Historical Photos: President Kennedy In Bermuda

Almost 50 years ago Bermuda was the focus of global attention as the historic two-day John Kennedy/Harold Macmillan Big Two summit meeting took place at Government House.

US President John F. Kennedy arrived at Kindley Air Force Base on December 21, 1961 to meet with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan about geo-political and nuclear policy, the third summit convened here following the three-way parley between President Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French Premier Joseph Laniel at the Mid Ocean Club in 1953 and a 1957 Eisenhower-Macmillan meeting.

“President Kennedy arrived here at 12.58 after a flight from Palm Beach, Florida,” reported the Associated Press. “He was greeted by Governor Sir Julian Gascoigne.

“The combined bands of the Bermuda Rifles and Bermuda Militia burst into the national anthems while an honour guard resplendent in scarlet uniforms, snapped to attention. A small but enthusiastic crowd burst into applause. Most of them pointed cameras at the President.

“The 25 mile per hour wind caused the President to constantly brush his hair away from his face as he inspected the guard of honour in company with the Governor. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and an aide walked directly behind the President.”

In some brief remarks at the airport addressed to Macmillan — and the people of Bermuda — President Kennedy said: “I want to express my great pleasure at having an opportunity to talk to you again and to visit you on your territory which has been the scene of most important meetings beneficial to both our countries.”

Accompanying the President were US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy, US ambassador to London David Bruce and other high-ranking officials. Macmillan’s party included British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, British ambassador to Washington David Ormsby-Gore and nuclear weapons advisor Sir William Penney.

London’s “Sunday Times” said the Bermuda meeting  ”must be one of the most important since the end of the Second World War” given the uncertain global situation. The Kennedy-Macmillan talks were wide-ranging, focussing on “the question of Berlin, on nuclear problems and on the situation in the Congo,” according to a joint statement issued at their conclusion. “The talks will form the basis of continued United States-United Kingdom cooperation during the coming months on a great variety of questions.”

But the Bermuda talks were almost scuppered shortly before they began. On December 20,  just as the President was arriving back in Washington from a successful tour of South America, the his father was felled by a stroke at his retirement home in Palm Beach, Florida. Businessman, bootlegger and one-time US ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy, 73, was initially not expected to survive for more than a few days.

President Kennedy learned of his father’s illness just after his return to the White House. He had just entered Press Secretary Pierre Salinger’s office when the “hot line” (a telephone connected only to Cabinet officers and other high officials) flashed an amber light. It was the President’s brother, US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, on the phone. After a terse conversation, President Kennedy replaced the phone on its cradle. He was shocked. “Dad’s gotten sick,” he told Salinger.

Later that afternoon, President Kennedy got further word of his father’s illness. His Bermuda conference with Harold Macmillan was less than 48 hours away. But there could be no doubt he would fly first to his father’s bedside. “I’m going,” Kennedy told Salinger. “Get things ready.”

While preparations were being made, the President presided over a 45-minute National Security Council meeting. Then he left the White House, walked through the cold rain and fog to a limousine where Bobby Kennedy and Sister Jean Kennedy Smith were waiting. Three minutes after they boarded the big presidential jet, Air Force One, the plane took off for Florida.

The President’s advisors suggested he ask Macmillan to come to Florida for their pending talks. He briefly considered the idea but when doctors said his father’s condition had stabilised, Kennedy decided to press ahead with the Bermuda meeting.

With the crisis sparked by construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the President and Prime Minister discussed the East-West stand-off at length, but only managed a sole resolution to “maintain the effectiveness of the deterrent” by renewing atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

An article in “Time Magazine” on December 28, 1961 related a busy agenda but only limited scope for decision-making on the part of the two leaders: “Sitting in Hamilton’s pale pink Government House, Kennedy and Macmillan conversed for as long as five hours at a stretch – with only a few minutes out for tea – but, inevitably, they were able to produce little in the way of hard solutions to the world’s woes. Kennedy and Macmillan reviewed the current rash of trouble spots – Goa, the Congo, South Vietnam, Netherlands, New Guinea – but they soon settled down to the continuing, fundamental problem of how to meet the Russian threat against Berlin.”

Though under pressure from UK voters to take a dovish stance on atomic weapons testing, in Bermuda Macmillan supported the resumption of American atmospheric nuclear tests as a consequence of ongoing Soviet provocations.

Perhaps better remembered today than any policy decisions arrived at in Bermuda  is JFK’s reputed boast to the elderly Macmillan at Government House, related in Richard Reeves’ 1994 biography “President Kennedy: Profile of Power”: “I wonder how it is with you, Harold? If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.”

A personal special relationship between Macmillan and the young American leader was cemented in Bermuda. It went deeper than any transnational or historic ties between the two countries, with Macmillan saying, “I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy.”

[Photos courtesy of the JFK Library]

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