page_title: Pierre Salinger
section_title: Kennedy years
hierarchical_section_title: Pierre Salinger / Kennedy years
caption_attribution_description: English: Oval Office Meeting; Pierre Salinger, Bill Moyers, Ted Sorensen, Jack Valenti, President Lyndon B. Johnson
context_page_description: Pierre Emil George Salinger was an American journalist, author and politician. He had served as the seventh White House Press Secretary for United States Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Salinger served as a United States Senator in 1964 and as campaign manager for the 1968 Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign.
  After leaving politics, Salinger became known for his work as an ABC News correspondent, particularly for his coverage of the Iran Hostage Crisis; the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; and his claims of a missile being the cause of the explosion of TWA Flight 800.
context_section_description: After Salinger researched and wrote a number of articles in 1956 about labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, Robert F. Kennedy hired him to be legal counsel for the Senate Select Committee investigating organized crime. Later, Kennedy wanted him to be press secretary to his brother John F. Kennedy, who was then a member of the Senate.
  Salinger worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960, and became one of the leading figures in the campaign. He was at times described as being part of Kennedy's Kitchen Cabinet of unofficial advisers. In 1961, after JFK became President, he hired Salinger as his press secretary. When Kennedy became the first president to allow live television broadcasts of his news conferences, Salinger was said to have managed the press corps with "wit, enthusiasm and considerable disdain for detail," which made him a "celebrity in his own right."
  He accompanied Kennedy to conferences with other world leaders, including the 1961 meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. When an aide to Khrushchev invited Salinger to Moscow, the president assented to his going. Kennedy, however, had to explain to the press corp why he was sending a young and inexperienced Salinger to the Soviet Union.
  In May 1962, Salinger went to Moscow alone to meet with the press, and after he landed, he was unexpectedly told he had been invited to spend time with Khrushchev at his dacha, outside the city. There, they shared meals and took long hikes along country roads, as they discussed politics and world events, such as the Berlin crisis. Salinger described in his Memoir and during an interview the 16 hours, over two days, spent with Khrushchev. After their first day together, Khrushchev said, "I have had such a good time today, I think I will do it again tomorrow."
  In October 1962, Salinger briefed the press about what had been learned about Soviet missiles being stationed in Cuba. He later said that Kennedy's actions during that crisis were among the most incredible things a president had ever done in the 20th century and noted how close the countries were to nuclear war.
  At the time of the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Salinger was on a plane flying to Tokyo with six Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Salinger's visit was to have been for an economic conference and to start working on a visit, when President John F. Kennedy was going to take there in February 1964 as the first United States President to visit Japan since the end of World War II in 1945. Salinger was retained by President Lyndon B. Johnson as Press Secretary, and Johnson later said during a speech, "I don't have to tell you that Mr. Salinger was John F. Kennedy's press secretary... and I don't know what I would have done without him, night and day, over this past month." At one point in his career, Salinger briefly considered running for president, as he described in an interview about his Memoir in 1995.
  Salinger published a biography of the president, With Kennedy, in 1966.
caption: Salinger continued as press secretary for United States President Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of President Kennedy.
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