Here was a man who was boring in on the White House, threatening to transform or destroy its domestic political base, and yet he held no public office, displayed no personal ambitions that could be traded on, succeeded by methods such as going to jail, and thrived on the very upheavals that most unsettled the Administration. These qualities, on top of the prosaic fact that at first sight King would be mistaken for a waiter at most Washington establishments, put him beyond the reach of the Kennedys’ political and social language.
