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After the Post article was published, the White House limped to Stevenson's defense. Pierre Salinger issued a brief, flabby statement attesting that Stevenson "strongly supported the decision taken by the President on the quarantine and brilliantly developed the U.S. position at the United Nations." But it did not deny the Bartlett-Alsop charges. On the same day, Stevenson was in Washington to attend an NSC Executive Committee meeting (where, like other top Cuba advisers, he received from Kennedy a silver calendar with the 13 crucial October days deeply etched). After the session, Stevenson was ushered into Kennedy's office, assured that the President had had nothing to do with the Post article.
"Dear Adlai." White House staffers reported that Stevenson left completely satisfied. This was far from the case. Kennedy had been almost cavalier, ignoring Stevenson's arguments that presidential advisers should be protected from leaks ("Advice is of little value if it is chilled by fear of disclosure or misrepresentation"), indignant only at the notion that anyone could think he would use Charles Bartlett as a mouthpiece.
Later, Kennedy wrote Stevenson a "Dear Adlai" letter that, without undercutting Bartlett and Alsop, expressed "regret at the unfortunate stir" and "fullest confidence" in Stevenson. Toward week's end, while introducing the President at a Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation dinner, Master of Ceremonies Stevenson joked about the whole flap. Introducing Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver as an "instant peace" salesman so successful that "he makes the United Nations cry for it," Stevenson quipped: "As for me. I've been crying for it for the past week." Adlai quoted Joseph Pulitzer's observation, "Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady"—but added: "A newspaper can always print a retraction." Kennedy chuckled, but made no attempt to match the Stevenson wit—and no attempt to show warmth toward Adlai.
Heroes & Bums. It remained far from clear whether the President had actually tried to hurt Stevenson through Bartlett and Alsop. Most of the evidence was to the contrary. What had probably happened was that some other New Frontiersmen, knowing of the President's lack of deep affection for Adlai, had felt free to knock him. What the whole controversy really did was to highlight the huge personal and philosophical differences between Kennedy and Stevenson. "We seem to be living in an era," said Stevenson last week, "when anyone who is for war is a hero and anyone who is for peace is a bum." This was the sort of slapdash accusation from which Stevenson himself has sometimes suffered, and it was a strange formulation of the choices before U.S. policymakers. The great point Kennedy had recognized during the Cuba crisis was that there are times when the only way to achieve peace is to risk war. Again, Stevenson insisted that "it's time to stop this childish talk about hard and soft lines among the advisers of the President." The words are labels allowing of little subtlety, but they are roughly functional and are used all over Washington and by the President himself.