a more negative reference to Wagner

In Dallek’s biography of President Kennedy, Walt Rostow is quoted as saying the following about the “overwhelming retaliation” nuclear plan Kennedy inherited from Eisenhower:

“The plan that [Kennedy] inherited was, ‘Mr. President, you just tell us to go to nuclear war, and we’ll deal with the rest.’ And the plan called for devastating, indiscriminately, China, Russia, Eastern Europe– it was an orgiastic, Wagnerian plan, and [Kennedy] was determined, from that moment, to get the plan changed so he would have total control of it.”

While listening to General Lyman Lemnitzer defend the plan:

“Kennedy sat tapping his front teeth with his thumb and running his hand through his hair, indications to those who knew him well of his irritation with what was being said. Lemnitzer’s performance made him ‘furious.’ As he left the room, [Kennedy] said to [Secretary of State] Dean Rusk, ‘And we call ourselves the human race.'”

Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2003.) pp. 345-346.