“Suddenly, everything that’d been a liability before — your hair, that you spoke French, that you didn’t just adore to campaign, and you didn’t bake bread with flour up to your arms — you know, everybody thought I was a snob and hated politics,” she tells Mr. Schlesinger. All of that changed. “I was so happy for Jack, especially now that it was only three years together that he could be proud of me then,” she says. “Because it made him so happy — it made me so happy. So those were our happiest years.”...
Describing the night of the inauguration, she recalled that she was both recovering from a Caesarean section and exhausted. She skips dinner and takes a nap. But she finds herself unable to get out of bed to attend the inaugural balls until Dr. Janet Travell, who would become the White House physician, materializes and hands her an orange pill.
“And then she told me it was Dexadrine,” Mrs. Kennedy says.
September 11, 2011
"Violently liberal women in politics" preferred Adlai Stevenson to JFK because they "were scared of sex."
Oh my! The transcript of the Jackie Kennedy tapes has hit the NYT.
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Angie Dickenson needed no speed that night.
But she did get a quickie nevertheless.
[T]he woman who, as much as anyone, helped shape a heroic narrative of the Kennedy years.
A fantasy narrative that had nothing to do with the record.
I'd be scared of sex too if it was going to be with Eleanor Roosevelt.
It is not just more money that makes the rich different.
Adlai Stevenson: the 1950's version of Alan Alda. Nuff said!
I just watched the CNN special The Women of 9/11.
It should of been renamed the Dykes of 9/11.
What a bunch of diesels in those fire and police departments.
They are some tough looking carpet munchers.
These are the kind of newspaper articles that I like to read. I'm not sure I buy into everything she says, but I have no doubt she would have been a fascinating person to dine with. But I doubt she'd say the same about me.
Whoa, she confirmed that JFK wept over the Bay of Pigs disaster.
I heard that story but had doubts about it.
I love being on Eastern Standard Time.
So much more fab.
Schlesinger is known for his two volume history of the Jackson Presidency that discretely ommitted any mention of the Trail of Tears. He described Bobby Kennedy's rather sharp turns in policy as a demonstration of his "capacity to grow". He was just the person in whom Mrs. Kennedy could confide all the secrets of her happy marriage. At last the truth can be told of how terribly fond she was of Joe and Rose and the way JFK prayed before going to bed.
When she learned that the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba aimed at American cities, she begged her husband not to send her away. “If anything happens, we’re all going to stay right here with you,” she says she told him in October 1962. “I just want to be with you, and I want to die with you, and the children do, too — than live without you.”
And the children do too?
Adlai Stevenson? Kicked out of Harvard Law School. Next? A. Hillary Clinton. Queston. Name the Secretary of State that failed the DC Bar exam.
Both Jack and Jackie were in the hands of another physician who was eventually stripped of his license who shot them up with a variety of drugs, including massive doses of Vitamin E and, IIRC, amphetamines (which at the time were rather generally over prescribed).
What I don't understand is why Caroline released the tapes earlier than her mother wished, In many respects even given Schlessinger's certain gilding, are not overly flattering to her parents' memory.
Adlai Stevenson: the 1950's version of Alan Alda. Nuff said!
Somehow, I don't see Alan Alda taking on the Soviet ambassador at the U.N. during the Cuban Missile Crisis the way Stevenson did.
WV: lusnerea.
Paging Doctor Szasz!
The White House has run on INTERESTING pharmaceuticals for a long time.
Isn't it interesting that she knew what the FBI tapes exposed about MLK Jr?
JFK frequently spoke of doing things with "great vigor". It's somewhat funny that it turns out that was practically a code phrase for amphetamines.
wv: sessif
Thanks to Caroline, it looks like Lancelot just slipped into Guinevere's bedchamber.
Any shortcomings on the part of her husband are not mentioned. She speaks of his loyalty, sensitivity, courage — traits consistent with the Camelot template she had been the first to invoke. ... There is no talk of his extramarital affairs ...
Darn. I was kinda hoping she'd have something to say about Fiddle and Faddle.
When asked why they voted for Jack, women answered, as the would for Willie 32 years later, they wanted to go to bed with him.
Which explains why we'll never have another Abraham Lincoln, but we will be forced to endure a succession of feckless, blow-dried Democrats.
Well..we learned from Jim Bouton that "greenies" were in big jars in ML clubhouses back in the 60's so it's no wonder they were in the White House. We know JFK was a fan.
One of the lesser known results of drug testing of ML ballplayers is that they had to give up amphetamines. However, if you have ADD you can get a script for adderal and be ok. Well, after testing was instituted the number of ballplayers diagnosed w/ ADD grew exponentially.
David, on Angie Dickinson. I'm reading a bio of Stan Musial. He, Angie, Byron White, and Arthur Schlesinger were part of a travelling group campaigning for JFK. That's an eclectic group! Angie comes across as a down to earth, saucy babe.
Which explains why we'll never have another Abraham Lincoln, but we will be forced to endure a succession of feckless, blow-dried Democrats.
Obama uses a blow drier?
You would have to be a NYT reader to believe any of this.
JFK and Hitler: Using tomorrow's energy today.
Isn't it interesting that she knew what the FBI tapes exposed about MLK Jr?
Great catch. Who the heck told her about what was on the tapes?
JFK reportedly loved to tell and hear stories about the, let's say, romantic life of others.
Did you ever see the list of prescription drugs JFK was on? Holy cow. There's even an anti-psychotic on it, although I understand he took that only for a short while to counter the effects of his chronic use of steroids. And then add into that volatile mix Dr. Feelgood's kick-ass concoctions. Yikes.
People who would be president got a lot of nerve keeping that kind of information from the public. Kennedy was in constant pain and medicated up the wazoo. How did all of that affect his judgement, his perceptions? Is that why he had to have Bobby constantly by his side, so that he could have a POV free of the fog of pain and drugs? I don't care how smart Jack might have been, he never should have held the position of president.
Jackie, in many way, is the more interesting character in the saga. The milieu in which she was raised--and the peaks and valleys of life with Black Jack Bouvier, renowned gambler, boozer and womanizer, whom she apparently adored--prepared her well to become a Kennedy wife.
When she talks to Schlesinger about returning to DC during the Cuban missile crisis, she (or he) glosses over the fact that she was in Virginia in the first place because she and Jack were, in effect, separated due to his philandering which had become more public (not that we in the general public were ever made aware).
I believe Jackie did truly love Jack, but I believe she loved her position even more. She became in the eyes of many, the most beautiful, cultured, desirable woman in the world. That perception was why Onassis wanted her.
JFK and his daddy knew what men's weakness to sexual drives could do to them, and marriage was not an acceptable answer to that problem in their way of doing things. Not even the always available Jackie Kennedy was enough.
They used that insight to gig their opponents for getting caught,.
The interesting thing here is that the Irish Boys Club saw MLK as their enemy.
SMGalbraith said...Isn't it interesting that she knew what the FBI tapes exposed about MLK Jr?
Great catch. Who the heck told her about what was on the tapes?
Seems I remember reading that JFK enjoyed perusing the FBI files of his political friends and enemies (and that J. Edgar had no problem supplying them probably because he wanted Jack and Bobby to be constantly aware of the kind of stuff he had on them). No doubt he shared juicy bits from time to time with Jackie, especially if they concerned another man's extra-marital peccadilloes. I don't remember when the content of those files became public knowledge, but I'm sure it must have been after MLK was killed.
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