What comes to my mind seeing this photo?

I always say something while posting a photo; this is no exception. Many things come to my mind when I see a thing when or after I travel.  This photo was taken when we visited JFK Museum and Library last October.  The background photo was taken during the 4/29/1962 White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the western hemisphere.

I wonder why Robert Frost, a literary giant even in his lifetime, was slighted or missed by the Nobel committee.  The very fact that JFK invited him there and sat beside the First Lady is the best protest.  Photo shows the Jacqueline Kennedy was talking to Robert Frost and JFK Pearl Buck (1938 Nobel Prize).  Yes, Buck is a worthy laureate, but, how can anyone say Frost is not?

This photo is scanned from a 1/9/2009 WSJ article (“Bards at the Inaugural Gates”) in which the writer talks about the four poets reciting at the Presidential Inauguration; Robert Frost (at JFK’s inauguration in 1961) was the first and the best.

It is well known that Frost, then 86, blinded by the sun’s glare reflected on the snow-covering ground, couldn’t read the verses of “Dedication” that he wrote for the occasion; instead he recited “The Gift Outright” by memory.

Some say Frost didn't change impromptu and that he discussed his “The Gift Outright” with JFK before the 1/20/1961 inauguration. Which was the case? That’s historian’s job.  This photo of Frost talking to JFK at White House was taken two days after the inauguration.

I have had difficulty understanding “the Gift Outright”until I read this new book, “The Art of Robert Frost” (see photo right) by Tim Kendall, who comments on many of Frost’s poems, then I know why the Washington Post reported Frost “stole the hearts of the inaugural crowd.”  It is fitting that Frost recited this 'patriotic' poem for the occasion by chance or by intention.

T.S. Eliot once promised to write comments on his The Waste Land, but never did.  That didn’t surprise me as he once said interpreting his poems is “your job, not mine.”

Robert Frost gave his hand written “Dedication” to JFK and it ended up in the hand of one of JFK’s assistant.  The original was donated to JFK Library in 2006.

The YouTube link is Robert Frost read his The Gift Outright,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_Ajyek2YA

A book for oral history

After listening/reading Jacqueline Kennedy’s Historic conversations on life with John F. Kennedy (interview with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), I began to take an interest in oral history.  This is a big turn around for one enjoys reading Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion than watching the film version of My Fair Lady.  Then again I realize oral history is not the same as book on tape.  I still dislike listening to a book on tape.

I apparently didn’t make it a secret, as I received a book in the mail today: Listening in the secret White House recordings of John F. Kennedy that comes with a CD.

This book comes at a good time as I recently added JFK to the list of my reading Presidents.  This is the way I write my Thank You note.

Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

Both Lincoln and JFK had a vice president having a name of Johnson.  Lincoln took his Presidency in 1861, JFK 1961, 100 years apart.  Both wives were well versed and fluent in French.

Mary Lincoln was a good conversationalist, using with equal fluency the French and English. Carl Sandburg wrote, “she had partaken often of dinners in which only talk in French was permitted, and read French classics of literature in the original.”

Once she was not satisfied with a translation of speech made by Victor Hugo on capital punishment, published in the Southern Literary Messenger. She got hold the speech in French, and told Henry Rankin [who worked in Lincoln's law office], “the better to show the strength of Hugo's oratory and the difficulty of translating into English a French oration of such intense feeling so as to preserve the true Hugo fire and force.”

Lincolns received diplomatic corps at White House on 3/7/1861, the minister from Portugal made a speech in French, which Mary understood without the translation that her husband needed.

Jacqueline Kennedy stole the thunder from JFK on their 1961 visit to France and that led JFK to say he was known as the husband of Jackie.  She knew very well the French history and literature. Before the state visit she asked   “could I meet André Malraux? Do you think I could even sit next to him at some thing?”

André Malraux was an art historian, novelist and heroic leader of the French Resistance during WWII, de Gaulle appointed him as the minister of culture after the war.  Jackie read many of his work.  About four days before the visit the tragedy struck—both his sons were killed in a car accident.  Jackie sent word that Malraux need not bother with her, but he insisted to be his host in his grief, thus began a beautiful friendship.  Jackie invited him to visit the White House in early 1962 (see photos).  Malraux dedicated his autobiography, Anti-Memoirs (now on my to-read list), to Jacqueline in 1968.

Arthur Schlesinger asked Jackie about their visit to France in 1961, she said,

Yeah, Because I’d ask him [de Gaulle] things of history—or all the things I wanted to know, like who did Louis XVI’s daughter marry, the Duke of Angoulême, did she have any children, and this or that.  Then he leaned across the table to Jack [JFK] at lunch and said in French, “Mrs. Kennedy knows more French history than most Frenchwomen.” So Jack said, “My God, that would be like me sitting next to Madame de Gaulle and her asking me all about Henry Clay!”

Lincoln was a great admirer of Henry Clay.

Visiting JFK Library and Museum in Boston

JFK’s hiding of his multiple medical problems led some people to raise “question of character” and see him as less than honest.  But, listening to Jackie Kennedy’s conversation with Arthur Schlesinger, one may understand JFK genuinely hated to talk about his medical problems, including to his families.

In talking about JFK’s back problem, Schlesinger [JFK’s special assistant at the White House] said, “Yet I never—from what I saw of him, it was total stoicism about this.  Did he ever mention it?

To which Jackie responded,

“He was never—when you think how many people are hypochondriacs, or complain, he never liked you to ask him how he felt.  You could tell when he wasn’t feeling well—you’d take care of him and put him to bed or something—but he was never irritable—he never liked to discuss it and he made a conscious effort to get his mind off it by having friends for dinner or talking about—you know, or going to see a movie, or—just to not let himself be sitting there having a pain.”

We all know his PT-109 boat was sunk by the Japanese destroyer but few knew that he used family connection so the Navy wouldn’t know his extensive medical history including admissions at Mayo Clinic (I think the diagnosis of Addison disease was made there) and let him get into Navy.

While visiting his museum and library, Janice and I heard him talking about the Civil Right movement; he was talking about finishing the job Lincoln started.  A great man, indeed.  Like JFK, I found my heroes more in the past; I apparently do not need to look too further in the past.

Jackie Kennedy resented JFK’s back surgery

Being a history buff, I rarely read JFK, thinking he was my contemporary, not yet a historical figure.  Visiting his library and museum with Katy, my two daughters and Edwin at Boston last month changed my view.  I put down Paul Murray Kendall’s Richard the Third (a 1955 book) and began to listen and read Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (an interview with Arthur Schlesinger). 

Jackie is very articulate (one meaning of articulate is 咬字清晰), it is a pleasure listening to the CD, but reading the book version is quite helpful to get the full story as it comes with lots of annotations of the people and events of interest.

This post focuses on JFK’s back surgery.  The right choice of management (surgery vs. non-surgical approach) for the herniated disc or spinal stenosis of spines remains elusive in many cases; the unpredictable outcome remains true in select cases to this day.  JFK didn’t have the good outcome and Jackie resented it bitterly; she even used the term of “criminal” in criticizing the surgeon’s decision. 

The following is from the CD.

“Yeah, with the back. It had just gotten worse and worse.  I mean, the year before we were married, when he’d take me out, half the time it was on clutches.  You know, when I went to watch him campaign, before we were married, he was on clutches.  I can remember him on clutches more than not.  And then, in our marriage, he’d be off it a lot, and then something would go wrong.  It was really—I mean, the problem everyone found later—he didn’t even need the operation.  It was that he’d had a bad back since college, and then the war, and he’d had a disk operation that he never needed, so all those muscles had gotten weak, and gone into spasm, and that was what was giving him pain—the muscles.  And so, then he’d go—I think if he went on crutches for four days, you know, he’d get everything better, but again that was only weakening it.  And it wasn’t until after his back operation that the poor doctor who’d been his medical man, Ephraim Shorr [a New York Hospital endocrinologist], said to him, “Now I think I am at liberty to tell you something which I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t think it was correct to do that to Dr. Wilson [the surgeon, who was a Harvard classmate of JFK’s father],” who was the back surgeon.  This made me so mad how doctors just let people suffer, and don’t say anything to hurt the other eminent physicians’ feelings. . .after a year of surgery and a year out, his back was weaker than ever. . . .”

 [What Dr. Shorr said could be a hindsight 20-20, though.]

Schleisinger asked: “In other words, the operation of 1955 was not necessary?” to which Jackie responded,

“It was no more necessary than it is for you to have one this minute.  And it was just criminal.  But, you know, all those bone surgeons look at X rays—you see, Jack was being driven so crazy by this pain. They even said to him before it, “We can’t tell if it will help or not.”  I remember his father and I and he talking, and he said, “I don’t care.  I can’t go on like this.”  It was, you know, one chance in a million, but he was going to take it.”

Jackie’s knowledge about JFK’s back problem might not be 100% correct, thus her resentment might not be fully justified.  Robert Kennedy wrote an introduction for the memorial edition of his brother’s book, Profiles in Courage, published in 1964, in which he wrote, “half his [JFK’s] days on this earth spent in pain.”

There is a lengthy article about JFK’s medical problems in the December 2002 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which is an excerpt from Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy,

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/12/the-medical-ordeals-of-jfk/305572/1/

“I think he was always looking for something in books—he was looking for something about history, or something for a quote. . . .”

“I think he was always looking for something in books—he was looking for something about history, or something for a quote. . . .”

Jacqueline Kennedy said of JFK. 

It may be a grandiose delusion for me to compare with JFK.  But, I really thought she was talking about me.  After visiting JFK Presidential Library and Museum (in Boston), I am now listening to Jacqueline Kennedy’s historic conversations on life with John F. Kennedy (Interview with Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).  The recording (8 CDs) took place in early 1964, shortly after JFK’s assassination and was released last year.

Was JFK's concentration history at Harvard, the same as mine in my 'continuing education' of life? I actually double major in history and life science.

“I think he found his heroes more in the past . . . He was really looking for lessons in the past and history.”

She talked about me again. :- )