(10 of 11)
Crab Grass & Berets. In the White House, Kennedy is still a man in near-perpetual motion, interested in everything that goes on about him and casual enough to take a hand in anything that interests him. Amid his other duties, he had time to notice crab grass on the White House lawn and order it removed, and to order the Army's Special Forces to put back on the green berets that had earlier been banned ("They need something to make them distinctive"). When he wanted a haircut a few weeks ago after a hard day of work, he simply had his secretary summon a barber to his White House office. There, the barber neatly spread a white cloth in front of the presidential desk, lifted a chair onto the cloth and began snipping away. The President of the U.S. tilted back his chair, picked up his afternoon paper, and smiled happily. "Now," he said, "I'm going to read Doris Fleeson."
Kennedy is a buff for physical fitness for himself and others, at one point suggested that his aides all lose at least five pounds — and that portly Press Secretary Pierre Salinger lose a good deal more. He swims twice a day in the heated White House pool, has taken up a rigorous series of calisthenics under the direction of New York University's Dr. Hans Kraus to help his ailing back. He does his nip-ups in the White House gym, in his bedroom, even on board the big presidential jet while flying off to important meetings.
The Uncertain Art. Kennedy exercises his intellect by demanding diverse position papers on many topics; he relaxes it by letting his mind range over history and politics. But for getting work done, he has come more and more to depend on the political pros and the able technicians: Brother Bobby, Defense's McNamara, State's Dean Rusk, Treasury's Douglas Dillon and Speechwriter Ted Sorensen. Kennedy's greatest respect is reserved for men who get things done, rather than those who just think about them. "We always need more men of ability who can do things," he says. "We need people with good judgment. We have a lot. But we never have enough." He has nothing but scorn for academicians who offer criticism without an alternate course of action. "Where does he sit?" snapped Kennedy in reaction to one scholarly critic. "At that university, not here where decisions have to be made."
John Kennedy is acutely aware that he, and he alone, sits where the decisions have to be made — and there are plenty yet to be made. Berlin remains a city of chronic crisis, and Kennedy faces choices far hard er than that of sending fresh troops down the Autobahn. He has yet to get down to making the final but necessary decision to go ahead with nuclear testing in the atmosphere. Other problems lie ahead in Southeast Asia, in Congress, in NATO, in the United Nations. With full realization of what he faces, and the experience of the year behind, Kennedy speaks today of the "uncertainties" of statecraft. "You can't be sure," he says.