Man Of The Year: John F. Kennedy, A Way with the People

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answers about when, how and at what cost the U.S. could catch up with the U.S.S.R. in man-in-space prowess. "I don't care where you get the answers," said Kennedy. "If the janitor over there can tell us, ask him." Next Kennedy appeared before the Congress to deliver an unusual midyear State of the Union message. He asked for a $9 billion program to put a man on the moon by 1971, and he placed that request, in a manner smacking more of Hollywood and Vine than of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, close to the top of the U.S. cold war priority list.

Dark Night. Then there was Cuba. It was a tragedy, but if nothing else it served the function of a hickory stick in the presidential education of John Kennedy. Kennedy had inherited the unpleasant fact of Communist Fidel Castro's rule over an enclave within 90 miles of U.S. shores. He also inherited from Dwight Eisenhower a specific plan for the U.S. to back, with air cover and logistical support, an anti-Castro invasion of Cuba by Cubans. But Kennedy decreed that the U.S. should not provide some of the necessary ingredients to that plan—such as air cover by U.S. planes. The result was disaster at the Bay of Pigs.

On the night when the Cuba failure became apparent, the scene at the White House was memorable. President Kennedy, doffing the white tie and tails he had worn to a legislative reception, returned to the Executive Wing while the unhappy news was pouring in. At 2:30 a.m., orders were given to the State Department's Latin American expert, Adolf Berle Jr., and White House Aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to fly to Miami to confer with anti-Castro Cuban invasion leaders. Black coffee was being rushed about. Berle (since eased out of his State Department office) stood around in an overcoat complaining of the cold. Schlesinger was haggard and unshaven. Finally, Berle and Schlesinger left, and so did most others of the White House coterie. Abruptly, President Kennedy walked out into the White House Rose Garden. For 45 minutes he stayed alone, thinking.

Cuba made the first dent in John Kennedy's self-confidence. When the invasion first began to go sour, the President called his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was making a speech in Williamsburg, Va., at the time. "Why don't you come back," said Jack, "and let's discuss it." Bobby flew back and, in the midst of crisis, his was the profile pictured against the late-burning White House lights. In Cuba's immediate aftermath, it was Bobby who moved into the White House, spearheaded an investigation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, became a moving spirit at National Security Council meetings.

At the moment of nadir in the Cuba disaster, a White House aide watched President Kennedy and said: "This is the first time Jack Kennedy ever lost anything." The fact of defeat was jolting, and the President showed it. In the weeks that followed, he seemed unsure of himself and willing to attempt almost anything that, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, might recoup the B.C. position. He even got himself involved in the ill-advised attempt to trade U.S. tractors off for captured Cuban rebels.

On to Vienna. But it is in the nature of Kennedy to strike when things seem worst. It was in that sense that after Cuba the President—despite campaign criticism of