On race, a man of inaction

The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality
By Nick Bryant
Perseus, 545 pp., illustrated, $29.95

Nick Bryant's aptly titled book succinctly sums up his argument: During most of the thousand days of his presidency, John F. Kennedy squandered numerous opportunities to shape a national consensus on the urgent issues of race and civil rights. His moral paralysis and political inaction had the unintended consequences of spurring on the resistance of rabid segregationists and white supremacists, and radicalizing black activists at a critical moment in American life.

``The Bystander," which originates in Bryant's studies in postwar American politics at Cambridge and Oxford, combines the talents of a highly trained historian and an exceptionally skilled journalist (he is currently the BBC's South Asia correspondent ). Hailed as the first comprehensive history of Kennedy's record on civil rights from his first congressional campaign in 1946 until his assassination, the book is at the same time a richly evocative and absorbing re- creation of the political culture that spawned, and was shaped by, the modern civil rights movement.

By the summer of 1963, in the aftermath of the historic March on Washington, the black revolt against the racial status quo was reaching a crescendo and the pace of events seemed to be spiraling out of control. ``Kennedy was partly responsible for this crisis in race relations," Bryant argues: ``His mishandling of civil rights over the previous two years had brought America to this point of uncertainty. Handed an historic opportunity at the beginning of the 1960s to map out a trajectory for the country that could have carried millions of black Americans closer to freedom, he decided instead to adopt a policy of inaction ."

Civil rights were not a high priority for Kennedy at the beginning of his career, Bryant notes . Still, he recognized that these issues had a bearing on the reputation of the United States in the post-World War II international arena: ``The Cold War . . . defined Kennedy's political worldview and animated his ideas about race from the outset. Throughout his life , he would link the fight for equality to the struggle against communism." At the same time, early in his political career, in an attempt to woo black voters, he discovered that carefully orchestrated public events -- what Bryant calls a ``strategy of association" -- could broaden his appeal in black communities: `` Even small gestures . . . however seemingly superficial . . . could prove just as effective as promises of substantive reform."

As a first - time senator during the 1950s, aware of his reputation as a ``playboy and a legislative lightweight" and eager to be taken seriously, Kennedy quickly took the measure of the political culture of the Senate, a body then dominated by the 22 members of the Southern Caucus -- ``not only . . . the most cohesive voting bloc in the Senate but by far the most indomitable." The cozy relationship he began to develop with some members of the caucus, Bryant points out, foreshadowed a pattern of caution and outright evasion on civil rights issues that traveled with him to the White House.

Bryant's detailed account of the shifts and turns of Kennedy's early views is a prologue to the drama that follows after the 1960 presidential election.

The noticeable participation of blacks in Kennedy's inaugural seemed to signal a new era in race relations at the White House; it also signaled the continuation of the ``strategy of association." Once in office, Kennedy immediately began to backpedal on civil rights: ``Temperamentally and ideologically, Kennedy was a gradualist. It is quite likely that even had he won the election by a broad margin, he would have proceeded with caution on the issue of civil rights. "

At this point Bryant introduces Robert Kennedy as a key figure in his narrative. As attorney general, he served as the point man for the administration's efforts on behalf of civil rights. Bryant provides detailed, often riveting accounts of the behind-the-scenes political wrangling and debates in the White House, particularly in relationship to episodes deeply etched in the annals of the civil rights movement.

In the case of James Meredith's efforts to become the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in September 1962, for example, Bryant offers a graphic account of the face-saving deal choreographed by Robert Kennedy and Mississippi governor Ross Barnett over the presence of federal troops in Mississippi -- a deal subsequently sabotaged by Barnett, triggering widespread violence. Bryant points to the Ole Miss episode as a watershed moment for the Kennedys: ``The Kennedy brothers had mishandled the crisis from the outset. The riots at Ole Miss were by no means inevitable. But due to erratic handling by both the president and the attorney general, the situation escalated to the point where two people were murdered, and Meredith was nearly lynched." According to Bryant, the incidents at Ole Miss also ``highlighted growing differences in their approaches to civil rights. . . . RFK was too loyal to his brother to be critical of him. . . . But as the struggle for black equality intensified, he was less and less able to suppress his impatience with the retrograde forces of segegation." Taking great pains to distance Robert Kennedy from his brother's views, Bryant credits Robert with a degree of moral and political integrity he finds lacking in John. Ironically, in ``The Bystander," Robert's growing moral resolve increasingly becomes the standard by which his brother's equivocation and vacillation are judged.

More than four decades after John F. Kennedy's death, his political legacy is still often viewed through the lenses of myth and legend. Bryant's portrait -- incisive, critical, perceptive, and fair -- adds a vital dimension to the public record.

James A. Miller is a professor of English and American Studies and chair of the American Studies Department at George Washington University.