Birmingham, saying that SNCC and far more radical groups would come behind him. “King has got a…terrific investment in nonviolence,” said the President, “and SNCC has got an investment in violence, and that’s the struggle.” But Kennedy himself made no threats, offered no deals, sold no bargains. He resumed the plaintive theme of a rather helpless president in a representative democracy, saying no fewer than twenty-five times that he wished they could take just one step, “even a public relations action…anything that gives a hook that suggests that the prospects are better.”
