#frank mankiewicz

[thelittleslowmoon]

He always referred to her as Mrs. John Kennedy and it made him a little annoyed when people would call her Jackie. I mean not to her face but when they’d refer, “Well, Jackie says...” And, you know, he’d sort of look at them, and then the first chance he’d get he’d say, “Well, why don’t you ask Mrs. John Kennedy what...”

─ Frank Mankiewitz

I remember the first speech that I did which was, I think, on the first day I was there... He looked at it and he said, “I see you've been reading the President's speeches.” There wasn't any doubt in my mind who he meant... I guess a couple years later I referred to something, and I referred to the President and he said, he asked me, he said, “You mean the President , don't you?” He says, “You don't mean Johnson.” And I said, “That's right.” And I said, “I never refer to him as the President, Johnson.” He said, “Yeah, me either. It's very difficult.” And I think really pretty much whenever he said “the President,” he meant President Kennedy. When he meant Lyndon Johnson, he always just said President Johnson.

─ Adam Walinsky

[petiteclover]

“He radiated an animal intensity and was a sexual symbol to millions. But he was introverted and strongly Puritanical himself.” — Robert Kennedy: A Memoir

———

Bobby talking with one of his political advisors, Frank Mankiewicz during his presidential campaign, 1968.

[bobbykennedy]

Robert Kennedy might have ended up dependent on his staff for the substantive content of his speeches had he not possessed an intellectual curiosity that grew as he matured. He went out of his way to delve firsthand into tough issues large and small, foreign and domestic -- and he gained command of the subjects on which he spoke. He read widely, and he constantly reached out to people he thought could provide useful knowledge, holding seminars in his office or at his home and encouraging his aides to participate with frankness.  Frank Mankiewicz, who served as press secretary from 1966 until Kennedy's death, remembered that Kennedy encouraged him and his colleagues to gather in Kennedy's office, particularly after hours. Generally, it wasn't for small talk. "I'm convinced we need to shake up the way we look at public education," Kennedy might say. "Have you read anything good on that topic recently?" Because the staff aide being questioned most likely would have a book to reccommend. "Can you get me a copy?" Kennedy would ask. "Do you think he [the author] would come see me?" As likely as not, Mankiewicz said, Kennedy would have called the author the next morning before the aide got around to it.

RFK: His Words for Our Times, Guthman & Allen

[thelittleslowmoon]

We drove in and parked up there by the President's grave. He started to get out of the car and he said. “Do you want to come with me?” And I said, “Sure do.” So I went with him and it was after closing. And we walked over to the President's grave for a moment and then we walked over to where they were building the new one. And we looked at that and they had just put up the stone wall and they were starting to cut some of the words from the inaugural into the stone. We walked around for awhile and then we jumped over the fence and started to go back to the car. And he asked me what did I think of it. And I said, “Well, I'll be quite honest. I like the old grave better. I don't like ─ it's too much; it's too calm. It’s too much of a monument. It could be any President who died. I liked the other one. It was kind of immediate and raw, upsetting and I don't know why you couldn't just leave it that way.” And he thought for a moment and then he said, “Well, I agree with you. I think that's right but it's too late now.”

─ Frank Mankiewicz

RFK Oral History Interview

[thelittleslowmoon]

...What was very difficult was to tell people nothing while appearing to tell them something. That’s very hard. And I remember very well that early on I decided ─ and it’s no great decision ─ but the Senator was very insistent on this, that I just simply ─ he didn’t want two things: he obviously didn’t want anybody lying about anything. And one way in which he accomplished that was by simply not telling me about a lot of things until it was in a posture where I could talk about it. So frequently I would say to people, “Well, I don’t know anything about that”... And the other that thing that he didn’t want was he didn’t want me getting into issues and arguing with people. I remember early when the Hoover controversy came up. I went over very carefully with him what his position was. You know, he said, “I don’t want to read tomorrow that you’re in an argument with J. Edgar Hoover.” But he had already made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to anybody. He said I’ll stand on this statement.” He said, “You can explain it in this way.” And so I’d say, “They’ll say, ‘What do you mean by this?’” He said, “Well, then we’ll say this.” And we went over and over it. He said, “But I don’t want to see that Frank Mankiewicz says there was no bugging.” So that was a tough thing to do. But once you have that fixed in mind you can do it... And I think, by and large, I was successful. I think I was the least known press secretary around to the public.

─ Frank Mankiewicz

RFK Oral History Interview

[thelittleslowmoon]

Robert Kennedy and Frank Mankiewicz, in 1968

LARRY HACKMAN: What about putting together the Viet Nam speech in March [in 1967]? FRANK MANKIEWICZ: That was less successful, I think, because he [Kennedy] sought too much help. I mean I always thought the best speeches were the ones where he and one collaborator worked on them ─ and almost invariably Adam [Walinsky]... But by the time that speech was over everybody'd had a shot at it... And the trouble is, you see, he'd get almost ready with it, it would be ready, and then somebody'd come into the office to see him about something, Sorensen or [Burke] Marshall, and they'd read it. And they'd say, “Well, I think this or I think that.” And it was all fine advice but the result is that when the speech was finally over, it was not an architectonic speech... And I know that one thing that bothered him was not only the question of what’s best for this speech but ─ I [Kennedy] don't want to depress Adam, you know, or Ted Sorensen was awfully nice to come down here and give us all this time and do it. I don't want to just not take any of what he said. In a sense, he was too soft-hearted about that sort of thing.

RFK Oral History Interview

[rubber-garage]

[linusjf]

Frank Mankiewicz: Simply complex

‘In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an “In-Depth” Piece takes  two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.’ —Frank Mankiewicz.