and in 1960, held

the “titular” chairmanship of Kennedy’s campaign, and represented the Chicago machine of Mayor Richard J. Daley.65 Nine Senators served on the Senate GOC, under

McClellan’s watchful eye. The House GOC appointed an eight person executive and

legislative reorganization subcommittee (ELRC) chaired by Dawson. In a remarkably ill

conceived idea and after numerous delays, Fascell introduced the House bill on May 24

with no prepared statement. In his “remarks” he thought first and foremost of the

declaration and abruptly focussed attention on the bill’s most provocative section.66

Having said little of substance, he yielded to other speakers.

Subsequently, Dave Bell, the administration’s first heavy hitter followed, who, now

attuned to the dangers of the declaration, tried to soften its impact by calling it only a 188 statement of “appropriate federal concern…” and spent his time “interpolating” the merits of the legislation. However, he revealed no cost savings which this consolidation would render, constituting a significant lost opportunity. For questions, Dawson threw

soft pitches to Bell, which the Chicago Congressman then proceeded to answer himself.

After dismissing Bell, Dawson then called his boss the “honorable” Richard J. Daley,

Mayor of Chicago, whom he called the best spokesman available “for all the people of

the United States.”67

Daley put the committee to sleep. He discussed by name and association, every

supporter of departmental status back to 1889. Nobody had any follow-up questions, yet

Daley posed a rhetorical one. He posited, “no exact criteria have ever been prescribed for

determining at what stage in its development an agency merits departmental status.”

Daley attempted but did not succeed in proving that HHFA had reached that stage.

However, the examples he used resonated with the terms “increased federalism,”

“national significance,” impending “presidential direction,” and “magnitude of spending.”68 This did not look good “down South” when printed in the Congressional

Record.

Through most of June, the saga continued with House public hearings. Mayors of

Nashville, Tucson, New York, and other towns testified as did the AFL-CIO and

veterans’ groups.69 The president of the American Institute of Architects and executive

director of the American Institute of Planners, both for DUAH, also let it be known this

support did not represent their organization’s political leanings.70 The National

Association of Mutual Savings Banks supported DUAH but wanted FHA transferred

intact.71 “Intact” now became the catch word for “FHA commissioner with authority.” 189 Other friends of DUAH, the American Municipal Association, National Association of

Housing and Redevelopment Officials, and the National Housing Conference lent

support.72

Weaver was told in a politically transparent move that he should not testify which did

nothing to alleviate “racial overtones.”73 As an African-American and as HHFA Chief,

Weaver performed so well to date that nobody on the Hill believed he would not be the nominee, yet he could not testify. When Kennedy continued to state openly he would announce his DUAH nominee “at the appropriate time,” suspicions grew since that was exactly what he also said about the executive order. “Deeply southern” members in

Congress became deeply concerned.

Keeping Weaver under wraps did not work. He appeared on TV talk shows and

remained far from invisible. During one in an exchange with Senator Kenneth B.

Keating (R-NY) when asked if DUAH’s defeat would be viewed as racial in nature,

Weaver responded “…a large number of the electorate will so interpret it (that way).”74

Weaver testified regularly for the 1961 Housing Act and maintained a robust correspondence with Congressman Dawson about DUAH.75 Kennedy countered some of

Weaver’s “invisibility” by sending up a smoke screen that Mayor Richardson Dilworth of

Philadelphia might be the DUAH nominee and he also said Weaver was under

consideration for Secretary of H.E.W.76 But none of this decreased Weaver’s visibility with southerners.

In House Subcommittee testimony, the same set of old regulars stood in opposition to

DUAH. The National Association of Real Estate Boards, the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Association of 190 County Officials, all believed DUAH would undermine federal-state relations and expand

the federal role in cities.77 Actually, their objections could have been decreased had the

administration given clear and early priority to DUAH, discussing its merits with them.

But DUAH was not on the administration’s 1961 priority list in January.78 House

Democratic Whip Carl Albert (D-OK) and Speaker of the House Sam T. “Mr. Sam”

Rayburn (D-TX), had to quickly placed on the list in April and the same thing happened in the Senate. Much political capital had been lost not laying the groundwork with the

conservative opposition in both parties. Not giving it clear-cut and early priority also

fostered the belief that the administration was “up to something.”79

The House subcommittee went into executive session, and on August 1 recommended the bill to the full committee which debated HR 6433 for the month.80 On August 23,

Congressman Fascell submitted the legislation with amendments as HR 8429 and on

August 28, the GOC reported it favorably with amendments.81

Amendments were substantial. Fifty-three lines of the hated “declaration” were

struck, but the “image” of creeping federalism remained.82 The House still had to

approve a shortened twenty-four line declaration “that the general welfare and security of

the Nation [depends on] sound development and redevelopment of our urban

communities.”83

Some of the “vast” powers of the secretary were reduced. The secretary would be

required to give special consideration to small town problems regardless of the community’s size. Along the urban-rural split, these were labeled as anti “big city bias” measures.84 The FHA would be transferred intact and its commissioner would retain the

old powers. Restrictions were placed on what the secretary could do to FNMA.85 191 On August 29, DUAH left the GOC and went to the House Committee on Rules

(HCOR) where it hit a permanent roadblock and remained stuck in time, for the rest of

1961. Larry O’Brien wrote to the president that due to racial overtones about Weaver, he

was encountering great difficulty “with certain members of the Rules Committee.” He

cited Congressman Carl Elliot (D-AL) who was “particularly desirous of not having to

vote on the proposal at all.”86 Uniquely, as the fall came, the administration turned to

Congressman Al Rains for help behind the scenes, as they were out of answers on HR

8429.

One of the reasons the House remained unmoved was meager gubernatorial support.

By June 28, although the Democrats controlled thirty-eight statehouses and the

Republicans occupied twelve, only seventeen state governors had initially signed as

supporters of departmental status and no more than thirty could really be counted upon by

mid July.87 To gain the written endorsement of Kennedy’s home state governor, John A.

Volpe (D-MA) eventually supported it, but this remained in doubt for a while.88

It also became well known on the Hill that the executive branch reserved the right to

make DUAH into a reorganization plan should trouble appear. Kennedy had initially

intended to enjoin Congress with a reorganization plan, but he was talked out of it to

appease McClellan.89 Yet the possibility of a reorganization idea pleased some mayors,

but not JFK’s staff.90 Moreover, backing for such a reorganization plan idea received

only was floated at the only lukewarm endorsement at the recent Governor’s

Conference.91 Nonetheless, Kennedy continued to threaten Congress with the idea

because he believed the reorganization idea gave him more credit and control should 192 DUAH become law. Pragmatically, it also my have been the only way to get a vote on

DUAH, which will be subsequently discussed.

The administration regarded the Senate as more favorable turf for DUAH, but

unfortunately this would not be the case. On April 18, 1961, Senator Clark along with

fourteen cosponsors, including Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), Henry M. “Scoop”

Jackson (D-WA) and Jacob J. Javits (R-NY) introduced Senate 1633. It went to the

Senate GOC consisting of nine members and which further reassigned it to the reorganization and international organizations subcommittee (RIOS), comprised of six members and chaired by Humphrey.92 The GOC chair Senator McClellan, maintained a

close vigilance over DUAH.

Unlike the House, additional bills were introduced into the Senate to create an urban

department. Senators Kenneth B. Keating (R-NY), Vance D. Hartke (D-IN) and Prescott

Bush (R-CT) each respectively wrote S.289, S.375, and S.609. Senator Humphrey,

delaying hearings until the 1961 Housing Act was on safe ground, announced on May 23,

that S.1633 would take precedent over other bills and debate started on June 21.93

In Senate subcommittee, Bell’s memorandum followed Kennedy’s transmittal letter, and the fireworks began. On a dour note, Frank Bane, Chairman of the Federal Advisory

Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, wrote in a letter that he reluctantly endorsed DUAH, but wanted a definition of “urban” which included “most everything.”

He also believed the secretary should act as a coordinator only and ended by criticizing the declaration.94

Clark started testimony with an eloquent appeal. He spoke of the need for cities to be

represented at the cabinet table “as the farmers had with their department (Agriculture) 193 and the westerners theirs (Interior).” He spoke of how the “structure of the U.S.

Government needs be reoriented to reflect the physical transformation of a Nation.”

Then he began to wander. He spoke endlessly about the importance of massive federal urban spending, and concluded with how much more valuable urban land was “acre for acre” than “farmland.”95 However, thirty miles from Little Rock, Arkansas where John

L. McClellan grew up, in the rural North Carolina of Sam Irvin (D-NC), and on the agricultural prairies of Karl Mundt’s (R-SD) South Dakota, “this dog won’t hunt.”96

BOB’s Dave Bell followed by giving his House presentation again, but emphasizing how small towns would be included in DUAH.97 This was not good enough for Mundt, and in a heated exchange, he instructed Bell to provide a written definition of urban.

Weaver wrote it and for the “purpose of the Act...an ‘urban area’ and ‘urban community’ are intended to include all communities regardless of size, whether incorporated or unincorporated.”98 This was a meaningless definition, but pleased Mundt. Mundt asked for a complete list of organizations supporting DUAH, which he later used to try to kill it, by showing DUAH lacked broad appeal. Mundt also wanted the name of the department changed but was overruled.99

Other administration heavyweights followed that afternoon. Benjamin A. Smith (D-

MA), Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (D-NJ), and a number of city officials spoke, as did the

National Urban League, American Municipal Association, the National Housing

Conference and even the United Presbyterian Church.100

Opposition voices abounded as well. Many considered DUAH a “Rube Goldberg” fix to urban affairs. The American Farm Bureau Federation said it would repress farmers.101 The National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Real 194 Estates Boards, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Retail Lumber

Dealers’ Association stood in opposition as did some county and municipal organizations.102 As in the House, missing was the strong support of the fifty State

governors, with only nineteen supporting it at that time.103

On June 22, the administration sent its weak second team to testify. The mayor of

Nashville was followed by Mayors Richardson Dillworth (Philadelphia) and Richard Lee

(New Haven). Jacksonville’s mayor failed to show up. The American Municipal

Association’s John McLaughlin, although supporting the bill, still wanted the declaration

reworded again.104

Like the House, three fundamental issues divided the Senate regarding DUAH. These

were the “declaration,” the definition of “urban,” and the role of “assistant secretaries” regarding FHA. Most thought the declaration represented a declaration of war on

Congress rather than a declaration of policy on urban affairs. Senator Muskie, amended it to a short statement of federal purpose rather than policy, “with respect to the necessity for sound development…of the nation’s urban communities.”105 Its thirty five lines were

replaced by a shorter, weaker premise emphasizing “a prosperous home building

industry.”106

A second major amendment encouraged by Mundt, formally defined what

“communities” were. Based on the Weaver provision, Section 3(c) proclaimed “that

nothing in the bill shall be construed to deny or limit the benefits of any program…of the

Department to any community on the basis of its population.”107

The most momentous fight though was over FHA. The proud old agency rooted in

the 1934 National Housing Act, and created on June 23, 1938 had many supporters. 195 Phillip S. Hughes, BOB’s assistant director for legislative reference, wrote Lee White that “the harmless change regarding the designation of Assistant Secretaries…opened quite a can of worms.”108 Senator Muskie inadvertently started the fight under pressure from the National Association of Home Builders. NAHB proclaimed FHA “should be transferred to the new Department, intact and with all its functions, powers and duties…” and that a presidentially appointed under secretary should head FHA as “Undersecretary for Housing.”109 That recommendation was voted down and NAHB threatened to withdraw its support. NAHB feared any agency consolidation of federal power at FHA’s expense. FHA retained authority to independently issue several kinds of home loans under old titles (sections of previous Acts). These benefited suburban and semi-rural contractors who had developed a comfortable relationship with FHA over the years and

NAHB represented these contractors.

Muskie, to appease NAHB, offered to designate one of the three “lesser” assistant secretaries as “Assistant Secretary Housing” and another as “Assistant Secretary Urban

Development.” That enraged Mundt who angrily proposed an amendment, that the third one be “Assistant Secretary Small Communities.” Heated discussion ensued with both

NAHB and Mundt loosing. Final debate transferred FHA to DUAH preserving its identity, but gave the new DUAH secretary full authority over all FHA programs and functions the new “Secretary of Urban Affairs” could also later transfer some of those functions to other DUAH units.110 NAHB prepared to withdraw its support, and would do that formally in January 1962.

After being reported on July 24 to the full Senate GOC, that body only slightly ameliorated the problem by voting that the FHA commissioner could carry out the 196 “functions, powers and duties of the FHA” but under the “direction of the Secretary of

the Department.”111 This language stood as an olive branch to NAHB and the southerners but still gave the secretary authority over FHA.112 On August 11, the Senate GOC voted

5-2 that S. 1633 as amended could be reported to the full Senate. However, since the

Senate has no rules committee, chairs had the power not to release legislation. Senator

McClellan in voting against reporting the bill said he would not release it and additionally

he, Senators Ervin (D-NC), Mundt, and Carl T. Curtis (D-NE) published a scathing minority report.

The minority report encompassing seven pages said as the bill tried to make “our

population dependent on the Federal system,” was not inclusive because it failed to cover

VA home loan and Federal Home Loan Bank Board housing programs, and should be

rejected in favor of further Congressional study.113 McClellean stated “that he hoped the

committee would not try to bring the bill up this session.”114 Southerners rushed to side

with McClellan. A. Willis Robertson (D-AL), Chairman of the Senate Banking and

Currency Committee let it be known he sided with McClellan as did several others. In the

fall of 1961, the Senate bill was finally “stuck in committee.” Lee White suggested to

Kennedy that as a last resort only his phone calls might move McClellan, but hinted that

the open housing order and appointment of Weaver might be the real source of trouble.

Kennedy however chose not to fight with the southern Democrats but to bring out his alternate plan. Reflecting on his chances of getting anything from Congress, he decided to fight with the Republicans and concocted a bizarre scheme using a legislative reorganization plan and the simultaneous nomination of Weaver, to bring out the worst in the GOP. He wanted to publicly embarrass Republicans into a favorable vote. If this 197 failed, he would then blame them and use it to his advantage in the 1962 and 1964 elections. Jack Bell wrote in an AP wire “Kennedy has passed the word to party legislative leaders he is going to come back fighting in January for the programs laid aside this year…[ such as] the establishment of a cabinet department of urban affairs.”

He continued, “The creation of the department of urban affairs involves the matter of

Kennedy’s obvious intention to name Robert C. Weaver, Housing Administrator and a

Negro, to the cabinet post if it is set up.”115 The battle lines were drawn.

The administration researched what would become Reorganization Plan One of 1962 to overkill, to assure Kennedy it was legal and within his authority. JFK had seen reorganization plans used when he was in the House and Senate GOCs and in fact had sent several plans to Congress in 1961, passing two. But this one would be very controversial and of course he was very cautious.

Creating DUAH by executive order versus legislative reorganization plan constituted

Kennedy’s dilemma. During his presidency he issued 214 executive orders. Many shaped domestic reform including those creating presidential committees, councils, commissions and boards on labor disputes, surplus food distribution, labor policy, equal employment opportunity, the status of women, juvenile delinquency and youth crime, aging, campaign reform, employment of the handicapped, elimination of obstruction of justice in Alabama and Mississippi and eventually open housing. But DUAH would have to come by legislative reorganization because Kennedy’s changes went beyond reorganizing or slightly expanding an existing agency, which he could accomplish by executive order, to creating a fully new department.116 198 By January 1962, the reorganization plan represented one extraordinarily hot issue

which both sides wanted to win. It also brought into question the extent of the powers of

delegation by an executive reorganization. Under law, reorganization plans could not be

amended by Congress, but Kennedy also had prescribed limits on what he could

reorganize and “force” Congress to approve or disapprove. Once submitted, Congress

had 60 days to act on an reorganization plan or it became law. Reorganization plans

could be defeated easier than legislation, requiring only a simple majority vote in either

chamber, making the idea doubly dangerous.117 Under the 1949 Reorganization Act as

amended in 1957 and still in effect, only 218 Representatives and/or 51 Senators could

kill Kennedy’s plan.118

According to James M. Landis of BOB’s legislative reference service and his boss

Dave Bell, Kennedy had the right to delegate authority to or away from agency heads under the plan while simultaneously creating a new organization. This meant Kennedy

could restructure FHA as well as who would control it.119 BOB’s research validated that

executive power from the Constitution allowed substantial revision an existing agency

while also creating a new one from it under reorganization. Research of the creation of

H.E.W. under Eisenhower abounded with examples.120 Kennedy had until June 1, 1963

to submit his plan to Congress, when on that date the current Reorganization Act expired.121 He was warned to wait until after the 1962 elections, before submitting a

reorganization plan but in his eagerness for a fight with the Republicans, he rejected this

advice.122

Kennedy’s preference for the plan over legislation sprang from the fact that a

reorganization plan could not be bottled up in committees but rather had to be voted up or 199 down within sixty days. On the other hand Bell, in extensive correspondence came to the

disturbing conclusion that only the legislation not the plan, stood any chance of passage.

Bell believed the legislation avoided a Senatorial fight over “prerogatives” and

“executive authority.” To him, submitting a reorganization plan while both bills were “in mid-stream in their consideration by the Congress” seemed very unwise. Neither the silence of the HCOR nor McClellan’s delays had actually killed any legislation.123

Further Bell thought it unwise to submit the plan before June 1, using that interim time to improve its base of support. He recommended that key members of Congress receive copies of any draft reorganization plan so they could revise it and make a contribution, as they had with the bills. He warned against submitting “unmodifiable” proposals quickly, citing the successful yet four year long fight Truman and Eisenhower waged to create

H.E.W. by reorganization plan.124

But Kennedy would hear none of it. This approach was recommended to Kennedy by

Ted Sorensen and his group at the White House. It also attempted to “flush out” New

York Republican Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller who some considered a strong G.O.P.

presidential possibility in 1964. “Rocky” was already actively engaging JFK in the press and on television over DUAH. With the 1962 elections on the horizon, Kennedy was

willing to attack the Republicans but was not ready to strike out against the southern

Democrats because he feared their party power and wanted their support on his tariff proposals (GATT).125

On January 11, 1962 Kennedy commenced the war. In his State of the Union Address

he said “…both equity and common sense require that our Nation’s urban areas…sit as

equals at the Cabinet table. I urge a new Department of Urban Affairs and Housing.”126 200 Prompted by this and other events, on January 24 the HCOR voted 9-6 not to grant a rule

on the departmental status bill and Kennedy, instead of working the Committee, boldly

stated “I am going to send it to Congress as a reorganization plan and give every member

of the House and Senate an opportunity to give their view and work their will on this.” In his subsequent press conference, he blamed the five HCOR Republicans for its defeat, instead of the four Democrats who voted with them. Then in a surprise to all except his close political advisors, he further announced that Weaver would be his nominee for secretary of the new department.127

A week later, on January 30, the “plan” hit Congress. It called for establishing the

department, with a secretary, under secretary, three assistant secretaries and a general

counsel. URA, CFA, and PHA fell directly under the new secretary. FHA was

transferred as “an entity” with the FHA Commissioner being appointed by the president

and approved by the Senate. However, that Commissioner would then work “under the

supervision and direction of the Secretary.” No changes were made to FNMA’s

organization and functions.128

After all his bellicose rhetoric, in his transmittal message for the plan Kennedy still

tried to mollify Congress. He wrote “the establishment of this department does not

connote any bypassing or reduction in the Constitutional powers and responsibilities of

the states under our Federal system of government.”129 HHFA’s Milt Semer

recommended adding “the plan in no way adds to Federal functions and in no way

detracts from the functions of the States and localities,” but Kennedy did not want to go

that far.130 Annual salary increases in relation to the legislation, lessened by $12,600,

which Kennedy hoped would appease conservatives.131 Nicely prepared information 201 packets about the plan were provided to each Member of Congress but unfortunately,

many of the leading quotes were from Chicago’s Mayor Daley, not the best way to woo

rural Congressmen.132

The plan lost for two reasons. It clearly looked like a big city message. It, like the

bill, was written as if everybody was an urbanite. The administration never shook the

view that this was a big city measure because, frankly put, it was one. A Washington

D.C. weekly newsletter for business executives defined the fight over the plan as one

which the president initiated because “big city mayors are pressing Kennedy.” It

continued that “opponents of the Urban Affairs proposals see the new department

inevitably mushrooming…even though it will start with no more functions than the present housing agencies.”133

The other reason it failed stemmed from the fact that Weaver was African-American.

The Plan’s Section 7 provided that “the president may authorize any person who

immediately prior to the effective date of this reorganization plan holds any office in the

Housing and Home Finance Agency…to hold any public office established by this

reorganization plan.”134 Coupled with his January 24 announcement of Weaver, the

message was clear. Kennedy had been warned not to do this by Larry O’Brian and his

legislative liaison team. He was told “There is the consideration of racial overtones to the

whole thing.”135

So why did he? Noted New York Times columnist Arthur Krock believed he did it

clearly for political reasons. According to Krock, Kennedy nominated Weaver so “the

Republicans if they voted against the plan were put in the position, not only of being

against city folk, but of seeming to be against the first Negro Cabinet member.”136 It 202 should be noted here this was clearly a political rather than civil rights initiative which

Kennedy launched. Civil Rights was not that important to Jack Kennedy in 1961-1962.

Weaver’s nomination would simply place detractors, particularly Republicans, in a bad

light with African-American northern voters.

Kennedy, according to Louisville Times scored first. He put the mid-western

Republicans in a position where a vote “against the reorganization plan will be a vote

against urban American population centers and against minority groups as well.” The

Times continued, pinpointing what remained dear to Kennedy, that conversely, “the

president will have made his own position clear in the populous states that control major delegations to the national party conventions and big blocks of electoral votes.”137 Initial reports from the Senate showed Republican support for the Plan shifting markedly as a result of Kennedy’s gamble. Senators Clifford P. Case (R-NJ), Jacob K. Javits (R-NY),

Kenneth B. Keating (R-NY), Thomas H. Kuchell (R-CA), Prescott Bush (R-CT), and

Hugh Scott (R-PA) all shifted to “favorable” and others were about to follow.138

But Kennedy’s political maneuver backfired. Milt Semer, when asked why the

reorganization plan did not pass, stated flatly, “What made that impossible was the fact

we had a Negro. The vote on that was just like a vote on open occupancy.” By making

race an issue, Kennedy changed the nature of the topic from an urban matter to a civil

rights issue. Using a football analogy according to Semer, he created “a sudden death

reorganization bill.”139 This concerned Weaver, not housing and urban affairs.

When Kennedy made his announcement it brought out the worst among southern

Democrats as well. He immediately lost Senator John Sparkman (D-AL) and Senator

James Eastland (D-MS) and other southern Democrats.140 Even the Pittsburgh Courier, 203 an African-American newspaper noted, “If the President just would say that Robert C.

Weaver, who happens to be a Negro, would not be the secretary of the new department, there would be no trouble creating the new department.”141

On January 30, 1962 a game of cat and mouse began on the Hill over the plan, designated HR 530 and S. 288 respectively. If the votes of only one Congressional chamber could kill the plan, and the expectation was both could, neither wanted to be the first. McClellan initially delayed hearings and when they started he declared he would

“continue Senate committee hearings for three weeks…[making it]…very difficult to get a vote in the Senate before the House vote.”141 In the Senate, the Majority Leader Mike

Mansfield (D- MT), who replaced Lyndon B. Johnson, wistfully watched Senator

McClellan, who was also sitting on S. 1633 continue his delay of initial hearings until

February 14th and only then did he slowly start three weeks of hearings. The House scheduled hearings to begin on February 6th and McClellan hoped the House would debate, vote, and kill the plan before he had to take any action. Many were eager for the fight, but few wanted to vote first.143

Kennedy’s poor legislative strategy grew worse. All preliminary counts showed there was only a very slim chance for Senate passage and no realistic chance in the House, unless Kennedy’s racial gamble paid dividends with the fifty GOP big city

Congressmen.144 Simultaneously, it became clear the Republicans planned some kind of a gamble on their own. So Kennedy adjusted his legislative strategy to obtaining simply a “close vote,” “making a good showing,” and avoiding a humiliating defeat, rather than winning. He would then blame the Republicans for being anti-urban in upcoming elections and the Senate stood as the best chamber for getting that close vote. 204 When this became apparent, Senators Joe Clark and Edmund Muskie were stunned

and they said so publicly. Johnson’s old aide Bobby Baker, openly lamented that the

plan was doomed and prefaced his vote counting to Members with “You are not going to

vote for the plan are you?”145 Even John W. McCormack (D-MA) the new Speaker of

the House, when the plan was only 30 or so votes behind, openly walked around saying it was dead.146 When the Senate GOC started hearings, the discussion was not about the

value of the plan but rather the wording of the Senate Resolution of Disapproval.147

The Republicans launched their counter attack on February 19 which led to the plan’s

defeat. As McClellan continued to retard progress in Senate hearings, House

Republicans in the GOC, while listening to Albert C. Cole discuss how DUAH would

bring special aid to small communities, suddenly and with no warning, called from the floor for an end to debate and a vote on the reorganization plan.148 Many Congressmen,

as John W. Byrnes (R-WI) who previously spoke out against Kennedy’s “raw effort to

enlist…American Negroes in an effort to confuse the real issues,” led the charge to

humiliate Kennedy.149

This set the legislative liaison team under O’Brien into a frenzy to prevent the House

vote, and to substitute a “more favorable loss” in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader

Mike Mansfield quickly drafted a resolution, introduced Senator Jennings Randolph (D-

WV) to discharge the plan from the slumbering McClellan committee and get it

immediately to a Senate vote. According to Weaver, this was “going around the

committee” and constituted “the great tactical mistake.”150 It looked like “a grab for

power” from the aggressive, brazen, young, Kennedyites, and the old established

leadership of the Senate quickly turned against the White House. 205 When the Senate voted on Randolph’s motion, everybody came back including some

who might have paired a vote or have “gone fishing” to help Kennedy. The senior

leadership was mad. By a vote of 58 to 42, the Senate voted on February 20, not to

discharge the plan from the GOC, leaving the House clear to vote the next day as the

chamber that would kill the plan.151 That the House did 264 to 150 on February 21,

1962, with 414 of 435 members present, many now saying that since the Senate voted the discharge down, they were only going through the motions.152 The Senate got away with

only voting on a discharge and House members used the prior Senate vote as an excuse.

Few were branded either racist or anti-urban and the real loser was Kennedy.

Significant fallout came from the death of DUAH. Many blamed Mansfield, some

saying it was a very serious mistake to take LBJ out of the Senate and rely on the weaker

Montana Democrat. However, it was Kennedy’s mishandling of the legislation, not

Mansfield, which doomed DUAH. Lee White called it “a crushing defeat.” Concerning

Weaver, White thought Kennedy should have responded when asked, with “we never build agencies before we have them” and “we never give names for jobs that have yet to

be created,” but Kennedy did not.153 Others felt the racial issue was so overwhelming, that unless Kennedy took a series of steps to clarify and attack the problem straight forward, making civil rights a moral issue, his whole legislative program “will go down the drain.”154

Kennedy shouldered most of the blame saying, “I played it too cute.” and “It was so

obvious it made them mad.” Later at a press conference, he said “There isn’t going to be

one now, [an urban department] but there’s going to be sooner or later…[we] will get

along all right; it is the people in the cities who have been defeated.”155 Privately, 206 Kennedy told his brother Robert that it had not been well handled.156 He blamed the

party leadership. Yet in his role as party leader, he failed to bring the Democratic

dissidents in line and in the words of William E. Leuchtenburg was “much too easily

awed by them, too unwilling to risk his prestige.”157 Kennedy remained a timid prisoner

of his own ego regarding Democrats in Congress.

Several members of HHFA considered leaving, prepared to leave, or left as a result of

DUAH’s defeat. Neil J. Hardy prepared to leave as FHA Commissioner and would do

so, for a job with the Ford Foundation. He would be replaced by Phillip N.

Brownstein.158 After DUAH’s defeat, Jack Conway began to dust off his resume and when he eventually left, that significantly hurt HHFA.159 Regarding urban issues, some of Kennedy’s staff cynically remarked he had achieved the maximum political mileage with African-Americans by making Weaver the HHFA administrator and DUAH nominee.160

On the other hand, Kennedy was not quite ready to concede DUAH. He wanted to

see what the 1962 off-year elections would bring and as late as mid summer 1962,

Sorensen was asking him what kind of legislative priority DUAH should receive.161

Enjoying immense personal popularity with voters, by late October Kennedy wanted to

translate that into the fall victories. However, that popular support came from his

perceived strong leadership during the Cuban missile crisis, and the fact that Americans

had not been blown to bits in a nuclear exchange, rather than on the strength of his

domestic program.

Hopes were high in early November 1962. Ted Sorensen worked up a nice matrix

which he sent to the press, putting a bright spin to any electoral outcome. His figures 207 revealed that in the Senate since World War I, the party in power had lost an average of

7.5 Senate seats in every mid term election except 1934.162 All polling data indicated the

Democrats would do better than that and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall closely

watching local polls, wrote to Kennedy that he expected the Democrats to gain one or

two Senate seats and twelve to sixteen House.163 Democratic pollster Louis Harris

rejoiced “in the change in the voters temper and mood” since Labor Day164 to sizeable

Kennedy majorities in most voting categories.165

Twenty “swing” districts in the House were key and Kennedy hammered the

Republicans, but not the maverick Democrats, for their votes on DUAH.166 The White

House also continued to bombard the press with reams of documentation on how well

Kennedy had done with the 87th Congress.167 All this had some effect, because when the

voting took place, Kennedy picked up four Senate seats and lost only two House ones.

The 88th Congress would have 258 House Democrats to 176 Republicans, and 68 Senate

Democrats to 32 Republicans.168

But Kennedy’s strategy not to punish the dissident Democrats, left too many of them

in office for DUAH. In the Senate, fifty who voted against the reorganization plan

remained as did thirty-seven who voted for it, with thirteen new members joining. Of

those thirteen, only nine could be considered favorable toward DUAH. By the best

House count, the administration still fell 47 votes short. Remaining were 236 who had

opposed the plan, plus 27 fresh House members who entered with “attitudes generally

unfavorable to such legislation.” This meant that only 170 members of the House could

be considered favorable to DUAH. The death knell for the urban department under JFK

had sounded. 208 As a result of DUAH’s demise and from continuous civil rights group pressure after

the election and Congressional adjournment, very quietly one evening over Thanksgiving

1962, Kennedy issued a limited executive order banning racial discrimination in housing,

which will be discussed later. Doing that, “in view of the Southern reaction…any

significant volume of [Southern] support would be highly unlikely.”169

But clearly, Kennedy intended to bring DUAH up again in 1964. The matter was kept

visible in Congress and in early 1963, H.R. 5955 was introduced, to create a Department

of Urban Development and Housing and went to Congressman Dawson’s House GOC.170

Another bill, H.R. 4067, to establish a Department of Urban Affairs was introduced and

after reading, went there as well.171 In January 1963, Senator Muskie held hearings with

Weaver testifying on the government’s role in addressing urban problems and concluded

an urban department was needed.172

In anticipation of a second Kennedy term, strong initiatives were prepared to create

an urban department. In “a New Basis for Action in 1964” Kennedy proposed “a general

housing and urban bill that would in itself command broad support….” The 1964

Democratic platform and State of the Union Address were prepared to support an urban

department. Kennedy proposed holding a White House Conference on urban affairs in

1963 to showcase the subject173 and the administration also intended to generate interest

very directly. One suggested idea consisted of “each Cabinet Officer and Key Agency

Head” designating a “top assistant to be available to work - 100% of the time if necessary

- on political programs.” This meant “the individual selected must be relieved from other

duties so as to be completely free for this purpose.” So much for the Hatch Act. In urban

matters, selected “Housing and Cabinet Officers [were asked] to hit up to forty cities this 209 Fall (1963) to talk on programs for each city and the suburban areas,” and “to push the cause of the President and the Administration.”174 But for Kennedy, the trip to Dallas

would end this.

Two years later on August 10, 1965 in the White House Rose Garden, President

Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 89-117, the Housing and Urban Development Act

of 1965 that created the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In a very well attended ceremony involving 150 guests as well as Senator Sparkman and

Congressman Rains, LBJ accomplished what Kennedy had been unable to do, saying,

“this legislation represents the single most important breakthrough in the last forty years.”175 One reason Johnson succeeded came from his 1964 landslide and his coalition

building. LBJ’s coalition was so strong he even had Congress put the “declaration” back into the HUD bill.176 The other came from how carefully he handled Weaver’s

appointment. Although he treated Weaver with little compassion or courtesy in the process, nonetheless he did appoint him the first HUD Secretary but not until January 18,

1966.177

What Johnson signed in August 1965 was not the same as DUAH. He built a

cohesive department, with activities regrouped on a problem solving basis, centralizing

everything, while preserving FHA’s name, and earmarked by quicker field level decision

making with improved intra and inter agency relations. This HUD organization would

work more effectively than DUAH because success would come from the

undersecretaries who ran programs and not specific agencies. Johnson was unafraid to

propose sweeping departmental changes and had the savvy and IOUs to get it past

Congress. He even got the name right.178 210 During the same week as Johnson signed HUD into law, at Arlington National

Cemetery, final plans were completed to change Kennedy’s gravesite into a permanent memorial, marked by an edifice and the eternal flame. On the one hand, America’s cities finally had a seat at the cabinet table. On the other, the president who came closest to getting one but did not, would have his memorial. That week in 1965 was thus one of contrast, between triumph and tragedy, for a nation about to witness so much more before the 1960s receded into the pages of history.

211

End Notes to Chapter Five

1. Urban Affairs Speech, 1, January 30, 1962, Urban Affairs Message 1/30/62 (2/1/62-2/6/62) White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 18, The John F. Kennedy Library.

2. Memo for Heads of Departments and Agencies, 1, December 22, 1961, Civil Service Commission, Records Group 207, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 59, National Archives and Records Administration. Also see Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 325, 328 who touches on some of this controversy as well.

3. Ibid., 2.

4. Ibid., 2, 3.

5. Ibid., 4.

6. Recent Developments in Organization of Federal Executive Board, 2, January 18, 1962, Federal Executive Boards, WHSF, Lee C. White,18, TJFKL.

7. Letter to Dr. Robert C. Weaver from Jack Squire, Editor, 1, 2, March 23, 1961, General Correspondence G-L, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 62, NARA: Memo to Mr. Weaver from Fred A. Forbes with Press Clippings, June 9, 1961, Public Affairs (Memos), RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 66, NARA.

8. Letter to Mr. Roy Wilkins from Robert C. Weaver with Attachments from February 10, 1961, 1, November 29, 1961, Subject Files NAACP, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 69, NARA.

9. Oral Interview of Milton P. Semer by William McHugh, 37, September 10, 1968, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, TJFKL.

10. Ibid., 43. Mr. Semer scratched out “as a Negro grew in,” but by holding the original to the light the phrase is clearly visible. It also is in full context with the conversation of the interview from pages 40-44.

11. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 2, 7, 9, 11, IV, Reel 1, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

12. Letter from Douglas E. Chaffin, Division of Personnel HHFA to Horace B. Bazan with Attachments, 1-4, June 30, 1961, Adm. Agency Personnel, Jan. 1-Jun. 30, 1961, RG 212 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA; Letter from Jack Conway to Robert Weaver, Regarding Supergrades with Attachments, 1-10, September 27, 1961, Adm. Agency Personnel, 1961, July 1 - Dec. 31, 1961, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, NARA.

13. Statistics from Quarterly Summary of Manpower Programs in the Federal Departments and Agencies, 1, June 30, 1961, Admin. Policy Memos, 1-1 to 12-31, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

14. John H. Mollenkopf, The Contested City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 80-83.

15. Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics 1945-1990 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 102, 107.

16. Senate Votes on Invoking Cloture Rule, Undated, Legislative Files 1960, President’s Office Files, 49, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 325, 334, 335 on Senate “protocol.”

17. Legislative Notes, 1-3, January 3-5, 1961, Legislative Files, 1/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

18. Senate Support for Key Presidential Programs, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1-6, October 1961, Legislative Files 10/61, POF, 50, TJFKL.

19. Degree of Republican Opposition on Key Issues, United States Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1-4, Undated, Legislative Files 11/62, POF, 52, TJFKL.

20. Gertrude Sipperly Fish, ed., The Story of Housing (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1979), 425.

21. Donald C. Lord, John F. Kennedy: The Politics of Confrontation and Conciliation (New York: Barron’s, 1977), 1-10.

22. House Support for Key Presidential Programs, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1-9, October 1961, Legislative Meetings 1961 - 10/2/61 to 10/10/61, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL.

23. Ibid., 7-10.

24. House of Representatives, 87th Congress 1st Session, Undated, 1-3, Legislative Files 11/62, POF, 52, TJFKL.

25. A Reminder of the Mathematical Problem, Accomplishments: Congressional Action 1/11/62 to 5/24/62, 1-5, Undated, Legislative Files, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL. 213

26. Oral Interview of Jack T. Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 61, April 10, 1972, KLOHP, TJFKL.

27. Kennedy’s First Year: Percentage Approving His Handling of Job, 1, 2, January 20, 1962, Polls - General Polls - Race for U. S. Senator Indiana, POF, 105, TJFKL.

28. Ibid., 1-4.

29. List of Major Bills Approved During 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1-5, September 9, 1961, Legislative Files 9-61, POF, 50, TJFKL.

30. Memo from Kathy Catlett to Larry O’Brien, 1-5, May 19, 1961, Legislative Files 5/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

31. Republican National Committee - Battle Line, 1-3, September 21, 1961, Legislative Meetings 1961 - 8/16/61 to 9/29/61, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL; Memo for the President from Larry O’Brien with attachments, 1-5, October 10, 1961, Legislative Files 10/61,POF, 50, TJFKL.

32. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Wood by John F. Stewart, 12, January 29, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 332.

33. Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Gwirtzman, 162-166, April 9, 1970, KLOHP, TJFKL.

34. Coffee Hour List, 1, September 12, 1961, Legislative Files 9/61, POF, 50, TJFKL.

35. Mark J. Green, James M. Fellous, David R. Zwick, Ralph Nader’s Congressional Project: Who Runs Congress? (New York: Bantam, 1972), 194.

36. John Hellman, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (New York: Columbia, 1997), X.

37. John Higham, Send These To Me: Immigrants in Urban America, Revised Edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 203.

38. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 266.

39. Robert E. Gilbert, “John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights for Black Americans” Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, No. 3 (1982): 388.

40. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall by Larry J. Hackman, 30-34, January 19, 1970, KLOHP, TJFKL.

214 41. Sandel, Democracy, 265-267; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 330, 332.

42. Letter to John F. Kennedy from Albert C. Cole, 1-8, July 31, 1956, Department of Urban Affairs - (File #2), RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 94, NARA.

43. Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs to President-Elect John F. Kennedy, 6-10, December 30, 1960, Reports and General Publications, TJFKL.

44. Report…Task Force, 70-73, TJFKL.

45. Ibid., 14-22; Name of New Department, 1, 2, May 24, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 325.

46. Memo to All Cabinet Officials and Agency Heads from Fredrick G. Dutton, 1, February 4, 1961, Legislative Files 1961-1964, Legislative Meetings 1961, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL.

47. President’s Message on Housing and Community Development, 1, 2, March 9, 1961, Legislative Files 1961-1964, Memos Re: Legislation 1962, 1/1/62-5/24/62, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

48. Memo to John F. Kennedy on Cabinet Department: Some Things to Keep in Mind, from Richard E. Neustadt, 1, 2, November 3, 1960, Staff Memoranda: Hopkins - Rostow, Neustadt, Richard, POF, 64, TJFKL.

49. Oral Interview, Marshall by Hackman, 56, 57.

50. Field Structure of the Department, 1, Undated, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

51. Series of Position Reports on structuring DUAH, fifty pages in total with 14 sections, 46-50, May 24, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

52. Ibid., 23, 24, 25, 30, 31.

53. Ibid., 25, 26.

54. Ibid., 9.

55. Ibid., 1, 2, 30, 31, 33, 37-40.

56. Ibid., 16, 22, 32.

215 57. Memo to President Kennedy from David E. Bell, 1-3, April 17, 1961, Legislative Files - Department of Urban Affairs, 4/61-6/61, WHSF, Myer Feldman, 29, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 326, 329, 330.

58. Memo to Lee C. White from Phillip S. Hughes, 1, July 27, 1961, DUA, 6/3/59 - 7/17/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Milton P. Semer, 1-3, July 25, 1961, DUA, 6/3/59 - 7/17/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

59. HR 6433, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1-3, April 18, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

60. Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 11, IV, Reel 1.

61. Oral Interview of Senator Joseph S. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, December 16, 1965, 73, KLOHP, TJFKL.

62. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 330.

63. Transmittal Letter to Mr. Speaker from President Kennedy, 1, 2, April 18, 1961, Legislative Files - Department of Urban Affairs 4/61-6/61, WHSF, Myer Feldman, 29, TJFKL.

64. Memo to Claude DeSantels from Milton P. Semer with Attachments, 1, 2, August 14, 1961, DUA 8/14/61-5/23/63, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

65. House Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, Department of Urban Affairs and Housing Hearings on HR 6433, 87th Congress, 1st Session, May 24, 1961, 1, 2, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

66. Ibid., 6-9.

67. Ibid., 12-22.

68. Ibid., 22-26.

69. Ibid., 86-196.

70. House Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, Department of Urban Affairs and Housing, Hearings on HR6433, 87th Congress, 1st Session, June 7, 1961, 1-4, Department of Urban Affairs RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

71. Letter to William F. McKenna, National Association of Mutual Savings Banks, from Robert C. Weaver, 3, June 20, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA. 216

72. Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 107.

73. Letter to William L. Dawson from Robert C. Weaver, 1, May 18, 1961, Bureau of the Budget Jan.1-June 30, 1961, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58 NARA.

74. Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 114.

75. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 2, April 28, Bureau of the Budget June 1 - June 30 1961, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

76. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Nicolas A. Garcia, 1, April 9, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

77. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 328.

78. Legislative Priorities List, 1, February 2, 1961, Legislative Files, 2/1-20/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

79. Possible Items to Discuss with Legislative Leaders, 1, April 18, 1961, Legislative Files 4/18-28/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

80. White House Legislative Notes Number 132, 1, August 1, 1961, Legislative Files, 8/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

81. White House Legislative Notes Number 147, 1, August 23, 1961, Legislative Files, 8/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

82. HR 8429, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1, 2, August 1, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, 70, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA; Report of the Committee on Government Operations on HR 8429, 1, 2, August 28, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

83. HR 8429, 87th, 1st, 1.

84. Report of the GOC on HR 8429, 2, 3, 6.

85. HR 8429, 87th, 1st, 4, 5, 6.

86. Memo to the President from Larry O’Brien, 1, January 15, 1962, Legislative Files, 1/62, POF, 50, TJFKL.

217 87. Confidential Transmittal Slip and Memo to Milton P. Semer from Lee C. White with Attachments, 1-3, July 15, 1961, Urban Affairs, Department of, 6/3/59-7/17/61, WSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to John McClellan from William Dawson, 1, June 28, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 70, NARA.

88. Memo to Lee C. White from Milton P. Semer, 1, August 23, 1961, Urban Affairs, Department of, 8/14/61-5/23/63, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

89. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 324, 325.

90. Memo for the President from Myer Feldman, 1, 2, April 14, 1961, Legislative Files 4/3-17/61, POF, 49, TJFKL.

91. Memo to McClellan from Dawson, 1, June 28, 1961, RCW, 70, NARA.

92. List of Committee Assignments of the Senate of the United States for the 87th Congress, 3, February 5, 1962, Memos-RE: Legislation 1962, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

93. Memo to the President of the Senate from Hubert H. Humphrey, 1, May 23, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

94. Letter from Frank Bane to John L. McClellan, 1-5, June 8, 1961, Urban Affairs, Department of, 6/3/59-7/17/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

95. Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, Department of Urban Affairs and Housing, Hearings on S. 1633, 87th Congress, 1st Session, June 21, 1961, 1-27, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, 70, NARA.

96. Ibid., 27-35.

97. Statement of David E. Bell, 16, June 21, 1961, Urban Affairs Message, 7/5/57- 9/6/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

98. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver with Attachments, 1, 2, June 28, 1961, Bureau of the Budget Jan. 1-Jun 30, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA.

99. Senate Subcommittee Hearings on S. 1633, June 21, 1961, 1, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

100. Ibid., 65-234.

101. Ibid., 64. 218

102. Ibid., 230; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 328.

103. Ibid., 105; Senate…1633, 105.

104. HHFA Report on Hearings on S. 1633 1, June 22, 1961 and HHFA Report on the Hearings on S. 1633, 1, 2, June 23, 1961, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA.

105. Senate Committee on Government Operations, The Department of Urban Affairs and Housing S. 1633 Report, Prepared by Senator Edmund Muskie, 87th Congress, 1st Session, September 6, 1961, Calendar 861, Report No. 879, 10, Urban Affairs Message, 7/5/57-9/6/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

106. Senate Committee on Government Operations, The Department of Urban Affairs and Housing, S. 1633, A Bill, 87th Congress, 1st Session, July 25, 1961, 2, 3, 4, DUA 6/3/59-7/17/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, JFKL; Memo for Lee C. White from Milton P. Semer, 2, July 25, 1961, DUA 6/3/59-7/17/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

107. GOC, S. 1633, Report 879, 11; Ibid., White, Semer, 2.

108. Memo to White from Hughes, 1, July 27, 1961, WHSF, White, 18.

109. Memo to White from Semer, 3, July 25, 1961, WHSF, White, 18.

110. Short description of Debate over DUAH, 7, undated, Legislative Files, 1961- 1964, Legislative Meetings 1961, 7/24/61, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL.

111. Summary of Senate Action to De Sautels from Milton P. Semer, 1, August 14, 1961, DUA 8/14/61-5/23/63, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

112. Status of Legislative Items Recommended by the President from Larry O’Brien, 1, July 24, 1961, Legislative Files 1961-1964, Legislative Meetings 1961, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL; Memo to White from Semer, 6, July 25, 1961, WHSF, White, 18, TJFKL.

113. GOC, S. 1633, Report 879, 24-30.

114. Oral Interview, Weaver by Moynihan, 112.

115. Story by Jack Bell on AP Wire, 1, September 27, 1961, Legislative Meetings 1961 - 8/16/51 -9/29/61, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 57, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 330-332.

116. Memo to Myer Feldman from James M. Landis, 1, April 29, 1961, Legislative File 4/61-6/61, WHSF, Myer Feldman, 29, TJFKL; Maria E. Schieda, “John F. Kennedy: 219 Executive Orders by Date and Title,” http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents, August 8, 1997.

117. Note to Lee C. White from Milton P. Semer on Reorganization Plans with Attachments, 8, February 6, 1962, Urban Affairs Message 2/1/62-2/6/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

118. Legislative Provisions for Disapproval of Reorganization Plan, 1, 2, Undated, Legislative Files - 1/63, POF, 52, TJFK; Memo to M. Feldman from Richard E. Neustadt with Attachments, 2, April 17, 1961, Legislative Files - 4/61-6/61, WHSF, Myer Feldman, 29, TJFKL.

119. Memo to David Bell from James M. Landis, 1, 2, April 10, 1961, Legislative Files - 4/61-6/61, WHSF, Myer Feldman, 29, TJFKL.

120. Memo to the President from Myer Feldman on Preparing Presidential Transmittal Messages on Reorganization Plans with Attachments, 1, 2, April 6, 1961, Urban Affairs Message 7/5/57-9/6/61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

121. Ibid., 3, 4.

122. Ibid., 5, 6.

123. Memo to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 1, December 29, 1961, Bureau of the Budget - July 1- Dec 31, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, NARA; Legislative Items Recommended by the President, 1, February 5, 1962, Legislative Meetings - 1962 - 1/16/62-2/20/62, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Dave Bell, 1, January 24, 1962, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

124. Memo to Ted Sorensen from Dave Bell regarding the Plan versus the Bill, 1, 1/30/62, Urban Affairs Message - 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

125. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 333; Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row Publishers,1965), 418; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Wayne Phillips on Excerpts from Comments by Governor Rockefeller, 1-6, February 14, 1962, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA; Memo to Mike Feldman from M. P. Semer, Draft JFK Response, 1-6, February 7, 1962, Legislative Files, Urban Affairs Folder 11-1-60 to 6-62, WHSF, Meyer Feldman, 20, TJFKL.

126. Address of the President of the United States before a Joint Session of the Senate and the House Relative to the State of the Union, 4, January 11, 1962, State of the Union Message - Administrators Files, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, 70, NARA.

127. Memo to Sorensen from Bell, 3, 1/30/62, TJFKL; The White House Chronology, 1, January 30, 1962, Legislative Files, 1/62, POF, 50, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 220 332, 333; Letter and Press Clippings to Robert C. Weaver from C. R. Graham, 3, 4, February 2, 1962, Department of Urban Affairs (#2 File), RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, 94, NARA.

128. Memo to David Bell from Ted Sorensen, 1, 8, 1/30/62, TJFKL; Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1962, Transmittal Message from the President of the United States, 3, 4, 5, January 30, 1962, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207, HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, 70, NARA.

129. Statement on Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1962, Undated, Department of Urban Affairs (#2 File), 1962, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 94, NARA; Press Release of the Reorganization Plan, 2, January 30, 1962, Legislative Files 1/62, POF, 50, TJFKL.

130. Reasons for Not Specifying Internal Organization of the Department in the Bill, 1, Undated, Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 70, NARA; Memo to Lee C. White from Milt Semer, 1, 2, January 26, 1962, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Milton Semer from Lee C. White, 1, 2, January 6, 1962, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

131. Memo to Lee C. White on effort of Reorganization Plan on Authorized Costs of Top Level Positions, 1, 2, January 6, 1962, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White,18, TJFKL.

132. Packet of Information on Reorganization Plan, 18 pps., January 26, 1962, Department of Urban Affairs (#2 Files), RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 94, NARA.

133. The Bureau of National Affairs, “The Hot Urban Issue Will be Decided by Big City Republicans,” BNA’s Report for the Business Executive, (February 1, 1962): 1, 2, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 329.

134. Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1962, 6, January 30, 1962, Legislative Files, 1/62, POF, 50, TJFKL.

135. Legislative Highlights, 1, January 15, 1962, Legislative Files 1162, POF, 50, TJFKL.

136. Arthur Krock, “Kennedy’s Gamble,” New York Times, Sunday, January 28, 1962, Legislative Files 2/62, POF, 50, TJFKL.

137. Letter to Weaver from Graham, 3, 4, February 2, 1962, Weaver, 94.

221 138. Federal Legislative Matters Affecting Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1, February 2, 1962, Urban Affairs Message 2-1-62/2-6-62, WHSF, Lee C. White 18, TJFKL.

139. Oral Interview, Semer by McHugh, 66, 68.

140. M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, HUD: Successes, Failures, and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview, 1978), 18; James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1991), 104; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 333-335.

141. Alma Rene Williams, “Robert C. Weaver: From The Black Cabinet to The President’s Cabinet” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1978), 134.

142. Federal Legislative Matters, 2 Addendum, 2/5/62.

143. Ibid., 3.

144. Oral Interview of Conway by Hackman, 99.

145. Federal Legislative Matters, 1, 2/5/62.

146. Ibid., 2, 3, 4; Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 114.

147. Federal Legislative Matters, 1-3, 2/5/62.

148. House Count and Estimate, 1, 2, 1/30/62, Legislative Files, White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL, Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 334.

149. U.S. Congress, “Comments from Representative John W. Byrnes (R-WI),” The Congressional Record-House, 860, January 25, 1962, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62 - (2/1/62-2/6/62), WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

150. Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 110-126.

151. Senate Resolution 288, Disapproving Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1962, 1, 2/20/62, Staff Memoranda (Hopkins-Rostow) O’Brien, Lawrence - 2/1/62-3/26/62, POF, 64, TJFKL; Urban Affairs Department, 1, 2/21/62, Legislative Files, 62, 1-11-62 to 8-21- 62, POF, 51, TJFKL.

152. Department of Urban Affairs Rejection, 1, 2/21/62, Legislative Files 6, 2/1-20/62, POF, 49, TJFKL; Department of Urban Affairs, 1, Legislative Files 5, 1-18-62 to 5-11- 62, POF, 50, TJFKL; House Resolution 530 Disapproving Reorganization Plan No. 1, Roll Call Vote, 1, Undated, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

222 153. Oral Interview, White by Gwirtzman,166-168; Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis since 1930 (New York: Universe Books, 1973), 146.

154. Memo for the President from Lee C. White, 4, November 13, 1962, HU 5-11-61 - 11-15-61, WHCF, 358, TJFKL; Memo, Civil Rights Program, Undated, Legislative Files, 3/21-31/62, POF, 50, TJFKL.

155. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 335.

156. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, ed., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 347.

157. William E. Leuchtenburg, “John F. Kennedy: A Ten-Year Retrospect,” Paper Delivered at the Organization of American Historians, 17, April 17, 1974.

158. Letter regarding Hardy replacement by Brownstein, 1, Undated, FHA Policy Memos, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 66, NARA.

159. Oral Interview of Conway by Hackman, 65-69.

160. Keith, Politics…Housing, 146, 147.

161. Memo for the President from Theodore C. Sorensen, 1, June 11, 1962, Memos RE: Legislation 1962, 6/11/62, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

162. Memo on Off-Year Elections, 1, 2, November 11, 1962, Staff Memoranda (Sorensen - Wofford), Sorensen, Theodore, 1961-1963, POF, 67, TJFKL.

163. Memo to Ted Sorensen from Stewart Udall with Attachments, 1, 5, Undated, Subject Files 1961-1964, Interior Department, WHSF, Theodore Sorensen, 35, TJFKL.

164. Memo to the President from Lou Harris, 1-4, October 4, 1962, Polls - General Polls, (Race for U.S. Senator, Indiana), POF, 105, TJFKL.

165. Memo for the President from Henry H. Wilson, Jr., 1-4, September 14, 1962, Legislative Files 9/4-14/62, POF, 52, TJFKL.

166. Position Paper on the Republicans, 1-5, Undated, Legislative Files, 4/63, POF, 53, TJFKL.

167. Memo to Sorensen from Larry O’Brien, 1-12, September 10, 1962, Staff Memoranda - Hopkins-Rostow, O’Brien, Lawrence, 9/62-11/63, POF, 64, TJFKL.

168. Cabell Phillips, “Kennedy Hints He is Confident of Success in New Congress,” New York Times, November 20, 1962, John F. Kennedy Library, The President Informs 223 The People: A Learning program on Presidential Press Conferences, Unit 5, (Waltham: John F. Kennedy Library, 1974), 13.

169. Memo to Lee C. White from Milton Semer, 4, January 8, 1963, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Weaver, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 108, NARA.

170. Memo for the President from Lee C. White, 1, March 14, 1963, Staff Memoranda, (Sorensen-Wofford) White, Lee C. 1961-1963, POF, 67, TJFKL; Memo to Sorensen from Phillip S. Hughes, 1, Undated, Memos RE: Legislation 1962, Legislative Files 1961-1964, WHSF, Theodore C. Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

171. HR 4067 - Department of Urban Affairs, 1, January 1, 1963, Legislative Files, 1/63, POF, 52, TJFKL.

172. Memo to Paul Southwick from Milton Semper, 1, October 16, 1963, Accomplishment of the Kennedy Administration, Roll #1, HHFA Microfilms, TJFKL.

173. Memo to White from Semer, 5, January 8, 1963, Weaver, 108, NARA.

174. Meeting with Cabinet Officers and Key Administration Officials, 1, Undated, Staff Memoranda (Hopkins- Rostow), Reardon, Timothy, Jr., 1963, POF, 64, TJFKL.

175. Remarks of the President at the Signing Ceremony of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, Public Law 89-117, 1-3, August 10, 1965, Department Housing and Urban Development, Weaver, RG 207 HUD, SCF, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 108, NARA.

176. McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, 15.

177. Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973 (New York: Oxford, 1998), 228. 229.

178. Dwight A. Ink, “Establishing the New Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Public Administration Review 27, No.3 (1967): 224-228.

224

CHAPTER VI

THE BUDGET WARS AND HHFA

JFK “…you’d hate to shoot this budget and then find that you didn’t get the tax bill.” Dillon “…then you’d have to come in with a great supplemental.” 1 JFK “Yeah. That’s no good. Dichotomies filled John F. Kennedy’s “economic policy” for his urban program.

Kennedy’s approach to a national macro economic policy stands as example of how to

inch piecemeal through a complicated issue without quite succeeding. He came to office

with neither a sophisticated nor systematic concept of compensatory fiscal policy.2

Although accomplishing some of his basic goals he left victims behind, not the least of

which was the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA).

Victim implies several things. A gap developed between what Kennedy presented as

his vision for urban America, versus what he intended to fund. This became particularly

poignant when considering his clear 1960 campaign pledge to find a “workable solution

to the problems of urban America.” Secondly, JFK funded popular programs heavily but

left some of the controversial ones, like low-income housing and low-income housing

demonstration programs to nearly expire. Thirdly, as Weaver saw it, HHFA’s operating

budget and funding for certain “poverty related” programs, always remained short of

requirements, except in FY 64 which was an election year. Kennedy also failed to

synchronize budget policy to HHFA’s needs, particularly when HHFA required

significant operating increases to overcome backlogs. Because by then, JFK’s interest

had drifted toward attempting to balance the budget to appease a skeptical Congress, so 225

he could obtain a tax cut in 1963, to please voters in 1964. HHFA became a victim

and so did the cities.

Kennedy came to office relatively unprepared for bold economic leadership. The

new president demonstrated significant naivete, stating he wanted to reduce

unemployment from 8.1% to 4% through government spending while still balancing the

budget, a requirement for obtaining his tax cut. This would be extremely hard to

accomplish and could only be done by growing the GNP.

To grow the GNP, potential output had to be converted into real output.3 Kennedy’s

Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) believed annual production stood about $50 billion short of what would be needed to grow the GNP and Kennedy had to do four things.4

Through robust government spending he hoped to foster like kind private investment, increasing both production and demand.5 Reducing unemployment should improve the

economic quality of life for the middle class.6 Thirdly, he needed programs that actually

reduced poverty. Lastly, Kennedy sought to increase trade and along with some budget

and tax moves, to reduce serious “fiscal drag” on the economy.7

Kennedy started slowly, initially simply continuing Ike’s programs and rapidly

spending the former president’s carry over money. Later, prompted by his advisors, he

simultaneously increased spending for both military and “human resources.” Yet his

effort remained piecemeal and he imposed constraints, within each budget year on the

“domestic” side. In “Social” programs, the resulting financial “New Frontier” actually

differed little from Eisenhower’s regarding domestic spending. Kennedy’s overall

budget increases during his three fiscal years 1961-1964 amounted to $17.3 billion,

resulting in a huge $12.6 billion covering defense and the space programs plus interest, 226

and $4.7 billion earmarked for all remaining domestic programs. In comparison, in

Ike’s last three fiscal years 1958-1961, his overall budget increases totaled $10.0 billion, with $5.3 billion for defense, space and interest, and $4.8 billion for all remaining programs. Thus, Eisenhower’s increases were slightly more for all domestic programs in his last three years than JFK’s were in his only three.8 Kennedy targeted most of his

money for the “urban renewal” portion of his domestic urban program, elevating the

national debt along the way, but this did not do much to improve the problems of the

“social city.”

Continued deficit budgets since World War II began to accelerate in the 1960s as

“presidents and Congresses, cheered on by fashionable economists of the hour…made

deliberate decisions to accumulate vast national debt.” Continuing this would cause a

problem later when the debt grew faster than the GNP, and the cost of servicing the debt

expanded more rapidly than federal income.9 Further, excessive government borrowing

to finance the national debt eventually meant higher interest rates and lower private

profits, prompting higher prices and inflation.

Regarding Kennedy’s monetary policy, he became a captive of the past and did little

to move beyond it. The United States accumulated most of the world’s supply of gold

during World War II but paid the price for that in the 1960s. The 1944 Bretton Woods

agreement created a 44 nation gold exchange standard among major countries with the

dollar as the international currency reserve. Convertible to gold upon demand at $35 an ounce, by 1960, many nations began converting surplus dollars into gold that at home became known as the “gold drain.”10 Many countries also feared Kennedy would become a “soft money” president. 227

Kennedy wanted to boost trust among foreign leaders in the American economy, in part to cause them to stop converting dollars. To do this, he held firm on not devaluing

the dollar, which placated “soft money” fears in some foreign capitols, but did not slow

the “gold drain.”11 In his attempt to stabilize the dollar, he refused to reduce short-term

interest rates, reducing long term ones instead as a “growth” measure. However, this did

not help “grow” the cities in the human dimension. He also advanced a weak plan to

reform the international monetary system, but this would only be accomplished well after

his administration ended.12

In early spring 1962, Kennedy’s CEA released a plan to “stabilize” the domestic

economy. JFK implemented weak voluntary wage-price guideposts as an anti-

inflationary step to show he was “serious” about controlling inflation at home.13 Sadly, the guideposts did little to stabilize prices and wages, particularly in the big domestic housing construction market, and by publicly singling out some steel producers as violators, he only further irritated big business.

Another aspect of JFK’s plan for strengthening the American economy was expanded trade. His Trade Expansion Act (TEA) finally passed Congress in 1962, but contributed only slightly to economic growth. Under Kennedy and TEA, the American economy slowly grew, only expanding exports from 5% of the GNP in 1960 to 6.2% of the GNP by 1965, while imports remained constant during the same period at 4%.14 His advisors

had hoped for bigger numbers.

To understand the importance of Kennedy’s economic advisors, two points must be

considered. First, JFK and his advisors were apostles of John Maynard Keynes,

celebrated British economist, who wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest 228

in 1936. They were called “neo-Keynesianists” because they selectively

borrowed from Keynes what they wanted.15 Most of Kennedy’s economic advisors had

been “mesmerized” by Keynes and represented a solid “group think.”16

Since JFK ran the White House through Theodore C. Sorensen, but without a formal

chief of staff and held few cabinet meetings, his economic advisors were doubly

important.17 They not only shaped economic policy but also were critical to the success

of his entire presidency as they collectively spread their influence to all three executive

levels--- the cabinet, sub-cabinet and executive staffs of the informal Kennedy White

House.

C. Douglas Dillon, filling the position of secretary of the treasury, became a pillar of

support for Kennedy and a great departmental in-fighter for his wishes.18 Selected to

appease Humphrey Democrats, Walter Heller as chair of the CEA served as the second

most influential appointee from Minnesota. As secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman

remained the first. David E. Bell, one of fourteen Harvard graduates in important jobs,

headed the bureau of the budget (BOB). Kennedy considered Bell a confidant, which later hurt Weaver and HHFA. Yet in Bell’s defense he was always a strong Weaver

supporter, possessed unquestionable competence, and maintained good relations with the

HHFA chief even after Bell left the bureau in 1963 to head the agency for international

development (AID). He also served as a close personal advisor to Weaver on the DUAH

legislation.19 But as will be discussed, Bell had to implement some serious restrictions on

HHFA’s budget, and did so.

Dillon, Heller and Bell formed Kennedy’s “troika” of closest economic influencers,

with Bell being extremely important regarding urban America. When the conservative 229

William McChesney Martin, chairman of the federal reserve joined as a fourth, this

group became known as the “quadriad.” Over time, the more liberal under secretary of the treasury Robert V. Roosa, Kennedy’s link to the federal reserve, replaced Martin.

Within Heller’s CEA, Kennedy most frequently listened to James Tobin, Kermit

Gordon and Charles Schultze. John Kenneth Galbraith of Harvard, Seymour Harris of

Harvard and Paul Samuelson of MIT stood next in providing economic advice.20

Politically, Congressman Wilbur Mills (D-AK) regularly joined the inner circle and uniquely, Roger Blough, CEO of United States Steel, met with the president regularly after the “steel crisis.”21 Blough further served as an unwitting prop for JFK’s public relations campaign to court big business. The president also tried but failed to get other business people to join through his “ad hoc” Business Advisory Council, formed within the Department of Commerce. Yet Blough continued to visit the White House regularly.22 Secretary of labor Arthur Goldberg, attorney general Robert Kennedy,

secretary of health, education and welfare Abraham Ribicoff and secretary of commerce

Luther Hodges occasionally joined Kennedy’s economic inner circle. Advising over

budget issues constituted their most consistent duties, and housing and urban affairs

became a regular topic.

Regarding budget, Kennedy and his advisors wanted one “balanced in prosperity out

of a growing yield.” All budget matters were thus tightly controlled and had to be

reviewed through two major conduits. The executive office of the president - bureau of

the budget, referred to as “the bureau,” came first and posed the most problems for

Weaver. Failure to clear Bell meant an urban building measure went no further. 230

Congressional appropriations committees stood as the other judges of Weaver’s budget hopes.23 Congressman Albert Thomas (D-TX) who chaired the independent

offices subcommittee of the House committee on appropriations kept a close watch on

HHFA’s business in the lower chamber. Senator Warren Magnuson (D-MN) who

managed the independent offices appropriations subcommittee of the Senate

appropriations committee preformed similar duties in the other chamber. These two

committees could lessen amounts, change spending, adjust timelines, or all three. Either

could also greatly diminish an HHFA program because broad-based city money known as

“general revenue sharing” (GRS) came only later. Most budget requirements then

received separate individual hearings, by “choice” of the administration, which will be

discussed.24

Before examining the Kennedy urban budgets, there are several important

generalizations regarding what he spent money for and why. Foremost is that, Kennedy

spent outrageous sums of money on housing and urban financing annually, and

particularly in urban renewal. But, only a portion of that was seen directly in the HHFA

budget which contained most of the critical program money. That was because two other

funding sources, to be discussed, called “carry over money” and “public enterprise trust

fund” money consumed huge amounts of the total “urban and housing investment.” Both

remained “outside” the annual HHFA budget. Thus the real “sum” spent on housing and

urban affairs in any one given year, equaled the budget, plus carry over and public

enterprise trust fund money.

Carefully crafted Kennedy press releases stood as another nuance, which claimed

“that nearly $2.5 billion for new urban activity would be spent in 1963…a third greater 231

than the $1.8 billion for the preceding fiscal year (1962).” The assertions stood as

fact because they included some monies from “roll over” trust financing and some “carry

over” funding.25

As well, the huge amounts Kennedy actually spent for cities went to highly popular

programs. Many programs desperately needing financing to alleviate poverty in the

enduring ghetto, received little or no support and Kennedy certainly did not pressure

Congress to “legislate, appropriate and complete those programs.” Yet it was late

afternoon in the cities, many smoldering in anticipation of promised relief, and the flames

would be seen during the Johnson years. Kennedy also spent some of this money, simply

to “grow” the cities out of recession.

Further, and this is important, within the HHFA budget, Kennedy and Bell had

different funding priorities than Weaver and HHFA. Kennedy’s top six funding

preferences were: big developer urban renewal to stimulate the economy; expanded FHA

programs particularly for middle-income voters; maintenance of FNMA growth as an

economic stimulus; college housing; a greater emphasis on elderly housing due in part to

his “public” concern over his own aging parents, and his unique but quizzical desire to

fund urban open spaces (parks) to curb juvenile delinquency.

In contrast, Weaver’s funding priorities consisted of: more money for on-site urban

renewal housing; increased funds for those displaced if “on-site” was not increased;

expanded public housing; more staff money for the workable program for community

improvement; increased public facility loans for poorer communities; quicker FHA processing through increased staff; and most importantly, broad-based “open housing,” which would cost additional money to properly enforce. 232

Lastly, any study of the Kennedy urban budget must highlight that its design

included a four-year term of office. Regardless of internal budget planning, June 30,

1961 through June 30, 1965 constituted what Kennedy had in mind, but his presidency

ended on November 22, 1963. Consequently, a reasonable assessment of Kennedy’s

urban budget can be taken through FY 64 ending on June 30, 1964, because even though

LBJ changed everything, he did not do so immediately and that FY belonged to JFK. In

budget terms, Johnson’s first six months of 1964 were much the same as Kennedy’s

would have been. But commencing with FY 65, Johnson’s financing reflected new

directions, the creation of HUD, the war on poverty, model cities, and the great society.

Weaver’s budget issues began with Congress but concluded with Bell. Normally

Weaver would have confronted Bell first and Congress second, yet due to the large

number of bills advanced early in 1961, Weaver addressed Congressional financing

immediately. In a spirited exchange in early 1961, Milt Semer urged him to gain control

of the Congressional appropriations process. Yet in declining, Weaver placed his faith

instead in BOB. He initially trusted BOB, particularly after being told the bureau had a

cozy relationship with appropriations committees.26 This constituted his first mistake.

“Front door” versus “back door” financing remained “how” budget business

transpired with Congress. Front door financing meant that after legislation passed it went

through annual Congressional appropriations committee review. In this process, even

long-term funding commitments received yearly review. The ever popular college

housing, public facility loans, and big developer urban renewal generally sailed through, sometimes with even more money than originally requested. However, as a financing source, front door financing posed the greatest risk to controversial programs because of 233

its annual debate in open appropriations hearings. New and controversial programs as mass transit, low income housing demonstration grants and public housing remained in jeopardy via this means. The money to sustain them, even if legislated, was often subject to battles over “reappropriation” or “reauthorization,” frequently resulting in funding being cut or deferred to another year, in one form of “carry over” money or another. The same applied to low-income housing, certain urban renewal programs and public housing. Appropriations committees could also suspend payments.

“Back door” financing became Weaver’s favored methodology. It meant that for

certain kinds of programs to give them more long-term continuity, once a bill became

law, “legislated and appropriated,” it did not have to return to an annual appropriations

review, but was managed by the Congressional “legislative oversight” committee, with

some Agency or Bureau help. Back door financing came in two versions. In version one,

after legislation passed, HHFA could enter into long-term contracts which bound the

government to grants or contributions with no further review by appropriations

committees. Under the second, agencies were permitted to borrow directly from the

Treasury for loan programs without appropriations committee review and with only

oversight from the legislative committee. In both “back door” methods, a federal agency

could go forward without the dangers associated with annual appropriations committee

appearances. In either back door case, the parent agency, BOB, the Treasury, and the

appropriate Congressional legislative committee all worked together to manage spending

of the money, within the approved budget of the United States.27 The more shadowy back door method had been used previously for many urban programs, and as well remained the mainstay of most CIA, USIA, and AID financing.28 234

The conflict over back door versus front door financing began with “administrative

fees” and “non administrative fees,” and extended to regular programs as well. Fees in

HHFA’s case were used to manage associated costs for housing and urban programs from

outside contracts, consultants and the like.29 Fees could be funded by either financing

methodology, or a mixture. But “front door” financing posed the greatest pork barrel potential, and “fees” represented huge sums of money. Weaver did not want Congress adding “special interests” into housing and urban affairs fees through the “front door” and delaying programs via endless debate.

However Kennedy had the right to request the financing methodology he preferred, or

leave that to the Congressional legislative committee or appropriations committee to

decide. Appropriations committees historically favored front door and wrote that into the legislative funding documents. Legislative committees, however, normally favored back door financing and sometimes “violently” opposed appropriations committees’ attempts to force financing through the front door. They considered this a violation of their

"prerogative" and jurisdictional disputes, evoking great passion regularly followed, delaying bills.30

But unlike Eisenhower, Kennedy took no initial position on what financing

methodology he wanted. He was not interested enough in urban affairs and remained too

timid to force an early dispute with Congress over the matter.31 Thus, Weaver who

rejected Semer’s advice to take the committees on early, had to allow Congress to

determine financing methodology since the administration through BOB took no initial stand. For programs as the 1961 Housing Act, Weaver reluctantly only noted his funding

preferences on the legislation, writing in back door financing for the more controversial 235

mass transportation grants, open space grants and low-income housing demonstration

grants, to protect them and give them more continuity.

For fees, Weaver requested both chambers provide no front door restrictions on FHA

administrative costs for appraisals, certifications, mortgage background examinations,

and mortgage review costs from private agencies. It was Weaver’s contention these

should not be reviewed annually because they were on-going, plus FHA was supposed to

make money for the government. He believed annual review would interrupt and delay

the programs.32 However, these fees ranging from $90 to $130 million annually represented large sums and caused regular conflict between Al Rains (D-AL) of the

House legislative committee (banking and currency) and Al Thomas (D-TX) of the

House appropriations committee (governmental appropriations).

Al Thomas repealed back door financing in the supplemental for the 1961 Housing

Act for mass transportation loans, open space grants, low-income housing demonstration

grants and all administrative fees, that Al Rains had written into the legislation. Rains

was astounded. After meetings with Thomas failed to reach agreement, Rains called for a

point of order then struck the Thomas’ provisions, returning back door financing to all

the program loans and grants, but requiring administrative fees to go through front door

appropriations. Rains charged Thomas with “illegally rewriting the 1961 Act,”

proclaiming only his legislative committee could write “legislation.”

To be provocative, Thomas then rewrote the entire appropriations bill, placing all funding for the Act through front door financing, and entirely eliminating money for administrative fees. He cited as justification that Rains as well wrote illegal legislation. 236

The House sustained Thomas's points of order, due to the fact he pulled out all of his long-standing IOUs to win this turf battle.33

The Senate however intervened with their version and restored administrative fees to all programs, through back door financing. In conference committee no resolution could be reached, and when it came to the House floor for full debate, Thomas offered an amendment again restoring administrative fee to all programs, but only through the “front door.” Several Senators wanted to recall the entire package, but Thomas, after succeeding in getting a rule from the HCOR, rallied for and received a favorable House vote on his amendment. The House then promptly adjourned for a recess and holiday.

An embittered Senate grudgingly accepted the Thomas version, rather than loose the entire appropriations bill.34 Throughout all of this, Kennedy exerted no executive leadership whatsoever.

But having witnessed from the sideline this masterful display of political power, by late fall 1961, Kennedy proudly proclaimed his administration now had a position, favoring front door financing. This appeased the Congressional majority whom Kennedy hoped to build a coalition with for political goals. Weaver only learned of it after the fact through public announcements and he remained “deeply disappointed” believing HHFA

“would gain nothing and lose much” by making itself party to “the annual internal disputes of the appropriation committees.” In a bitter note to Bell he called the decision

“true folly” and stated that if this remained the Kennedy position, he would be

“compelled to ask the Administration to permit me to take a neutral position…in testimony for future legislation.”35 Bell exhausted great amounts of time attempting to placate Weaver, but the net result meant less money for cities.36 237

As with other presidencies, Kennedy’s budget preparations followed a prescribed

cycle. A two-year biannual federal budget served as the base, and in the spring and fall

of each calendar year, meetings took place, plus quarterly conferences. Special staff for

each agency worked full time on budget matters in concert with BOB staff and two

formal budget reviews took place yearly for the current budget often resulting in

“supplemental” reports.37

Four basic budgets were crafted simultaneously. Through Bell, in April of 1961 JFK issued his annual budget guidance while the current year’s budget remained carefully monitored. Secondly, the 1962 budget became finalized with the Housing Act supplementals, although most planning for it had taken place the previous year. Thirdly the base document, the two-year lock-in budget which connected the past and to the

future looked at 1963 and was very carefully planned. Lastly, projections for three and

four years out, 1964-1967, were also simultaneously prepared.38

In May 1961, Weaver joined the “executive office group,” an ad hoc committee of

department and agency heads meeting six to eight times annually to discuss budget.

Several themes came from those meetings.39 First, Weaver received only lukewarm

administration support for supplemental funding for budget year 1961, and “restrained”

support for 1962 and “very constrained” for 1963.40 For 1964, an election year, all

initially agreed more money would be spent.

Overall, the HHFA budget and that of its five agencies constituted a splendid “game

of numbers.” Large bureaucracies are often captives of their past and HHFA stood as no

exception. Kennedy’s budget consisted of financially packaging the past, as budget

reform due to his fear of Congress, did not make his agenda nor did innovative new 238

budget programs. Not withstanding, each annual HHFA budget came with the

following disclaimer: “a considerable share of the financial requirement each year is met

by repayment of loans or other receipts from assets acquired in earlier years. Several of

the most important programs have long lead times between initial obligation of funds and

their eventual disbursements.”41 This statement spells out the complexity of HHFA

funding and therefore, a short discussion about how the HHFA budget operated is

essential.

The overall budget constituted “a program and financial plan for the coming fiscal

year presented by the president to the Congress each January.”42 In the early 1960s it

was a huge document, the size of an unabridged dictionary, and came in volumes each

volume filling a 1000 pages and weighing five pounds. In it approximately fifty federal

departments and agencies had their annual financial futures addressed, and several terms

are important.43

“On budget” meant money for the current year. “Off budget” represented for money

carried over from previous years, for trust fund financing, and for other financing not in

the current budget.44 Also funding under the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the

then current formula, created an “obligated based system.” Immense sums were maintained in the annual budget, with the government working through an “obligations” formula of “revolving” money. Two important categories, “obligated” and “unobligated” defined that funding. Obligated funding meant at the start of the year a bill or specific contracted amount was presented as a statement. Unobligated meant that the cost was a very “good estimate,” and might be long-term, requiring money to be carried over from one year to another until a bill or statement came in.45 No budget year began with zero 239

amounts, but rather had specific monies committed from previous long-term,

financing, and from anticipated receipts or from sums carried over from earlier years.46

The annual “Table and Analysis of Unexpended Balances” managed this process as an important accounting reference.

The “table” as that became entitled, represented the entire financial picture at the beginning of a fiscal year. The “table” included everything: the HHFA current budget,

with the obligated and “on budget” money; carry over money both obligated and some

unobligated that was “off budget” for the current year; and trust funds and revolving fund

sums that were also “off” the current year’s budget. This became the total “annual

housing and urban investment” and requested quite substantial amounts, at times as much

as twelve billion dollars of the then federal budget money, standing at $100 billion in

expenditures (EXP) and $100 billion in new obligational authority (NOA). These terms

will be explained later.

However, three points are key. A given HHFA annual budget covered only a portion

of the total unexpended balances at the start of a year, with carry over and trust fund

money being the rest of the investment. Secondly, Congress managed the entire process,

mostly through the front door, and made “adjustments” as the year progressed. Since

funds became carried over into future years, some authorized funding remained

unobligated indefinitely, until the actual cost could be established. The rule stood that if

no “bill” was presented an expense constituted “uncompleted services” and carried over

until a bill arrived or the program discontinued. The Kennedy HHFA “table” looked as

follows:

240

TABLE AND ANALYSIS OF UNEXPENDED BALANCES

FISCAL TOTAL UNEXPENDED OBLIGATED MONEY UNOBLIGATED MONEY YEAR BALANCES AT YEAR’S START AT YEAR’S START AT YEAR’S START

FY 61 07/01/60-06/30/61 $ 8,937,046,000. $ 2,804,738,000. $ 6,132,308,000.

FY 62 07/01/61-06/30/62 $12,845,654,000. $ 3,083,577,000. $ 9,762,077,000.

FY 63 07/01/62-06/30/63 $12,864,276,000. $ 3,581,727,000. $ 9,282,549,000.

FY 64 07/01/63-06/30/64 $12,497,079,000. $ 3,901,388,000. $ 8,595,791,000. 47

Trust funds as an important component of the total urban investment and “off budget”

money came with a catch. Public enterprise trust funds meant every HHFA constituent

agency had something to sell or invest, from the public service it provided. These “sales”

ranged from mortgages, to property, debentures, and to securities. For investments, some

constituent agencies operated liquidating trusts involving government bonds and some

stocks, through public and private sources, overseen by Congress. Only on occasion, did these funds actually make money for the government, usually loosing small amounts.

But the catch was the loss between gross trust fund expenditures and anticipated receipts came at budget closing from the current annual budget expenditure (EXP) money. For

FNMA that anticipated difference had to be estimated as it “revolved” through the government’s investment portfolios. Doing this presented an exhausting and intimidating chore, and Kennedy’s funds looked as below.

PUBLIC ENTERPRISE AND TRUST FUNDS

FISCAL EXPENDITURES FOR RECEIPTS FOR DIFFERNECES BETWEEN 241

YEAR PUBLIC ENTERPRISE PUBLIC ENTERPRISE EXPENDITURES & RECEIPTS FUNDS FUNDS

07/01/60-06/30/61 $2,150,422,000. $1,620,682,000. $ -529,740,000.

07/01/61-06/30/62 $2,499,870,000. $1,789,956,000. $ -700,914,000.

07/01/62-06/30/63 $2,680,559,000. $2,260,139,000. $ -420,420,000.

07/01/63-06/30/64 $2,839,300,000. $2,548,562,000. $ -290,738,000.48

Other terms important are new obligational authority (NOA) and budget expenditures

(EXP). Most Congressional “spending” squabbles resulted from (NOA) disputes where

financing disagreements arose when addressing budget expenditures (EXP), particularly

including public enterprise trust funds. NOA meant new spending authorized for the start

of a budget year or for more than one year, on items as HHFA salaries, continuing some

old programs with fresh money, and for new programs. NOA was often referred to as the

“spending” or “administrative” part of the budget and was dealt with “controlled

program” money because Congress authorized that money as “eligible for direct

management.”49 Conversely, EXP represented money spent at the conclusion of a year to cover fixed charges for certain programs, plus all trust fund differences.50 It was often

called the “financing” or “funds” portion of the budget and was managed as

“uncontrollable” program money, meaning it was fixed, “reoccurring” requirements

money.51

For accounting purposes, at year’s end all sums from NOA as budgeted and spent,

and EXP as spent, receipted, and netted were combined under the “consolidated budget”

then finalized as net budget expenditures (NBE).52 This constituted when the

administration determined if it really had a balanced budget or not. EXP budget receipts 242 less budget expenditures, in relation to total NOA spent that year against NOA authorized, equaled a balanced budget (or not). Kennedy’s HHFA budget model looked as follows

HHFA BUDGET MODEL

BUDGET PROGRAM

CONTROLLABLE

1 Urban renewal fund 9 FNMA secondary market 2 Urban renewal grants 10 FNMA special assistance 3 College housing loans 11 OA salaries and expenses 4 Public facility loans 12 Urban studies & housing research 5 Public works planning grants 13 PHA administrative expenses 6 Housing for the elderly 14 Liquidating programs 7 Open space land 15 Community disposition 8 Mass transportation loans 16 FHA operating expenses 17 Low-income housing demonstration grants UNCONTROLLABLE 1 PHA low-rent housing fund 2 FNMA management and liquidation fund 3 FHA mortgage fund 4 URA liquidation contract fund 5 Revolving fund53

Kennedy’s actual budgets revealed consistent spending growth over his four budget years. Yet several constraints laid hidden in these seemingly substantiated outlays, in

HHFA operating expenses, plus some direct budget cuts to controversial programs.

Constraints and cuts came to facilitate JFK’s attempt at a balanced budget for the tax cut.

Thus, political expediency lay behind to some of JFK’s budget increases, particularly for programs favored by big developers and voters, and cuts came or constraints were applied to others.

KENNEDY’S HHFA BUDGETS

FISCAL BUDGET (EXP) NOA BUDGET 1961 HOUSING ACT & TOTAL 243

YEAR EXPENDITURES AMOUNTS (EXP & NOA) NOA SUPPLEMENTALS BUDGET

07/01/60- $309 million (E) $813 million (E) $1,123,000,000. $+172,000,000. $1,295,000,000. 06/30/61 $502 million (K) $793 million (K)

07/01/61- $545 million $560,407,000. $1,105,407,000. $+300,593,000. $1,406,000,000. 06/30/62

07/01/62- $410 million $785 million $1,195,000,000. $+325,411,000. $1,520,411,000. 06/30/63

07/01/63- 06/30/64 $328 million $858 million $1,186,000,000. $+752,971,000. $1,938,971,000. 54

For HHFA Kennedy's increased by $172 million Ike’s existing 1961 budget using a supplemental. Ike originally budgeted $309,065,000 in budget expenditures and

$813,959,000 in NOA for a total of $1,123,024,000 through June 30, 1961. Kennedy, because of the worsening economy, raised budget expenditures to $502 million to boost trust fund support, but pending passage of the 1961 Housing Act, decreased the NOA to

$793 million. The 1961 Housing Act due to being signed on June 30, 1961, created a temporary yet fictitious NOA for FY 61 of $4.5 billion which is not shown to avoid confusion.55 That $4.5 billion went against budget years FY 62 through FY 65.

Weaver’s most significant fight though was in the budget estimate process with Bell and began over salaries and management costs within the HHFA operating budget. Each program had a separate administrative overhead plus Weaver’s far-flung FHA empire required millions of dollars in operations money. Bell went after HHFA’s operating expenses because they were easy to trim and could be readily controlled. Some “titled program” cost cutting followed. Weaver believed this destroyed “balance” in his daily program management.56

In the budget estimate process, differences between Weaver and Bell became pronounced, and began immediately and are shown as below. 244

FISCAL YEAR WEAVER’S ESTIMATE BELL’S ESTIMATE TOTAL BUDGET

07/01/60-06/30/61 $574,278,000. (EXP only) $524,658,000. (EXP only) $502,000,000. (EXP only)

07/01/61-06/30/62 $1,152,900,000. $878,000,000. $1,406,000,000.

07/01/62-06/30/63 $1,718,900,000. $1,420,000,000. $1,520,411,000.

07/01/63-06/30/64 $2,300,500,000 $1,713,615,000. $1,938,971,000.57

The 1961 estimate reveals EXP funding only, showing Bell higher than Weaver in this

instance because in 1961 NOA was the real battleground, which will be discussed later.

In actual budget years, 1961 brought no honeymoon for Weaver. Throughout fiscal

year 1961, Bell enforced two concepts: spend Eisenhower’s program and carry over

money robustly to stimulate the economy and end the recession; and streamline HHFA.

However “streamlining” HHFA would soon become painful.

With 1961 NOA “streamlining” began immediately. Three days after the

inauguration, while awaiting Weaver’s confirmation, the acting HHFA commissioner

Lewis E. Williams, called for $150 million more in urban renewal funds to adequately

carry the program through June 30 and additional $125 million for college housing.

Further, $55 million was requested for improvements in health care facilities for the

elderly and James B. Cash, acting FHA commissioner, needed yet another $2.4 million

for FHA loan guarantees. This totaled $354 million and after lengthy debates and

disagreements, Bell approved a paltry $172 million as the HHFA NOA supplemental for

the rest of FY 61.58 That is what went to Congress.

After Weaver’s lengthy and controversial confirmation, further cost cutting started

immediately. Operating budget “adjustments” came from Bell in the form of denial of 245

new furniture, a no “new” purchase rule for supplies, restrictions on long distance and

local telephone usage, and severe cuts in travel and government car utilization. Printing

and reproduction costs for “Urban Renewal Notes,” and extra money for the

“Quinquennial Census of Housing” became curtailed also.59 Invariably, personnel

upgrades and new jobs within HHFA came to a virtual halt. By mid-summer of 1961,

Weaver was required to submit regular reports to Bell under the Bureau of the Budget

Bulletin No. 61-11, “Financial Management Improvement Program,” regarding how he

would tighten HHFA management practices to improve efficiency and reduce costs.60

Budget year 1962 produced $1,406,000,000 as the final funding figure for the HHFA budget, as the first year integrating Housing Act money into a budget already in progress.

Both Bell and Congress carefully reviewed implementing the Act’s spending with the

1962 budget, through meetings commencing in April and concluding in August.61 In these Weaver defended his 1962 funding request as “moderate and realistic” and publicly at least, expected them to be financed according to his projections.62

Initially, the rhetoric all sounded well and as the economy incrementally improved,

Kennedy cheerfully announced in June, “that $350 million more would be spent on cities

(in 1962) than Ike had proposed” and “that a strong case could be made for rapid

increases in Federal participation in the joint effort to meet the demands and problems of

community development.”63 Buoyed by the president’s remarks, Weaver told his staff he

wanted to ambitiously expand programs with “imagination and vigor” including

broadened public housing demonstration grants, the joint HHFA-Area Redevelopment

Administration (ARA) cooperative program, and increased urban renewal on-site 246

housing. Bell did not feel the same way though, and by late summer, Weaver’s

exuberance and “realistic” budget goals withered with the Washington heat.64

In implementing the 1962 budget package, which included 1961 Housing Act

Programs, Bell took the first chop. VA direct loans were to be capped at $350 million in comparison to a requested $432.5 million. FNMA’s special assistance fund was reduced from one billion dollars to $715 million. Bell trimmed public facility loans from $200

million to $150 million, although Congress later replaced $2 million.65 Open space

grants remained at $50 million. Mass transit received only $35 million, and farm-

housing loans were cut by $25 million. Elderly housing was reduced. Slightly more than

$5 million was taken from elderly housing. Urban planning grants, middle-class housing,

and open spaces received what the legislation called for.66

In Congressional hearings over the 1962 budget, from the four new grant programs

Weaver worried about regarding front door financing---mass transportation demonstration grants, open space land grants, and low-income housing demonstration grants---Congress cut all of them.67 As well, HHFA’s overall request for operating

increases to manage implementing the 1961 Act was also cut. Weaver wanted

$7,525,000 and received $6,750,000 and nobody in the executive branch backed his

request to restore the cuts.68 Congress further reduced public housing expenditures and

CFA’s public facility loans were funded at $750,000 out of a requested of $1.3 million.

Planning assistance grants for urban renewal, requested for $26 million, were funded at

$16.4 million.69 These latter reductions hindered the urban renewal on-site housing

assistance program. 247

But funding for urban renewal versus funding for housing presented a special

dilemma for JFK in 1962. He did not have the money for both, yet big developer urban

renewal projects and the housing market constituted his two top priorities. Thus for

housing, FHA changes under the 1961 Act plus his “forthcoming” across the boards

corporate and individual tax cut effort, represented his solution for that housing market.

For urban renewal, some programs provided incentives for developers and some assisted

poor people. JFK had made it clear in his “special message” he planned to spend $2.5

billion over four years to cover both. Yet this commitment was considerably weakened

when in August 1962 Weaver’s request for $800 million in urban renewal capital grants

was immediately, cut to $700 million by Bell.70

Then Congress weighed in on urban renewal with a funding debate that created

headlines in housing circles. The issue concerned Kennedy’s $2.5 billion pledge for four

years, versus whether or not $2.0 billion over three years might replace it, how the money

would be disbursed on a “priority timeline” or on a “first come first served” basis until it

ran out, constituted the other half of the debate. After spirited disagreement, Congress

decided two billion dollars for three years using “first come…first served” would prevail.

If more money had to be spent, Congress intended to borrow it from mass transportation

planning grants.71 The administration offered no formal resistance. The loss was $84 million per year in urban renewal funds and by maintaining “first come…first served,” big urban developers with large professional staffs continued their advantage in gaining early, accurate and easily approved applications versus smaller of fledgling minority firms. 248

The 1963 HHFA budget as finally approved stood at $1,520,411,000, but came

from an original proposal of well over two billion dollars. It truly represented a form of

economic psychotherapy for the cities as it was large, but not enough to solve major

urban problems, but looked good. It also represented a reduction in what Weaver was

“required” to support, as well as for what he “wanted” to support. Weaver suffered a

$688 million cut from “proposal to enactment” and 1963 became the most “restricted” of

Kennedy four budgets.72 Uniquely Kennedy even had to trim some of his favorite

programs.

For programs preferred by Kennedy’s, FNMA received his initial cut. Bell reduced

to $750 million FNMA’s secondary market purchasing authority from Weaver’s $1

billion request.73 A larger shock came when FNMA’s special assistance fund for the

221(d)(3) program which it financed, received a 25% reduction. As one of the five new programs under the 1961 Act, Kennedy consistently gave it favored consideration in its brief FY 61 debut and special financial attention in FY 62, in his unsuccessful plan to use middle class housing to win over the middle class voters.

FHA received cuts below Weaver’s “bottom line” also. In planning, Bell and his

chief budget analyst agreed that 1.4 million new private housing starts would begin in FY

63 and HHFA predicted 1.5 million. Bell believed FHA would finance 22% of these new starts, yet HHFA estimated 24%. FHA predicted an 80% increase in multi-family housing but Bell remained “exceptionally skeptical.” BOB also made downward adjustments to HHFA’s estimate of elderly housing needs. Thus FHA was cut from its original estimates, in both NOA spending and EXP financing, from Weaver’s $674 million request to Bell’s approved $462 million, the difference being $212 million.74 249

Cuts of this magnitude worsened FHA growing backlog of unprocessed

applications which will be discussed in chapter seven. But for example, in 1963, 87,000

mortgage applications were in a “severely delayed” status by year’s end. Nearly the

same number of multi-family housing applications became backlogged and the bureau

simply “wrote these off,” by overestimating the “drop out rate” and then subsequently

ignoring the problem. Weaver was outraged over FNMA and FHA cuts and angrily wrote

Bell “the question now is whether we are going to follow through on the President’s program or not.” He openly stated reductions of this kind “raised serious questions in the

Congress and elsewhere as to the Administration’s continued support of its own programs.”75 But as JFK told Democratic Senators and Representatives in 1962, “next

year’s budget [1963] will be balanced.” Weaver responded by calling for active “budget

resistance,” but to little avail.76

Three other Kennedy big-ticket items did not fare well in 1963 either. Weaver

wanted one billion dollars for urban renewal and stated publicly that a lesser amount

“would be widely interpreted as the new administration’s drawing back from urban

renewal and hence from an active concern for the pressing problems of urban

communities.” However, as had been planned by Congress, he received just over $700

million.77 Bell also reduced the FY 63 open space land acquisition program by $15

million and in a July 1962 meeting with Weaver, told him to begin rationing college

housing loans.78

Programs dear to Weaver received similar treatment. The low-income housing

demonstration program was cut to only $3 million.79 The workable program for

community improvement (WPCI) which Weaver wanted to grow into a large national 250

effort, obtained only “minimal funding.” Cuts also were PHA demonstration grants

for improved public housing and public facility loans, particularly for smaller and poorer

communities.80 Lastly, Weaver’s staffing for 1963 were under a “cost reduction through

better management in the Federal government” program. The bureau’s Bill Ross

believed Weaver would adjust to this, once “digestibility” had settled in. Ross had been

“concerned about the…quantity of [HHFA’s] publications” and after reducing them, turned his attention to staff cuts.81

Some of Weaver’s staffing increases had been placeholders since the start of the

Kennedy years. For example, PHA to that date had received no increases in five years

and 1963 became the sixth. Weaver said bitterly, “I feel I should point out…that the

bureau has gone further than it is wise or prudent to go, if budget stringency be properly weighed against …the Government discharging its’ statutory responsibilities.”82 But for

1963, Kennedy believed his “responsibilities” lay elsewhere.

Kennedy believed that in 1964, of course an election year, a strong economy would

lead to strong voter support. What he funded though for “political” reasons will be

briefly covered below and 1964 will be revisited again as a portion of Kennedy’s final

“out year” budget projection package, through 1967. Remembering that 1963 stood as

his “balanced budget” year and if the tax cut could be implemented for 1964, JFK

intended to spend some money on urban programs in just the right places.

FY 64 had been carefully planned to impact the economy favorably. The only

disagreements over FY 64 concerned what programs constituted strategic goals from the

view of securing Congressional and voter support. Headed by Bill Ross and three fellow 251

bureau members plus seven HHFA senior staff, preliminary groundwork for FY 64

sprang from a series of meetings from June through October of 1962.83

For 1964, Kennedy finally approved a staffing increase for HHFA bringing total

employment at the Agency to 15,037 starting July 1, 1963, well before the November

1964 elections. When Weaver began as HHFA chief, 15,000 staff members had worked there.84 By the time Kennedy approved the increase, the Agency had dwindled to 14,235 through attrition and unfilled jobs, with many vacancies being key FHA ones. Kennedy also informed Weaver he would bring up the departmental issue for HHFA in the 1964 campaign.85

FY64 big ticket NOA funding went smoothly, as Kennedy planned for his expected

victory. For HHFA’s NOA and EXP, a resounding budget total of $1,938,971,000 was

approved. The four popular big-ticket items for 1964, urban renewal, FNMA, elderly

housing and college housing prospered. Urban renewal received the regular $700

million, but much larger sums came within the four-year plan through February 1967.

FNMA obtained what it needed in public enterprise trust funding, elderly housing

obtained $125 million, and college housing loans were funded at the $270 million level.

Programs with less success were low-income housing demonstration receiving only $5

million, urban planning assistance with $25 million, and public facility loans at $100

million. Weaver had requested twice these amounts.86

Kennedy’s four-year plan for housing and urban development funding through 1967

was not as well developed, as were his 1964’s plans. Yet examining these budget projections reveals where Kennedy placed his financial emphasis, had he lived and it

begs two questions: would these have been adequate to prevent the greatest urban riots in 252

American history? And did these programs constitute new departures or just fresh

funding for old programs? Bell, then Kermit Gordon who replaced him, clarified one point. The administration intended to carefully control all aspects of urban funding for its second term stating, “the President and the executive office (the bureau) will make the determinations about the size and scope of the programs and budgets that the administration will support and these determinations will govern as maximums.”87

The generalization, is that after the 1964 election, JFK meant to “constrain” his housing and urban programs once again, and even though slowly spending more, for big ticket items. Also, it would be for “physical” city rather than “social” city programs that prevailed. For his budget goals through 1967, Weaver’s proposed twenty-nine programs emanating from twelve economic assumptions.88 Foremost, he concluded the economy

would improve and the recession end in the first quarter of 1962 and that by December

31, 1962 the GNP would be six percent higher than on July 1, 1961.89 This served as his

foundation for future predictions through 1967. He envisioned near full employment in

1964 and solid growth in the private housing market with new “starts” achieving

1,400,000 in 1963 and reaching 1,600,000 by 1967. Interest rates were expected to rise

slightly as the GNP expanded at 4.5% annually, with the $18 billion in new home starts

in 1964 reaching $22 billion by 1967.90

However, Weaver missed in some of his assumptions. He projected public housing

starts to be 50,000 annually, with 35,000 for low-income public housing and the rest for

military. This woefully inadequate number failed to materialize. He optimistically saw

the FHA market expand from 19% in 1961 to 24% by 1967, which would also be an over 253

estimate. For a number of reasons, the private housing industry took quite a lot of

FHA business away from the Kennedy administration, which will be covered in chapter

seven.

Further the HHFA chief believed the 221(d)(3) middle income program would

eventually succeed, which it did not, because it was not well thought out nor well

publicized. By 1967, Weaver also saw urban renewal projects in 80% of American cities

of 100,000, with stabilized “city-wide planning” rather than “scattered site” projects. His

percentages were high, his faith in the new methodology somewhat over estimated.91

Importantly, Weaver projected two financial courses of action. His more elaborate

one cited the need for $10,112,000,000 over the four years or $2,528 billion annually.

With the more austere plan, much more pleasing to Kennedy, Weaver sought

$7,778,500,000 over four years averaging $1,944,622,223 per year. All his projections

though were rapidly compiled because the bureau pressured him for a quick response,

which he roundly criticized with “I would hope that next year it might be possible to have

a somewhat longer period of time available for the preliminary budget process.”92 In meetings Weaver attempted to sell the $10 billion plan by emphasizing that large amounts “would be invested in mortgage fund and asset growth,” which would be recovered.93

For the 1964 through 1967 package, urban renewal, college housing, FNMA, elderly

housing and mass transit remained Kennedy’s preferred programs. With urban renewal,

Weaver wanted $3.2 billion and Bell/Gordon wanted $2.5 billion. A compromise was

reached using $600 million annually plus obligated carry-over money for a total of $3.1 billion or $700 million for 1964, $800 million for 1965, $800 million for 1966 and $800 254

million in 1967.94 Most of this money would be for redeveloping the big central city

cores, removing blight and making them more attractive.

However, in the $100 million lost supported a series of programs of high priority to

Weaver. Urban planning assistance was cut and urban studies and housing research was

reduced back to 1962 levels. Additionally, urban renewal grants were reduced from $200

million to $125 million.95 The HHFA chief bitterly complained that some of these cuts

were for “people programs which he “expected to place greater emphasis on…especially

in more effective relocation, more timely disposition, swifter redevelopment of project

land and completion of projects.”96 Weaver further objected that “essential domestic

programs were not given proper consideration in relation to favorites.”97

As an aside, it must be explained that Weaver “was between a rock and a hard place.”

Although a truly competent administrator and a “nice guy,” Weaver was truly “out gunned” by the “well connected” of the “New Frontier” at BOB, who often left him with no place to turn. That was because in the nearly three years of the Kennedy presidency as previously mentioned, he only formally met with JFK once and that was on a legislative matter. Kennedy literally took no interest in Weaver and urban affairs other than as a campaign issue and offered little support. Weaver's close call at confirmation left him with little real support on the Hill and as the only African-American in a key position,

JFK wanted him keep a low profile, as the volatile civil rights issue heated up. Weaver had no base from which to fight and he slowly retreated into what today’s “young Turks” might call “Uncle Tomism,” simply managing HHFA as best he could. He remained nearly always beholding to JFK on the executive order and departmental status issues, which Kennedy consistently dangled in front of him, finally issuing a weak order over 255

Thanksgiving 1962 and never resolving “DUAH” before Dallas.

However, in what JFK would have funded had he lived, FNMA became a huge winner. Including trust fund and public enterprise money, FNMA’s financial contribution to urban renewal alone was estimated at $923 million per year. For the housing market, FNMA’s special assistance fund was projected to increase from $440 million to $955 million per year.98 Another winner was FNMA’s involvement with the multi-family housing market which Bell liked, but Weaver remained skeptical about, as designed.99 Bell differed with Weaver on FNMA’s funding for “purchasing” in the

mortgage market as well.100 Bell, and later Gordon won.101

CFA’s college housing program continued without controversy, and funding

continued at the “net program reservation level or higher for 1964 through 1967.” But

the expected rise of the community college system projected by Weaver was written off

by BOB as well.102

FHA became a winner but not quite in the way Weaver planned. Funding for these

out years remained sufficient, but it was based chiefly on expected FHA increase “asset

sell off” to reduce EXP funding requirements. For instance, FHA EXP funding declined

through 1967, to be off set by the sale of more commissioner held mortgages at the rate

of 10,000 mortgages in 1963 and up to 15,000 in 1967. FHA debentures redemption was also predicted to result in a similar reduction of NOA over the same period.103 Adequate

FHA funding would be available based chiefly on “adequate” sales and redemptions.

However, FHA operating expenses projected to increase from $80.7 million in 1963

to $94.2 million in 1967 and herein a struggle ensued.104 In making his predictions,

Weaver expressed concern that “a major (FHA) management problem…regarding the 256

acquisition of properties and mortgages…versus an increased volume of defaults and

foreclosures,” will take place without enough staff management people to resolve it.105

Kennedy through Bell then Gordon, continued to favor programs for the out years like

FHA’s faltering 221(d)(3) middle income one, over increased FHA staffing needs.106

Kennedy also began to court the conventional housing market with favorable FHA regulatory changes, planned for the out years.107

The elderly housing program remained well funded for 1964-1967. Funding

remained at full “net fund reservation levels,” ranging from $175 million in 1964 to $325

million in 1967. Weaver estimated the twenty-one million people age 62 or older in 1961

would increase to about thirty-one million by 1980. Both he and the bureau wanted to

meet the requirements of these voters, although the program was miniscule in comparison

to the need.108

Until its final legislative demise, federal mass transit continued to be protected for

adequate funding. For 1964 through 1967, it was expected to absorb $10 million in

planning grants annually. Had JFK’s legislation passed, $175 million in 1965 and $210

million in 1966 would have been spent with more proposed for 1967.109

In Congress however, several programs lost out in the four out year budget estimate.

Without strong administrative support, Senate and House hearings cut HHFA staffing.

For the HHFA headquarters’ operating budget, reduced management funds for Office of the Administrator (OA) programs headed that list. Salary and operating increases for

new jobs for equal housing opportunity for code compliance were cut. Costs for these required an increase of $16 million and the entire package was disapproved by Congress.

The result according to Weaver would be “no vacancies filled, no promotions, strict 257

control of travel…and the most strict management of the budgets of the five Agency

activities.”110

For 1964 through 1967 as well, Congress reduced open space grants by half and low-

income housing demonstration grants lost eighty percent of funding. Public housing

administration expenses were decreased as well. The small anti-juvenile delinquency

program continued, but received only a miniscule increase. Weaver chided these as

“significant decreases, knowingly imposed.” Even more confounding was the fact Bell

scheduled Weaver for less than a week to testify about Senate cuts. And with uniquely

poor timing, Weaver’s testimony came just before the civil rights legislation. Weaver

received less than an hour for appeal.111

In conclusion, looking at these 1964-1967 out years, even if JFK had lived, funding

documents reveal no new or bold adventures to save the cities. Nothing leads to

conclusion JFK could have avoided the forthcoming urban riots and disturbances. As

designed and funded his programs would not have eliminated the enduring ghetto but

rather would have continued to build the suburbs and enhanced the urban core, as he was

already doing. Here, three points are noteworthy. Funding at the levels approved would

not have been enough to wage and win a “war on poverty,” as was finally being proposed

in very late 1963. At a minimum, doubling Weaver’s largest annual figure, regularly

over four years would have only been a start. Of Weaver’s two financial courses of action, neither passed under Kennedy due to the assassination, and the more austere revisions received the most attention, which barely covered existing programs plus inflation.112 Lastly, the real money proposed would go to the traditional big-ticket 258

developer projects as urban renewal, the FNMA secondary market, and some FHA

programs. Nothing new could be found here in the “New Frontier.”

Yet singularly the small anti-juvenile delinquency program to be chaired by Robert

Kennedy, might have “taken off” and helped quell the upcoming urban crisis, but only if

his brother really took interest and funded it heavily. JFK’s interests though were in an attempt to balance the budget, gain a tax cut for the 1964 elections, and failing that, spend

carefully available money on popular big ticket items for the election year. Only late in

his presidency did he notice and accept starting a “war on poverty,” that frankly, after some of the above intentions failed, he accepted simply because he needed a

“showpiece.” This is discussed in chapter ten.

It must be reinforced again that Kennedy's interest in domestic affairs were few.

Civil rights jurisdictional disputes with certain governors, his meetings about

Congressional legislation, and activities relating to the 1960, 1962, and 1964 campaigns

and budget/tax cut matters “sum” his domestic interests. JFK’s concern for other

domestic matters remained almost completely non-existent. He simply read reports,

signed certain documents or letters and told Ted Sorensen what he wanted. Most of his

work with Weaver stayed as budget related and through Bell. He held virtually no

cabinet meetings and the ones he did chair, chiefly discussed defense matters or foreign

policy, as did the "ex-com" meetings during the missile crisis.

His centerpiece in budget remained the tax reduction. Using the advise of COA’s

James Tobin from a previous New Republic article, Kennedy advanced his tax reduction

effort as a means to foster economic growth, stimulate savings, and increase

consumption, by returning money to the pockets of taxpayers and the coffers of 259

corporations.113 Kennedy launched it using a financial downturn in the economy as

his pulpit.

On May 28, 1962 a large sell off on the big boards of Wall Street caused a significant

contraction in consumer confidence, dropping monthly GNP growth and business

investment over the last week of May. This rather curious pothole on Kennedy’s road to

recovery permitted him to step in swiftly with his tax cut idea. On June 7, 1962 he called

for an across the boards individual and corporate tax cut and coupled this with a

subsequent promise to balance the 1963 budget.

Realizing that a tax reduction presented a political hazard with the Democratic party’s

center and left, JFK followed with a speech at Yale University on June 11, 1962 where he

repackaged his proposal with the catching title of “fiscal expansionism.” He wanted to

rally those who wanted something different, such as small reductions in interest rates and

changes in the depletion allowance. But the more liberal Keynesian wing led by Heller

and Galbraith stood in opposition to a tax reduction of any kind.114 Uniquely they would

be proven to be correct because although unparalleled economic prosperity returned from

late 1963 through mid-1966, when under LBJ the Vietnam War began to dominate the economy, the tax cut which Johnson enacted had little to do with that continuing growth.

But the cut’s strongest supporters remained political conservatives not necessarily in

Congress, who did not like Kennedy to begin with, yet keeping them involved frankly

remained critical. True right wing ones, many in Congress, wanted tax cuts solely as a

way to inhibit government spending on programs they disliked.115 What they agreed on

was no tax cut would become law without a decrease in government spending leading to a

balanced budget. They called that their “fiscal dividend.” Chairman Wilbur Mills of the 260

House ways and means committee warned, “tax reduction must be accomplished by

increased control on the rise of expenditures.” But in the words of James Reston “no

doubt the president will get his tax cut in the end, for both conservatives and liberals tend to like money more than they like theories.”116

Actually the idea for the tax reduction began in 1961 where Kennedy’s CEA

proposed a $9.5 billion, then $10 billion tax reduction to generate up to $20 billion in

GNP growth, yet JFK could not afford it then with the troubled economy and his

continuing defense increases. He also had a $7.2 billion budget deficit looming in

1962.117

Once the tax cut announcement had been made, the final debate within the executive

branch over the summer of 1962 concerned how much and how broad it would be.

Ranges went from $8 billion to $10 billion.118 It was eventually agreed that $13.5 billion

would be the figure with $3.5 billion recouped by the government in closed tax

loopholes, making the cut worth about $10 billion overall. The reduction coverrd both

individuals and corporations and three strategies were set in motion for passage.

The first called for a balanced budget or “balanced budget attempt.” George Will

once quipped that “politics is akin to cotton candy, mostly hot air with a good deal of

spun sugar,” which was what Kennedy used, to move the tax measure forward. Key to

obtaining Congressional approval, a balanced 1963 budget or the appearance of a

balanced budget, remained the requirement should the measure be voted upon favorably

at FY 63 year-end closing.119 Accordingly, discussions followed in several meetings on

what would be useful in “making the situation” look good in 1963, when it already

appeared both NOA and EXP would exceed the limit.120 A side bar to this was the hope 261

that tax relief might pass if the administration simply “came close” to balancing the

budget.

Publicly JFK stated his budget balancing should be based on two things: favorable economic changes and trimming expenses in non-defense government programs.121

Favorable economic changed required unemployment to drop from 6.7% in October 1961 to 5.5% by the spring of 1962 and the stock market correcting itself by July 1962. A

CEA forecast and a Chamber of Commerce prediction about slow but consistent GNP

growth provided Kennedy some solace. Kennedy moved forward using these expected

growth factors to convince his detractors the economy could sustain a reasonable tax cut.

“Belt tightening” in non-defense programs would also help to create the illusion, if not a reality, that a robust attempt was being made to balance the 1963 budget.

To get a balanced budget, expenditures (EXP) and new obligated authority (NOA) both had to be restrained in FY 63. Overall, Congress approved Kennedy for $100 billion in 1963 NOA which did not have to be “balanced,” but rather could not be exceeded. EXP was expected to cost another $100 billion, covering the differences between expenditures and receipts. If EXP costs could be kept at around $98 billion and

EXP revenues came in at a little more than one hundred billion, Kennedy had a balanced budget as long as he spent no more than $100 billion in NOA. One of the old “tricks” however was to spend NOA to the limit, then “carry over” with a friendly Congressional committee, some program funding to another year. Yet if you missed with EXP, you lost regardless of NOA and therefore, the critical emphasis had to be placed on EXP.

In Walter Heller’s words, EXP carried “the game.” Heller emphasized that EXP

money provided documentable economic impact or proof because it did not “roll over” 262

and if used as the basis for a tax reduction, “you’re surer of the economic

impact…and if Congress is going to cut taxes…they’re going to want to make a showing

of cutting your (EXP) expenditures…as part of the price of admission of the tax cut. It

also gives them the feeling that they have paid the price.”122

“Creative accounting” was also considered. Total budget expenditures for 1963

might be as low as $95 billion, if as JFK quipped we “change our method of budget -

keeping as far as the repayable loans.” Bell suggested “abandoning the administrative

budget,” in favor of the “consolidated cash statement as the main presentation of federal

receipts and expenditures.” Although discussed, this was abandoned as it would have

been visible to the wrong people on the right committees.123

Kennedy’s next step was to decide what constituted the “budget target.” In an off the record meeting on October 2, 1962, he, Dillon, Bell, Heller and Sorensen discussed what

their goals might be. Kennedy said $98.5 billion in EXP remained his target, which

would be hard to reach. He also proclaimed $98.5 billion in 1964 as his other goal.124

Discussions ensued recommending higher amounts and Sorensen finally posed the

question, “I think the decision from you today is whether or not we want the budget in the neighborhood of $100.4 billion or $98.4 billion.” When asked if he was sure he wanted less than $100 billion, Kennedy responded with a strong “That’s right.”125 This

concluded the EXP discussions.

But Kennedy had another difficulty if he desired to roll over any NOA in 1963.

Congressman Morris K. Udall (D, AZ) had co-sponsored H.R.7677 in 1961 to keep the

federal debt at $298 billion in 1961. As rapid government spending continued, this was

usually elevated. Yet the government came within $600 million of exceeding another 263

late 1962 cap of $305.6 billion on May 27, 1963, which caused a near panic at the

Treasury Department and BOB.126 Congress reluctantly raised the debt ceiling to $309

billion, reaching a House and Senate compromise, but good only through August 31,

1963, for FY63 budget closings.127 Thus, Kennedy was also up against a federal debt

ceiling as he continued to spend heavily for both defense and “domestic” programs and

could not carry over much NOA without another full Congressional debate on raising the

national debt.

. Kennedy had three strategies to obtain a tax cut. First, he believed he could convince

Congress his budget reductions constituted a “genuine effort” and obtain his tax cut. But

doing this without a close relationship with them posed the problem. In the House, the

ways and means and appropriations committees were crucial and sub-committees,

chaired by Representatives Otto Passman (D, LA) and Clarence Cannon (D, MO)

remained vitally important. Yet, Kennedy mistakenly wooed some of the wrong people

through his legislative liaison Henry H. Wilson, Jr. He tried to charm Wilbur Mills (D,

AK) and Joe Montoya (D, NM) yet should have spent more time with Cannon who

greatly disliked Passman, a staunch LBJ Democrat, after a blowup about committee staff

salaries.128

Kennedy was also naïve about the influences of big business in shaping committees.129 He failed to muster the business community behind his cut. His own

White House staff people reinforced he could not eliminate business and conservative

hostility no matter what he did which might have been false. In a confidential

memorandum, Ted Sorensen warned “most big businessmen are, by

connection…Republicans or Harry Bird Democrats inherently opposed to this 264

Administration and its policies. Pro-business speeches and ever pro-business actions

by the Administration are regarded with suspicion and no program could eliminate their

opposition.”130

As a second strategy, Kennedy and his advisors prepared to set in motion a plan to

blame conservative Republicans and Democrats if he lost his tax cut. The tax measure

came with a quiet Kennedy disclaimer that if conservatives killed it, he would blame

them in 1964. In private meetings with Wilbur Mills on August 6, 1962, JFK stated

“come next winter we can get the bill but Harry Bird will screw us even if you put it

through the House.” But if he lost the bill JFK quipped, “the responsibility would be, uh,

wouldn’t be ours.”131

The third strategy aimed at justifying the tax cut publicly as a means to strengthen the

economy and avoid future recessions, as it became evident in private meetings in

November 1962 that the gap was widening between expenditures and receipts so the

“balanced budget” idea weakened. Figures were prepared to justify the third strategy.

Dillon planned to issue a series of press releases which started, it was “most important” to

make it clear that the tax-rate reduction would help expand the economy which itself

would eventually achieve a “balance of revenues and out go.”132

But in forging his effort to reduce spending, which as his first strategy topped the list,

Kennedy in subsequent meetings proposed future “constraints” on NOA operating and

program monies. Initially, operating cuts for public works, education and research were

planned. Housing and public works cuts prepared and the postal budget would be cut by

$750 million. Three hundred million dollars could be saved in grain storage costs, and

$600 million might be reduced by eliminating maintenance costs for obsolete weapons 265

systems. McNamara told Kennedy that even with increased spending for new weapons, he could still cut $3 billion from Defense’s operating budget by forcing

“efficiency,” but this was not executed. 133 Even the Small Business Administration

volunteered to make some cuts which Bell readily accepted.134

Additional reductions were discussed for elementary and secondary education, to

Native-American schools, oceanography, conservation, water fowl land acquisition,

fisheries, and occupational safety research grants costing $6-$8 million annually.

Nothing remained sacred except defense. Regarding Native-American schools, Kennedy

agreed $4-$5 million form that $15-$20 million annual budget would be cut, as long as a good speech could be prepared showing what the Administration had already accomplished, as these cuts had to be executed during the height of the 1962 off-year election campaign.135

In EXP, Kennedy imposed some final restraints as well. HHFA funds for urban

renewal and mass transit grants were to be trimmed, NIH had its funding reduced and funding for some kinds of NASA research became temporarily curtailed and JFK had

FNMA “sell” rather than spend.136 Kennedy approved eliminating the WWII VA direct

home loan program by 1968, as it would save lending full VA housing money directly to

veterans for 25,000 loans annually. The regular VA mortgage guaranteeing program of

course continued.137 In the words of Dillon “we didn’t need this mass transportation and

aid to education, and all these other bills we know aren’t going to go through anyway.”138

Other non-defense cuts continued in accelerated public works and area redevelopment.

As it turned out, FY 1963 became Kennedy’s only chance for a tax cut and it failed.

By June 1963, the measure barely had life in the House and was dead in the Senate. 266

Early that fall, the House after extensive debate, passed it, but the Senate sat on it

through Dallas and the end of Kennedy’s presidency. Johnson of course passed it as part

of the post-assassination honeymoon on February 26, 1964.139

Kennedy had tried hard to sell 1963 as a balanced budget year, similar to what

Eisenhower had accomplished in 1956, 1957 and 1960. In his 1963 Congressional

budget message that January he had predicted “1963 thus shows a modest surplus of

about $500 million,” with budget expenditures (EXP) estimated at $92.5 billion in fiscal

1963 and budget receipts at $93 billion, thus the surplus. NOA according to JFK was

supposed to cost $99.3 billion. He also expected “the public debt to be $294.9 billion.140

None of this happened. When final figures were tallied Kennedy was $11.316 billion over his respective $100 billion limits. Total budget receipts were $106,560 billion producing a deficit of (-)$4,756 billion. Incredibly they missed it again in FY 64 as the budget deficit rose to (-)$5,915 billion.

Weaver of course continued managing housing and urban affairs with his constrained

operating budget while Kennedy spent vast sums of money on traditional programs which

were in the twilight of serving America’s urban needs. The results would very shortly be

seen under LBJ in Watts, Newark and Detroit, and in the many “long, hot summers” to

come. Nonetheless, Kennedy’s packaged public popularity continued.141 The real

tragedy though, consisted of the fact that JFK was unable and unwilling to translate his popularity into congressional tax reduction votes, without cutting his housing and urban program. The other clearly seen tragedy consisted of the fact he under-funded many of the truly needed urban programs out of lack of interest, and nobody measured the impact of that until the fires began. 267

End Notes to Chapter Six

1. Presidential Recordings Transcripts, The Tax Cut Proposals, Volume III, September 30, 1963, Audiotape 113, Item 5, 5, KLOHP, TJFKL.

2. Herbert Stein, The Fiscal Revolution in America: Policy in Pursuit of Reality (Washington DC: The AEI Press, 1996), 375; Richard E. Neustadt, “The Contemporary Presidency: The Presidential ‘Hundred Days’- An Overview,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, no. 1 (March 2001): 125.

3. Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 378, 379, 381.

4. Ibid., 386.

5. Ibid., 109.

6. Herbert Stein, Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy From Roosevelt to Regan and Beyond (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 93.

7. Ibid., 19-22; Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 372, 376.

8. Henry H. Fowler, “The President’s Tax and Expenditure Control Program: Key to Economic Policy in the Sixties,” U.S. Treasury Department Release Publications (1963): 9, TJFKL.

9. Calleo, Bankruptcy, 31; U.S. Department of State, “General Economic Policy,” Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963 IX (1963): 10-12.

10. Alan Ryan, “Keynes’s Last Stand,” The New York Review of Books, XLIX, no. 4 (March 14, 2002): 43; Morgan, Deficit Government, 88, 89.

11. Calleo, Bankruptcy, 2.

12. Erwin C. Hargrove and Samuel A. Morley (eds.), The President and the Council of Economic Advisors: Interviews with the CEA Chairmen (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), 166-169.

13. Joseph A. Pechman, Federal Tax Policy (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1983), 29.

14. Alice M. Rivlin, Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, the States and the Federal Government (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution 1992), Figure 2-1, 23, 24.

268 15. Stein, Presidential Economics, 90-94.

16. Stein, Presidential Economics, 95; Hargrove and Morley, Economic Advisors, 168; Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Gwirtzman, 349-351, May 11, 1970, KLOHP, TJFKL.

17. Steven A. Shull (ed.), Presidential Policymaking: An End of Century Assessment (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1999), 22, 23.

18. Oral Interview of Frederick G. Dutton by Charles Morrisey, 63, 65, May 3, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

19. Letters and Attachments from Norman P. Mason to Maurice H. Stans, 1, 2, 3, Jan 19, 1961, Bureau of the Budget Jan 1 - Jun 30, Records Group 207, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 58, National Archives and Records Administration; Oral Interview, White, 352-354.

20. Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 180-182.

21. Oral Interview, White, 356-358.

22. Ibid., 358.

23. H. Mark Roelofs, The Poverty of American Politics: A Theoretical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 5.

24. Kathryn Newcomer and Susan Welch, “The Impact of General Revenue Sharing on Spending in Fifty Cities,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 18, No. 1 (September 1982): 1, 3.

25. Press Release, Jan 19, 1962, 1, Weekly Report to the White House 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

26. Oral Interview of Milton P. Semer by William McHugh, 40, 42, September 10, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL.

27, Position Paper, “Front Door V. Back Door Financing,” Dec 8, 1961, Administrative Budget Jan.1 -Jun 30, 1961, 1, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

28. Ibid., 1, 2.

29. Position paper, “Back Door Financing,” Dec 12, 1961, Adm. Budget Jan. 1 - Jun 30, 1961, 1-3, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

30. “Front Door V. Back Door Financing,” Dec 8, 1961, 2, 3.

269 31. Oral Interview of Joseph S. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, 79, 82, Dec 16, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

32. Memo with Attachments to Albert Thomas from Robert Weaver, August 2, 1961, 1-3, Appropriations 1961 Senate and House Committees, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

33. Ibid., 2; “Front Door V. Back Door Financing,” Dec 8, 1961, 2, 3; Memo to John Sparkman from Robert C. Weaver, August 23, 1961, 1, Banking and Currency Senate and House, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

34. “Front Door V. Back Door Financing,” Dec 8, 1961, 3.

35. Memo to David Bell from Robert Weaver with Attachments, Dec 8, 1961, 2, HHFA 2-2-61 - 12-12-61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

36. Ibid., 1.

37. Robert C. Turner, “Understanding the Federal Budget: Address Before the Graduate School of Savings and Loan,” Bureau of Business Research, Indiana Business Papers, no.2 (August 22, 1961): 15,18.

38. Memo for Lewis E. Williams from Robert Weaver, April 9, 1962, 1-3, Adm Budget Jan. 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Memo to All Commissioners from Robert C. Weaver, April 28, 1961, 1-4, Adm. Budget Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Letter with Attachments for David E. Bell from Lewis E. Williams, February 9, 1961, 1-3, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Memo for Williams from Weaver, April 9, 1962, 1, 2, 86, NARA.

39. Letter from David E. Bell to Robert C. Weaver, May 12, 1961, 1, 2, Bureau of the Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

40. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, May 16, 1961, 1, 2, Bureau of the Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

41. U.S. Government, The Budget of the United States Government For the Fiscal Year Ending Jun 30, 1961 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1960), 269.

42. U.S. Government, The Budget of the United States Government For the Fiscal Year Ending Jun 30, 1963 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1962), 6, 7, 8.

43. Turner, “Understanding Budget,” 24.

270 44. Government, Budget 1964, 40, 770; U.S. Government, The Eighteenth Annual Report of the House and House Finance Agency, 1964 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 40.

45. Government, Budget 1964, 8.

46. Government, Budget 1963, 115; Government, Budget 1961, 269, 270; Government, Budget 1963, 744.

47. Government, Budget 1963, 744; U.S. Government, The Budget of the United States Government For the Fiscal Year Ending Jun 30, 1964 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), 779.

48. Government, Budget 1961, 272; U.S. Government, The Budget of the United States Government For the Fiscal Year Ending Jun 30, 1962 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 293; Government, Budget 1963, 745; Government, Budget 1964, 780; U.S. Government, The Budget of the United States Government For the Fiscal Year Ending Jun 30, 1965 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 284, 285.

49. Ibid., 17-19; Government, Budget 1963, 5-8, 114-116; Government, Budget 1963, 115; House, Glossary of Terms, 22-25.

50. U.S. House of Representatives, “Glossary of Terms in the Federal Budget,” Parliamentary Outreach Program, House Committee on Rules (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 18.

51. Government, Budget 1964, 417; Government, Budget 1963, 114; Government, Budget 1964, 416, 417; Government, Budget 1963, 114-116; Budget Expenditures, FY 1962-1966, 1, 2, RG 207.

52. Government, Budget 1963, 6, 7, 19, 114-116; Government, Budget 1964, 90, 741.

53. HHFA, Summary of Budget Expenditures, FY 1962-1966, September 11, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 30, 1961, 1, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

54. Government, Budget 1961, 269, 271, 274; Government, Budget 1962, 291-294; Government, Budget 1963, 7, 8, 10, 19, 22, 33-35, 268, 709, 731, 732, 744; Government, Budget 1964, 88-92, 280-283,770-779; Government, Budget 1965, 34-36, 282-287; U.S. Government, The 15th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1961, (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 385, 386; U.S. Government, The 16th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1962 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), 359-361; U.S. Government, The 17th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1963, (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), 488-490; U.S. Government, The 18th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1964, (Washington DC: U.S. Government 271 Printing Office, 1964), 428-430;U.S. Government, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Annual Report 1965, (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 142-149.

55. Government, Budget 1963, 34.

56. HHFA, Annual Report 1964, 429.

57. HHFA, Summary of Budget Estimates, 1962-1966, 1, 58, NARA.

58. Letter with Attachments to Bell from Williams, February 9, 1961, 2-8, 58, NARA.

59. Memo to All Regional Administrators from John M. Frantz, March 8, 1961, 1, 2, Adm. Budget Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58 NARA; Memo to All Regional Administrators from Lewis C. Williams, March 16, 1961, 1-4, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58 NARA; Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Sam R. Broadbent, May 16, 1961, 1, Bureau of the Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Hugh Mields, Jr., Jul 6, 1961, 1, Congressional Liaison (Policy Memos) 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

60. Memo for Neal J. Hardy from Robert C. Weaver, April 28, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58 NARA; Letter with Attachments to David E. Bell, from Robert C. Weaver, Jun 29, 1961, 1, 4, 6, 7, Bureau of the Budget, Jan 1- Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

61. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, April 10, 1961, 1, 2, Adm. (Policy Memos) 1-1-12-31 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

62. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, Jul 18, 1961, 1, 2, Bureau of the Budget, Jul 1- Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

63. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from David E. Bell, October 21, 1961, 1-3, Weaver- White House Cabinet Meetings 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

64. Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, September 29, 1961, 1-3, Bureau of the Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

65. Press Release, The White House, April 3, 1962, 1, 2, Legislative Files 4/62, President’s Office Files, 50, TJFKL.

66. Memo for the President, Supplemental Estimates FHA, August 3, 1961, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, Administration Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

272 67. Chart, Action on Budget Estimates-FY 1962, September 27, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; FY 62 Commitment and Expenditures, Oct 18, 1962, 1-4, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA. . 68. Ibid., Chart, 1.

69. Bureau and FHA Budget Meetings, November 15, 1961, 1, 2. Adm. Budget Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Memo for Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, Jul 7, 1961, 1-4, Adm. Budget, Jul 1- Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

70. Memo from L.E.W., August 3, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

71. Memo to the Directors from William B. Ross, May 26, 1962, 1-4, HHFA- 2-2-61 - 12-12-61, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

72. Note to Messrs. Frantz and Williams from Nathaniel J. Eiseman, Jul 17, 1963, 1- 3, Adm Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

73. Letter with Attachments to David E. Bell, from Robert C. Weaver, Dec 8, 1961, 1, 2, HHFA-2-2-61 - 12-12-61, WHSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

74. Budget Expenditures, FY 1962 - 1966, 1, 2, 58, NARA.

75. Budget Meetings, November 15, 1961, 1, 2, 58, NARA; Weaver to Williams, Jul 7, 1961, 1-4, 58, NARA; Memo to Bell from Weaver, December 8, 1961, 3-5, WHSF, 6, TJFKL.

76. Weaver to Williams, July 7, 1961, 1-3; Outline of Possible Presidential Remarks for Coffee with Democratic Senators and Representatives, September 20-21, 1961, 1, Legislative Files 9/61, POF, 50, TJFKL.

77. Confidential Letter to Kermit Gordon from Robert Weaver, Dec 13, 1963, 2, 3, Bureau of the Budget - Oct - Dec 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 110, NARA.

78. Confidential Summary of FY 64 Preview, Jul 17, 1962, 2, Bureau of the Budget Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

79. Press Release, Jan 19, 1962, 3, 96, NARA.

80. 1963 Budget Preview with Attachments, Jul 13, 1961, 15, 17, 18, 19, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

273 81. Memo to Robert Weaver from Morton J. Schussheim, Jun 24, 1963, 1, 2, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA; Memo to Constituent Commissioners from Robert C. Weaver, May 22, 1963, 1, 2, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 107, NARA.

82. Confidential Letter to Gordon from Weaver, 1, Dec 13, 1963, 110, NARA.

83. Highlights of Bureau Hearings, October 23, 24, 1962, 2, Bureau of the Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA; FY 1964 Budgetary Allowances, January 10, 1963, 1, 2, Adm Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

84. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 47, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

85. Schedule of Subcommittee Independent Offices Appropriations Bill 1964, April 26, 1963, 1, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA; Confidential Summary of FY 64 Preview, Jul 27, 1962, 1, 88, NARA; Letter with Attachments to Robert C. Weaver from Elmer B. Staats, Acting Director B.O.B., Budget Estimates for 1964, Jan 5, 1963, 1-3, Adm. Budget, Jan 1, - Jun 30, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

86. Memo to Distribution from URA Commissioner, May 9, 1962, 1, 2, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Confidential Summary of 1964 Preview Meetings, July 17, 1962, 1-5, Government Agency, Bureau of Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA; FY 64 Budget Estimates, October 5, 1962, 1, 2, Government Agency, Bureau of the Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

87. Ibid., Distribution, 1.

88. Summary of Budget Forecasts 1963-1966, HHFA, May16, 1961, 1-4, Adm. Budget, Jan 1, Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

89. Note with Attachments to Weaver from AJH, Jul 14, 1961, 1-4, Adm. Budget, 7- 1-12-31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

90. Economic Assumptions for Fiscal Years 1963-1967, April 23, 1962, 1-7, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

91. Memo with Attachments to Robert C. Weaver from URA Commissioner, Budget Preview and Estimates 1964-1967, April 30, 1962, 1-10, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

92. Nine Page Letter to Daniel E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver with 60 Page Attachment, HHFA 1964-1967 Budget Requirements, May 9, 1962, 2, Government 274 Agency, Bureau of the Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

93. Ibid., 10.

94. Ibid., 6, 7, 8; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Morton J. Schussheim, Jul 8, 1961, 1, 2, Bureau of the Budget Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, 58, NARA; FY 1964 Budget Estimates, October 5, 1962, 1, 2, 88, NARA.

95. Analysis of House Mark and Senate Appeals, October 9, 1963, 1-5, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

96. Ibid., 6-9.

97. Nine Page Letter with 60 Page Attachment, to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 6, 7, 8, 88, NARA.

98. Preliminary Budget Estimates 1963-1967, April 18, 1962, 5, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from J. Stanley Baughman, with Attachments, April 28, 1962, 2, 5, Adm. Budget, Jan.1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from John C. Kohl, April 23, 1962, 1, 2, Adm Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

99. Ibid., Preliminary Budget, 2.

100. Fiscal Years 1965-1968 Preview Budget Estimates, Jul 23, 1963, 4, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

101. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Lewis E. Williams, May 16, 1961, 4, 5, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

102. Nine Page Letter with 60 Page Attachment to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 20, 88, NARA.

103. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, Budget Estimates 1964-1967, April 23, 1962, 6, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

104. Ibid., 5-7; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Morton J. Schussheim, Budget 1963- 1967, April 27, 1962, Adm Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1962, 1-3, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, Budget Requirements 1963-1966, Sep 8, 1961, 1, 2, 4, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

275 105. Nine Page Letter with 60 Page Attachment to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 6- 8, 88, NARA; Memo to Weaver from Hardy, April 23, 1962, 7, 8, 9, 86, NARA.

106. Fiscal Years 1965-1968, Jul 23, 1963, 3, 5, 107, NARA.

107. Nine Page Letter with 60 Page Attachment to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 8, 9, 88, NARA; Summary of Operating Expenses Estimate FY 1963, October 23, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Expenditure Estimate 1962, March 17, 1961, 1, Adm. Budget, Jan 1 - Jun 30, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

108. Nine Page Letter with 60 Page Attachment to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 21, 88, NARA.

109. Budget Expenditures FY 1962- 1966, 1, 58, NARA; Memo to Weaver from Kohl, April 23, 1962, 1.

110. Analysis of House Mark and Senate Appeals, October 9, 1963, 2, 107, NARA.

111. Ibid., 1.

112. Nine Page letter with 60 page Attachment to Bell from Weaver, May 9, 1962, 8, 9, 88, NARA.

113. Herbert Stein, Governing The $5 Trillion Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 33.

114. Stein, Presidential Economics, 103; Presidential Recording Transcripts, The Tax Cut Proposals, Volume I, August 6, 1962, Audiotape 7, 10, KLOHP, TJFKL.

115. Hargrove and Morley, Presidents and CEA, 169; Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 120.

116. Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 606; Position Statistics on Political Strength - House/Senate, Undated, 5, Legislative Accomplishments; Congressional Action, 1-1-62 - 5-24-62, WHSF, Theodore C. Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

117. .Iwan W. Morgan, Deficit Government: Taxing and Spending in Modern America (Chicago: Dee Publishing, 1995), 90, 91.

118. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. I, Audio 7, 11.

119. Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 407, 413, 417; Position papers by TSC, “The Kennedy Administration and Business,” Jun 20, 1962, 1, Staff Memo (Sorensen-Wofford) Sorensen 1961-1963, President’s Office Files, 67, TJFKL. 276

120. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27, 1-10.

121. Stein, Fiscal Revolution, 385.

122. Presidential Recordings Transcripts, The Tax Cut Proposals, Vol. II, August 8, 1962, Audiotape 27A, 5, KLOHP, TJFKL.

123. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27, 18, 19.

124. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. I, Audio 7, 9, 10-15, 19; Audio 9, 4.

125. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27, 21.

126. Confidential Memo on Debit Limit, May 27, 1963, 1, 2, Legislative Files 5/63, President’s Office Files, 53, TJFKL; Morgan, Deficit Government, 91-93.

127. House of Representatives, Congressional Record, Speech of Congressman Morris K. Udall, Jun 26, 1961, Proceedings and Debates, 87th Congress, 1st Session, June 26, 1961, http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/spc./udall/speeches/budget.html.

128. Memo for the President from Henry H. Wilson, Jr. with Attachments, September 14, 1962, 3-5, Legislative Files 9/4-14, 1962, POF, 52, TJFKL; Interview with Rep. Otto E. Passman (D-LA) by Richard F. Fenno, Jr., Dec 14, 1963, 1, NARA, Center for Legislative Archives on Line, URL: http://www.nara.gov/nara/legislative/F60-01.html.

129. Shull (ed.), Presidential Policymaking, 27, 192.

130. Position Paper, “The Kennedy Administration and Business,” June 20, 1962, 1; Oral Interview White by Gwirtzman, 11 May 1970, 356-361.

131. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. I, Audio 7, 10.

132. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27A, 2-5; Audio 58, Item 2, 4-9; Audio 101, Item 4, 27.

133. Address of President John F. Kennedy, Economic Club of New York, Dec 14, 1962, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: 1962 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1963), 877,878, 880, 881.

134. Memo to Lee C. White from Robert C. Turner, Dec 29, 1961, 1, 2, Chronological File 1961, WHSF, Lee C. White, 1, TJFKL; Oral Interviews of John Horne by John F. Stewart, April 21, 1967, 48, 147-149, KLOHP, TJFKL; Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Albert Pleydell, Jan 5, 1961, 1, Weaver, Robert C., 1/21/59 - 10/13/61, WHSF, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL.

277 135. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27A, 6.

136. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, 27, 15.

137. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. II, Audio 27A, 2-5.

138. Presidential Recordings, Tax Cut, Vol. III, Audio 104, Item 4, 15.

139. Pechman, Federal Tax Policy, 29.

140. Government, Budget,1963, 7, 8, 10, 19, 22; Department of the Treasury, The Learning Vault, “Gross Federal Debt at the End of the Fiscal Year, 1963,1964,” U.S. Department of the Treasury. http://www.ustreas.gov/news/indexl.html.

141. Alan Brinkley, Liberalism and Its Discontents, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 213.

278

CHAPTER VII

“LITTLE PINK HOUSES:”

THE KENNEDY HOUSING BOOM AND FHA

To the extent possible, we want to meet these needs through private enterprise under the established FHA system.... I am recommending...40 year mortgages - now available only to families displaced by government action be broadened…and to make those mortgages more attractive to private investors.1

Kennedy’s housing boom of the early 1960s continued Eisenhower’s wildly

successful and precedent setting housing explosion of the 1950s. This chapter examines

JFK’s housing programs, looking at both what he maintained and changed, plus the

critical roles of Robert Weaver and FHA in housing during “Camelot.” However, before

examining “New Frontier” housing, some generalizations need to be discussed to set the

historical framework for “the thousand days” in housing.

The federal government had been very active in housing prior to JFK taking his oath

of office on that very cold January morning in Washington of 1961. It handed over to the

new president many tools to use. In 1940, only 43.6 percent of Americans lived in

single-family homes but by 1979, less than 39 years later, 66.3 percent of Americans

lived in single-family homes.2 Measured against the country’s massive population

“boom,” this stood as no small accomplishment and the federal government played a leading role. Support to financing institutions, making capital available, subsidies to homeowners, subsidies to renters, assistance to non-profit housing producers, tax incentives, regulatory changes, and land disposition schemes were a few of these.3 As

well, Washington contributed to this impressive housing revolution by insuring millions

of new homes under its FHA and VA long-term coverage. Both FHA and VA remained 279

very important financial institutions, where by 1955, FHA and VA mortgage loans

accounted for 52.1 % of the residential loan portfolios of commercial banks, 49.5% of

life insurance companies, and 63.7% of mutual savings banks. Yet, their popularity was

about to wain.4

In building the suburbs three important variables were at work: federal housing policy; federal assistance to financing; and private sector development. Federal policy and financing worked simultaneously and the results could be seen in four ways. The first, indirect policy influences reflected actions manipulating housing production through policy changes. Secondly, indirect financial influences constituted actions affecting the monetary, fiscal, and credit policies of housing money supply and financing guidelines.

The third, direct housing subsidies, as aimed at moderate income and low-income families, and the fourth addressed actions that affected the structure of neighborhoods through community development.5 The objective of all these actions became increasing

housing productivity that would in turn grow the economy.6

Other generalizations from the recent past are important as well. The federal

government always viewed total housing production as a primary force behind the entire

domestic economy. Moreover, home ownership was looked upon as the preferred form

of residence and middle-income families the target, certainly since Ike. Federally

financed housing and urban renewal strengthened the central city, but drove whites to the

suburbs and both of these events hurt the very poor. Directly subsidized low and

moderate-income programs were not successful, nor was public housing, and the poor

had to rely on “trickle-down” housing.7 Moreover, under Kennedy, nothing in his

housing program reflected a radical change from Eisenhower’s policies. And as public 280

funds were used to aid private developers in some fashion, over time, both government

and business became cozy with the relationship.8

The federal government intervened in housing for many reasons, from jump-starting

the economy, creating jobs, promoting social stability, protecting and stimulating the

housing market, to truly benevolent ones. Most of these federal initiatives operated with

private builders performing the construction.9 States also became involved and across the

country private investors were encouraged through tax credits to purchase tax exempt

bonds sold by state housing finance agencies. As well industrial development bonds and

mortgage review bonds sold briskly in the early 1960s.10 In the large and prosperous

states, major cities also benefited from these state programs.

Federal housing policy by definition evolved from regulatory to distributive and eventually to redistributive.11 FDR represented the regulatory aspects of federal housing

policy, correcting known problems by creating new agencies and policies to manipulate

them. Truman continued this. But Eisenhower on the other hand, subsidized certain

sectors of the housing economy, and “distributed” specific monies, to grow these sectors.

Kennedy for the most part continued that. LBJ tried to “redistribute” housing resources

and create new ones, with both to be used to compensate the poor for past inequities.

FDR and Truman worked in macroeconomic housing policy, Eisenhower and Kennedy in

community development, and LBJ plus some of his successors in social welfare policy.12

Lastly, before discussing Kennedy and housing, it is key to remember that the

foundation Eisenhower built for him, practically regarding the housing boom, was

nothing short of spectacular. Eisenhower’s “community development policy,” also meant

fusing the social interaction of neighborhood, community, municipality and public 281

services, into the responsibilities of home ownership. Ike saw housing as “sinking roots”

and as a significant symbol of order.13 He financed the market to grow that symbol.

Ike accomplished four very important milestones in housing. As the masterpiece of

his domestic presidency, Eisenhower created the longest, largest, and most impressive

private sector housing expansion in American history, to date, overseeing the

construction of between 10 to 12 million new homes depending upon who you read, from

January 1953 through January 1961. FHA insured 2,742,000 of those, worth 30 billion

dollars, while guaranteeing 7 billion in other home property improvements. This had a

profound impact on American society at “mid-century.” Secondly, his extraordinary

1954 Housing Act rewrote FNMA’s charter providing it with the authority needed to

stimulate a housing boom. Kennedy aptly capitalized on this. And in the 1954 Act, Ike also created the Workable Program for Community Development.14

Thirdly, Ike took HHFA into some new areas, one being the guaranteeing of college

housing and nursing home housing, on a national scale for the first time in American

history. During his administration, 200,000 students, teachers and student nurses, lived in

housing financed by thegovernment.15

Lastly, Eisenhower brought FHA directly into a new social compact and activism in

housing.16 Under two sections of his 1954 Act, he financed and subsidized housing for

the elderly and handicapped, some with children, as it had never been done before. With

modifications this program continues today, as a model of privately owned, non

speculative, low-income housing for the elderly.17 Ike’s Section 221 of the 1954 Housing

Act also established a new FHA program guaranteeing housing financing for those

displaced by urban renewal. No such relocation program had existed before 1954.18 282

Kennedy therefore had a legacy to continue and indeed a marvelous opportunity to expand it. The young president from Massachusetts had four announced objectives in housing. One was to improve and stabilize the residential construction business and use it to bring the country out of recession. To do this, the administration offered financing incentives to private industry to build more new homes annually.19 Secondly, using public subsidies Kennedy wanted to promote building houses for more lower and middle- income families. Here, JFK concocted a scheme using both direct and indirect government subsidies for the first time.20 Expanding public housing, urban renewal housing, plus the Workable Program for Community Improvement were also housing related goals that will be covered in later chapters.

Weaver, JFK’s key player for managing and executing the program, focused his energies on three major housing initiatives and three lesser ones. For this, FHA was his lead agency with the five constituent, and FNMA for the other (or sixth). First of course was to build more homes and increase private residential construction. FHA played an important role. Residential housing in the United States stood at $500 billion in 1961 and as the largest single component of national wealth. Kennedy’s housing boom aimed directly at that component and the real success he achieved there came through a financing “revolution.” FNMA with help from FHA, Treasury money, some legislation changes, and bureau of the budget actions, all orchestrated a marvelous series of home financing improvements in both policy and program development. That preserved and tried to grow the Eisenhower housing boom. Secondly, under FHA, Weaver attempted to successfully implement the new programs of the 1961 Housing Act, particularly the novel 221(d)(3) one, and to breathe new life into a new FHA home rehabilitation 283

program. Three smaller FHA programs, low-income housing demonstration grants, FHA housing research, and the multi-family housing program, all with a few new changes,

rounded out the FHA’s contribution to improved housing during the Kennedy years.21

In preparing to enact his housing programs, Weaver had to first address three pressing

issues: personnel; gaining control over FHA; and improving the FHA decision making

process regarding housing programs. First, Weaver had to carefully utilize and apportion

his dwindling staff, which would be a major irritation throughout his tenure and would

eventually damage his program. Under Bell’s ruthless pressure to keep expenses down,

for the balanced budget to gain the tax cut, Weaver continued to lose personnel without

replacements.22 As of January 1, 1963, HHFA had only 13,626 employees remaining from the 15,001 it began with in 1961. In constant dollars, even though Kennedy spent an average of 1.4 percent more from 1961-1963 than Eisenhower did from 1958-1960, that was not for HHFA staffing and personnel.23

Three key staff also departed HHFA in early 1963, and with these losses, that really

impaired the program’s progress. All left after defeat of the departmental status bill,

which may have contributed to some of their choices, but other reasons prevailed

publicly. The significant loss became Jack T. Conway, Walter Reuther’s man, who

resigned as HHFA deputy administrator on January 23, 1963. As a tough, seasoned, and

competent administrator had Conway stayed through Johnson, he could have become

under secretary of HUD. Officially, Conway’s well publicized exit was for “political

reasons,” to supposedly help the Democratic ticket in 1964 with the labor vote. As

framed, Conway, one pensive evening after the 1962 elections, decided to return to the

influential industrial union department of the AFL-CIO and “start building a base for 284

1964.”24 But, Conway remained deeply troubled over Kennedy’s lackluster interest in

civil rights, particularly open housing, and that contributed to his exit. Conway reflected,

“I was concerned...[ over]...the stroke of the pen that was never taken. And this was a

disillusioning thing for me. I really came to the conclusion that John Kennedy was afraid

of this, that he wasn’t as much for it, as his speeches had indicated in the campaign.”25

Conway served at the compelling force behind many of the HHFA’s successes under

Weaver and worked well with the Harvard trained economist. He mastered both the

HHFA infrastructure and the unique political architecture of the Hill. He became quite adapt at shaping public money into financial capital for housing and urban development, and played a role in FNMA’s financing revolution which supported Kennedy’s residential housing boom. After his departure, HHFA went into a “maintenance” period, with only one new initiative before Dallas. Milt Semer filled his position, as both deputy administrator and general counsel.26

Weaver also had to fire some people. CFA Commissioner Sidney Woolner from

Detroit had “been given to him” by the “President’s people” as a reward to Michigan’s

Governor G. Mennen Williams, whose state put Kennedy over the top in November

1960.27 Increasingly Woolner had difficulty managing the large CFA programs,

particularly accelerated public works, that reached its zenith in late 1962 and early 1963.

Conway served as a “buffer” for Woolner, but as soon as Conway left, Woolner was fair

game.28 According to Weaver, Woolner “lost control of his constituency” and was asked

to leave in early 1963. The now overworked Milt Semer managed CFA with some help

from Hugh Mields until a new commissioner could be appointed.29

Neal J. Hardy left FHA in mid-January 1963 because of a “difficult divorce problem” 285

and returned to his native New York to work for the Ford Foundation.30 Rumors

abounded though that he was having problems with private business developers over “the

President’s order on open occupancy.”31 Hardy, a proponent of a strong executive order,

conflicted with Kennedy who wanted a weak one, limited one, as did the developers.32

Moreover, some of the criticism for FHA’s applications processing nightmare was came directly at Hardy although he did not have the staff to effectively fight back As well most of FHA’s new programs had not succeeded as expected. In Weaver’s words about

Hardy, “He was a person for whom many in FHA had affection and most had some confidence.” This was not an overwhelming endorsement. Phil Bronstein came over from VA housing and replaced Hardy.33

Beyond personnel shortages that would be ongoing, Weaver’s second major issue

became gaining control of FHA. “Organizational resistance” to HHFA abounded within

FHA that had been strongly influenced by the construction business for years.34 Weaver complained that FHA had “more or less been seduced into belief…that it wasn’t really part of Government.” This view sprang from the independence granted FHA in its original 1934 enabling legislation, and roundly supported by the construction industry,

FHA felt comfortable with its “independence.” Moreover, depending on the budget year,

FHA sometimes reached near self-sufficiency, which further inflated egos. Many within

FHA plus most builders believed it should have been separated from HHFA long ago.

FHA “for so long had operated as a free-wheeling entity,” that the FHA commissioner routinely paid no attention to what the HHFA administrator said.35

Weaver used four means to leverage FHA back o fold. Key appointments loyal to

him were scattered throughout FHA, in influential places. Conway’s thoughtful but 286

intense efforts also helped.36 In the large FHA regional offices and particularly in the big

local insuring offices, Conway “mastered the techniques of transfer...promotions, [and]

manipulation of the civil service selective system,” to create a loyal base.37 Secondly, a

new memorandum requiring all FHA legislation to come through the HHFA central office worked well. Thirdly, Weaver reserved important decisions for himself, such as

centralized budget preparation. And since he was reforming some of HHFA’s decision

making procedures from the bottom up, he started with FHA.38 Slowly, these cumulative

effects returned FHA to a level of acceptable accountability. Weaver’s last issue, HHFA

“decision routing,” addressed the significant role the central office would play regarding

housing decisions. Through his Office of Administration (OA), he kept a constant

pressure on the regional offices of the four housing constituents (FHA, PHA, URA and

FNMA) to “push up” the important issues to the central office for decisions. Many FHA

“regionals” responded to the political pressures of their city or their regional

administrator, and sometimes made too many independent decisions.39 Weaver still was

not receiving the right mix.40 He compared decision-making to a popular metaphor of

the era, noting “if you are a mouse you will be Weaver’s man, if you are a man you’ll be your man, and tell Weaver to go to hell.” He mused “...there is always the issue of a power struggle and the fighting for position and fighting for autonomy which goes on in every organization.”41

To improve management housing programs, Weaver created the Office of

Metropolitan Development (OMD) within the HHFA central office. Weaver wanted

urban development to take place along orderly lines and address all the needs of

community housing. After the defeat of DUAH he thought he could capture some of its 287

lost impact with OMD, which would serve as an advisory headquarters for federal assistance to overall community development. It “coordinated” everything from open

spaces and mass transit to CFA initiatives and served a “clearing house.” But due to

statutory restrictions, it could not make FHA, URA, and PHA do anything they did not

wish to do.42 Weaver also took steps to correct FHA’s and URA’s strained decision

making process. URA had been precluding FHA from its planning and project approval

meetings. Yet both directly or indirectly managed housing programs “inside of or outside

of urban renewal areas.” Conversely FHA, with its rather “vain” self image, preferred

building houses in the suburbs rather than “downtown.” Weaver obtained cooperation.

Weaver had Hardy appoint an assistant commissioner for FHA multifamily housing,

to bring FHA closer to OMD, and to manage the large FHA multifamily housing

program.43 He further appointed Nathan Glazier, a Harvard sociologist to his staff who

would later would co-author with Daniel Patrick Moynihan, numerous books on

community planning for the poor.44

Weaver wanted to locate HHFA into one building in DC as well, which would be the

new HHFA central office building. Spread out in 26 separate locations in DC, HHFA required geographic consolidation to be truly effective, particularly with housing

programs. Weaver received the go ahead from Kennedy and Bell because he judiciously

crafted a position paper, proclaiming that between $200,000 and $300,000 would be

saved in administrative costs annually through consolidation. Additionally, the

“bonding” could be rolled over into several budget out years. In his paper Weaver cited

that many of the administrative expenses associated with driving back and forth to DC meetings, in DC, telephone and telegram charges, parking costs, mail, package expenses, 288

computer hook up, and HHFA staff disruption would be curtailed, producing savings.

Weaver received a favorable nod from Congressman Al Thomas’ committee but the

building, as with many Kennedy ventures was not completed until the Johnson years.45

Proudly but sadly, this big HUD building in DC recently bears Weaver’s name.

Lastly, Weaver also had to keep the housing program free from scandals, in those times of swift change and big money for cities, and he did. Huge sums of money were being spent by the bureau of roads and the new department of transportation, as highways began to crisscross America’s cities, along with massive urban development already under way. This was ripe for graft. Through his improved centralized control, strict professional rules for conduct, and staff selection, Weaver kept HHFA and the housing programs out of the headlines.46

In actually launching the “New Frontier” housing program, Weaver’s first actions

were implementing JFK’s massive anti-recession package. This directly impacted FHA.

Kennedy’s anti-recession and accelerated public works program placed a tremendous

“strain” on the Agency. They forced Weaver and his staff to move huge sums of money

quickly while dramatically accelerating housing programs, all under somewhat relaxed

government standards due to the recession. As mentioned, during the second week of

February 1961 to keep “tabs” on HHFA’s progress, Kennedy asked Weaver through Bell,

to commence sending weekly reports to him on his progress. Of course, these were

reviewed by aides.47

Three major categories of anti-recession actions increased FHA’s workload. To

accelerate construction activity and employment, FHA began issuing more rapid

“commitments” for building and financing during the first five months of 1961. Also, 289 struck by a backlog of applications coming out of the Eisenhower years, the anti- recession workload placed FHA in a precarious position, and with “current business” plus new initiatives, at a disadvantage it would never overcome before the end of “Camelot.”48

A second area of the anti-recession plan aimed at redeveloping “distressed areas.”

FHA relaxed hiring standards for contracted employees to “give relief to those temporarily unemployed,” yet still qualified for FHA contracting. Thirdly FHA’s interest rate reductions to stimulate the economy in the spring and early summer of 1961 caused a ripple effect of paperwork and new business throughout the Agency.

Next on Weaver’s housing agenda was executing the 1961 Housing Act. It had only a few new housing measures but these were complicated ones, and implementation had to be clearly understood in the field. Weaver held regional “clinics” across the country to discuss how to manage these new programs and sent HHFA officials to twelve major cities to assist with implementation.49

The “new” housing programs of the 1961 Housing Act were the most important ones for Kennedy’s housing legacy. Previous ones remained but the new designs received priority plus increased public notice. Six new housing programs, three significant ones and three lesser by degree, constituted the changes. The first one dealt with one of

FHA’s primary contributions to the Eisenhower/Kennedy housing boom. Title I of the

1961 Act now authorized FHA coverage for 35 years at low mortgage interest loan rates for moderate-income families to buy new homes, and up to 40 years for others. FNMA’s close work with FHA in offering financing improvements made this successful.

Other new Title I changes were with Section 221. This Section was actually a family of “improvements” headed by the soon to be infamous Section 221(d)(3) plan. Its 290

counterparts were Section 221(d)(2) and Section 221(d)(4) which were not new, but

(d)(3) certainly was novel. In sum, these provided 30 and in some cases 40 year

mortgages, plus rental and lease options, for both lower-income and middle-income

families, both in and outside of urban renewal areas, for houses or apartments. Under a

unique financing arrangement, 221(d)(3) covered both property construction and the mortgage at below interest market rates (BMIR). Also contained in Title I were new home improvement and rehabilitation programs were under Section 203(k) and Section

220(h) that increased home rehabilitation loan amounts and lengthened repayment schedules for properties both inside and outside urban renewal areas. This rounded out the major changes. Lesser changes for housing encouraged new low-income housing demonstration grants and FHA housing research as well as increased funding and changes in the big multifamily housing program. These will be discussed later.50

Kennedy’s chief contribution to continuing the suburban housing “boom,” lay in creating a “moderate” but significant mortgage financing “revolution” which helped grow

it. He provided more incentives in the mortgage financing market, made additional

capital available, and increased consumer financing protection. The four means he used

involved FHA policy and interest rate changes, consumer protection improvements,

Treasury money, new laws, and a spate of new FNMA changes. He continued

Eisenhower’s trend of befriending big business through a series of incentives and

favorable policies despite Sorenson’s criticism that “most big businessmen are by

commitment, habit and association…inherently opposed to this Administration and its

policies.”51

FHA policy and interest rate changes started the process. FHA’s financing improved 291 by the liberalization of mortgage terms, and the interest rate reductions he initiated.52

Key to the economy from an FHA perspective would be raising the “value” of homes and the volume of homes, while maintaining the quality of homes while keeping prices down.

JFK dropped the FHA prime lending rate causing the private market to respond accordingly. On February 2, 1961 he reduced rates, from five and three quarter percent to five and one half percent and again on May 29, from five and one half percent to five and one quarter percent. Kennedy also asked Weaver to increase the size of FHA’s housing market analysis section to provide improved market forecasting, to dramatically increase public awareness of FHA programs and options. Press releases and

National financial information were printed in both English and Spanish for the first time.53

Kennedy’s second initiative created the Consumer Interest and Protection Council and he appointed a special assistant for consumer affairs to oversee this. HHFA brought private consumer protection for housing to this newly appointed council in an advisory capacity. Low income, middle income, and elderly housing changes represented the most visible financing moves. Quicker mortgage credit analysis, impartial property appraisals, and enforcement of minimum property standards in the private sector expanded. Stepped up consumer financing education took place. One suggestion consisted of all new homes, regardless of the means of finance, coming with warranties.54 JFK also initiated tax incentives for the sale homes. These included a substantial “write off’ on the profit from the sale, if that profit went into another house.55

In March of 1962, the president asked the secretary of the treasury, in another important step, and the chairman of the council of economic advisors, and chairman of 292

the board of governors of the federal reserve system, to form a committee on federal

credit programs. They did and quickly saw that to grow the housing boom, significant

increases in the flow and availability of mortgage credit were needed. Chaired by Robert

V. Roosa, under secretary of treasury, federal revolving trust fund amounts gradually

increased to accommodate this in 1962 and 1963.56 This became critical to continuing

suburban housing growth, coming out of the sharp recession.

Kennedy further passed important housing finance legislation. Four kinds of

financial institutions n 1961 held 80% of residential mortgages. Savings and loan

associations topped the list covering 35.47% of the private mortgage market and

investing $704 million annually or 75% of the total assets. Life insurance companies

came next, holding mortgages worth $265 million or 20% of the insurance industry’s assets and 17.71 % of the total mortgage market. Commercial banks followed holding

$224 million worth of mortgages which amounted to 47% of their worth for a 12.55% market share. Mutual savings banks held $233 million representing 48% of their total assets or 14.98% of the market.57

JFK and his economic advisors passed Public Law 87-210 on September 8, 1961 that reduced S & L payments to the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) from 2% to 1% of the net annual increase on insured accounts. This produced $2 billion in additional mortgage money, or roughly 10% more available for financing.58 Public

Law 87-779 of October 9, 1962 encouraged the S & Ls to invest further in multi-family

housing (apartments) by raising the cap they could lend to 15% of their assets.59 These

changes became indispensable to sustaining continued housing growth. Kennedy passed

five other laws with bipartisan support, from May 25, 1961 through October 5, 1962 293 increasing what FHA could lend. Public Law 87-38 increased the revolving fund authorization by an additional $1 billion for FHA insurance coverage and made favorable changes in defense housing. The fifth separate measure, PL 87-717 of September 1962, permitted national banks to lend up to 70% of time/savings deposits for long term residential and farm buildings.60

Uniquely but not by design, one of Kennedy’s major pieces of housing finance legislation turned out to be the Revenue Act of 1962. It issued revisions to the existing federal tax system in three areas. As written, it did not aim at giving S & Ls breaks, but rather to discipline them into halting practices the administration considered risky, thereby strengthening the financing market. As passed on October 16, 1962 the Revenue

Act though stimulated the mortgage market. It required S & Ls to pay higher taxes on

“bad debts” and punished them in like kind for “writing off bad debts.” Under the Act, offending S & Ls lost tax exemptions they previously enjoyed, from paying excise taxes on communications stock, transportation stocks, and stock “document” stamps for certificates of indebtedness. In addition, all S & Ls were now more closely scrutinized by the department of the treasury and were required to send in reports with greater frequency. Further changes were made to stockholders’ tax schedules in Savings and

Loans.61

Yet in a strange twist of irony, the Revenue Act became a “boom” for real estate speculation, as both Bob Weaver and Mort Schussheim later woefully explained to

Kermit Gordon. The Revenue Act “encouraged” speculative financing for the construction of apartments (multi-family housing), planned suburbs, office buildings, shopping centers, strip malls. The trick was to buy, then quickly sell, not becoming stuck 294

with a “bad write-off.” If careful, a financier or builder could quickly write off a

substantial portion of the original cost of a project, and then sell it to another party,

paying taxes only on the transaction, and that, at the then fairly low and politically

untouchable capital gains rate. Speculation in suburban land and its development

followed. Buy, hold it just long enough to depreciate it, then quickly sell it. This in fact

encouraged S & Ls into venture capitalism.62

In September 1963, Kennedy simplified the election and appointment of officers to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. This move, favored by housing financiers, also helped continue the housing boom.63 Through legislation, the Federal Home Loan Bank

Board (FHLBB) as the sanctioning body for chartering savings and loan associations

under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Savings and

Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), received more members and obtained more

latitude. These moves produced additional quality S & Ls nationally with stronger

charters. Lastly, Kennedy at his death, had several bills pending to broaden insurance

coverage for S & Ls deposits.64

JFK further provided federal assistance for refinancing numerous small construction

supply businesses that suffered economic injury as a result of federal projects.65

Specifically, businesses displaced by urban renewal, CFA public works projects, FHA

elderly housing, and PHA public housing most frequently requested and received

assistance.66 A revolving fund of $300 million under Area Redevelopment, in part,

helped these firms.67

Kennedy’s FNMA though was the real key and dominant player in improving private

sector financing. FNMA had three long-term financing objectives. The first was to use 295

its powers to stabilize and expand the fiscal and monetary “soundness” of the economy.

The second consisted of reducing regional yield differences on mortgages. The third

consisted of being a selective buyer and seller of quality mortgages.68 FNMA did this

under three programs known as the “special assistance fund,” “regular secondary market”

and “special market facilities programs.” FNMA purchased strictly FHA/VA mortgages

at the start of JFK’s presidency but gradually expanded into purchasing mortgages on

urban renewal housing, cooperative housing, elderly housing, military housing, and.

disaster housing mortgages.69 Under the special assistance program, the president could authorize FNMA to energetically purchase mortgages in economically troubled locations.

Both Kennedy and Johnson had so much success with FNMA, as a model, it later caused the creation of the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA or Ginnie Mae) in 1968 and a subsequently the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) in 1970, both under Nixon.

FNMA’s three programs worked well together in the housing market. Its generally

prosperous and usually timely “secondary market” activities often stimulated the entire housing market. In purchasing government mortgages “in packages,” FNMA provided exciting portfolios of low interest and fully guaranteed mortgages to anxious buyers.

Buying these mortgages freed originators to make additional loans and selling mortgages

stimulated the entire market. FNMA controlled the timing. In each of Kennedy’s three

years, FNMA bought $624 million worth of mortgages in 1961, $547 million in 1962,

and $181 million in 1963.70 FNMA’s third major operation, the “special market

facilities” program sold its own stocks, bonds, financial notes, and debentures (foreclosed

mortgages). Kennedy in his first eighteen months, increased FNMA’s available common 296

stock by $40 million and added $475 million over his three years to special assistance.71

This solidified FNMA stock.

Working together FNMA and FHA proved solutions for financiers and helped grow a new form of financier called the “mortgage investment banker.” As created mortgage banking institutions did not take deposits, but rather purchased both FNMA and conventional mortgages, held them only briefly, and then sold them to the “highest bidder.” FHA and VA guaranteed mortgages bought at low rates proved to be an outstanding investment, because of their minimum “mortgage servicing” costs. The federal government literally helped create these speculators, and the speculators helped expand the market and created more capital.72

Under Kennedy and as chaired directed by the stoic but eccentric, J. Stanley

Baughman, who often refused to send items to Weaver for the weekly reports FNMA

contributed directly to Kennedy’s housing financing revolution in four important ways.

First, as it slowly reduced the fees it charged to a buyer to sell a mortgage to FNMA or to

buy a mortgage from FNMA, it stimulated the market. By reducing the buyer’s cash

contribution of FNMA “stock” in 1961 from 2% to 1 % of the worth of the transaction,

vast sums of money became freed for other housing transactions.73 Secondly, its massive research division predicted the most advantageous timing for release of numerous financial instruments for market stimulus. FNMA as the largest single home mortgage buyer in the United States could readily predict effective timing and published a list of home purchase prices, which the private sector called the “auto blue book” of mortgages.74 Weaver called FNMA “a useful, selective, counter-veiling force ... for the

economy as a whole.”75 297

Thirdly, FNMA influenced price and prices influenced housing availability.76

FNMA purchased most mortgages at “par” and in some special assistance cases, at below

par. Based on the value or worth of its own capital stock, it could then sell these at varied

prices, up or down by 3% and making a profit depended upon the intent of the sale.

FNMA could also “dump” mortgages on the market to drive prices down77 and thus

accomplish a series of major market manipulations. Moreover, mortgages were purchased

by “type” and geographic location. Type meant FHA/VA prime interest rate as 5 ¾%

“type” mortgages and 5 ½% ones, down to 5 ¼% ones. FNMA selected the type based

on national market conditions and then varied its sale price from $100 worth of the price it paid against $100 worth of the value of the property, down to the $96 level for both.

This permitted market manipulation geographically as certain mortgage types popular with lenders in different sections. For example, to get the housing economy moving again, between February 3 and May 29, 1961, FNMA changed both the “type” of mortgage it bought and the “price” it charged a total of five times.78

Two caveats are important though. FNMA paralleled both the Mortgage Bankers

Association of America and the American Bankers Association guidelines.79 Secondly,

FNMA heeded caution to ensure it made money by manipulating the price of its

debentures, stocks and bonds.80 Here, in May of 1961, FNMA offered $150 million in

twelve year issues at 4 ½% to stimulate interest during the sluggish economy.81

As FNMA continued to work its magic however, an ugly problem developed

nationally as the economy inched along toward recovery. When FHA went to 5 ¼%

mortgages to attract more home buyers with less money, lenders began changing higher

“discount points” to off set their loss on long term interest. Conway called the problem 298 to Weaver’s attention in the summer of 1961. Weaver, Bell, Hardy, Heller, and others then conducted a series of regional conferences with S and Ls to try to coerce them into reducing discount points. Weaver simply informed some of them in western states that FHA and FNMA would cease to insure and purchase mortgages there, if the trend continued.82 He also hinted FNMA might begin a mortgage “sell off” program and flood their secondary market. But Weaver only gained limited success, and discount points haunted FHA throughout the Kennedy years.83

In the fall of 1961, “spot” shortages developed in available mortgage money in some areas of the country. Baughman noted that money normally available was being used to finance commercial construction, with heavy discount points this compounded driving customers away from 5¼% mortgages. Never shy with words, Baughman told Kennedy in one weekly report that the 5 ¼% rate was “unrealistic” and should be withdrawn.84 He also took steps to correct the problem on his own. If the 5 ¼% mortgages would not sell, he targeted the 5 ½% and 5 ¾% mortgages and began buying them at low prices thus freeing capital.85 Additionally, in November to protect FNMA, he offered $225 million worth of secondary market long-term debentures, while also increasing the interest yield on short term discounts notes.86 These measures stabilized mortgage funds for the remainder of 1961.

Baughman’s bold moves “primed the pump” for 1962 as well causing a commensurate increase in the interest rates and dividend rates for commercial banks and

S and Ls. Business in FNMA’s secondary market portfolio continued to improve and mortgages of the right type began to flow in.87 As a result, FNMA began a sell off in its secondary mortgage holdings in February 1962, liquidating over $6 billion in mortgages, 299

which then constituted the world’s largest portfolio. Truly, 1962 stood as a very good

year for FNMA.88

FNMA took additional steps to insure housing finance prospered in 1963 as well. To

ensure the Association remained a strong economic force and with the expected FHA

“drop off’ after the executive order, as a hedge to inflation Baughman “cooled off’ the

sale of mortgages. In early February 1963, he increased by one half-point FNMA’s

selling price. In an attempt to stimulate now somewhat lackluster, 1963 FHA market,

FNMA increased by a 1/2 point what it would pay for FHA/VA mortgages. Bell, Dillon,

Weaver, and FNMA successfully resisted Congressional pressure for a 5% mortgage,

which would not have sold, and fiscal year 1963 ending on July 1, produced a twenty-

five year record for FNMA mortgage sales.89 Based on this performance, the market for

1964 looked strong as well. JFK’s chief contribution to the housing boom worked.

Yet FHA helped foster the suburban housing boom of the early 1960s as well. It was

“only yesterday” when an American family could not get a long-term home mortgage on

a house. Uniquely, “long-term” before the New Deal consisted of three to five years, as

conservative bankers of the depression era were exceptionally reluctant to loan large

sums on a private home for long periods of time.90 Then, families had to rent and live in flats (apartments) until they amassed huge savings, enough to pay half down for the cost of a home, and the remainder in large installments over only three to five years. Lengthy mortgages on private homes were simply unthinkable. FHA changed all of that and literally financed the middle class into the suburbs.”91

Throughout the 1950s, FHA serviced its traditional constituents with sustained

growth. In 1960 FHA wrote 373,261 home mortgage guarantees, provided coverage for 300

49,101 multifamily units, and insured 1,011,858 home improvement projects. FHA as

well maintained a small cooperative housing program insuring 7,803 units that year, and

a small rental-housing program of 19,447 units while guaranteeing 16,567 elderly

housing units. This represented 21.5% of the overall housing market in 1960, down only

slightly from the 22.2% it had in 1959.92

Under Kennedy, though, FHA would expand programs but lose market share at the

same time, a first in history to date. One of FHA’s first initiatives when Kennedy took

over involved planning “suburban towns.” Planned suburban towns with federal

assistance dated back to the New Deal, then called “greenbelt cities.” FHA provided planning assistance in creating Reston, VA, Columbia, MD, and Irvine, CA. For Reston, the master plan of 1962 consisted of high-density corridors of apartments and townhouses, with a village center, parks, and a small number of single-family homes.

Columbia, MD, as designed in 1963 by architect James Rouse, offered a rural escape between Baltimore and Washington. Target population was 100,000 and the town had separate villages within it, each of 12,000 people, with the r own parks, schools, and centers. Irvine, CA was to be 120,000 acres of prime California land designed for up to

400,000 residents around the new University of California at Irvine campus. Single and multiple family housing encircled this with parks, schools, and shopping centers.93 All

three succeeded only by degree and not as originally designed with Reston coming

closest to the basic goal.94 However, Kennedy flirted with expanding this idea through to

the end of his presidency, with plans for 1964 including a new “suburban townhouse”

plans.95 FHA discussed a new “black suburbs” program for that year as well.96

It should be noted before examining the “houses and homes” of the Kennedy housing 301

boom, that personally JFK put very little effort into this beyond approving financing

changes and encouraging FHA to expand. The National Association of Home Builders

tried repeatedly to meet with him about suburban growth, but he refused. Other groups

as the National Association of Real Estate Boards received the same treatment. The

Houston Home Builders Association offered seven free homes to the Mercury astronauts, but Kennedy declined and the project died.97 Kennedy never responded to any major

ideas from private housing groups that wrote to him, leaving that exclusively for aides.98

However, he did make speeches about the subject, and when things went well he quickly

took the credit. And suburban expansion went very well.

The housing explosion under Kennedy followed the same path as Eisenhower’s. The

working class suburbs of the 1920s, mostly around industrial cities, had become the

“trickle down” neighborhoods of the 1950s, as minorities and the poor replaced the previous owners, with a few elderly remaining. But around the country, outside the cities

the suburbs boomed and changed America forever.99 FHA helped initiate this mass

production housing boom, offering its long-term mortgage coverage for very specific

kinds of homes, creating what later would be called “little pink houses.” This program

required three percent down on the first $13,500 and ten percent down on the next

$13,500 up to $27,000, and the government guaranteed $15,000 of that total. Happily a

family could buy a nice new home in June of 1961 for $13,500 and if more was needed

the federal government had a list of “referred” lenders for finance. For proven hardship

cases, a forty year mortgage could be approved and down-payment costs would be

financed into it. As an ingenious form of government intervention, FHA offered the plans, performed the construction inspections, and screened the prospective buyers.100 By 302

the millions, buyers flocked to own these “little pink houses” in the new suburbs.

These suburbs held many advantages, the first conceptual, and the second physical.

As Kenneth Jackson wrote in his seminal work, Crabgrass Frontier, higher income

suburban neighborhoods created higher status. Suburbia represented a whole new middle class, giving a sense of residential community to a complete class of people.101 That also

applied to anyone who could “get into” a new suburb, even with a lower priced “FHA.”

A new home in the suburbs not only provided status, but also glorified “individualism” in

that an “individual” house became yours rather than a flat, row-house or double. The

new suburban sprawl of the early 1960s reinforced the reality of space, a concept so

important to the American psychic, according to historians David Potter, Daniel Boorstin

and others.102 Families of the Eisenhower/Kennedy housing boom were more than

willing to overlook the fact these suburban homes were monotonous little boxes,

generally on flat land, in favor of the idea these indeed expressed “the American

dream.”103 The suburbs were the “Tunerian” safety valve of the 1960s. Crime also

dropped in new suburbs at least initially, which constituted a further reason to move. But

the suburbs had as much to do with community income equity as with geography.104

Yet as the suburban “home” constituted the key to “freedom” from the city proper,

the model suburban home of the Eisenhower/Kennedy housing boom also glorified

sameness. Lewis Mumford characterized that sameness as “uniform, unidentifiable

houses lined up ... at uniform distances, on uniform roads ... inhabited by people of the

same income ... witnessing the same television programs and conforming ... to a common mold.”105 Nonetheless, these “little boxes” sprang up on slabs around the big cities by the hundreds of thousands. On an average, they were 900 hundred square feet with two 303

bedrooms and a carport, and they resolutely stood as the American ideal. They stood for

freedom, and Americans loved their little boxes. If it had two stories and two more

bedrooms upstairs, plus a small hallway, the total became 1,100 square feet and the

dream “had wings.”

Regardless of the “sameness,” home buyers of forty years ago truly adored these

small homes. Several variations captured and kept that affection. Karsin prefabricated

homes had a three bedroom model in five different styles and colors, one of them being

pink, still at 900 square feet, but available with the optional garage, for $10,000 to

$15,000. Cape Cod and ranch houses became immensely popular with some including

fireplaces. One version of these came as a miniature colonial and all had 1,000 square

feet for a low cost of $11,500 to $14,500.

Smaller homes abounded also.106 FHA had one of 650 square feet and Worden and

Associates of South Bend had a 720 square foot home, both of which sold well. Others

frequently appeared with 800 to 855 square feet and in the early 1960s, several varieties

of these homes could be purchased for under $10,000, with payments of $100 per month

for longtime. Economy Portable Housing of Chicago concocted a summer cottage that

sold as an all-year home, known as the “stream liner,” and a few of the small linear

homes of the period actually took their original design from poultry houses.107 Homes with a “wonderfully modern” or modular look caused buyers to take notice, ranging from

891 square feet for $14,500 through $17,500 for more space.108 And prices only slowly

inched up during the Kennedy years. At the end of 1963, 69% of al FHA and VA

guaranteed homes sold for under $17,000.109 Yet by 1965 home prices jumped as new

buyers demanded more space and absolutely required a fully attached garage. By early 304

1966, as the inflation of the Vietnam War began to settle in, prices would never be the

same. At year’s end in 1965, the average was 1,500 square feet and the cost was

$20,000.110

Suburbs of the Eisenhower/Kennedy housing boom created not just a new culture, but

a series of new rituals, perhaps a separate culture. On the positive side, images of “Leave

It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” were touted in the Saturday Evening Post,

McCalls, and Life and on television, praising suburbs as great places to live. Parents’

Magazine and books as Women Today, Building a Successful Marriage, and even Dr.

Benjamin Spock’s Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, alluded to the

advantages of suburbia. But conformity had its critics as well as seen in The

Organization Man which told of dissatisfied businessmen retreating at the end of a day to suburbs where they had to conform further. David Reisman’s The Lonely Crowd captured suburban isolationism. Herbert J. Gans, The Levitowns while defending

suburbs, exposed the boredom and loneliness of being cut off from both city and

countryside. John Keat’s in his bitter novel The Crack in the Picture Window simply

called suburbs a true catastrophe.111

Yet suburban statistics remained impressive. In 1960, 119,595,000 people of

179,323,175 in the United States lived in or around cities accounting for 66.7% of the

population. Of that 66.7%, 45.9% or nearly 55 million lived in the suburbs. By 1970,

54.2% of the 76 million people who lived in or around cities, resided in the land of

“Ozzie and Harriet.”112 From 1959 to 1968 the nation completed 14,510,000 new houses and the Eisenhower/Kennedy “housing boom” was the chief contributor.

305

NEW HOUSING STARTS

YEAR TOTAL Eisenhower

1953 1,438,000 1954 1,551,000 1955 1,646,000 1956 1,349,000 1957 1,224,000 1958 1,382,000 1959 1,531,000 1960 1,274,000

Kennedy 1961 1,337,000 1962 1,469,000 1963 1,613,000

The above figures are from HUD using Census data.113 It is interesting to note that one can obtain three “sets” of figures, one from Weaver’s writings, one from HHFA, and one using Census data. However, the facts were clear.114 This was a housing “boom” and it

continued through Johnson and into the early Nixon years as well. Conventional,

FHA/VA mortgage guarantees produced this massive shift in both living and life style.

As a theme, JFK remained slightly behind Ike in new housing numbers, as he was in most housing categories, even with FNMA’s financial wizardry. But had he not stimulated that market, he could have been even further behind due to his forthcoming disasters with

FHA.

Yet five other success stories are part of the tale of the suburbs as well. First, suburbs encouraged the growth of strip malls, then shopping centers and finally massive consumer malls. The early strip malls or shopping plazas entailed conglomerates of stores with parking along roads leading to the new suburbs. Shopping malls, enclosed 306

shopping centers, and consumer malls constituting a larger version of the same, sprang up

usually under one developer/owner.115 These malls and their adjacent suburbs established

a new set of community rituals and customs, glorifying excess. Suburbanites flocked to

shopping centers on weekends, to recapture the socialization of urban life lost in the

suburbs. Malls and shopping centers “captured the best of the central city” and brought it

to suburbia. In a way they offered Leo Marx’s “middle landscape” between the city and

country, in human interaction.116 And the government actually helped create them,

beginning in 1954 where federal tax policy permitted “accelerated depreciation.” This

allowed commercial developers to rapidly write off construction of new business buildings and claim any initial losses against unrelated income.117

Secondly, shopping plazas and their adjacent suburbs of the Kennedy years advanced

the growth of the automobile culture.118 As the population increased by a stunning 35%

from 1945 through 1965, automobile registrations jumped by an astounding 180% and by

1963, eighty percent of all eligible Americans had a car.119 Thirdly, both suburbs and

malls began to attract nearby business as “satellite centers” to the large cities. This of

courses caused the now famous drop in city business and population. From 1953 to

1965, businesses in Detroit’s central business district dropped 22%, Chicago’s 25%,

while conversely Philadelphia’s new suburban merchants increased their sales by 64%.120

Suburbs and shopping centers also influenced the expansion of the young interstate

highway system and the call for mass transit. In the south in 1963, I-185 around

Charlotte NC was specifically designed to accommodate the Cortland and the Groton

Avenue Shopping Plaza and its adjacent suburbs. In the north as well in 1960, I-81

around Scranton and Wilkes-Bierre, PA curved sharply to accommodate major shopping 307

complexes and suburbs. FHA provided free planning guidance for these projects from its

research division. In 1962, 44 large regional shopping centers were built which set a

record to that date and Specialized Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) sprang up

across the country to finance these malls.121 In 1945 only around 400 shopping plazas

existed, but by the end of 1963, over 7,100 were open to customers. This was a massive

change in how society did business.

Lastly, new sunbelt cities sprang up as a result of Kennedy’s suburbs. Six in

California alone, plus Phoenix, Atlanta, and Miami grew energetically. Three towns in

Texas appeared overnight. These warm burgeoning cities welcomed northerners and mid-

westerners away from the cold rust belt towns and the migration was on, much of it spurred by the suburbs. Yet painfully, as will be discussed in chapter nine, virtually

every means was used in the early 1960s to keep the new suburbs fully segregated.122

This constituted their major drawback as they heightened racial tensions and began to create two different societies.

Beyond the “housing boom,” FHA had some other programs for improving housing in America. But unfortunately the “wheels fell off the New Frontier’s housing wagon” with most of them and none were as successful as his housing boom. In order of priority,

FHA emphasized two new “showcase” programs during the Kennedy years and three new smaller ones. The most emphasis was placed on the new 221(d)(3) middle income and lower income plan followed by the new home rehabilitation program. The three new but lesser FHA programs were: FHA housing demonstration grants; multifamily housing; and the FHA housing research program.

The new 221(d)(3) home owner and renter options looked very attractive on paper. 308

They sprang from the 221 “family” of programs for middle and lower-income families.

The aim of the new 221(d)(3) plan was to deliver affordable housing, with few

constraints, to lower middle-income families, and upper lower-income ones, plus those

displaced by urban renewal. This would further multifamily units. The latter were

connected units ranging from two in number to “row homes” and also apartments.

Financing for this program remained complex. Independent construction firms

interested in building 221(d)(3), or departments of larger construction firms formed

“limited dividend corporations.” The new limited dividend corporation received a mortgage guarantee from the government covering 90% of the cost of building these properties, with only a 10% equity investment down, up front. As well, application fees and other FHA fees could be deducted from the 10% equity requirement. Moreover, the government guaranteed 90% of the mortgage at “below market interest rates” or BMIR as this program came to be known. Nationally BMIR interest rate varied from 3.25% to

3.0% by FHA region, as BMIR tailored itself to local markets. The “corporation” could also sell shares of its 90% investment or the whole mortgage to anyone, but usually mortgage companies purchased the entire project. Thereby the “active” costs could be limited to only a 10% investment and if it sold soon after completion, the corporation had their mortgage paid off and kept the profits. The difference between the prime conventional interest rate and the BMIR rate was “absorbed” by the government.

Further, these projects offered “tax shelter” opportunities through accelerated

depreciations which allowed the developer to “write off’ 20% of the 10% investment

(including fees), over the first ten years of the project, provided the original mortgage remained.123 And due to the lower overall cost of construction and financing, the new 309

homeowner or renter could expect lower monthly payments. On paper, this appeared to

be quite attractive plan. Weaver placed the 221(d)(3) program under FHA, but not the

financing.124 In July 1961, FNMA created a new special assistance fund for 221(d)(3) to

take “risk” away from FHA and it was expected business would soon flood into the

program.125 However, the waters moved slowly as many in construction hoped 221(d)(3)

financing might fall as low as 1%, which the National Housing Conference had

recommended, but the administration soundly rejected.126

Regarding that mortgage financing, Treasury, the bureau of the budget, HHFA and

Congress all consistently reviewed it. From June 30, 1961 through November 22, 1963,

it hovered around 3%, sometimes went up to 3 1/8%, and for a few months stood at 3¼%.

But as this program offered a 40 year government guaranteed mortgage, the secretary of

the treasury and the FHA commissioner both believed a 1% rate was too risky.127 Yet

unfortunately, 3% was not low enough to attract the kind of business expected, which

constituted one reason the 221(d)(3) program failed.

Additionally, BMIR was designed to close the gap housing-wise, between those

eligible for regular FHA guaranteed loans and those in need of public housing.128 Weaver called it a program for families with incomes that “do not permit home ownership at current construction costs and market interest rates because their incomes are ... too low for decent privately financed housing ... yet are too high to permit occupying low-rent public housing.”129 To be eligible for 221(d)(3), a family had to have an annual income below 95% of the median incomes in the area of the country where they lived.130 Then,

middle income meant $4000 - $7,000 per year and low income was $2,500 - $3,999.

Poverty was below $2,500 per year.131 However, income would always be a disputed 310

issue as many families moved into or out of a category several times, some even as their

BMIR house was being built. That represented the second major flaw in the program.

The third issue was the entire cost of each BMIR house or project had to be front

loaded, or cash reserved “up front,” in each years HHFA operating budget. That was

internal to HHFA, but committed vast sums that could not be “rolled over” to other years or used for other projects.132 Businessmen knew this. And since smaller 221(d)(3) projects cost less, they “seemed” to gain quicker approval, thereby locking in money

early, which prompted a hot letter to President Kennedy from Senator Sparkman. He

accused FHA of having a political “ceiling” on 221(d)(3) commitments, in favor of

saving money even though each project remained at a reasonable cost. This of course

was roundly denied by all the aides who responded to Sparkman.133

The first BMIR project began on October 10, 1961, as a rental, multifamily housing

apartments complex in Baltimore. Initially it provided housing for 320 families but also

established two unfortunate trends.134 Initially it signaled a vast majority of this housing

would be rental, as the primary means of reaching low-income people who felt

uncomfortable with mortgages. Secondly, a vast majority would become apartments.

Neither of these represented what the middle class wanted and that became the most

severe problem for 221(d)(3).

As well other difficulties loomed early. The 221(d)(3) program had a troubling design flaw. Each developer received all the government guarantees as mentioned, but in reality had to initially finance their 10% at the start of construction at whatever rate they could get, and then the 3% government rate locked in, with all advantages as mentioned for the rest of the project. This burdened some firms. Further, 221(d)(3) cities, towns, 311

and municipalities could approve the location of this federally subsidized housing, and it

was hoped many would group it into Workable Program for Community Improvement

(WPCI) application.135 But community desires for this program remained weak as they

represented a legendary host of political minefields.136

In the rural south, 221(d)(3) projects quickly became either all low-income white or

African-American low-income units and fully segregated, usually resided on the fringes

of towns or in very obscure locations.137 Many were simply scandals. One in Mobile,

AL for African-Americans was 12 miles from the city limits, had no public

transportation, no strip malls, no nearby schools and the construction was so shoddy it

represented a blight upon the community even before it was completed.138 Two other

notable 221(d)(3) projects, known as the Marshall-Terrace Sub-Division in Plant City, FL

which covered a 300 acre site, and the large site in Stanford-Darien, CT, both

immediately ran into racial difficulties and caused absolute furors locally.139 But

maintaining concern for future projects, the administration countered by trying to obtain

sponsorship agreements in advance from each city.140 HHFA also attempted to solicit a

genuinely interested 221(d)(3) mortgage lenders list and nourished a list of construction

companies by region as well.141 Then in June of 1962, in a foolish move to secure

advance agreements, FHA mandated that no 221(d)(3) house could be built unless it was

“pre-sold,” which further contributed to the demise of the program.142

Professional developers watched all this with intense fascination. Witty and eloquent

wise-cracks about this program abounded. Letters came in from many professional

organizations as the National Association of Real Estate Boards condemning the whole

idea. Feature articles in leading building trade magazines as House and Home failed to 312

agree with the administration that 221(d)(3) represented a good means of housing middle

and lower income families.143 Then the sobering statistics became public. By the end of

1961, only one major project was completed, and by the end of 1962, nationwide, only

4,200 units of any kind had been constructed. In 1963, a meager 8,700 units were added.

Across the entire country, for the Kennedy years a total of only 13,000 units of any kind were built under this program.144 The minimum goal of the administration had been

30,000 units in 1961, 35,000 in 1962, and 37,500 in 1963.

Lastly, the 221(d)(3) program also failed to gain broad-based union support in an era

where unions still prevailed. Most unions disliked it because of its delays and associated

“red tape.”145 And that summed it up best. “Packaging the bureaucracy” put the nail in

the coffin as Weaver lamented, “many of the non-profit groups do not have the know- how to put a 221(d)(3) program together.”146 Unfortunately, 221(d)(3) became a dismal

failure. Yet Kennedy would not give up on his “show-case” middle-income program and

in 1963 authorized $130 million for it while requesting from a very reluctant Congress to

extend its life to July 1, 1965, which they did.147 However as designed, it died under

LBJ.

As an aside, other sections of the 221 family with new changes faired only a little

better. Title I’s Section 221(d)(2), dear to Weaver, represented liberalization of financing rules and longer mortgage coverage for families displaced by urban renewal. It aimed at providing help for purchasing a new home. But since most of its clientele held very low income, it received little business and a complicated applications process compounded life span, and with its own sophisticated funding formula. For the poor the program remained hard to understand. And that was truly unfortunate, because with a 40 year no 313

down payment mortgage on a $15,000 house at exceptionally low interest rates, it

presented good options. Most really poor families though simply could not afford the

monthly mortgage payments.148

Title I’s Section 221(d)(4) provided assistance to low-income families displaced by

urban renewal, for rental housing. The section was similar to the 221(d)(3) in most

aspects, but happily included “for profit builders” under its construction umbrella. The

catch in this program though, consisted of the fact that everything fell under the existing

local market interest rates and thus it had only limited impact as well.

FHA’s third major emphasis beyond the housing boom and 221(d)(3), focused on

expanding the existing home rehabilitation program with two new initiatives, one for

inside and the other outside of urban renewal areas. The Home Improvement Council in

1960, estimated that forty million houses in America needed repairs and eleven million of

these fell into “substandard” categories. In the early 1960s, total real estate value in

America stood at $500 billion and the property improvement portion of this at $20 billion

annually. Over 60% of all Americans qualified as home owners but the 1960 census

revealed that 14.7% of homes lacked some or all plumbing, 4.6% “needed major repairs,”

and 3.8% were overcrowded with 1.5 people per room.149 Since 1934 under Title I,

Section 2, the federal government had been making loans to qualified families up to

$3,500 to repair an existing house, for five years at the FHA/VA prevailing interest rate.150 Cumulatively these loans had been worth $1.5 billion and had assisted 24 million families to date.151 Under Kennedy, to his credit this traditional Title I, Section 2

program continued to do well. As usual he remained slightly behind Eisenhower’s pace,

lending $854,582,000 in 1961, $834,460,000 in 1962, and $803,700,000 in 1963. Ike 314

averaged $950 million over his last three years. In addition, both JFK and Ike ran a small urban renewal housing rehabilitation program.

Kennedy and FHA hoped to accomplish two things with the new rehabilitation

program. FHA hoped to avoid “disinvestment displacement,” where entire blocks of

“under-maintained” houses, were withdrawn from financing consideration. In 1961,

Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, Los Angles, Chicago, Philadelphia,

and DC had many neighborhoods suffering this fate. A new program with broader

coverage was needed because the maximum $3,500 for home rehabilitation with

payments over five years, was simply not keeping pace with housing costs.152

What Kennedy’s FHA implemented, as the two new programs were both designed to

broaden eligibility, for home improvement loans, increase lending amounts, and extend

the length of the guarantee. Both plans allowed a homeowner to now borrow up to

$10,000 for 20 years at 6% interest against the appraised equity of the home. The new

Section 203(k) was geographically for anywhere in the country and Section 220(h)

covered homes in urban renewal areas. FHA had a future plan for 1964, to rehabilitate

houses and then directly offer that same house for sale. This was not signed into law

before Kennedy went to Dallas.153

However, these new FHA rehabilitation loan programs had many huge flaws. Here

as with 221(d)(3), the administration misread its clientele and wrote the initial legislation

too quickly. For home repairs, if an “owner” had good credit, solid employment, and

lived in a low-risk neighborhood, he or she generally did not need FHA. So FHA worked

chiefly with risky homeowners in risky neighborhoods. The key became getting a private

lender to make the loan so FHA could guarantee it.154 But the formula remained 315

seriously flawed because $10,000 against a dilapidated house in 1961 was more than many of those houses were worth.

Then FHA “red tape” settled in. Processing backlogs due to FHA delays plagued the

program. Moreover, a lack of willing lenders led Weaver to complain in August 1962

that, “there has been practically no activity to date.” Then Section 203(k) had only 706

houses across the country being rehabilitated and Section 220(h), had two. Weaver

offered hopefully that “new FHA programs have traditionally taken considerable time to

gain momentum, as lenders, builders, and the FHA become familiar with them.”155 But statistics overall remained truly grim. By the end of 1961, a scant 429 applications had been received for 203(k) and only 2 for 220(h). In 1962 nationwide, only 551 more homes were improved under 203(k) and 2 more under 220(h). In 1963, 690 loans were made under Section 203(k) and a resounding 4 under Section 220(h).156 The new

program simply never took off.

The new FHA smaller programs though were expected to succeed. Kennedy’s low- income housing demonstration grants program approved from the 1961 Housing Act, provided $5 million for public agencies and private firms to produce new methods, techniques and means of improving housing conditions and housing environments for poor families.157 Kennedy’s FHA would approve more “social” low-income housing demonstration grants than previous administrations.

Every grant as approved, after meeting a demanding set of screening requirements

and maneuvering through a mountain of paperwork, entered into a contract with FHA.158

Demonstration grants traditionally were for experimental housing, experiments with new home improvements, for new ways to finance low-income housing, and for new “social 316

programs” to better accommodate ‘low-income families. The new grants even caught the

attention of speculators. A developer from Orlando, Florida, and after learning of the

program from a newspaper story, applied for the entire five million in a letter directly to

Weaver.159 He of course, was politely turned down.

Successful demonstration grants of $30,000 went to Midland, Texas to study new and

improved social services for low rent housing tenants. In Cincinnati, Ohio, $142,268 was approved to improve the conduct of children in fatherless families and to combat juvenile

delinquency. Through the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials

(NAHRO) and the Ford Foundation, $200,000 became available as a matching grant for

better counseling and readjustment services to elderly families displaced by urban

renewal. Under FHA, many Local Housing Authorities of PHA, in St. Louis in

particular, received grants to improve conditions of senior citizens.

Applications to renovate apartments and older homes, using new construction

techniques and materials came into FHA as well. The National Capitol Housing

Authority and the city of Detroit both received grants to renovate older homes for low-

income families and then “lease them.”160 New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and

Toledo, received a grants to develop low rent housing for the physically handicapped.161

Yet as with many FHA programs, emerging applications backlogs countered the

program’s success. As late as the end of September 1961, Weaver told one applicant that

the policies were “still in the formative stage and regulations are in the process of being

drafted.”162 Additionally, it was not a well publicized program and to try and promote it,

Mort Schussheim traveled across the country on a tour to sell it at all the housing and

urban development “watering holes.” Speaking at NAHRO, he called America “an 317

unfinished society,” citing this and other FHA programs as some of the ways to complete

it.163 However, by June 30, 1962 only $1,372,000 of the five million dollars had been committed and by Dallas all the money had not yet been spent.

FHA’s own housing research program was another smaller but important one.

Increased funding under the 1961 Act constituted the chief new aspect, providing FHA with funds for several kinds of housing research, advancing many new ideas. In its

primary program, research, money, and effort went into pre-fabricated housing and cheap

pre-built homes to accommodate the poor and lower-income.164 Yet these never captured the imagination of anyone willing to make them a trend. Additionally, FHA conducted extensive housing research on issues dear to the consumers and voters. Suburbs again topped that list and the categories were new home sales which included the nice to know data, as the sale prices and information on refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, washers, dryers, and heating/air systems. The FHA’s “consumer statistics” program became a first for this kind of data and accompanying it, FHA also offered the public prizes for new ideas on residential housing design, known around the central office as the “good housekeeping” award. As well, HHFA and FHA explored how other countries produced

housing low-income housing. Weaver established a small Office of International

Housing within HHFA, headed by Robert Dodge, who in turn worked closely with the

international housing committee of the National Association of Home Builders

(NAHB).165 Weaver, Dodge, and others made numerous trips to Denmark, Holland, and several South American countries working closely with the International Council for

Building Research Studies.166 Several trips to South America produced some new low-

income housing alternatives. But the chief result was a sharp, yet short lived dispute with 318

Whitney Young of the National Urban League over why more minorities were not invited to go on these trips. Weaver told Young he would take action to correct the matter, but nothing happened.167

Nationally, the big multifamily housing program stood as an Eisenhower success story and one that Kennedy wanted to keep growing. It stood as his last FHA initiative and he created some new programs and reserved increased sums for it in his Housing Act.

Multifamily housing consisted of all “rentals,” designed for poor people particularly in cities, and for the most part came as apartments of eight units or more. In a few instances row houses or single story houses “hooked” together fell under this program. Monthly rent was low because the government subsidized either the contractor who built it, the lender who financed it, or the landlord who ran it, or all three. It came in three versions, rental housing apartments, low cost rental housing, and cooperative housing. The latter were apartments where the tenants pooled their efforts in maintenance and ground care, for further reductions in rent. “Low cost rental housing” helped America’s very poor, just above public housing poverty line. This program was managed under three Sections of the Housing Act, 207, 213, and 220 and uniquely four government agencies had simultaneous programs, FHA, URA, PHA, and the Department of Defense. FHA’s remained the largest.168

In 1961, multifamily housing mortgages totaled $928 million on 59,367 projects nationally. This represented a 20% increase over 1960, but the figure was deceptive as many of these were Eisenhower carryovers.169 Overall in 1962 “rental housing apartments” soared to a one year record high of $485 million covering 28,079 units, but cooperative housing and low cost rental housing numbers dropped substantially.170 As 319

well, the 1962 figures showed, growth but not in relation to demand.171 Additionally,

projections for government multifamily housing in 1963 looked grim. The total volume of multifamily mortgage insurance dropped 17% from 1962, while simultaneously over

90,000 applications were choked up in horrible processing delays, which stood as the very real problem for FHA.172 This caused great panic in the Kennedy inner circles.

In August of 1962, with “doom and gloom” on the horizon due to multifamily housing processing delays, the new FHA deputy commissioner for this program created a

“blue ribbon” panel to study the matter and correct the problem. Comprised of fourteen public and private housing celebrities plus Ike’s former HHFA chief Albert C. Cole, the able Jack Conway, actually headed it up. The final report of this “Cole Committee” as it became entitled addressed FHA delays in very harsh language. The committee pinpointed the obvious, citing delays in the multifamily application process due to a lack of staff. It estimated that a staggering 200,000 applications were in some form of “delay” in an enormous national backlog across the country. These applications represented $2.5 billion in construction and 800 million man hours of work. It further scolded FHA of taking 25 months on average, from application to construction, for starting each multifamily government project.173

The committee further found that “many of the present methods of processing

applications are obsolete and do not fit the new housing programs.” Specific

recommendations were that multifamily housing insuring offices be established by zone

in the five major metropolitan areas, separate from the FHA offices there, which had been

successfully done in New York City. The committee called for the new deputy

commissioner for multifamily housing to expand his staff, to include numerous, new, 320

technical and underwriting professionals to hasten application’s review. These should be

located in the “zone” offices. The committee asked the directors of these new zone offices to report directly to the deputy commissioner and strongly called for more oversight of the program from bureau of the budget and Congress.

Bureau of the budget had also been pressuring Weaver to improve multifamily

application processing. Weaver responded himself by appointing his own HHFA internal

review committee chaired by ex-Ike FHA Commissioner Raymond M. Foley, along with

three former FHA commissioners. Foley’s recommendations paralleled the Cole’s

committee and uniquely, both committees were headed by Eisenhower’s appointees.174

Yet unhappily, major changes required significant increases in personnel that simply

were not going to be forthcoming with Kennedy’s budget trimming for his election year

tax cut. FHA received some personnel by virtue of HHFA taking slots from other

agencies, and some contractors hired on to help break the backlog, which they did not.

Weaver also had to send detailed reports to Congress and Conway had to travel up the

Hill to testify. Slowly the multifamily housing backlog broke, but not entirely, and the

damage to FHA’s reputation among builders and lenders was “permanent” for the

Kennedy year.175

The real tragedy for FHA though under Kennedy remained its stunning market share

drop. HHFA fell under JFK from 24% market shareat the end of 1960 to 17% at the end of 1963. This hurt all those who for years had been helped by FHA and became an embarrassment for HHFA. Reasons abounded. In concept, Kennedy had become perceived as a liberal by many conservative builders and they were very concerned about

FHA direction. Kennedy’s 221(d)(3) program definitely was thought to be too radical 321

and coupled with his endlessly threatening to issue an executive order on open housing,

all of this created a further climate of mistrust.

Two other factors injured FHA. A lesser one, complaints, caused some loss of business, but the severe processing backlogs under Kennedy, severely hurt the proud old

Agency. “Complaints” although fewer than during other administrations, often received

more publicity particularly regarding racism in federal housing, due to Kennedy’s

promises, and these will be discussed in chapter nine. In fact though, Weaver managed a

very “clean” program overall, but there were a few grumbling.

“Zoning” complaints continued during the Kennedy housing boom and often the

Federal government was asked to resolve them, but usually it could not. Great variations

in residential zoning had always existed across the country, yet during these years rapid

housing growth, these variations soared to new levels. The rights of local boards to set their own zoning though, often politically engineered, traveled as high as the Supreme

Court which found in a number of cases in favor of the local ordinances.176 Zoning also

remained a well publicized means of racial exclusion in the early 1960s.

Complaints over the standardization and enforcements of building codes came next.

Across the country municipal building code enforcement varied as widely as did housing codes themselves, particularly regarding low-income family projects. Many cities used housing codes as a means of governmental intervention into the homes and lives of the poor and some cities used them along with zoning, to move the poor off valuable urban land.177 Further, most codes were “antiquated and confusing” in comparison to the needs

of the changing 1960s and a lack of uniformity remained the chief issue. No minimal

acceptable national housing codes ever existed, except for FHA and VA, and many of 322

those needed revision. Moreover, even local codes became symbolic of government

meddling and “social engineering.”178 In a bold move, Weaver sought to correct this by

forming a coalition with private developers to review standardization of national building

codes. This was noble indeed, but when it could not be arranged, FHA received some of

the blame.

Assessments, construction standards, and foreclosures rounded out the issues people

remained upset with FHA over. Assessments and FHA’s property value “judgment” for

underwriting constituted another area. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) regularly audited this, and in fact FHA did well.179 However, spot criticisms from an

occasional lender, buyer, of public agency, plus on occasional small technical errors

gained notoriety.180 Also a small number of law suits distinguished themselves in the

press on the subject.181

Foreclosures and evictions from FHA properties caused an actual flurry of public

complaints, and regularly FHA handled these poorly.182 The percentages of foreclosures, evictions, and vacancies in FHA property were always questioned by the press and by builders. FHA gradually received the blame for excessive delays in the foreclosure

process that resulted in unneeded burdens on both the home owner and lender. Speed

equated to fairness in foreclosing, particularly if litigation involved extensive tenant legal

expenses. GAO cited FHA in 1962 and again in 1963 for having a “weakness” regarding

timely foreclosures and several telegrams and letters were sent to Kennedy from the

evicted home owners or tenants.183 Aides responded.

Construction standards constituted the final concern of FHA’s constituents. FHA

devoted thousands of man hours annually to inspect compliance with its minimum 323

building standards. Occasionally, a contractor “went broke” in the middle of a project, requiring FHA to quickly locate another builder or write off the project. “Low income” programs and minority related housing “went broke” most often.184 On occasion FHA found itself testifying before Congress over property construction standards, which did not help its image.185

But the very sobering problem that brought about FHA’s decline under Kennedy,

remained FHA’s persistent and intimidating backlog. The applications processing

backlog cast a pall of doom over all FHA programs and was felt throughout all FHA

regions. Historically FHA’s percentage of market share was on the decline anyway, but

Kennedy’s backlogs hastened it. In the 1930s, FHA maintained 33% to 35% of the market which briefly shot up right after World War II, but fell into the low 30% again by the early 1950s. It further dwindled under Ike, to the mid 20% and by the end of 1960, stood at nearly 24% when Kennedy moved into the White House. Under Kennedy, it slipped slowly to 23%, then to 22% and in1963 to 17% of the market. On the good side though and as a footnote, in the forty years from 1934-1974, FHA wrote $190 billion in mortgage guarantees, marking it as the largest single mortgage insurance operation in the history of the world.186 But under Kennedy, FHA’s market share “broke 20% and stayed

there.”

Initially Weaver tried to defended the decline, first blaming the small VA portion of the housing market, saying “the need for the use of the VA program by veterans has reached its ebb tide,” and then blaming private lending institutions for liberalizing financing which stole FHA business. When that did not work he lambasted S and Ls and commercial banks for no longer robustly financing FHA as they once did. Of course he 324

remained “politically correct.” Later after Kennedy’s death, Weaver blamed the handling

of the executive order saying, “a slight shift away from FHA/VA financing [occurred]

since ... the 1962 Executive Order on Equal Opportunity in Housing.”187 But builders knew this would be a weak order, and Kennedy’s carrying FHA into the “social realm” which was also cited, had already been done first by Eisenhower who simply did a better job of selling it.188

The severe processing turbulence caused by the backlog remained the central blame.

In his weekly reports to the president, Weaver revealed a frightening story. New FHA

home applications rose at the start of the New Frontier by 9% over Ike’s last month, and

19% on existing homes.189 FNMA money remained abundant. Yet quickly FHA fell

behind in the important multifamily housing program, and some of Weaver’s dwindling

staff had to be transferred to work there, while home applications began to pile up. When

Kennedy hit FHA with the anti-recession package, followed quickly by the 1961 Housing

Act, FHA never recovered. By March, 1961, Weaver wrote to Kennedy “We are still

harassed by lack of personnel.”190 Of course the administration’s response was the now

famous “belt-tightening” memorandum. Mayors began to haunt the administration with

comments about processing speed.191 Weaver asked for additional supplemental money

for more staff.192 He said “unless we receive supplemental funds at an early date, we can

make no progress toward reducing backlogs which are continuing to develop in every

office” and in every FHA program and in every FHA region.193

By June 1961, Weaver began to report the backlog numbers directly to Kennedy in

the weekly reports. For the first week of June 1961, 49,427 applications were on file that

had not been acted upon for a long time.194 Weaver projected that at full effort with 325

existing staff, they might be able to overcome this by mid-October.195 The backlog

reached 52,485 by Independence Day 1961 and this grew to 55,462 cases by the 21st of

July, and was compounded by over 1,600 new applications each week.196 By the end of

August, FHA was 55,208 applications behind schedule on new homes and some had not

been touched since Kennedy took office.197

With the supplemental funds, Weaver hired contracted appraisers, which temporarily

turned the tide, dropping to 53,603 cases by September 1, 1961.198 A total of 50,655

cases by mid-September and 43,660 cases behind by early October.199 At the end of 1961

the backlog was around 30,000.

But the damage had been done. The National Association of Real Estate Boards met

in Miami and in an article in Barron’s on November 6, criticized Kennedy’s FHA

program as “insuring risky mortgages, as means of furthering social objectives, and that

FHA as a result is suffering from a rising tide of foreclosures and defaults.”200 The

backlog was also referenced as “delays.”201 House and Home picked up on this as did the

Wall Street Journal. Congress got involved and Conway had to testify about the backlog.202

Many builders now viewed FHA as an agency that could not process its business in a

timely fashion and might have a hidden social agenda. To overcome bad press, in the late

spring of 1962 FHA began releasing statistics and stories on how well it was doing with

the applications it did process.203 By then the backlog was hovering around 30,000.204

But over the summer of 1962, the National Association of Home Builders and House

and Home magazine got into a hot, open, debate with the NAACP over Kennedy’s

forthcoming executive order, and so did the Journal of Housing, questioning the 326

reliability of HHFA’s and FHA’s research on the order’s impact on housing growth.205

The Kennedy position was the order would have little impact, and the National

Association of Home Builders and many businessmen stated it would destroy housing,

with most contractors supporting NAHB. Both were wrong. But along with the now infamous delays, FHA’s credibility over the order stood as another reason to do business

“elsewhere.” That autumn, new FHA applications began to dwindle in number, but the

backlog was never corrected before Dallas. After the executive order, it received second priority in the press.206

However, financing “elsewhere” sprang up nationally with one quickly emerging in

Wisconsin. Believing FHA’s “red tape” resulted in slow service, Wisconsin mortgage market investors formed a coalition. Their purpose was to pool financial resources to undercut FHA’s low lending rate, but poor services, and they succeeded. Securing state enabling legislation for their new endeavor, this group of private investment bankers created the Mortgage Guarantee Insurance Corporation (MGIC or “Magic”). MGIC

focused on getting Wisconsin savings and loan investors to pool liquidity, offering lower down payments and lower mortgage rates than FHA and then directly targeted its business. The idea became an instant success, and spread to other states where, using the

MGIC model, coalitions formed providing a private mortgage insurance network across the country, based on FHA underwriting criteria with quicker turn around and better service.207 Nationally, this would eventually lead to a huge attrition FHA’s business.

Yet the FHA market decline under Kennedy symbolized greater problems. Kennedy

continued Eisenhower’s suburban housing boom with slightly lower numbers and

maintained some of the traditional FHA programs with slightly fewer results. But unlike 327

Ike, JFK’s not so well thought out new housing initiatives failed, as did his maintaining

FHA’s market share. Kennedy’s belt- tightening for his politically driven tax cut, came

at the wrong time in American urban history. In his haste to get the 1961 Housing Act to the Hill early, needed details were left out of many programs. His executive order on

open housing helped few but angered many and Kennedy suffered from a “housing trust

factor,” while FHA paid the price.

Yet the real tragedy was FHA had always been the way out for many of the poor and

“nearly poor” regarding housing, and FHA’s market share under JFK contracted severely.

The little pink houses that abounded in the Eisenhower/Kennedy housing boom, did little

for these Americans, but did solidify the middle class. It would have been refreshing if

the poor and minorities could have been financed into the suburbs by FHA programs as

some previous generations had been. Ironically, as private lenders began to quit FHA,

FNMA and Treasury made them even more sound and stronger during Camelot.

Kennedy of course, remained oblivious to these problems, maintaining his popularity,

while secretly sustaining his image through numerous pills and cortisone shots.208 But trouble was brewing. As the little pink houses began to cover the recently vacated farmland, with their newly developed color televisions seen glimmering through their new windows, and with green, carefully manicured lawns they also symbolized barriers to those who could not afford them, or were not permitted to buy them. Resentment was building in the ominous dark regions of the great cities, where chances to escape to the suburbs had not been at all improved for many, many residents, and the future would be very stormy indeed.

328

End Notes to Chapter Seven

1. Kennedy United States Government, Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 164.

2. George Sternlieg and James W. Hughes, “The Uncertain Future of Rental Housing,” Policy Studies Journal 8, No.2 (1979): 248, 249.

3. Rachel G. Bratt, “Federal Constraints and Retrenchment in Housing: The Opportunities and Limits of State and Local Governments,” Journal of Law and Politics 8, No. 4 (1992): 651-656.

4. Marc A. Weiss, “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership: Mortgage Lending and Public Policy in the United States, 1918-1989,” Business and Economic History 18, No. 2 (1989): 111-117.

5. Anthony Downs, “The Successes and Failures of the Federal Housing Policy,” Public Interest 34 (1974): 124-125.

6. Ibid., 125, 126.

7. Ibid., 130, 132.

8. David P. Vardy, “Middle Income Housing Programmes in American Cities,” Urban Studies Great Britain 31, No. 8 (1994):1349.

9. Bratt, “Federal Constraints,” Law and Politics, 652-654.

10. Ibid., 659.

11. Joyce August Chelouche, “Federal Housing and Design: Issues and Coalitions 1961-1968 – The Relation Between Unstable Coalitions and Legislative Victory,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1990), 18-23.

12. R. Allen Hayes, The Federal Government and Urban Housing (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 24; Barry G. Jacobs, ed., et. al., Guide to Federal Housing Programs, Second Education (Washington: National Affairs, 1986), 127-131.

13. Michael E. Stone, Shelter Poverty: New Ideas on Housing Affordability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 1, 14, 15, 192.

14. Summary of the Housing Record, 1953-1960 Inclusive, 1, Undated, Accomplishments HHFA, Anti-Recession, Records Group 207, Housing and Urban Development, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, Administrator, 57, 329

National Archives and Records Administration; Marc I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 272,-278.

15. Ibid., Summary of Housing Record, 3.

16. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 259-262.

17. Stone, Shelter Poverty, 200, 201; Summary, Housing Record 3, Undated, Accomplishments, RG 207, 57, NARA.

18. Summary, Housing Record, 2,4, Undated, Accomplishments, RG 207, 57, NARA; Gertrude S. Fish, ed., The Story of Housing (New York: MacMillan, 1979), 283, 294.

19. Ernest M. Fish, ed., Housing Market and Congressional Goals (New York: Praeger, 1975), 17, 23, 24, 27.

20. William G. Grigsby “Housing Finance and Subsidies in the United States,” Urban Studies Great Britain 27, No. 6, (1990): 837, 838; Jacobs, ed., Federal Housing Programs, 127, 128.

21. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Morton J. Schussheim, 5-9, December 9, 1985, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library, Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 338, 339.

22. Memo for Heads of Departments and Agencies from John F. Kennedy, 2, November 1961, 1961 Civil Rights Commission, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA; Housing and Home Finance Personnel Priority List, 1-4, Undated, ADM Jan 1-Jun 30, 1961, Agency Personnel, RG 207 HUD, SCF, RCW, 57 NARA; Preliminary Budget Estimates, 2, Apr 23, 1962, Budget Jan 1-Jun 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

23. Iwan W. Morgan, Deficit Government: Taxing and Spending in Modern America (Chicago: Dee Publishing, 1995), 96.

24. Oral Interview of Milton Semer by William McHugh, 27-31, September 10, 1968, KLOHP, TJFKL; Letter to Robert Weaver from Jack Conway, 1, January 23, 1963, Deputy Administrator 1963, RG 207, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

25. Oral Interview of Jack Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 60, 61, April 10, 1972, KLOHP, TJFKL; Ibid., 65.

26. Oral Interview, Semer by McHugh, 52-56, KLOHP, TJFKL.

27. Ibid., 30. 330

28. Oral Interview of Jack Conway by Larry T. Hackman, 102, KLOHP, TJFKL.

29. Oral Interview, Semer by McHugh, 57, 58, KLOHP, TJFKL.

30. Letter to Neal J. Hardy from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Jan 15, 1963, FHA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

31. Oral Interview, Semer by McHugh, 50, 51.

32. Ibid., 85.

33. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 12, 13, Interview IV, Vol IV, Reel 2, October 1, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

34. Ibid., Voll II, Reel I, 106-109.

35. Ibid., Vol. IV, Reel 2, 6-11.

36. Oral Interview, Weaver by Moynihan, Vol. IV, Reel 2, 14-17, KLOHP, TJFKL.

37. Oral Interview, Conway by Hackman, 63, KLOHP, TJFKL.

38. Ronald P. Seyb, “Reform as Affirmation: Jimmy Carter’s Executive Branch Reorganization Report,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, No. 1, (March 2001): 107.

39. Ibid., 62.

40. Letter to Honorable William L. Dawson from Robert C. Weaver, 2, Dec 11, 1962, Government Agency, Civil Service Commission, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

41. Oral Interview, Weaver by Moynihan, Vol. IV, Reel 2, 8, KLOHP, TJFKL.

42. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 336, 338, 339.

43. Ibid., 338.

44. Ibid., 313.

45. Oral Interview, Weaver by Schussheim, 18-20, KLOHP, TJFKL.

46. Irving Welfeld, HUD Scandals: Howling Headlines and Silent Fiascoes (New Brunswick: Transition Publishers, 1992), 28-31.

331

47. Memo to Staff from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Feb 16, 1961, Books, Memos, and Letters, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

48. Memo for Frederick G. Dutton from Robert C. Weaver, 2, Jul 13, 1961, Accomplishments, HHFA Anti-Recession, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 517, NARA.

49. Notes on Clinics by Region to discuss 1961 Housing Act Implementation, 1, Jun 20, 1961, FHA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

50. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, 5, Feb 5, 1962, FHA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 338- 340.

51. Ted Sorensen, Paper entitled “The Kennedy Administration and Business” 2, 1, Jun 20, 1962, Staff Memorandums (Sorensen-Wofford) Sorensen, Theodore 1961-1963, President’s Office Files, 67, TJFKL.

52. J. Paul Mitchell, Federal Housing Policy and Programs (New Brunswick: State University of New Jersey Press, 1985), 96-102.

53. Attachments entitled, Agency Action to Benefit the Consumer, 1, Jan 12, 1962, and letter to Robert Weaver from P. N. Brownstein, Jan 18, 1965, Subject File Accomplishments, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

54. Short Paper, Activities to Support President Kennedy’s Consumer Interest and Protection Objectives, 1-6, Sep 21, 1962, Gov’t Commissions and Presidential Committees, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

55. Mitchell, Federal Housing, 103-105; Martin Mayer, The Builders; Houses, People, Neighborhoods (New York: Norton, 1978), 355.

56. Letter to Bob Weaver from Robert V. Roosa, 1, 2, Aug 23, 1962, Government Agency- Treasury Department, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

57. Memo to Frederick Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1-4, May 23, 1961, White House Staff, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961 RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Gertrude S. Fish, The Story of Housing (New York: MacMillan, 1979), 335-340.

58. Transmittal to Agnes Hogan with four page paper on National Housing Policies, 2, 3, Jul 6, 1961, OPP (Office of Program Policy) Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 65, NARA.

59. Summary of Legislation of Interest to the Housing and Home Finance Agency Enacted During the 87th Congress and Progress under the Major New Loans Relating to the Agency, 15, Oct 15, 1962, General: General Council, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA. 332

60. Ibid., 14.

61. Ibid., 17.

62. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Morton J. Schussheim on Real Estate Speculation Caused by the Revenue Act, 1 Jul 12, 1962, OPP Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

63. Press Release, The White House, 1, Sep 9, 1963, Legislative Files 9-61, POF, 50, TJFKL.

64. American Banker Newspaper, 1, May 23, 1963, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Food for Peace, 1961, President’s Office Files, (Departments and Agencies, Defense 5/9/63), 78, TJFKL.

65. Letter to John R. Horne from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Dec 5, 1962, Government Agency: General 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA; Oral Interview of John Horne by John Stewart, 102-104, KLOHP, TJFKL.

66. Memo for Lee C. White from Jack T. Conway, 1, Jan 4, 1963, Chronological File 1963, 1-5, White Staff Files, Lee C. White General Files, 1, TJFKL.

67. Summary of Legislation, 10, Oct 15, 1962, General Council, RCW, 88, NARA.

68. Hazel Ann Morrow-Jones, “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on Population Distribution in the United States,” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1980), 15, 16, 17.

69. Report to TASK Force for Housing and Urban Affairs to President-Elect John F. Kennedy, 36-41, December 30, 1960, TJFKL.

70. Paper, Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy, 32, Articles, SCF, RCW, 69.

71. Report of the TASK Force On Housing and Urban Affairs for President-Elect John F. Kennedy, 36-39, Dec 30, 1960, TJFKL.

72. Ibid., 32-35, 40-41.

73. Letter to Dutton from Weaver, 3, Jul 3, 1961, Accomplishments, CF, Weaver, 57, NARA.

74. Mayer, The Builders, 35, 36.

75. Ibid., 30, 31, 33.

333

76. Ibid., 425.

77. Federal National Mortgage Association Paper, 1-3, Apr 1961, FNMA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA; FNMA’s Activities in Today’s Mortgage Market, 4, Jul 6, 1962, FNMA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

78. Memo with Attachments to Robert C. Weaver form Walter J. Heller, 6, Nov 4, 1961, Council of Economic Advisors, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

79. Survey of the Mortgage Bankers of America, 1, May 1, 1961, White House Staff, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF. RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from J. S. Baughman, 1, Jun 23, 1961, WHS, Weekly Report on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, 73, NARA.

80. Memo to Weaver from Heller, 4, 5, Nov 4, 1963, SCF, RCW, 59.

81. News Release FHA, 1, 2, May 3, 1961, White House Staff, Weekly Report on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from J. S. Baughman, 1, Nov 16, 1961, FNMA 1961 Policy, Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

82. Newspaper Article on FHA Rate Plan, 1, Mar 17, 1961, HHFA 2/1/61-12/12/61, WHSF, Lee C. White 6, TJFKL; Kent W. Colton, “The Future of the Nation’s Housing Finance System: Reform or Paralysis,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 44, No. 3 (1978), 307; Letter to J. Stanley Baughman from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Jul 17, 1961, FNMA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

83. Memo to Fred Dutton, from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Jul 11, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports-Tuesdays-on HHFA Activities, (WHTHHFA), Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

84. Memo to Robert Weaver from J. S. Baughman, 1, 2, Oct 20, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73 NARA.

85. HHFA Report on Housing Trends, 1, Sep 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

86. Memo to Robert Weaver from J. S. Baughman, 1, Nov 17, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo for Timothy Reardon from Robert Weaver. 2, Dec 12, 1961, WHS, WRT HHFA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

87. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert Weaver, 1-4, Feb 20, 1962, Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96 NARA.

334

88. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, Feb 27, 1962, Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96 NARA.

89. Paper by Robert Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates, 32, Undated (Written- Sometime in the Fall, 1964), Activities and Statements for Publication, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

90. M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, HUD: Successes and Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 115-118, 120- 124.

91. Ibid., 153-155.

92. United States Government, 14th Annual Report, Housing and Home Finance Agency 1960 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1960), 49, 52.

93. Nicholas D. Bloom, Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001), 17-19, 33-36, 55-57.

94. Memo to Lee C. White from Michael Michealis, 1, 2, Nov 16, 1962, HHFA 2/14/63-11/20/63, WHSF, Lee C. White 6, TJFKL.

95. Memo to Robert Weaver from P. N. Brownstein, 1, Oct 29, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109 NARA.

96. Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, 1, 2, May 28, 1962, FHA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCG, RCW, 87 NARA; John M. Stahura, “Characteristics of Black Suburbs: 1950-1980,” Sociology and Social Research 1, No. 2, (1987): 135-137.

97. Notice of NASA Announcement, 1, Undated, HS-Housing-Executive, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

98. Letter to JFK from Samuel LeFark, 1, July 10, 1962, HS 7/26/62-1/25/63, White House Central Files, 356, 1.

99. Dolores Hayden, “The Power of the Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History,” Journal of American History 82, No. 4 (1996): 95.

100. Letter to Phillip Brownstein from John F. Kennedy, 1, Jun 19, 1963, Federal Housing Administration, POF, 78, TJFKL; Paper by Robert C. Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates, 13, 14, Undated (Written in the Fall of 1964), Articles and Statements for Publication, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

101. Richard Harris, “American Suburbs: A Sketch of a New Interpretation,” Journal of American History 15, No. 1, (1988): 98, 99, 100. 335

102. John F. Bauman, “Housing, Architecture, and the Social Change: The British and American Experience,” Journal of Urban History 10, No. 4 (1984): 469.

103. Ibid., 474.

104. John R. Logan, “The Disappearance of Communities From National Urban Policy,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 19, No.1 (1983): 80.

105. Avi Friedman, “The Evolution of Design Characteristics During the Post-Second World War Housing Boom: The U.S. Experience,” Journal of Design History 8, No. 2 (1995): 135.

106. Friedman, “Evolution…Design,” Design History, 136-139.

107. Kent Abraham, “Historical Architecture of Different Feather,” Indiana Preservationist July-August 2001: 2.

108. Paper by Robert Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates, 14, Undated Articles and Statements for Publication 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

109. Friedman, “Evolution…Design,” 139, 146.

110. Larry R. Ford, Cities and Buildings: Skyscrapers, Skid Rows, and Suburbs (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 167-169; Ibid., 14, 28, 29, 62, 81, 86, 87.

111. Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 254-257.

112. Carl Abbott, Urban America in the Modern Age: 1920 to the Present (Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson, 1987), 6, 7.

113. U.S. Government, Annual Report 1965, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965) 278.

114. Paper by Robert C. Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates, 9, Undated (Written in the Fall of 1964), Articles and Statements for Publication, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA; United States Government, 18th Annual Report, 1964, Housing and Home Finance Agency (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1964), 370; United States Government, Annual Report 1965, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 278; Paper by Robert C. Weaver, FHA-FNMA Policy and Mortgage Interest Rates, 9. 10. 11, Articles and Statements for Publication, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA. 336

115. Thomas W. Hanchett, “U.S. Tax Policy and the Shopping-Center Boom of the 1950s and 1960s,” The American Historical Review 101, No. 4 (1996): 1083.

116. Howard Gillette, Jr., “The Evolution of the Planned Shopping Center in Suburb and City,” Journal of the American Planning Association 51, No. 4 (1985): 451, 526.

117. Hanchett, “Tax Policy and Shopping Center,” Historical Review, 1083, 1084.

118. Ibid., 1084, 1085.

119. John C. Teaford, The Twentieth Century American City Second Edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 99.

120. Ibid., 111.

121. Hanchett, “Policy and Shopping-Center,” Historical Review 1086, 1088, 1102.

122. Teaford, Twentieth-Century…City, 115.

123. Roger S. Ahlbrandt, Jr., “Delivery System for Federally-Assisted Housing Services: Constraints, Locational Decisions, and Policy Implications,” Land Economics 50, No. 3 (1974): 243, 244; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 338, 339.

124. Alma Rene Williams, “Robert C. Weaver: From the Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1978), 124-126. . 125. Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Gwirtzman, 350, 351, KLOHP, TJFKL.

126. Keith, Politics…Housing, 134, 135.

127. Memo to Robert Weaver from Mort Schussheim, 1, 2, Jun 17, 1963, Opp and Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 114, NARA.

128. R. Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Rise and Fall of the U.S. Welfare State” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1994), 213.

129, Letter, Bell to Weaver, 2, Jul 7, 1961, Weaver, 58, NARA.

130. Modibo S. Coulibaly, “Segregation in the Subsidized Low-Income Housing Program of the United States (1934-1992),” (Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 1992), 61.

131. Ibid., 60-63.

132. Richard Plunz, ed., Housing Form and Public Policy in the United States (New York: Praeger, 1980), 15; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 338, 339. 337

133. Letter to John F. Kennedy from John L. Sparkman, 1, Mar 23, 1963, HS 2 Public Housing Programs, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

134. News Release, FHA, 1, Oct 10, 1961, FHA 161 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

135. Oral Interview of William Slayton by William M. McHugh, 6, 7, KLOHP, TJFKL.

136. Richard Stuart Fleisher, “Subsidized Housing and Residential Segregation in American Cities: An Evaluation of the Site Selection and Occupancy of Federally Subsidized Housing,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1979), 35-46.

137. Ibid., 58-63.

138. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, May 23, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

139. Letter to Richard K. Donahue from Sidney Rosenthal, 1, 2, June 19, 1962, HS 3/ST-HS 3/ST 13, WHCSF, 358, TJFKL.

140. Letter to Honorable Brent Spence from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, Aug 17, 1961, Banking and Currency, Senate and House, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

141. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from William L. Slayton, 1, Aug 19, 1961, OPP Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 65, NARA.

.142. Letter Donahue to Rosenthal, 1, Jun 19, 1961, WHCSF, 358, 1, TJFKL.

143. Letter to O. G. Powell from Robert C. Weaver 1, Aug 23, 1961, HS 2 Public Housing Programs, WH Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

144. Keith, Politics…Housing, 145; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 339.

145. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from P. N. Brownstein on meeting with Mr. Martin Frank, 1, Dec 9, 1963, FHA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

146. Memo to Phillip Brownstein from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Mar12, 1963, FHA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

147. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from John F. Kennedy, 1, Mar 13, 1962, White House, President, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 97, NARA; Summary of legislation, 6, September 20, 1963, Legislative Files,9/63, POF, 53, TJFKL.

338

148. Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, On Progress Report on New FHA Programs, 5, 6, Feb 5, 1961, FHA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

149. Letter to John F. Kennedy from Edgar V. Hall, 2, June 1, 1961, HS Housing 5-1- 61 – 7-25-62, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL; John C. Weicher, “Urban Housing Programs: What is the Question?,” Cato Journal 2, No. 2 (1982), 414.

150. United States Government, 15th Annual Report Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1961(Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 6.

151. Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Affairs For President-Elect John F. Kennedy, 11, 12, Dec 30, 1960, TJFKL.

152. Sammis B. White, “Displacement: The Real Enemy,” Urbanism Past and Present 6, No. 2 (1981) 21-25.

153. Memo to Lee C. White from Phillip S. Hughs, 1-3, Oct 15, 1963, Chronological Files 1963-6-12, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White General Files, 1, TJFKL.

154. Morrow-Jones, “Impact,” diss., 1980, 12-15.

155. Report on Housing Conditions to Robert C. Weaver from FHA, 70 pages, 12, May 13, 1964, Subject Files: Middle Income Housing, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

156. United States Government, 15th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1961 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 52; United States Government, 16th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1962 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), 45; United States Government, 17th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1963 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), 60.

157. Demonstration Program: Housing Low-Income People, 1, OPP Low-Income- Housing Demonstration Program Policy Memo, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

158. Ibid., 3.

159. Letter to Jay Creswell from Robert Weaver, 1, Jul 31, 1961, Demonstration Grants, OA, Low-Income Housing, Weaver, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

160. Memo to Wayne Daugherty from Morton Schussheim, 1, May 23, 1962, OPP Low-Income Housing Demonstration Program Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

339

161. Letter to Honorable Thomas Ashley from Robert Weaver, 1, Sep 20, 1961, Demonstration Grants, OA, Low-Income Housing, Weaver, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

162. Letter to Henry Ryder from Robert Weaver, 1, Sep 19, 1961, Demonstration Grants, OA, Low-Income Housing, Weaver, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

163. Press Release, Low-Income Housing Demonstration Grants, by Mort Schussheim, OPP Low-Income Housing Demonstration Program, Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92 NARA.

164. Robert T. McCutchegn, Science, Technology and the State in the Provision of Low-Income Accommodations; “The Case of Industrialized House-Building, 1955- 1977,” Social Studies of Science, 22 No. 2 (1992): 361-363.

165. Letter to Lawrence Frank From Robert Weaver, 1, May 31, 1962, Subject File 1961, NAHB, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

166. Letter to Robert Weaver from J. Robert Dodge,1, Jul 18, 1961, International Housing Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64 NARA; Letter to Milton Semer from Neal Hardy, 1, Mar 13, 1962, HS Housing (Executive), WHCSF, 356, TJFKL.

167. Letter to Whitney Young from Robert C. Weaver, 1, May 22, 1963, Subject Files, National Urban League, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

168. U.S. Government 15th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office 1961, 43-45; Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 1, Nov 13, 1961, FHA Policy Memos , 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

169. Ibid., 42.

170. U.S. Government, 16th Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1962, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), 38.

171. Telegram, Chuck Daley, The White House, 1, Jan 16, 1963, HS 3, 6-26, 62.

172. Government, 16th Annual Report HHFA, 53.

173. Report of the Committee for Expediting the Construction of FHA Multi-Family Housing, by Ted Sorensen, 2, 3, 4, Aug 17, 1962, HHFA 2/14/63-11/20/63, WHSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL; Memo to Elmer Staats from Lee C. White, 1, Aug 27, 1962, Chronological File, 1962, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 1, TJFKL.

340

174. Memo to Robert Weaver from Paul E. Ferrero, 1, Jan 23, 1963, FHA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

175. Monthly Report on Rental Housing, 1, 2, Sep 17, 1963, Rental Housing, 1063, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

176. Bear, Empty Housing, Policy Studies, 225.

177. Chester W. Hartman, Robert P. Kessler, and Richard L. LeGates, “Municipal Housing Code Reinforcement and Low-Income Tenants, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 40, No. 2 (1974): 625.

178. Mayer, The Builders, 53.

179. Memo to Assistant Commissioner for Audit and Examination from Assistant Commissioner for Technical Standards, 1, 2, Jan 13, 1961, Audits 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

180. Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 1, Sep 18, 1961, FHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60 NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 1, Oct 13, 1961, FHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60 NARA; Letter to Sarah McClendon from Neal Hardy, 1, Jun 28, 1961, HHFA 2-2-61/12-12-81, WHSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

181. Memo and Newspaper Articles to Mr. Wharton from Robert Weaver, 1, 3, 6, Jun 28, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109 NARA.

182. Memo to Robert Weaver from Jack Conway, 1, Dec 20, 1962, Audits 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

183. Memo to Robert Weaver from Audit Division, 1, 3, May 31, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA; Memo with Attachments to Fred Dutton, from Robert Weaver, 1, 3, 6, May 12, 1961, White House Staff – Jan 1-Jun 30, 1961, Audits, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 72, NARA.

184. Letter for Mr. Ruby from Kenneth O’ Donnell, 1, 2, May 29, 1961, HS Housing 5/1/61-7/25/61, WHCSF, 356, TJFKL.

185. Memo to Mr. White from Phillip Hughs, 1, 3, Oct 15, 1963, HHFA 2/14/63- 11/20/63, WHSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

186. McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, 110, 111; Kevin Leslie Kramer, “Fifty Years of Federal Housing Policy: A Case Study of How the Federal Government Distributes Revenues,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1985), 169; Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Rise and Fall of the U.S. Welfare State,” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1988), 13. 341

187. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Dr. Morton J. Schussheim, 15, KLOHP, TJFKL.

188. Arthur J. Levine, “Government as a Partner in Residential Segregation,” Center Magazine 9, No. 2 (1976): 72.

189. Press Release, Feb 11, 1961, White House Staff – Weekly Reports of HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

190. Memo for Fred Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1, Mar 3, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

191. Memo to Robert Weaver from URA Commissioner, 2, Mar 8, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

192. Memo to Fred Dutton for Robert Weaver, 1, Mar 9, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

193. News Release with Attachments, FHA Mortgages, 2, 3, 4, Apr 14, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

194. Memo to Fred Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, Jun 6, 1961, WHS, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

195. Memo to Fred Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, Jul 4, 1961, WHS, WR HHFA Activities, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

196. Ibid., 3; Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 1, Jul 14, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

197. Memo to Fred Dutton from Robert Weaver, 2, 4, 5, Aug 22, 1981, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from J. S. Baughman, 1, Aug 29, 1961, WHS, WR-Tuesdays- on HHFA Activities, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

198. Memo to Robert Weaver by James Cash, 1, 2, Sep 15, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1981, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

199. Memo to Robert Weaver from James Cash, 1, Oct 6, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

342

200. Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 2, Nov 3, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Fred Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1-4, Nov 21, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

201. Memo to Robert Weaver from Neal Hardy, 1, 2, Nov 24, 1961, WHS, WRTHHFAA, Jul-Dec 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

202. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Jack Conway, 1, 2, Sep 4, 1962, WHS, Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

203. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert Weaver, 3, Jan 3, 1962, WHS, Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 07, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

204. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert Weaver, 1, 3, Jan 15, 1962, WHS. Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

205. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert Weaver, 3, Jul 17, 1962, WRTWH, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

206. Newspaper Article Attached to Weekly Report to Robert Weaver from Wayne Phillips, 2, Nov 28, 1962, Weekly Reports to The White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

207. William G. Grigsby, “Housing Finance and Subsidies in the United States,” Urban Studies Great Britain 27, No. 6 (1990): 836, 837; McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems, 110, 111.

208. Richard Reeves, “JFK: Secrets and Lies,” Reader’s Digest April 2003, 162, 163.

343

CHAPTER VIII

PUBLIC HOUSING AND URBAN RENEWAL

IN THE EARLY 1960’S:

POVERTY VERSUS AFFLUENCE IN AMERICA’S CITIES

I wish that those who are pressing [against] the fight against low-rent pubic housing – especially those who are sincere about it – would come with me down the side streets of Fulton and Nostrand Avenues in Brooklyn, off Beach Drive in the Far Rockaways, and off Lexington and Park Avenues in East Harlem…and see the houses that are being lived in by fellow Americans including children.1

John Kennedy’s continuation of Eisenhower’s housing boom broadened suburbs and

created new ones around American cities. But the real measure of the federal

government’s commitment to America’s cities lay what it did to rebuild crumbling downtown infrastructures and in providing adequate housing for its urban poor.2 This

chapter examines those two goals.

Urban renewal and public housing supposedly worked “hand in hand;” one “renewing

and demolishing” and the other “housing” the displaced. They also supposedly formed a partnership under the Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI). But unfortunately for America’s cities this did not happen. Public housing failed even with extremely dedicated and dynamic leaders, while urban renewal succeeded in some cases

at public housing’s expense. How well the “poor” fared when “displaced” from their

original housing is also analyzed in this chapter as is public housing construction in urban

renewal areas. Three generalizations are important in commencing this story.

JFK remained unwilling to take the political risk required to launch a successful

public housing program, but, conversely, also remained eager to spend record amounts, 344 on the more popular urban renewal. Both aspects of this policy hurt the very poor in urban America and would later lead to long hot summers in the mid and late 1960s.

Weaver, his loyal “steward of the cities” managed both these programs, but did so with a dwindling staff, to accommodate Kennedy’s desires for a balanced budget leading to the tax cut effort. And as urban renewal brightened numerous downtowns and returned them to vibrant centers of trade, business and expensive housing, wide-ranging human suffering broadened, with its involuntary relocation and consistent lack of low cost public housing for the poor.

In the first of these two important programs, public housing, some generalizations are significant. Public housing “divided” along a critical abyss between “family units” and

“elderly units.” Slowly public housing “family units” became increasingly unpopular, while elderly public housing gradually became acceptable. No politician in the early

1960s wanted to test the voters with a dramatic expansion of “family unit” public housing and also most public housing in 1960 remained segregated.

Public housing has a fascinating past. Congress and a couple of previous presidents tried to create reasonably large programs, but when local resistance stiffened, plans quickly dissolved and a “take what you can get” mentally settled in. To improve public housing’s image, it became temporarily linked first to urban renewal, and later to mass transit, but both relationships quickly ended. It always remained a “second class” endeavor, as it never gained the proper mix of supporters. Local decision makers, who politically influenced public housing, were genuinely negative and public housing’s clientele, often minorities, had little influence. Lastly, the somewhat racist private 345

developers with their usually white clientele, did not want to see a huge public housing

program develop.3

Collectively, this caused public housing clearly appear to be a troubled and “agitated”

program that became socially and politically “expensive” for a community to implement.

Even the poor who spent huge proportions of their incomes on shelter, preferred “trickle down” housing in “transitional” neighborhoods to huge high-rise public housing projects.4 So public housing had no comprehensive support network, yet came with a

sharp and well established opposition.

The federal government slowly and reluctantly increased its presence with public

housing and in 1932 when Congress passed the Emergency Relief and Reconstruction

Act which provided federal loans to corporations to construct low-income family

housing. Under the “New Deal’s” National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 and its 1935

Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, public housing expanded. The 1937 Housing Act,

also called the “National Act,” created the program as it is known today, plus the United

States Housing Authority, the predecessor to HHFA and HUD. HHFA provided loans

and annual contributions to Local Housing Authorities (LHA’s), that were chartered by

states to manage public housing at the “grass roots level.” Significantly the 1937 Act also

mandated “equivalent elimination,” one slum home comes down and one public housing

home goes up. Quickly this formula drew serious criticism, and Eisenhower willingly modified it. Kennedy further weakened it to a point where it had virtually no impact.5

Truman with his 1949 Housing Act took a bold step by authorizing 135,000 new

public housing units per year for a total of 810,000 over the next six years through 1955.

Yet that goal was never reached under Truman, Eisenhower, or Kennedy. From 1950 to 346

1963, only 371,000 “brand new” units were actually built and the key to understanding

the math is two-fold.6 Statistics vary by source, but the “official” ones presented to

Congress conflict with other “authoritative” ones given to the press. Secondly, the phrase

“new units built” is misleading because government, through subsidies, rehabilitation,

and other means, provided an additional 210,000 public housing units during the same period, bringing the grand total to 581,000 from 1950 to 1963.7 But public housing

became so unpopular that in 1952, Congress decided to limit what it would fund to

50,000 units per year and by late 1954, that number had dwindled to between 25,000 to

35,000 new units annually.

Regarding the number of new public housing units built, Eisenhower’s and

Kennedy’s “statistics” are about the same for any three-year period, with Ike having the advantage “on average.” But the number of public housing units completed and ready for

occupancy under Eisenhower slowly fell, as his administration placed its emphasis

elsewhere and serious resistance grew. The 35,000 new units heralded as “a great

Republican start,” in 1953 fell to 16,401 annually in 1960.8 Kennedy should have easily

improved on these numbers, but regrettably he did not. The Kerner Commission reported

in 1968 that six million units of low-income and moderate-income housing would be

required over the next ten years, but by 1970 only somewhat less than a million public

housing units had actually been built since 1937.9

Below is a comparison of the number of new public housing units built under

Eisenhower from 1953 through 1960 and with Kennedy from 1961 through 1963.

347

Year Number

1953 35,000 1954 18,700 1955 19,400 1956 24,200 1957 49,100 1958 67,800 1959 36,700 1960 16,401 1961 19,797 1962 28,633 1963 25,00010

How many would be built was an issue of profound debate and Ike reached an unspoken

political equilibrium during his second term of no more than 25,000 per year which

Kennedy seemed comfortable with as well.11 By the end of 1963 Kennedy “completed” just under 72,000 new low rent public housing units, in both urban and rural areas, averaging around 24,000 per year. By December 31, 1963, just over two million poor were residing in the just over 500,000 units that remained.12

But the Kennedy administration produced the most outrageous statistics. The White

House stated in one of the many “accomplishments documents” that from 1961 through

1963 PHA made reservations “for 112,000 new public housing units,” which simply was not true. They cited Ike as only having produced 77,000 units which also was false. The administration further touted that by the end of 1963 “approximately 100,000 additional public housing units…had been placed under reservation,” thus giving the impression that a hundred thousand happy folks were soon going to be in new public housing thanks to JFK.13 That remained false as well. Further the press, charmed by Kennedy,

impressed with his poll numbers, and somewhat disinterested in public housing did not dig into these particular statistics. 348

In my opinion, the administration deliberately presented duplicitous public housing

figures. Statistics were always cited cumulatively from 1937 forward, presenting the idea

to the casual reader that Kennedy was responsible for them. At the urging of the White

House, HHFA’s Fred Forbes provided Kenneth O’Donnell a press release in August

1962 showing that since the passage of the 1961 Housing Act, 140 new communities had

made “reservations” for public housing, “bringing to 1,700 nationally” the number of

participating communities. But, reservations did not mean new units sprang up, rather it

noted that a town reserved the right to start planning. “Seventeen hundred communities”

constituted the cumulative total since 1937 that had even participated in the program and

many towns either did not build the housing or simply remained “reserved forever.”

Forbes further revealed that “511,000 standard dwellings for low-income families

existed, with an additional 160,000 in the pipeline.”14 But, according to Ms. Marie C.

McGuire, Administrator of the Public Housing Administration (PHA), one month later,

1,400 communities were participating in the program and the “cumulative” total since

1937 for public housing stood at 500,000, “not 511,000.”15 While noting that nearly two

million people resided in these half million units, she cited that “100,000 (not 160,000)

were…in various stages of … planning and design.”16

In studying public housing, the three key leaders, Kennedy, Weaver, and McGuire all

had different goals. What JFK wanted for his rather small, expensive, and controversial

program remains a bit of an enigma as he always stayed on the periphery of public

housing and his interest remained shallow. JFK also failed to confront the stiff anti- public housing opposition and as Robert Weaver politely noted, “many people who

worked in the administration probably felt that there was an over cautiousness on the part 349

of the President,” which under-lied his relative silence on the issue.17 However, Kennedy

did champion some aspects of the politically safer and more popular elderly housing but not public housing. His staff proudly told the press that his concern for his elderly

parents extended to all senior citizens, who should not be overlooked, but as well voted in

large numbers.

Weaver had specific goals for public housing. Nationally, he wanted to increase its

availability and rescue it from its near “phasing out” during Ike’s last year. He also

wanted more money for demonstration grants to find improved ways to house America’s

very poor. The government supporting Local Housing Authorities (LHAs) to rent

moderately priced private sector housing and re-lease it to low-income families, stood as

one of the ideas he wanted to expand. Weaver wished further to relax public housing’s

eviction rules for over income tenants, successfully incorporating all of this into the 1961

Housing Act.18 He remained uniquely optimistic about the program, perhaps more than

he should have, and his future budget reservations called for program level funding at a

rate of 30,000 new units per year for 1962, 35,000 for 1963, and 35,000 for 1964.19

“Reservations” for 1965 through 1968 had even higher projections at 40,000 annually.

Marie McGuire, Weaver’s PHA’s Commissioner, had her own set of objectives.

McGuire was Vice-President Johnson’s choice for Commissioner of Public Housing, and

thus Weaver’s as well. She was well known as an excellent “public houser,” coming to

DC as the former director of the San Antonio (TX) public housing program. Full of

energy and good ideas, she became Weaver’s true bright spot among the five HHFA

constituent administrators and also was the highest ranking female appointee in the male

dominated Kennedy administration. 350

McGuire, who just recently passed away, offered novel ideas for her time which will be discussed later. In general she wanted to provide more appealing designs for public

housing and hired top architects nationally to do so.20 Rehabilitation of existing homes

for public housing became her goal, and she championed “scattering” them throughout a

city, which was another new idea. Ms. McGuire advocated elderly “congregate housing”

and wanted to make the ill-designed 221(d)(3) program work. Locating and

implementing more flexible financing formulas stood as an additional priority, as did

expanding Ike’s self help housing.21 And she wanted social programs to accompany

public housing, which was truly a radical idea, in the 1960s, but one that Eleanor

Roosevelt had advocated. Lastly, she championed a new initiative allowing local

builders and architects to develop entire public housing projects, from designing the

buildings, selecting the site, to constructing the building, and then “turning over the key”

to an LHA when completed. Neighborhood and clientele participation in planning was to

be included. Later, under other presidents, this became the “turn key” program, but

unfortunately without neighborhood planning participation envisioned by McGuire.

McGuire began by successfully stewarding the 1961 Housing Act through Congress,

which supposedly improved both the quantity and quality of existing public housing. It

called for renewed action in six critical areas. LHAs could receive more direct federal

loans and guarantees of private lenders’ loans. Secondly, PHA assistance continued to

LHAs for bond payments, their chief means of their permanent financing. Thirdly, the

Act gave priority placement for public housing to families displaced by urban renewal,

and reduced some income restrictions along the way. Elderly and Native American 351

housing expanded as well and McGuire increased lastly, money for demonstration

programs.22

Regarding money, the 1961 Act approved building the remaining 100,000 units

“authorized” by the 1949 Housing Act and not yet completed. That meant getting

“preliminary agreement by a community” for some kind of public housing, whether new,

rehabilitated, or subsidized. It authorized $5 million in grants to public and private

investors for new and improved means of providing public housing for low-income

families and for the elderly. Payments of up to $120 per year were approved at $10.00

monthly for direct rent subsidies to older Americans.23 A new generation of

organizations, agencies, and cooperatives were included under the title “builder,” for the

100% guaranteed loans to construct elderly housing. Direct loan amounts were increased

from 50 million to 125 million dollars overall for elderly housing and on July 11, 1961,

McGuire held a series of meetings to discuss implementation of the changes embodied in

the 1961 Housing Act and issued a series of policies. Her initial thrust was to use Section

207 for rehabilitating existing homes for low rent public housing.24

However, before she could really get her program moving she ran headlong into six

serious problems. First, a unique dispute was ongoing between PHA and URA over

URA’s urban land use. In 1961, PHAs managed programs in over 3,000 cities, towns,

and villages and URA “worked” many of these same locations through their Local Public

Authorities (LPAs). URA relied on PHA as a relocation resource for displaced families

but the two agencies lost “synchronization.” URA moved so slowly, taking an average of

five to ten years to complete projects that PHA could not contract and build housing in

support of URA with any consistency. Yet PHA never provided URA with enough 352

public housing and thus relations were so strained that both agencies precluded the other

from their planning meetings.25 McGuire resolved this through a series of joint

memorandums of agreement in executive meetings.

Second on the difficulties list, stood the distasteful community battle over the location of public housing projects. Public housing brought four controversial issues to a community: site selection, finding the “acceptable” target population, local financing, and project design.26 Opposing “forces” fought bitterly and openly over each category.

Middle class neighborhoods were not about to warmly greet public housing and some cities placed public housing on referendums, which routinely lost. When approved, local

pressure often forced new units into areas already occupied by poor people, thus

concentrating them, and generally in high rises.

Third, income ceilings for remaining in public housing constituted a lightening rod

issue. Eisenhower’s 1959 Housing Act removed some income restrictions, allowing

LHAs to set their own guidelines. However, numerous LHAs in the deep south used this to discriminate and some LHAs had such a strict income ceiling, that just slightly exceeding it led to swift eviction. Squabbles broke out in the press over these evictions.27

New York used sophisticated schemes to out-maneuver income ceilings allowing a $600 exception against the income cap for each working family member. In fairness to the overall PHA program, Weaver and McGuire had to “adjust” that to an $800 maximum deduction for all older working children.28 New York countered by raising maximum

family income level to $8,112 annually, whereas nationally it was $3,132.00 and PHA

negotiated that down to $5,112 for a family.29 But overall, McGuire raised the cap,

which was beneficial. She issued a series of policy and regulatory changes and McGuire 353

relaxed the “over income” rule, allowing around 2,500 more families per year to remain

in public housing. By the end of the Kennedy administration, she required every region

to “adjust their caps” so public housing families could stay with slightly higher income

rates than under Eisenhower.

Inconsistencies and disagreements over the quality of public housing design

constituted a fourth problem for McGuire. Liberals wanted numerous design and

“luxury” improvements, and conservatives “constraints” or “Spartan” surroundings. Cost

cutting for conservatives in public housing included elevators that stopped on every other

floor, small, cramped apartments, toilets without seats, cabinets and closets without

doors, and no recreational facilities on the property.30 Unfortunately, in most cases,

“conservatives” prevailed and the lack of value placed on the project sent a clear message and immediate to the residents about their own value.

Money was always a problem. Congress regularly “under funded” public housing

appropriations thus preventing the construction of enough new units to meet the demand.

Moreover, as with all HHFA constituent agencies, each year McGuire requested New

Obligational Authority (NOA) and Net Budget Expenditures (NBE) greater than what she

received. Yet her cuts were consistently deeper than expected. For example, projections

for Kennedy’s second term continued this trend as in1965 McGuire requested $17.4

million in “administrative” expenses and the Bureau allowed $16.6 million.31

Staffing for McGuire’s Agency encountered the same problems FHA dealt with.

McGuire’s request for adequate new staff to support the 1961 Housing Act was not approved. She received a couple of administrative slots such as “assistant PHA commissioner for development” but across her Agency, she had “the few doing more for 354 the many.”32 The impact of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget David C. Bell’s belt tightening, hit PHA by the fall of 1961 Ms. McGuire was required to eliminate forty personnel from the central office in mid-November. Sadly, she asked Weaver if he could place some of those dismissed in other agencies and some were, but most had to be “let go.”33

As she was required to, McGuire instituted numerous savings in public housing to conserve budget money for Kennedy’s political goals. Forcing more efficient public housing management at the local level commenced the effort and she trimmed $2.75 million from PHA to help the president balance his budget. She accomplished this through some voluntary savings like eliminating 200 telephones and lines.34 Other savings came from the “operations budget,” such as making arrangements for refrigerators with longer life spans, and for improved yet cheaper paint removal solutions.35 She instituted “Total Development Costs” analysis using indicators supplied by Boeckhs and F. W. Dodge, to find the cheapest yet best supplies for public housing by region.36

In overcoming the above problems and budget issues, McGuire set five goals, one short term and the other four long term as management objectives.37 First of all and

“close to home” was to get control over the LHAs. LHAs were key in public housing management. LHAs managed from one unit of federally assisted public housing to hundreds, depending upon city size. Each LHA had a five-person board, which held legal and discretionary authority and was usually appointed by a city mayor. The board served as a local public housing policy-making body and one board member was always 355

appointed the “commissioner,” who set the basic rules for local policy and assumed fiscal

responsibility, while providing personal leadership.38

LHA commissioners were a “strange breed” of public servant, sort of a throw back to

the good government era of the turn of the century progressives. They were volunteers

and in most cases were paid little or nothing. They were to a person, male, white, middle

or upper income, and were well educated in a stark contrast to their clientele. No women served nationally as LHA commissioners in the early 1960s, yet 26% of all public housing families were headed by women. Only 6% of commissioners were non-white, but 55% of public housing residents under Kennedy were non-white. Only 11 % had incomes near the median public housing resident rate of $3,132 annually with the median annual commissioner’s income being $11,700 and only 3% of commissioners ever lived in public housing.39 These huge differences led to serious problems over time, because providing “vision” for something you have never experienced is always problematic. To

preserve their little fiefdoms, commissioners formed an association called the National

Committee of Housing Authorities (NCHA) which also protected LHAs’s in financial

difficulty.40

Uniquely, some “commissioners” even disliked public housing and many regularly agreed with their adversaries, that the number of public housing units for a specific town was “just about right,” when of course it was not. Moreover, commissioners did little to abate neighborhood hostility toward public housing and only 5% spent ten hours or more weekly performing their honorary job, but not surprisingly worse, 42% of them felt segregation in public housing was just fine.41 Currently then, their views, their conservative association, and their management style eroded the political base public 356

housing should have enjoyed, causing it to carry on without its intellectual, union, or

even liberal support, and without any broad demand from the electorate either.42

PHA provided financial assistance to LHAs through annual contributions and subsidies to maintain them. LHAs received temporary loans from PHA to meet their obligations, and in turn sold notes and bonds, to investors to pay off their debts. These notes and bonds, some good for up to 40 years, were further secured by PHA and were a big business in themselves.43 For example, in March 1961, LHAs sold almost $205 million worth nationally.44 On the negative side, complete defaults of entire LPAs were rare, so when that occurred PHA “consumed” the entire loss. Big cities seldom defaulted, leaving that distinction to small towns and midsize cities yet the federal government lost about $5 million annually in this kind of write-off.45

Auditing LPAs fell behind and needed immediate central office attention. To improve LHA administration, McGuire revised several PHA auditing policies. Also, she placed “development” of new LHAs in additional cities as a priority and since public housing management costs had increased between 1954 and 1968 by 50%, primarily because of wage and salary increases, LHA rent “schedules” needed adjustments.46

Through a series of memorandums, and by direct regional meetings, McGuire swiftly streamlined these procedures and made these adjustments.47

A second goal for PHA was to successfully “accelerate” public housing spending to

help the administration get the country out of the 1961 recession. McGuire complied by

giving special attention to the processing of applications from communities with high

unemployment. In the 100 highest unemployment areas, PHA accelerated or began

construction in 46 of them by the end a April 1961.48 Construction contracts worth $43 357

million were quickly awarded in sixteen such communities for 3,600 units and annual

construction contracts were swiftly signed for 38 more locales with similar high

unemployment, for 8,250 units worth $120 million.49 From January 1 to March 31, 1961,

16,174 units were “approved for construction” worth $70,396,589 and in February 1961,

PHA processed an annual contributions contract for Dearborn, MI worth $1,093,295 in

the record time of one week.50 The cost of public housing averaged $9,906.53 per unit,

which was fairly expensive if one considers these were chiefly apartments and a buyer

could get a completely new home during the Kennedy years for $13,000 to $23,000.51 As well, the cost per room under Kennedy was $2,000 to $3,900, which was also high.52 In

total for fiscal year 1961, PHA contracted for 37,000 public housing units worth $70

million and for 1962, 33,600 units worth $340 million, and around the same for 1963.53

But the key to successfully bringing these contracts to completion constituted another matter.

Thirdly, McGuire’s real legacy came from her new ideas in public housing architecture, location, and program offerings. She was the first “public houser” to blend new architecture with old, establishing a viable “decentralized” public housing program, while still maintaining the “traditional high-rises.” McGuire wanted to make public housing “less public,” less stigmatized, more attractive, and more livable. To do this, she hired good, local architects to make public housing more pleasing and blend it with neighborhood housing, thus giving the resident a sense of pride. Uniquely, McGuire did this so well some members of Congress criticized her efforts saying she made public housing “look too good.” But her efforts paid off and this new program called “vest pocket” public housing succeeded in many of the “3,000 towns, cities, and counties,” 358

often quoted by the administration as the cumulative community count, which were

managed by 2,000 LHAs. Vest pocket public housing “fit right” into a locality like the

“vest pocket” of a suit, as architects designed the homes to fit the style of an existing

neighborhood. San Antonio, St. Paul, Omaha, and Minneapolis adopted this form of

public housing which “took the edge” out of the anti-public housing argument.54

However as a national success, LHAs, although encouraged to hire the best local

architects to achieve vest pocket standards “of imaginative design,” usually caved in to

public pressure to only pay for cheap designs.55

As mentioned, another ingredient in her renovations concerned “scattered site” housing, where public housing became placed “around the town geographically,” rather than concentrated in the meanest neighborhoods. This often used existing housing and worked well in some cities, generally mid-sized ones, where the political influences were not as deeply rooted or race based. However in some towns, scattered sites met with stiff resistance and only 87,000 individual scattered site units ever became completed from the start of the program through 1991. Some communities stood so openly against it they bombarded PHA and the White House with letters challenging the Constitutional authority for spending government money for this kind of public housing. They were unhappily assured that the matter had already been resolved by the Supreme Court in

1945 in Cleveland v. United States (323 US.829).56 If pressed for scattered site, cities

often simply withdrew from the federal program and Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, and

Detroit, built no new federally assisted public housing between 1962 and 1964. So

scattered site remained predominately a good idea, on the books only. 359

McGuire succeeded though with several other projects. Congregate housing, or

elderly public housing with rooms having baths, plus food services and limited medical

and recreational facilities, was developed and well received in some cities.57 An additional innovation of Ms. McGuire’s was “self help” housing, where qualified tenants assisted in the initial construction, maintenance and repair of the public housing they

occupied. This was especially helpful for Native Americans.58

McGuire played a leading role in fielding a bold, new “flexible financial formula.”

Her idea became akin to variable rate mortgages by “group.” PHA now permitted “group financing” where several LHAs issued notes under a larger single housing authority,

which could sell them easier. This became important for rural communities.59 “Group

financing” also encouraged small housing authorities to ban together to issue obligations

under a “general agent,” obtaining lower interest rates. LHAs also marketed local

authority bonds in new ways and amounts were raised from $1,000 to $5,000 each. This

encouraged an aggregate of $7.1 million in the sale of temporary notes and $6.4 million

from bond sales, with most LHAs making a profit from 1961 through the end of fiscal

year 1964.60

McGuire also enticed FHA to venture into public housing, financing a joint

PHA/FHA operation in New York City which was worth $20,000,000 and covered a four

block development. Low-income PHA families could move into FHA middle income

housing when their circumstances improved, and middle income families falling on hard

times could move into public housing the previous households vacated, in the same

development. This was truly an innovative idea that worked well, yet it came nowhere

near meeting the housing demand.61 360

However, her most important and lasting achievement sprang from expanding public

housing’s scope into the social the social realm, which was new and emerging territory in

the early 1960s. In a joint PHA/HEW venture she provided public housing families with

“on the spot” counseling and “on call” social services through a series of grants to states

and cities and this significantly strengthened community services in low-income

neighborhoods.62 McGuire actually tried to transform public housing into an effective form of social welfare with model youth programs, demonstration programs, and family

service centers.

PHA initiatives with HEW improved coordination of federal activities serving low- income Americans and both agencies shared legislative agendas and coordinated demonstration programs in an attempt to “tie together” public housing, elderly housing, and juvenile delinquency.63 PHA and HEW proudly proclaimed that the “public housing

program “should contribute to the social and economic advancement of its tenants,”

which though not entirely new, was a pivotal vision then.64 PHA joined the Veterans

Administration as well in joint low-income housing for disabled veterans, using

rehabilitated homes and PHA-HEW established a joint task force to examine how

demonstration programs could be improved.65 In Saint Louis in the spring of 1962, they

examined how welfare and housing services together could be provide “on site”

counseling for low-income families.66 The task force traveled to several locations across the country, Detroit, St. Louis, New Haven, Pittsburg, and Boston, and receiving first

hand testimony. Some of these ideas will discussed in Chapter ten.67

McGuire worked hard to promote PHA’s new social agenda. On the advice of

Gordon M. Sessions, she proposed a “President’s Public Housing Advisory Committee” 361 to connect business to social reform in public housing but this went nowhere as Kennedy did not wish to associate his office with the effort.68 Some of McGuire’s larger public housing projects came with contracted personnel for home-making advise, job placement, counseling and day care, and this later would be a chief ingredient in LBJ’s “model cities” public housing program. Unfortunately, LBJ did not effectively apply the

McGuire client participation formula to planning.69

Demonstration programs constituted a further important McGuire focus and PHA managed extensive, and innovative ones. However funds as originally mandated allowed only for research on improving shelter, so “innovation” was used. The demonstration grants program provided $5 million for research and each approved grant was to attract other funding usually private sector for implementation.70

Novel ground was broken by PHA and HEW through this demonstration program. In

March, 1962, PHA and HEW instituted a joint memorandum to research “stimulating local communities to provide intensive and readily available assistance” for placing low- income and welfare families into a self supporting status.71 Four proposals followed:

$30,000 to the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhoods to evaluate how to improve social behavior in low-income families; $142,268 to the Cincinnati Housing

Authority to combat juvenile delinquency; NAHRO received for $200,000 from the Ford

Foundation and PHA, to ease elderly displacement due to urban renewal; and the St.

Louis Housing Authority received a grant to rehabilitate project residents.72 Even the

Miami Housing Authority was funded and came up with a novel idea of educating its low-income residents through classes at the University of Miami.73 Weaver provided

McGuire with a $194,470 to the National Capital Housing Authority on June 8, 1962, to 362

“demonstrate” how existing housing could be used for families displaced by urban

renewal, through a mammoth “finder, locator, and deposit” program using “current stock” housing.74 By August 1, 1962, twenty-five grants pending worth just over $2

million were authorized and by June 30, 1963, twenty-three had been approved.75

Demonstration grants to small towns and mid-size cities, produced some good ideas

as well. Some of the more innovative ones were the purchase of private dwellings for

subsidized low-income rental housing; the purchase of existing hotel structures; the

purchase of existing apartment buildings for conversion to public housing; short-term and

long term lease arrangements; grants to low-income families to purchase a home in lieu

of subsidies; the purchase of FHA mortgages for low-income families; and a host of self

participation and self help mortgage, lease, and rental options plus “gradual” ownership

measures followed.76 Glassboro, New Jersey had the most innovative one, proposing that a family about to be displaced be allowed to use the equity in their substandard home as a down payment for a new home in a local public housing cooperative subdivision.

However, this was too close to FHA’s powerful 203 series program to compete

nationally.77

Yet real success eluded the demonstration grants program. McGuire moved public

housing toward a complete environment for the poor rather than just shelter, which had

never been done before and White House was not going in that direction.78 From June 3,

1961 through June 30, 1963, only $3.8 million of the $5 million in demonstration grants

money had been spent, as national backing and broad exposure for the program were

missing. It remains dubious as well that the $10 million figure would have been 363

approved. Public housing simply was not popular enough either in the White House or

“on the streets.” to draw a large “research” clientele.79

Lastly, McGuire had to confront the problems of housing located on urban renewal

sites which will be discussed later. Ike’s “predominately residual clause,” specified that

substantial housing of some kind had to accompany urban renewal site development

plans. The 1961 Housing Act relaxed that requirement, allowing “local determination.”

Consequently, stores, connecting cluster shopping centers, entertainment complexes and

businesses dominated urban renewal sites, with less and less standard and public

housing.80

McGuire and her staff also spent vast amounts of time managing public relations due

to the volatility of her program. Ms. McGuire traveled across the country to “sell” public

housing at ceremonies ranging from ground breaking of the first unit of Beaver,

Pennsylvania public housing in the spring 1961 through to the construction in

Washington DC 500,000 [cumulative] public housing unit in late March 1962.81

In the story public housing, the program posed several severe problems it never could

overcome. In America, heading that list was the “high-rise syndrome,” which built

housing truly unsuitable for family living, that became an invitation to vandalism, crime,

and social disorders, and that quickly turned into slums because many who lived there

lacked job and transportation access, the keys to success elsewhere as in post WWII

Europe.82 St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe was a good example though at the start, it provided

2,740 individual apartments and was thought to be ideal in 1957. It had to be destroyed in 1974 because it became unlivable and in the process, the St. Louis Housing Authority became the largest slum landlord in the city.83 However, conditions for the poor were not 364

improved by Pruitt-Igoe, as “problem families” were concentrated in one location, and

racially were completely segregated. Blacks were placed into the massive Pruitt-Igoe

complex, that “…became a potent symbol for all that was wrong with public housing.”84

In Philadelphia, the housing authority reported “dope peddlers, prostitutes, rapists, thieves, alcoholics, unmarried mothers with two or more children, “tuberculars,” compulsive gamblers, and families guilty of extremely poor housekeeping,” comprised their high-rise clientele.85 Philadelphia’s public housing (PHA) built both high-rises and

subsidized row houses. It was pressured by the Citizen Committee on City Planning

(CCCP) to maintain anything but high-rise solutions, yet that did not always work.86

But the high-rises eventually prevailed nationally. Many urban public housing settlements simply became high-rise, armed, encampments. Without restricted access,

the lobbies and corridors were vandalized and filled with trash. Lights were beaten out,

then replaced under metal cages, only to be poked out or sprayed black. Without

maintenance, elevators broke down and staircases became garbage dumps, roofs leaked,

and broken windows abounded. Without babysitters, single mothers, often stranded in

apartments with babies, had to allow their other children to roam unsupervised sixteen

floors below.87 These problems brought cries for new social engineering, but McGuire’s reforms became thwarted by disinterest and politics.88

Big city urban bosses favored high-rises since they concentrated the poor on one site,

and served as a means of containment, and big urban developers liked the “high-rises” because they took up less valuable urban land and were profitable to build.

Unfortunately, land acquisition costs were so high in cities, many were forced to go

“high-rise” even while knowing it was a “social” disaster. Malcolm Peabody deplored 365

the problem as “we knew it was a ghastly mistake to erect monster public housing

projects like Pruitt-Igoe, Columbia Heights in Boston, and the Taylor Homes in

Chicago…. Experience proved…that packing multi-problem families together was like packing oily rags, risking spontaneous combustion.”89

High-rises and their problems gave public housing a stigma that slowly grew worse under Kennedy. Known as “slums,” “tenants,” and “projects” public housing became synonymous with high-rises and high-rises with trouble. Time magazine reported on

“200 person” buildings in Chicago, housing instead 1000 people, and where reporters

could meet “pig face,” a young boy whose nose had been chewed off by a rat. Chicago’s

Mayor Richard J. Daily approved the massive Robert Taylor Homes, a project for 28,000 predominately African-Americans, of which 20,000 were children, on 31 individual high- rise slabs. It was called the “perpetual ghetto.”90 The Robert Taylor Homes symbolized

the failure of high-rise public housing in the 1960s as Pruitt-Igoe later would in the

1970s. But the great failure of the 1980s, known as Cabrini-Green, had its roots in the

1960s as well.91

Chicago managed this great catastrophe, also the most “notorious” high-rise in the

country. Rising ominously out of an older Italian-American slum of the great depression,

the Francis Cabrini Homes named after a soon to be canonized Catholic nun of the poor,

expanded, gaining the name of a local labor leader William Green.92 Commencing with

600 dwellings, by the end of 1962 the Cabrini-Green homes encompassed fifty acres with

23 separate building of slab construction each rising 10 to 19 stories. This became the

“Urban Olduvai Gorge of American public housing,” something everyone could point to and use as a baseline for social commentary.93 366

Boston maintained a large public housing population as well, in virtual geographic

segregation. The Boston Redevelopment Authority kept the Irish and Italian poor in one

part of the city North end, and the African-American poor in the other (Roxbury) in higher buildings, and worked hard to ensure it stayed that way. In Miami, high-rises would be the start of housing related riots in the mid 1960s. The city established Liberty

Square during the New Deal and then expanded it under Kennedy. A neighboring

development in Overtown received substantial funding under Eisenhower, but by the

mid-1960s, the I-95 corridor “transferred” numerous Overtown residents to Liberty

Square, which quickly exceeded its capacity and it also would later be known for its

bloody riots.94

New York City as well had trouble with high-rises. The 1960 census showed that

350,000 New Yorkers lived in substandard housing, and that did not include the homeless

who could not be adequately counted. Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner issued the

“Panuch Report” in March 1960 stating housing shortages had worsened in the 1950s

rather than improved.95 That would eventually lead to a decline of non-elderly housing in

and around Harlem, and the expansion of the troubled Robert Taft and Mitchell-Lama

high-rises to compensate.96 McGuire to her credit wanted to get control of the high-rise

problem, but was unable to do so during her tenure. But she did “lobby” to have them

banned as a form of new construction, except for the more benign elderly program and

the 1968 Housing Act did just that.97 This ban was in part a reflection of her dedicated

effort.

But New York City led a small list of a few important cities that tried to do something to correct the high-rise problem. New York City had by far the Nation’s largest public 367

housing program, and slowly transformed its program direction to apartments in

established medium height buildings.98 The New York City Housing Authority by the

end of 1962 managed 107 separate developments consisting of 494 buildings that

provided housing for 120,465 families, including 474,600 children. The New York

Housing Authority remained “landlord” for a population then larger than Delaware,

Vermont, Wyoming, Nevada, or Alaska. It also housed more people than lived in Jersey

City, Columbus, Louisville, or Phoenix and the Housing Authority’s police force was the

24th largest in the country, numbering 755 officers, surpassing municipal forces in

Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Louisville.99 In twenty years, by the end of 1982 it had grown to a $3 billion public corporation which managed the largest “real estate” holding in the

United States, and used more electricity annually than the entire state of Utah.100 New

York still remained a city of contrasts, but it did make an effort.

Milwaukee and San Antonio stood as examples of cities with more successful,

smaller public housing programs as well as a few high-rises. Additionally, some

California towns along the Mexican National Border maintained small, but successful

public housing programs in cooperation with the Mexican government in an urban

planning cooperation agreement. Puerto Rico managed another smaller program.101

McGuire dealt with a host of other matters in program enforcement and performed

well. She clearly ran a clean program and controlled corruption. PHA in making its

substantial annual contributions to LHA’s, varied the amount according to region. This

“local variation” left room for fraud because in some areas of the country, political pressure was exerted to raise federal contributions. A. Willis Robertson of the House

Committee on Banking and Currency investigated all of Eisenhower’s local contracts 368

from 1954 through 1961, and found nothing particularly illegal, but sent a stern warning

to Kennedy to be careful.102 And then there was the on-going federal investigation

targeting Billie Sol Estes in 1962 for purchasing over 500 homes in the late 1950s from

the surplus defense public housing programs called the Lanham Act. Those were in

Texas, and Estes “literally” purchased the land on which the buildings stood that gave

him the right to purchase the buildings by “negotiations” with the government as the

“land owner” rather than by the competitive bid system. The homes were sold to real

estate operators who in turn remodeled them and sold them as single family homes or

moved them to a more profitable new locations. Some were even insured by FHA.103

Estes made a handsome profit, but he was LBJs secretarial assistant when Johnson sat in

the Senator, not McGuire’s. McGuire kept tight control and ran an honest program.

“Administrative costs” stimulated a protracted dispute between PHA and GAO which she readily resolved as well. With public housing, bigger was better (less expensive by volume) for unit costs and GAO wanted a set rate for facilities and utilities, and demanded small towns or cities with the smaller and more expensive projects to pay the difference. PHA and GAO hosted heated Congressional debates over this, and finally

Senator John Sparkman reached an agreement through McGuire’s intervention, for a

“barter system” where the small towns made payments in lieu of taxes to the state, with the state receiving less PHA’s money overall.104

Maintaining minimum housing standards to code created a consistent problem which

Ms. McGuire tried to resolved as well. New York City had a system where thousands of

poor lived in leased “public” housing through the city, from “building owners” who made

few repairs yet could not be shut down by the city. If they were closed, the poor had no 369

place else to go and everybody knew that. These owners were true “slum lords.” As

well, Detroit had code compliance problems with builders, inspectors, housing authority,

and tenants all at the same time.105 The tenants revolt movement, in its infancy under

JFK, began over code violations and then spread to rent withholding.106 McGuire proposed a “national public housing policy” in August 1962 to correct these code problems, but that was still being debated by the end of the Kennedy administration.107

However she took direct and successful action over rent increases. Sporadic rent increases in public housing always stirred negative debate. PHA used a percentage of income ratio which varied nationally from of 21.8% to 23.0%. But rents were a local determination and usually caused much spirited public debate. McGuire simply publicized the ratio and explained how it worked, and “proved” nationally it was fair.

She kept this “schedule of rents” consistent with local economies.108

Then there was the political side of public housing, which Kennedy did use to his

advantage. From the 6,000 letters received daily at the White House, JFK intervened

annually in couple of public housing “crisis.” Around Christmas of 1962, according to

Fred Forbes in a note to Pierre Salinger, “I try to get a good Christmas angle for the Boss.

Last year we worked it through you on the Negro family about to lose their housing in

Chicago. Last night I was able to get this one in Philadelphia for this year.” In 1961,

Kennedy’s personal intervention in battling the eviction of Mrs. David Franklin from a

Chicago public housing project, constituted what Salinger splashed all over the press that

December 25th, as her husband a Reservist had been mobilized for the Berlin Crisis.109

JFK intervened just in the nick of time against “dark, malevolent forces lacking 370

comparison” and saved them from eviction. Kennedy gained excellent national press

over the matter.110

From Chicago to Philadelphia to Kenosha, WI, the “helpful” hand of the president

could occasionally be seen directly aiding the poor. For them this became akin to

winning the lottery. In Kenosha in 1962, Kennedy intervened just in time to delay the

eviction of a family threatened with being placed onto the streets because their home was

being demolished but the new public housing they were scheduled for was not yet ready.

Further, American Motors Corporation (AMC) had planned a parking lot for the current

property, and JFK in high drama, sent telegrams to the mayor of Kenosha and Kenosha

Public Housing Authority and requested help from AMC as well. He also ordered

HHFA/PHA to speed up construction of the new property.111 The press remained

overjoyed.

In the otherwise grim business of “public” housing, elderly and “Indian” housing constituted a few bright spots. In elderly housing, Ike’s 1956 Act created federal elderly

public housing, and his 1959 Act authorized further direct assistance. Kennedy’s Task

Force Report on Housing and Urban Affairs recommended much more money and numerous changes to the program plus the 1961 Housing Act liberalized eligibility for building and managing elderly housing. Kennedy appropriated $125 million for the program and provided elderly families direct rent subsidies.112 Using McGuire’s careful

legislative drafting, JFK signed into law the Senior Citizens Housing Act of 1962 that

raised the federal government’s elderly housing spending from $125 million to $225

million and covered both urban and rural elderly. Since 1962 had off-year elections, a

pleased White House had little trouble sailing this through an equally cooperative 371

Congress. In October 1963, Congress added another $50 million to Kennedy’s

program.113

Unfortunately elderly housing had four parents and some serious duplications. PHA,

FHA, CFA, and the Farmers’ Home Loan Administration (FHLA) each had a competing

and parallel program which lead to waste. But no agency intended to “give-up” this voter friendly issue and which agency managed the program depended on where the elderly housing was physically located, what financed it, who built it, and what managed it.

FHA ran Section 231 mortgage insurance, Section 232 for the rehabilitation of nursing homes, and the famous Section 221(d)(3) that had an elderly program. Section 202 belonged to CFA, that offered a popular direct loan program for senior citizens. PHA ran a large elderly housing program through LPAs as well, and the Farmers’ Home Loan

Administration (FHLA) had the rural one connected to agriculture.114

By the end of 1961, 3,472 units for senior citizens were “under management” by

LPAs and 8,471 units were under construction with 28,740 units in “planning” stages, at

389 locations nationwide.115 By the end of 1963, PHA authorized 58,519 units for the

elderly, and another 14,126 were under reservation with CFA, plus FHA insured an

additional 25,133 units under Section 231. Uniquely even though small in number, the

Kennedy years accounted for 70% of all elderly public housing funded to the end of

1963. Cumulatively, units occupied by senior citizens stood at 135,000 nationally by the time JFK left for Dallas.116 Johnson however, really grew the program as by 1969 there

were 239,624 elderly units and LBJ exceeded Kennedy’s percentages and numbers.117

Lastly, in elderly public housing, McGuire and Weaver established a joint HHFA-

HEW task force to improve services available to federally assisted elderly.118 Weaver 372

wanted a “national policy for the housing of senior citizens,” but it did not happen under

Kennedy. A new HHFA office for senior citizen’s housing was created though with

Sidney Spector appointed as the manager.119 And in a manner of speaking, Kennedy’s

President’s Commission on Aging managed elderly policy.120 In creating it, plus

Weaver’s advisory committee on senior citizen housing, Kennedy said on February 21,

1963 in his “special message on aging,” that he was aiding “the 17.5 million people age

65 years or older.”121 Though his commission was chiefly for political impact, it did give

the impression to the 17.5 million elderly voters that JFK remained involved in their

concerns, beyond his small elderly housing program.122 Kennedy wanted another $120

million for the elderly in the election year of 1964, for his second term.123 Uniquely,

Weaver spoke about elderly housing on Friday on November 22, 1963 when news came

over the wires and radio about gunshots in Dallas near the presidential motorcade. He

did not speak again in publicly until December 11 of that year.124

McGuire ran a small programs for Native Americans also. This was an off-shoot of

the 1937 United States Housing Act yet remained an exceptionally limited venture. Only

about 3,600 units per year, either rental or for purchase, were completed. Kennedy called

the plight of Native Americans “a National Shame” in his 1960 campaign, but he was

slow to respond and it was not until March 1962 that PHA offered any new coverage for

Native Americans. In October 1962, the Ogala - Sioux Authority dedicated their first low

rent housing program and another in Pine Ridge, South Dakota quickly followed.125

However, as with many of Kennedy’s domestic programs, this was well intended program remained much too small to have any measurable impact. The population of

Native Americans in 1960 stood at 523,591 and the 3,600 units per year did next to 373

nothing to alleviate their housing shortages.126 Native Americans public housing

paralleled the regular program and ran on annual contribution contracts, but the federal

government also paid the difference between what a Native American family could afford

and the basic rent. Instead of being managed through LPAs, it was handled by tribal based Indian Housing Authorities, under the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department

of the Interior. HHFA remained the lead federal agency for housing matters though.127

One interesting program McGuire initiated was “mutual self help” where Native

Americans, under a complicated formula, could build and maintain the home they lived in and receive significant discounts.128

In conclusion on public housing, a few some bright spots highlight in the story. A

California LPA in Marin City joyfully hosted Mrs. Catherine “Mother” Washington’s

100th birthday on March 1, 1961, with most of the residents of the 360 unit low-income project in attendance plus the press. “Mother” Washington the daughter of freed salves from Calvert, MD and when younger she and her husband had worked as missionaries in

Africa. She became the first tenant to move into the “bright new project.” Her last remaining child, an adopted daughter in her seventies, who had been purchased on an

Ethiopian slave market as a baby for $2.50, attended as well.129 And public housing had

a baseball connection. The New York City Housing Authority complex stood adjacent to the New York “Giants” Polo Grounds Stadium in New York, and when the Giants moved

to San Francisco’s new Municipal Stadium, it was adjacent to the San Francisco Public

Housing Complex. When the Brooklyn Dodgers left Ebbets Field in New York City to

go to Los Angeles, the “Field” became a low and middle-income housing project and the 374

Dodgers’ new stadium at Chavez Ravine, was on a former public housing site in Los

Angeles, that had been “urban renewed.”130

Urban renewal, the other half of direct federal intervention into the urban core of

American cities, was one of the federal government’s true success stories and the

antithesis of public housing. It stood as the “charmed” one of the two programs, the one

favored by the administration and big business as well. Federal urban renewal money

funded four activities: urban renewal projects; urban planning assistance; urban renewal

relocation payments; and the urban renewal demonstration grants. Likewise, the Urban

Renewal Agency (URA) managed three additional endeavors; housing in urban renewal

areas, with FHA and PHA; the open space land program; and “community” planning

programs placing URA into a community’s most intimate rehabilitation plans.

Community planning also came in four varieties: the Workable Programs for Community

Improvement (WPCI); URA and Area Redevelopment Agency (ARA) cooperative

programs; URA’s General Neighborhood Redevelopment Program (GNRP); and the

Community Redevelopment Plan (CRP).

In the 1961 Housing Act, Congress graciously authorized $2 billion for urban renewal for Kennedy’s first term, and seriously considered a half billion more, before

“temporarily” saying no. This doubled the total single amount record authorized for urban renewal and Kennedy spent more on urban renewal in his three years than Ike did in his eight.131 Under the able leadership of William Slayton, the URA administrator, the

federal government paid 75% of the cost of urban renewal projects and programs for

small towns and cities, and 66 2/3% for large ones.132 Costs were for surveying,

planning activities, feasibility studies, general neighborhood renewal plans, and money 375

for project execution such as land acquisition, the temporary operation of “acquired

properties,” demolition work, installation of public improvements, and site preparation

costs for the land’s sale. “City-wide” long range urban renewal planning was funded

through urban planning assistance grants and even states could receive up to 50% of

“statewide” urban renewal planning help for their cities. As well, demonstration grants were routinely provided to develop, test, and demonstrate new methods of slum preservation in urban renewal areas.133 Local Public Agencies (LPAs) acted in urban

renewal cities representing URA similar to the PHAs Local Housing Agencies (LHAs).

Kennedy and Weaver had different priorities with urban renewal. Both wanted

“brand new downtowns.” But effectively relocating families displaced by urban renewal

remained very important to Weaver, while open spaces was very significant to Kennedy.

Both men valued the orderly redevelopment and rehabilitation of cities. Yet, Weaver was

concerned with the “social” city and how it functioned for human beings and JFK’s

concern was more with the “physical” city and how it performed, looked, and appealed to

the voter. Parks were attractive to that clientele as were immense entertainment and

business complexes. Robert Kennedy would later try to connect the social city to the

physical city under PCJD-OJD discussed in chapter ten.

Urban renewal operated in two cycles, the “property cycle” and the “financing” one.

The property one had six phases: land acquisition; relocation of what used to be there;

site clearance; site improvement; supporting facilities construction; and land disposition.

The financing cycle began with the planning grants, followed by loans or development

grants; project execution money; redevelopment assistance; and project completion aid. 376

Overall urban renewal had several really major problems, which will be discussed in detail later. Briefly though, significant delays were the first difficulty. From the initial

“plans” phase to execution, these delays lasted for years. Nasty relocation squabbles constituted the second difficulty, many with serious racial overtones, and that overshadowed everything urban renewal did with relocation.134 These two difficulties gave urban renewal a poor reputation somewhat akin to public housing. Yet spending huge sums of money helped ease this concern for “average city voters.”

William Slayton managed URA very effectively and a few points about his work are important. He catered to Kennedy’s desires to please the big urban redevelopers, if not always with policy, generally in program management. Slayton had been an official in

NAHRO, and was a former associate of William Zeckendorf, then the country’s largest urban developer. The 1961 Housing Act provided incentives for big business to invest in urban renewal and firms as Alcoa, U.S. Steel, and General Electric did so with record sums.135 Huge developers as Baird and Warner of Chicago, Adam Kates of Atlanta,

Moore and Company of Denver, met in New York in July of 1961 to discuss how to cash in on the 1961 Housing Act’s generous pot of money.136

Weaver and Slayton wanted to make specific improvements in urban renewal. They took URA down a new path, but only incrementally, while spending their record sums.

Reconstituting URA from just a slum clearance operation into a vehicle of “economic and social regeneration” was their collective goal. But Kennedy’s general lack of interest in urban affairs precluded him from pushing too hard on Congress for social reform measures in the 1961 Act.137 Thus Weaver and Slayton improved “community development” through policy. They moved city planning away from “separate” projects 377

to “all inclusive” ones and they made slight progress in improving the effectiveness and

quality of rehabilitation.138

Uniquely under Kennedy, the social city took a step backwards. Easing Eisenhower’s

previous policy that new urban renewal construction had to build “predominately residential” construction (51% to 49%) on the site, Kennedy rewrote and weakened this

clause in the 1961 Act, allowing local determination, so that more business investment

could take place.139 This hurt the poor by decreasing the availability of housing on and

adjacent to urban renewal sites.

Determined to maintain his newly found popularity after the inauguration, Kennedy

intended to spend mammoth and quite visible sums in America’s cities. From World

War II to the present, JFK was the most popular president, maintaining on average a 70%

rating in the polls.140 In enacting his big urban renewal program, speed in implementation

would also be critical to maintaining his political momentum. In “spending the Country

out of the recession,” two billion plus in urban renewal funds was be a huge first step.

Kennedy sent his March 2, 1961 telegrams to the mayors of 284 cities, asking them to

accelerate their “relocation,” so that urban renewal could “kick in.” As well over 500

LPAs received letters from URA asking them to be prepared to rapidly expand

business.141

A key element to the delivery of effective urban renewal was national conformity to

building codes, or at least minimal uniformity by region, which facilitated quicker

application processing. Weaver and Slayton both tried to bring this about. They had to

convince state urban renewal directors that similarity in codes was in their best interest,

and would facilitate project approval. Weaver and Slayton appeared before numerous 378

conferences of elected state officials soliciting their support.142 By late 1962 some progress was made here, but overall, as with public housing codes, total success eluded them.

Weaver and Slayton wanted to build new capacity for cities to undertake and

complete entire urban renewal programs quickly. They realized this was the programs’

public Achilles heal. Cities that had been slow marginal performers had their new plans

disapproved, until with URA’s help, timelines were written into the program. Cities

updated in writing how they would correct their delinquent ways, and were thereby

“pardoned.” URA sent cities numerous recommendations covering new designs in city

planning, all aimed at speeding up project completion. In approving city plans, Weaver

and Slayton considered the ability of cities to easily “digest” urban renewal funds, and

they developed a national “digestibility” list, that left a few urban centers without

funding.143

Yet Slayton suffered from staff restrictions that hindered URA’s ability to move

applications. Beyond a few “super grade” changes to be detailed later, Kennedy provided

Weaver with no new URA staff. Instead, JFK called for “more conscientious management and more effective manpower utilization, leading to increased productivity for the funds expended.”144 Slayton himself a tireless worker, accommodated this

workload by having half of his professional staff work every Saturday.145

Urban renewal aimed its focus and fortune directly at America’s aging downtowns.

By 1960, none had been spared the “doom and gloom” of outdated infrastructures, some

without any major renovations since before World War II. Pollution was rampant,

transportation systems lacked speed and safety, and numerous other problems abounded. 379

For example, the Buffalo City Planning Commission reported that, “Unless some

dramatic program to recapture the Downtown’s past appeal is initiated, economic

collapse may well face the Central Business District.” In New York, Chicago,

Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, Buffalo,

Minneapolis, and Cincinnati, downtown retail sales dropped yearly, decreasing from

2.2% in New York, to 17.7% in Saint Louis to 23.5% in Buffalo. Eleven of the top fifteen cities had business losses downtown. Some cities maintained consistent double- digit unemployment figures “in downtown areas” throughout all the late 1950s and early

1960s. Many northern cities lost population and were losing their ability to replace resources vanishing resources.146 Suburban strip malls stores continued to out pace

central business ones and downtown hotel occupancy rates plummeted across the

country. From a high of 93% just after World War II rates dipped to 61% in 1963.

Cleveland’s large downtown hotels operated throughout the entire year of 1961 at 55%

occupancy, the worst since 1933.147

Urban renewal in downtowns required massive improvements to buildings and

infrastructure that simultaneously supported business, finance, retailing, hospitality, and housing. To be successful, non-existent transportation also had to accompany renewal and housing had to be returned to downtowns. These were expensive issues.

Solutions began under Truman and Ike, with their respective 1949 and 1954 Housing

Acts and Kennedy’s continued with his 1961 Act. Specifically, Chicago’s “Loop and

Financial District,” Boston’s “Garden and Financial Center,” Philadelphia’s “Washington

Square Center” and “Independence Mall,” Pittsburgh’s “Golden Triangle,” Baltimore’s

“One Charles Place,” Cincinnati’s “River Front Renovation,” Philadelphia’s “Eastwick 380

area,” and “The Flats” of Cleveland, constituted success stories for urban renewal under

these three presidents. Renewed city life and spirit gradually returned to these towns.

To facilitate this renewal, a new breed of mayor met the challenge, willing to go

beyond the past perimeters and gamble on their future, placing their leadership squarely

behind downtown rehabilitation. Richard Dilworth led Philadelphia’s revival, Robert

Wagner produced resounding changes in New York, Richard Daley did the same in

Chicago, Jerome Cavanaugh in Detroit, and Harold Grady steered the “rudderless ship of

Baltimore” into safer waters.148

In studying 1960s urban renewal, it is important to commence with what became

designated the “overall” community development program for the era. Known as the

“Workable Program for Community Development” (WPFCD) under Eisenhower in 1954,

Kennedy’s plan changed the “Development” to “Improvement.” This will be discussed

more in Chapter ten, but in short and in my opinion, it did little, yet it could have been a

visionary program had there been greater leadership from the White House. The WPFCI

centrally managed in HHFA, came under a new “Assistant Administrator.”

The WPFCI placed all aspects of a community’s evolution under one roof; urban renewal, public works, utilities, business, relocation, housing, roads, transportation, etc.

In many cities it involved all five HHFA constituent agencies. The “workable program” established a written framework where a community could articulate with one complete plan, how it intended to use federal and local resources: to eliminate and prevent “slums;” redevelop itself; renew its downtown; and expand its commerce. The idea was to abandon the “project mentality” in favor of an overall “plan.” Communities were

certified, then recertified annually. Cities and towns used a seven-step process to develop 381 their WPFCI: they reviewed all codes and ordinances; initialed comprehensive planning; commenced detailed neighborhood analysis; set forth administrative ordinances; detailed financing arrangements; planned for the re-housing of displaced families; and most importantly included citizen participation in planning and relocation. That last requirement of involving citizen participation in planning was very significant, but unfortunately, received decreasing importance later under LBJ.

But the WPFCI had no “teeth.” Cities could write in “vagaries” and still get approved and once certified for the first year, few were actually decertified. Cities as small as West

Palm Beach, FLA and as large as New York City applied and unless their application had poor design or timing, it was readily approved. The key was to produce a “satisfying environment.”149 Moreover, since nearly two years of Kennedy’s almost three, passed without even a limited executive order on open housing, segregation became quietly formulated into many plans.150 Some communities even used federal urban renewal policy money to avoid the WPFCI and due to exemptions, got away with it. A few applications even preceded Ike’s presidency, and due to pronounced delays in urban renewal, became finalized under Kennedy.

Using the WPFCI, cities submitted a comprehensive set of urban renewal plans, depending on the “scope” of their specific renewal. A General Neighborhood Renewal

Program (GNRP) became required for large projects with multiple phases running for several years, and a Community Neighborhood Program (CNP) facilitated a single community’s renewal project for a shorter time (less than 10 years). Some CNPs could be “exempted” from the Workable program and in 1963 the CRP program expanded allowing county applications.151 382

In financing urban renewal, massive amounts became allocated by Kennedy and

committed quickly, which created banner local headlines. Los Angles, under Mayor Sam

Yorty, received millions and the mayor made that well known to the press in headlines

reading “Big Federal Fund…Green Light for 50 Blocks.” Other cities as New York,

Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Detroit proudly announced huge federal contributions in

urban renewal money.153 And all this looked good for the administration with the voters.

Financing came in three varieties. “Advances” covering surveys, plans and designs

for a project came first. These advances could be repaid from future receipts when LPAs

sold the property. Planning advances usually were for very large projects, up to ten years

in length, that in themselves required a “general neighborhood renewal plan” (GNRP),

under the Workable Program for Community Improvement Plan (WPFCI).215

Loans, the second kind of financing, placed URA working capital into a city, through

LPAs. These were completely repayable, bore low interest, and were in two categories -

temporary and definitive. Temporary ones were short-term, and definitive ones longer

and covering up to 40 years the on capital value of an urban renewal project which was to

be leased for redevelopment, rather than sold at a profit.

Grants defrayed the “net difference” in project costs. Similar to loans, grants

provided significant sums to cover the difference between a project’s total cost and an

LPA’s total return on the sale of the land and the 1961 Act graciously increased the percentage covered for cities and towns. Whether advances, loans, or grants, cities spent the money in three broad categories: urban renewal projects; community renewal programs; and demonstration contracts.154 383

Regarding urban renewal money spent, Slayton often stated that from 1949 through

December 1960, two billion dollars had been spent for urban renewal and in 1961, 1962,

and 1963, Kennedy allocated two billion more. Slayton’s figures did not quite agree with

official statistics, showing 3.7 billion dollars was spent from 1949 to 1961, but Kennedy

certainly set the one, two, and three year cumulative records to that date.155 Kennedy was

spending so robustly that in 1962 Weaver tried to get an increase on capital grants money

because he was running “low.” From January 1961 through December 1963, Kennedy

“allocated or approved” $2,360,000,000, which was a very significant investment. Under

Ike, it took Ike eight years to authorize $1.6 billion in specific “Title I grants” and

Slayton did that in two years.156 Had Kennedy concluded his first full term, $3 billion would have been spent including carry over money. This was a big program and the

chart below compares Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s spending.

Dollar Value of Cumulative Reservations Outstanding Contracts Authorized

1953 348,540,408 1953 1,743 1954 377,170,988 1954 2,882 1955 553,665,661 1955 5,982 1956 826,684,732 1956 9,821 1957 1,019,294,714 1957 6,024 1958 1,324,478,054 1958 9,901 1959 1,388,647,765 1959 5,375 1960 1,866,160,059 1960 15,389 1961 2,467,631,512 1961 19,802 1962 3,014,314,096 1962 24,926 1963 3,680,603,368 1963 30,534 157

Weaver also kept rates low for URA loans, at around 4% for the duration of the

administration, which helped stimulate business.

Private investment also matched Kennedy’s expenditures creating an immense

“boom” in downtown renovation. Uniquely, LPAs often never spent the actual money 384

but used the guarantee and low fixed rates as a notice of solvency to lure private

investment into their land disposition program.158 Weaver and Slayton projected urban

renewal would grow significantly in their out year budgets, along with large matching

private investment.159

One of the most popular grants was the Section 701 urban renewal planning grant,

simply called 701. Kennedy increased its total spending from $30 million to $75 million

and LBJ in 1964 to $150 million. Cities paid from 25% to one-third of the cost of

planning based on size and the 701 paid the rest and the 702 Planning grant was a

variation of this for public works planning. These grants could be used for urban

renewal, mass transportation, and open space planning as well, and could also be used for

“metropolitan planning” to get a community “positioned” for membership in the WPFCI.

Planning at municipal, county, regional, and state levels were authorized for cities to use

“professional planning as the means to achieve its finest hour of public service.”160

Between 1954 and 1981 this very successful grants program allocated over one billion dollars for community planning.

In my opinion the 701 grant became the “metropolitan area planning grant” that could have been used with a visionary WPFCI to become the workable solution to urban problems. It would have combined urban renewal and a viable poverty program but that was never tried.161 The 701 grant allowed URA to provide technical assistance to a

community in planning and to obtain a URA Section 314 demonstration grant for each

problem a community had. The difficulty in making this work effectively as the

“workable solution to urban problems” Kennedy promised in 1960, will be discussed in

chapter ten. But simply put, it never accomplished this because the White House never 385

placed the emphasis behind it to make that happen. Weaver tried to connect the two but

never reached “a broad statutory definition of comprehensive planning.”162 Under 701 in

1961, $22.3 million was spent in this program, in 1962, $42 million, and in 1963, $18

million.163 Kennedy requested another $75 million for future years, yet with no vision.164

Neighborhood participation in planning could have been included, but when LBJ did this, it was done in “name” only.

Small towns played a key role in urban renewal and to meet their increasing needs,

Weaver instituted important changes. LPAs were allowed to hire local appraisers to

make initial land and property appraisals, rather than waiting for HHFA ones.

Additionally, urban renewal project audits were standardized, to “speed up” efficiency,

and small town applications were quickly reviewed by region. Slayton provided direct

technical assistance to small town planners in applications and planning, as they had

fewer and less “competent” professional staff.165

URA also inherited the strange “open spaces” program which proved to be a “bust”

even though it came with Kennedy’s rare backing. By the end of FY 1961, only two

grants had been approved. The year 1962 saw 26 grants worth just over $4 million

processed and in 1963, 95 grants were made. In Kennedy’s the three years, only $18

million was spent of the authorized $50 million.166 Yet, at the end of his presidency, JFK

was requesting $100 million for 1964 which simply baffled both HHFA and Congress.167

It was his “pet urban project,” yet it was flawed in design, as few cities wished to turn

prime urban redevelopment land into parks and the ones with “troubled” downtowns

could not afford to do so. 386

Urban renewal housing was a serious problem. PHA and FHA both had housing

programs in urban renewal zones and FHA’s was placed under the now “famous”

assistant commissioner for multi-family housing, Franklin Daniels, who oversaw all the

FHA delays. FHA’s huge processing backlog in multi-family housing applications

included many from urban renewal area housing sites. Housing in urban renewal zones

fell under Section 220 of the 1961 Act and encompassed one-family homes up to eleven

“family” row houses, using a complicated financing formula and some apartments were authorized as well. In 1961, mortgages were insured on 27 federally assisted housing projects in urban renewal areas totaling 5,375 units and worth $88.4 million.168 But by

the end of 1963, only 48,000 units of any kind of federally assisted housing in urban

renewal areas had been built and only about 50,000 had been rehabilitated in these areas.

A total of 107,000 more were “identified” for rehabilitation.169 This was an absolute

national disgrace in relation to the number of homes destroyed by urban renewal and the

highway program in these “zones.”

Financing housing in urban renewal areas was always a significant issue. In rather

rude language, FHA proclaimed it did not finance homes in slums.170 But under

Kennedy, URA, FHA and PHA were forced to work together to frame a set of rules for a

small, joint program. By the end of 1963, PHA had 22,000 units of public housing

planned for urban renewal areas in 24 states and FHA had 18,000 of its moderate income

units planned on urban renewal sites under Section 221(d)(3). Private construction of

course had thousands of expensive homes, apartment buildings, and condominiums as

well. For each dollar of federal money, six dollars worth of private investment was

generated. But the poor were not helped by this process as they were carefully and 387

systematically excluded from urban renewal sites nationally, except for a token

presence.171

Feeling the heat from Congress about this, Weaver in 1963 held a series of meetings

to find out why the FHA and PHA housing in urban renewal zones was so meager.

McGuire, Slayton, and Hardy cited exceptionally archaic “minimum property standards” nationally and outdated building codes that halted building homes in urban renewal areas

for poor people, caused huge delays and in some cases, complete project cancellations.

FHA drafted and implemented a separate set of minimum property standards for

rehabilitated housing in urban renewal areas to combat this and with the support of the

National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), produced a workable model. In

July of 1961, only 886 communities had any building codes and most varied but by July

1963 under the new plan, 1,054 communities had codes and 80% conformed to

HHFA/NAREB model for urban renewal housing.172

Other changes were planned to grow housing in urban renewal areas. New direct,

low interest loans for rehabilitation were established under Kennedy’s never enacted

1964 Housing Act. To eliminate backlogs, URA allowed regional offices to send

approvals directly to the Office of the Administrator (Weaver’s office) without going through numerous internal certifications. Along with the previous local appraiser change, it was thought these changes in urban renewal housing would be valuable.173 PHA and

URA further issued a joint memorandum of agreement, signaling that a PHA “contract”

would not be delayed because of URA’s processing problems.174 Weaver stressed that,

“one agency delays the other.”175 But all this, in my opinion, cloaked the real problem.

The poor continued to be excluded from new urban renewal neighborhoods because 388

nobody wanted them there, and no one including JFK was willing to make a stand to get

them there.

Where this could have been reversed was seen in mid-October 1963, where URA and

FHA completed a truly significant “not-for-publication” study for extensively improving the 221(d)(3) program in urban renewal housing. It was done in conjunction with PHA and the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency (PCJD). Encompassing 105 legal size pages, this study ventured into areas where the Kennedy administration and no other administration to date had ventured, at least publicly. It called for a more effective

URA-PHA-and FHA partnership, insisting that urban renewal completely reorient itself to include a number of social issues in its planning. Nathan Glazier provided numerous ideas to Slayton for the study. It recommended urban renewal venture into special education, child care services, welfare services, housekeeping assistance, vocational counseling, relief of homelessness, relocation and even unemployment and college counseling. Citizen participation was to be maximized in planning, and numerous demonstration projects were to be commenced immediately. A comprehensive planning package for a whole new generation of proposed federal assistance to improve orderly urban growth and the development of new communities was proposed, along with appropriate budgets. Planned communities with services were suggested to replace patchwork projects, using a solid mix of private developer funds, and public money.

Detailed guidelines for communities of 30,000 each, on 1,600 acres covering 2.5 square miles, with full services, including high schools, were offered at $23,290,000 per development. A comprehensive index of “demonstration programs dealing with human problems related to urban renewal and housing” discussed how low-income housing and 389

social programs could work. “Fellowships” for urban planners were offered and all of

this was to be included in Kennedy’s “Housing and Community Development Act of

1964.” As a final aside, this study established a “National Institute on Urban Problems”

to serve as a think tank for advice and management of the program.176 This will be

discussed further in chapter ten.

Kennedy never implemented the study. What he did, Section 107, only permitted the

resale of land in urban renewal areas and allowed a tax “write off” if the land was reused for low and moderate-income family housing. An attempt to establish a new

“Redevelopment Area Industrial Mortgage Association” specifically for urban renewal housing became “tabled” for the Johnson years.177 Without encouragement from the

White House, the study unfortunately sat on the shelf.

But urban renewal program itself had several reoccurring and very serious problems:

relocation, demolition of existing homes, massive delays, segregation, and fraud.

Topping the list was the truly ineffective relocation of those displaced by urban renewal.

Statistics offered by the administration in my opinion are inaccurate and misleading, yet

were presented by the HHFA to Congress, and embraced by the White House. The

administration repeatedly cited relocation as a minor problem in urban renewal but most

others involved with it considered it a major issue. Every indicator pointed to a profound

problem and relocation had a continued negative human impact, particularly on elderly

families who after generations had lived on “a new urban renewal site,” were forcedly

removed by law. Moreover, minorities by the hundreds of thousands were displaced in

every large city. Some simply faded away never to be “heard from” again. The most

serious anecdotes of human suffering came from this displacement, more than any other 390

domestic program of the federal government. The process was unceremoniously referred

to as “the Federal Bulldozer,” “Negro removal” or “slum clearance.”178

The statistics were telling. Section 105 of the National Housing Act provided the

authority for relocation but many states, cities and some incorporated towns exercised the

power of eminent domain without the jury of necessity.179 For example, the building of

the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, was an absolute scandal regarding the removal poor people. Law suits abounded and the university was created on prime urban housing

land.180

Relocation had formal steps. A family received “notification” and then “counseling,” followed by “information” on the city’s private housing stock. Instructions along with public housing information were printed both in English and Spanish, starting in

November 1962. FHA then attempted to finance the family into another home if they

qualified, and VA stepped in for eligible veterans. Public housing lists were then

provided, but usually projects were found to be full. Finally families were offered

relocation payments ranging from $200 and to $500 and told to move.181

The Kennedy administration reported that from January 20, 1961 through July 1,

1963, 87% of displaced families “reported” back to URA after their move, which meant

they could be located, and of that 87%, 92% were relocated to adequate housing. But

under closer examination of 100% total displaced families, almost 21% did not report

back or were moved to substandard housing. That percentage is huge in looking at the

aggregate numbers involved nationally.182 The administration did make an effort to

subsequently fix the substandard housing, but not all of that was corrected. 391

Yet what many moved into was often much worse than what they had left. Eighty to

eighty-five percent of those displaced had a rent increase.183 The National Defense

Highway Act of 1954 cut “great new swaths of freeways through and around central

cities,” displacing tens of thousands184 For instance in Saint Louis, two-thirds of the

entire central city population was actually displaced.185 Simultaneously URA and FHA

worked feverously to take urban land for airports.186 By March of 1961, only 28,000 new

dwellings had been built nationally in urban renewal areas which low and middle income

could actually use. In some cities, 90% of African-Americans were moved out and to be

replaced in the same location by almost 70% white.187 GAO criticized URA for its 1963

Cleveland project called “Erieview” which committed most of these sins publicly and

without any regrets.

To improve relocation, Weaver created the position of assistant commissioner for

relocation and James Banks first filled that post. Banks, who later succeeded Slayton as

the URA’s chief, performed similar functions in Washington DC.188 He had a positive

impact. He kept the percentage of “unaccounted for,” low. And he also reduced the

percentage of those relocated to substandard housing to about the same as Eisenhower’s;

and Kennedy had a much larger program.

Banks pressured LPAs to improve relocation. He wanted real guarantees from the

WPFCI that more low-income housing would be built and he forced LPA involvement in

social services planning. Banks traveled the country meeting with LPA and citizen groups to spread this message. In a rare break with tradition, staff increases were given

to Banks’ office for relocation, and Banks actively sponsored public interest group

meetings on relocation while establishing an interagency program with FHA’s Neil 392

Hardy for converting existing homes into “relocation houses.”189 As well, Slayton and

Banks established a “short-term” housing program for displaced families and several large cities followed their lead. Chicago set up a central “relocation office” which had both short-term and long term “rehousing.”190 Banks final contribution was an attempted to require LPAs to submit a complete “relocation plan” for families prior to a URA

Regional Office’s certification, which failed.191

Weaver intervened to help correct the relocation problem as well. He called for more

“comprehensive” housing, under a new seven point program, where PHA must admit relocated families first; verification of new urban renewal housing was required for each site; LPAs must share relocation information more effectively; LPAs must “speed up” fixing substandard housing; LPAs must address real solutions to minority problems, not just information; site selection requests were to be improved; and final written reports on relocation performance would go directly to himself. He also requested Slayton and

Banks to draft a “national relocation policy,” but that was not implemented under

Kennedy. However, rent subsidies for relocation and other forms of assistance came from his efforts, and were placed into Johnson’s 1964 and 1968 Acts.

But problems with relocation continued in greater number than solutions. The

Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, then of the Interdenominational Ministers Alliance and later a leader in the civil rights movement with King, woke up Congress in pointed testimony by calling for a new five-point plan for urban renewal relocation. He called for: full and effective citizen participation; adequate and humane solutions to relocation; improved “reuse” plans for urban renewal property, creating more middle-income housing on urban renewal sites rather than luxury apartments; neighborhood 393

rehabilitation through public participation and a private citizen partnership; and

effectively mixing public and private money for creating a suitable living environment.192

These were valuable points, carefully listened to, but never implemented. Congress did step into the relocation quagmire, as did the bureau of the budget, under Dave Bell, but the only tangible result was a new “reporting” system so the disposed could be located easier, using the new RCA computer at HHFA.193

Another massive problem with urban renewal was the demolition of existing homes,

which were seldom replaced. Between 1950 and 1960, an estimated “six million sub-

standard dwellings disappeared”194 and through to the end of Kennedy’s presidency,

urban renewal destroyed 1,054,000 of them.195 Kennedy promised that the 1961 Housing

Act would preserve 128,000 substandard houses, plus 235,000 older, but “to code” homes on urban renewal sites, yet it did not.196 Kennedy developed 22,000 acres of prime urban

land across the country from January 1, 1961 through June 30, 1963, and as he increased

land acquisition, the number of “on site” homes increased as well. At the start of 1961,

on the 626 cumulative stood 307,900 homes. A total of 244,000 of those were sub-

standard, housing 239,400 families and “countless” single people.197 In 1961, 178,000

dwelling units were destroyed on urban renewal sites, 218,000 in 1962, and 260,000 were

destroyed in 1963.198 In total only 28,000 new homes replaced in 1961 and around

30,000 in 1962 and the same in 1963 as well.199 Many of those came with inflated rental or mortgage rates, excluding the very poor. Highways contributed to this displacement as well which accounted for numerous additional demolitions.200 My view is some of this

was needed, to renew decaying downtowns, but most of it could have been avoided with

effective neighborhood planning and rehabilitation. However, URA continued to paint a 394

rosy picture calling this, “clearing blight.” By the time Kennedy’s four -year term ended,

$3 billion had been spent on federal urban renewal, but low cost housing on these sites

remained virtually non-existent.201

Numerous articles and publications roundly attacked urban renewal for this. Even the

comic strip “Little [Litl] Orphan Annie” complained about urban renewal, in a strip on

January 22, 1963.202 On NBC Evening News on November 6, 1963, the usually favorable

Chet Huntley and David Brinkley both criticized relocation.203 Jan Jacobs, in The Death

and Life of Great American Cities, recommended not “disturbing urban neighborhoods,”

and Martin Anderson’s, The Federal Bulldozer, blamed urban renewal for most city

problems, even though under Kennedy it was his only real domestic success.204 Other

books focused on African-Americans’ problems, as Kenneth Clark’s, The Dark Ghetto

and Daniel Moynihan’s The Negro Family.205 But Peter Marris, A Report On Urban

Renewal, specifically criticized the conduct of Kennedy’s relocation program, and angered Slayton. Marris stated URA’s relocation program “provided only marginally better housing, in very similar neighborhoods, at higher rents, and has done as much to worsen as to solve the social problems of the families displaced.” He said URA created a

“culture of the slums” and reported that the renovation of one blighted area, through relocation usually accelerated the decay of others adjacent to it, causing new slums.

Slayton personally rebutted Marris in speeches and in the press, citing URA’s official statistics.206 Yet uniquely and in contrast, the relocation of small and mid-size businesses

from urban renewal areas went very well, but not for the people.207

Additionally, extensive delays plagued the urban renewal program, which constituted

a third significant problem. Federal project money did not “reach the streets” or the 395

“constituents,” for years after it became approved. According to HUD own statistics, the urban renewal “time lag completion,” using Baltimore, as an example, was 51.70% of all urban renewal projects from inception took from 6 - 12 years to complete, and 10.70% from 12 - 15 years. Only 9.40% were completed within 3 years, and the remainder fell in

between.208 For Chicago, the statistics were equally grim. There, 40.10% of urban

renewal projects took 6 - 12 years to complete and only 30% were completed in 3 - 6

years.209 Nationally, urban renewal completion delays are noted in the chart below. The chart covers the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson years. Eisenhower’s urban renewal projects during his second term, were completed under Kennedy, and many of JFK’s under Johnson or Nixon.

TIME NEEDED TO CARRY OUT URBAN RENEWAL PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Number of months required to accomplish major urban ______renewal project activities______

Land Acuqi- Reloca- Demoli- Site Impro- Land Dis- sition 1 tion 1 tion 2 vements 3 position 4 ______Percentage of Activi- ties completed: months months months months months 10%…… 48 54 54 126 132 75%…… 32 35 36 80 122 50%…… 16 26 27 52 75 25%…… 10 15 19 42 57 ______1. Land acquisition and relocation began during the first month reported. 2. Demolition began during the 6th month reported. 3. Site improvements began during the 17th month reported. 4. Land disposition began during the 30th month reported.210

Delays were so frequent that one study suggested the “average” project actually took

twelve years to complete.211 Locally, this had a tremendous impact, as Weaver noted,

“because the mayor who took all the heat [over urban renewal and public 396

housing]…often by the time any of the goodies came, his successor got all the credit and

he had caught all the hell for it.”212 JFK accelerated urban renewal as a means to end the recession and grow the cities, and “committed” most of his over two billion dollars in three record breaking years, much to the glee of the big urban redevelopers. Yet delays continued to plague his program. Program delays often were for the most obnoxious reasons. In one case, the Illinois Development Authority took 20 months to decide whether or not Dearborn Park needed an environmental impact study.213

Weaver and Slayton tried to correct these problems through various means: they

formed committees to study the issue; they accelerated relocation planning; they sped up

the site clearance; they brought the Bureau of Public Roads into direct consultation with

URA; and in the summer of 1962, they literally “rewrote” the Urban Renewal Manual

providing fifteen changes, to improve program performance.214 Yet none of this

succeeded. By the end of 1962, URA had an “unprocessed (on hand) backlog worth

nearly $450 million.”215

A fourth problem urban renewal had was that it encouraged segregation, which will

be covered in the next chapter, but needs to be briefly mentioned here. In the south,

relocation increased segregation and in the central business districts (CBD) of big cities, a

six stage urban renewal model worked very effectively to exclude minorities. Plans were

conceived, and zones for renewal designated. With the inception of that plan, exclusion

of the population could be traced by race through a number of tools. The population was

“rehoused” outside the urban renewal district, as expansion of the exclusion zones were

finalized. In most cases, the “rule of thumb” was “similar cost of living conditions”

should be found for the displaced, and only in certain sectors of the city could that be 397 located. Those areas were already heavily populated with minorities and the cycle was now complete. Then, as redevelopment took place in the district, the fate of those few remaining was often sealed, with one segregated zone being the outcome.216 In

Baltimore, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Hartford, Boston, and even in little Austin, Texas, this system worked perfectly, producing its desired product, segregation. In Cincinnati,

28,000 African-Americans were housed in a 400 acre area called “Over the Rhine.”

Other renewals “cleared and cleaned” an area, but on the fringes were public housing and there the “ghetto” abounded and grew.217 Weaver tried in vain to correct this by using meetings and commissions on “inter-group relations,” but received no help from the

White House until the executive order of Thanksgiving of 1962. By then Kennedy had less than a year left in office. These practices in the words of Boston’s mayor, greatly increased “the agitation of Negroes,” and that would be expressed very, very shortly.218

Fraud plagued the program a bit, but not as it did in some later administrations.

Under Kennedy and Weaver, the multi-family housing program in urban renewal areas had trouble properly reporting statistics. This was a form of fraud because the numbers represented money. The Bureau of the Budget regularly disagreed with figures reported by HHFA on the latter’s accomplishments, and several redevelopment authorities were sued over false claims.219 Complaints were numerous particularly in Los Angeles and

San Francisco. Additionally as mentioned, the FHA rehabilitation housing program in an urban renewal area never got off the ground because banks routinely would not lend to rehabilitate older homes in “the slums.” Everyone knew that, but some of the banks that did lend, did so with huge irregularities, all favoring the lender. A few LPAs defaulted due to mismanagement and GAO regularly, found minor problems with program 398

administration.220 One major urban developer in New Jersey and New York, the Lipkin-

Kahn Company, was under a federal investigation by the FBI for possible bribery in the

awarding of contracts. As well, Weaver had to regularly “suspend favorable action” on a

few LPAs while investigations were conducted and one LPA in East Saint Louis, spent

federal money to buy “non existent houses.” Milt Semer, HHFA Counsel, regularly

handled a portfolio of pending law suites.221 But given the size, scope, and speed of the

program, it remained relatively “clean” to Weaver’s and Stayton’s credit.

For the future 1964-1968, urban renewal planned to spend even more money.

Weaver’s out year budgets proposed through 1968, looked to $900 to a billion or more

annually for urban renewal. More rehabilitation of existing homes was planned as well

as an expansion of the 221(d)(3) program into urban renewal areas, even though it had

not yet worked. This was done to “keep that famous middle class” program at least on

the books for the voters to consider. Mass Transit, PHA and URA hoped to link under

the new program. But it was proposed that the percentage of new residential housing in

an urban renewal areas be dropped even further, which would have additionally hurt the

poor. Increases for relocation grants came as part of the package as were demonstration

grants and all this was carefully planned in the context of the 1964 election year.222

In conclusion, it should be noted that urban renewal under Kennedy stood as a success based on its stated goals. In the 1950s urban renewal tore down slums and produced some infrastructure changes. In the 1960s, it cleared slums to rebuild the urban core and central business district. Towering office buildings, stadiums, civic centers, exclusive stores, and expressways became Kennedy’s legacy. New York, Chicago,

Cleveland, and Houston all had new office buildings, each with over one million square 399

feet built during this period.223 By the end of calendar year 1963 the Urban Renewal

Administration was managing a cumulative 1,400 projects in 682 cities.224

Kennedy developed a successful urban renewal program at the expense of a

successful public housing program and also redeveloped cities at a time when the “youth culture,” which flocked to them, produced more vibrant downtowns.225 But the price to

be paid later would be terrible. Kennedy’s changes, as well intended as they may have

been, were designated to save “the city of affluence” rather than improve “the city of

poverty,” and that gap widened until the mid-1960s. Then the city of poverty called

attention to itself with the flames.226

400

End Notes to Chapter Eight

1. Pamphlet, Robert F. Wagner, 1, 1962, HS 2-1 to 4-16, 63, White House Central Subject Files, 357, The John F. Kennedy Library; and Daniel Shaffer, ed., Two Centuries of American Planning (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 250.

2. Gurtrude Sipperly Fish, ed., The Story of Housing (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1979), 301.

3. John M. Goering and Modibo Coulibaly, “Integrating Public Housing Segregation: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 25, No. 2 (1989): 271-274.

4. Anthony Downs, “The Successes and Failures of Federal Housing Policy,” Public Interest 34 (1974): 132; Paul C. Lewis, “Housing and Privatism: The Origins and Evolution of Subsidized Home Ownership Policy,” Journal of Political History 5, No. 1 (1993): 30; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 336, 337.

5. Richard Stuart Fleisher, “Subsidized Housing and Residential Segregation in American Cities: An Evaluation of the Site Selection and Occupancy of Federally Subsidized Housing,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1979), 36, 37.

6. Ibid., 38.

7. Modibo Sidy Coulibaly, “Segregation in Subsidized Low-Income Housing Program of the United States, 1934-1992,” (Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 1992), 53, 54.

8. Chester W. Hartman and Gregg Carr, “Housing Authorities Reconsidered,” Journal of the Institute of American Planners, 25, No. 1 (1969): 10, 11; Report of the National Commission on Urban Problems to the Congress and the President of the United States, Building the American City, (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1968), 110.

9. Chester W. Hartman and Gregg Carr, “Housing the Poor,” Trans-Action 7, No. 2 (1969): 49.

10. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 202; HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1962 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1962), 203; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report of the Housing and 401 Home Finance Agency 1963 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1963), 280; Letter to Albert Rains from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Jun 26 1961,Banking and Currency, Senate-House, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 59, NARA; Fish, The Story of Housing, 301-305.

11. R. Allen Hays, The Federal Government and Urban Housing (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 100.

12. Okwu Joseph Nnanna, “The Demand and Supply of Low Rent Public Housing: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Economic Trends, Interest Groups, Race, and Ideology on the Implementation of Federal Low Rent Public Housing Program in 81 American Cities,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Houston, 1980), 138; Report, “Subsidy for Present Units Leased for Lower Income Families Under PHA,” 2, Undated, PHA Policy Memos, Jul-Dec 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 337.

13. HHFA “Programs for People and Communities,” 1-5, Subject Files, Accomplishments 1961, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 69, NARA.

14. Memo to Kenneth P. O’Donnell from Fred A. Forbes, 1, August 6, 1962, HS2 Public Housing Program, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

15. Letter to Ted Reardon from Zachary Delgiorno, 1, September 25, 1962, HS 7.26.62 - 1-25-63, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 337.

16. Fish, The Story of Housing, 301; Letter to Rains from Weaver, 1, June 26, 1961, 59, NARA.

17. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, 8, May 6, 1964, Part IV, Reel 1, KLOHP, TJFKL.

18. Oral Interview of Marie McGuire by William McHugh, 14-19, April 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities, 316-320.

19. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 1, July 9, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

20. Fish, The Story of Housing, 491, 492.

21. Oral Interview of Marie C. McGuire by William McHugh, 4, 6, 9, 11, 21, 30, 44, April 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 337, 338.

22. Organizations and Functions of HHFA, 3, 4, Undated, Subject File: Department of Urban Affairs, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 70, NARA.

402 23. Survey of the Three Year Kennedy Record (Legislation), 8, December 10, 2002, The John F. Kennedy Library; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 320.

24. Report, Progress Report on Housing and Urban Affairs Programs, Administered by the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 33-35, August 29, 1962, Subject Files- Middle Income Housing, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

25. Herbert J. Gans, “The Failure of Urban Renewal: A Critique and Some Proposals,” Commentary 39, No. 4 (1965): 29; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from URA Commissioner, 1, July 14, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Statements, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

26. R. Allen Hays, The Federal Government and Urban Housing (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 89.

27. Ibid., 92-94.

28. Memo to Marie McGuire from Robert C. Weaver, 1, July 27, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

29. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, Jun 14, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

30. Fish, The Story of Housing, 492, 493; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Neil Hardy, 1, March 21, 1962, FHA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

31. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, 2, Jun 19, 1963, Admin, 1963, Jan 1-Jun 30, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA.

32. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, November 15, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

33. Ibid., Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 3, March 6, 1962, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

34. Report, Public Housing Progress, 1961-1965, 2, 3, June 14, 1965, Subject File: Accomplishments, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

35. Chronology of Significant Events in Housing in 1961, xi, Undated, Subject File: Accomplishments 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

36. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, June 6, 1962, PHA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 94, NARA.

403 37. Eugene T. Meehan, Public Housing Policy: Convention Versus Reality (New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy, 1975), 174.

38. Chester W. Hartman and Gregg Carr, “Housing Authorities Reconsidered,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35, No. 1 (1969), 10, 11.

39. Hartman and Carr, “Housing the Poor,” 50.

40. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, October 12, 1961, Adm/Travel, Staff, Congressional Liaison Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA,

41. Hartman and Carr, “Housing the Poor,” 49.

42. Fish, The Story of Housing, 365.

43. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 201.

44. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, March 22, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

45. Memo to Milt Semer from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, June 19, 1961, General Council, General, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 62, NARA; Memo to Lyndon B. Johnson from Robert C. Weaver, 1, December 21, 1962, Congressional Communication, Office of Vice-President, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA; Report to Robert C. Weaver from Jack Conway, 1-10, December 31, 1962, Audits, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Memo and Report to Robert Weaver from Jack Conway, 1-10, Violation of Low Rent Public Housing, Audits, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

46. Nnanna, “Demand,” 59; Eugene l. Meehan, Public Housing Policy: Convention Versus Reality (New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy, 1975), 73.

47. Ibid., 83, 86.

48. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from PHA Commissioner, 1, 2, May 5, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, 2, April 28, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 2, 3, April 7, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

49. Memo for Fredrick Dutton from Jack Conway, 1, 2, July 13, 1961, Accomplishments HHFA - Anti-Recession 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA. 404

50. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from PHA Commissioner, 1, March 1, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, February 21, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, 2, February 15, 1961, Weekly Reports of HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

51. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, May 26, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

52. Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and Housing Crises Since 1930 (New York: University Books, 1973), 144, 141; Meehan, Public Housing, 31.

53. Memo to Dutton from Conway, 1,2, 3, July 13, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 57, NARA.

54. Oral Interview of Marie McGuire, 4, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 337.

55. Report, Public Housing Progress, 1, January 14, 1965.

56. Letter to Ronald North from Lee C. White, 1, March 14, 1962, HS 3 6-26-61 to 6- 25-62, White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL.

57. Oral Interview of Marie McGuire, 30, 48, 50, KLOHP, TJFKL.

58. Ibid., 44-49.

59. Report, Progress, 35, 37, August 29, 1962, 67, NARA.

60. Ibid., 37; Memo to Fredrick Dutton from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, March 23, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Report, Public Housing Progress - 1961-1965, 2, January 14, 1965, Subject Files: Accomplishments, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 69, NARA.

61. Report, Public Housing, 2, 3, January 14, 1965.

62. J. S. Fuerst and Roy Petty, “High Rise Housing for Low Income Families,” Public Interest 103 (1991): 122; John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia 1920-1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 186; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 336.

63. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, 2, December 15, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

405 64. Richard Plunz, ed., Housing Form and Public Policy In The United States (New York: Praeger, 1980), 69.

65. Letter to JFK from Robert Classon, 1, March 17, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1961, Correspondence Veterans, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

66. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, May 15, 1962, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

67. Memo to Marie McGuire form Robert C. Weaver, 3, 4, October 23, 1963, PHA Policy Memos Jul - Dec 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

68. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, December 19, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

69. Fuerst and Petty, High Rise, Public Interest, 122-124; Gelfand, Nation, 336.

70. Press Release, “Low Income Demonstration Grants,” 1, 2, November 25, 1961, Low Income Housing Demonstration Program, Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Larry Bloomberg, 1, 2, March 10, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Demonstration Program, Low Income, 1-5, July 7, 1961, Low Income Housing Demonstration Program Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

71. Report, Public Housing Progress, xii, January 14, 1965.

72. Memo to Commissioner PHA from Robert C. Weaver, 1, September 25, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67 NARA; Memo to Marie McGuire for Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, December 27, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Memo to Commissioner PHA from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, September 25, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

73. Letter to Jay Pearson from Robert C. Weaver, 1, November 20, 1961, Demonstration Grants OA, Low Income Housing (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA.

74. Chronology of Significant Events in Housing in 1961, x, Undated.

75. Status Report, 1-3, August 1, 1962, OPP Low Income Housing Demonstration Program, Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SFC. RCW, 92, NARA.

76. Budget Study, Low Income Housing Demonstration Program, 1-5, October 26, 1962, OPP Low Income Housing Demonstration Program Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

406 77. Letter to Elizabeth Niebye from George Nesbitt, 1, 2, April 11, 1963, OPP 1963 Low Income Housing Demonstration Program, Correspondence, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 115, NARA.

78. Report, Progress, 49, August 29, 1962, 67, NARA.

79. Memorandum, “Assistance to Housing and Community Development Through Programs of the Housing and Home Finance Agency,” 6, Undated, Accomplishments HHFA-anti-Recession, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

80. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities, 338.

81. Memo to Robert Weaver from Morton Schussheim, 1, May 12, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

82. M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems: HUD Successes, Failures, and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview, 1978), 228, 229.

83. Witoid Rybezynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” Public Interest 113 (1993): 86; Eugene J. Meehan, Public Housing Policy: Convention Versus Reality (New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy, 1975), 61.

84. Scott A. Henderson, “Tarred With the Exceptional Image: Public Housing and Popular Discourse,” American Studies 36, No. 1 (1995): 33-36.

85. John F. Bauman, Public Housing Race and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia 1920-1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 184.

86. Ibid., 183, 184.

87. Rybezynski, Blunders, 84-86.

88. Plunz, Housing Form, 69.

89. Malcom E. Peabody, Jr., “Housing the Poor,” The New Republic 36 (March 9, 1974): 21.

90. Scott A. Henderson, “Tarred with the Exceptional Image: Public Housing and popular Discourse,” American Studies 36, No. 1 (1995): 33-36.

91. Ibid., 44.

92. Witoid Rybezynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” Public Interest 113 (1993): 82-84.

93. Ibid., 82, 83. 407

94. Paul S. George and Thomas K. Petersen, “Liberty Square: 1933- 1987, The Origins and Evolution of a Public Housing Project,” Tequesta, 48 (1988): 66, 67.

95. Plunz, Housing Form, 195.

96. Ibid., 203.

97. Henderson, “Tarred,” American Studies, 31-33, 35.

98. Pamphlet, Wagner, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 21.

99. Pamphlet, Wagner, 3, 4.

100. Simon, “Fifty Years,” 82, 83, 85.

101. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, July 28, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Memo to Pierre Salinger from Fred Forbes, 1, June 3, 1963, HS 31st to HS 31st, White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL.

102. Letter to A. Willis Robertson from Robert C. Weaver, 1, March 21, 1962, Congressional Communications, Banking and Currency, Senate-House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

103. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, May 29, 1962, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

104. Memo to Mort Schussheim from Robert C. Weaver, 1-4, December 4, 1963, PHA Policy Memos, Jul-Dec 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

105. Richard T. LeGates, “Municipal Housing Code Enforcement and Low Income Tenants,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 40, No. 2 (1974): 1-5; George Hoshino and Mary Lynch, “Public Housing: A Case Study in Administrative Justice,” Public Welfare 33 No. 3 (1975): 1-3.

106. John Atlas and Peter Dreier, “The Housing Crises and Tenants’ Revolt,” Social Policy 10, No. 4 (1980): 10-14.

107. Memo to Commissioner PHA from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 4, November 19, 1962, PHA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 94, NARA.

108, Letter to Mr. Bulger with attachments from Timothy Reardon, 1-10, May 28, 1962, HS2-Public Housing Papers, WHCSF, 356, TJFKL.

408 109. Letter from Fred Forbes to Pierre Salinger, December 21, 1962, HU2-2 (12-1-62 to 12-31-62), White House Central Subject Files, 337, TJFKL.

110. Letter and Clippings from Fred Forbes to Tim Reardon, December 20, 1961, HS 2-10-1-61-3-25-62, White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL.

111. Letter with attachments to Patrick J. Lucey from Fred Dutton, 1-8, April 10, 1961, HS 2 Public Housing Program,WH Central Files,356, TJFKL; Letter to Abner Silverman from Fred Dutton, 1, March 23, 1961, White House Staff, Jan 1-June 30, 1961, RG 207, SCF, RCW, 72, NARA.

112. TJFKL, “Summary of The Three Year Kennedy Period,” 9, January 30, 2002, http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/JFK_leg_records, html.

113. “Legislative Accomplishments, 87th Congress, 1st and 2nd Sessions, 7, Undated, Legislative Files 1961-1964, Legislative Accomplishments 1962, WH Staff Files, Ted C. Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

114. Memo to Fredrick Dutton from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, July 13,1961, Accomplishments HHFA-Anti-Recession 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA; Ibid., 3.

115. Memo with Attachments, “Accomplishment during and through to calendar year 1961,” 14, March 27, 1962, Accomplishments HHFA anti-Recession, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

116. Paper, “HHFA Programs for People and Communities,” 6, Undated, Subject Files-Accomplishments, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA; HHFA Annual Report 1963, 14.

117. Coulibaly, “Segregation,” Ph.D. diss., 258.

118. Memorandum of Understanding, HEW/PHA, 1-5, Oct 25, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

119. Memo to Sidney Spector from Robert C. Weaver, 1, July 25, 1962, Office of Housing for the Elderly, Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA; Press Release 1, May 17, 1961, Departments and Agencies, Food For Peace Program, 1962- 1963 HHFA Interior, JFK Western Trip, Fall 1962, President’s Office Files,79, TJFKL.

120. Press Release, 1, May 15, 1962, Housing for the Elderly, HHFA Misc. Files, Roll #1, TJFKL.

121. Memo to Congress from JFK, 1, February 21, 1963, Special Message on Aiding Our Senior Citizens, Legislative Files, President’s Office Files, 52, TJFKL.

409 122. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Sidney Spector, 1, December 4, 1963, Housing for Senior Citizens, 1963, Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA; Memo to Sidney Spector from Robert C. Weaver, 1, September 18, 1963, Federal Council on Aging , 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver form Richard K. Donahue, 1, March 15, 1963, Federal Council on Aging, Weaver, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Sidney Spector, 1, October 28, 1963, Federal Council on Aging, 1963, Weaver, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA; Memo to Sidney Spector from Robert C. Weaver, 1, June 25, 1963, Housing for Senior Citizens, Direct Loan Policy Memo, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA.

123. Memo to Sidney Spector from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, October 14, 1963, Housing for Senior Citizens, Direct Loan Program Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 113, NARA.

124. Speeches, Robert C. Weaver, 1, Undated, List of Speaking Engagements, RG 207, HUD, SFC, RCW, 126, NARA.

125. Memorandum, “Assistance to Housing and Community Development Through Programs of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 13, Undated, Accomplishments HHFA-Anti-Recession, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

126. Karen D. Thompson, Statistical Information Staff, Population Division, U.S. Census Research Internet, “The Population of Indians in the United States in 1960,” 1, November 18, 2002; Memo to Morton J. Schussheim from Robert C. Weaver, 1, November 6, 1962, PHA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 94, NARA.

127. Barry G. Jacobs, Kenneth R. Harvey, Charles L. Edson, Bruce S. Lane, Guide to Federal Housing Programs (Washington: Bureau of National Affairs, 1986), 68, 69; HHFA Annual Report 1963, 14.

128. Ibid., 83.

129. Memo to Commissioner PHA from Robert C. Weaver, 1, March 15, 1961,Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

130. Memo to Robert Weaver form Commissioner PHA, 1, March 22, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, April 14, 1961, Weekly Reports on HHFA Activities, Jan-Jun 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

131. Summary Memo, Weaver, Record 1, Undated, HHFA Accomplishments, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 56, NARA.

132. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office 1961), 49; Memo for Timothy Reardon 410 from Jack Conway, 3, September 4, 1962, Working Reports to the White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

133. Organization and Functions HHFA, 5, 70, NARA.

134. HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1962 (Washington: US Government Printing Office 1962), 280-283.

135. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities, 337; Oral Interview of William L. Slayton by William M. McHugh, 2, February 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

136. Ibid., Gelfand, 336, 338; Telegram to President from Jerome Hoffman, 1, July 12, 1961, HS 3 Urban Renewal- Slum Clearance, 1-1-61-6-25-61, White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL.

137. Robert C. Weaver, “The First Twenty Years of HUD: Looking Back at HUD,” Journal of The American Planning Association 51, No. 4, (1985): 477.

138. Gelfand, Nation, 314, 315, 317.

139. Judith J. Friedman, “Central Business District and Renovated Urban Renewal: Response to Understanding Change,” Social Science Quarterly 58, No. 1, (1977): 45; Gelfand, Nation, 317, 319, 338.

140. ABC Evening News and CNN, “The Gallup Polls of Presidential Popularity Since WWII,” February 16, 2004.

141. Memo to Lee C. White from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, February 13, 1961, HS 3 Urban Renewal-Slum Clearance 1-20-60-10-15-61, White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL.

142. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 1, 2, Dec 18, 1962, URA Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

143. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, 2, Jun 12, 1963, URA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA; Letter to Director from Commerce and Finance Division, 1, November 12, 1963, HHFA, 2-2-62 to 11-12-62, WHSF, Lee White, 6, TJFKL; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, October 3, 1963, URA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA.

144. Memo to William L. Slayton from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, July 17, 1963, URA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA.

145. Oral Interview of William L. Slayton by William M. McHugh, 16, February 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL. 411

146. Roger S. Ahlbrant, Jr., “Public-Private Partnerships for Neighborhood Renewal,” Social Science, 488 (1986): 121.

147. Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Redevelopment in America, 1940-1985 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 130-135.

148. Ibid., 137-142.

149. Memo to Lee C. White from Jack T. Conway, 1, December 19, 1962, HU 2-2 to HU 2-1, West Palm Beach, Executive 3, WH Subject Files, 371, TJFKL.

150. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 26, 27.

151. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to URA Commissioner, 1, April 29, 1963, URA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA. Memo from William Slayton to Robert C. Weaver, 1, April 17, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA.

152. Newspaper Clippings about Urban Renewal Spending, 1, August 31, 1961, HS 1st - 31st 15 (Executive), WHCF, 357, TJFKL.

153. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 283, 284.

154. HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Finance Agency 1962 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1962), 280, 281.

155. Oral Interview of William Slayton by McHugh, 16-20.

156. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to URA Commissioner, 1, September 6, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA; Gelfand, Nation, 337.

157. HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 10, 409; Ibid., 410.

158. Memo from William L. Slayton to Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, December 25, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA.

159. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to URA Commissioner, 4, April 30, 1962, Admin- Budget, Jan 1 - June 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

160. Carl Feiss, “The Foundations of Federal Planning Assistance: A Personal Account of the 701 Program,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 51, No. 2 (1985): 412 175, 176; Memo from Robert Weaver to Victor Fischer, 1, October 23, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA; Gelfand, Nation, 317.

161. Oral Interview of Jack Conway by Larry J. Hackman, April 10, 1972, 65, KLOHP, TJFKL.

162. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to URA Commissioner, 1, December 29, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA.

163. HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 277; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 403.

164. George Ferensick, “The Impact of Federal Housing Legislation Upon Comprehensive Planning at the Local Level,” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1981), 169-171.

165. Memo from Jack T. Conway to URA Commissioner, 1, 3, May 23, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA; Memo from Robert Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioners, 1, May 12, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71 NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioners, 1, Feb. 6, 1961, Audits 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59 NARA.

166. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report 1961, 294; HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 280; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 384.

167. Letter from Robert C. Weaver to A. Willis Robertson, 1, 2, Jun 28, 1962, Congressional Comments, Banking and Currency, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

168. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report 1961, 48, 49.

169. HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 286; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 10.

170. Oral Interview of William L. Slayton by William M. McHugh, 13, February 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

171. HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 386, 396; Gelfand, Nation, 338.

172. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Morton J. Schussheim, 1, 2, February 7, 1963, Jan - June 1962 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA; Memo to Neil Hardy from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, February 2, 1962, FHA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

173. Memo with Attachments from Robert C. Weaver to URA Commissioner, 2, 3, Jan 15, 1965, Subject File Accomplishments 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA. 413

174. Joint Statement of URA and PHA Commissioners, 1, 2, May 8, 1962, PHA Policy 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 94, NARA.

175. Oral Interview of Weaver by Moynihan, 11, 12, KLOHP, TJFKL.

176. Report, FHA-URA-LPA Coordination in Planning of Low and Moderate Income Housing (221(d)(3)) in Urban Renewal Areas and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1964, 1-5, October 21, 1963, OPP 1963 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 114, NARA.

177. Memos for Robert C. Weaver to Milton P. Semer, 1, October 5, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 204, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA.

178. P. J. Madwick, “The Problems of Urban Renewal,” Journal of American Studies 5, No. 3 (1971): 265; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Wayne Phillip, 1, 2, October 5, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Gelfand, Nation, 338, 346.

179. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon form Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, October 29, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from URA Commissioner, 1-4, July 14, 1961, Weekly Report Tuesday on HHFA Activities, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 73, NARA.

180. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, May 15, 1962, Weekly Reports to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA; “Urban renewal is Dispossessing Its Cities,” 1, 2, April 5, 1964, Articles and Statements, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA; Letter for Robert C. Weaver to Brent Spence, 1, 2, July 27, 1961, Banking and Currency, Senate-House 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

181. Memo to Timothy Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, September 19, 1962, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 96, NARA.

182. HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 10; Memo form Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, 2, October 20, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA; Letter to Jack Brown from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, August 10, 1962, Congressional Comment, Government Expenditures, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

183. Chester Hartman, “Displacement; A Not So New Problem,” Social Policy 9, No. 5, (1979): 23.

184. Howard J. Sumka, “Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement: A Review of the Evidence,” Journal of the American Planning Association 45, No. 4 (1979): 480.

414 185. John Norquest, The Wealth of Cities:Revitalizing the Centers of American Life (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1998), 110.

186. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 3, March 19, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

187. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, 3, December 3, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

188. Gelfand, Nation, 338.

189. Oral Interview with James C. Banks by William McHugh, 1-15, 24, December 14, 1966, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation, 338.

190. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, June 11, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 397, 398.

191. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to F. David Clark, 1, May 1, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962,RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Urban Wilderness: A History of Urban America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 48, 49.

192. Statement of the Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, 1, 2, August 1, 1961, Program for Community Improvement Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA.

193. Memo from Mort J. Schussheim to E. Everett Ashley, 1, June 14, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118 NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Wayne Phillips, 1, October 5, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93 NARA.

194. George M. Raymond, Malcolm D. Rivkin, and Herbert J. Gans, “Urban Renewal,” Commentary 40, No. 1 (1965): 72, 73.

195. Chester W. Hartman, “The Policies of Housing: Displaced Persons,” Society 9, No. 9 (1972): 54.

196. Martin Mayer, The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978), 161.

197. HHFA, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Housing and Home Agency 1961 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1961), 289.

198. HHFA, Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 281; HHFA, Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 384, 389.

415 199. Charles Hoch and Robert A. Slayton, New Homeless and Old: Community and the Skid Row Hotel (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 117; Ibid., Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 281; Ibid., Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 384.

200. Edwin S. Mills, “Non-Urban Policies as Urban Policies,” Urban Studies 24, No. 6 (1987): 563; Ibid., Sixteenth Annual Report 1962, 281; Ibid., Seventeenth Annual Report 1963, 384.

201. Hoch, Homeless, 117; Mills, Non-White, 363.

202. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, January 22, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

203. Memo to Timothy J. Reardon from Robert C. Weaver, 2, November 12, 1963, Weekly Reports to the White House, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

204. Gans, “Failure,” Commentary, 29.

205. John F. Bauman, Norman P. Hummon, Edward K. Muller, “Public Housing, Isolation, and the Urban Wilderness: Philadelphia’s Richard Allen Homes, 1941-1945,” Journal of Urban History 17, No. 3, (1991): 265.

206. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioners, 1, March 1, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

207. Rachel G. Bratt, “Federal Constraints and Retrenchment in Housing: The Opportunities and Limits of State and Local Governments,” The Journal of Law and Politics 8, No. 4, (1992): 657, 658.

208. Report to the National Commission on Urban Problems to the Congress and President of the United States, Building the American City (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1968), 166.

209. Ibid., 166.

210. Ibid., 167.

211. George M. Raymond, Malcolm D. Rivkin, and Herbert J. Gans, “Urban Renewal,” Commentary 40, No. 1 (1965): 73.

212. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Morton J. Schussheim, 12, December 19, 1985, KLOHP, TJFKL.

213. Lois Wille, At Home in the Loop: How Clout and Community Built Chicago (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 78.

416 214. Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, May 22, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Milton P. Semer, 1, September 22, 1961, General Council, General, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 62, NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, 2, April 29, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA; Memo from Commissioner PHA to A. E. Rosefeld, 1, Undated, PHA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 94, NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, 2, March 20, 1961, URA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA.

215. Memo to Lewis E. Williams from Robert C. Weaver, 2, 3, December 7, 1962, Government Agency, Bureau of the Budget, July 1 to December 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

216. Larry R. Ford, Cities and Buildings: Skyscrapers, Skid Rows and Suburbs (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 13, 46.

217. Zane R. Miller and Bruce Tucker, Changing Plans For America’s Inner Cities: Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine and Twentieth Century Urbanism (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1998), 39.

218. Thomas H. O’Connor, Building A New Boston: Policies and Urban Renewal 1950-1970 (Boston: Northeastern University Press 1993), 207.

219. Memo from Ken O’Donnell to Jack Conway with Attachments, 1-3, February 7, 1962, White House 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 97, NARA; Memo from Robert C. Weaver to Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1-5, June 20, 1963, Admin - Budget, Jan 1- Jun 30, 1963,RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA; Memo to Alvin J. Plant from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, May 27, 1963, Audits 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 107, NARA; Memo to Milton P. Semer from Robert C. Weaver, 1, November 4, 1963, General Council 1963, General, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 110, NARA.

220. Letter from John Sparkman to Robert C. Weaver, 1-4, August 23, 1963, Committee on Banking and Currency, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Letter with Attachments from Robert C. Weaver to P. N. Brownstein, 1-5, December 5, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA; Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, July 7, 1961, Bureau of the Budget, July 1- Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Memo from William L. Slayton to Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, October 19, 1962, General Council, General 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA; Memo to Jack Conway from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, December 31, 1962, Audits 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; memo from Robert C. Weaver to Louis E. Williams, 1, April 30, 1962, Audits 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA; Letter to Louis M. Hunter from Robert C. Weaver, 1, Sept 21, 1962, Government Accounting Office, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

417 221. Memo with Attachments from the Administration to Ralph Geilich, 1, Jan 12, 1961, Audits 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

222. Ford, Cities and Buildings, 50, 51.

223. Ibid., 50-52.

224. Schaffer, Two Centuries, 251.

225. Ibid., 250-253.

226. Ibid., 250.

418

CHAPTER IX

THE EXECUTIVE ORDER ON OPEN HOUSING:

THE STROKE OF A PEN

“…the president kidded Ted Sorensen about writing the speech. Ted Sorensen claimed he didn’t have anything to do with the speech, and the president remarked that nobody wrote it or something like that. But ‘the stroke of a pen,’ the president kept muttering that phrase: ‘Who put those words in my mouth….’”1

While suburbs exploded around America’s cities and urban renewal rapidly changed

metropolitan landscapes, and while public housing indiscreetly rose skyward and the

baby boom generation was in high school, it must also be recalled that any excursion into

the early 1960s finds the dark, yet immense specter of deeply rooted, and vituperative

racism. Soon this would explode openly into all American domestic life, and would lead

to the deaths of national leaders and hundreds of “every day” citizens in the turbulent

springs and long hot summers.

This chapter studies an attempt to preempt that, and the interactive dynamics that

caused it not to meet its objective. I refer to the “Executive Order On Open Housing,” subsequently to be called “the order,” that John F. Kennedy openly pledged to issue in his

1960 campaign. According to the candidate, he could easily remake America’s social

compact with its housing, by the single “stroke of a pen.” In August 1960 JFK criticized

Eisenhower for not ending racial discrimination in federally assisted housing by the use

of his executive authority and for not placing pen to paper to change how America

housed itself.2 However, Kennedy would be elected on November 7, 1960, was 419

inaugurated January 20, 1961, and his order was not issued until November 20, 1962. By

any benchmark, this was almost two years in the offing.

Several generalizations are important in framing the issue and the setting. Kennedy’s

order was not retroactive and was limited in coverage, both of which were significant “let

downs” for its supporters and constituted significant challenges to the moral equality of

housing in this country.

Secondly, Kennedy himself caused repeated delays in issuing the order, due to his

political agenda. JFK was more afraid of Congress than he was losing his newly found

African-American constituency. Committees run by “shrewd old tyrants” as Carl Haden

(D, AZ) of Appropriations, who had been a sheriff in the Arizona Territory before it

entered the Union, and Democrats Richard Russell of Georgia, Robert Byrd of West

Virginia, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, William

Fulbright of Arkansas, John Stennis of Mississippi, and Russell Long of Louisiana were

striking examples of racists with power, who had little use for “greenhorns” and the

Senate’s “playboy,” John Kennedy in particular. They distrusted him as a lightweight

who had been there for eight years and had never applied himself. After JFK was

elected, the Senate they quoted, “was by God and by Madison [and] not created to mouth

lines scripted in the White House.”3 According to Senator Joseph S. Clark (D, PA) the

problem with the Senate was, “the rural states are much over represented. Nothing can be done about it, but they have the Jeffersonian point of view towards cities as the haven of all evil.” He further lamented, “You ought to sit in the Senate day after day.”4

Thirdly, Kennedy played the “executive order” issue with extreme caution. Ted

Sorensen advised JFK to “keep moving but move slowly” and cautioned, him to go in 420

“graduated steps.” He further counseled JFK to avoid situations where he would be

placed into a “matrix,” that he could “neither evade nor answer directly.”5

Additionally, the order attendant with its delays underscores that Kennedy was also

afraid to interrupt the established pattern of post World War II housing growth, which

was the backbone of the domestic economy.6 His biggest fear in my view was that an

economic contraction would hurt his poll numbers, and the subsequent decline in

government revenues would lead to his inability to balance the budget and get his tax cut.

I believe Kennedy fully understood that the desegregation of housing led to the desegregation of schools and many other public facilities, which was key to forming a truly integrated society, but was extremely unpopular at the time.7 Pollsters revealed that

70 percent of (white) Americans were opposed to “substantial numbers of blacks moving into their neighborhoods,”8 JFK was not about to quickly upset that 70% even if it was

the “right” thing to do.

Further, Kennedy also had issues with the order’s coverage and its legality and

wanted to balance its release against Weaver’s successful appointment as the

administration’s top-ranking African-American, and the Departmental states bill, plus his

trade legislation.9 But uniquely Kennedy so mishandled sequencing the order’s release that he nearly compromised his middle of the road strategy. As mentioned in chapter eight, JFK’s FHA/VA housing market percentage continued to drop, in relation to his indecision and delays over the executive order, to a point where he was slowly putting that program out of business. He did not have a huge FHA/VA “fall off” after releasing the order, because he had already lost large market percentages to conventional financing, with his two year “void” before its issue. Finally, Kennedy’s delays and indecisions 421

began to wear on his African-American supporters and as Roy Williams angrily wrote,

“…at no time were the responsible Negro civil rights leaders called in and told formally

what the administration planned to do.”10

The last generalization is that the greatest drawback to repeated delays in issuing the

order fell into the human dimension for those openly, roundly, and consistently

discriminated against in housing, and by not issuing a comprehensive order, Kennedy’s

mistakes had to later be corrected in the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts.

The story begins with a look at discrimination that made the order in any form, necessary. Government at all levels had a sordid history of housing discrimination. The

Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Public Housing Administration (PHA), and

Urban Renewal Administration (URA), and then the lesser agencies as the Communities

Facilities Administration (CFA) and Federal National Mortgage Administration (FNMA) headed the list of “discriminating” Federal agencies. When Kennedy took office

“Complaints of Racial Discrimination in Housing” poured into HHFA daily and monthly, and by the thousands into its various agencies, and to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ)

Civil Rights Division as well.

Moreover, when Kennedy arrived, ten southern states and Oklahoma, plus several large southern cities had laws or codes compelling racial segregation.11 A primary

requirement of the federal government should have been to quickly remedy this, but

rather than do that, FHA routinely went along with these “local situations,” both in the

South and in some northern states. The local situation of course constituted segregation.

The FHA underwriting manual written in 1934, but used until late 1948, encouraged

racial segregation by establishing a model private agreement between buyer and seller, 422

keeping “neighborhoods homogeneous.” This agreement, achieved the status of law over

time through the enforcement of state laws governing private contracts.12 It was later

found discriminatory by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kramer in 1948, yet by then,

many FHA and VA restricted housing developments by race, had already been built around the country.13

FHA also discriminated in a host of other ways. In 1958 the Commission on Race and Housing, an independent citizens group published, Where Shall We Live, which

offered “the Federal mortgage loan insurance program…continues to lend loans for

builders, developers, towns and others…who openly plan to, and do exclude Negroes.”

The 1959 Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights concluded the same.14

The National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) revealed in 1961, that “there is massive evidence that the Federal Government is actually promoting and strengthening nationwide patterns of residential segregation” citing FHA and VA for continuing “to underwrite racially exclusive suburbs where…less than 2% of new FHA homes are available to non white families.”15

And into the Kennedy years, FHA discriminated with newfound techniques. It used:

credit reports that favored specified groups of lenders and brokers who were discriminatory; a real estate system that “showed” certain homes to particular racial groups only; it designated certain areas for “nonwhite mortgage coverage;” and it encouraged the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) to grant charters to certain financial associations, but not others. Additionally, FHA paid very close attention to the mortgage payment schedules of “Negro civil rights advocates,” particularly in the South. 423

There as well, FHA monitored “guests” who were colored regarding how long they

visited the houses of white FHA homeowners.16

Moreover, the South headed the list of locales that openly discriminated and

Washington DC topped it. DOJ’s Burke Marshall held a scathing report that headlined,

“Housing and real estate discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry,

nationality, or natural origin constitutes a major obstacle to achieving the goal of a decent home and suitable living environment, for every individual and family living within the

District of Columbia.” The report concluded, “Discriminatory practices exist in every phase of the sale, rental, hiring, financing, advertising, brokerage, and availability…of housing and real estate within the District of Columbia.”17 In DC, black diplomats from

African and Latin countries were openly segregated. Similar complaints about

segregation came from Oak Ridge (TN), Dallas (TX), Waco (TX), Clarksville (TN), and

Birmingham (AL).18 In northeast Mississippi, complaints were so prevalent and severe,

they resulted in ten northern counties transferring from FHA’s Memphis office to the less

discriminatory Jackson (MS) one. This became a “hot potato” which went all the way to

Henry Wilson at the White House to be resolved.19

But in many northern cities FHA discriminated as well. Chicago (IL) headed that list

under Mayor Richard J. Daily who truly favored minority groups, as long as they were

Irish, Italian, or Southern European.20 Baltimore (MD), Carbondale (IL), River Rouge

(MI), Seattle (WA), several towns in New York and New York City, plus Saint Louis

were but a few northern cities where FHA openly discriminated.

The Public Housing Administration (PHA) discriminated even more effectively than

FHA. Segregation in public housing occurred when distribution patterns of racial 424

occupancy were geographically established, separating the tenants by race. However, a

cover for doing this was called “income” segregation, which meant building public

housing only where low-income minorities could occupy them. This was the “cover”

most commonly used leading to direct racial segregation.21 The NCDH reported in

September 1961 “80.5% of all public housing is segregated.”22 Bitter and public disputes

and landmark legal cases highlighted PHA’s legacy. In Portland (OR), one notable

dispute called the Northwest Tower went to the White House for resolution, after the

press exposed open, serious discrimination. In places as far flung as Omaha (NE), public

housing was found to be discriminating and Maryland abounded with examples, as did

New York.23 But not to be outdone, Chicago again managed the most rigorous public housing discrimination.

In 1966, Dorothy Gautreaux and six other plaintiffs filed a suit against the Chicago

Housing Authority under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, charging race-

based discrimination in public housing site selection. They also sued HUD and

eventually won a portion of their suit in 1976, before the U.S. Supreme Court.24 Their

case was instrumental in bringing segregated public housing into the national spotlight.

In city after city, segregation in public housing continued unchecked. Atlanta’s public housing by 1967 was 83% African-American and fully concentrated on the city’s west side. No public housing was ever built in the upscale, white neighborhoods of northeast Atlanta.25 In Philadelphia, 71% of its public housing was fully segregated.26

Nashville (TN), Quincy (IL), and a host of lesser towns with large public housing programs, maintained similar discriminatory practices. Ms. McGuire to her credit tried, 425

but in vain to correct this disgrace. But broad based executive leadership would be

required, and that was not forthcoming.27

URA practiced both discrimination and segregation very efficiently and often

simultaneously. Seventy percent of families displaced by urban renewal were African-

American and URA regularly “looked in the other direction” when approving segregated

urban renewal plans. As well, racial restrictions found in local urban renewal plans

favoring white owned businesses and white entertainment complexes, were routinely

approved.28 Not using new renewal sites for public housing was a de facto “given.”29 It was not until August 1962 that HHFA “clamped down” on discriminatory and segregated

“workable plans” and it was not until late June 1963 that HHFA invalidated workable plans that included discriminatory businesses. It took Federal Court action in Smith v.

Holidays Inns of America to effect that change.30 Urban renewal also missed several

opportunities to “employ Negroes,” and some noteworthy complaints went as far as the

White House. “Low” appraised value offers to “Negro Families” in urban renewal

eminent domain acquisitions in Newburgh (NY) drew the President’s attention, but

nothing was done. URA refused to invalidate clearly discriminatory local programs in

Wilmington (DE), Baltimore (MD), Long Beach (NJ), Chicago (IL), and Bloomington

(IN), the latter over the building of the Dyer Elementary School in 1961, Trenton (NJ),

Tampa (FL), and River Rouge (MI).31

Lastly, the federal contribution to housing discrimination concluded with the lesser

agencies as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the

Federal Reserve System, Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Home Loan Bank

Board. These entities were quizzed in September 1962 over one simple question, and 426

found to be lacking: “Does you agency have a policy to deny benefits to private lenders

who use race in real estate loans?” All of the above responded with “no.” These

agencies did not regularly enforce anti-discriminatory lending policies, unless a particular

case became extremely ugly or quite noticeable in the press.32

But when it came to discrimination and segregation, none did it with greater relish

and success than the private sector. At the end of World War I with the “push/pull”

factor, an estimated 700,000 to 1,000,000 African-Americans left the South for northern

cities expecting a better life. However by 1969, fifty years later, 81% of all residential

neighborhoods around major northern cities were fully segregated.33 Housing

segregation widened racial inequities in education, employment, and income and the

private sector aimed to maintain this.38 The private sector had been producing around a

million new homes per year from 1948 through 1962. Yet only 3% of these were

available for non-white occupancy.34

To maintain this national system of housing apartheid, the private sector followed time-tested and deliberate patterns. Re-segregation flourished, which entailed entire neighborhoods being sold when one minority household moved in. “Segregation, integration and re-segregation” worked very effectively for years in and around Chicago and Cleveland, protected by restrictive zoning laws.35 Regarding that, The National

Commission on Urban Problems identified in 1968, that exclusionary zoning, and the continuation of “red lining,” was rampant in and around all major American cities through 1965. Zoning had been declared “constitutional” in 1926 by the Supreme Court in Euclid v. Amber Realty Co., as a form of broad based “police power” to define “good neighborhoods,” protect property values, to “segregate” different types of land use and to 427

“protect public safety.”36 In some communities, zoning was used in unique ways to force

African-Americans out. Also, financing became successfully used by the private sector

to keep blacks out of white suburbs. Lenders often used land installment contracts with

African-American home “owners,” but this form of financing was not used in white

suburbs. Land installment contracts were themselves risky as in one “earning squeeze”

i.e. being late with one payment, all could be lost, and these “take back” mortgages

became concentrated predominately in minority neighborhoods. In large cities, Chicago

used this practice most frequently.37 Trickle down housing also was carefully maintained

by race. “Up the down elevator” was a system where blacks bought into a white

neighborhood “high” yet when this occurred, whites began to sell at market price and the

blacks were “trapped” there due to their above par purchase. Boston topped the list of

cities where real estate agents knew these trends and worked this system effectively.38

Credit reporting for minorities also was often a significant issue, and if arrested for

demonstrating about a civil rights matter, that went on your credit report. Sometimes

land contracts were called in when negative credit reports were “pulled,” showing civil

rights activity. In other cases in the South, denying a home loan because of a “civil

rights” credit report was common.39

Segregation in private housing varied not only by race but also by occupation.

Minority “laborers” became segregated in “laborer neighborhoods,” whereas service workers and professionals were segregated in like kind neighborhoods. Thus over a wide expanse, a city could appear integrated with a patchwork of “black” and “white,” yet in reality have distinct areas of income segregation, each with their own “racial zones.”40

The production of new suburban housing generally had little effect on minorities in this 428

kind of situation.41 This also stood as one reason some cities failed to develop true

“black” middle class neighborhood system, even though the market was there. The

National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) proudly proclaimed that, “the home

building industry did not create the attitudes and prejudices which give rise to discrimination,” but the home building industry certainly knew how to capitalize on this unfortunate American dilemma. In Florida, home builders even sold swampland to unsuspecting African-Americans for a proposed suburban development to be called the

Hampton-Collier Acres.42

An additional familiar real estate practice was using a number of schemes to

deliberately plan houses with such large square footage, that their price tag easily precluded most minorities.43 These tactics were used to isolate certain neighborhoods

and under Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley’s South Deering, Trumbull Park, and

Deerfield.44

Another popular scheme was waiting until a perspective home buyer or apartment

renter could be actually met, then if a minority, presenting them with evidence of a long

waiting list of prior bidders. Complaints of this nature made their way to the White

House.45 Yet bargaining effectively with the average real estate agent or landlord in a

“shelter scarce” low-income housing economy required more “knowledge and clout” than

the average minority had in the early 1960s.46 Lastly, in the private sector in the late

1950s and early 1960s, it was not just housing that segregated, but everything that

supported housing as well, businesses, hospitals, clubs, restaurants, and most forms of

transportation.47 429

However, to say that government did nothing about this until JFK’s weak executive

order in late 1962 would be untrue. The “open housing” efforts of the federal

government before JFK’s order fell into five areas, indeed helping set the stage for his order. These stemmed from the actions to end housing discrimination by individual

federal entities, as the Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, the Civil Rights Commission, the President’s Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO), and actions by

Federal Court system.

Individual federal agencies led the fight for open housing before the executive order.

Even Weaver from HHFA’s central office proposed a program to the White House

offering that if home owners sign an FHA agreement that when selling they would not

discriminate, FHA would pay 90% of any loss they might incur. This did not go very

far.48 Nonetheless, FHA produced a national “open listing” of properties, by region,

where the sellers proclaimed they would not discriminate. Unfortunately the National

Association of Real Estate Boards opposed this stating, “salesmen will not work as

industriously to sell open listed properties,” and criticized the list as hurting the work

ethic.49 But FHA under Weaver’s direction slowly expanded the list.50 In August 1962,

HHFA voluntarily published open housing guidelines for urban renewal relocation, and

in its guide for the Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI), “without

regard to race.”51

Several other federal agencies used their “good offices” and “negotiation” to help end

discrimination. In DC realtors were continually pressured by HHFA to end discrimination in the housing of African diplomats.52 As well, voluntary open housing compliance notices were often posted in federal offices and the Department of Defense 430

and Atomic Energy Commission internally tracked open housing complaints and took

direct action to correct them.53

Other federal agencies voluntarily formed “inter-group and/or interagency relations”

committees designed to resolve open housing issues. Admittedly, the authority of these

committees remained weak, but the message they sent stood as critical: “we are watching

what you do, and we may find or soon have the means to take action.” The PHA,

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), and HHFA’s central office became leaders

here.54

The second of the formal entities that helped improve open housing before the order

was the Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights. Meeting monthly, starting on April 14,

1961, Harris Wofford chaired it as special assistant to the president for civil rights, and it

stood staffed by the “number two or three” officials from each cabinet level department.

Burke Marshall of the attorney general’s office and HHFA representatives, rounded out

its membership. Fred Dutton of the White House staff also joined. Originally designed

to discuss implementation issues for the “forthcoming” executive order, the Group

nonetheless began to directly attack racial problems. It set up a special task force, from

within the administration’s second tier of managers to study civil rights issues, like

evictions of Tennessee African-American tenant farmers for participating in an economic

boycott over voter registration.55

Moreover, the Sub-Cabinet Group studied and reported to the president about minority government employment. In a way it thus began paralleling the work of the president’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO), to be discussed later.

It tracked up notices in federal work places, on non- discrimination and publicized 431

newsletters about success stories.56 It also published regular reports on civil rights

progress, “from across the Administration,” as agencies “crawled” along on the non-

binding, non-legal road to ending centuries of discrimination.57 Importantly, the Group

served as a pressure point to keep Kennedy’s “head in the game” regarding civil rights

legislation and the executive order.

From the Group, Wofford expressed his extreme disappointment over Kennedy’s delays and JFK’s lack of interest in open housing. Kennedy responded by trying to keep

Wofford “under wraps,” as the “civil rights” issue faltered in the polls, and Wofford was

cautioned to restrain himself. He would of course leave his post over such matters.58

Wofford’s final gesture before leaving was to propose a “Federal Commission to Mediate

Civil Rights Disputes,” to be formed from inside the Administration.59

The Civil Rights Commission itself, the third federal entity working open housing

matters before the order, closely paralleled what the Civil Rights Division of the

Department of Justice was doing, as the Sub-Cabinet Civil Rights Group paralleled the

President’s Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO). But the Civil

Rights Commission was “outside” of the administration directly, and headed by the aggressive and very liberal, John Hanah. It also included the fiery future chair, Father

Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame who was Harris Wofford’s mentor. Kennedy appointed Berl Bernhard to the Commission, to keep “an eye on the Commission’s activities” as it was truly liberal in comparison to Kennedy. Chiefly the Commission investigated voting rights violations, but where retribution in certain instances led to evictions, housing matters became discussed. Integration, a second subject area of the

Commission, included neighborhood design and college housing. Created under Ike, in 432

1959, the Commission’s charter was to be reviewed by Congress, generally every four

years, which always turned into a huge fight. Kennedy in his 1960 platform, pledged to

make the Civil Rights Commission stronger and permanent.60 But by late 1963, three

bills were still pending in Congress: one to make the Commission permanent; one to

extend it for another four years; and the last to extend it two more years.61 The 1964

Civil Rights Act finally extended it to January 31, 1968.62

From many sources, the Commission repeatedly “heard” about the need for an

executive order. As early as October 1961, the National Committee Against

Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) testified before the Commission and provided a draft

executive order.63 From this, from hearings, and from research, the Commission itself published its own report called “The Emergence of a Policy,” on October 6, 1961 which was an absolute “bombshell.” In short, that Report provided extensive legal justification

to Kennedy to proceed immediately, with a broad and comprehensive executive order on open housing. It caught the administration off guard regarding the depth and quality of legal research. The Commission said JFK should issue the housing order “now,” because

it would directly help between 14 and 18 million people.64 However, Kennedy not only

abandoned their advice, but in the words of Lee White, nearly abandoned the

Commission as well.

Kennedy according to White, had John Hannah of Michigan State University replaced

as chair because he kept “giving the president problems.” Uniquely, Hannah’s

replacement, a Republican, Dean Erwin Griswald of the Harvard Law School, gave

Kennedy “fits” as well.65 These fits were about helping minority Americans with equality

in housing. Incidentally, the Commission itself after releasing its landmark study, 433

accomplished yeomen’s work in directly assaulting housing discrimination against

African diplomats in DC.66

On March 6, 1961 by Executive Order 10925, Kennedy established the President’s

Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO), the fourth active federal “open housing” entity before the order, placing Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson at the helm.

Powerful in authority and far reaching in scope, CEEO combined the President’s

Committee on Government Contracts with the President’s Committee on Employment

Policy, into a single comprehensive committee with increased authority.67 Its purpose

was to review the employment practices of the federal government regarding race and to

make recommendations for improvement. It also reviewed government contracts to weed

out discrimination and if found, would withhold the “awarding” of contracts. This

differentiated it from the Civil Rights Commission and Sub-Cabinet Group as it had some real power. The Committee in the conduct of its business established anti-discrimination rules for contractors, including some in the big housing industry. Its authority covered over twenty million workers in all trades that supplied “things” to the government.68

Under CEEO’s urging, 115 companies employing more than five and one half million

workers, plus 117 AFL/CIO union affiliates representing thirteen million persons signed what would later be known as affirmative action agreements.69

However the CEEO sometimes exaggerated or over stated its impact. Robert

Kennedy and Lee White argued often, with LBJ and Hobart Taylor of the CEEO, about

its reporting and the accuracy of its statistics in arresting job discrimination. RFK and

White questioned the veracity and the authenticity of the information LBJ presented.70

Nonetheless one loop-hole was located that required a follow-on Executive Order, 11114, 434

“Equal Employment Opportunity,” on June 28, 1963. That forbad construction

contractors from discriminating in employment and it spelled the beginning of the end of

open job discrimination in the building trades, as the unions got behind both the

Commission and the Executive Order 11114, some even calling for stronger measures.71

Since this order dealt with federal “financial assistance,” provisions of a similar nature

would find themselves into the National Defense Education Act.72 In the early fall of

1961, in one of the CEEO’s major and important “motions,” it called for JFK to sign a

comprehensive executive order on open housing as soon as possible.73

Lastly, the Federal Courts began to take action to end housing discrimination and were the final federal entity involved, beyond the executive order and subsequent civil rights acts. In 1961, in Monroe v. Pope the Supreme Court broadened the “domain of nationally defined rights,” and placed the federal court system in the immediate reach of plaintiffs as a “front-line” remedy. This was for citizens who felt they had been discriminated against by a government agency at any level, because of race. In 1962, in

Baker v. Carr and following in 1964 with Reynolds v. Sims, respectively known as “the

apportionment cases,” new guidelines for broadened protection under the 14th

Amendment were mandated for voting appointment, which happily affected

“neighborhood design as well.”74 From 1960 to 1970, suburbs around America’s big

cities grew in total population of nearly 13.5 million, yet only 800,000 African-

Americans lived there.75 Drawing voting district lines based on racial housing patterns

received a fatal blow.76 On the appointment cases, Justices Warren, Black, Douglas, and

Brennan were also swayed by powerful yet legally accurate arguments coming from

lower courts, Congress, state legislatures, and civil rights groups.77 435

Thus collectively, these five federal entities resolved some housing discrimination

matters on their own but could not overcome the void in executive action, for eliminating

racial discrimination, that JFK had promised by executive order. They kept both direct

and indirect pressure on Kennedy to take action. And private organizations did so as well, which constitutes a superb story. This was the time of a “cry for action” that would not be silenced by Kennedy’s “calls for restraint.”

Private organizations advocating public policy inundated the White House and HHFA

with “the call for action” on the executive order, some championing well-grounded and

sophisticated arguments. The National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing

(NCDH) kept the most pressure on Kennedy. On September 27, 1961, NCDH issued a

detailed press release calling on, “President Kennedy to issue without further delay his

promised Executive Order barring discrimination in all Federal housing activities.”

NCDH touted that thirty-three major religious, civil rights, labor, and civic groups backed

them which of course caught the attention of White House and was quickly responded to

with, “It is his [Kennedy’s] firm intention to issue the order at the appropriate time.”78

NCDH consistently sent the president informed position papers that revealed no negative

effects would be felt in the housing industry should the housing order he issued.

Regularly, Charles Abrams one of America’s great “housers” and director of the NCDH

petitioned JFK for meetings about the order, and much to his great chagrin, was told that

“the President’s schedule is such that it is not possible [to meet] in the immediate future.”

All he gained was a brief discussion with the Attorney General, which so greatly angered

Abrams that he began writing individually to members of the White House staff, Burke

Marshall, Ken O’Donnell, Lee White, and Arthur Schlesinger. In unveiled language he 436

wrote that delays in issuing the order were uncalled for and would have negative political

connotations should “Republican quarters choose to make the delay an issue.”79 Kennedy though remained unyielding.

From October 16th through 19th of 1962, a major conference was held in Princeton

(NJ) as an “off the record” meeting sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the National

Housing Center (NHC), and the National Association of Intergroup Relations Officials

(NAIRO) to discuss how to bring about open housing, without throwing the home

building industry into chaos, and how to get the open housing order issued. Members

representing forty different organizations concluded that open housing could be achieved,

carefully, without destroying the market and that the key to doing so was “educating”

citizens and the building industry on its merits.80 The Conference offered as proof, three case studies on the advantages of racially mixed housing: Prairie Shores (IL); Sunny Hills

(CA); and Sacramento (CA), each championing successful fair housing programs.81 In

the Conference as well, HHFA’s Mort Schussheim presented a gripping account of the

results of housing discrimination, citing that only 10% of non-whites lived in any suburb

at all, and minorities had an overcrowding rate double that of whites. As well, fifty

percent of non-white renters lived in substandard housing and so did two-fifths of non-

white homeowners. Only 10% of non-whites had a relatively new home, built since 1955

and the non-white’s home median value was $7,800, whereas whites had $13,100.82 And the bad news continued as in another report by the National Association of Intergroup

Relations Officials (NAIRO), which Harris Wofford and URA’s James Banks both belonged, that said the executive order must be issued now to avoid needless suffering.

This mirrored the U.S. Civil Rights Commission’s “position.”83 437

Religious groups bombarded Kennedy with requests for action, such as the American

Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, northern Protestant

church associations and a few Catholic ones, plus the United Church Women of America,

and the National Council of Churches. Labor groups inundated the White House with

demands that the order he issued, with the United Steel Workers of America in annual

convention in Miami, calling for immediate action by Kennedy on the executive order, as

did many of their locals.84 Walter Ruther of the United Auto Workers followed suit as

did many of his AFL/CIO “locals.”85

Civil Rights groups “bothered” Kennedy the most though, and bordered on livid with

his delays. Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph, and Martin Luther King, Jr., “pushed”

Kennedy.86 The Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) wrote letters, sent telegrams, and

asked for meetings. Wilkins’ National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People (NAACP) produced excellent position papers, informational letters and telegrams,

as did the National Urban League (NUL) under Henry Steiger and Whitney M. Young,

Jr.87 Suburban Action, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the

ACLU also pressured him.88 Howard University held a conference that called for a comprehensive order, and predicted that the entire civil rights movement, which had been

focused on integration of interstate transportation and desegregation of schools, would

shift its emphasis toward open housing. The White House received hundreds of letters

from African-Americans pleading for assistance, as one from a thirteen year old girl in

South Carolina who wrote for help “because the Negro in South Carolina is grounded.”89

Lastly, government agencies from all levels pressed Kennedy for action on the executive order. Mayor Richardson Dilworth of Philadelphia remained a consistent voice 438

on the issue as did equal rights councils in Pennsylvania. Congressmen Robert

Kastenmeir (D, WI) cogently explained how the order would improve housing and

Senator Ken Keating (R, NY) openly called Kennedy “timid and reluctant.” Stanley

Mosk of Kennedy’s own Department of Justice wrote his president calling for an

executive order to end the “particularly obdurate” housing discrimination. And the Civil

Rights Commission, using its 1961 Report as a baseline document, simply hounded

Kennedy.90

Yet not all the pressure Kennedy received about a possible executive order favored it.

Many members of Congress particularly from the South openly criticized the idea.

Albert Rains (D, AL) telegraphed the president that an executive order “will be disastrous

to our housing programs and will mean finish to housing legislation which can be enacted

by the Congress.” John Sparkman (D, AL) urged Kennedy not to sign “such as order,” as it would “cripple badly the home building industry.” In other telegrams he told Kennedy the order would, “cripple housing…in the north as well.” Not to be outdone, Sam J.

Ervin, Jr. (D, NC) wrote Kennedy that an order would curtail existing housing programs and as well, “would constitute an invasion of the legislative field…of the Congress.” J.

W. Fulbright (D, AK) warned Kennedy in a lengthy correspondence, “I believe such an order would be intolerable in the South and ineffective elsewhere.” And Congressman

James C. Davis (D, GA) said the order would “effectively prevent accomplishment of many improvements and facilities needed by both the white and colored races.”91

But Congresswoman Martha W. Griffith’s (D, MI) letter to Larry O’Brien took the prize. She observed that “No Democratic Congressman from suburbia believes he is in danger of losing colored votes, but…in case the counsel of those seated less close to the 439

fire than I am prevails…and I lose this election, would you mind asking the President if I

can have the next Supreme Court vacancy….” She “P.S.ed” her letter, on official House

stationary, with a not so candid observation that if the order is going to be issued, “Maybe

the Order should be preceded by a little series of lectures on: 1. Beer parties will be held

in the back yard. The front lawn is for grass. 2. Knifings will be confined to your

immediate family. 3. Loud talk, television, and horn blowing will cease at 11:00 P.M. and not be resumed until 8:00 A.M.”92

Mayors of cities large and small also petitioned Kennedy not to release an executive

order. John Arrington of Palatka (FL) wrote “our officials have made it quite clear that

our local housing program will be immediately terminated if the threat of forced racial

integration is forced upon them.” William B. Hartsfield of Atlanta was no less adamant,

holding that “such an Executive Order would at this time be unwise.”93

But the building trades industry became the most vocal of the professional groups in

opposition to the order. Businesses’ leading publication, The Wall Street Journal, noted in an “opinion editorial” piece in October 1961 about the Civil Rights Commission’s

Report that, “However well-intentioned, this is a thoughtless approach.”94 The Wall

Street Journal also predicted “a serious drop in housing starts,” as a direct result of the

issuance of an executive order. Many other trade publications reflected the same themes

as well, particularly in the South.95 The “Statement of Policy” for 1962 of the National

Association of Home Builders blasted the possible order and its president, Leonard L.

Frank, repeatedly requested meetings with JFK. He released voluminous press releases

and sent out all kind of reports, most showing astounding negative outcomes in the housing market should an order be issued. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce held its 440

convention in 1961 in Miami as well, and with a host of other, lesser, associations

present, while not condemning the order outright, officially questioned its “legislative morality.” To their credit though, they did reluctantly state that if an order was to be issued, it should be a comprehensive one in nature.96

Yet the private hate mail was the most vicious and vituperative. Telegrams came into

the White House from small construction companies in bold language urging that the

order not be issued. “Concerned” citizen letters about supposed NAACP activities where

“anti-white” literature was being circulated, which in fact was most likely Klu Klux Klan

inspired, were sent to the White House. And the hate mail poured in, as one from H. L.

Pemberton of Huntington (WVA) addressed to “John Kennedy c/o Luther King, the

White (?) House, Washington D.C.,” stating, “Mr. Ex-President, Grab the Nigger vote,

you just lost mine.” It was signed, “Ex-Democrat.”97

Overall, delays issuing the executive order covered nearly two years and in total,

there were three specific delays, constituted Kennedy’s “strategy.” But Kennedy never

publicly stated he would not issue the executive order. Rather, he kept delaying it “until

the timing was right,” which meant he had exhausted all his “I.O.U.s” with Congress and

certain other “constituencies” he had been appeasing, and had nothing left to lose. In

between, he did get the Weaver nomination, the 1961 Housing Act, and certain trade

agreements, but was finally being forced by public pressure not to begin 1963 without an

order. So he finally issued it.

Four themes behind his slow evolution in releasing the order are noteworthy.

Kennedy was simply “timid” with Congress. The hearings confirming Weaver in

February 1961 had been sharp and bitter and his House Committee on Rules fight over 441

minimum wage, divisive. In my opinion, this produced a deep sense of caution in

Kennedy about confronting Congress and he remained most concerned with the Senate.

Harris Wofford stated, “Kennedy overreacted to the Senate…with a touch of insecurity…and it came again even more vividly on the question of the executive order on housing.”98 Secondly, Kennedy remained uncomfortable over having an African-

American heading enforcement of an open housing order, particularly in the South. He

briefly flirted with moving Weaver to HEW Secretary to remove him from the open

housing firing line. But as Congress debated over Cuba, Castro, Khrushchev, and

Mississippi, JFK’s interest in the order also wained.99 And there is no doubt he did not

want to throw the housing economy into a tail spin, causing voter unrest, which he was

too “timid” with as well. Lastly, political appeasement of big business was still going

forward at the expense of poor African-Americans seeking improved housing. This

reveals a president with a weak moral compass, but with a strong political agenda.

Regarding the actual delays in issuing the order, Kennedy had the first rough draft of

several available and on his desk by late summer 1961. Then according to Wofford came

the Berlin Crisis, which caused him to withdraw from domestic actions.100 Yet pressure

mounted for action as the NCDH study of September 22, 1961 provided Kennedy with a

working copy of a comprehensive order, plus extensive legal briefs to support it. Of

course the landmark “Report,” by the Civil Rights Commission on October 6, 1961, did

the same thing.101 Yet these were not the specific reasons for the three delays, as they had to do with Kennedy’s domestic political agenda.

Kennedy huddled over Thanksgiving 1961 at Hyannis Port with his closest advisors

and established domestic strategy for the upcoming year. Burke Marshall, Ted Sorensen, 442

Kenneth O’Donnell, Larry O’Brien, Robert Kennedy and other lesser staff met there.

Bobby spent most of his time playing flag football in a light rain with his children.102 But some in the press thought this gathering signaled release of the order and in anticipation, using a “leak,” Peter Braestrup of The New York Times published a story over the

Thanksgiving holiday of 1961 that the order was about to be issued.103 Nothing though,

could have been further from the truth and this constituted Kennedy’s first delay.

The meeting in Hyannis actually laid out ideas for the future domestic legislative program to include the Departmental status bill in January 1962, and the strategy for the

1962 primary and Congressional elections. From this meeting, Kennedy initially told

Harris Wofford and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the he would release the order after the

1962 primary elections were over and the “Democrats were safe.”104 When confronted

about releasing the order immediately or delaying it, Kennedy said it was one of many

difficult decisions and asked Marshall, “Why doesn’t someone bring me an easy one?”

But JFK left his options open. He decided to emphasize foreign policy in his State of the

Union speech, to have the Department of Urban Affairs and Housing (DUAH) approved before the order, and kept to himself that fact that he “might” not issue the order until late

summer or early fall of 1962, after Congress had adjourned.105 This was regardless of his

“after the primaries” comments. Weaver though, who was not at the meeting, strongly

emphasized to Kennedy that the executive order was more important than the

Departmental status bill, but that went unheeded.106

In January 1962, after Kennedy delivered the State of the Union, he was often

questioned about the “order” in his press conferences. Kennedy regularly quipped, “I

said I would issue that order when I considered it to be in the public interest. I am fully 443

conscious of the statement to which you [the press] refer and yet plan to meet my

responsibilities in regard to this matter.” He implied the order would be given more

consideration after his legislative program was underway. But by late February when

DUAH died in Congress and his legislative program was bogged down, pens were mailed

to Kennedy by the hundreds, and packages of ink arrived as well, so that he could now

execute his famous “stroke of the pen.”107

Yet the spring “primaries” for the off-year elections, another Kennedy benchmark, came and went with no order. In another Hyannis Port meeting in the spring of 1962,

Kennedy considered it, and for a second time, delayed issuing the order. This was right

after the spring primary season concluded.108 This time he said he was concerned about

saving his legislative program in Congress and “appeasement” was to be the tactic. By late summer 1962, 83% of Kennedy’s legislative proposals had been to the floor, but only

43% passed both Houses. Kennedy was now adamantly appeasing Senator Lister Hill

(D, AL), Senator John Sparkman (D, AL), and Congressman Al Rains (D, AL) and no

order was about to be issued.109 “Ink for Jack” continued to flow into the White

House.110

As Congress debated, so did the pro and anti- order forces. Dr. Martin Luther King

urged JFK to issue the order now.111 But the National Association of Home Builders

(NAHB) publicized an alarming little report, boldly proclaiming that the executive order

would cut new housing starts nationally by 33%. Called the C.E.I.R. report for the

research firm NAHB hired to survey builders, it caused quite a stir at HHFA and in the

White House. Kennedy at his July 5, 1962 press conference when questioned about 444

housing issues stated, “I will announce it [release the order] when we think it would be a useful and appropriate time.”112

Yet, NCDH’s analysis of the C.E.I.R. report showed bias in the response, because

only 38% of builders responded, and many of these were southern. HHFA’s Office of

Program Policy also noted that the other 62% of builders were apparently content not to

reply, and many were already happily building in states with non-discrimination laws

much tougher than any Kennedy proposed.113

Congress finally adjourned for the fall 1962 elections, failing to enact most of

Kennedy’s key measures. In his marked displeasure with that body, Kennedy flirted with

abandoning appeasement and releasing the order then,114 and according to Harris

Wofford, indicated he would do so.115 An eager David Braaten, speculated in the

Washington Star that Kennedy would sign the order on the 100th Anniversary of

Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1962.116 But all that

changed rather quickly, and that became JFK’s third delay.

Kennedy “disturbing” received pleas from many Democrat in Congress, not to issue

the order before the Congressional off-year elections, scheduled for the end of the first

week of November 1962. Several Southern Democrats, plus those from Missouri, and

some northern ones virtually “begged” Kennedy.117 Congresswoman Martha Griffith called Larry O’Brien, “absolutely screaming to Larry saying the President just couldn’t issue that order before the election or she would be dead politically.” Congressman

James G. O’Hara of Michigan told O’Brien the same thing, as did Congresswoman

Lenore K. Sullivan of Missouri.118 445

In an administration “leak” designed to placate these worried politicians, the press

reported over the weekend of October 20-21, 1962, there would be no executive order before the Tuesday November 6 elections, but there would be one thereafter.119 Here, for

the first time JFK prescribed a timeline. Kennedy had been influenced to do this by an

advance copy of House and Home, warning that with all the executive order “yo-yoing,”

“builders and lenders were very much at sea about what they should do,” and this “doubt”

was upsetting the housing economy.120 But, civil rights groups were unhappy with this

timeline, with one handout reading “What Happens While the President Waits?” It

answered this rhetorical question with “less than 2% of new FHA and VA homes are

open to African-Americans” in new all white suburbs and, “that 70% of all displaced

urban renewal families are non-white,” with little good housing available, plus “80% of

all Public Housing remained segregated.”121

As Kennedy prepared to finally issue the executive order, a deeply divisive argument

over the scope or coverage long simmering within the administration, came to the

surface. Three matters relative to the order’s scope caused significant debate over: its

overall comprehensiveness; its impact on business; and its relationship to state non-

discrimination programs. These matters were of great concern for policy drafters, and

two schools of thought emerged. One wanted a comprehensive order covering all

housing, fully eliminating housing discrimination. The other, desired a limited order

covering only federally assisted housing, which had little impact on the racist private

housing market.

The “scope” issue went to the order’s very heart and was hotly contested.

“Comprehensive” had two varieties: one covered “savings and loans” associations only, 446

which amounted to 55 to 69% of the total housing market, under the Federal Deposit

Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation

(FSLIC). The other version added the commercial banks under FDIC to the Savings and

Loans covering around 80% of the market. Both of these fell under the Federal Home

Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). Of course, federally assisted housing such as FHA/VA, urban renewal housing, public housing, defense housing, NASA housing, and

Community Facilities (CFA) housing accounted for the other 20% of the market. That was included without debate under comprehensive order, and also constituted what the narrow order covered.122

The narrow order eliminated discrimination in federally assisted housing, on paper

20% of the “overall” market, but in reality, not even that much. That was because the

FHA/VA market share continued to shrink under Kennedy as he delayed the order, dropping from 24% in 1960 to 20% in 1962, and to 17% by the end of 1963. Moreover, neither the comprehensive nor narrow order was “retroactive,” which constituted a fascinating flaw. Using the narrow version as an example, only housing built or sold after the date of the order was covered. But uniquely 80% of the then current FHA/VA market in November 1962 was actually in “existing” FHA/VA housing which was not covered. So what the narrow order covered when actually signed, was 20% of a 17% market share, which was only 2.50% of the total U.S. housing market. This would slowly increase as time passed and more FHA/VA homes were built or sold post order’s date, but the narrow version on examination, was a disgrace.

So the two schools, “comprehensive” versus “narrow” aligned themselves for the

fight, but most work was done on the legalities of a “comprehensive” one. Weaver began 447

in 1961 after his confirmation to prepare information for an executive order and ideas

were garnered by looking at Canadian non-discrimination regulations. HHFA had

“proposals for executive action” drawn up as early as July 1961, and Jack Conway,

Robert Weaver, and Mort Schussheim produced a lucid report on July 10 calling for a

“full, broad order with enforcement more feasible, the wider the coverage…including all

commercial banks and mutual savings banks.” HHFA’s Milt Semer and URA’s Fred

Hayes later important in OEO’s poverty program, helped.123 Then on October 6th, the

Civil Rights Commission issued its hard-hitting report calling for the same, and it seemed the comprehensive order was well on its way. Norbert Schlei and DOJ’s Nicholas deB

Katzenbach lent their support and advice to the comprehensive one as well. Thus, by the

end of October 1961, Kennedy had approval for a comprehensive order from HHFA, the

U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and the DOJ.124

But fearing the worst, Kennedy had Weaver quietly conduct further research on a

comprehensive housing order’s impact. Weaver estimated that an 8% to 16% drop in

new starts “might” occur, ranging from 100,000 to 200,000 units annually, “depending on

the scope, content, and timing of an order.”125 To ensure no leaks occurred, Fred Dutton

of the White House wrote his “chief,” Ted Sorensen: “there is much loose flapping going

on within the ‘family’ at the moment, with prospects of even more,” and he urged a meeting to quell it.126 Yet the “comprehensive” order held its own in drafting and

preparation, at least conceptually, through the late fall of 1961.

Then Kennedy’s Congressional legislative team hit him in mid-November 1961 with

some curt analysis that a comprehensive order, covering the FDIC might have legal

problems. They wrote that “there is some question of legal authority to go this far, and 448

without it, 75% [actually 80%] of all home loans would [not] be covered. “Then they

provided the real issue,” Sen. Sparkman and Cong. Rains are…strongly opposed to any

Housing order, as quite clearly the bill to create Dept. of Urban Affairs would be lost if

an order issued.”127

In 1962, Kennedy asked DOJ to research further the legality of a presidential

executive order requiring compliance from commercial banks and private savings and

loan associations. The issue focused on “executive” versus “legislative” (Congressional)

when it came to forcing commercial banks and savings and loans to do something. The

possibilities of being tied up in court for a long period of time was also a concern.

Norbert Schlei at DOJ and Jack Conway of HHFA concluded that an approval by the

Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) for compliance with a comprehensive executive order was all that would be required. Conway further suggested there was a vacancy on the Board, which Kennedy could easily “pack,” so that would give the administration a favorable vote.128 Yet Lee White was not so sure.129 White asked

Norbert Schlei to carefully reconsider Conway’s suggestions, as White researched his own solutions. As he toiled, Schlei called the savings and loan matter “a terribly complex” one.130

The heart of that issue revolved around the extent the order would be “applicable” to

the practices of privately owned financial institutions engaged in the business of making

real estate loans in the private sector. National banks fell under the Comptroller of the

Currency and commercial banks, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and FDIC, and

Savings and Loans, under FSLIC and FDIC.131 449

Kennedy called for a meeting on November 13, 1962 to resolve the matter once and for all, as the election was now over. Schlei completed his position paper and reduced it to two concise pages. But the meeting was poorly organized and somehow the president had not received Schlei’s comments as a read ahead package, so Schlei had to brief him orally. But his presentation was full of interruptions from others.132 Initially, Kennedy chose to exclude commercial banks from the order outright even though HHFA felt they could be included. The final decision then, at the end of the meeting centered on the

Savings and Loans. Schlei, with help from Nicholas deB Katzenbach concluded the

President had authority to cover the S and Ls. However, the Chairman of the Board of

Directors of the FDIC indicated to Kennedy by letter that he “does not believe the

Corporation has the power to prohibit discrimination by insured banks.” Bruce Marshall

and Robert Kennedy agreed with the FDIC, and that was all JFK needed to scuttle the

“comprehensive” order.133 Lee White, who by now had reversed himself on the matter,

tried to change Kennedy’s mind on November 16, 1962 but to no avail.134

Kennedy made this decision in “cold blood.” He rendered it without concern that for

two years African-Americans had been discriminated against under his watch, while he

pursued his political agenda, and that for the rest of his administration they would not be

much better off than before an order was issued, if he went with the narrow one.

Moreover, he was unwilling to challenge the political status quo for fear of offending it.

He could have used the prestige, power, and leadership of his office to issue a broad order

including banks and savings and loans under “equal protection” clauses of the 5th and

14th Amendments. And his “federal” authority over the FDIC and FHLBB was clear. 450

Also at that November 13th meeting according to Fred Hayes, the decision was made

to sign the order and release it with the least possible fanfare.135 In the year 1962

Thanksgiving came early on Thursday, November 22 and Kennedy planned to sign and release the order, at a signing ceremony late in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 20.

By design, newspapers had published their evening edition by then, so Wednesday,

November 21 would be when the public would first learn of the order. That was the day

before Thanksgiving and many businesses and schools let out early. With little fanfare

and minimal press coverage, this is exactly what he did. On November 22, the Green

Bay Packers played the Detroit Lions as most citizens sat down to Thanksgiving dinner

and the country was at peace, inflation was low, employment was up, and African-

Americans for the most part, were still in segregated housing. Friday the 23rd was the

busiest shopping day of the year and life went on, with Kennedy “low keying” the event.

Uniquely when he signed the order he did not even have a copy of the narrow one on

hand, so he signed a blank piece of paper. After the Holidays on November 24th, the

official instruments were executed.136

What Kennedy finally “signed” late on November 20, 1962, Executive Order 11063,

“Equal Opportunity in Housing” was a narrow or limited executive order. It banned

discrimination from that date forward, in the sale or lease of housing that received federal

assistance.137 But as mentioned, this was only a small amount of the total market share.

It also established the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing

(PCEOH), with JFK appointing ex-Pennsylvania Governor David L. Lawrence as

chairman.138 451

The order had four major sections: prevention of discrimination; implementation by

departments and agencies; enforcement; establishment of the President’s Committee on

Equal Opportunity in Housing (PCEOH); and miscellaneous data that included the signature. Only FHA, PHA, URA, CFA, FNMA, Defense Housing, NASA Housing, and

Agricultural Housing were actually covered.

For enforcement, “good offices” were to be used initially to stop discrimination.

Then “conference, conciliation, and persuasion.” If that failed, “we will have to invoke the sanctions as the withdrawal of federal assistance followed by litigation.”139

Compliance was essentially enforced by the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity

in Housing (PCEOH), and then to each department and agency level. Thirty days was

given for each department or agency to produce enforcement policies. The PCEOH

could hold hearings, public and private, and the attorney general provided legal advice.

The PCEOH’s eight members were to meet monthly and, included the secretaries of treasury, defense, agriculture, the attorney general, the HHFA administrator, VA administrator, chairman of the federal home loan bank board, and Governor Lawrence as chair representing JFK. An “executive committee,” the chairman, plus two others,

conducted business between the regular monthly meetings of the full PCEOH.140

Initially, most of the supporters of the order greeted its signing with exuberance.

Publicly Weaver said “It is my hope and belief that this order, by removing artificial market restrictions, will permit demand to achieve its natural growth. And I am confident that it will lead to even a more prosperous and healthy construction industry.”141 But

Weaver, after Dallas, wrote in 1969, “The coverage was much too small. You cannot take 2 per cent of the market and expect it to be effective. It was symbolic.”142 Yet the 452

National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) proudly proclaimed,

“VICTORY! President Signs Housing Order,” and received they pens form the signing

as did Weaver. Of course, they later called the order, “far from complete.”143

The press reported it with mixed emotions generally either criticizing it for being too

weak, or for being issued in the first place. The New York Times blandly noted that most

of Kennedy’s Civil Rights activities had to come from executive action. The Atlanta

Journal reported, “no immediate impact” whereas the Atlanta Constitution felt “Negroes

would now be pressuring the mayor to desegregate local public housing.” The

Washington Daily News observed in the DC area that “this may mean less units available

for colored,” and the Dallas News called issuing the order “100 percent politically

inspired.” Various HHFA press conferences were held in December 1962 solely for the

purpose of taking some of the “sting” out of the order.144

However, many were truly less than impressed. The Wall Street Journal bemoaned,

“Worried Builders: Many See Drop After President Bans Housing Discrimination; They

Fear Whites Won’t Buy if Negroes Move Nearby; Some Plan Cuts in Starts.” On

November 21, 1962 the Washington Post noted, “President Kennedy’s signing of the

housing anti-discrimination order is belated but welcome…. [but] should have been a

first order of Presidential business.” Whitney Young (NUL), James Farmer (CORE), and

Roy Wilkins (NAACP) “might have overlooked the law’s weaknesses if the spirit of the executive order had been aggressively promoted.”145 But it was issued with a dispassion

and aloofness almost completely “reverse” from the volatile, uncertain, confused, and agitated times Kennedy had pledged to lead. 453

The President’s Committee On Equal Opportunity, even that got off to a slow start.

Original drafts of the order, had the PCEOH appointed under a separate executive mandate, as was the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity

(Executive Order 10925) and the Executive Order 11114 that followed. Most drafts were

also designed to staff the PCEOH to cover a comprehensive executive order that would

have included the secretary of labor, and more importantly the chairman of the FDIC,

comptroller of the currency, and additional HHFA membership.146 Lastly, Governor

Lawrence did not even want the job and had to be convinced by LBJ to take it.147

But the real delays were twofold. Federal departments and agencies had thirty days

to draft compliance rules, placing the PCEOH’s work up against Christmas 1962 and

with the holidays and Congress not reconvening until the 3rd of January 1963, business

did not begin until the next day. JFK caused the other delay using his executive authority

to pack the PCEOH with eight “public members,” which was his right and that equaled

the official membership, to ensure things did not get out of hand. Jack Conway sat as one

of these eight, by then representing the AFL-CIO but the other seven had to be appointed

which took time. JFK filled these vacancies with members from the big housing

financing and construction firms, and the United Steel Workers.148

Most of what the PCEOH adjudicated when it finally started business, constituted

housing disputes between those discriminated against and those discriminating. Many

were with FHA/VA, some PHA and URA and a few were CFA cases. Meeting formally

once a month, they generally applied “leverage,” to resolve cases. In a few instances,

they refused to approve grants to towns such as Norling, North Carolina, that rerouted

water and sewage so it did not service African-American neighborhoods. But PCEOH 454

meetings, often were ruckus events, with up to 25 participants, as agencies and “public”

members brought their associates, all of whom wanted to argue. Yet regularly even

Kennedy’s PCEOH concluded its meetings with “it was regularly moved, seconded and

unanimously agreed …that a broadening of the order to include all institutions…be

accomplished.”149

Initially the PCOEH felt that to be effective, Savings and Loans also should be included, increasing market coverage up to at least 60%. But Kennedy would hear none of it. Later, they eventually recommended coverage for banks which would total 80% of

the market, but Kennedy would not consider that either.150 Overall, they recommended a

dramatic “expansion of the order” while noting “the timing of any expansion is a

consideration within the President’s determination,” and concluded their final report to

Kennedy in the fall of 1962 with, “It [the PCEOH] urges that serious consideration be

given to achieve this coverage [broader] by amending Executive Order 11063 and

broadening its scope to the widest degree possible.” Kennedy had a year left in both his

life and in his administration to correct this flaw, but replied when asked about it in the

late fall of 1963 that, “The order we now have is the one we plan to stand on.”151 That

Fall, after Birmingham, JFK was concerned with Vietnam, and problems with the

Democratic party in Texas, but not with the executive order’s expansion.152

Department and Agency compliance with the order began slowly as well. Weaver

even had to reorganize some of his staff functions in HHFA to accommodate the order

and had to request additional funds for implementation and enforcement, some going

through the irascible and racist Senator Richard Russell (D, GA), prompting long delays.153 CFA spent significant time insuring its college housing loan and elderly 455

housing met the requirements of the order. For example, the University of Kentucky

wanted to find out if the order covered federally assisted fraternity and sorority

construction and was informed it did.154 Ms. McGuire in PHA readily complied but she

wanted the order made retroactive.155 And what a case there was for that, as 500,000

older PHA “non-covered” units existed but Kennedy was building only about 24,000 new

covered ones yearly.156 FHA followed by URA had the most difficult time establishing compliance programs, as both “worked” under six titles of the Housing Act and had to placate their “builder friends” under each title.157

However, some departments complied swiftly. Defense housing readily acted. The

VA, often known in the past for its discriminatory policies, sent telegrams out to its

centers across the country, “to quickly comply.”158 The Federal Reserve and FDIC said

they would comply when renting new facilities, but this of course had no bearing on their

customers.159 To facilitate communication and information, HHFA published a set of “Q and A” manuals for interpretation of the executive order. HHFA and FHA even proposed an “education program for the executive order,” with one suggestion being to hold a series of national, then regional conferences about it.160

But in actual enforcement, FHA topped the list of agencies experiencing difficulties.

The first area of FHA problems was determining which committee to send contractor

compliance issues to for adjudication. In building FHA homes, a fine line existed

between discrimination in employment and discrimination in housing. These matters went to either the CEEO or the PCEOH for resolution. Sometimes the location of the

property meant it was already discriminatory, and that had to be sorted out.161 Also with

the order, it now took longer to sell a FHA/VA house, as “non-discrimination” must be 456

proven. The “percentage” of FHA homes taking over 60 days to sell “grew” by around

8% in all price categories. Delays and “defaults” also drove some FHA properties into

receivership, with some converting into low-rent public housing, causing agency

“jurisdictional” disputes.162

A second FHA problem was called “hang over,” where a commitment had been made

or in some cases 99% completed prior to November 20, 1962, but with the order on a

“new start,” FHA now had a discriminatory issue, with lawyers on both sides. The

Order’s Section 102 called the “good offices” section, called for “case by case” handling,

to obtain a “clean hands solution.” That meant the lender, builder, broker or contractor

either complied with the order, or “washed his hands” of past practices in writing and

agreed to comply on the next sale forward. Otherwise federal assistance would be

withdrawn.163 Then there were problems tracking FHA “insuring office compliance,” where no regular reporting system was in place to determine race (later called affirmative action). HHFA’s “Intergroup Relations” spot checks represented all that could be used.164

In noteworthy housing cases publicized in the press and called to the attention of the

White House, quick resolution ensued. The Omaha Urban League swiftly broke up

segregated off base housing around Offutt Air Force Base, with the support of Secretary

of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Several Florida towns had their discriminatory

practices curtailed by the PCEOH as well after significant publicity.165 In another

notable case in Baltimore, Major James Caldwell an African-American stationed at Fort

George G. Meade (MD) tried to buy a FHA insured home in Laurel, and was turned down in November 1963, a year after the order, based on race. This went to the PCOEH 457 and was resolved quickly, as it had been all over the local press. FHA also swiftly levied sanctions, particularly when forced to do so through negative publicity on “hot potato” cases, one being the first written denial of a FHA approval against a discriminating

Orlando (FL) builder in late July 1963.166

URA had enormous problems as well. Many of its Workable Program for

Community Improvement (WPCI) Plans came with extensive “hang over,” meaning pre-

November 20, 1962 discrimination built in, but arrived after the order. Several communities as Independence (MO) began to withdraw from urban renewal rather than reverse their plans. Los Angeles had to rewrite several WPCIs, as did Cincinnati which fought the outcome to no avail. Numerous southern owns had to rewrite their plans. One urban renewal site had “integrated plans,” but when inspected was found to have segregated toilet facilities on the construction site.167 However, like PHA under

McGuire, URA enforced compliance rather readily when it could.168

Nonetheless, our nation’s capital consistently could not get it right. African diplomats were still discriminated against and FHA/VA suburbs surrounding the city such as Bel Air (MD), and Laurel (MD), had to “join voluntarily in an agreement to abandon discriminatory procedures,” on a case-by-case basis. Weaver did not actually have the time, the staff, or the budget for all the local complaints, so in some cases,

Congressional staffers and investigators serving on “the District’s House Committee, were required to do the “dirty work.”169

What a mess Kennedy made of this by not issuing a comprehensive order and letting that be adjudicated in the courts if need be. Because he remained timid with Congress, his lack of fortitude produced loss of housing opportunity for millions of Americans for 458

years. It would take until the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts to correct the matter. Yet

Kennedy began preparing to take credit with African-American voters for this executive order in the 1964 elections, and it remained high on his list of accomplishments. Yet, as

Weaver said, it remained an illusion and only “symbolic” in nature.

Once the “scope” of the order became clearly understood by groups watching the

performance of this administration, criticism mounted. The first expressions of

dissatisfaction came through “channels.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

petitioned Kennedy’s “good offices” to expand the order into a new and comprehensive

one. The PCOH itself agreed with the ACLU and stated so in writing. Even LBJ

proposed “a bill of rights representing agreements between the President and the Negro

community as to those things which the Negroes are legitimately entitled…as… equal opportunity in housing.”170 The NAACP joined the ACLU to request HHFA make the

order retroactive, and the NAACP, and CORE, plus the Friends Service Committee

(Quakers) did the same. The administration responded contritely that the “matter that is

under study.”171

Then civil rights groups took to the streets. In May 1963, CORE picketed HHFA in

DC. Sign carrying protesters hoisted placards reading, “Extend Executive Order to Cover

the Whole Housing Market,” “Enforce Executive Order in Existing Projects” and “Make

Public, Lists of New HHFA Communities.” This latter one referred to “desegregated”

housing locations nationally. CORE also picketed the Department of Justice in late May

1963, over housing discrimination in Deerfield (IL).172 The unlikely Wall Street Journal

even predicted massive demonstrations in 1963 about “housing segregation” and from 459

May 20 through May 31, 1963 for example, demonstrations took place in 31 cities.173

Things were heating up for John Kennedy and his weak commitment to open housing.

Conversely, the “other side” wanted even the weak order repealed. Big business involved in housing fought back, even against the weak order. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the Negro groups remained “concentrated” in segregated neighborhoods after the order, suggesting African-Americans did not want integrated housing. The Journal quipped, “It must be more fun to march.” Leonard Frank of the National Association of

Home Builders desperately desired to “meet with the president” about the order, to no avail. And “businessmen” avidly continued to find ways to “out wit” it, by working properties with no restrictions initially, than the new “integrated” ones second. Yet the most disturbing backlash remained the movement to repeal the executive order sponsored by several real estate banks in California and New York State, and others as Chicago,

Tacoma, Seattle, and Omaha. “Right wing” radio stations over 1,000 strong, and championed by the exocentric H. L. Hunt, along with the John Birch Society, quickly condemned the order. The right wing Americans for Constitutional Action even drew new membership from the open housing debate.174

Whereas Kennedy would take no further action regarding open housing, fortunately

several cities did. On July 29, 1957, New York City executed its first comprehensive fair

housing law and Weaver had a role in that. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia followed and

Dave Lawrence helped there, and some smaller towns as Toledo (OH) voluntarily

“opened up” as did Schenectady, (NY). In DC, the “Good Neighborhood Pledge Card”

system became a voluntary “be nice at resale” method of doing business, and all who

lived in DC were supposed to sign the card, including Kennedy. Lee White wrote back 460

without identifying whether or not JFK had signed his card.175 Fair Housing Committees

of some kind were also formed in most major cities. By Kennedy’s death, 49 cities had

some form of fair housing statute.177 As well, three hundred cities and towns had fair

housing committees.178

Moreover, many state governments also began to expand open housing as well.176 By

late November of 1962, HHFA and the Washington Post counted 19 states that had some form of open housing laws on the books restricting discrimination in “government assisted housing.” In the fall of 1963, the state of California enacted laws requiring fair practices in all private housing across the state. Weaver at HHFA privately maintained

complete lists of towns, cities, and states where “racial progress,” could be made with

just a little “nudge” in the right direction. These lists were extensive, running for

pages.179 Conversely, he also maintained similar lists where only a comprehensive

federal order would end housing segregation and discrimination.

Regarding that, it was gradually assumed that “education” about open housing would

lessen discrimination. Thus a series of conferences educating the public about the matter

and urban issues in general, were suggested to be held, culminating in a proposed

“National” White House Conference on Community Development in Washington DC for

December 1963. The National Housing Conference, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and

the American Institute of Architects originally advanced this idea in 1960 when JFK was

elected and others later joined the crusade.180 While Kennedy remained ambivalent

about it, pressure mounted yearly, for a national conference on urban matters covering

open housing and all aspects of community development. 461

As a model for such a conference, the CEEO regularly traveled and met around the

country, holding meetings for example in Atlanta on July 10, 1961, as did the U.S. Civil

Rights Commission.181 African-American leaders had been pressing JFK for a similar

“White House Conference.” Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, while being kind to Kennedy

publicly, strongly urged him in print to hold such an event. Kennedy by Executive Order

10934 on April 13, 1961 established the Administrative Conference of the United States,

“to improve federal administration and procedures nationally and to allow private citizens

to meet with government officials from across the country, to discuss federal

management.”182 Additionally, Kennedy began his “White House Regional

Conferences” in November, 1961, and it was thought the “urban” conference might

parallel these. The latter were held in twelve cities across the country and were

opportunities for “a federal town meeting” over “full employment, opportunities for

cities, senior citizen problems, and youth, agriculture and conservation matters.” Vice-

President Lyndon B. Johnson, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of the

Interior Stewart L. Udall, Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of

Commerce Luther H. Hodges, Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg, HEW Secretary

Abraham A. Ribicoff, Housing Administrator Robert C. Weaver, Chair of the Council of

Economic Advisors Walter W. Heller, and Small Business Administration John E. Horne left their stuffy Washington offices and met with over 50,000 average citizens to discuss domestic concerns in these forums.183

A White House Conference on Urban Affairs was designed to be a “catch all” forum

for city problems. It was supposed to highlight the importance the president placed on

urban matters giving the White House “sanction” for discussing major city issues. The 462

American Council to Improve Neighborhoods (ACTION), and the American Municipal

Association (AMA) joined other groups endorsing the idea.184 George O’Gorman of

Kennedy’s inner circle and the White House staff was tasked to establish a possible

national urban conference along with a commission. Richard Lee, Mayor of New Haven

(CT), and the United States Conference of Mayors and James Rouse, a prominent

mortgage banker and “traveler” in urban affairs provided encourageadvice.185

Sensing that the White House Regional Conferences went well, at worst with critics

calling them “publicity shows for the Administration,” the proposed urban conference

and commission idea gathered momentum.186 A time line was established in 1962 for a

“White House Conference on Urban Problems” and for the National Association of

Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and National Governors’ Conference

(NGC) lent their strong public support.187 The National Housing Center (NHC) and the

National Association of Intergroup Relations (NAIRO) also backed the idea at the

Princeton Conference in the fall of 1962. The National Association of Home Builders

(NAHB) also believed a conference of this nature had merit and planned to offer their

support as well. Only the General Accounting Office (GAO) warned the planners that

strict rules governed spending money for federal conferences.188

In March 1963, Lee White asked Robert Weaver to prepare a prospectus for a “White

House Conference on Urban Problems” and within it the appointment of a “National

Commission on Urban Problems.” O’Gorman would continue to work administrative

matters. But later that month, LBJ in one of his regular “Study Group” meetings openly

questioned the value of such a conference, as later so did Weaver. I believe both wanted 463

to ensure this proposed conference would be allowed to address the really substantive

issues and not be simply symbolic, but their position placed the matter in jeopardy189

But planning went ahead without a firm commitment and without a firm date. An

executive order was drafted to create the “National Commission on Urban Problems” to

be given life at the conference, and in that draft order Weaver would be chairman. As

chair, Weaver’s “commission” would include the attorney general, secretary of

commerce, secretary of labor, HEW secretary, “and other members as the president shall

appoint.” They would study the “problems and needs” of the cities and be publicly

introduced at the White House Conference on Urban Problems. The 9th and 10th of

December 1963 were selected as good conference dates.190 From 25 to 37 public

members would be named to the proposed commission, depending on whose viewpoints

won, and Larry O’Brien jumped in to help George O’Gorman with select some of the

nominees.191 Wayne Phillips worked as HHFA’s “volunteer” on the conference and

established the Sheraton-Park Hotel in DC for its location while setting the tentative

itinerary. Viewed as potentially disturbing the political right, to soften its impact, the

conference was formally renamed by Larry O’Brien as the “White House Conference on

Community Development, with the “National Commission” receiving the same name.

Terms as “Issues and Problems” were taken out of both. On July 14, the New York

Times published an enthusiastic article about the now expected conference and

commission, and a tentative budget was also established.192

Then a ticklish little difficulty arose. In early August a dispute over proposed

“hearings” regarding the commission took place. After much discussion, the administration decided hearings might become a publicity nightmare, so they were killed 464 that, and quietly and privately key organizations desiring them were so informed. Even without the hearings, the conference and commission would cost around $16,000 to establish and the commission would need $185,500 from which to operate. All details were completed by the end of the first week of August.193

Then, on August 15, Larry O’Brien wrote “I understand that there will not be any executive order establishing such a Commission; however a White House Conference is planned.” Yet on September 19, 1963 the administration began to back peddle about holding the conference at all, even though planning continued until October 25th. Now salvaging the conference itself became an issue. Telegrams urging that the conference be held did no good, and by mid-November 1963 it was dead. The “party line” was that in

1963, there is “not sufficient time for such a conference….” Milton Semer offered Lee

White “alternatives” as “the President meet personally with representatives of organizations concerned with the Nation’s problems of housing and community development.”194 But the matter went no further.

The demise of the conference and commission was attributed formally to the concern that “civil rights activists” might use it as a “forum” for their agenda.195 But the political problems in Birmingham in the fall of 1963 probably dissuaded Kenney from going forward. He had been carefully watching the southern reaction to the executive order,

“gauging it,” as he used to quip. In my opinion, Kennedy was really not in favor of holding and endorsing an urban conference, while he appeased and courted Senators and

Congressmen from southern rural states. Moreover, he did not want to give center stage to possible civil rights issues like open housing, with the discussions revealing in a national forum the weaknesses of his executive order. 465

With no further change in the executive order and no conference or commission forthcoming, the impact of the executive order could thus be singularly measured, in the last year of JFK’s presidency through to the end of 1963. The executive order turned out to be so weak that new starts did not fall, because financiers and contractors had already

shifted away from the FHA/VA market to the conventional one, during Kennedy’s two

years of delay on the issue.196 But, after the order, the FHA/VA market slowly continued

to drop. A further slight downward shift began in FHA/VA and in April 1963 and by

July, FHA business was 14% below the volume of a year ago in 1962, and by the late fall

of 1963, FHA/VA ran around 4% below the fall of 1962, seasonally adjusted.197 Weaver

though tried to be polite, reporting “that a small shift has occurred in the proportion of

total starts from FHA and VA.”198 As mentioned, FHA/VA under Kennedy by the end

1963 captured only 17% of the overall housing market. Conversely in the first six

months under the executive order, private new housing starts, conventionally financed by

banks and S & Ls, soared to the highest number since 1959. Big business knew how to

avoid the order.

Nonetheless, the order produced some limited changes. By the spring of 1963 FHA

homes in previously all segregated neighborhoods in Detroit, Houston, Dallas, and Gary

(IN) and in several towns in Ohio were now multi-racial.199 “Open for occupancy

regardless of race, creed, or color,” signs appeared throughout all federal projects that

built housing.200

But, minorities continued to suffer housing discrimination, and the demonstrations increased. Later, under LBJ, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act enlarged coverage, making housing “discrimination” retroactively illegal in all federal activity. But still, the 466

conventional market escaped for a few more years. Due to demonstrations and the rage

of the long hot summers, finally in 1968, Title VIII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act

prohibited “discrimination on account of race, color, religion, or national origin in private

real estate,” for almost all kinds of housing everywhere.201

The cycle was now complete. If national “legal reform” was the answer to resolving racial strife in housing, then by 1968 measurable progress had been made.202 The 1964

and 1968 Acts affirmed rights only “implied” by Kennedy. But many have implied that

Kennedy’s assassination paved the way for easy passage of the 1964 Act and Dr. Martin

Luther King’s and Robert Kennedy’s deaths for the passage of the 1968 Act.203 The

gunfire it took to facilitate these changes was itself tragic but symbolic of the fact that the

racial chasm had not been closed under JFK. In open housing, Kennedy does not receive

high marks for setting the climate that would heal those wounds. “Climate” and leadership were important, as even the Supreme Court itself had a change of “climate.”

Two months after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer (392

US 409) the Court reaffirmed that long ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, “precludes all discrimination on the basis of race in the sale of real property, however private the

transaction.”204 What a change Kennedy might have been able to foster so much earlier

had he been bolder and willing and the courts probably would have backed him. Those

possibilities though remain clouded and lost in the gunfire, smoke, and ashes of our cities

of the years in between.

467

End Notes To Chapter Nine

1. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall by Anthony Lewis, 54, 55, June 13, 1964, Kennedy Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library. What Kennedy actually said was in a press release on August 9, 1960 during the “short session” of Congress. He quipped “The Administration (Ike) could now make a real political contribution to civil rights progress by issuing the Executive Order against discrimination in Federal housing programs which the Civil Rights Commission proposed eleven months ago. I renew my call on the President to issue the order. If he does not do it, a new Democratic Administration will.” And on several occasions in the campaign as well as on October 12, 1960 he said while criticizing Ike for not signing the open housing order, “One stroke of the pen would have worked wonders for millions of Negroes who want their children to grow up in decency.” This is covered in the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, A Call On the President of the United States for the Issuance of an Executive Order Ending Discrimination in All Federal Housing Programs, (New York: NCADH, 1961), 7.

2. Ibid., 6, 7.

3. Russell Baker, “Troublemaker,” The New York Review of Books 51, No. 13 (August 12, 2004): 4.

4. Oral Interview of Joseph S. Clark by Ronald J. Grele, 73, December 16, 1965, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library.

5. Memorandum for the President from Theodore C. Sorensen, September 28, 1962, 1, 2, Subject Files 1961-1964: Civil Rights 3/62-5/31/63, White House Staff Files Theodore C. Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

6. Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Racial Change and Social Policy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 441 (1979): 121.

7. Press Release, American Jewish Committee, November 21, 1962, 1, HU2-1, 11- 27-62-11-30-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

8. Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 533.

9. Article Chicago American, 1, Undated, HU 2-2, 12-1-62 to 12-31-62, White House Central Subject Files, 373, TJFKL.

10. Letter to Harris Wofford from Roy Wilkins, 1, April 5, 1962, Wilkins, Roy, 12-1- 60 to 8-15-61, White House Staff Files, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL.

468

11. List of Discriminatory State Laws, 1, Undated, Attorney General, Civil Rights 1- 63 to 4-63, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 9, TJFKL.

12. M. Carter McFarland, The Federal Government and Urban Problems, HUD: Successes, Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview, 1978), 14.

13. Call On President to Issue Executive Order, 24, 25, September 1961, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL; Memo to the President from NCDH. 1, July 16, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, 4-12-62 to 7-26-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo for Lee C. White from Harris Wofford, 1, September 29, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 9-26-61 to 10- 31-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

14. Ibid., Call On President, 1, 2; Ibid., Memo to President, 2; Ibid., Memo for White, 2.

15. Ibid., Call On President, 3-6; Ibid., Memo to President, 3; Ibid., Memo for White, 3.

16. Note to Mr. Weaver from Milt Semer with attachments, 1, 2, October 31, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, Housing and Urban Development, Records Group 207, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, 109, National Archives and Records Administration; Letter to Mr. Murphy from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, December 20, 1961, General Correspondence A-F, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 62, NARA; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Mort J. Schussheim, 1, 2, August 25, 1961, Office of Program Policy: Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 65, NARA; Telegram, 1-4, November 13, 1961, HU 2-2, 11-1-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; Telegram, 1-3, November 11, 1961, HU 2-2, 11-1-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; Letter to Berl I. Bernhard, from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, December 4, 1961, GC and PC 1961: Commission on Civil Rights, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

17. Fair Housing Practices, 1-4, Undated, District of Columbia, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 32, TJFKL; Letter to Reverend Carter from Frank D. Reeves, 1-3, May 19, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-26-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to J. Francis Pohlhans, 1-3, September 17, 1963, NAACP, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

18. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, 1-3, April 5, 1961, FHA Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 60, NARA; Complaint, 1-3, August 20, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA; Letter to Dudley L. O’Neal, Jr., from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, Jul 27, 1961, Banking and Currency Senate- House 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

19. Memo for Jack Conway from Henry H. Wilson, Jr., 1-2, June 15, 1962, White House 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 97, NARA; Memo to Lee C. White from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, April 9, 1963, Departments and Agencies, Food for Peace Program 1962-1963, HHFA, President’s Office Files, 79, TJFKL. 469

20. Ross Miller, Here’s the Deal: The Buying and Selling of a Great American City (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 9, 15, 16-25, 102, 103.

21. Modibo Coulibaly, “Racial and Income Segregation in Low Income Housing, 1934-1992,” The Review of Radical Political Economists, 25, No. 3 (1993): 105, 106.

22. Call On President, 3, 4, September 1961, White, 1-1, 22; Memo to President, 4, July 16, 1962, White, 21; Memo for White, 3, September 29, 1961, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

23. Letter to John F. Kennedy from Charles Davis, 1, 2, July 17, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1- 63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Letter to T. L. Selliken from Fred A. Forbes, 1, 2, October 11, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Letter to Robert C. Weaver from Richard T. Frost, 1, 2, September 27, 1963, HHFA, 2-14-63 to 11-20-63, WHCSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL; Letter to Mr. Davis from Lee C. White with Attachments, 1, 2, HU2-2, 6-1- 63,WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, August 29, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Route Slip with attachments, 1-3, June 15, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Route Slip with attachments, 1-2, June 10, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Letter to Mr. Davis from Lee C. White, 1, (Draft) July 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Route Slip with attachments, 1-3, July 6, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to Mr. Jones from Pierre Salinger with attachments, 1-3, August 25, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-20- 61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

24. Christine Mary Howells Reed, “Political Dynamics in the Evolution of Federal Housing Policy: The Gautreaux Case 1966-1983,” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1983), 30-33, 89.

25. Ronald H. Bayor, “Urban Renewal, Public Housing and the Racial Shaping of Atlanta,” Journal of Policy History 1, No. 4 (1989): 420.

26. John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 171.

27. Memo to Marie McGuire from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, November 8, 1963, PHA Policy Memos Jul-Dec 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA; Letter to Jack Wood from Frank Reeves, 1-3, June 16, 1961, 1, HU 2-2, 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

28. Call On President, 6, September 1961, White, 22; Memo to President, 3, July 16, 1962, White 21; Memo for White, 3, September 29, 1961, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

29. Bayor, “Urban…Atlanta,” Policy History, 423.

470

30. Arthur J. Levine, et. al., “Where Shall We Live: Government as Partner in Residential Segregation,” Center Magazine 9, No. 2 (1976): 73.

31. Letter to Otto Kerner from Lee C. White, 1-3, July 1, 1963, HU 2-1, HS 3, 6-26- 62, White House Central Files, 358, TJFKL; Memo to Weaver from URA Commissioner, 1-3, February 12, 1962, URA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Telegram 1, May, 23, 1961, HU 2-1, 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Telegram, 1, 2, June 13, 1961, HS 2, Urban Renewal-Slum Clearance, 1-1-61 - 6-25-61, White House Central Files, 357, TJFKL; Memo to Robert Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, September 24, 1963, NCAAP, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

32. Call On President, 38, September 1961, White, 22; Memo to President, 2, July 16, 1962, White, 21; Memo for White, 2, September 29, 1961, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

33. Seymour Sudman, M. Norman Galen Gockel, “The Extent and Characteristics of Racially Integrated Housing in the United States,” Journal of Business 42, No. 1 (1969); 50-58; Joe William Trotter, Jr., “The Great Migration,” Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 17, No. 1 (2002): 31-33.

34. Letter to John F. Kennedy from Henry Steeger, 1, 2, July 21, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background 4/12/62 - 7/26/62, White House Staff Files, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

35. Gerald L. Houseman, “Access of Minorities to the Suburbs: An Inventory of Policy Approaches,” Urban and Social Change Review 14, No.1 (1981): 13; Mittie Olion Chandler, “The Influx of Blacks in State and Local Fair Housing Policy-Making,” Policy Studies Review 9, No. 2 (1990): 379.

36. Paul E. King, “Exclusionary Zoning and Open Housing: A Brief Judicial History,” Geographical Review 68, No. 4 (1978): 459-462; Anne B. Shlay and Peter H. Rossi, “Keeping Up the Neighborhood: Estimating Net Effects of Zoning,” American Sociological Review 46, No. 6 (1981): 705-717.

37. Lynne Beyer Sagalyn, “Mortgage Lending in Older Urban Neighborhoods: Lessons From Past Experience,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 465 (1983): 98-108; Calvin Bradford, “Financing Home Ownership: The Federal Role In Neighborhood Decline,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 14, No.3 (1979): 319.

38. Roy B. Flemming, “Suburbanization, Segregation and Politics,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 21, No. 3 (1986): 450.

39. Letter to Staff Director-designate from Robert C. Weaver, 1-4, May 26, 1961, GC and PC 1961, Commission on Civil Rights, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA; Memorandum for Robert C. Weaver from Wayne Phillips, 1-4, October 23, 1963, FHA Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW 109, NARA; Letter to Robert F. Kennedy from Robert C. Weaver, 1, October 9, 1962, Gov. Agency, Justice, RG 207, 471

HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA; Route Slip, White House, 1, January 27, 1961, HU 2-2, 1- 20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

40. Albert A. Simkus, “Residential Segregation by Occupation And Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950-1970,” American Sociological Review 43, No. 1 (1978): 89-92; Zane L. Miller and Bruce Tucker, Changing Plans for America’s Inner Cities: Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine and Twentieth Century Urbanism (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1998) xix.

41. Detroit News, Article, No page number, December 30, 1962, HS 4, 3-16-62, White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL; News Release, HHFA, 1-3, December 29-30, 1962, Intergroup Relations (McGuire) Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 117, NARA; Court Case, Undated, District of Columbia Fair Housing 1961, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 32, TJFKL; Hazel Anne Morrow-Jones, “The Impact of Federal Housing on Population Distribution in the United States,” (Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 1980), 31-33.

42. Excerpts from Statement of Policy for 1962, 1, Undated, Background Executive Order, 8-20-62 - 8-28-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Phillip N. Brownstein from Robert C. Weaver, 1, December 24, 1963, FHA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA.

43. Memorandum for Robert C. Weaver from Frank D. Reeves, 1, March 30, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-20-61 - 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Press Release, Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., 1- 4, May 25, 1963, Executive Order Background, Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4/11/63 - 9/19/63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; White House Routing Slip, to Attorney General, 1-5, May 1, 1963, HU 2-2, 1-1-63 to 5-31-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL.

44. Letters to Mr. A. Phillip Randolph from Lee C. White, 1, June 24, 1963 and June 27, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Draft Telegram to the President from A. Phillip Randolph on Deerfield, 1, May 2, 1963, HU 2-2, 6-1-63, White House Subject Files, 373, TJFKL; Letter to Morris Milgram from Lee C. White, 1, Undated, HU 2-2, 1- 1-63 to 5-31-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Fredrick A. Lazen, “Policy, Perception, and Program Failure: The Politics of Public Housing in Chicago and New York,” Urbanism Past and Present No. 9 (1980): 4; Arnold R. Hirch, “Massive Resistance in the Urban North: Trumbull Park, Chicago, 1953-1966,” Journal of American History 82, No. 2 (1995): 524.

45. Letter to Mr. Harrison from Lee C. White with attachments, 1, June 14, 1962, HU 2-2, 5-1-62 to 7-31-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

46. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Morton J. Schussheim, 22, December 19, 1985, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, TJFKL.

472

47. Letter to Mr. Lindsay from John F. Kennedy, 1, April 6, 1962, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL; Letter to Milton Semer from Burke Marshall, 1, February 20, 1962, Chronological File, February, 1962, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 1, TJFKL; Letter to Edward M. Kennedy from Pierre Salinger, 1, April 23, 1963, HU 2-2, 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter and Press Clippings to Mr. Pierre Salinger from William West, 1, August 26, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-20- 61 - 9-25-61, WHCSF, Box 371, TJFKL.

48. Memorandum for Frank D. Reeves from Robert C. Weaver, 1, 2, May 19, 1961, HU 2-2, 1-20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

49. Alma Rene` Williams, “Robert C. Weaver: From the Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet,” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1978), 142.

50. Richard Henry Sander, “Housing Segregation and Housing Integration: The Diverging Paths of American Cities,” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1990), 10.

51. Levine, “Government…Partner,” Center, 72, 73.

52. Memo to Lee C. White from Pedro Sanjuan, 1, April 11, 1963, Housing Committee on Equal Housing Opportunity, April 11 to September 19, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

53. Memo to Mr. Reardon from Chairman, 1, April 10, 1963, Housing Background Executive Order, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; PCEEO, 1, April 28, 1961, Government Commissions and Presidential Committees, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA; Memo to All Heads From White House, 1, April 18, 1961, Intergroup Relations Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

54. Memo to Lee C. White from Beasley, 1, June 26, 1962, Lease, 4-25-63 - 9-30-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to B.T. McGraw from Phillip Sadler, 1, July 3, 1963, Intergroup Relations, (McGraw), Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 117, NARA; Memo On Intergroup Functions, 1, Undated, Intergroup Relations Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

55. Memo to Dr. Weaver from Jack Conway, 1-3, April 14, 1961, Intergroup Relations, Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

56. Memo to Lee C. White from D. Otis Beasley, 1-3, June 11, 1962, Federal Lease, Non-Discrimination Clause, 4-25-62 to 9-30-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1, 2, January 15, 1962, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; George B. Nesbitt and Elfridge Hoeger, “The Fair Housing Committee: Its Needs For A New Perspective,” Land Economics 41, No. 2 (1965): 102.

473

57. Memo for Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1-8, November 16, 1961, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; Memorandum to Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1-6, February 23, 1962, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; Memo to Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1-6, July 7, 1961, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL.

58. James W. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 299, 300; Taylor Branch, Parting The Waters: America During the King Years, 1954 -1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 580-587.

59. Memo for Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1-4, December 15, 1961, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; Memo for Harris Wofford from Jack Conway, 1-3, October 13, 1961, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; Letter to Harris Wofford from Bernard Boutin, 1-3, April 25, 1962, Non-Discrimination Clause 4/25/62 - 9/30/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Harris Wofford from Jack Conway or Robert Weaver, 2, July 7, 1962, Civil Rights Progress Reports File, Sub- Cabinet Group on Civil Rights, HHFA Folder 2, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 12, TJFKL; William R. Morris, “The Black Struggle for Better Housing, 1910-1980,” Crisis 87, No. 10 (1980):522; Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 39; Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, 298, 305, 312, 348.

60. Memo for Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, 2, March 27, 1961, Legislative Files, 3- 18-31-1961, President’s Office Files, 49, TJFKL.

61. Comparison of Major Civil Rights Bills, 1-6, Undated 1963, Civil Rights Legislation 1963, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 10, TJFKL.

62. Richard Bardolph, The Civil Rights Record: Black Americans and the Law, 1849- 1970 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970), 409.

63. Letter to John Kennedy from William Milliken, 1, October 25, 1961, HU 2-2, 1- 20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

64. United States Commission on Civil Rights, “The Emergence of A Policy,” 1-18, October 6, 1961, Housing Executive Order Background, The Princeton Conference 10/16/62 to 10/18/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

65. Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Guirtzman, 154, May 28, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

474

66. United States Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights USA: Housing in Washington (Washington, DC, 1962), ii, vii, 31; Memo to Kenneth P. O’Donnell from Harris Wofford, 1, July 11, 1961, Civil Rights 2-6-61 to 2-26-62, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

67. Richard Bardolph, The Civil Rights Record: Black America and The Law, 1849- 1970 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970), 395.

68. Robert E. Gilbert, “John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights for Black Americans,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, No. 3 (1982): 387.

69. Ibid., 388.

70. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined A Decade (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 79.

71. Bardolph, The Civil Rights Record, 396, 397.

72. Memorandum for the President from Harris Wofford, 1, January 22, 1962, Staff Memorandum, Sorensen-Wofford, White, Lee C., 1961-1963, President’s Office Files, 67, TJFKL; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Milton P. Semer, 1, April 5, 1961, Government Commission on Presidential Committees, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

73. Marvin Weisbord, “Civil Rights on the New Frontier,” The Progressive January (1962): 19.

74. Brian Balogh, ed., Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structure, and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Troubled Decade (College Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 67, 68.

75. Samuel Kaplan, “Them: Blacks in Suburbia,” New York Affairs 3, No. 2, (1976): 33.

76. Court Cases, 1-6, May 27, 1963, Attorney General’s- General Correspondence- Civil Rights, 5/63, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 9, TJFKL.

77. Walter F. Murphy, “Deeds Under A Doctrine: Civil Liberties in the 1963 Term,” American Political Science Review 59, No. 1 (1965): 75.

78. Letter to Phillip J. Philbin from Lee C. White, October 22, 1962, HS 2, Public Housing Programs, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL; National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, Press Release, 1-16, September 27, 1961, Background Executive Order, 8/20/62 to 8/28/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

475

79. Memo to Charles Abrams from Kenneth O’Donnell, with attachments, 1, April 4, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing, 12-1-61 to 4-5-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

80. Conference Report of the Princeton Conference On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 5-13, Undated, Executive Order Background: The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62 to 10/18/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

81. “Housing Discrimination Gets Clipped in Sacramento,” “Case Studies in Racially Mixed Housing: Prairie Shores Chicago, Illinois,” “Case Studies in Racially Mixed Housing, Sunnyhills Milpitas, California,” The Princeton Conference On Equal Opportunity in Housing, Housing Executive Order Background, The Princeton Conference, 10/16/62 to 10/18/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

82. Facts About Housing the Non-White Population, 1, 3, 4, Undated, Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, November 20, 1962, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL; Statistics on the Non-White Population In Twenty-One Metropolitan Areas, 1-6, October 9, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, The Princeton Conference 10/16/62 to 10/18/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

83. Toward Equal Opportunity In Housing, NAIRO, 1-6, Undated, Housing Executive Order Background, The Princeton Conference 10/16/62 to 10/18/62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

84. Memo to the President from Charles Abrams, 1, November 1, 1961, District of Columbia: Fair Housing, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 32, TJFKL; Resolution, B’nai B’rith, 1, October 24, 1961, HU 2-2, 11-1-61 to 11-30-61, White House Central Subject Files, 372, TJFKL; Letter to Frank Reeves from The American Jewish Committee, 1, 2, February 6, 1961, HU 2-2, Intergroup Relations, White House Subject Files, 373, TJFKL.

85. Policy Resolution of the United Steel Workers of America, 2, 3, Undated, HU 2- 2, 9-11-62 to 10-1-31-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to John F. Kennedy from Walter P. Reuther, 1, 2, November 21, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 12-11-61 to 4-5-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to Mr. Shane from Harris Wofford, 1, May 2, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Supports for Executive Order, Richardson Dilworth, 1, October 19, 1961, HU 2-1, 2-11-62 to 9-10-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKl.

86. Letter from United Church Women, National Council of Churches, 1, July 18, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing 1-20-61 to 9-25-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Various Letters in favor of the Executive Order on Open Housing from Citizens, Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and Transport Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 506, HU 2-2, Housing December 1, 1961 through April 30, 1962, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; Letters and Petitions in favor of the Executive Order from NAACP, Waukegan, Illinois, HU 2-2, August 1, 1961 - October 10, 1962, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; Favorable comments on Executive Order from David J. McDonald, President, United Steel Workers, Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., HU 2-2, November 6, 1962 - November 15, 1962, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL. 476

87. Letter to the President from Henry Steeger, National Urban League, 1, 2, January 23, 1961, National Urban League and National Cultural Center-New York World’s Fair, 1961/1962, President’s Office Files, 103, TJFKL; Statement of the National Urban League, 1, 2, December 29, 1960, HU 11-16-61 to 12-31-61, White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL; Letter to Harris Wofford from Roy Wilkins, 1, 2, April 5, 1961, Wilkins, Roy 12-1-60 to 8-15-61, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL; Telegram to the President from Roy Wilkins, 1, 2, August 29, 1961, Wilkins, Roy 12-1- 60 to 8-15-61, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL; Memo with Handout and Messages from CORE, 11, June 12, 1963, WH Staff F, Jan-Jun 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; John C. Teaford, The Rough Road To Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press) 1990, 179.

88. Michael N. Danielson, “Opening the Suburbs to The Poor,” New York Affairs 3, No. 4 (1976): 85.

89. Hi Mr. President from Marylyn Luran Grant, 1, September 17, 1963, Civil Rights File, Public Opinion Mail 8/15/63 to 11/7/63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 23, TJFKL; Letter to Arnett G. Lindsay, 1, April 6, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing 4-6-62 to 11-20-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Steven Gregory, Black Corona, Race and Politics of Place In An Urban Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998) 76, 77, 83.

90. Letter to John F. Kennedy from Stanley Mosk, 1, October 20, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 1-20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Memo to Ted Sorensen from Louis Martin about Ken Keating, 1, May 10, 1961, Civil Rights 2-6-61 to 2-26-62, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL; Memorandum from the Pennsylvania Civil Rights Council, 1, October 16, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 1-20-61 to 11-30-61, WH Subject F, 371,TJFKL; Letter to JFK from Robert Kastenmeier, 1, 2, November 14, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 1- 20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to Ted Sorensen from John Kennedy (through Evelyn Lincoln) regarding Dr. Hannah, 1, February 8, 1961, Staff Memoranda, Lincoln-Baldridge-Dugan, President’s Office Files, 62, TJFKL: Memo to Dutton, Wofford, White from Bernhand, 1, November 17, 1961, HS Housing (Executive) White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

91. Letter to the President from James C. Davis, 1, October 23, 1961, HS 3, 6-26-61 to 6-25-62, White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL; Letter to the President from J.W. Fulbright, 1, September 4, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing, 4-6- 62 to 11-20-62, White House Central Subject Files, 371, TJFKL; Letter to the President from Sam J. Ervin, 1, October 6, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing 4-6-62 to 11-20-62, White House Central Subject Files, 371, TJFKL; Telegram to the President from Albert Rains, 1, October 7, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing, 1/20/61 to 11/30/61, White House Central Subject Files, 371, TJFKL; Telegram to the President from John Sparkman, 1, November 16, 1962, HU 2-2, 11-6-62 to 11-15-62, White House Central Subject Files, 372, TJFKL.

477

92. Letter to Larry O’Brien from Martha M. Griffiths, 1, 2, September 18, 1962, HS Housing (Executive), White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

93. Letter to Fred Dutton from William B. Hartsfield, 1, October 19, 1961, HU 2-2, 1- 20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter to the President from John D. Arrington, 1, 2, September 28, 1962, 10-11-62 to 11-5-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

94. Wall Street Journal Editorial, 10, October 11, 1961, Departments and Agencies, Food for Peace Program, 1962-1963, HHFA, President’s Office Files, 79, TJFKL.

95. Memo to Milt Semer from Neal Hardy, 1, 2, January 4, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

96. Memo to Dutton, Wofford, and White from Berl I. Bernhard, 1, 2, November 17, 1961, Executive Order 7/24/61 to 12/12/61, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Ken O’Donnell from Lee C. White, 1-4, August 20, 1962, Housing: Executive Order Background 8/20/62 to 8/28/62, WHCSF, 21, TJFKL; Letter to the President from Leonard Frank, 1, June 23, 1962, Housing Executive Order, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Letter to the President from Leonard Frank, 1, December 12, 1961, HS Housing, 5-11-61 to 7-25-62, White House Central Subject Files, 356, TJFKL.

97. Letter to John Kennedy from H. L. Pemberton, 1, Undated, Public Opinion Mail, 8/15/63 to 11/7/63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 23, TJFKL; Letter to Roy Wilkins from Harris Wofford, 1, 2, August 15, 1962, Wilkins, Roy 12-1-60 to 8-15-61, WH Staff F, Harris, Wofford, 11, TJFKL; Letter to JFK from R. Martin Williams, 1, February 7, 1961, Wilkins, Roy 12-1-60 to 8-15-61, WH Staff F, Harris Wofford, 11, TJFKL; Telegram to Clair Engle from Harbour Construction, 1, December 4, 1961, HU 2-2, 12-1- 61 to 4-30-61, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

98. Oral Interview of Harris Wofford by Berl Bernhard, 49, November 29, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

99. Article Chicago American, 1, Undated, HU 2-2, 12-1-62 to 12-31-62, White House Central Subject Files, 373, TJFKL.

100. Oral Interview of Harris Wofford by Berl Bernhard, 49, 50, November 29, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

101. Ibid., 50; Stroke of The Pen Campaign, NCDH, 2, November 16, 1962, Intergroup Relations, Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

102. James W. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 302-304.

103. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall, 53, 54, by Larry J. Hackman, January 19, 20, 1970, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 342. 478

104. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, 302, 303.

105. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall by Larry J. Hackman, 56, KLOHP, TJFKL.

106. Oral Interview of Dr. Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, VOL III, 158, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 341.

107. Oral Interview of Lee C. White by Milton Guirtzman, 83, May 25, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

108. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 302, 303; Oral Interview of Harris Wofford by Berl Bernhard, 156, November 29, 1965, KLOHP, TJFKL.

109. Oral Interview of Lee C. White, 62, KLOHP, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 342, 242.

110. “Ink For Jack Campaign” from Henry Felisone, 1, July 1962, HU 2-2, 5-1-62 to 7-31-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

111. The John F. Kennedy Library, The President Informs the People: A Learning Program On Presidential Press Conferences (Waltham: John F. Kennedy Library Educational Resources, 1974), 16.

112. Memo to Lee C. White from Floyd Feeney, 1, 2, July 26, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL; Article, “Anti Bias Order Could Cut Starts 33%,” 1, August 1962, Housing Background Executive Order, 4-12-62 to 7-26-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memorandum for the President from Lee C. White , 1-3, July 17, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, 4-12-62 to 7-26-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Press Release, The National Association of Home Builders, 1, July 9, 1962, HU 2-2, 5-1-62 to 7-31-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

113. Memo to N. Thompson Powers from Milton P. Semer, 1, July 17, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 21, TJFKL; Memo for Lee C. White from Milt Semer, 1, 2, July 19, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background 4-12-62 to 7-26-62, Housing Executive Order Background, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Press Release, National Committee Against Discrimination In Housing, 1-3, July 18, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, 4-12-62 to 7-26-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

114. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall by Larry J. Hackman, 56, KLOHP, TJFKL.

115. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, 358.

479

116. David Braaten, “Emancipation Day,” 1, Undated, Housing Executive Order Background 9-10-62 to 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

117. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, 308.

118. Oral Interview of Lee White, 91, KLOHP, TJFKL.

119. Letter to the President from Clifford P. Case, 1, October 23, 1962, HU 2- 2,Housing 4-6-62 to 11-20-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; “Housing Trends,” Article, 1, October 28, 1962, Intergroup Relations Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

120. House and Home, 1, November 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, Undated, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

121. Letter to Doris Wannerstrom with attachments, 1, 2, Jul 4, 1962, HU 2-2, 5-1-62 to 7-31-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL.

122. Teachers Handbook, Background Materials, Scope of the Order, “A Stroke of the Pen:” Background Documents Packet, March 27, 1975, TJFKL, James Cedrone, William Foley, Susan Ginsberg, Allen Goodrich, Larry Hackman, Joan Ellen-Marci, 1975, “A Stroke of the Pen: Dimensions of a Presidential Decision,” Boston, MA: Envision Corporation. Documentary Film; James E. King, “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy On Urban African-American Families from 1930 to 1966: Model Cities, A Case Study,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh), 66.

123. Canadian Organizations Against Discrimination in Housing, 1, January 27, 1961, Proposals for Executive Action, Housing, Scope of Federal Involvement, 54-62, August 29, 1961, Leadership Conference On Civil Rights, 8-29-61, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL; Memorandum On Civil Rights Commission Report On Housing to the President from Harris Wofford, 1, 2, October 4, 1961, Subject Files 1961-1964-Civil Rights, 2-6-61 to 2-26-62, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL; Possible Executive Actions to End Discrimination in Federally Aided Housing, 1-4, October 12, 1961, Subject Files 1961-1964-Civil Rights, 2-6-61 to 2-26-62, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

124. Memorandum for Lee C. White from Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, 1, 2, October 20, 1961, Subject Files 1961-1964, Civil Rights, 2-6-61 to 2-26-62, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

125. Memorandum to the President from Robert C. Weaver with Attachments, The Impact of A Non-Discrimination Housing Executive Order Upon Housing Starts, 1-6, October 12, 1961, White House- President, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 72, NARA.

126. Memo to Lee C. White from Glen Troop, 1, December 6, 1961, Housing Executive Order Background 7-24-61 to 12-12-61, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, 480

TJFKL; Memorandum for Ted Sorensen from Fred Dutton, 1, 2, October 20, 1961, HU 2-2, Housing 1-20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Letter with Attachments to the President from John A. Hannah spelling out Presidential legal authority, 1-8, October 30, 1961, HU 2-2,Housing 1-20-61 to 11-30-61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

127. Memo to the President from Lee C. White and Legislative Liaison Team, 4, 5, November 13, 1961, Legislative 11-13-61, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL.

128. Oral Interview of Jack Conway by Larry J. Hackman, 65, April 10, 1972, KLOHP, TJFKL.

129. Memo for the President from Lee C. White, 1, August 28, 1962, Housing Background Executive Order, 8-20-62 to 8-28-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 21, TJFKL; Memo for President from Lee C. White, 1, 2, August 28, 1962, Executive Orders, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 34, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White with Attachments from Milt Semer, 6-10, August 17, 1962, Housing Background Executive Order, 8-20-62 to 8-28- 62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo for Lee C. White with Attachments from William Taylor, 1-7, August 9, 1962, Housing Background Executive Order, 4-12- 62 to 7-26-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

130. Oral Interview with Norbert Schlei, 28-30, February 20-21, 1968 by John Stewart, KLOHP, TJFKL.

131. Document #1: Another Justice Department memo regarding the order, its impact, options regarding coverage. Dated September 19, 1962, from Lee C. White’s Files, “A Stroke of the Pen:” Background Documents Packet, March 27, 1975, TJFKL, James Cedrone, William Foley, Susan Ginsberg, Allen Goodrich, Larry Hackman, Joan-Ellen Marci, 1975, “A Stroke of the Pen: Dimensions of a Presidential Decision,” Boston, MA: Envision Corporation. Documentary Film.

132. Oral Interview of Norbert Schlei, 15-30, KLOHP, TJFKL; Memorandum, Federally Sponsored Lending Institutions and Racial Discrimination, 1-9, September 10, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background, 9-10-62 to 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Estimated Percentages of Housing Units that would be Affected by an Executive Order, 1-8, Late Summer 1962, Housing Executive Order Background 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL; Memorandum on Proposed Executive Order from Assistant Attorney General, 1, September 20, 1962, Housing Executive Order Background 9-10-62 to 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memorandum for the President from Lee C. White, 1-3, November 13, 1962, Executive Order, WH Staff F, Theodore Sorensen, 34, TJFKL; Title 24 Housing and Housing Credit, 1-6, Undated, Equal Opportunity in Housing-Executive Order, 11/20/62, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL; John N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1991), 172.

133. Document #10, Memo of Norbert Schlei of the Justice Department to Lee C. White, “Stroke…Pen,” Background Packet, TJFKL; James B. Hilty, Robert Kennedy: 481

Brother Protector, 303; Oral Interview of Burke Marshall, 55-68, KLOHP; Oral Interview of Hobart Taylor, Jr., by John F. Stewart, 1-13, January 11, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

134. Document #13, Memo from Lee C. White to the President, November 16, 1962, “A Stroke of the Pen:” Background Documents Packet, March 27, 1975, TJFKL, James Cedrone, William Foley, Susan Ginsberg, Allen Goodrich, Larry Hackman, Joan-Ellen Marci, 1975, “A Stroke of the Pen: Dimensions of a Presidential Decision,” Boston, MA.: Envision Corporation. Documentary Film.

135. Discussion with Frederick O’R. Hayes by William Foley, June 16, 1973, Conference on Poverty and Urban Policy, Florence Heller School of Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, Brandies University, Medford, MA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 342.

136. Oral Interview of Lee C. White, 94, KLOHP, TJFKL.

137. Bardolph, The Civil Rights Record, 154; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 341, 342.

138. Oral Interview of Lee C. White, 95, KLOHP, TJFKL.

139. Statement by Housing Administration, 2, December 5, 1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

140. Executive Order, Equal Opportunity in Housing, 1-5, Housing Executive Order Background, 9-10-62 to 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

141. Statement by Robert C. Weaver, November 20, 1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, November 20, 1962, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

142. Article, The Wall Street Journal, 1, November 1962, Housing Executive Order Background 9-10-62 to 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Article, New York Post, 1, November 21, 1962, President Informs People, JFK Library; Robert C. Weaver, “The Evolution and Significance of the Proposed Fair Housing Amendment of 1979,” The Crisis, 86, No. 10 (1979): 422.

143. Legislation of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, 1, Housing Executive Order Background, 9-10-62 to 11-20-61, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

144. Summary of Past Comments on Executive Order, 1-3, November 30, 1976, Intergroup Relations, Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

145. John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1975 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 174.

482

146. Executive Order Establishing the President’s Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 1, 12/12/61, Housing Executive Order, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 21, TJFKL. This order was never issued.

147. Oral Interview of David L. Lawrence by Charles T. Morrissey, 18, January 26, 1966, KLOHP, TJFKL.

148. Membership, Presidential Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 1, 2, Undated, President’s Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

149. President’s Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4, July 30, 1963, Housing, Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4-11-63 to 9-19-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Statement by Housing Administration, 1-4, December 5, 1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Milton Semer, 1, January 8, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-14-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 22, TJFKL; Letter to Thompson Powers from Lomor W. J. Dryer, 1, 2, June 17, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 22, TJFKL; Press Release, Daniel L. Lawrence, 1, February 1, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, Lee C. White, 22, TJFKL; Memorandum from Burke Marshall for the Record, 1, December 21, 1964, President’s Council On Equal Opportunity, Memoranda and Correspondence, November 23, 1964 to February 25, 1964, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 34, TJFKL; Memo to Herbert H. Humphrey from Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, 1, November 23, 1964, President’s Council On Equal Opportunity, Memoranda and Correspondence, November 23, 1964 to February 25, 1965, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 34, TJFKL; Memo to Robert Weaver from Milton Semer, 1, 2, July 1, 1963, President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

150. James C. Harvey, Civil Rights During The Kennedy Administration, (Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1971), 29.

151. Gilbert, “Kennedy…Civil Rights,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 389.

152. Memorandum to John Nolan, with attachments, 6-12, September 16, 1963, President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, General, July-October 1963, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

153. Memo to the President from Mike Mansfield, 1, June 18, 1963, Civil Rights, 6-6- 63 to 6-18-63, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL; Memo to David L. Lawrence from Lee C. White, 1, June 18, 1963, Housing Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4- 11-63 to 9-19-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Robert Weaver from George Schermer, 1, July 10, 1962, President’s Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, RG 207,HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

483

154. Letter to Galen Martin from Robert Weaver, 1, March 27, 1963, HHFA 2-14-63 - 11-20-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL.

155. Letter to Robert C. Weaver from John F. Kennedy, 1, November 27, 1962, HU 2- 2, Housing, 4-6-62 to 11-20-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Press Release, HHFA, 1-3, December 4, 1962, Intergroup Relations, Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA; Statement by Housing Administrator, 1, December 5, 1962, Intergroup Relations Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64, NARA.

156. Oral Interview of Marie C. McGuire by William McHugh, 13-16, April 3, 1967, KLOHP, TJFKL.

157. Letter to Robert Weaver from Neal J. Hardy, 1, December 11, 1962, Intergroup Relations, Executive Order, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 64 NARA.

158. Instructions For VA Regional Offices, 1-6, November 27, 1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing - Executive Order 11-20-62, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

159. Letter to Timothy Reardon, from Leonard Carmichael, 1, April 4, 1963, Non- Discrimination Clause, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Letter to Timothy Reardon, from William McC. Martin, 1, April 19, 1963, Federal Lease - Non- Discrimination, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

160. Executive Order Education Program, 2, Undated, President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

161. Letter to Thompson Powers from W. Evans Buchanan, 1-3, July 15, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 22 TJFKL; Letter to Robert Weaver from Lyndon Johnson, 1, July 26, 1963, Office of the VP 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA.

162. Weekly Report HHFA, January 8, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Weekly Report HHFA, 1, March 4, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCW, RCW, 119, NARA.

163. NCDH Suggestions, 1, June 25, 1963, Housing Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4-11-63 to 9/19/63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Hobart Taylor, 1, August 6, 1963, Civil Rights August 6, 1963 to February 3, 1964, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

164. Letter with attachments to Jacob Javits from Robert Weaver, 6, June 26, 1963, HHFA Microfilms, Reel #1, TJFKL.

165. Memorandum for the President from Lee C. White, 1, May 8, 1963, HHFA, 2-14- 63 to 11-20-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL. 484

166. Weekly Report, 1-3, July 23, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Weekly Report , 2, February 12, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

167. Weekly Report, 1, September 10, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Weekly Report, 1-3, May 21, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Weekly Report, 1, 2, January 15, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

168. Alma Rene` Williams, “Robert C. Weaver: From the Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet,” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1978), 147.

169. Weekly Report, 1, 2, August 19, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119 Nara; Weekly Report, 1, 2, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

170. Memo to Ted Sorensen from LBJ, 1, June 10, 1963, Civil Rights, 6-6-63 to 6-18- 63, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL; Letter to Lee C. White with Statement from ACLU, 1, May 17, 1963, HU 2-2, 1-1-63 to 5-31-63, WHCSF, 373, TJFKL; Notes, PCEOH, 1, 2, August 5, 1963, Housing Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing, 4- 11-63 to 9-16-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

171. Weekly Report, 1, 2, April 2, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Letter to John deJ. Pemberton, Jr., from Phillip Brownstein, 1, June 12, 1963, Housing-Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing 4- 11-63 to 9-19-63, WH Staff F. Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL; Letter to Robert Weaver from John Morsell, 1, April 2, 1963, NAACP, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

172. Weekly Report with Attachments, 1, April 30, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

173. Weekly Report, 1. March 12, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Memo to Lee C. White from Milt Semer, 1, May 2, 1963, Housing Committee On Equal Opportunity in Housing 4-11-63 to 9-19-63, WH Staff F, Lee White, 21, TJFKL: Demonstrations, 1, May 31, 1963, Attorney General, General Correspondence-Civil Rights, 5/63, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 9, TJFKL.

174. Alma Rene` Williams, “Robert C. Weaver: From The Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet,” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1978), 133-135, 144-147; Letter to Robert F. Kennedy from Leonard L. Frank, 1, November 21, 1962, HU 2-2, 11- 16-62 to 11-26-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; Memo to the President on Right-Wing Groups, 1-3, August 15, 1963, Staff Memos: Dutton to Holborn, POF,63, TJFKL; Weekly Report, 1, December 17, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 485

119, NARA; Letter to Lee C. White from Henry Shine, 1, July 17, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, Housing Executive Order Background, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 22, TJFKL; Memo on Impact of Order to J. S. Baughman from Robert C. Weaver, President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116 NARA; Weekly Report, 2, January 3, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

175. Greater Washington Good Neighbors Campaign, 1, 5-12-62, HU 2-2, Housing, 1- 20-61 to 9-25- 61, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL.

176. Administration’s Accomplishments in Civil Rights, 1, Undated, Subject Files 1961-1964 Civil Rights - Undated, WH Staff F, Ted Sorensen, 30, TJFKL.

177. State Statutes and Local Ordinances, 1-6, November 20, 1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing, Executive Order, 11/20/62, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

178. Gertrude Sipperly Fish, The Story of Housing (New York: MacMillian Publishing Company, 1979), 377.

179. Classification of Cities According to Possibilities of Racial Progress, 1-6, Undated, Departments and Agencies, Interior and Justice, 1-6-63, POF, 80, TJFKL; States and Open Housing, 1-3, October 1, 1963, Demonstrations General - September to December 1963, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 32, TJFKL; Robert C. Weaver, The Urban Complex: Human Values in Urban Life (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 133, 206, 207.

180. Weekly Report, 1, 3, July 30, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

181. Meeting Notes CEEO, 1, 3, July 10, 1961, President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA; Letter to Berl I. Bernhard from Marie McGuire, 1, 2, Jan 22, 1962, Government Commissions and Presidential Committees: Commission on Civil Rights, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

182. Executive Order 10934, 1, Undated, with attachments, June 21, 1961, Justice Department, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 65, NARA; Commission on Civil Rights, 1, April 2, 1962, HU 2-2, Housing 4-6-62 to 11-20-62, WHCSF, 371, TJFKL; Kiplinger- Washington Editors, 1, May 31, 1963, National Urban League, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

183. White House Regional Conference Booklet, 4-7, 12-15, Undated, White House Regional Conferences 10-18-61 to 10-10-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 18, TJFKL; Letters to the President from Comptroller General, 1, April 26, 1962, WH Reg Conf 10- 18-61 to 10-10-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; White House Regional Conference Schedule, 1-3, Undated, WH Reg Conf 10-18-61 to 10-10-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White 18, TJFKL.

486

184. Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 341.

185. Memo with Attachments to Robert C. Weaver from Fred A. Forbes, 1-3, July31, 1961, Action Inc. 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Letter to Urban Renewal Directors from Warren P. Phelan, 1, Undated, Anti-Recession, Action Adm. Off, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

186. Memo to Mr. Fred Dutton from Jack Conway, 1, 2, November 6, 1961, White House Staff July 1-December 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 72, NARA.

187. Letter to Lee C. White from General Counsel GAO, 1, May 16, 1962, WH Reg Conf 10-18-61 to 10-10-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Letter to Mr. Campbell from Lee C. White, with Attachments, 1, 2, May 7, 1962, WH Reg Conf 10- 18-61 to 10-10-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo for the Presidents from Brooks Hays, with Attachments, 1-3, July 19, 1962, Staff Memos: Dutton Holborn, POF, 63, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 340, 341.

188. Letter to Joseph Campbell, Comptroller General from Robert Weaver, 1, 3, October 10, 1962, Gov. Agency: General Accounting Office, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA; Letter to Lee C. White, 1, August 17, 1962, HU 2-2, 8-1-62 to 10-10-62, WHCSF, 372, TJFKL; NAHB Policy, 1, Undated, Housing Executive Order Background, 8-20-62 to 8-28-62, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

189. Memo to Lee C. White from Robert Weaver, 1-3, March 19, 1963, Weaver, White House Conference on Urban Affairs, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Meeting of VP Study Group, 1, 3, March 7, 1963, Office of VP, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Memo with Attachments to Lee C. White from Milt Semer, 1- 3, Jan 8, 1963, Department of Housing and Urban Development, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 108, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 341, 345.

190. Memo with Attachments to Lee C. White from Wayne Phillips, 1-3, May 6, 1963, WH Conf on Community Development, May 6 to June 28, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

191. Memo to Jean Lewis from George O’Gorman, 1, July 26, 1963, WH Conference on Community Development, July 1-31, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from George O’Gorman, 1, August 15, 1963, WH Conf on Community Development 1 Aug-63 to 18 Nov-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

192. Sheraton-Park Hotel Schedule, 1-3, May 27, 1963, White House Conference on Urban Affairs, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Letter from George O’Gorman to Wayne Phillips, 1, 2, May 27, 1963, HHFA Microfilms, Reel 1, TJFKL; List of Participants, 1-5, Undated, White House on Urban Affairs, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Letter to Larry O’Brien from Hubert H. Humphrey, 1, July 26, 1963, 487

WH Conference on Community Development, July 1-31, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Mr. O’Donnell, 1, July 23, 1963, WH Conference on Community Development August 1 to November 18, 1963, 1963 White House Conference on Community Development Summary, 1, July 30, 1963, WH Conference on Community Development August, 1 to November 18, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL: Memo to Lee C. White from US Conference of Mayors,1, Undated, WH Conference on Community Development, August 1 to November 18, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Lee C. White from Wayne Phillips, 1, July 30, 1963, WH Conference on Community Development, August 1 to November 18, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL.

193. Draft, National Committee on Community Development, 1, August 2, 1963, WH Conf on Urban Affairs 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA.

194. Letter to George McGovern from Lee C. White, 1, November 18, 1963, WH Conf on Community Development, August 1 to November 18, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Larry O’Brien from Lee C. White, 1, October 9, 1963, WH Conf on Community Development, August 1 to November 18, 1963, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Burke Marshall from John Nolan, 1, November 25, 1963, Egghead Program 1963, WH Staff F, Burke Marshall, 32, TJFKL; Letter to William Story from Robert Weaver, August 20, 1963, Committee on Banking and Currency, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Memo to Lee C. White from Milt Semer, 1, Undated, WH Conf on Community Development, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL; Memo to Fred Dutton from Lee C. White, 1, Undated, HS 3/MC, White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 341.

195. Ibid., Gelfand, 341.

196. Memo to Milt Semer from Neal Hardy, 1, Jan 4, 1963, Housing Executive Order Background, 1-4-63 to 7-26-63, WH Staff F, Lee C. White, 21, TJFKL.

197. Memo to Robert Weaver from Mort Schussheim, 1, April 19, 1963, A-40, Equal Opportunity in Housing, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 109, NARA; Memo to Paul Southwick from Milt Semer with Attachments, 1-3, October 16, 1963, WH Staff F, July- December 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA; Weekly Report, 1, 3, September 3, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA; Weekly Report, 1, 3, October 22, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

198. Economic Impact of Executive Order on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 6, Undated, President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing, File 2, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 116, NARA.

199. Weekly Report with Attachments, 1, April 30, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

488

200. John M. Goering and Modibo Coulibaly, “Interpreting Public Housing Segregation: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 25, No., 2 (1989): 280.

201. Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Low Income Housing: Suburban Strategies (Cambridge: J.B. Lippincott, 1974), 189.

202. Stephen C. Halpern, On the Limits of the Law: The ironic Legacy of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 17; Wilhelmina A. Leigh, “Trends in the Housing States of Black Americans Across Suburban Metropolitan Areas,” Reviews of Black Political Economy 19, No. 4 (1991) 52.

203. Wilhelmina A. Leigh, “Civil Rights Legislation and the Housing States of Black Americans: An Overview,” Review of Black Political Economy 19, No. 4 (1991) 12; Arthur J. Levine, et. al., “Where Shall We Live: Government As A Partner in Residential Segregation,” Center Magazine 9, No. 2 (1976): 71.

204. Leigh, “Civil Rights Legislation,” Black…Economy, 11, 12.

489

CHAPTER X

FRAGMENTS: POVERTY AND THE ELUSIVE WORKABLE SOLUTION TO URBAN PROBLEMS

Kennedy stood up and paced, saying, “It really is true that foreign affairs is the only important issue for a President to handle…. I mean who gives a shit if the minimum wage is $1.15 or $1.25, in comparison to something like this.”1

If he chose to make the effort, John Kennedy had one last chance to find the

“workable solution to urban problems.” Part of this came from a fascinating source, a small committee and office investigating the causes of juvenile delinquency, staffed by his “reformers,” which in the process, stumbled across some ideas about the origins of poverty. This chapter studies that and spells out what could have become Kennedy’s

“workable solution to urban problems.” Highlighted is the fact that Kennedy placed no real urgency on finding, “combining” and implementing that solution and left it in

“fragments” when he flew off to Dallas’ Love Field.2 It is also implied that with emphasis a workable solution could have been “on the streets” in 1963 or early 1964, which really might have helped the poor and could have averted some of the forthcoming bloodshed. Johnson, inept in urban planning, receives the blame for the fires, but

Kennedy shares in some of the responsibility.

In the first eight chapters, this dissertation focused on JFK’s urban “policy” -- his campaign, message, program, immediate staff and HHFA organization, as well as his

“urban politics” involved with the Weaver nomination, the 1961 Housing Act, DUAH, the budget wars and tax cut proposal. It analyzed “physical city” issues -- those programs that build things in and around cities -- as Kennedy’s suburban housing boom, open 490

spaces, public housing and urban renewal, and a few social issues were touched upon

along the way. Chapter Nine began a look at “social city” issues -- “people” programs in

an urban environment -- such as the executive order on open housing and anti-

discrimination in housing. This chapter concludes “social city” issues, delving deeply

into juvenile delinquency planning, poverty eradication programs, and the early “war on

poverty.”

As well, the workable solution to urban problems itself is discussed in thirteen

specific measures, plus a timeline is presented showing how Kennedy could have much earlier than thought, found and implemented this workable solution to urban problems.

JFK’s legacy regarding the workable solution to urban problems and his place in recent

American urban history concludes this chapter and indeed this dissertation.

Five overall generalizations about the “workable solution” to urban problems begin

this discussion. An “a priori” assumption is that one could be found, and if applied as a

model to “like kind” neighborhoods, in similar “type” cities, could have worked at least

to eliminate the most profound poverty. Studies support that, and in urban affairs,

Kennedy ran on that concept in 1960. Secondly, JFK always needed a “social city” piece

combined with his existing physical city programs in order to succeed with a workable

solution but he never attempted to integrate these. In the “social piece” “maximum

feasible participation” and “community action” were essential and will be discussed later.

Thirdly, a unique subset of additional social measures will be described, needed to

complete the workable solution. Ranging from usable social services, to efficient “people oriented” mass transit, to an effective jobs program, these along with selected physical 491

city programs constituted the workable solution. From “across the administration,”

Kennedy had access to all of this in pieces or “fragments.”

Fourthly, JFK did not care enough to try to combine these into a comprehensive and

workable plan. He would not place compassion over politics, risking public opinion and

Congressional heat in trying and only in late 1963 is there evidence he gave the matter any real consideration.

Lastly and an indictment -- if he had organized, synchronized, focused and funded an

early solution, America’s cities might not have burned as they did because Kennedy

created a time lag of inaction in anything “usable in hitting the street,” which Johnson

inherited. Only eight months after JFK’s death, in July 1964 the fires began and

America’s cities burned every summer for the rest of the decade. In JFK’s unexpectedly

short presidency, the solution remained as “fragments” when the inept LBJ abruptly took

over, who promptly wasted billions of dollars rushing an incomplete program into the

“action phase.” Coupled with his own “short-sighted” changes, LBJ quickly executed a

full-blown and untested national urban policy, spending huge sums with minimal results.

In looking specifically at JFK’s social city programs six generalizations are

important. First, JFK had to have both an “urban” and “rural” piece in a poverty program

politically to get it by Congress. Thus, when discussing a “war on poverty” while

emphasizing the urban programs, nonetheless “rural” aspects are touched upon as well.

Secondly, JFK created a small group of urban social planners, initially charted to

investigate juvenile delinquency, but on their own they began studying the elimination of

poverty. Called the “reformers” they are discussed later. Yet their work was being

duplicated in parallel fashion across Kennedy’s administration, and he neither cared 492

enough to find out, or when it became apparent, took no steps to combine these efforts.

Specifically, White House offices as the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) and

Bureau of the Budget (BOB) and more importantly agencies as HHFA, all pursued the

same goals simultaneously, as did RFK’s “reformers.” JFK never closed this gap.

Moreover, the “reformers” worked on their own, reporting to RFK, while HHFA

languished as a “bit” player on the sidelines.

Thirdly, “dependency politics,” where the poor “claimed a right to support, based on

the injuries of the past,” as well as “the wounds of today,” was in its infancy under JFK,

yet quickly emerging. After years of “passive poverty” where the poor called no

attention to their plight, this newer view fit nicely in with “community action” and

“maximum feasible participation.”3 Dependency politics also shifted its focus under JFK from impoverished adults to youth but by January 1964 back to adults. Yet with all age groups, the Kennedy reformers attempted to “sign” the government and the poor into a mutual agreement on the “social obligations of citizenship.”4

In another concept although not novel, the “reformers” boldly proclaimed “how” the

poor were treated stood as an equity test for American democracy.5 The reformers

pledged that the “dark streets and dangerous alleys of ever growing ghettos” would not

deepen into “permanent pockets of hopelessness and despair.”6 They considered their

cause to be a national, moral obligation and were determined their ideas would gain

center stage.

Fifth, Kennedy’s poverty program reformers shifted away from traditional jobs

and training ideas to embracing concepts like “community competency.” They also

specifically targeted “poverty areas” in each city. However, not blending some of jobs 493

programs into their solution would be a shortcoming. They somewhat discounted entities

as the Minimum Wage Act of 1961, the 1961 Area Redevelopment Act, and Manpower

Development and Training Act of 1962 in favor of “newer” social theories.7

Lastly, the Kennedy poverty reformers were “pluralists,” adapting the pluralist

philosophy with “its celebration of differences, its hostility to existing inequities, and its

implicit reliance on an underlying harmony.” That philosophy made them politically

inclined to defend minority rights rather openly within their poverty program, placing it

in immediate jeopardy with the “moderate and cautious” Kennedy, who had exercised

extreme foot dragging in this arena.8 Indeed, “true” liberals as most were they received

little attention from JFK, who called liberals “honkers,” whatever that was supposed to

mean.9 However, these liberals forced changes that represented the last flourish of

American central government to try to reshape an entire domestic issue at the

neighborhood level -- that being grinding poverty in the United States.10 Along with their

“left out” counterparts in HHFA, they wanted to go nationwide with a workable solution

even if the White House did not and they considered anything less than direct federal intervention at the neighborhood level to be a “Potemkin village.”11

In addition, poverty abounded in 1960. Abraham Lincoln once said, “God must truly

love poor people, because he created so many of them.”12 In 1960, the median family

income was $5,700 annually. However, 19% of whites and a staggering 46% of blacks

had incomes of $3,000 or less, with poverty for a family of four hovering at $2,500.

Moreover, of that forty-six percent of African-Americans, 13% had annual incomes of

less than $1,000.13 In one estimate for 1962, nearly 32 million Americans were actually

impoverished.14 Regarding race and poverty, only 20% of the poor were black, but over 494

40% of blacks were poor.15 The 1960 census counted an even higher 39 million poor, and

Kennedy’s poverty planners estimated that between 25 to 35 million people were actually

poor and needed help.16 A “permanent underclass” existed of around 18 to 19 million.17

In 1960, six large northern cities and a few big southern ones were the most

impoverished and had the largest number of problems relating to poverty. New York,

Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, DC, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans,

Houston, St. Louis, and Honolulu had the most poor.18 Homelessness abounded there as

well and racism, crime, inadequate healthcare, disorganized neighborhood structures,

vandalism and pathological social behavior, dominated daily life, plus high joblessness.19

Slow but positive changes in civil rights occurring in the rural South, had little impact on urban poverty. “City control” remained tightly held by the dominant “majority” political groups, most exclusively white and male, with city mayors and their machines creating subordinate groups of powerless poor people. Social support agencies active in cities possessed hidden agendas connecting them to the powerful and racist city governments.21

Old solutions as past doles used for “bribes” to the poor from established welfare organizations no longer worked.22 In addition, changes needed to be made to the social

and economic structure of the ghetto, to bring the poor into the mainstream’s “pecuniary

culture,” enabling them to climb out of poverty.23

Kennedy’s “reformers” entered the picture into an emerging landscape ready to

accept them. Gnunar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma provided necessary guilt for

white America’s rather self-congratulatory complacency, as did David Riessman’s The

Lonely Crowd and William S. Whyte’s The Organizational Man.24 Abraham Kardiner

and Lionel Ovesey’s, Mark of Oppression took matters further, citing racial prejudice as 495

damaging minority psychics. Kenneth Clark and E. Franklin Frazier studied how this

hampered equality, as did other “Chicago School” writers as W. L. Warner and Kurt

Lewin. Hylan Lewis, Elliot Liebow and Elizabeth Herzog argued the poor shared normal

values and possessed average character, but due to poverty were “unable to meet

mainstream values.” Frank Riessman, The Culturally Deprived Child addressed

inadequate inner city education and Michael Harrington’s landmark, The Other America, which incidentally was almost not published, “popularized” poverty with the middle class.25 Dwight McDonald’s New Yorker article did the same in January of 1963 and exposes in Life and Look magazines, plus the electronic media began to increasingly

“publicize” poverty.26 The “young” were considered the most vulnerable in poverty’s

tragic cycle.

Regarding “failing” inner city youth, early public debate concentrated on determining

what stood as most devastating, lack of employment or lack of education. The National

Educational Association’s (NEA), Education Aid to the Disadvantaged and James B.

Conant’s Slums and Suburbs defended inner city schools, but NEA criticized “home life”

in the ghetto.27 Conversely, later writers, as Francis Fox Pevin, Nathan Glazier, Daniel P.

Moynihan and others, said neither school nor home caused these problems, rather a

“community’s lack of opportunity.”28 Thus, Kennedy’s anti-poverty program began as

an “anti-juvenile delinquency” effort, transitioned into a “community opportunity” one,

and ended as an early “war on poverty.” It consisted of two parallel organizations, a

“Committee” and an “Office,” both operating simultaneously in separate locations.

Robert Kennedy asked Dave Hackett in early 1961 to organize a “Committee” to

investigate how to resolve juvenile delinquency. As attorney general, RFK had an interest 496

in youth crime, but much more so in poverty after the assassination of his brother.29

David Hackett a Milton Academy classmate of RFK’s came from the Kennedy campaign

staff and had a profound influence in the poverty program.30 On March 16, 1961,

Hackett convened a “conference of experts” to lay out what this “Committee” would

do.31 At RFK’s urging, JFK formally established the Committee on May 11, 1961 as the

“Presidential Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime” (known as PCJD).

Moreover, on the same day, JFK sent to Congress a bill requesting approval for an actual anti-juvenile delinquency “Office” with a budget, program and staff to be called the

Office of Juvenile Delinquency (OJD).32

JFK’s initial goal with this legislation concerned reducing unemployment in youth

“between 16 and 23 years of age” chiefly by reducing juvenile delinquency.33 Testifying

for the administration, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN) stated that in the past ten

years there “has been an alarming increase in juvenile delinquency, and we face a

dangerous acceleration of this trend unless we soon launch a broad national effort to

control [it].”34

Congress without much dissent rather easily approved the “Office” bill over the summer of 1961 as it addressed a well known problem and asked for little money.

Hollywood through the “Blackboard Jungle” and “West Side Story” and other films as

“Rebel Without A Cause” openly criticized the situation many urban youth found

themselves in, unable to survive except in gangs. The “silver screen” did it so well that

even rural Alabama Congressmen appreciated the problem. Moreover, all three

Secretaries soon to be involved, Justice, Labor and HEW spoke enthusiastically about the

legislation.35 JFK in signing it as the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Control Act of 497

September 22, 1961, highlighted it would “bring about a more effective coordination of

Federal resources in this field,” hinting at government efficiencies dear to the conservative Congress, and OJD thus emerged.36

PCJD and OJD were separated at birth by four and a half months and geographically,

with PCJD being in the Attorney General’s Office and OJD going to HEW, blocks apart

in the congested, de-centralized Washington DC of 1961. However, the two staffs

quickly merged into a cohesive body, based on a similar “group think” regarding

delinquency and poverty. Collectively they became known as the “reformers” and

discussing what they believed is very important to “the workable solution.”

The Kennedy PCJD and OJD reformers came from varied backgrounds but held

similar views. Dr. Leonard Cotrell emerged from the famous “Chicago School” of

sociologists after recently heading the Russell Sage Foundation. Using the “Chicago

Area Project,” he wrote portions of Delinquency Areas, and in 1955 authored the

influential Identity and Interpersonal Competence. He served as Chairman of the

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), while overseeing the start of the

Mobilization For Youth (MFY), a New York City based anti-juvenile delinquency effort, that growing out of Ike’s last few years importantly continued into the “New Frontier.”37

Cottrell frequently contributed to the Columbia University School of Social Work projects and encouraged four of his associates to join PCJD-OJD. George Brager and

David Hunter both MFY planners, came aboard, as did the Columbia School’s Dr. Lloyd

Ohlin and Dr. Richard Cloward who wrote Delinquency and Opportunity, which

established many program themes.38 Martin Rein of the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT), Kenneth Alart of the City College of New York, Paul Ylvisaker, 498

Richard (“Dick”) Boone of the Ford Foundation, and Francis Fox Pevin of Columbia who

co-authored Regulating the Poor with Cloward, rounded out the academicians.39 Along with Hackett from the campaign, Adam Yarmolinsky, Robert S. MacNamara’s special assistant at Defense, found his way into delinquency and poverty via defense housing.

James Sundquist, Sanford Kravitz, Seymour Wolfbein, and HHFA’s Jack Conway and

Fred Hayes, both of whom should have played larger roles, completed the initial list of the government participants. Playing very important roles later would be Walter Heller,

Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), William Capron of the CEA and previously Bureau of the Budget (BOB), and William Cannon of BOB along with BOB’s second director under Kennedy, Kermit Gordon who replaced Dave Bell.40 David Austin

joined the “reformers,” from Cleveland’s demonstration project, as did Henry Cohen,

New York’s deputy city administrator and later of the New School of Social Research.41

Ironically, the membership of this group which would have such an impact on poor,

urban, lower class, African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, was all white, and

except for Ms. Pevin all male, and in terms of education or ancestry all upper class.

Neither HHFA’s Robert Weaver nor any leading African-American men and women

received invitations to join.42 This was another mistake.

Yet these reformers left an extensive legacy in poverty planning, although they initially concentrated on correcting juvenile delinquency. JFK in approving PCJD-OJD did so with an eye toward two new constituencies – the youth vote and the new

“Democratic party imperative” to cultivate an alliance with urban black voters, “by extending a greater share of municipal services to them.” Kennedy expected votes from both in 1964, and Johnson did as well in 1968 had he stayed in the race.43 499

Chaired by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the Secretary of HEW and of the

Secretary of Labor, PCJD’s Board had big names but met only twice during JFK’s term,

thus remaining chiefly symbolic.44 For HEW, Anthony J. Celebreeze replaced Abraham

Ribbicoff on July 31, 1962 and Willard Wirtz replaced Arthur J. Goldberg of Labor on

September 25, 1962.45 Twenty-one “notable and civic minded” individuals formed a

Citizens Advisory Council (CAC) that made “policy and procedure” recommendations to the Board, but chaired by Dr. Leonard Cottrell, it also functioned as only symbolic, meeting only twice during “Camelot.” The CAC though maintained citizen involvement,

so important to the PCJD-OJD concept, through a group of “local” Regional Advisors

(RAs).46

Curtailing juvenile delinquency stood as PCJD’s mandate and stimulating

experimentation while improving federal programs, plus involving state, county, city, and

private “cooperation” constituted its “means.”47 PCJD played the major role in

approving demonstration grnats.48 Additionally, PCJD staffers went to cities soliciting

them to join and thus PCJD became a power broker.49

In conducting PCJD business, the Secretaries of HEW, Labor, and Justice each had a

special assistant with staff conducting PCJD affairs, which did the work in each

department. However, Robert Kennedy’s Dave Hackett, held the most power and located

himself in the Office of the Attorney General where he virtually really ran PCJD.50 In

Justice, Hackett’s staff coordinated PCJD matters within the Bureau of Prisons,

Investigative Services, the FBI, and the Board of Parole.51 HEW’s special assistant and

staff conducted PCJD matters with education, rehabilitation, family services, and health,

and Labor’s element employed standards, apprenticeship and statistics.52 500

The Office of Juvenile Delinquency (OJD), the other half of the Kennedy overall

effort, headed by Dr. Lloyd Ohlin, situated itself in HEW but maintained a strong

allegiance to PCJD through Dave Hackett who recruited Ohlin. Significantly, OJD

handed out the money, $30 million over three years (ten million annually), after

applications had been jointly approved.53 PCJD set application policy and made

“recommendations on demonstration and training projects,” but applications went

through OJD staff to its Technical Review Demonstration Projects Panel. Then

“technically” correct applications traveled to a full “Grants Committee” comprised of

combined PCJD and OJD staff and finally to the three secretaries for “blessing.”54 Most became approved on merit, but two grants had “political overtones.” Houston’s implying an LBJ connection and New York’s Mobilization for Youth (MFY) were granted at the

“White House level.” MFY held significant publicity value with the press.55

Before discussing what constituted a successful grant, the unique “philosophy” of

PCJD-OJD should be described. Initially, delinquency stood viewed as singularly connected to high youth unemployment, with the overall national average in 1961 standing at 7.7%, but for youth between 16 and 20, it averaged a staggering 16.8%. Next came failing out of school, where 95% of seventeen year olds who were “ delinquents” had dropped out of school, 85% of sixteen year olds, and 50% of fifteen years olds.56

Yet PCJD-OJD’s concerns widened quickly when investigating “slum areas” with

“the highest concentration of delinquency, unemployment, school drop-out, family inadequacies and cultural deficiencies.” According to then prominent sociologist Dr.

James B. Conant, slums created “social dynamite” and the reformers flocked to PCJD- 501

OJD to test theories to correct “slums,” and in the process delinquency, rather than visa-

versa.57 It was thought that to correct both of these problems, one needed a

“comprehensive” program.

“Comprehensive” thus stood for three things: improving the responsiveness of local

social servics; establishing organizational “competency” within a poor community; and

providing ideas for planning how to create “opportunity.”58 Cottrell, the high priest of

“community competency” believed social pathology evolved from a community’s failure

to maintain control and the follow-on “disorganization” led to delinquency. Richard

Cloward, Llyod Ohlin, and George Brager added that “community competency” must be

developed through “opportunity theory,” creating the desire for success. “Opportunity

theory” combined the best of Columbia’s School of Social Work with Saul Alinsky’s

Chicago Industrial Areas Foundation into a model that New York’s Mobilization For

Youth (MFY) would test. To make all this work, Henry Cohen, Dick Boone and Dave

Hackett supported “maximum feasible participation.” This idea that the poor should participate significantly in shaping poverty policy affecting them, importantly became part of the theory as well.59

However, this “maximum feasible participation” as it collectively developed,

addressed neighborhood solutions that threatened the “power” vested in old social

agencies and thus it led to conflict. It also implied some “power” going to the poor to resolve their own difficulties, which would not sit well with big city machines that controlled these social agencies as outreaches of their office.60 This very complex

“maximum feasible participation,” the heart of the program never became adequately 502

resolved under JFK or LBJ because both they never fully understood it, but more importantly lacked the “political” will to take on powerful mayors.61

But “maximum feasible participation” itself had a problem because “maximum

neighborhood participation” was needed to make it work.62 Henry Cohen cited that “to

be very poor and degraded is a misery, and being poor creates people who are ill-adapted

to being anything but poor.”63 However, providing them the opportunity to do something

about their conditions remained critical and exactly who “spoke” for them within targeted

neighborhoods would become a main issue. In addition, the entire idea would be very

hard to implement in the segregated South of the 1960s.64

Therefore, the initial program aimed at the “conditions” of deviant youth behavior,

decided fairly early that the communities where they lived needed change to correct that

behavior. That would be a truly arduous task. Peter Rossi, Zahava Blum, and Lloyd

Warner noted, that long periods of unemployment, repetitive employment in the lowest

paying jobs, exceptionally dysfunctional families, poor interpersonal relations, and an overriding philosophy of “helplessness” were hard to overcome.65 Another social issue

requiring resolution questioned whether the poor were “really different, or simply people

with less money?”66 PCJD-OJD pledged to address all of these problems.

PCJD launched a seven-step process for communities to achieve competence.

“Commitment” by the community for change, followed by awareness of its special needs had to be clearly formatted into an overall plan.67 The successful plan needed to show full community agreement on the causes of delinquency and how it would be corrected and planning had to show evidence of “maximum feasible participation.” Lastly all available community resources needed to be integrated into the plan.68 503

PCJD-OJD though with little money, first began training “workers” in delinquency

and poverty matters. Under the Act, a Spartan $10 million per year was provided for all

“pilot programs,” “training,” “study,” and “planning and demonstration.”69 However,

this stood as the first federal support program to combat juvenile delinquency, after eight years of legislative attempts.70 In the “training” arena, PCJD-OJD created juvenile

delinquency training sites at six universities, and curriculum development programs at

twelve others, plus short term workshops at another eight.71 These programs were at

colleges in states or near cities with “target poverty areas” and by the end of its first three

years, 12,500 social workers trained to specifically prevent juvenile delinquency

graduated from these courses.72

However, as Leonard Cotrell cited, the “demonstration grants program” stood as the

heart of PCJD-OJD’s effort.73 Yet terminology must be explained carefully to reveal

how it worked. The demonstration grants program “had two phases” or two areas in

which it operated: planning grants and action grants. The “planning” phase could last up

to two years with most cities averaging 18 months and included both “initial planning”

and as well “full demonstration,” which later would turn out to be much too slow for

LBJ.74 Within this phase, a city usually received a hundred thousand or two hundred

thousand dollars to “initially plan,” using six months to a year and then would on average

“demonstrate” for up to another year that their plan actually worked, using “maximum

feasible participation.”75 Following, with PCJD-OJD’s direct help, plus other federal,

state, city or private funds, communities would subsequently go into the “action” phase, actually “outright program execution.” Under JFK, 16 grants comprised his program and some cities initially funded under the “demonstration program” for “planning,” failed to 504

meet the requirements for “action.”76 Yet ideas “kicked around” in this overall process,

led to Kennedy’s unsuccessful attempt at a domestic peace corps, or National Youth

Service Corps, which LBJ later passed as VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America).77

The sixteen grants awarded during the Kennedy years went to: $155,000 to New Haven,

$260,582 to Houston, $124,228 for Cleveland, $165,000 for Philadelphia, $252,906 for

Los Angeles and $149,845 to Minneapolis, $202,200 for Detroit and $292,000 for

Chicago.78 Portland’s Lane County Oregon received one as well for $129,579, Harlem of

course received $230,000 for planning, and MFY obtained the only “action grant” of the

Kennedy era, of $1,915,000 on May 31, 1962.79 Other amounts went to St. Louis for

$134,012, Syracuse for $141,281, Charleston, (WVA) for $131,091, Boston for $159,400

and DC for $100,767.80

Several of these Kennedy grants are worth discussing. JFK’s most successful and

easiest to implement PCJD grants went to smaller cities with relatively homogenous

populations, as Minneapolis.81 But Dave Hackett noted, the Mobilization For Youth

(MFY) on New York’s the lower east side, Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited –

Associated Community Teams (HARYOU-ACT) simply called HARYOU, and RFK’s

eventual Bedford-Stuyvesant project all in New York City, stood as the most significant.

The Los Angeles program came next but the most notorious remained Cleveland’s, often

cited for its many public shortcomings. Tragically, most of the PCJD-OJD programs

though were not successful, being too “immature” to be forced into “action” by the

unaccomplished LBJ. Yet even before Dallas others collapsed under their own weight

receiving little help from the White House to salvage them. 505

Los Angeles’ eventually fell apart because of unresolved disputes between the state,

county, and city, about competing school systems.82 A weakness of the LA model was it

regularly failed to meet jurisdictional “integration” standards. Cleveland came apart on

its own. Cleveland’s agencies cooperated initially only out of self interest and when the

real money hit, one million dollars worth of it, so did the intensely public and

embarrassing fight. The “Cleveland Debacle” came at the worst time, while

Congresswoman Edith Green (D-OR) was reviewing the program’s viability, particularly

the long-term “planning requirement,” and she concluded strongly that not all of a

community’s agencies needed to be involved. Curbing “maximum feasible participation”

therefore became her near obsession.83

There were two programs in Harlem, Harlem Youth Opportunities (HARYOU), and

Associated Community Teams (ACT), really a staff and training endeavor for HARYOU.

Both had some initial success, yet for long term success, remained poorly structured.

Unfortunately, New York’s Mayor Robert Wagner never fully understood HARYOU, the

primary program, which lessoned its chance for success. When representatives of

HARYOU complained to Wagner their concerns were not resolved, and subsequently, their further concerns became a secondary luncheon topic at a gathering of Democratic

women who really came to hear Eleanor Roosevelt. Wagner delegated their problems

with no recommended solution to staffers who in turn offered none either. The citizens

involved with Harlem believed their “Board” that controlled the real power, to be “an

imperialist, white colonist group.”84

In fact the Board as constituted, regardless of its mixed racial make-up which

sometimes had a “predominately white, out-of-community membership,” rapidly 506

expanded from nine to 25 members. Emerging quickly, the real problem stemmed from all members directly assuming the right of “professional competence” to make decisions

“for the people without their adequate participation,” and this greatly angered Harlem residents. 85 A confidential report released in 1964, criticized the Board further. It delved deeply into its composition concluding it did not adequately represent the community, and an early majority of Board members firmly identified with several

“social agencies” from the previously discredited Harlem Neighborhoods Association

(HANA). Of the nine HARYOU Board original appointments, seven were directly identified with those past “less than helpful” social agencies. Only some Board members ever attended any youth functions or expressed interest in youth matters. Held against the

Board remained the fact that, “for the most part, [many] did not seem sufficiently interested in these young people to attend their affairs.” Specific African-American church leaders, who dominated Harlem’s religious, political, and social life and regularly attended youth functions failed to gain adequate Board membership or hold any real influence with the Board. Representing churches on the Executive Committee of the

Board, the four active clergymen all came from “white” dominated denominations.”86

The views many of these brought to the table consisted of the “institutional” ideas of the

white community.87

This translated into “derived” rather than “primary” political power meaning that

“maximum feasible participation” became more a “representative republic concept” in

Harlem than the desired “organized participatory democracy.”88 Thus when money arrived, the average Harlemite did not share significantly in decisions on its spending.89 507

Moreover, when HARYOU money began to roll in, community social services thrived but the poor did not. Tampering with the community’s economic base also failed to produce any new businesses and only a few more jobs in small stores or service industries, most owned by whites. Government aid left the community with really no good permanent jobs, and big labor in New York City, then quite racist, would not place union jobs in Harlem. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell who emerged as a long time leader of this community said, “Beware of the Greeks bearing gifts, colored men looking for loans, and whites who understand the Negro.” Renown African-American psychologist, sociologist, and historian Kenneth B. Clark in Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of

Social Power, researched at the time, criticized the political wrangling that brought his

Harlem experiment to an early demise and even Malcolm X warned Harlem’s youth to be careful of images of yourself “created by others.”90 Finally, none of this helped correct

juvenile delinquency or brought “community confidence,” leaving only deep resentment

in its wake.91

The more long-lasting and somewhat more successful Mobilization for Youth (MFY),

which many suggest gave birth to HARYOU anyway, also formed a link to the Bedford-

Stuyvesant story. Subsidized by all the proper combinations, PCJD advice, OJD money,

New York City funding, and later Ford Foundation grants, MFY initially focused on

eliminating juvenile delinquency in one of New York’s toughest neighborhoods, the

lower East Side, by way of improving the overall community.92 Filled with “positive”

political overtones, JFK chose to highlight this first “action grant” in a Rose Garden

speech, saying MFY would launch a many-faceted attack on juvenile delinquency, that if 508

“ we can work with services in New York…we can spread it across the country.” Thus

even JFK cited MFY as a potential model.93

However, program enactment constituted MFY’s initial flaw, then a hidden problem

like HARYOUs’ with “Board” membership arose, both eventually undermining the

program. At the start, many of the old traditional support agencies needed to be “shaken

up,” but MFY’s rent strikes, school boycotts, school board demonstrations, and picketing

other social agencies, only angered rather than energized that much needed support.94

From the traditional agencies, revenge rather than reform ensued.

In planning, MFY actually preceded PCJD, dating back to the old Henry Street

Settlement House efforts and continued under Ike. Under Kennedy, PCJD subsequently

took MFY through Leonard Cottrell’s newly developed steps for successful community

action thus making it a model for JFK’s years, until it fell from grace. Specifically,

MFY’s “community commitments” began with individual “community segments of

responsibility” being assigned. Secondly, by design each contributed to an overall

community goal. Thirdly, “segment” awareness of what others did was roundly

publicized internally. Fourthly, the fabric holding MFY together consisted of building

“harmony” into each segment’s activities. Fifthly, outside ideas were drawn in, and the

last two points concerned blending all of this into a “community action plan” (CAP)

using community participation. This should have spelled success.95 Thus this MFY

model according to Dave Hackett, established guidelines for the future of delinquency

planning.96

Unfortunately, from an organizational aspect MFY actually suffered as well from a

lack of proper “Board” representation though not knowing it at the start. All twenty-two 509

original Board members were white professionals and even though two were “traded off” for Whitney Young of the Urban League and a Hispanic-American representative, collectively the “Board” still truly represented “constituencies” not from the MFY target

area. As well, none of the Board members had “roots in the target area and none were poor” and the Board thus remained “ceremonial” in nature making decisions for the very poor without the very poor. To correct this, eventually seven “impoverished” representatives later joined, but the split and animosity between the Board and the community had already been established, widened, and led to the demise of MFY.97

In tracing PCJD-OJD contributions through JFK’s nearly three years, a short

chronological discussion of each year’s activities is helpful. Nineteen hundred and sixty- one consisted of organizing, defining guidelines, and processing. MFY’s model was

“tailored and honed” that year, and much effort went into it eventually receiving “action

grant” funding for 1962. Here, Lloyd Ohlin, Henry Cohen, George Brager, Richard

Cloward, and Dave Hackett all helped. Creating external publicity and recruiting cities

for the program rounded out the year, and applications began to trickle in slowly.

In 1962, PCJD-OJD launched several new initiatives. Based on previous

“reservations,” Hackett sent select advance teams out to recruit new cities. These visits

provided a community with the opportunity for virtual “pre-approval” if it simply had the

“harmony” needed to draw up a comprehensive plan using the guidelines. Also the

Citizens’ Advisory Council met for the first time and the PCJD Demonstration Panel met

six times from January 1962 through June 1963 to review and approve applications.98

In addition, in 1962, PCJD-OJD received minor assistance from Bob Weaver and

HHFA, yet much more should have been requested. In their haste and perhaps elitism, 510

the “sociologists” of PCDJ-OJD gave the impression they seldom considered the old

“housing” agency “avant guard” enough to lend much to their bold initiatives.

Additionally, all had seen the distance JFK placed between himself and Weaver as an

African-American, during the latter’s confrontation hearings and DUAH’s unsuccessful

bid for Cabinet status. As mentioned, then Kennedy thought briefly of having Weaver

head HEW rather than manage America’s urban program as an African-American. Also

as discussed, Weaver seldom met with JFK nor found his name on the White House invitation list, and on several controversial issues, Weaver was asked to keep a low profile. Not a racist, but rather pandering to a conservative Congress for political reasons, JFK consistently kept Weaver under wraps affecting his visibility and

“acceptability” with the poverty planners. Nonetheless, in 1962 Weaver through Jack

Conway stimulated some UAW interest in PCJD-OJD activities.99 He also placed HHFA

advisors on the “National Committee on Children and Youth.”100 As requested, Weaver

further provided limited HHFA counsel to PCJD’s Washington DC project.101 However,

PCJD-OJD, with HEW and Labor favored “their” own management of the DC

operation.102 Weaver was left with only providing “statistical analysis” for DC’s grant.103

And even though Weaver played a critical advisory role through Marie McGuire in St.

Louis’ plan for social services at public housing sites, this never became a mature

program or national model.104

But in 1962, PCJD-OJD pushed hard to use MFY as a national model, even though

that would not happen for another year.105 This would soon include introducing

something like it into 1964 election year politics.106 To stimulate growth in PCJD-OJD,

Hackett as well tried to bring business and PCJD-OJD into a community partnership 511

through the Ford Foundation.107 However, the idea did not work nationally.108 Lastly,

two final efforts highlighted 1962, Hackett’s “guerillas” and transitioning PCJD-OJD

from a delinquency program to a real poverty one.

Hackett’s “guerrillas” consisted of PCJD-OJD employees and some others, working behind the scenes within federal government to sell two ideas: “that insufficient opportunity was the root cause of poverty,” and secondly, that correcting this required

“community action.”109 Richard Boone, Sanford Kravitz, Sam Merrick, Lloyd Ohlin,

Bernard Russell, Hy Frankel, Don Ellinger, Daniel Seeley, Virginia Burns of OJD, Larry

Houston, Leonard Duhl, and lastly from HHFA, Frederick O’R. Hayes and Dave

Grossman comprised the group. Daniel Moynihan, later a critic, had been an original

member. They were already inside federal government, but had specific “covert”

messages to sell to their colleagues.110 As Moynihan wrote, Hackett’s guerrillas were

“living off the administrative country-side, invisible to the bureaucratic enemy, but

known to one another, hitting, and running and making off with the riches of the

established departments,” for the poverty program. But as Moynihan later pointed out,

the bigger and stronger bureaucracy would eventually win.111 Hackett’s guerrillas met

regularly in the justice department to plan strategy.112 Yet while all this enthusiastic

poverty work continued, at the end of 1962, JFK ominously laid out his tax cut proposal

for 1963, with its balanced budget as an “implied task,” that sent a chilling message to the

“guerrillas” and across the urban program.113

The actual shift from a juvenile delinquency program to an outright poverty one also

came in late 1962 yet this remained known only internally within PCJD-OJD. Hackett

explained “I don’t think that anybody outside of the small group we worked with really 512

understood what we were up to.”114 “Comprehensive” completely moved from a concept

to a reality nationally, meaning “cities” must “combine” all their resources for treating

more than juvenile delinquency, indeed actually poverty itself.115 In late October 1962 an

“internal” memorandum dealing with the outline for “some kind of “poverty program”

began to circulate through the executive offices.116 Hackett though had only thirty

million dollars, lamenting, “we felt that you could spend thirty million dollars in one city and not have much of an impact,” and according to him Congress would not appropriate more, thinking the basic legislation supported something like the “Boys’ Clubs,” but not

a poverty program.117

In 1963, PCJD-OJD’s new poverty approach became an open fight. In December

1962, JFK “casually” asked Heller for some data about a possible poverty program and

Heller became the contact man for the White House. Here is where the dysfunctional

relationship JFK never drew together could be have been directly resolved if the

President or for that matter Heller, really dug into the matter in depth. Because with a little in detailed study, what could readily have been seen was wasted and “time delaying” parallel effort. What Dave Hackett did at PCJD-OJD, plus Weaver’s HHFA

plethora of parallel activities in 1963, also were duplicating some efforts in the same

“areas” by the strong-willed Willard Wirtz at Labor. Further, HEW offered several new

initiatives and at least two universities, Columbia and Chicago, plus foundations

unabashedly planned similar programs, all in splendid, parallel isolation. Heller initially

missed tying all it all together and JFK, no doubt aware of some of this though RFK,

failed to focus the proper interest needed to shape it into a workable solution. 513

Heller casually passed his initial research off to Robert Lampman, a consultant and researcher at CEA and BOB and an economist of the University of Minnesota, who permanently would link CEA and BOB into the poverty fight.118 But unfortunately

Heller was a slow convert to Lampman’s findings and HHFA still remained on the sidelines. In HHFA’s weekly reports to the president only twice was PCJD-OJD interaction noted in JFK’s nearly three years in office.119 Moreover, it does not appear

JFK ever considered Weaver to replace Heller as the “point man” for a poverty program and only a few ideas were ever exchanged between Heller and Weaver, as Heller relied on his own internal strategies. Lampman produced a series of studies on the poor’s income distribution as an outline for “An Offensive Against Poverty.”120 Subsequently he released a study on “Post-War Poverty Trends.”121 Also, he concluded JFK’s massive

1963 tax cut proposal gave little help to the poor showing that many born in poverty never escaped it and passed that onto their children, forming a “culture of poverty” which a tax cut would not fix. In this cycle were trapped as high as 35 million Americans.122

Armed with all this initial information in May 1963, Heller reported to Kennedy and told him poverty itself must be attacked. He cited that gradual improvements in the economy were not going to be “taking people out of poverty,” yet he offered no comprehensive plan.123 JFK requested none either and asked him for simply more study on the issue, while continuing with his tax cut idea.

However, over the late spring and the early summer of 1963, the internal disagreements over starting a poverty program escalated into an open argument. Heller’s work caught Ted Sorensen’s attention and a split developed between Sorensen, and

Charles Schultze, Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget, and Wilbur Cohen 514

Assistant Secretary of HEW who all supported a “poverty program,” and Meyer

Feldman, Labor’s Willard Wirtz, and others, who offered different ideas for help to the

poor.124 When this debate finally caught Kennedy’s attention, instead of resolving it and

building a comprehensive program, conversely JFK revealed he actually had strong

reservations about a poverty program at all. Beyond his usual lack of interest, he feared

creating a “white backlash” and even believed that an attack on the problems of suburbia

might make a better “central theme” for his 1964 campaign, should the middle class feel

threatened that government worked only to improve the lot of the poor. In June though,

he somewhat reluctantly gave another verbal “OK” to continue to “study” the poverty

issue.125 By coincidence, and in isolation, in late June 1963, MFY boldly stated it should

become the national model for a “War on Poverty” and attempted to sell itself as “the”

overall comprehensive program.126 Thus, in the summer of 1963 interest picked up across the boards for studying or beginning a poverty program of some kind.

The CEA with some help from BOB, formed a “poverty discussion group” to work

the issue. By the early fall of 1963, Lampman released a draft of his final poverty report

entitled an Economic Report of the President on Poverty. While not published officially

until January 1964, its contents nonetheless became instant discussion topics. Lampman

examined “black and white” poverty, and then traced income variations within both

groups of poor through the “culture of poverty.”127 He “sketched out” elements of his

“culture of poverty” idea into a “community action” approach in the last two pages of the

Report’s Chapter II, becoming the “main strategy” regarding poverty. As Capron

explained, “we could have written that chapter before November 22 [rather than as

published in January of 1964] and it would not have sounded substantially different.”128 515

Unfortunately and again, Weaver did not play a role and as William Capron (CEA)

vaguely recounted, “we had someone there for a while from HUD, what became HUD, it

was then HHFA,” placing little significance on HHFA’s role.129

Differences within the “poverty discussion group” quickly developed into a permanent feud about “community action.” William Wirtz, Secretary of Labor, violently attacked Lampman saying his Report, “was published over his strenuous objection.”

Adamantly against Lampman, Wirtz insisted on a “jobs now” poverty approach and

HEW adamantly pushed its “traditional education first” idea. Further, Lampman’s idea

and the overall “community action” notion of Hackett, Boone, Ylvisaker and

Yarmolinsky, which became the ultimate strategy to eliminate poverty, remained not

well articulated.130

Notably, on October 30, 1963, the 1964 presidential campaign officially entered into the discussion. Ted Sorensen wrote Heller asking him to pull together “official” poverty ideas for the president’s consideration for the campaign.131 Heller responded the same

day, instructing William Capron of his staff to coordinate ideas for “some” 1964 poverty

legislation. Accordingly, Capron began another small “interim task force” on “program organization” and CEA’s Burton Weisbrod worked a “preliminary set of guidelines.”

Contacted for input only after all this was established, Weaver was then asked to keep everything confidential.132

With preliminary work completed on November 5, Heller sent out to all major

department and agency heads a directive asking for input for a program “aimed at

‘widening participation in prosperity,’” requiring responses due back to him within ten

days on November 15. Thus the Sorenson directive and Heller memorandum launched 516

the first formal attempt to organize “an across the government” approach at the federal level to eliminate poverty for 1964. “Widening prosperity” became the politically correct term then for a war on poverty. Hackett, the first to respond on November 6, submitted two important reports, one to his boss RFK and the other back to Heller, both filled with good ideas.133

In the first one to RFK, Hackett wrote a summary of what had been accomplished in

the juvenile delinquency program to date, particularly regarding poverty and the need for

a comprehensive program. Hackett also explained what “comprehensive” meant and the

need for creating new “opportunities” for disadvantaged youth plus he outlined his

community action concepts.134

But he warned in his second memo to Heller that at present the federal government

was not yet ready “to accept” a national war on poverty because it had not reorganized itself to properly manage one. No effective centralized coordination had yet occurred.

Hackett wrote that “at the Federal level a maze of agencies, each with its own grants

criteria, representing programs which often overlap and duplicate one another, and in

some cases compete,” should be reorganized. He concluded, “So while we have

encouraged coordination at the local level, we are constantly hampered by the lack of a

responding [Federal] coordination.” He cited that out of the then 17 cities involved with

the PCJD-OJD grant process, (sixteen actually received them under JFK) with new ones

applying, weaker “cities” often had the greatest difficulty meeting “muddled” federal

guidelines. He “side-barred” that most cities, except New Haven had a tough time

drafting a comprehensive plan, without federal inner-agency confusion. Boldly Hackett

concluded, “in some cases poverty remains unseen, and untouched by Federal 517

programs…as…resources cannot reach those in need because of an archaic filter-down

process.”135 He cautioned the federal government should not “wage ‘a war on poverty’ at

this time, basically because we just didn’t know enough,” but he proposed a solution.136

Hackett offered to Heller a Cabinet-level committee with an executive director and

staff, to study how the federal government should manage comprehensive local

community planning. He also wanted five cities designated as “national demonstration

models” for federal-community interaction, starting with St. Louis. All departments and

agencies dealing with poverty would send a special assistant designated by their

Secretary or Administrator, with decision-making authority, to sit on this cabinet level

“government reorganization committee.”137 Hackett believed federal inter-agency

reorganization to be absolutely critical and wanted this new “committee” to begin work

starting in early November 1963 and concluding on March 1, 1964. Once completed, its

efforts would be presented to the president for approval.138 This was never done.

For Hackett, after this reorganization, then the twelve months of initial planning for

selected cities would commence, and after that, “demonstration” and further “action”

phases would follow. But all this should have been done much earlier. Hackett viewed

HEW and Labor as “archaic,” and as roadblocks for money effectively reaching the poor.

Hackett believed the “National Service Corps,” or “neighborhood youth corps,” or

“domestic peace corps,” represented good models.139 Hackett had a little planning group of his own convinced of this idea’s value, including Bill Cannon of BOB.140 Lastly,

Hackett believed traditional federal agencies by late 1963, had few staff trained to handle

delinquency or poverty programs, and even fewer with any first hand experience. The 518

Bureau of Prisons stood as the only exception, plus most federal agencies had little

interest in the matter.141

Heller’s initial report, and he would eventually have two in total of his own,

stemming from his November 5 memo became “The 1964 Legislative Program for

Widening Participation in Prosperity” as released on November 15, 1963. Stamped

“confidential,” it proved absolutely worthless because Heller himself had not yet become

a disciple of Lampman’s community action and he offered thirty different suggestions, most being “retreads” of previous “marginal” programs. Many ideas simply increased the poors’ income through additional welfare and nothing from Lampman’s Report appeared regarding community action or breaking the culture of poverty.142

Heller’s initial report was also just a “hodgepodge” of old agency ideas, thrown

together.143 The only points worth noting, concerned the Section 701 planning assistance

grants now recommended for the poverty program, and the executive order on open

housing was to be made “comprehensive,” and many job programs added. One strange

“Neanderthal” idea called for “an opportunity to convert low paid female labor jobs into

better paid male jobs.” No doubt, this came from Wirtz. Overall, this mundane set of ideas would have cost between $516 and $520 million in initial outlays.144 Bill Capron

called it “garbage,” saying, “people simply went into their file drawers and pulled out old programs…and submitted them.”145 But this first report further stimulated the big fight

over the missing piece, “community action” versus “jobs.”

As Daniel Moynihan noted, BOB staff when reading this initial report, wanted to go

beyond it and became “intoxicated with the possibility of bringing about Federal reform

from underneath” by selling the concept of community action. Heller finally became a 519

convert after being “prepped” on the idea by Lampman at a series of meetings at RFK’s

home, called “the Hickory Hill seminars.”146 Beyond Lampman’s work, the community

action being sold in the fall of 1963 actually belonged to Hackett, Boone, Ylvisaker, and

Yarmolinsky as previously mentioned, with devout converts now joining as William

Capron of CEA and Bill Cannon of BOB and finally Heller, all crusading for it.147 The fight was really on with the Department of Labor and Wirtz, as the latter remained steadfast in his opposition. That battle raged from November 1963 through February

1964, and Moynihan told Adam Yarmolinsky, “there’s this big fight going on, and I’m delighted that you’re going to get into it.” On the one side stood the Labor Department and on the other was the Bureau of the Budget, the Council of Economic Advisors and the poverty people advancing “community action.” It became “terribly sharp during

November and December.148

As now framed, “Community action” properly applied, “structured” itself to break

“the culture of poverty” because it integrated federal, state, county, city, community and private resources at “the local level” to resolve full “categories of problems,” within integrated solutions, tailored to each community. It centered on local involvement and citizen participation with federal money.149 The Bureau of the Budget (BOB) took the

lead in selling “community action” throughout the government in November 1963 and

Bill Cannon became the “master of ceremonies,” bringing Hackett, Capron, and Boone,

as “spokespersons” into meetings “all over the government.” According to Fred Hayes,

“it was probably the greatest hunk of scheming that ever went on in the Bureau of the

Budget.”150 By November 1963, now with Heller aboard, “community action” slowly

dominated Willard Wirtz’s vehement objections. But for Kennedy and later Johnson to 520

get this through Congress and by the 1964 voters, it had to be sold as a broad based

poverty program rather than an urban or minority one. Capron said “we thought that it

would be death to a bill of any kind of program as a ‘help-the-blacks program.’ But that

doesn’t mean that we didn’t realize that this program was very important in terms of the

black vote.”151

Just before Dallas Heller met formally with JFK one last time, on November 19, 1963

and then Kennedy gave him his ultimate official blessing for an actual anti-poverty

program for the next session of Congress.152 This was three days before his death and over three years after his election and his promise to find the workable solution. Thus by mid-November 1963, Kennedy had finally decided some kind of poverty program would actually be embraced for 1964, most likely as an election year political highlight.153 JFK

favored a “relatively modest, workable, and popular program.”154 But reluctantly Heller

told JFK that he was having a tough time selling the poverty issue, “because of the

bureaucratic in-fighting,” which annoyed Kennedy. JFK wanted some kind of showpiece

for 1964 if the tax cut did not make it, thus “thinking ahead” to the 1964 campaign, he

wanted to make something like a war on poverty a major new initiative in addition to the

tax cuts.155 This would be an “across the boards” urban and rural poverty program, but it

still not synchronized into a workable solution.

Two problems remained unresolved due to the in-fighting. A “new agency” or other

agency would be needed to manage the poverty program, other than the Labor, HEW,

DOJ, PCJD-OJD, CEA or BOB combatants. Even Sorensen, a skilled compromiser, had

not been able to “knock heads” and stop these battles. Secondly, ideas were still being

advanced about: “an income approach;” a “social service approach;” or “a participatory 521

approach” with no resolution. “Community action” with “maximum feasible

participation” still remained a brisk fight as to how it would be enacted. Cannon noted

“We were responding to a program that the president felt that he…could stand on politically,” and wanted to gain resolution of the direction it should take.156

Dave Hackett’s first November 6 memo to RJK, which Cannon received in “bootleg”

fashion and circulated to Heller and to his CEA friends, became the cornerstone. Right

after the assassination in very early December 1963, Heller took these ideas, went to LBJ

and received a tentative “OK” to keep developing a poverty program. On December 12,

Cannon rewrote Hackett’s ideas, added some of his own, and after receiving new

community action input from Hackett and Bill Capron, on December 14 produced an

outline calling for a truly comprehensive community action poverty program for 1961.157

Heller took this Capron piece, and with a few mark ups made it into a second

Proposal replacing his initial November 15th one. Subsequently, BOB’s director Kermit

Gordon reviewed and approved it as well. Yet only as an after thought, had it been hurriedly sent to Robert Weaver, on December 18 for a quick review, and then off to Ted

Sorensen for a late Friday afternoon meeting held December 20, for final approval. It was formally published on December 23, 1963.158

Simply entitled “Poverty Program,” in the topic sentence Heller now proclaimed in

his second report, “I recommend that the President include a major ‘Attack on Poverty’

as a central feature of his 1964 legislative program. This should be announced in his

“State of the Union” and would be a “10-Year attack,” with emphasis on preventing

youth from entering poverty and additional measures for helping others “exit poverty.”159

Emphasis centered on “launching” a number of major demonstration projects under a 522 coordinated community action plan, “each focused on a significant poverty situation.”

This stood as a victory for the Lampman, Hackett, Boone, Ylvisaker and Yarmolinsky philosophy and the Cannon, Capron and Heller conversions and crusades, based on the original Cottrell, Ohlin, Cloward and Pevin thinking, plus the HARYOU, MFY, and the developing Bedford-Stuyvesant experience. Point nine, “Promote the formation of a

Council on Poverty with a chairman appointed by the President,” with appropriate department and agency heads serving to oversee the program, represented Hackett’s impact. And, “convene later in 1964 a White House Conference on Human Needs,” signaled victory for all those who wanted the previous White House Conference on

Urban Affairs.160

This program covered both urban poverty and rural poverty with two efforts, one generally defined as “community action,” and the second as “other actions.” Community action covered “city-oriented concerns” with the “other actions” applied to aid to

Appalachia, and the report came with three attachments. Attachment “A” addressed the

Community Action Program (CAP) for five years, proposing ten projects, one urban and one rural (small towns and villages implied here), in each of the five major regions of the country. It “targeted” actual, specific “geographical” areas of poverty, emphasizing changing “human” conditions there, attacking “varieties of poverty.” Management of the entire program would be through the President’s Council comprised of appropriate cabinet officers and agency heads. The “other” or more rural effort, attacked “poverty and ignorance” in the countryside. Here, recommendations called for specific projects in education, health, welfare, vocational rehabilitation, social security, delinquency prevention, plus the school lunch program. Attachment “C,” encompassed a potpourri of 523 departmental favorites from Agriculture through Labor, to HHFA all hoping to get funded along with a sizeable budget that covered the entire proposal.161

This overall program for Fiscal Year 1965 would cost $479 million in Non-Obligated

Authority (NOA) and $390 million in Budget Expenditures (NBE) for Attachments A and B. From Attachment C, depending on what developed, $200 million more in NOA and $50 million in NBE could be added making the FY 1965 package worth around $679 million in NOA and $440 million in NBE which as over a billion dollars would have been a good start. Costed out over the first five years ending in FY 1969, NOA stood at

$1,378,000,000 and NBE $1,283,000,000, revealing planners intended to use large amounts of “roll over” money.162

In discussions with LBJ, estimated by Cannon to have taken place on either the evening of December 14th or shortly thereafter at the start of the 1963 Christmas

Holidays at Johnson City, Texas, Heller and Kermit Gordon explained everything to him and he abruptly told them that, “he wasn’t going to have any War on Poverty Program and he particularly wasn’t going to have a community action program.” Yet the following day, they “sweet talked” him into changing his mind. The interdepartmental wrangling that bothered Kennedy as well upset LBJ, but he “bought off” on a broad based war on poverty, not yet fully developed.163

What changed immediately under Johnson in December 1963 was the “pace and volume.” Heller and Hackett warned, “go stage by stage, don’t rush the legislation” as it remained immature. But in urban affairs, the unsophisticated Johnson said “Go,” and off it (the poverty program) went without the planning and needed federal reorganization.164

By January 16, 1964, Johnson in his “State of the Union” address “declared an 524

unconditional war on poverty” and hurriedly R. Sargent Shriver became the poverty

program manager, effective February 1, 1964, for what would soon become the Office of

Economic Opportunity (OEO). Community action rapidly endorsed with little

understanding of what it meant, expanded under Shriver immediately from Kennedy’s

reformers list of five cities to 50, then under pressure from LBJ, to 250 cities for the first

year. The new legislation signed by Johnson on August 20, 1964, as the Economic

Opportunity Act (EOA) consisted chiefly of a hodgepodge of ideas now akin to the first

Heller report, from “job creation” to some kind of “community action” for almost all

problems. It required neither proven outcomes nor strict comprehensive planning applied

by city type. Hackett, convinced that had JFK lived the program could have been

carefully implemented, was at a loss.165 Title II of the new program spelled out

Community Action Program (CAP) and a tension immediately developed over the rapid

timeline and careless implementation.166 By the end of 1964 RFK said “LBJ had

bastardized, bloated and Johnsonized” the original concepts beyond “recognition.”167

During its limited life cycle, OEO spent $962.5 million on poverty and jobs, creating the Volunteers in Service to America (VISA) and other features, costing another later

$462.5 million.168 With more welfare money soon added, the program rapidly ballooned into an uncontrolled federal “give-away,” without creating organized community opportunity, until the funds ran out.169 Adding to the chaos, the still undefined

“community action” increasingly became headed by “community activists.” Mayor

Richard J. Daley called the White House, terrified, asking “What in the hell are you

people doing?” He continued, “Does the President know he is putting money in the

hands of subversives?” Even Johnson began to wonder if OEO wasn’t being run by “a 525

bunch of Kooks, communists and queers,” and the program began to lose political

favor.170

But the “design” constituted the real problem. Kennedy never provided an overall

solution and LBJ never implemented one, plus Johnson’s people did not understand CAP

and EOA’s Title II. Hackett authored the “maximum feasible participation of the poor”

in the CAP piece.171 But he would have agreed with Moynihan that “what they think of

CAP is exactly opposite of what you think of CAP, and you’re going to have all kinds of disappointments and conflict.”172 LBJ’s planners looked at target area “groups” not the

poor or their representatives. Hackett summed it up well saying, “I think that the

community action concept was never fully explained to anybody.”173

If LBJ had done it properly, even skeptics believed poverty could have been

eradicated by “carefully” spending at that time $2 billion annually, less than 2 percent of

the 1962 GNP.174 Johnson urged only $1.5 billion be spent in the first two years of the

program through August 1966. Yet just $350 million actually “made it to the streets” in

that first year due to collective federal ineptitude and lack of organization.175

But when LBJ’s “maximum feasible participation” began to run into “control”

difficulties, he quickly recoiled and threw the program back to local mayors.176 He also

failed to establish a framework for its favorable transition.177 Mayor Robert Wagner of

New York said “the sovereign government (city) of each locality … should have

approval of the planning group.” Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago went further with

“We think very strongly that any project of this kind…must be administered by the duly

constituted elected officials.”178 Local governments worked hard to avoid federal intent.179 Scores of local politicians, dependent on distribution of services to maintain 526 their power, undercut LBJ.180 In addition, the poverty program began to be viewed nationally as a minority one, chiefly helping African-Americans as another form of civil rights or welfare.181 But including Model Cities which became law on November 4, 1966 and with associated welfare schemes, this would be a very expensive program, as Hackett said “within a six week period a program that spent thirteen billion dollars was put together.” Model Cities alone according to Hackett received “five, six billion dollars pretty damn fast,” yet did little.182

Then came Vietnam. LBJ’s Vietnam War led to his “temporary” tax surcharge that raised the $5 to $6 billion needed, but Congress required domestic cuts. LBJ then began to back off and “He knew full well by the end of 1966 that his public pronouncements triumphing the coming end of want in America were unrealizable.”183, Even Shriver summed it up well, lamenting that, “Vietnam took it all away,” he mourned, “every goddamned dollar.”184 Hackett concluded his analysis of LBJ’s urban spending saying that what “President Johnson did which we thought, critically, was…useless aid to the cities.”185

Kennedy though, deserves some of the blame for the debacle, as he had little or no interest in developing and implementing completed and workable solutions while possessing all the tools, yet failing to combine them into a cohesive and synchronized package. Kennedy failed because he did not personally care about the issue. His agenda never included taking bold steps against the conservative tide of his times, leading the nation that truly listened to what he said, into resolving its desperate urban problems.

Balanced budgets, tax cuts and election year politics in 1962 and 1964 overrode this. 527

What could have been, concludes this chapter and indeed this dissertation. With

focus, leadership and commitment JFK had every opportunity to find the workable

solution to urban problems and needed only to blend the social city piece into an appropriate existing “structure” along with most of his current physical city programs.

For the cities, the timing would be critical.

JFK had three chances to launch an “early” workable solution that might have “hit the

streets” soon enough to avert some of the bloodshed. Passage of the Housing Act at the end of June 1961, constituted his first opportunity to craft a workable solution. The

“honeymoon” plus that legislative success provided a public and Congressional

“bounce,” never to return. Secondly, after the loss of DUAH in February 1962, he had

nothing really to further lose with his urban program, so abruptly launching a

comprehensive workable solution with Congress might have energized some of his

DUAH supporters. Lastly, after his popularity soared because of the Cuban Missile

Crisis in October 1962 and with the Democrats success in the 1962 off-year elections, in

very early November 1962 a perfect and final chance presented itself to initiate a

workable solution. Kennedy chose then to only vaguely start studying the matter.

Using the “last chance,” had a “workable solution for urban problems” really been

drawn up in October/November 1962, and launched January 1963, if successful, great,

but if unsuccessful it could have been become a well developed 1964 campaign

issue.

This workable solution to urban problems could have consisted of thirteen measures.

In short, nobody in one plan ever connected housing, to social services, to mass transit, to

jobs, and tailored these to different neighborhoods using maximum feasible participation 528

with priorities designed by those who lived there. Washington also had to “politically” be willing to enforce the model on certain mayoral fiefdoms, which it could have been done. Kennedy’s workable solution should have been:

1. Appoint Weaver, his “city man,” as director of the “workable solution” reporting to the Vice-President for additional political clout and if politically untenable, to the Attorney General;

2. Designate HHFA, America’s real “city agency,” as the Agency to manage the workable solution, continuing “physical city” programs while blending in “social city” ones;

3. Use the existing and well established Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI) as the framework;

4. From Kennedy’s current inter-agency and intra-government commissions and committees, as Hackett called for, reorganize certain federal departments and agencies to easily accept management of a coordinated poverty program and workable solution;

5. Customize the existing HHFA Section 701 and Section 702 urban planning grants and Section 314 urban demonstration grants so they covered poverty and social city issues, as well as their then physical city ones;

6. Place PCJD-OJD operations including the talented Dave Hackett under HHFA, continuing maximum feasible participation and community action;

7. Make the executive order “comprehensive;”

8. Blend in the already written “URA-PHA-FHA partnership” in physical and social city redevelopment;

9. Transfer ARA from Commerce to HHFA and expand the “jobs” role, plus add other jobs and retraining programs as needed and tailored to specific neighborhoods;

10. Place into this mix the best of what CFA was doing in neighborhood facility development for the poor;

11. Under the WPCI in each target areas, connect effective Mass Transit for the poor to job locations so they could go to work;

529

12. Implement the existing “PHA-HEW-VA social services experiment” for coordinated on site-social service assistance and place existing poverty “welfare programs” under that umbrella;

13. Bring private industry into the ghetto using RFK’s Bedford-Stuyvesant project as a model.

A discussion of these points follows. Initially, Dr. Robert C. Weaver, Harvard PhD in Economics and Administrator of the HHFA, would have made an excellent choice to manage the workable solution to urban problems. Both JFK and his “reformers” left him out. “Why” has already been discussed but Bob Weaver remained out of the “inner circle” of poverty planning for the “workable solution.”

Yet Weaver as a potential “workable solution” manager brought tremendous

experience. He participated in 1961 in a conference producing a “visionary assessment” for an early plan framing a landmark poverty program and workable solution. Held on

June 27, 1961, as “the Ford Foundation Federal Representatives Meeting” it included four of the “reformers” plus Weaver and Mort Schussheim and ten other “urban experts.”

Weaver presented his ideas in an enlightened seven-page study called “HHFA Programs that Relate to the Concern of the Attorney General’s Office with Youth and Juvenile

Delinquency.” Weaver and Schussheim detailed solutions to poverty, using existing

HHFA city overlays showing “a consistent relationship” between slum housing, delinquency, and other “urban” ills.186 Weaver correctly pointed out that changes in

housing alone, would not resolve these matters, but rather that a full “rehabilitation of

socially disorganized families” needed to occur. Weaver’s solution encompassed using

the Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI) in a three phased effort.

Capital grants, low rent public housing, FHA reduced mortgages, and ample and effective

urban renewal relocation, would be blended into a community’s “workable program.” 530

Next, cities would present proof their program eliminated “blight” via neighborhood by

neighborhood “analysis,” using “citizen participation.” All neighborhood needs would be

included in the plan - health centers, recreation, facilities, youth clubs, housing projects,

playgrounds, open spaces, nursery schools and settlement houses plus members of the

community would sit on a “supervisory panel,” the citizens advisory committee.187

Weaver wanted his three main grants programs, Sections 701, 702 and 314 to be expanded covering social city programs. He also planned to use HHFA’s Urban Studies and Housing Research Program to assist “migrants” in poverty areas find housing, maintain households, and develop “cohesive” anti-delinquency programs.188 Jobs were

absent from this study though and could have been added.

F. David Clarke and Burt Young of HHFA, met on July 19, 1961 with Hackett, HEW,

Justice and the Ford Foundation representatives to sell this study, and although a steering committee formed, the HHFA ideas essentially went absolutely nowhere. Clarke lamented, “It would be unfortunate if …[PCJD-OJD] “were to ignore and circumvent…these ideas,” but that is exactly what happened.189 When questioned about

this and public works later, Weaver was asked, “But didn’t they look to you to coordinate things?” He replied, “We pushed there, and we got it in Public Health [some of it].”

“But the water and sewer program, there was a situation where HHFA and Interior were doing similar projects. And I could never get either the White House or the Bureau of the

Budget to deal with the matter.” He recalled, “I remember one Saturday we sat

down…with the Bureau of the Budget and the Secretary of the Interior, and they ‘wishy-

washed’ but didn’t face the Issue.” He concluded, “With Model Cities the same thing

was true. In that instance, the White House did little to support HUD’s efforts to secure 531

inter-departmental and inter-agency cooperation especially in terms of anticipated

categorical grants.”190

Yet Weaver offered more novel ideas. HHFA’s Wayne Phillips headed a program for

African-Americans to receive business administration training, and Weaver fostered new

poverty area housing ideas.191 His legislative proposals for 1963 and 1964 included

strengthening and expanding the “Workable Program (WPCI)” ensuring both Section 701

and 702 urban planning grants came directly through the WPCI and HHFA, and aimed at comprehensive community planning. Many of his ideas paralleled PCJD’s “planning”

approach.192 Lastly, Weaver could have reported to the Vice-President or Attorney

General for help managing the “workable solution,” either providing him necessary clout

with cabinet members.193 LBJ already ran government wide employment and civil rights committees, and RFK the “EXCOM,” so both had external program management experience.

Secondly, using HHFA as the organization for a workable solution made sense. As

HUD’s forerunner, HHFA’s massive urban programs through FHA, PHA, URA, FNMA

and CFA, touched all cities, small towns, and some of the countryside. This mated well

with the war on poverty’s urban and rural aspects. And within Weaver’s HHFA empire,

one of the largest in the federal government, mechanisms already existed to easily

facilitate making the transition. Inside HHFA its Office of Metropolitan Development

(OMD) would have been an ideal home for the new program. On November 9, 1962, that Office began in the HHFA central office and became the nerve center under Victor

Fischer, “Assistant Administrator, Metropolitan Development,” for metropolitan policy and coordinating “common opportunities for metropolitan area planning.”194 This office 532

properly reorganized, and under Weaver’s experienced hand, would have been an

excellent workable program manager.195

Thirdly, and very important, the “operational framework” for the workable solution to

urban problems including the war on poverty, should have been the Workable Program for Community Improvement (WPCI). Authority came from “the local responsibilities portion” of the 1949 Housing Act as reauthorized by Ike in his 1954 Housing Act, to halt the spread of slums, using coordinated community planning. The WPCI operated as an already established community action program through HHFA and had an established urban and small town clientele. NAHRO often worked with it, providing free and timely research, and even GAO (the Government Accounting Office) assisted in “tracking.”196

Coming out of the Eisenhower years, Benjamin T. Perry turned over to the Kennedy

people on January 31, 1961, a well organized Workable Program for Community

Development. Weaver changed the last word to Improvements, drastically cut “red tape”

from the former torturous applications process, and expanded membership.197 He wished

to consolidate and grow WPCI and appointed the able F. David Clarke to manage it.

From 1961–1963, 1,762 small communities and 131 metropolitan areas received grants

for some kind of urban planning assistance, most through WPCI.198 Clark roundly

supported Weaver’s desire for “a comprehensive approach to integrated regional urban

development under the WPCI.”199 By November 1961, each approved WPCI city had a

“Citizens Advisory Committee,” signaling the importance of citizen participation, and

WPCI paralleled PCJD-OJD guidelines for comprehensive planning, but were never

“merged.” Moreover, WCPI placed a special emphasis on “minority housing” which

PCJD-OJD did not, and some of Clarke’s work was integrated with NAACP efforts, but 533

without any White House notice or PCJD-OJD interest. Further, the WPCI became a

leader in sending racial discrimination complaints to the Civil Rights Commission.200

Weaver in a policy memo to all regional administrators emphasized “I have strong personal convictions that the vigorous presentation of the Workable Program objectives is vital to the continued success of other programs of this Agency.”201

Clarke also published a rather sophisticated study in December 1961 offering ideas about comprehensive city planning calling for a more active community-wide citizen

participation with subcommittees focusing on minority problems. He emphasized

bringing “private business” into a community’s workable program and involving the poor

in “neighborhood analysis,” and wanted a “transportation” subcommittee, which would

be critical to getting the poor to work, and suggested how the federal government could

help with “technical advice.”202 But this drew no interest from the White House, or

PCJD-OJD. Lastly, the WPCI maintained vast data on urban problems for over ten years, valuable for poverty planning.203 This was never utilized under Kennedy.

JFK’s inter-agency commissions and the intergovernmental committees could have

become the basis for “reorganizing” the federal bureaucracy and represented a fourth

aspect of the workable solution. This did not happen either. HHFA had already improved its “field” organization and maintained inter-agency community programs with the

Bureau of Public Roads.204 But JFK’s Board of Federal Executives could have brought

order to chaos, eliminated red tape, duplicity, and “choke points” that plagued existing

poverty work. The “implementers” could have been Kennedy’s current Advisory

Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, with its permanent staff. Both had regular

requirements to improve government coordination in metropolitan areas and had a 534

significant “test case” already underway in DC.205 Weaver frequently testified before the

Commission and could have led proposed reorganizations, but that never began.206

Memorandums even as late as mid-1963 revealed no intention of using inter-agency cooperation to craft a coordinated program for a comprehensive solution.207

Properly using the existing Section 701 and Section 702 planning grants within the

WPCI framework constitutes the fifth aspect of implementing a workable solution to

urban programs while facilitating a war on poverty. The Section 701 Urban Planning

Assistance Grants remained an invaluable tool in urban planning for all city endeavors, beyond its frequent urban renewal use.208 Additionally, Section 701 offered planning

help for all “community development,” and “comprehensive planning for urban areas.”

This should have been tailored as primary grant for “the solution.” General

neighborhood planning had been approved under the 701 program years ago.209 In

addition, in July 1961, HHFA’s, Hugh Mields suggested to Weaver he extend the 701

program to all metropolitan area problems and Weaver agreed.210 The funding

arrangement of 2/3 federal money, 1/3 other (state, county, city, private) became a much

sought after commodity.211 As well, Section 702, the other popular grant could have been

used in the workable solution for planning public works. Continuity between 701 and

702 grants remained excellent, and the 702 could have helped poor neighborhoods plan

for and obtain needed public facility improvements. Section 702 grants offered the same

kind of attractive funding. Weaver was trying to make the WPCI a prerequisite for

Section 702 grants under CFA.212 Section 314 demonstration grants could be applied to

either but again, none of this was ever combined into any “workable solution.” 535

Step Six, integrating PCJD-OJD operations into HHFA should have been an easy

transition. Nothing but lack of foresight and “politics” precluded putting a “committee”

and an “office” under a major Agency about to become a Department. Weaver could have appointed Hackett an HHFA assistant administrator for the war on poverty, and

Hackett would have maintained the same “rank” he held in RFK’s office.

Comprehensive planning and “maximum feasible participation” in community action

would have continued unabated.

Step Seven, recommended by most everyone from Weaver to JFKs’s own Civil

Rights Commission, consisted of making the executive order “comprehensive.” As

mentioned in Chapter nine, most of Kennedy’s staff believed JFK had the authority to do

that, but he chose not to do so.

Step eight, would integrate a much needed set of “physical city” programs into the

workable solution that URA, FHA, and PHA had already fashioned into a “not-for- publication” memorandum. This discussed how they could combine their efforts in resolving poverty. The study called for URA, PHA and FHA cooperation in solving social issues within the “physical city” as touched upon in chapter eight. Nathan Glazier and William Slayton wrote it, recommending urban renewal venture into special education, child care services, welfare services, housekeeping assistance, vocational counseling, relief of homelessness, relocation, and even unemployment and college counseling. Maximized citizen participation remained key, and a whole generation of new proposed federal communities along with housing and appropriate budgets were discussed. A “National Institute on Urban Problems” would conduct demonstrations to resolve the human problems of urban renewal, housing, and public housing, and an urban 536

think tank with fellowships would be established.213 The agreement was never

implemented.

As step nine, the Area Redevelopment Administration (ARA) under the direction of

William L. Batt, Jr., should have been integrated into HHFA under WPCI, and made a

key part of the workable solution. Created by the Area Redevelopment Act on May 1,

1961, if taken away from the Department of Commerce where it languished and placed

under HHFA’s WPCI it could have continued facilitating manpower retraining, jobs and employment opportunities for the poor, much needed for the long-term success of the workable solution. But PCJD-OJD “played down” this kind of activity. ARA also could have handled the rural aspects of the poverty program, with Mr. Batt as well becoming another “Assistant HHFA Administrator.” Remaining in Commerce served no point and

ARA, as Jack Conway quipped remained “a very thin piece of legislation” with “not a great deal of money.” He characterized the program as one with “a greater show of activity than there was activity.”214

ARA already planned a comprehensive program in isolation. Accelerated Public

Works, Public Law 87-685 of September 14, 1962, had inadvertently joined CFA and

ARA together in a mutual effort to alleviate poverty. This was not Kennedy’s initial

“accelerated public works funding effort” as part of his $900 million anti-recession

package but rather ARA became mandated to handle specific “depressed areas” with its

own $300 million: $100 million for urban, $100 million for rural, and $100 million for

public works in either. With the latter ARA designated “substantial labor surplus

commitments,” and CFA managed ARA’s public works money plus its own $400

million.215 ARA’s problem consisted of having 663 areas of high employment or 537

“depressed areas” covering 28.6 million people in 47 states and the various islands with only $300 million available. Producing new jobs, through a “new partnership” including several federal agencies placing resources into ARA depressed areas, (Commerce,

Interior, Agriculture, Labor, HEW, HHFA and the Small Business Administration) plus helping create private industry jobs through the “multiplier effort” constituted their effort.216 As well, ARA required an “area” to draw up with a “feasible plan” that

included representation from the whole community. Other initiatives as the “National

Service Corps,” VISTA, Neighborhood Job Corp, the “Reemployment Act of 1961,” and

Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 could have been considered here.217

None of this ever became centralized or coordinated under Kennedy.

Part ten of the workable solution, combined the best of Communities Facilities

Administration (CFA) efforts into a single plan. CFA under Sidney Woolner handled metropolitan area projects in all major cities for both middle class and poor neighborhoods. CFA provided grants to cities for public works planning, made community facility loans, and assisted with area redevelopment.218 Filled with

experienced urban planners, it stood as a model for helping decaying urban

neighborhoods, with extremely poor water systems, storm sewers, sanitary facilities,

incinerators, bridges, and sidewalks, transition into sound communities. CFA did not per

se allocate money for individual homes, but for entire sections of cities in cooperation

with other federal programs under a Joint Steering Committee, plus it funded municipal

projects that “fed” power, water and the like into these neighborhoods.219 The Section

702 grants for public works could have been used by CFA and CFA had demonstration

programs.220 By the end of February 1962, CFA had just over $24 million in public 538

works planning money in the field that helped generate $1.8 billion in estimated new

municipal and private construction.221 Lastly, CFA through its early anti-recession

spending and under the Public Works Acceleration Act, already “knew” “targeted urban

areas” and how to draw up comprehensive plans for them.222 Woolner independently

proposed in 1963, a comprehensive and coordinated CFA effort in “target area” cities,

but there is no evidence it was acted upon during the Kennedy years.223 Yet Kennedy,

rather than expand CFA’s role into targeted poverty areas, cut CFA operating budget and

left staff vacancies open, in order to save money.224

Mass transit, step eleven, stood as an absolutely critical ingredient of the workable

solution to urban problems. Enough business or government jobs could not possibly be

located in poor neighborhoods, so the urban poor needed to travel elsewhere to go to work. They could not get there without mass transit, meaning a minimally comprehensive bus plan, which in many cities often deliberately avoided poor areas or public housing sites, particularly in the South. Yet mass transit looked “too federal and much too urban” to settle well with rural Congressmen.225 During JFK’s time, an

unavoidable power struggle raged over control of “multi-jurisdictional roads,” “roads

running through cities,” “roads to suburbs,” and the “amount” of “urban mass transit”

considered. Proponents for federal urban mass transit wanted a program akin to

Eisenhower’s 1956 National Defense Highway Act that resolved the “rural interstate”

issue and much of the urban expressway debate. But the real power brokers, the Bureau

of Public Roads (BPR) whom Moynihan described as “barbarians” coming out of the

1950s, with their conservative Capital Hill friends, stridently road-blocked federal

funding for urban mass transit. 539

Unfortunately, the “city’s so called” spokesman, JFK, who promised to help find the

workable solution, did not help much either. The Kennedy’s 1960 Platform called for

“Federal aid for comprehensive metropolitan transportation programs, including bus and

rail mass transit, computer railroads, as well as highway programs.”226 Yet JFK buried mass transit as number 22 of 29 legislative priorities for the second Session 87th

Congress.227 He simply did not want to spend the money nor take the Congressional heat about trying. When asked, “Do you remember a lot of resistance from the White House on mass transit?” Jack Conway responded, “Yes. But what we [HHFA] did was we worked our own will in the Senate with a lot of cooperation from the key senators” and

got around the White House. He concluded “I think it was the White House’s feeling that

these things [like Mass Transit] would all be “dealt out” in conference, but we got them all in. We got the best of both bills [Senate and House].”228 This became the “meager”

mass transit portion of the 1961 Housing Act.

While many “real” mass transit bills were “hot topics” during JFK’s presidency the

White House version was not. Between six to eight bills traveled the legislative pipeline

annually and some received administration support, some not. Kennedy’s only “mass

transit” success, which Conway alluded to in the above, came in Title III of the 1961

Housing Act, doing three things: it reinstated the Section 701 urban planning assistance

grants for the purposes of the “transportation aspects of comprehensive urban area

planning.” Secondly, it provided loans, allocating $50 million so states and cities could

acquire and improve mass transit, with this money budgeted to the end of 1962, then

subsequently extended to June 30, 1963. Lastly, it offered demonstration grants totaling

a scant $25 million in federal funds to states and cities for planning mass transit.229 540

However, Kennedy’s own administration published in 1962 studies estimating that

the cost of an effective national mass transit program would require minimally $9.8 billion over ten years, plus huge amounts of private funding.230 Kennedy was having none of that with his “politics” of balanced budget and tax cut. So in 1961, Senator

Harrison A. Williams (D-NJ) an avid mass transit proponent, along with 18 other

Senators, launched a bill supported by the American Municipal Association, asking for

$1.75 billion over five years, simply as a middle ground in mass transit funding.231

Similarly, in each of the three Kennedy years, Williams introduced provocative legislation. In a memo to JFK, Weaver, hoping for a big bill like Williams’ lamented

“Ill-conceived mass transportation…can accelerate blight.” He continued, “only through inclusion of transportation planning as a key element in the comprehensive planning process can full benefits be obtained.”232

Nineteen Sixty-two witnessed an additional flurry of mass transit activity. Again Mr.

Williams of New Jersey and others, introduced legislation. But JFK did not place himself

in the forefront of mass transit leadership, and was “embarrassed” into an additional

action beyond the 1961 Housing Act by Williams and his group. JFK unenthusiastically

sponsored a 1962 effort that provided three things: $500 million in grants for mass transit

planning, apportioned over three years at $100 million for fiscal 1963, $200 million for

fiscal 1964 and $200 million for fiscal 1965, while also continuing the 1961 Housing

Act’s $25 million in demonstration money and $50 million in loans.233 Much wrangling

from railroads, water companies and the Teamsters over the 1962 bill accompanied

markup in March, all aimed at obtaining more money and Weaver and Luther Hodges of

Commerce, testified or sent statements.234 However, by the end of the 1962 sessions, the 541

administration’s bill was tied up, in various stages of committee consideration.235 There

is no evidence the White House became tremendously upset about this.

In Congress in 1963, because the president did not spend his political capital on mass

transit to break the deadlock, the administration had only a slightly better chance than in

1962. Mass transit rose to third on Kennedy’s now prioritized legislative list, into

“Category One” bills all designated to improve “the Nation’s Economy,” but not to help impoverished poor gain access to jobs through a comprehensive mass transit systems.236

Additionally six separate bills were introduced in 1963, the most popular one being

Senate 6, again by Harrison Williams, and finally on February 18, the administration introduced it’s lackluster 1962 version again, as the Mass Transportation Act of 1963.

This included all the same provisions, adding only a stipulation for $30 million more in research and development.237 On November 1, 1963 Kennedy got a “modified” version

of that passed by the Senate, but the House version stayed only “on calendar” when JFK

left for Dallas, bogged down in “highway” controversies.238 Thus the first real

commitment to subsidize bus, subway, and rail commuter systems came on July 1, 1964,

as the Mass Transit Act of 1964 under LBJ, who put some presidential weight behind

Kennedy’s legislation. It represented the real mass transit act for the period, but even the

legislatively wise LBJ, received only the money Kennedy had earmarked in his 1963

Senate version. Weaver concluded about Kennedy and mass transit, “I would say that his

interest in this was really of about second priority. I would put this as top (of the second

set of priority of his). I think that his feeling on these things was that we had to do them,

but maybe there were other things that had to be done first. And if you had to sacrifice

something, you could delay Mass Transit.”239 542

However the mass transit “commitment,” before being dismissed, bears further

analysis of one final point. It symbolized Kennedy’s duplicity in finding a workable solution. Under Kennedy’s presidency, managing overall transportation needs was Dan

Morton, in the Department of Commerce, as “Under Secretary for Transportation,” and

“particularly incompetent” according to Weaver. A former Los Angeles Cadillac dealer, he stayed far removed from the critical poverty connection of mass transit to jobs.

Weaver wanted an “area-wide transit plan” for cities and remained miffed about

Commerce and Morton’s dominant role, particularly in research. Rex Whitton managed

HHFA’s small urban mass transit portion of the 1961 Housing Act, but that represented all the influence HHFA had in the matter.240

The White House though maintained closer ties with Commerce, the BPR, and the road lobby. By 1962, JFK’s federal, plus state expenditures for just the urban portion of highway construction funded $2.07 billion “and the highway folks maintained a firm grasp on their lucrative empire,” which received $11.56 billion from JFK in 1961 and another $2.3 billion in 1962.241 They believed, and by default Kennedy did as well, that

moving goods, services, and people into cities and back to the suburbs constituted the

role of urban highways, not moving the urban poor to job sites.242 Indeed, Weaver wrote

to Dave Bell at the end of 1961 that the miniscule 1961 Housing Act mass transit money

was hardly enough, as HHFA had requests for assistance from 61 cities, asking for $40

million in demonstration money, with only $25 million was available, and $300 million

in loan requests went against an available $50 million.243 The 1962 and 1963

administration bills attempted to correct these deficiencies, but they never passed under

Kennedy. 543

Further, Weaver “proposed” demonstration projects for urban “target area” transportation, yet these were never included in any program.244 Kennedy’s response authorized a “massive” study of urban transportation using the Institute of Public

Administration, with a joint Commerce/HHFA effort, but studying mass transit as a

“poverty” issue never arrived on the agenda.245 The study was published as “For Official

Use Only” and concluded that huge outlays as $19.6 billion over the entire 1960s would be needed for a real federal mass transit system involving public money at all levels plus some private investment.246 No action commenced as a result of this study, and even

Kennedy’s “message on transportation” to the Congress, spoke only of the needs of middle class communities to have good urban expressways.247 As late as mid-August

1963, the only new mass transit initiative coming out of his Administration consisted of an urban transportation research conference.248 The “New Frontier” simply did not give poor people consideration in the mass transit equation.

Finally, two last aspects of a workable solution round out the “social” side of the issues. In the twelfth point, the “PHA/HEW” partnership and program of Marie

McGuire’s would have been invaluable, yet it was never blended in. As previously mentioned in chapter eight, McGuire under a PHA/HEW agreement with VA subsequently joining, actually brought about successful demonstrations, integrating public housing with social services including an effective model youth program, family service assistance, employment, and benefits counseling directly located on public housing sites all across the country. This could have been integrated into the workable solution, molding public housing, elderly housing, and on site social services into a working “neighborhood” package. The Veterans Administration joined with McGuire 544

and HEW, offering similar programs for poor and disabled veterans. All of this could

have been in decentralized “store front” locations among large numbers of poor in

“targeted neighborhoods.” McGuire through her proposed “President’s Public Housing

Advisory Committee,” tried to entice private industry to join as well.249 But none of this

sparked any interest in the White House, and there is no evidence her ideas were taken to

heart either by the “reformers,” in their push to apply “advanced” social theory to many

aspects of what PHA/HEW/VA were already trying to do. Her program remained

isolated and unfulfilled.

Lastly, Robert Kennedy’s Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) constitutes the thirteenth

element of what could have been. It stood as the best of MFY and CAP all rolled into

one, and with the other twelve measures in the workable solution, could have been the

model’s “capstone.” Named “Bed-Stuy,” the patrician advisers deferred to the citizens of

Bedford-Stuyvesant, “in all matters of significance.” Although government played an important role, it deferred to an influx of business and private capital for the jobs piece, missing in other plans. RFK called for “the active participation of the business

community in every facet of the revitalization efforts.”250

“Bed-Stuy” as a neighborhood came with a multitude of delinquency problems, with

roots going back into the Great Depression. Geographic isolation, racism, and police

brutality, had long taken their toll. “Poverty, dysfunctional family life, unemployment

and powerlessness” permeated the area. Like HARYOU and MFY, only the African-

American churches offered any real stability. Some of the early protests under JFK’s

administration began there, from mid-July through early August 1963, over a lack of

hiring Bed-Stuy African-American residents for new hospital construction.251 545

Bed-Stuy constituted a section of Brooklyn of 400,000 people, 84% African-

American and 12% Hispanic-Americans, living in brownstone tenements, “amidst

abandoned building and trash-strewn vacant lots.” RFK worked to invest capital into this

target area.252 He enlisted old friends as Thomas J. Watson, Jr. of IBM, William Paley of

CBS Television, Douglas Dillion, numerous bankers as George Moore of National City

Bank, and McGeorge Bundy, who maintained connections with the Ford Foundation, to

energize the project. However, Judge Thomas R. Jones and other African-American

Church leaders ran it. Through tax incentives and investment credits, businesses offering

employment were enticed to locate plants in Bed-Stuy.253

The plan as finally developed in 1964, formed two non-profit, tax exempt corporations, “functioning as partners.” The Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration

Corporation restored the physical city area, and the Development and Services

Corporation provided jobs, working the “social city piece.” From the 1964 Economic

Opportunity Act, in 1966 an amendment called the “Special Impact Program” provided

$7 million in new money, and public and private capital mixed. Members of the

community began “on-the-job- training” in welding, masonry, scaffolding, and painting,

and later transferred those skills into construction jobs. Ninety-six blocks received

exterior renovation. Moreover, IBM Corporation began to employ residents and moved a

plant into a renovated warehouse, later building a $10.2 million facility.254 Labor, HEW,

HHFA-HUD, OEO, SBA and FHA also “moved in” providing assistance. FHA for

instance, invested in 1000 buildings in the area, and the new $6 million Restoration Plaza

Shopping Center opened. “Home ownership” increased to as high as 90-95% in some 546

blocks and comprehensive employment placed more than 7000 residents into new jobs

with more planned.255

But RFK’s feud with LBJ and Robert Kennedy’s subsequent assassination, left the

project without lasting leadership and focus. RFK “believed Johnson was playing a very

complicated game in the cities that was bound to back-fire, putting [increasingly] federal

funds in the hands of the mayors.” Robert Kennedy also placed greater faith in business

than LBJ did and wanted Bed-Stuy to become a national prototype for “other cities”

which Johnson consistently opposed. While the Bedford-Stuyvesant project left its mark,

its authors were not around to complete the effort.256 Business leaders praised RFK’s

work, as Robert Lyon wrote in a 1967 edition of Realtor Magazine, “Senator Robert

Kennedy’s plan for slum housing and ghetto industries deserves our support.”257

However, Jack Conway summed it up well saying that after RFK’s death, LBJ’s

“managers,” Adam Walinsky in particular, “worked with an impressive lack of realism.”

He complained, “I left it (a meeting on Bed-Stuy) thinking…this thing is going to fail.”258

The “New Frontier” never implemented a workable solution to urban problems

because Jack Kennedy never launched to full-scale White House effort to find it,

although it existed in “fragments” across his own administration, in both current programs and future planning. Programs needed only to be given attention “early,” as

mentioned combined, refined, focused and funded, but that never happened.

Moreover, other “fragments” existed in America’s cities that would soon lead to the

worst of times for urban America. In the long hot summers, unrest would soon turn into

the flames of rage. Kennedy witnessed the rudimentary beginnings of unrest, but did not

recognize it, because his interests remained elsewhere. In the summer of 1962, CORE 547

blocked trucks delivering to firms that did not hire African-Americans. Rent strikes began against slum landlords who refused to fix buildings under their care. In June 1963, sit-ins took place in Mayor Robert Wagner’s office, over discriminatory hiring practices

and rhetoric heated up in African-American urban churches across the country. Picketing

and demonstrations in DC regarding “open housing” and for expanding the executive

order took place in May 1963 and boycotts in New York and other northern cities

witnessed minority residents going into the streets wielding placards that read “Don’t

Buy Where You Can’t Work,” plus urban school desegregation issues gained momentum.

On July 22, 1963, in New York City, 1200 people participated in an anti-union demonstration against “all white” hiring that boiled over, resulting in the largest number of arrests since the 1943 Harlem Riots. Slowly throughout July and August 1963 demonstrations became increasingly restless and protests against police “brutality”

regularly occurred.259

The “March on Washington” headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28,

1963, continued the great American tradition of going to the Capital to air grievances, but

it should be remembered that it was a “March for Jobs and Freedom.” Although non-

violent, large numbers of people were saying by their physical presence that time was running out for “the rhetoric of expectation.” The over 200,000 who came signaled that a huge non-violent demonstration in a major city worked, yet their presence in numbers implied that if these means failed, large numbers of people might resort to something else.260 JFK died before that happened, yet the “gap” he left in “effective” programs

reaching the streets did not. 548

Then it came. On the morning of July 16, 1964, a white police officer named Thomas

Gilligan, summoned to a television store in New York City regarding a disturbance

between the white building owner and some black teenagers felt threatened. A fifteen-

year-old African-American, James Powell, “came” at him with a knife and in “self-

defense” Gilligan fatally shot the teenager. The crowd that quickly gathered at the scene

of the Powell killing, “cried in rage, ‘come on, shoot another nigger!’” And then it

began. A violent riot with rocks, bottles, and garbage can lids errupted as, “the opening

barrage in the first battle of the riot ridden 1960’s,” the beginnings of the “long hot

summers” had started. For the next six nights, African-American mobs roamed the

streets of Harlem and portions of Brooklyn “attacking police and looting stores.” One

rioter was killed, 118 injured and 465 arrested.261 What had begun, under Kennedy as a

“tenants revolt” awakened a huge and violent sleeping giant for another reason. The police symbolized a government that promised everything, but in return gave little but

“heartache.” Rage and violence became the price.262 In July 1964, riots in Brooklyn,

Harlem, Rochester, Jersey City and Philadelphia precipitated by police brutality, reflected

deep resident frustration over the loss of civil liberties, lack of public facilities,

segregation, notorious political actions against the poor, housing discrimination, and lack of positive social change.263 These events would become the bane of the Johnson years,

where the less popular Johnson would hear “LBJ for the USA,” replaced by “Burn, Baby,

Burn.”264

Newark, (NJ) and other cities erupted, and on August 11, 1965, the Watts section of

Los Angeles exploded in flames, with rioting lasting several days and costing 34 lives,

4,000 injured, and $35 million in property damage.265 In 1966, 53 riots occurred in 44 549

cities lasting 92 days; in 1967, there 82 riots erupted in 71 cities for over 270 days; and

1968 witnessed 155 outbursts in 106 cities.266 Riots occurred in New York in 1969 in

June.267 But Detroit’s 1967 mid-summer riot set the record, with 43 killed, 1,000 injured,

7,000 arrests, and $50 million in property damage. Some buildings there even today have

not been rebuilt. In Detroit, police were overwhelmed, the Michigan National Guard

needed help and Johnson sent in elements of the 82nd Airborne Division.268 Yet in an

ironic way, LBJ finally got his “maximum feasible participation” of the poor,

neighborhood by neighborhood. He just never figured it out to do it properly.

Kennedy’s legacy in American urban history falls between the promise and the fires.

He had some successes domestically, but overall in urban affairs, his legacy is one of

unfulfilled accomplishment, highlighted by “the politics of promise.”269 The fact that he

refused to place election year politics above reaching a workable solution to urban

problems, nor take action against the politically powerful coalition that prevented real

help from reaching the urban poor, remains the real tragedy. JFK never tried to untangle

the knot of race and class that paradoxically kept conservatives in power, from city hall to

Capital Hill, and the poor in their place.270 But unknown at the time was the fact that

Kennedy never really tried to find the workable solution. An adoring press, and his

immediate staff, “camouflaged” that, and only later would this outrageous political sin be

revealed. For instance, it was not until Kennedy was dead, that Weaver could openly

impose new rules on urban renewal in 1967, that curtailed city officials from discriminating “using local discretion.”271 Tragically, the fires had by then taken their

toll and were continuing. Even Kennedy’s successes, the 1961 Housing Act, urban

renewal and continuation of the Eisenhower “housing boom” chiefly helped middle class 550

whites, and Area Redevelopment Act, the Manpower Development and Training Act,

Accelerated Public Works, and Welfare increases really did not break the cycle of

poverty because they either did not effectively impact the poor, were uncoordinated, or

remained under funded.272 Kennedy was so timid with Congress, his domestic

presidency in a way harkened back to a by-gone era of “legislative supremacy.”273

Kennedy lent almost nothing to providing “economic modernization…from the feudal constraints,” that forced African-Americans into permanent “occupational and institutional” poverty.274

Regarding poverty, not attempting to weave the “fragments” of “the solution” into a workable framework, constituted in the words of Francis Fox Piven and Richard

Cloward, “a breaking of the American social compact” which had been carried forward since FDR. Kennedy’s uncoordinated fragmentation in urban programs hurt urban

America, leaving the somewhat bewildered Johnson with huge ground to gain which he was unable and inept at accomplishing, before the fires arrived.275 And when they came,

Johnson, who had little credibility with the poor, tried to raise their expectations, but he

and his staff only heightened their anger.276 Studies of the time revealed that many young

African-Americans had higher aspirations than their white counterparts, coming out of

the Kennedy years, that things would improve, only to find out that LBJ as well could not deliver.277 Johnson, for that matter courted a “martyr-besotted electorate” as “heir of a

man whom he did not particularly like and whose policies he had had, as Vice-President, almost nothing to do with.” He literally “rode a dead man’s coattails into the White

House.”278 “But you can’t build a city on pity,” and you can’t crusade for resources from

the federal Government from the bottom to the top with consistent success.279 Neither 551

JFK or LBJ broke the “culture of poverty” or uplifted the “under class” they promised to

help.280

Lastly, JFK’s failures in urban history far outweigh his successes. DUAH went down

in defeat, the executive order on open housing remained virtually “symbolic,” urban civil

rights took no new bold steps forward, and public housing in spite of McGuire’s

aggressive actions, remained small in comparison to the need, and succumbed to growing political isolation. JFK’s infamous FHA 221(d)(3) program stood as an example of a

“not well thought-out program” and his fiscal constraints on HHFA’s operating budgets

caused huge backlogs in multi-family housing, while not producing the balanced budget

he needed for his 1963 tax cut, to impress 1964 voters. Mass transit stayed inadequately

funded. White House conferences on urban affairs were not held, and Kennedy did too little too late regarding “regulating” poverty. His “reformers” could not overcome their boss, as the poverty program and workable solution could have been well developed and implemented by Dallas, had the commitment been there. Finally, JFK’s unwillingness to

focus on the workable solution, stood in stark violation of the “trust” of the 1960

electorate.

Uniquely though, JFK “sailed along” with “business as usual” toward his destiny in

Dallas. As noted before, his popularity remained high, from 83% in 1961 to ending his first year at 77%; achieving consistent scores of 71% to 78% in 1962; and by mid-1963,

59% of the public surveyed claimed they had voted for him in 1960, which grew to 65% after Dallas, where in fact he actually received only 49.72% of the vote. In polls, his

Democratic party by mid-1963 “held the edge in handling issues” substantially over the

Republicans.281 But Kennedy did nothing translating this popularity into votes on the 552

Hill, as the Washington Post noted about important bills on August 4, 1963, “only 19 –

just under 5% of the President’s 403 requests had been given final approval” by then.282

But, as Robert Thompson wrote, “We were led to believe that between January 20, 1961 and November 22, 1963, the President of the United States was the embodiment of the finest traits of Sophocles, Saint Frances, Edmund Burke, William Pitt, Thomas Jefferson,

Abraham Lincoln, and John XXIII.”283 James Reston observed, “deprived of the place he

sought in history, he has been given in compensation a place in legend.” Yet others saw

“a much shallower and less accomplished figure than most Americans remembered” and

that is what this dissertation, unfortunately, concludes about JFK’s leadership in urban

affairs.284

Robert Steele, In Love With the Night: The American Romance with Robert

Kennedy, showed how Robert Kennedy helped perpetuate the legend, turning himself into a continuation of it. In fact, RFK emerged after the assassination as a stronger symbol of “what might have been” than did his brother, concerning poverty.285 Robert

Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, cites that a lasting issue

regarding JFK is one of striking contrasts, many kept out of public scrutiny, producing an

exceptionally popular president, but one nonetheless with many pronounced flaws.286

Three examples sum these contrasts and end this story of John F. Kennedy and the

American city, the urban programs of the New Frontier 1961-1963. RFK found a scrap of paper from JFK’s last cabinet meeting, and on it, “the president had scribbled the word

‘poverty’ several times and circled it.”287 Why this became circled with so much interest

in late November 1963, but not during his other chances to implement a much needed

“early” workable solution, in June 1961, in February 1962, or October/November 1962, 553

is unknown. Secondly, Kennedy supposedly had “seen” poverty first hand in the West

Virginia primary, followed the press and popular magazines, had read Michael

Harrington’s The Other America which described life in Harlem as “haunted” by racism

and poverty, and supposedly knew that for many of JFK’s African-American supporters,

“death is often the only time when there was real luxury,” represented by a good

funeral.288 Yet Kennedy did little until it was too late. Even Dave Hackett when asked, did he know “how the President reached his decision to get involved in this effort

(poverty)?” had to respond, “No I really don’t.”289 Bob Weaver reiterated in a mid-June

1963 speech, “Sophisticated whites realize that the status of Negroes in our society

depends not only upon what the Negro does to achieve his goals…but even more, upon

what all America does to expand those opportunities.”290

Lastly as a sophisticated “white,” JFK never put compassion above politics and the

poor paid the price in “the enduring ghetto.” After Dallas, LBJ’s “compassionate ineptitude” became apparent in the very poor neighborhoods where unhappily, in the previous nearly “thousand days” little had changed. The reformers had given their

advice, and the excluded Weaver his speeches, but as Simon and Garfunkel warned

during the fires, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls.”291 Kennedy unfortunately would only have a “little flame,” kept alive

“forever” in Arlington National Cemetery at a peaceful site near the Potomac, but for many in America’s cities, at the end of the New Frontier, the only “torch passed to a new generation” was in the streets. 554

End Notes To Chapter Ten

1. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 100, is the source of this quote. The word “Fragments” as generic as it may be, in this specific instance is referenced from the title of a novel about the tragic life of a Vietnam Veteran of the same era, by Jack Fuller, Fragments (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997).

2. Paper, Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr., “The Competent Community,” 11, 22, distributed as part of the Participant Packet for, “The Federal Government and Urban Poverty,” a Conference of the Florence Heller School of Social Work at Brandies University and the John F. Kennedy Library, June 16-17, 1973, TJFKL. The Conference “per se” is hereafter referenced as the “Brandies Conference.” As with Cotrell and his work, this very important conference included almost all of the Kennedy “social city” and “war on poverty” planners mentioned in this chapter, except Robert Kennedy, Robert Weaver, and a couple who were invited but could not attend. I was invited, attended, and to the extent that a graduate student does, participated in this conference. I was able to take individual notes and talk to most of the official participants both formally, and informally at the “socials,” noting their emphasis and focal points. Thus, these are emphasized within this chapter. For the “official” material used, each participant received a substantial packet of items including both copies of primary source documents as well as secondary sources, such as excerpts from books and articles, plus chronologies. At the conference as well, I highlighted points of emphasis on those as well, giving some items therefore the flavor of primary source materials. These items are used robustly throughout this chapter and referenced as the Brandies Conference. Packets were prepared by Larry J. Hackman and Joan Ellen Marci of The John F. Kennedy Library. Also see Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 347, referencing JFK’s program being piecemeal and Gelfand is the first to label JFK’s PCJD-OJD element as “the reformers,” page 321, who will be thoroughly discussed later in this chapter.

3. Lawrence M. Mead, “The New Politics of the New Poverty,” Public Interest 103 (1991): 18.

4. Ibid., 18-20.

5. Ibid., 19.

6. Richard C. Wade, “The Enduring Ghetto: Urbanization and the Color Line in American History,” Journal of Urban History 17, No. 1 (1990): 9-12. The phrase “enduring ghetto,” as cited in previous chapters and used as a reference on occasion in this one is attributed Prof. Wade.

555

7. James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, (1996), 467. As well, when using the phrase “grand expectations” or “grand illusions,” on occasion in this Chapter it is attributed to Prof. Patterson’s book; Daniel P. Moynihan, “The Professors and the Poor,” Commentary 46, No. 2 (1968): 20.

8. John Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 203, 204.

9. Patterson, Grand Expectations, 461, 465.

10. George Sternlieb, “Planning American Style,” Society 25, No. 1 (1987): 22.

11. Simon Sebag Montefiore, “An Affair to Remember,” The New York Review of Books LII, No. 3 (February 24, 2005): 33.

12. The John F. Kennedy Library, Poverty and Urban Policy: Conference Transcript of 1973 Group Discussion of the Kennedy Administration Urban Programs and Policies, Part II, 326, Undated, Official Transcripts of the Florence Heller School of Social Work at Brandies University and the TJFKL Conference at Brandies University, 16-17 June 1973, TJFKL.

13. Memorandum For the President From Walter Heller, 1, 2, December 16, 1962, Staff Memos: Dutton-Holbron, President’s Office File, 63, TJFKL.

14. Participant Packet, Excerpts from Richard Blumenthal, “Community Action: The Origins of a Government Program,” Harvard University Undergraduate Thesis, 1967, 34, handed out at the Brandeis Conference, 16-17 June 1973, TJFKL.

15. Ibid., 40.

16. James T. Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 98, 125.

17. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part II, 342, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

18. Facts About Housing the Nonwhite Population, 2, Undated, Equal Opportunity in Housing - Executive Order, 11-20-62, WHSF, Burke Marshall, 33, TJFKL.

19. Diane E. Gold, Housing Market Discrimination: Causes and Effects of Slum Formation (New York: Praeger, 1980), 96-99; James D. Wright and Julie A. Lam, “Homelessness and The Low-Income Housing Supply,” Social Policy 17, No. 4 (1987): 48.

20. Terrence M. McDonald and Sally K. Ward, eds., The Politics of Urban Fiscal Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1984), 17. 556

21. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 63, 125, 127, 155, 157.

22. R. Anders Schneiderman, “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Rise and Fall of the U.S. Welfare State,” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1994), 31.

23. Margaret Garb, “The Cost of Cost Analysis: Changing Agendas in Poverty Research,” Reviews in American History 29, No. 4(2001): 591.

24. Brian Balogh, Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structures, and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Turbulent Decade (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 81-86.

25. Oral Interview of Gerald J. Gross by William A. Foley, Jr., 1-3, March 31, 1977 at Boston University. Mr. Gross, then Boston University’s Vice-President for Administration, related that when he was at Macmillan as Harrington’s book was being considered, it was very nearly turned down, and right at the end they took a chance and published it. Books about “Touch Football” were more popular at the time.

26. James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992), 118, 119.

27. Balogh, Integrating the Sixties, 88-90.

28. Ibid., 91-93.

29. Oral Interview of Burke Marshall by Larry Hackman, 66, January 19, 20, 1970, KLOHP, TJFKL.

30. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997), 23; Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 38.

31. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” Undated, for the Brandies Conference.

32. Oral Interview of David Hackett by John W. Douglas, 72-86, July 22, 1970, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, The John F. Kennedy Library.

33. Report, “The Role of A Youth Conservation Corps and Other Programs In Meeting the Problems of Unemployed Youth,” 1, January 30, 1961, Legislation: Youth Conservation Corps, 1/30/61-3/31/61, White Staff Files, Lee C. White, 9, TJFKL; TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 1, 2, Undated, Handout Materials for Brandies Conference, TJFKL. 557

34. Statement of Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN) April 6, 1961, Proceedings and Debates of the 87th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 107, Part 4 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 5454.

35. Oral Interview of David Hackett by John W. Douglas, 69-71, July 21, 1970, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, TJFK.

36. Memo and Comments about the JD Act, 1, September 22, 1961, Research on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offences Control Act, Presidential Office Files, 35, TJFKL; Department of Justice, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Department of Labor, “The Federal Delinquency Program, Objectives and Operation Under the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, and the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offices Control Act of 1961, (PL 87-274), 1, November 1962, Government Commissions and Presidential Committees, Sub Folder: President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

37. Required Reading Materials, David Knapp and Kenneth Polk, Scouting the War on Poverty: Social Reform Politics in the Kennedy Administration (Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1971), 27, 28.

38. Ibid., 28, 29; Introductory Material, List of Participants and Short Biographies, 2, “The Federal Government and Urban Poverty, A Conference of the Florence Heller School of Social Work at Brandies University and the John F. Kennedy Library, June 16- 17, 1973, TJFKL; Oral Interview David Hackett, 73, KLOHP, TJFKL.

39. Ibid., List of Participants and Short Biographies, 1, 2, 3.

40. Ibid., 1-4.

41. Ibid., 1-4.

42. Daniel P. Moynihan, “The Professors and The Poor,” Commentary 46, No., 2 (1968): 23.

43. Frances Fox Pevin and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971), 256, Excerpts used as handout materials, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

44. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 67-69, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

45. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 4, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

558

46. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 76-78, KLOHP, Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 69, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

47. Department of Justice, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Department of Labor, “The Federal Delinquency Program, Objectives and Operation Under the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, and the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offices Control Act of 1961, (PL 87-274), 1, November 1962, Government Commissions and Presidential Committees, Sub Folder: President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

48. TJFKL, Poverty and Urban Policy: Conference Transcript of 1973 Group Discussion of the Kennedy Administration Urban Policy Programs and Policies, Part I, 10, Undated, Official Transcript of Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

49. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 69, 70, 71, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

50. Oral Interview of David Hackett by John W. Douglas, 2, July 22, 1970, Kennedy Library Oral History Program, TJFKL.

51. DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 4, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

52. Ibid., 4.

53. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 68, 69, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

54. Ibid., 70, 71, 73.

55. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 77-78, KLOHP, TJFKL.

56. DOJ, HEW,DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Programs…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 3, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

57. Ibid., 3, 4.

58. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 15, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

59. Patterson, Struggle Against Poverty, 133, 134; Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 22-33, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

60. Edmund M. Burke, “Have the Poor Wrecked Johnson’s War on Poverty?” Antioch Review 26, No. 4, (1966/1967): 452-454.

559

61. Patterson, Struggle Against Poverty, 135; Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 45- 52, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

62. Participant Packet, Excerpts from Frances Fox Pevin and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971) 249-251, 260, 274, handed out at Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

63. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part II, 311, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

64. Ibid., 363.

65. Moynihan, “Professors and the Poor,” Commentary, 25.

66. Ibid., 25.

67. Leonard S. Cotrell, “The Competent Community,” 16, 23-33, paper delivered at the University of North Carolina, November 30, 1972, Participant Packet, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

68. DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 5, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

69. TJFKL, “Summary of the Three Year Kennedy Period,” Juvenile Delinquency Act Extension, 21, Published January 30, 2002, http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/JFK_leg_records, html; TJFKL “Reference Chronology, 1961-164,” 2, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

70. Legislative Accomplishments, 87th Congress, 1st and 2nd Sessions, 9, Undated, Legislative Files 1961-1964, Legislative Accomplishments 1962, WHStaff F, Theodore Sorensen, 58, TJFKL.

71. DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA….,” 11, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

72. Accomplishments of the Kennedy Administration, 1961-1964, “Accounting of Stewardship,” 60, Undated, Subject File: Accomplishments, 1961, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 69, NARA.

73. Cotrell, “Competent,” Paper, 12, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

74. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 4-7, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

75. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 77-81, KLOHP, TJFKL.

560

76. DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA….,” 6, 10, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

77. TJFKL, Conference Transcripts, Part I, 31, Undated, Brandies Conference; Oral Interview, David Hackett, 80-83, KLOHP, TJFKL.

78. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 3, 4, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJKFL; POJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 10, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

79. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 72, KLOHP; DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 10, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

80. DOJ, HEW, DOL Report, “Federal Delinquency Program…PCJD and JDYOCA…,” 11, November 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD and Youth Crime, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA; TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 3, 4, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

81. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 92-96, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

82. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 72-76, KLOHP, TJFKL.

83. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 7, 8, 95-105, 120, 121, 185-190, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

84. TJFKL, Conference Transcripts, Part I, 73-75, 134, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

85. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 4, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc., “Youth in the Ghetto: A Study of the Consequences of Powerlessness and a Blueprint for Change,” 61-65, 75, Published by HARYOU, New York 1964, Brandies Conference Materials, TJFKL.

86. Ibid., 61-67.

87. Ibid., 67.

88. Ibid., 70.

89. Ibid., 72.

90. James Q. Wilson, “The Flamboyant Mr. Powell,” Commentary Magazine 41, No. 1(January 1966): Summary, Commentary archive, Available from World Wide Web: 561 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V4111P33-1.htm; Judson Knight, “Clark, Kenneth Bancroft (1914-2005),” Look Smart: Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1, Available from World Wide Web: http://www.Findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0004/ai_2699000413/print; Malcolm X, “Malcolm X Speaks at HARYOU-Act Forum,” Harlem, New York. December 12, 1964, part I: 28 minutes, 48 seconds recorded, 1:14 on taped video, Available from World Wide Web, Malcolm X: A Research Site, x. http://www.brothermalcolm.net/mxwords/mxwords.html -192k.

91. Ibid., 76-80.

92. Burke, “Poor…Wrecked?” Antioch, 447, 448; Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty,

93. Remarks to PCJD in the Rose Garden, 1, May 31, 1962, PCJD 5/331/62, POF,38, TJFKL.

94. Burke, “Poor…Wrecked?” Antioch, 448, 449.

95. Cotrell, “Competent.” Paper, 16-20, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

96. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 81, KLOHP, TJFKL.

97. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 35-38, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

98. Ibid., 39-42.

99. Letter to Paul Ylvisaker from Robert Weaver, 1, August 15, 1962, Ford Foundation 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

100. Memo to Flora Hatcher from Robert Weaver, 1, April 6, 1962, Community Group Relations (Hatcher), 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

101. Memo to Robert Weaver from David Hackett, 1, August 23, 1962, Government Commissions and Presidential Committees, Sub Folder: PCJD, RG 07, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89 NARA.

102. Memo to Robert Weaver from Morton Schussheim, 1, June 15, 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

103. To: “Addressees Listed Below” From Morton Schussheim, 1, October 1, 1962, OPP – Housing Research, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 92, NARA.

104. Record of PCJD Meetings, 1, December 7, 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

562

105. Memo to Attorney General from Burke Marshall, 1, June 14, 1962, HS 3 Urban Renewal – Slum Clearance, 1-20-60 to 10-15-62 White House Central Subject Files, 357, TJFKL; also located in Chronological Files, Burke Marshall, 1, TJFKL.

106. Record of PCJD Meeting, 1, December 14, 1962, Gov. Com. and Pres. Com., Sub Folder: PCJD (Weaver), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

107. Blumenthal, “Community Action,” 31, Harvard Thesis, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

108. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 74-77, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

109. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 167.

110. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 110, 111, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

111. Ibid., 112.

112. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 83, KLOHP, TJFKL.

113. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 4, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

114. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 76, 77, KLOHP, TJFKL.

115. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 71, KLOHP, TJFKL.

116. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 112, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

117. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 76, KLOHP, TJFKL.

118. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 4, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

119. Weekly Report to the White House, from Weaver, 3, January 24, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House, 1963, Housing and Urban Development, Records Group 207, Subject Correspondence File, Robert C. Weaver, 119, National Archives Records Administration, WRWH, 2, May 28, 1963, Weekly Report to the White House , RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 119, NARA.

120. Memo to Robert Weaver from Walter Heller, 1, January 25, 1963, Government Agency: Council of Economic Advisors, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA; Memo to Walter Heller from Robert Weaver, 1, October 21, 1963, Government Agency: CEA, 1963, RG207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA.

563

121. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 6, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

122. Blumenthal, “Community Action,” Harvard Thesis, 31-35, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

123. Patterson, Struggle Against Poverty, 130.

124. Patterson, Grand Expectations, 130; Blumenthal, “Community Action,” Harvard Thesis, 38-40, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

125. Blumenthal, “Community Action,” Harvard Thesis, 38, 39, 40, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

126. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 109, Reference Material, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

127. Giglio, Presidency…Kennedy, 117, 118,119.

128. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 141, 149, 150, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

129. Ibid., 141.

130. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 141-146, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

131. Moynihan, “Professors and the Poor,” Commentary, 21.

132. Memo to Robert Weaver from Walter Heller, 1, October 30, 1963, Government Agency: CEA 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA.

133. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 6, 7, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

134. Memorandum to the Attorney General from David Hackett, 1, November 6, 1963, Participant Packet, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

135. Ibid., 2, 3.

136. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 87, KLOHP, TJFKL.

137. Ibid., 88-91.

138. Memorandum to Walter Heller from David Hackett, 1-6, November 6, 1963, Brandies Conference, TJFKL. 564

139. Ibid., 3-5.

140. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 171-173, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

141. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 83, 84, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

142. Ibid., 141, 142, 149, 154, 156, 168.

143. Ibid., 140-148; 1964 Legislative Programs for “Widening Participation in Prosperity” – An Attack on Poverty (Administratively Confidential), 1, 2, November 15, 1963, Government Agency: Council of Economic Advisors, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA.

144. Ibid., 2-11.

145. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 169, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

146. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 150-155, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

147. Ibid., 39, 40.

148. Ibid., 43.

149. Ibid., 151, 155, 156.

150. Ibid., 164.

151. Ibid., 168.

152. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 7, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

153. Blumenthal, “Community Action,” Harvard Thesis, 38-40, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

154. Giglio, Presidency…Kennedy, 117, 118, 119.

155. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 169, 170, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

156. Ibid., 165-177.

157. Ibid., 177-180. 565

158. TJFKL, “Reference Chronology, 1961-1964,” 7, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part I, 178, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

159. Memo to Robert Weaver from Walter Heller, 1, December 18, 1963, Government Agency: CEA, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA; Memorandum to Theodore Sorensen of eight pages entitled “Poverty Program,” from Walter Heller, 1, 2, Undated, Government Agency: CEA, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA.

160. Ibid., to Sorensen from Heller, 2-8.

161. Memo to Theodore Sorensen from Walter Heller, Official Copy, “Poverty Program," 1-11, Government Agency: CEA, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 111, NARA.

162. Ibid., 3, and Attachment B of same memo.

163. TJFKL, Conference Transcripts, Part I, 179, 180, Undated, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 168.

164. Ibid., Conference Transcripts, Part I, 178, 179.

165. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 90, 91, KLOHP, TJFKL.

166. James N. Giglio, review of Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver, by Scott Strossel, The Journal of American History 92, No., 1 (June 2005): 299-300.

167. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 243.

168. Patterson, Struggle Against Poverty, 133, 137.

169. Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times: 1961-1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 79, 226.

170. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 243.

171. Knapp and Polk, War on Poverty, 131, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

172. Blumenthal, “Community Action,” Harvard Thesis, 80, 92, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

173. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 109, KLOHP, TJFKL.

174. Dallek, Flawed Giant, 62, 227.

566

175. Excerpts from Pevin and Cloward, Regulating…Poor, 257, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

176. Edmund M. Burke, “Have the Poor Wrecked Johnson’s War on Poverty?” Antioch Review 26, No. 4 (1966/1967): 451.

177. Excerpts from Pevin and Cloward, Regulating…Poor, 265, 267, 268, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

178. Ibid., 271.

179. Excerpts from Pevin and Cloward, Regulating…Poor, 259, footnote 10, Brandies Conference, TJFKL.

180. Ibid., 259, 260.

181. Ibid., 261-266, 280-281; TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Parts I and II, 29, 59, 135, 273, 406, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; Excerpts from Pevin and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, 259, 267, Brandies Conference, TJFKL; Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 444, 445.

182. TJFKL, Conference Transcript, Part II, 301-303, The Official Transcript of Brandies Conference, TJFKL; Dallek, Flawed Giant, 317-335, 392-393, 401-405; Bennett Harrison, “The Participation of Ghetto Residents in the Model Cities Program,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners (January 1973): 43; Gertrude Sipperly Fish, The History of Housing (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1979), 349; Dallek, Flawed Giant, 316-336, 393, 401-405.

183. Patterson, Struggle Against Poverty, 129; Dallek, Flawed Giant, 249,329, 533- 536, 551.

184. David Chalmers, And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 62.

185. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 91, KLOHP, TJFKL.

186. HHFA Programs that Relate to the Concern of the Attorney General’s Office with Youth and Juvenile Delinquency, 1, June 27, 1961, Ford Foundation 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA. Also see M. Carter McFarland, Federal Government and Urban Problems: HUD Successes, Failures and the Fate of Our Cities (Boulder: Westview, 1978) 228, 229.

187. Ibid., 2-4.

188. Ibid., 5-7. 567

189. Memo to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 2, July 24, 1961, Programs for Community Improvement (Memos), 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA.

190. Oral Interview of Robert Weaver by Mort Schussheim, 21, 22, December 19, 1985, KLOHP, TJFKL.

191. Memo to Robert Weaver from Wayne Phillips, 1, August 22, 1963, Office of Public Affairs, Policy Memo 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 115, NARA.

192. Memo to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 1, August 16, 1962, General Council: General, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

193. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 64, KLOHP, TJFKL.

194. Staff Memorandum No. 169, HHFA, 1, November 9, 1962, Office of Metropolitan Development, 1963, Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 117, NARA.

195. Memo to Robert Weaver from Victor Fischer, 1, October 1, 1963, as attachment to Transmittal Slip dated October 15, 1963, Office of Metropolitan Development, 1963, Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 117, NARA.

196. Memo with attachments to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 1, May 4, 1962, Program for Community Development Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Letter to Louis Hunter from Robert Weaver, 1, May 17, 1962, Government Agency, General Accounting Office, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 89, NARA.

197. Memo to All Regional Administrators from Ben Perry, 1, January 31, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Memos), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from Ben Perry, 1, January 31, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Memos), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA; Report, “HHFA Programs for Small Communities,” 5-10, 2/1/62, Urban Affairs, 11/60-6/62, WHSF, Meyer Feldman, 20, TJFKL.

198. Platform Item #14, 3, Undated, White House – President 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA. This lengthy document established the 1964 Platform ideas and compared them to 1960.

199. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Louis Wetmore, 1-4, February 24, 1961, Program for Community Development 1963 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 115, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from Louis Wetmore, 1, March 1, 1961, Program for Community Development 1963 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 115, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 1, May 23, 1961, Program for Community Development (Memos), 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA.

568

200. Letter to Mr. Thomas from Pierre Salinger, 1, November 31, 1961, HS 3, 6-26-61 – 6-26-62, WHCF, 357, TJFKL; Memo to B. T. McGraw from F. David Clarke, 1, August 4, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Memos) 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA; Letter to William Ashborne from B. T. McGraw, 1, September 13, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Workable Programs), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA; Letter to Berl Bernhard from Jack Conway, 1, July 9, 1961, GC and PC 1961, Subject File: Commission on Civil Rights, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 61, NARA.

201. Memo to All Regional Administrators from Robert Weaver, 1-3, December 6, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Memos) 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA.

202. Memo to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 1, 2, December 6, 1961, Program for Community Improvement (Memos) 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 66, NARA. This includes a “Proposal for Citizen Participation” of eight legal size pages.

203. Memo to Robert Weaver from David Clarke, 1, March 22, 1962, Program for Community Improvement (Policy Memos) 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

204. HHFA Field Activities, 1-11, Undated, Organization – Field Activities, Weaver 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 70, NARA; Memo to Heads of Constituent Agencies and Units from Robert Weaver, 1-4, December 28, 1961, ADM., Policy Memos Jun 1 – Dec 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD SCF, RCW, 68, NARA; Memo to William Slayton from Regional Administrator, Region VI, 1-3, April 13, 1961, Subject File: Highway Coordination and General Urban Planning 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 68, NARA; Memo to Mort Schussheim from Carter McFarland, 1-5, May 10, 1961, Subject File: Highway Coordination and General Urban Planning 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 68, NARA.

205. To Heads of Constituent Agencies from Weaver. 1-3, November 20, 1961, Adm. Policy Memos Jan 1 - December 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA; Questions for Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1-5, December 13, 14, 1962, Advisory Commission on Inter-governmental Relations, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

206. Letter to William Dawson from Robert Weaver, 1-3, May 24, 1962, Congressional Commission on Governmental Operations, Senate/House, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA; Distribution for Robert Weaver 1, June 29, 1962, ADM – Budget, Jan 1 – Jun 30, 1962, PG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 86, NARA.

207. Memo to the President from Brooks Hays, 1-3, May 15, 1963, Memoranda (Dutton – Holborn) Hays-Brooks Memos, POF, 63, TJFKL.

569

208. Carl Feiss, “The Foundations of Federal Planning Assistance: A Personal Account of the 701 Program,” Journal of the American Planning Association 51, No. 2 (1985): 175, 176.

209. Brochure, HHFA Aids to Communities in Area Redevelopment, 1, 2, 6-9, Undated, 1961 Commerce Department, Area Redevelopment Act, Weaver, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

210. Memo to Robert Weaver from Hugh Mields, 1, 3, July 19, 1961, 1961 Congressional Liaison, (Policy Memos), RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from Regional Administrator, Region VI, 1, 2, June 20, 1961, Highway Coordination and General Urban Planning, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 68, NARA.

211. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from L. R. Durkee, 2, October 21, 1961, Subject File: Department of Urban Affairs, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 70, NARA.

212. Memo to Robert Weaver from Victor Fischer, 1, 2, October 23, 1963, URA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 118, NARA.

213. Report, FHA-URA-PHA Coordination in Planning of Low and Moderate Income Housing in Urban Renewal Areas and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1964, 1-5, October 21, 1963, OPP Policy 1963 Policy Memos, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 114, NARA; Memo to Robert Weaver from Milton Semer, 1, October 5, 1961, URA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA.

214. Oral Interview of Jack Conway by Larry Hackman, 65, April 10, 1972, KLOHP, TJFKL.

215. Assistance to Housing and Community Development Through Programs of the Housing and Finance Agency, Accomplishments of the Kennedy Administration, 23, 24, July 1, 1963, Accomplishments HHFA - Anti-Recession, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA.

216. Report and Memo to Lee C. White from William Batt, 1-8, October 11, 1961, ARA, Files 7/31/61 – 10/21/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 1, TJFKL.

217. Gordon E. Reckord, “The Development Dilemma- Local Choice and National Policy,” Canadian Association for American Studies Bulletin 3, No., 3 (1968): 76-80; Letter to Brent Spence from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, Date cannot be read, Bureau of the Budget, July 1 – December 31, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 58, NARA.

218. Memorandum to Regional Directors with Attachment for CFA Regional Conference, 1-3, August 25, 1961, CFA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA.

570

219. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Urban Renewal Commissioner, 1, February 24, 1961, Subject File: Highway Coordination and General Urban Planning, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 68, NARA.

220. Letter to Douglas Dillon from Robert Weaver, 1-3, October 11, 1961, Treasury Department 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 71, NARA; Memo to Sidney Woolner from Robert Weaver, 1, December 23, 1961, OPP Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 65, NARA.

221. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Sidney Woolner, 1, April 30, 1962, CFA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA.

222. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Sidney Woolner, 1-3, September 22, 1962, CFA Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 87, NARA; Letter to Elmer Staats from Milton Semer, with Report “Metropolitan Planning Commission, 1, August 20, 1962, Government Agency: Bureau of the Budget, July 1 – December 31, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA.

223. Memo and Report to Robert Weaver from Sidney Woolner, “A Compliance Role for the Federal Government in Helping Meet the Public Facility Needs of Local Communities,” 1-3, September 25, 1963, CFA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 108, NARA.

224. Memo to All Regional Administrators from John F. Frantz, 1, March 8, 1961, CFA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 59, NARA; Report Community Facilities Administration, 1-3, Undated (11-5-63), CFA Policy Memos 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 108, NARA.

225. Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 317, 318.

226. Platform Item #12, 2, Undated, White House - President 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA.

227. Suggested List of Legislative Priorities, 2nd Session, 87th Congress, 1, June 11, 1962, Legislative Files 6/1 – 11/62, POF, 51, TJFKL.

228. Oral Interview, Jack Conway, 103, KLOHP, TJFKL.

229. Memo with Large Report on the Progress of Housing and Urban Affairs Programs Administered by HHFA, 73-83, August 29, 1962, Accomplishments HHFA – Anti- Recession, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 57, NARA. Also found in Subject File: Middle Income Housing, 1961 as an attachment, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

230. Memo with Large Report to David Bell from Robert Weaver, Section HHFA Urban Transportation Activities, 4, May 9, 1962, Government Agency: Bureau of the Budget, January 1 – June 30, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 88, NARA. 571

231. Transmittal Slip and Article from the New York Times, December 13, 1961, on Harrison A. Williams, 30, Subject File: Mass Transportation, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

232. Testimony of Robert C. Weaver, HHFA Administrator, HHFA, before Sub Committee Number 3 of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, 3, June 27, 1961, Subject File: Mass Transportation 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Urban Mass Transportation, Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ), 527, January 11, 1961, Legislative Files 1-61/Notes from Congressional Record, POF, 49, TJFKL.

233. Report of the Committee on Banking and Currency: House of Representatives, 87th Congress, 2nd Session on H.R. 11158, Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1962, 2, July 3, 1962 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), Subject File: Mass Transportation 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF. RCW, 67, NARA; Gelfand, Nation of Cities, 319, 321, 326.

234. Summary of Administration’s Mass Transportation Bill, 1, May 14, 1962, HHFA 2-6-62 to 11-12-62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 6, TJFKL; Legislative Items Recommended by the President, 9, June 4, 1962, Legislative File 6/1-11/62, POF, 51 TJFKL; Statement of Robert C. Weaver, HHFA Administrator, Before the Housing Sub Committee of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency on Urban Mass Transit Legislation, 1-4, April 24, 1962, Office of Transportation, Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

235. Legislative Items Recommended by the President, 6, September 24, 1962, Legislative Files 9/19-29/62, POF, 52, TJFKL.

236. Memo For the President From Larry O’Brien, 1, January 9, 1963, Legislative Files 1/63, POF, 52, TJFKL; Memo For the President From Larry O’Brien, 1, 2, January 28, 1963, Legislative Files 1/63, POF, 52, TJFKL.

237. Letter to John Kennedy from Robert Weaver, 1, 2, February 16, 1963, Chronological File, 1963, 1-5, WHSF, Lee C. White, 1, TJFKL; Letter to he President from Robert Weaver with attachments, 1, February 18, 1963, White House President 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 120, NARA.

238. Action Status of Presidential Recommendations, 1, November 1, 1963, Legislative Files, 4/63-11/63, POF, 53, TJFKL; To John Kennedy from Larry O’Brien, 3, July 2, 1963, Legislative Files, July 2, 1963, POF, 53, TJFKL.

239. Oral Interview of Robert C. Weaver by Daniel P. Moynihan, II, 146, 147, May 6, 1964, KLOHP, TJFKL.

240. Ibid., 126-130.

572

241. Alan A. Altshuler, “Changing Patterns of Policy: The Decision Making Environment of Urban Transportation,” Public Policy 25, No., 2 (1977): 174-180, 181- 183.

242. Ibid., 180-181.

243. Staff Memorandum Number 156, HHFA, 1, 2, October 31, 1961, Office of Transportation Policy Memos, 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA; Letter to David E. Bell from Robert C. Weaver, 1-3, November 29, 1961, Subject File: Mass Transportation, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

244. Insert for Page 1624, Transcript of Hearing of HHFA, Office Administrator, “Proposed Demonstration Projects for Urban Mass Transportation, 1-5, Undated, Subject File: Mass Transportation, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Urban Transportation Demonstration Program, 1-6, Undated, Subject File: Mass Transportation, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

245. News Release, HHFA Office of the Administrator, 1-3, May 21, 1961, Subject File: Mass Transportation, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

246. HHFA, “Proposed Urban Transportation Program,” 2, 3, Undated, Office of Transportation, Policy Memos 1962, RG 204, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

247. News Release, White House, Message on Transportation, 9, April 4, 1962, Office of Transportation Policy Memos, 1963, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 93, NARA.

248. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from John C. Kohl, 1, 2, August 8, 1963, Office of Transportation Policy Memos 1962, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 115, NARA.

249. Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Commissioner PHA, 1, 2, December 15, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA; Letter to JFK from Robert Classon, 1, March 17, 1961, PHA Policy Memos 1961, Correspondence Veterans, White House Central Files, 356, TJFKL; Memo to Robert C. Weaver from Marie McGuire, 1, December 19, 1961, PHA Policy Memos, 1961, RG 207, HUD, SCF, RCW, 67, NARA.

250. Michael Knox Beran, The Last Patrician: Bobby Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 128, 129.

251. Clarence Taylor, The Black Churches of Brooklyn (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 113-119, 131-139, 140-143.

252. Joseph A. Palermo, In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Columbia University Press 2001), 166, 167, 168.

253. Beran, Last Patrician, 128, 135, 154. 573

254. Ruth Bryant Mitchell, “Changes in Bedford-Stuyvesant,” Crisis 84, No., 1, (1977): 12-15: Beran, Last Patrician, 165.

255. Ibid., Mitchell, 14-18; Beran, 164-165.

256. Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 247-250.

257. Robert L. Lyon, “The Kennedy Proposal,” Realtor, October (1967): 9-10.

258. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 91, KLOHP, TJFKL.

259. Clarence Taylor, Black Churches, 140-160.

260. Lucy G. Barger, Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 141.

261. Jon C. Teaford, The Twentieth–Century American City (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 127; John Atlas and Peter Dreier, “The Housing Crisis and the Tenants’ Revolt,” Social Policy 10, No., 4 (1980): 13, 14.

262. Susan Olzak and Suzanne Shanahan, “Deprivation and Race Riots: An Extension of Spilerman’s Analysis,” Social Forces 74, No., 3 (1996): 934.

263. Stanley Lieberson and Arnold Silverman, “The Precipitants and Underlying Conditions of Race Riots,” American Sociological Review 30, No., 6 (1965): 887-898; David T. Cartwright, “Violence in America,” American Heritage 47, No., 5 (1996): 48- 51.

264. Daniel Steigerwald, The Sixties and the End of Modern America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 210, 211.

265. Olzak, and Shanahan, “Deprivation…Riots,” Social Forces, 934, 935.

266. Palermo, Odyssey…RFK, 169.

267. William Dudley, ed., The 1960s: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997), 255, 256.

268. Palermo, Odessey…RFK, 169, 170.

269. Victor Lasky, J.F.K. The Man and the Myth (New York: Dell, 1963) and Louis J. Paper, The Promise and the Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975), were the first to discuss the “Politics of Promise.”

574

270. Michael Zweig, ed., What’s Class Got to Do With It? American Society in the Twenty-First Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 46, 47.

271. Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording, Race and Politics of Welfare Reform (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 61.

272. Ibid., 110, 111.

273. H. Mark Roelofs, The Poverty of American Politics: A Theoretical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 143.

274. Frances Fox Pevin and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 205.

275. Frances Fox Pevin and Richard A. Cloward, The Breaking of the American Social Compact (New York: The New Press, 1997), 295.

276. Daniel P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty (New York: The Free Press, 1969), 111.

277. Daniel P. Moynihan, ed., On Understanding Poverty: Perspectives From the Social Sciences (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1969), 375.

278. Louis Menand, “He Knew He Was Right: The Tragedy of Barry Goldwater,” The New Yorker March 26, 2001:94.

279. John O. Norquist, The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1998) 12, 13.

280. Michael B. Katz, Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, The Underclass,” and Urban Schools as History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 83.

281. Presidential Popularity (Gallup Poll Results), 1, Undated, Polls-General Polls, Race for U.S. Senator – Indiana, POF, 105, TJFKL; Alan Brinkley, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 212, 213.

282. “Kennedy Scores Low 5% on Requests to Congress,” Washington Post, Sunday, August 4, 1963, Legislative Files, 8/2 -12/63, POF, 53, TJFKL.

283. Robert Thompson, “Nation Has Worked Away from Ideals of JFK,” Boston Herald Advertiser (Sunday), July 29, 1973, Section 6, P. 25.

284. Brinkley, Liberalism, 214, 215.

285. Ronald Steel, In Love With the Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 98. 575

286. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003), 706, 707.

287. Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy’s His Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 280.

288. Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty In the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), 68, 71.

289. Oral Interview, David Hackett, 84, KLOHP, TJFKL.

290. Speech by Robert C. Weaver, “The Negro As An American,” 15, June 13, 1963, A Housing General Correspondence, Civil Rights, 6/1-6/15, 1963, Personal Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, 9, TJFKL.

291. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence, LP, Folk-rock, Recorded March 1964 and December 1965, Released January 17, 1966, Producer Bob Johnston, Columbia Records, ASIN: B00005NKKV. 576

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliographical Statement

Researched at the John F. Kennedy Library, the National Archives and Records Administration, and at several other research libraries plus using some private sources, this dissertation uses a large quantity of primary source material. For the John F. Kennedy Library, some collections and several oral interviews had portions sanitized, which may be available to scholars in the future which I could not access at the time. That presented some difficulties regarding conclusions, but many of those became validated by “combining” and “comparing” outcomes from several documents. As well when researched, the David Bell papers were not available and at least through July 2000, the Brandies Conference materials had portions “sanitized.” Primary Sources • The John F. Kennedy Library, The Papers of John F. Kennedy, the Presidential Papers, 1961-1963, to include significant portions of: President’s Office Files White House Central Subject Files White House Staff Files • The Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General’s General Correspondence Files, numerous boxes in several subject areas. • The John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program, specifically Thirty Oral interviews. • The Papers of John F. Kennedy, the Presidential Papers, Presidential Office Files, Presidential Recordings Transcripts, multiple transcripts on the tax cut. • The John F. Kennedy Library, Educational Resources, Selected Publications. • The John F. Kennedy Library , Brandies Conference on Poverty and Urban Policy, entire collection. • The John F. Kennedy Library, Task Force Reports and United States Government Manuals, 1961-1963. • The John F. Kennedy Library, Housing and Home Financing Agency (HHFA) Microfilms, NK-15. • National Archives and Records Administrations, Record Groups 207, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Subject Correspondence Files, Robert C. Weaver, 1961-1963, the entire collection using 126 manuscript boxes. • Oral Interviews or discussions I conducted with John McCormick, Fred O’R. Hayes, William Capron, and discussions with Harris Wofford on the Larry King show, plus an in depth oral interview of Gerald Gross. • Discussions and private correspondence with Robert C. Weaver. • Newspapers, primary source government publications as the Annual Reports of the Housing and Home Finance Agency over four years and the Budget of the United States over four years, plus numerous government organization manuals plus the Congressional Record, House and Senate and the Federal Register.

577

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Abraham, Kent. “Historical Architecture of Different Feather.” Indiana Preservationist July-August 2001: 2. Ahlbrandt, Roger S. Jr. “Delivery System for Federally-Assisted Housing Services: Constraints, Locational Decisions, and Policy Implications.” Land Economics 50, No. 3 (1974): 243-244. _____. “Public-Private Partnerships for Neighborhood Renewal.” Social Science 488 (1986): 121. Altshuler, Alan A. “Changing Patterns of Policy: The Decision Making Environment of Urban Transportation.” Public Policy 25, No., 2 (1977): 174-180, 181-183. Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “The Housing Crises and Tenants’ Revolt.” Social Policy 10, No. 4 (1980): 10-14. Baker, Russell. “Troublemaker.” The New York Review of Books 51, No. 13 (August 12, 2004): 4. Bauman, John F. “Housing, Architecture, and the Social Change: The British and American Experience.” Journal of Urban History 10, No. 4 (1984): 469. Bauman, John F., Norman P. Hummon, Edward K. Muller. “Public Housing, Isolation, and the Urban Wilderness: Philadelphia’s Richard Allen Homes, 1941-1945.” Journal of Urban History 17, No. 3 (1991): 265. Bayor, Ronald H. “Urban Renewal, Public Housing and the Racial Shaping of Atlanta.” Journal of Policy History 1, No. 4 (1989): 420 Bernard, Andre. “Commonplace Book.” The American Scholar 68, No. 1 (1999): 11. Biggy, John F. “Committee Characteristics and Legislative Oversight of Administration.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 10, No. 1 (1966): 85-87. Bradford, Calvin. “Financing Home Ownership: The Federal Role In Neighborhood Decline.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 14, No. 3 (1979): 319. Braestrup, Peter. “President Urges Vast Housing Aid to Combat Slump.” New York Times March 10, 1961, Vol. CX, No. 37, 1, 14. Bratt, Robert C. and Keating, W. Dennis. “Federal Housing Policy and HUD: Past Problems and Future Prospects of a Beleaguered Bureaucracy.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1993): 4. Bratt, Rachel G. “Federal Constraints and Retrenchment in Housing: The Opportunities and Limits of State and Local Governments.” Journal of Law and Politics 8, No.4 (1992): 651-656. Brauer, Carl M. “Kennedy, Johnson, and the War on Poverty.” Journal of American History 69 (June, 1982): 110-114. Bureau of National Affairs. “The Hot Urban Issue Will be Decided by Big City Republicans.” BNA’s Report for the Business Executive (February 1, 1962): 1, 2, Urban Affairs Message, 1/30/62, WHSF, Lee C. White, 18, TJFKL. Burke, Edmund M. “Have the Poor Wrecked Johnson’s War on Poverty?” Antioch Review 26, No. 4 (1966/1967): 451. Cartwright, David T. “Violence in America.” American Heritage 47, No. 5 (1996): 48-5. Choldin, Harvey M. and Hanson, Claudine. “Status Shifts Within the City.” American Sociological Review 47, No. 1 (1982): 134. 583

Colton, Kent W. “The Future of the Nation’s Housing Finance System: Reform or Paralysis.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 44, No. 3 (1978): 307. Coulibaly, Modibo. “Racial and Income Segregation in Low Income Housing, 1934- 1992.” The Review of Radical Political Economists 25, No. 3 (1993): 105, 106. Danielson, Michael N. “Opening the Suburbs to The Poor.” New York Affairs 3, No. 4 (1976): 85. Downs, Anthony. “The Successes and Failures of the Federal Housing Policy.” Public Interest 34 (1974): 124-125. Editors of House and Home. “An Open Letter to the President.” House and Home Magazine April 1961, 4, as found in HHFA 02/02/61-12/12/61, White House Staff Files, Lee White, General Files, 6, TJFKL. Fearson, Peter. “Urban Strife in Twentieth Century America: A Review Essay.” Urban History Yearbook 17 (1990): 110, 111. Feiss, Carl. “The Foundations of Federal Planning Assistance: A Personal Account of the 701 Program.” Journal of the American Planning Association 51, No. 2 (1985): 175, 176. Flemming, Roy B. “Suburbanization, Segregation and Politics.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 21, No. 3 (1986): 450. Friedman, Avi. “The Evolution of Design Characteristics During the Post-Second World War Housing Boom: The U.S. Experience” Journal of Design History 8, No. 2 (1995): 135. Friedman, Judith J. “Central Business District and Renovated Urban Renewal: Response to Understanding Change.” Social Science Quarterly 58, No. 1 (1977): 45. Fuerst, J. S., and Roy Petty. “High Rise Housing for Low Income Families.” Public Interest 103 (1991): 122. Gans, Herbert J. “The Failure of Urban Renewal: A Critique and Some Proposals.” Commentary 39, No. 4 (1965): 29. Garb, Margaret. “The Cost of Cost Analysis: Changing Agendas in Poverty Research.” Reviews in American History 29, No. 4 (2001): 591. Gardner, Deborah S. “American Urban History: Power, Society and Artifact.” Trends in History 2, no. 1 (1981): 54, 59. George, Paul S., and Thomas K. Petersen. “Liberty Square: 1933- 1987, The Origins and Evolution of a Public Housing Project.” Tequesta 48 (1988): 66, 67. Gilbert, Robert E. "John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights for Black Americans." Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, no. 3 (1982): 393. Gillette, Howard Jr. “The Evolution of the Planned Shopping Center in Suburb and City.” Journal of the American Planning Association 51, No. 4 (1985): 451, 526. ______. “Rethinking American Urban History: New Directions for the Post Urban Era.” Social Science History 14, no. 2 (1990): 210, 211. Goering John M., and Modibo Coulibaly. “Integrating Public Housing Segregation: Conceptual and Methodological Issues.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 25, No. 2 (1989): 271-274. Goldsmith, William W. and Jacobs, Harvey M. “The Improbability of Urban Riot: The Case of the United States.” Journal of American Planning Association 48, no. 1 (1982): 53, 54. 584

Grigsby, William G. “Housing Finance and Subsidies in the United States.” Urban Studies 27, No. 6 (1990): 835. Hall, Peter. “The Turbulent Eighth Decade: Challenges to American City Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 55, No. 3 (1989): 280. Ham, Clifford C. “Urban Renewal: A Case Study in Emerging Goals in an Intergovernmental Setting.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 359 (1965): 46. Hanchett, Thomas W. “U.S. Tax Policy and the Shopping-Center Boom of the 1950s and 1960s.” The American Historical Review 101, No. 4 (1996): 1083. Harris, Richard. “American Suburbs: A Sketch of a New Interpretation.” Journal of American History 15, No. 1 (1988): 98-100. Hartman, Chester W. “Displacement; A Not So New Problem.” Social Policy 9, No. 5 (1979): 23. ______. “The Policies of Housing: Displaced Persons.” Society 9, No. 9 (1972): 54. Hartman, Chester W. and Richard L. LeGates. “Municipal Housing Code Reinforcement and Low-Income Tenants.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 40, No. 2 (1974): 625. Hartman, Chester W. and Gregg Carr. “Housing Authorities Reconsidered.” Journal of the Institute of American Planners 25, No. 1 (1969): 10-11. ______. “Housing the Poor.” Trans-Action 7, No. 2 (1969): 49. Hayden, Dolores. “The Power of the Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History.” Journal of American History 82, No. 4 (1996): 95. Helco, Hugh. “The Sixties False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements, and Postmodern Policy-Making” in Brian Balogh, ed. Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structures, and Legitimacy of Public Policy in a Turbulent Decade University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Henderson, Scott. “Tarred With the Exceptional Image: Public Housing and Popular Discourse.” American Studies 36, No. 1 (1995): 33-36. Hirch, Arnold R. “Massive Resistance in the Urban North: Trumbull Park, Chicago, 1953-1966.” Journal of American History 82, No. 2 (1995): 524. Hoshino, George and Mary Lynch. “Public Housing: A Case Study in Administrative Justice.” Public Welfare 33 No. 3 (1975): 1-3. Houseman, Gerald L. “Access of Minorities to the Suburbs: An Inventory of Policy Approaches.” Urban and Social Change Review 14, No.1 (1981): 13. Ink, Dwight A. “Establishing the New Department of Housing and Urban Development.” Public Administration Review 27, No.3 (1967): 224-228. Kaplan, Samuel. “Them: Blacks in Suburbia.” New York Affairs 3, No. 2 (1976): 33. King, Paul E. “Exclusionary Zoning and Open Housing: A Brief Judicial History.” Geographical Review 68, No. 4 (1978): 459-462. Lazin, Frederick A. “Policy, Perception, and Program Failures: The Politics of Public Housing in Chicago and New York City.” Urbanism Past and Present 9 (1980): 2. LeGates, Richard T. “Municipal Housing Code Enforcement and Low Income Tenants.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 40, No. 2 (1974): 1-5. 585

Leigh, Wilhelmina A. “Civil Rights Legislation and the Housing States of Black Americans: An Overview.” Review of Black Political Economy 19, No. 4 (1991): 11, 12. Levine, Arthur J. “Government as a Partner in Residential Segregation.” Center Magazine 9, No. 2 (1976): 72. Lewis, Earl. “Connecting Memory, Self, and the Power of Place in African-American Urban History.” Journal of Urban History 21, No. 3 (1995): 348. Lewis, Paul C. “Housing and Privatism: The Origins and Evolution of Subsidized Home Ownership Policy.” Journal of Political History 5, No. 1 (1993): 30. Lieberson, Stanley and Arnold R. Silverman. “The Participants and Underlying Conditions of Race Riots.” American Sociological Review 30, no. 6 (1965): 889- 896, researched race riots from 1913 through 1963. Logan, John R. “The Disappearance of Communities From National Urban Policy.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 19, No.1 (1983): 80. Lyon, Robert L. “The Kennedy Proposal” Realtor October (1967): 9-10. Madwick, P. J. “The Problems of Urban Renewal.” Journal of American Studies 5, No. 3 (1971): 265. Marcuse, Peter. “Housing Policy and the Myth of the Benevolent State.” Social Policy 8, No. 4 (1978): 21, 22. McCutchegn, Robert T. Science. Technology and the State in the Provision of Low- Income Accommodations; “The Case of Industrialized House-Building, 1955- 1977.” Social Studies of Science 22 No. 2 (1992): 361-363. McDonald, Terrence J. “The Problem of the Political in Recent American History: Liberal Pluralism and the Rise of Functionalism.” Social History 10, No. 2 1985. McDonald, Terrence J., and Sally K. Ward, eds. The Politics of Urban Fiscal Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1984), 17. Mead, Lawrence M. “The New Politics of the New Poverty.” Public Interest 103 (1991): 9, 11, 15, 18. Menand, Louis. “He Knew He Was Right: The Tragedy of Barry Goldwater.” The New Yorker March 26, 2001:94. Mills, Edwin S. “Non-Urban Policies as Urban Policies.” Urban Studies 24, No. 6 (1987): 561. Mitchell, Ruth Bryant. “Changes in Bedford-Stuyvesant.” Crisis 84, No. 1 (1977): 12-15. Mohl, Raymond A. “Shadows in the Sunshine: Race and Ethnicity in Miami.” Tequesta 49 (1989): 65. Montefiore, Simon Sebag. “An Affair to Remember.” The New York Review of Books LII, No. 3 (February 24, 2005). Mooney, Joseph D. Housing Segregation, Negro Employment and Metropolitan Decentralization: An Alternative Perspective. Quarterly Journal of Economics 83, No. 2 (1969): 301. Moynihan, Daniel P. “Urban Conditions: General.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 371 (1973): 161. ______. “The Professors and the Poor.” Commentary 46, No.2 1968. Murphy, Walter F. “Deeds Under A Doctrine: Civil Liberties in the 1963 Term.” American Political Science Review 59, No. 1 (1965): 75. 586

Nelson, William E. “Federal-City Relations: The Failure of the Urban Reform.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 13, No. 1 (1977) 119. Nenno, Mary K. “Housing Allowances Are Not Enough.” Society 21, No. 3 1984. Nesbitt, George B. and Elfridge Hoeger “The Fair Housing Committee: Its Needs For A New Perspective.” Land Economics 41, No. 2 (1965): 102. Neustadt, Richard E. “The Contemporary Presidency: The Presidential ‘Hundred Days’- An Overview.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, No. 1 (March 2001): 125. Newcomer, Kathryn., and Susan Welch. “The Impact of General Revenue Sharing on Spending in Fifty Cities.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 18, No. 1 (September 1982): 1, 3. Newsweek. “Nobody’s Winning.” (August 22, 1960), 17-18. NuLand, Sherwin B. “The Uncertain Act.” The American Scholar 67 No. 4 (1998): 125. Olion, Mittie.Chandler. “The Influx of Blacks in State and Local Fair Housing Policy- Making.” Policy Studies Review. 9, No. 2 (1990): 379. Ozark, Susan and Shanahan, Suzanne. “Deprivation and Race Riots: An Extension of Spilerman's Analysis.” Social Force 74, No. 3 (1996): 932-941. Peabody, Malcom E. Jr. “Housing the Poor.” The New Republic. 36 (March 9, 1974): 21. Pettigrew, Thomas F. “Racial Change and Social Policy.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 441 (1979): 115. Raymond, George M., Malcolm D. Rivkin, Herbert J. Gans. “Urban Renewal.” Commentary 40, No.1 (1965): 72. Reckord, Gordon E. “The Development Dilemma- Local Choice and National Policy.” Canadian Association for American Studies Bulletin 3, No. 3 (1968): 76-80. Reeves, Richard. “JFK: Secrets and Lies.” Reader’s Digest April 2003, 162, 163. Ryan, Alan. “Keynes’s Last Stand.” The New York Review of Books XLIX, No. 4 (March 14, 2002): 43. Rybezynski, Witoid. “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing.” Public Interest 113 (1993): 86. Sagalyn, Lynne Beyer. “Mortgage Lending in Older Urban Neighborhoods: Lessons From Past Experience.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 465 (1983): 98-108. Seyb, Ronald P. “Reform as Affirmation: Jimmy Carter’s Executive Branch Reorganization Report.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, No. 1 (March 2001): 107. Shlay, Anne B., and Peter H. Rossi. “Keeping Up the Neighborhood: Estimating Net Effects of Zoning.” American Sociological Review 46, No. 6 (1981): 705-717. Simkus, Albert A. “Residential Segregation by Occupation And Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950-1970.” American Sociological Review 43, No. 1 (1978): 89-92. Stahura, John M. “Characteristics of Black Suburbs: 1950-1980.” Sociology and Social Research 1, No. 2 (1987): 135-137. Sternlieb, George and James W. Hughes. “The Uncertain Future of Rental Housing.” Policy Studies Journal 8, No. 2 (1979): 248, 249. Sternlieb, George. “Planning, American Style.” Society 25, No. 3 (1987): 22, 23. Sudman, Seymour, M. Norman Galen Gockel. “The Extent and Characteristics of Racially Integrated Housing in the United States.” Journal of Business 42, No. 1 (1969); 50-58. 587

Sumka, Howard J. “Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement: A Review of the Evidence.” Journal of the American Planning Association 45, No. 4 (1979): 480. Trotter, Joe William Jr. “The Great Migration.” Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 17, No. 1 (2002): 31-33. Turner, Robert C. “Understanding the Federal Budget: Address Before the Graduate School of Savings and Loan.” Bureau of Business Research, Indiana Business Papers No.2 (August 22, 1961): 15,18. Vardy, David P. “Middle Income Housing Programmes in American Cities.” Urban Studies Great Britain 31, No. 8 (1994):1349. Wade, Richard C. “The Enduring Ghetto: Urbanization and the Color Line in American History.” Journal of American History 17, No. 1 (1990): 9. Walcott, Charles E., and Karen M. Hult. “White House Staff Size: Explanations and Implications.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, No. 1 (1999): 640-643. Weaner, Warren Jr. “Housing Program Offered by Nixon.” New York Times 29 September 1960, 1, 20. Weaver, Robert C. “The Evolution and Significance of the Proposed Fair Housing Amendment of 1979.” The Crisis 86, No. 10 (1979): 422. ______. “The First Twenty Years of HUD: Looking Back at HUD.” Journal of The American Planning Association 51, No. 4 (1985): 477. Weicher, John C. “Urban Housing Programs: What is the Question?” Cato Journal 2, No. 2 (1982), 414. Weinstein, Louis H. “John F. Kennedy: A Personal Memoir, 1946 – 1963.” American Jewish History 75, No. 1 (1985): 9. Weisbord, Marvin. “Civil Rights on the New Frontier.” The Progressive January (1962): 19. Weiss, Marc A. “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership: Mortgage Lending and Public Policy in the United States, 1918-1989.” Business and Economic History. 18, No. 2 (1989): 111-117. White, Sammis B. “Displacement: The Real Enemy.” Urbanism Past and Present 6, No. 2 (1981) 21-25. Wright, James D., and Julie A. Lam. “Homelessness and The Low-Income Housing Supply.” Social Policy 17, No. 4 (1987): 48. Wrightson, Margaret. “Interlocal Cooperation and Urban Problems: Lessons for the New Federalism.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 22, No. 2 (1986). Yago, Glenn. “Urban Policy and Political Economy.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 12, No.1 (1983): 125 ______. “Urban Policy and Nation of Citiesal Political Economy” Urban Affairs Quarterly 19, No. 1 (1983) 125. Zashin, Elliot. “The Progress of the Black Americans in Civil Rights: The Past Two Decades Assessed.” Daedalus 197, No. 1 (1978).

588

DISSERTATIONS

Barnes, Elsie Marie. “The 1974 Housing and Community Development Act: An Analysis of Private Sector Interest Groups Influence,” PhD diss., Lehigh University, 1982. Chelouche, Joyce August. “Federal Housing and Design: Issues and Coalitions 1961- 1968 – The Relation Between Unstable Coalitions and Legislative Victory,” PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1990. Coulibaly, Modibo Sidy. “Segregation in the Subsidized Low-Income Housing Program of the United States,” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1992. Ferensick, George. “The Impact of Federal Housing Legislation Upon Comprehensive Planning at the Local Level,” PhD diss., New York University, 1981. Fleisher, Richard Stuart. “Subsidized Housing and Residential Segregation in American Cities: An Evaluation of the Site Selection and Occupancy of Federally Subsidized Housing,” PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, 1979. King, James Edward. “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on the Urban African- American Families from 1930 to 1966: A Case Study,” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1991. Kramer, Kevin Leslie. “Fifty Years of Federal Housing Policy: A Case Study of How the Federal Government Distributed Resources,” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1985. Morrow-Jones, Hazel Ann. “The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on Population Distribution in the United States,” PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1980. Nnanna, Okwu Joseph. “The Demand and Supply of Low Rent Public Housing: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Economic Trends, Interest Groups, Race, and Ideology on the Implementation of Federal Low Rent Public Housing Program in 81 American Cities,” PhD diss., University of Houston, 1980. Reed, Christine Mary Howells. “Political Dynamics in the Evolution of Federal Housing Policy: The Gautreaux Case 1966-1983,” PhD diss., Brown University, 1983. Sander, Richard Henry. “Housing Segregation and Housing Integration: The Diverging Paths of American Cities,” PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1990. Schneiderman, R. Anders. “The Hidden Handout: Housing and the Fall of the U.S. Welfare State,” PhD diss., University of California at Berkley, 1994. Williams, Rene`Alma. “Robert C. Weaver: From Black Cabinet to the President’s Cabinet,” PhD diss., Washington University of Saint Louis, 1978.

589

NEWSPAPERS

American Banker Newspaper, 1, May 23, 1963, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Food for Peace, as found in 1961, President’s Office Files, (Departments and Agencies, Defense 5/9/63) The John F. Kennedy Library. Chicago American, 1, Undated, as found in 12-1-62 to 12-31-62, as found in White House Central Subject Files, 373, TJFKL. Detroit News, December 30, 1962, in HS 4, 3-16-62. As found in White House Central Subject Files, 358, TJFKL. Editorial, Wall Street Journal, October 11, 1961. As found in Departments and Agencies, Food for Peace Program, 1962-1963, POF, 79 TJFKL. Krock, Arthur. “Kennedy’s Gamble.” New York Times, Sunday, January 28, 1962, as found in Legislative Files 2/62, President’s Office Files, 50, TJFKL. Senstacke, John H. “The Weaver Appointment,” The Chicago Daily Defender, January 5, 1961. Stetson, Damon. “Fair Vote Group Rouses Michigan,” The New York Times, 30 October 1962. Thompson, Robert. “Nation Has Worked Away from Ideals of JFK,” Boston Herald Advertiser, July 29, 1973, Sunday edition, Section 6. Washington Post, “Kennedy Scores Low 5% on Requests to Congress,” Sunday, August 4, 1963, as found in Legislative Files, 8/2 -12/63, POF, 53, TJFKL. xi

CURRICULUM VITAE

PERSONAL INFORMATION

NAME William Albert Foley, Jr.

ADDRESS AND PHONE 7753 Fall Creek Road Indianapolis, IN 46256 (317) 841-0818 Home (317) 501-9496 Cell E-Mail [email protected]

MARITAL STATUS Married, two adult children

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Indiana University, December, 2005 (includes PhD courses, Harvard University)

M.A. Indiana University, February, 1971, (includes funded M.A. seminar research, University of Chicago)

B.A. Indiana University, September, 1969, (includes undergrad courses: Butler University, Cameron University, University of Oklahoma, and University of California-Berkley)

PhD CONCENTRATION United States History - Recent American (Political and Urban) American Studies - Social/Intellectual

FIELDS: GRADUATE SCHOOL FIELDS: TEACHING United States History (Major) United States Political/Economic 1920 to Present British History (Minor) American Urban History American Studies (Outside Area) American Diplomatic History since 1900 American Military History Kennedy Presidency, 1961-1963 African-American History American Social and Intellectual History

ACADEMIC RECORD OF EMPLOYMENT

Indiana University and the U.S. Army Part-time, PhD Candidate War College, June 23, 2003 to Full-time, Faculty and Course Author January 08, 2005

Indiana University and Part-time, PhD Candidate xii

Chief, Operations, Homeland Security Full-time, Branch Chief, FORSCOM U.S. Army Forces Command June 3, 2002 to June 22, 2003

Indiana University and Executive Officer, Part-time, PhD Candidate Training Support Brigade-Harrison Full-time, Executive Officer, TSB Harrison June 1, 1999 to June3, 2002

U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA and Part-time, AWC Student Indiana University and Part-time, PhD Candidate 101st Airborne Division Full-time, Division Chief, G-3, 101st Airborne May 13, 1996 to June 1, 1999 Division (A/A), Fort Campbell, KY

Ball State University, Muncie, IN Chairman of the Department of Military Science, July 19, 1993 to May 13, Professor of Military Science and Battalion 1996 Commander, Lecturer, American Military History (Part-time) Indiana University Medical Center, Coordinator of Medical Officer Training Corps IUPUI Campus, August 1, 1991 and AMEDD Recruiter, and to July 18, 1993 Instructor American History (Part-time)

Command and General Staff Officers Student at ACE and North Central accredited College, Fort Leavenworth, KS graduate program in Advanced Military Tactics July 31, 1990 to July 31, 1991 and Military History

Indiana University-Purdue University Assistant Professor of Military Science and at Indianapolis, August Part-time Instructor in American History 31, 1987 to July 31, 1990

Indiana University-Purdue University Assistant Registrar, Historical Course Records and at Indianapolis, January 19, 1981 Part-time Instructor of American History to August 30, 1987

Indiana University-Bloomington, IN Research Assistant, Grading Assistant and PhD July 2, 1980 to January 18, 1981 Student, American History, Dept. of History

Boston University, Boston, MA Associate University Registrar, Director of Veterans August 1, 1977 to July 1, 1980 Affairs, University Access Officer, and Associate Instructor of American History (Part-time)

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Associate Instructor in American History (Part- September 1, 1976 to June 1, 1978 time) on the Kennedy Administration

Boston University, Boston, MA Assistant University Registrar, Privacy Access August 1, 1975 to July 31, 1977 Officer, Director of Veterans Affairs, Associate Instructor of American History Also, Instructor of History, Emmanuel College, Boston, MA (part-time) xiii

Boston University, Boston, MA Assistant Director Program Resource Office, August 1, 1974 to July 1, 1975 Associate Instructor of American History Also Guest Lecturer, John F. Kennedy Library Instructor of History, Curry College, Milton, MA

Simmons College, Boston, MA Instructor of History, Full-time Faculty in American July 1, 1973 to July 31, 1974 History (Sabbatical leave replacement)

Harvard University, Cambridge MA Research Assistant, History of Medicine, July 1, 1973 to July 31, 1974 Francis A. Countway Library, HMS

PUBLICATIONS

Editor and Contributor, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Allied Joint Publication 3.14 NATO Force Protection (First Draft, November 29, 2004). Final Draft Editor, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-40: Joint Doctrine for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (1 March 2004). Final Draft Editor, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-26: Joint Doctrine for Homeland Security (18 December 2003). Contributor and Writer, Working Integrated Product Team, Sustaining and Developing Civil Support Teams for Weapons of Mass Destruction (March 28, 2003). Writer and Editor, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-07 Homeland Operations (First Draft, 11 June 2002). Contributor and Commenter, Army Modernization Plan 2002, Annex H: Homeland Security (First Draft, 17 June 2002).

William A. Foley, Jr., ed., Selected Readings: Department of Defense Organization, Planning and Strategy (Carlisle: U. S. Army War College, 2004).

William A. Foley, Jr., Division Command Lessons Learned Program: Major General William F. Kernan, USA, Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) (Carlisle: U.S. Army War College, 1998). Published by the Military History Institute. . Contributor and Editor, General Young-IL Moon, A History of American Strategic Thought (Seoul: Kyung Hee University Press, 1998).

Wrote Prologue, Epilogue and Edited, Richard H. Courtney, From Normandy to the Bulge: An American Infantry G.I. in Europe during World War II (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996).

James Cedrone, William Foley, Susan Ginsberg, Allen Goodrich, Larry Hackman, Joan-Ellen Marci, “A Stroke of the Pen: Dimensions of a Presidential Decision,” a documentary film on the Kennedy administration, (Boston: Envision Corporation, 1975.)

Scripted and wrote two-hour presentation on Military Leadership in the Battle of Gettysburg for national Army ROTC Basic Camp. This presentation was made into an Army film, and taught to over 3,000 cadets at Ft. Knox 1987-1990 and to 2,500 more students from 1993-1996. xiv

Drafted and Testified for legislation with the Indiana General Assembly regarding the Indiana Vietnam Veterans Agent Orange Research Program and the Indiana Vietnam Veterans Memorial, both signed into law by Gov. Robert D. Orr in 1985-1986; received the “Sagamore of the Wabash” award for this from Governor Evan Byah in l989.

Wrote testimony for Senator Edward Brooke, (MA) for the 1977 G.I. Bill Improvement Act impacting higher education nationally, published in the Congressional Record and Hearings, United States Senate, Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, 1977 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1977).

Chief Research Assistant, Leon A. Harris, Jr., Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. (New York: Crowell, 1976), acknowledged in volume.

Research Assistant, Thomas D. Clark, Indiana University: Midwestern Pioneer, Vol. I, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973).

Wrote review for Greenwood Press of Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico, March 1971.

Presented Paper, “The Manchester Social Community,” American Studies Association, Ohio/Indiana Regional Conference, Purdue University, April 1971.

AWARDS AND HONORS

United States Army War College, Carlisle, PA, Resident courses rated among the highest in the College and consistently among the “most sought after” electives, 2003-2005.

Ball State University, Muncie, IN, courses rated in internal surveys of the University as “Among the Very Best,” 1993 through spring 1996.

Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Department of History courses rated in the top 15% of University courses by student evaluation, 1992/1993.

First Place, Instructor of the Year 1989-1990, Second U.S. Army ROTC Region, (includes the Midwest and South).

Third Place, Instructor of the Year 1989-1990, TRADOC, (includes all the Army Instructors in the United States and overseas).

Sagamore of the Wabash, highest award of the State of Indiana for public service, presented by Governor Evan Bayh, 1990.

Faculty Advisor of the Year 1989-1990, IUPUI, Army ROTC.

Conference Participant, Conference on the Administration and Presidency of John F. Kennedy, University of Wisconsin, LaCross, WI October 16-18, 1986. xv

Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Honors Council Summer Faculty Fellowship 1984, to develop an honors course on the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, conducted in Boston, MA 1984.

Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Faculty Grant-in-Aid, 1984, for materials and books related to the honors course on the Presidency of John F. Kennedy.

Boston University, Courses consistently rated in Student Surveys as in the upper 95% of all Courses taught at the University, 1974-1980.

New England Political Science Association, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and John F. Kennedy Library Conference, April 6-7, 1978, Panel Member, on the use of the Presidential Libraries for teaching and researching the presidency.

“Task Force on Planning Kennedy Library Exhibits,” John F. Kennedy Library, Task Force Member, June 2, 3, 4, 1976. (Original meetings included Pat Lawford, Steve Smith, Arthur Schlesinger, and I.M. Pei among others.)

“Festival of the American Presidency,” the Presidential Libraries, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, the John F. Kennedy Library, and Temple Mishkan Tefilia, Newton, MA, Conference on the Kennedy Presidency, Panel Participant on Housing Discrimination, April 5-12, 1975.

Wage/Price Guidepost Conference of the Brookings Institution, John F. Kennedy Library Conference and Boston University, on the History of Wage/Price Guideposts and Evolving Federal Economic Policy, Conference Attendee, Fall 1974.

John F. Kennedy Library Curriculum Units and Educational Resources Conferences, “Bringing Presidential Library Resources into the Classroom,” June 1974; served as American history college Faculty Representative, for sessions introducing new JFK Library curriculum units to Secondary and Middle School social studies teachers.

Simmons College, rated top new faculty member for quality of instruction in the Department of History, 1973/1974 Academic Year.

“The Federal Government and Urban Poverty,” a Conference of the Florence Heller School of Social Work at Brandies University and the John F. Kennedy Library, June 16-17, 1973, Conference Attendee.

Indiana University, PhD Dissertation Grant, 1974.

Indiana University, Department of History, selected as a Teaching Assistant for two years and as a Grading Assistant for two years plus taught my own course for one semester as a Graduate Student; member of the TA Association and Graduate Student Association and served on three Department of History Committees. xvi

History Department, Indiana University, funded seminar paper research (grant) for work at the University of Chicago, 1970-1971 year.

Four Year University Fellowship, Indiana University, from the Department of Speech/ Communications and Theater for graduate work in Public Address awarded 1969.

Honor Student, Indiana University, 1969.

Debating Team, Indiana University, Bloomington, Team Captain, 1969.

LaVerne Noyes Scholarship, Indiana University, 1968 and 1969.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES Spanish and French

SPECIAL TOOLS Statistical/Quantitative History

GRADUATE COURSE WORK America Since 1865 (Major) Colloq in American History since 1865: Political/Social Martin Ridge Colloq in American History since 1865: Urban History George I. Juergens Colloq in American History since 1865: 1920 to the Present James T. Patterson Seminar in American History since 1865: African-American Chase C. Mooney Modern Social and Intellectual History: George I. Jeurgens Individual Readings: American Diplomatic since 1900 John E. Wiltz Individual Readings: Social, Intellectual, Urban George I. Jeurgens

Colonial America to 1865 Colloq in American History to 1865: National Period Maurice G. Baxter Seminar in American History to 1865: Demography (Chicago) Irene D. Neu Individual Readings: Puritanism and Colonial America Paul R. Lucas

British History Colloq in British/British Imperial History: 1485-1789 Leo F. Solt Colloq in British/British Imperial History: 1789 to Present Leo F. Solt Colloq in English History: Modern England 1850 to Pres. (Harvard) Harold J. Hanham Seminar in English History: Diplomatic 1850-Pres. (Harvard) Harold J. Hanham

American Studies Colloq in American Studies: Introduction/Historiography Robert G. Gunderson Seminar in American Studies: American Culture, 1820-1860 Robert G. Gunderson Individual Readings: American Politics, 1820-1860 Robert G. Gunderson

Additional Courses Colloq in Western European History: 1789 to Present William B. Cohen Readings in Canadian History: (non-credit) 1867 to Present Martin Ridge

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DISSERTATION TITLE “John F. Kennedy and the American City: The New Frontier and Urban America, 1961 - 1963.”

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Prof. Joan Hoff (Director), Montana State University Prof. James Madison, Indiana University Prof. Irving Katz, Indiana University Prof. George Juergens, Indiana University

DISSERTATION SUMMARY Out of necessity in 1960, John Kennedy promised to find the “workable solution to urban problems.” Yet he failed to do so, because his interests lay elsewhere. Balancing his 1963 budget for Congressional approval to gain a 1964 tax cut meant more than an effective urban program. Had Kennedy exercised leadership and emphasized implementing his promise through combining new and existing programs, he might have found the elusive workable solution. Contrasted against JFK’s lackluster leadership in urban affairs, the hard work of Dr. Robert C. Weaver, his Housing and Home Finance Agency staff and later the “reformers” also becomes a focal point. Collectively, they came closest to finding the solution. They tried to reshape urban America using available programs without being able to fully implement their newer ideas, before the “fires” came. In addition, this dissertation highlights seven themes. In urban affairs, JFK remained an enigma, and he wanted it that way. Secondly, he used his office as a “modern” president, but thirdly, he presented many serious policy contradictions. Further, Kennedy had a tough time with Congress some due to his own making. Consequently, political tradeoffs undercut his own urban program. Last, blatant open racism also permeated the early 1960s and affected political choices everywhere. But lastly, in spite of this, Weaver plus JFK’s “reformers” under Robert Kennedy fostered new ideas, that if combined, implemented and funded, could have led to the workable solution. This dissertation studies Kennedy’s entire urban program: JFK’s 1960 urban message; formation of his White House and urban team; the 1961 Housing Act; his failed effort to gain HHFA cabinet status; his urban budget and the tax cut maneuvering; Kennedy’s vast suburban housing “boom;” public housing and urban renewal; his open housing executive order; and the early “war on poverty.” Researched at the John F. Kennedy Library and the National Archives and Records Administration, this dissertation adds to the historical record in three ways. It traces JFK’s level of involvement in urban affairs and clarifies his interest; it shows the effort made by many key members of his administration to achieve a workable solution to urban problems in spite of their leader; and it explains the overall importance of Kennedy’s program in American urban history.

REFERENCES

Dr. Norman E. Beck, Executive Director of Human Resources and Auxiliary Services, Ball State University, Muncie, IN Prof. David C. Campbell, Dean, Metropolitan College, Boston University, Boston, MA Dr. Daniel A. Delvecchio, Director, Harvard Student Agencies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Dr. Charles H. Greenwood, Assistant Dean of Telecommunication Services and Associate Professor of Adult and Community Education, Ball State University, Muncie, IN xviii

Dr. Joan Hoff, Professor of History, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT Prof. John C. Hunter, Chairman, Department of History, Simmons College, Boston, MA Dr. Donald Smith, Dean of the College of Applied Sciences and Technology, Ball State University, Muncie, IN Dr. Warren Vander Hill, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of History, Ball State University, Muncie, IN