John E. Byrne, Oral History Interview—JFK#3, 10/10/1969 Administrative Information Creator: John E. Byrne Interviewer: Ann M. Campbell Date of Interview: October 10, 1969 Location: Washington, D.C. Length: 31 pages Biographical Note Byrne, press secretary to the Governor of Maine (1958-1960); an executive at the General Services Administration (1961-1980); and advance man for President Kennedy's trip to Texas (1963), discusses press relations at the General Services Administration; construction of government buildings, including the Executive Office Building in Lafayette Park; and scandals during and criticisms of the Kennedy Administration, among other issues. Access Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed on February 24, 1998, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. 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Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the Library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation John E. Byrne, recorded interview by Ann M. Campbell, October 10, 1969, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. John E. Byrne—JFK#3 Table of Contents Page Topic 114, 125, 130 Press operations at the General Services Administration (GSA) 121 Criticisms of the Kennedy Administration 126 Executive office building in Lafayette Square 128, 144 Government buildings 131 Attempts to regulate the literature sold in public buildings 134 GSA press office during the Johnson Administration 136 GSA Administrators 141 Speechwriting for Bernard Louis Boutin Third of Three Oral History Interviews with John E. Byrne October 10, 1969 Washington, D.C. By Ann M. Campbell For the John F. Kennedy Library CAMPBELL: Mr. Byrne, you noted in an earlier interview that your operation in the GSA [General Services Administration] press office was congressionally oriented, let Congress savor the good news. How did that work in practice? BYRNE: Well, on announcements for projects they always went to the Hill before we made any public announcement. The net effect of that was that the people on the Hill were calling their favorite news people and making the announcement. Now this is not a new, or was not then, a new situation. I think, probably—I wasn’t here at the time, but it had probably developed to a high art during the [-114-] Eisenhower [Dwight D. Eisenhower] years, at least this is what I’ve been told, people who were here at that time, that prior to the Eisenhower years that there was more or less announcements directly by agencies, but in that period it had developed where the Administration was making a very strong effort to let their friends in Congress announce all significant things in their areas, projects. And when I came to GSA in April of 1961, the people who were then running the Assistant Administrator’s shop had been very familiar with what went on in the Eisenhower years and followed the same thing, except, of course, with the different change in Administration, for instance, usually the Democrats rather than the Republicans got an hour’s advance notice. I will say that under our situation it was very congressionally oriented. For instance, if there was a real big project involved, Bob Griffin, Robert T. Griffin, the Assistant Administrator, or even possibly Bernie Boutin [Bernard Louis Boutin] when he was Administrator, would call the White House, the appropriate person [-115-] in the White House, and tell them about the project coming up, and maybe the White House then would make notifications on lesser projects or when told to by the White House, the notifications would be made directly from GSA to the people on the Hill. My role in that usually—I was two things. I was….. Bob Griffin was Assistant Administrator, and I was deputy Assistant Administrator, Director of Information. Now, for instance, I would take the projects and I would write something up or have my people do it, and then they’d give it to Bob Griffin’s shop which would make the congressional calls. And then, of course, shortly thereafter we would get calls from newspaper guys asking for further information, which we would furnish them, and then we would issue a news release. In that way our operation was very much congressionally oriented. CAMPBELL: There was an idea in the Kennedy Administration [John F. Kennedy], a desire to speak with one voice. How much guidance did your operation receive from the White House? BYRNE: Well, my operation, directly, didn’t receive very much. [-116-] Of course, we had a situation where first we had Administrator John Moore [John L. Moore]. When I came in in April, he was aboard. He had been a friend of Billy Green [William J. Green] in Pennsylvania and was appointed Administrator and underneath him was Bernard L. Boutin, Bernie Boutin, who had been a very strong Kennedy New England man for some years. And there was a tight connection between Bernie Boutin and the people in the White House, such as, well, Bobby Kennedy [Robert F. Kennedy], the President himself, and Kenny O’Donnell [Kenneth P. O’Donnell]. [Interruption] Well, I was not privy to all the things that went on by any means, and I think that guidance that came on the top level cases from the White Houses to Bernie Boutin, for instance, and I probably didn’t know anything about it, so I just followed orders like from Boutin. In some cases, I presume, Bob Griffin knew things, especially in the early days when we were not all very close, that I didn’t really know all the details on. So really what I would do would be to take directions from Bernie Boutin and Bob Griffin, and so I really didn’t know the extent, especially in the early days, of what the White House might have [-117-] been thinking about or directing. But my own contact was Pierre Salinger [Pierre E.G. Salinger], who as you know I got to know when he came to Maine with the President, when they were seeking the nomination. And I had a pretty good relationship with Pierre. If I had a problem, I would be able to call him up and get him in the phone and ask him. Of course, Pierre had a lot of things going and he was always very courteous. He never gave too much concern about problems of the General Services Administration because, by and large, they were not major. So I really can’t say there was any strong direction per se from the White House. I think there was direction in another respect though that…. Well, for instance, myself and some of my associates were pretty strongly committed to the ideas and ideals of John F. Kennedy, so I suppose there was direction, unconscious direction, in that respect. CAMPBELL: You were the press officer of an agency, while a very large one, that is not the most glamorous, the most exciting one in the government. Was there [-118-] any concern in your Administrator’s office about the image of GSA, any attempt to change that image? BYRNE: Yes, Bernie Boutin, for instance, was very gung-ho. Bernie was always talking about the image of GSA and how we were aggressive and he liked to think of it as the business arm of the President. He was very enthusiastic about the agency, and I think in the early days we probably reflected a little bit of that gung-ho feeling in our press relations. On the other hand, I have been a professional newspaperman and not a public relations man and my idea was, rather than to salt the news or time it, was to be responsive to the newspapermen. And I think I spent most of my time—that was my contribution to the information operation, at GSA, was to be responsive to newspapermen rather than trying to sell a particular position or a line of thought or an image change. CAMPBELL: Were special arrangements made at times for representatives of the wire services, representatives of the major dailies? Same treatment for everyone or were there some special.... [-119-] BYRNE: On big announcements, for instance, we would have a press conference and invite everybody that was interested.