MORAL MASCULINITY: THE CULTURE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jennifer Lynn Walton, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Michael J. Hogan, Adviser ___________________________ Professor Peter L. Hahn Adviser Department of History Professor Kevin Boyle Copyright by Jennifer Lynn Walton 2004 ABSTRACT The Kennedy administration of 1961-1963 was an era marked by increasing tension in U.S.-Soviet relations, culminating in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. This period provides a snapshot of the culture and politics of the Cold War. During the early 1960s, broader concerns about gender upheaval coincided with an administration that embraced a unique ideology of masculinity. Policymakers at the top levels of the Kennedy administration, including President John F. Kennedy, operated within a cultural framework best described as moral masculinity. Moral masculinity was the set of values or criteria by which Kennedy and his closest foreign policy advisors defined themselves as white American men. Drawing on these criteria justified their claims to power. The values they embraced included heroism, courage, vigor, responsibility, and maturity. Kennedy’s focus on civic virtue, sacrifice, and public service highlights the “moral” aspect of moral masculinity. To members of the Kennedy administration, these were moral virtues and duties and their moral fitness justified their fitness to serve in public office. Five key elements of moral masculinity played an important role in diplomatic crises during the Kennedy administration. A discourse of heroism influenced Kennedy’s decisions during the Bay of Pigs crisis, while his meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in June 1961 hinged on notions of youth and vigor. The Kennedy administration made policy ii during the Berlin crisis with attention to the value of patriarchal responsibility. Kennedy’s conduct during the Cuban missile crisis demonstrates the importance of maintaining the image and ideology of moral masculinity as policymakers focused on deviance and danger. Finally, a discourse of maturity and modernity surrounded policymaking during the protracted crisis in the Congo. This dissertation is based on research at the John F. Kennedy Library, the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and in the Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States series. iii DEDICATED TO MY PARENTS, GORDON AND MARIA A. WALTON iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisers, Michael J. Hogan and Peter L. Hahn, for their indispensable contribution to my scholarly development and to this dissertation. My work and my sanity benefited enormously from the wise counsel and support of my dissertation writing group colleagues, Paul Hibbeln, Matt Masur, Aaron Retish, and Matthew Romaniello. I would also like to thank Molly Wood, Carole Fink, and Douglas Little for commenting on conference papers that became a part of this project. Needless to say, any shortcomings are mine alone. My research was supported by a Graduate School Alumni Research Award and the Foster Rhea Dulles Award from The Ohio State University and a Research Grant from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. I was fortunate to receive excellent advice and assistance from archivists Megan Desnoyers and Stephen Plotkin at the Kennedy Library. I am also grateful to the generous friends and family members who housed and entertained me during research trips, particularly Farrell and Dianne Dolan, Jeremy and Kerry Walton, and Bonnie and Joshua McGuire. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Maria and Gordon, for their love and support, and my husband, Matt Masur, for his optimism, encouragement, and advice. v VITA 1974 ………………………………………...Born – Poughkeepsie, New York 1996 ………………………………………...B.A. History, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York 1998 …………………………………………M.A. History, The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1997-2002 …………………………………..Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2002-present ………………………………..Director, History Teaching Institute at Ohio State FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Studies in: American Diplomatic History Modern American History Comparative Women’s History vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………… ii Dedication …………………………………………………………………………… iv Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………….... v Vita …………………………………………………………………………………... vi Chapters: 1. Introduction: Moral Masculinity ……………………………………………. 1 2. Heroism: The Bay of Pigs ………………………………………………….. 16 3. Vigor, Youth, and Power: Kennedy and Khrushchev at Vienna …………… 49 4. Patriarchal Responsibility: The Berlin Crisis ………………………………. 68 5. Deviance: The Cuban Missile Crisis ……………………………………….. 108 6. Maturity and Modernity: Crisis in the Congo ……………………………… 137 7. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. 177 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………... 182 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: MORAL MASCULINITY On January 1, 1960, the junior senator from Massachusetts issued a ringing statement about the future of the United States. John F. Kennedy lamented that “the signs of our lack of national leadership – of our loss of national vision – are all too clear and present.” He charged that the United States had gone soft – physically, mentally, spiritually soft. we seem to be losing our will to sacrifice and to endure. [t]he slow corrosion of luxury – the slow erosion of our courage – is beginning to show. Nearly one out of every two young American men is rejected by the Selective Service today as mentally, physically, or morally unfit for any kind of military service. We are losing that Pilgrim and pioneer spirit of initiative and independence – that old-fashioned Spartan devotion to “duty, honor, and country.”1 One day later, Kennedy officially announced that he would seek the office of the presidency in the 1960 election “to ensure ‘a more vital life for our people.’”2 This was not mere campaign rhetoric. Kennedy’s remarks that day signaled the close connections between masculinity, foreign relations, and the future Kennedy administration. His language illustrated his conceptions of masculinity and power by 1 John F. Kennedy, “Are We Up To the Task?” January 1, 1961, in The Strategy of Peace, ed. Allan Nevins (New York, Evanston, and London, 1960), 200-201. 2 Quoted in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston, 2003), 243. 1 underscoring the value of courage, sacrifice, and physical and mental strength. Kennedy emphasized the linkages between gender and citizenship and hinted at fears that the nation had been softened by feminine, material pursuits. These ideas influenced Kennedy’s perceptions of power and the foreign policymaking process during his administration. This dissertation examines the influence of these core cultural values on American relations with Cuba, Berlin, and the Congo from 1961 to 1963. Post-World War II America experienced a crisis of masculinity similar to the gender upheavals during the turn of the twentieth century.3 Challenges to the established gender and racial order from the civil rights and nascent women’s movement threatened to undermine white middle-class men’s claims to power. Reflecting this crisis, as well as a series of personal challenges, John F. Kennedy embraced a set of values best defined as “moral masculinity.” These values were shared by most of the men at the highest levels of his national security staff. President Kennedy and his core group of national security advisors operated from a particular worldview that was informed by their privileged positions in the gender-, race-, and class-based systems of power in American society. As historian Robert Dean has argued, foreign policymakers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations shared a unique outlook, coming of age during an era that inculcated an ethos of “imperial brotherhood” and cementing these values in the experience of the Second World War.4 3 See, for example, Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago, 1995); Amy Kaplan, “Romancing the Empire: The Embodiment of American Masculinity in the Popular Historical Novel of the 1890s,” American Literary History 2 (Winter 1990): 659-690. 4 Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst, MA, 2001); idem, “Masculinity as Ideology,” Diplomatic History 22 (Winter 1998): 29-62. 2 These men expressed their perceptions of power on a personal and international level in accordance with this worldview. This study will reveal how perceptions of power shaped political reality and will provide a better understanding of both the implementation and the impact of foreign policy, especially for the Kennedy administration period. Moral masculinity was the set of values or criteria by which Kennedy and his closest foreign policy advisors, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and others defined themselves as white American men. Drawing on these criteria, including heroism, courage, vigor, responsibility, and maturity, justified their claims to power. Kennedy’s focus on civic virtue, sacrifice, and public service reveals the “moral” aspect of moral masculinity. To members of the Kennedy administration,