Author’s Note
Like so many people of the baby boomers generation, indelibly etched in my memory is where I was on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12.30 p.m., the infamous moment when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. I was fifteen years old. The silence in my room was shattered when my mother came upstairs to deliver the terrible news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. Like so many people all over the world, I wept. And I cried again, 45 years later (at my friend, Dan’s place in Lexington, in Boston Massachusetts), on November 4, 2008, when it was confirmed that Barack Obama was being elected the first black President in American history. On the latter occasion, of course, there were tears of joy. The massive impact of both events for me is difficult to explain.
But Kennedy’s death certainly ignited a deep passion within me. I started collecting newspapers, articles, magazines, and books about him, reading everything I could find about this extraordinary man. As time passed, hundreds of books were written on President Kennedy’s life, family and administration, and I bought every single one I could get my hands on. Today, my private library is undoubtedly the wealthiest private collection on the subject, and, of course, I have read every one of them!
My goal in writing my own account of his life is to be as accurate as possible on historical facts and dates concerning John Fitzgerald Kennedy—something which cannot be said of many of the books published on the subject during the past sixty years. In my opinion, many authors have been hasty and very sloppy in their historical approach towards John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Some of them have embellished their research for sensationalism, and their abusive, gossipy approach has marred actual history.
Sheldon Stern, who was the historian at the John F. Kennedy library in Boston from 1977 to 1999, says, “There is, of course, nothing new about historical participants manipulating the evidence and inventing “truths” to suit their purposes.”
While writing this book, I was often asked if I would be the one who tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Have I succeeded? Yes and no, because on certain facts in his life, his personal life, it’s impossible to find the truth. You, the reader, will decide if I have uncovered some truths about his political accomplishments and failures.
I would claim modestly that I have certainly come closer to the truth about JFK—at least as close as an investigator, someone who is fond of history and passionate about the truth, can get. This is my attempt to write a book on JFK with a totally different approach—at least that is my true hope. Never before has this particular subject been tackled so thoroughly to help a new generation of young readers, who I hope will have a more accurate understanding of John F. Kennedy, based on the historical facts. And if my readers learn something from the results of my extensive research, it will bring me great satisfaction. I have also quoted other works on JFK in this book and wherever I have, the relevant book is referenced in the footnotes.
Another thing people ask me is, “Why another Kennedy book?” To that, I respond with the thoughts of the great Dutch historian Pieter Geyl, who believes that all historians are influenced by the present when writing history, and thus, all historical writing is transitory. In Geyl’s view, there can never be a definitive account for all ages because every age has a different view of the past. Geyl felt that history was a progress of “argument without end.”
Finally, I chose to call this rather large and expansive work of mine, ‘Life is Unfair,’ because I deeply resonate with President Kennedy’s words from his press conference speech on March 21st, 1962. He said, “There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in the war, and some are wounded and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”
I am convinced that a lot of people won’t find this a positive statement, but it is a reality, however bitter it may be. Moreover, it’s an everyday situation for so many people all over the world. Although ‘life is unfair’, one should never despair. We need to fight back and make the best of it because life can be a great adventure worth living too. There’s a heartfelt quote from Jacqueline Kennedy on life, “Every moment one lives is different from the other. The good, the bad, hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness, are all interwoven into one single, indescribable whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good from the bad. And perhaps there is no need to do so either.”
About the Book
In my book, I shall illustrate President Kennedy, not as a myth, but as a man. He himself once said at Yale University June 11th, 1962, “For the greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”
John Kennedy was an imperfect figure, as a man and as a president. Yet for me, he was still an extraordinary human being—extremely intelligent, charismatic, graceful. A man who, despite his health problems throughout his life, never, ever complained. He inspired the masses, just as he inspired me, and will continue to inspire future generations of Americans to believe in the power of government, and to share the conviction that politics can truly be a noble profession.
I consulted positive and negative books which I have placed in three categories:
The Court Historians: William Manchester, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Ted Sorensen, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Evelyn Lincoln, Ken O’Donnell, Dave Powers.
Also, Pierre Salinger and Paul B. Fay, who helped to sustain the Camelot legacy.
The Iconoclasts or Revisionists: Victor Lasky, Richard J. Walton, Henry Fairly, Joan and Clay Blair Jr., Nigel Hamilton, Herbert S. Parmet, Noam Chomsky, Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Thomas C. Reeves, Seymour M. Hersh, Mark J. White and many others.
For some (in the second category) he was an incompetent president whose personal weaknesses limited his ability to carry out his duties, a cold war warrior who brought America almost to the brink of nuclear conflict. For some others, he was a compulsive womanizer, a liar, an amphetamine addict, lazy, ruthless and corrupt.
The Political Realists or Post Revisionists: Those who take Kennedy on the record, such as Michael R. Beschloss, James N. Giglio, Robert Dallek, Michael O’Brien, James W. Douglass, Larry J. Sabato, Irving Bernstein, Hugh Brogan, Alan Brinkley, Sheldon M. Stern, Fredrik Logevall, and many others.
In this last category, JFK comes out rather well because most authors saw him growing in the office, learning from his mistakes—an above-average-rated president and certainly one of the few transitional presidents who remain popular after their death.
I own no books on his assassination because there are too many murder plots, ranging from the mob, the Russians, the Mossad, Castro, the CIA, the FBI, his own secret servicemen, all the way up to Lyndon Johnson. Much of it sounds like science fiction to me: many theories are too crazy to be true. However, I have my idea about the assassination, which I will explain in the epilogue.
This book has been a long time in the making.
In 1982, I was preparing an exhibit on President Kennedy and his brother Bobby in Bruges, my hometown in Belgium. With my wife and son, I went to see the director of the Kennedy Library in Boston, Mr. Dan H. Fenn Jr., a former Staff Assistant to President Kennedy. The first time I met Mr. Dan H. Fenn was at his office in the Kennedy Library at the end of Columbia Point, which just cuts into Dorchester Bay. I told him the following, “If you think Kennedy is God or Elvis Presley to me, you are wrong; Kennedy is my hobby, my reading hobby.” I explained to him that I was preparing an exhibition on President Kennedy for the benefit of disabled children, as my late wife was a teacher.
Dan later told me what he thought the first time he saw me, “I said to myself, ‘what a strange, crazy fellow.’” Then he told me what he thought of me when he met me the second time., “But the second time I saw you, I believed in you.” He never imagined Kennedy could be a hobby, a reading hobby, instead of me being another ‘Kennedy watcher.’ I spent the entire week at the JFK Library, picking up ideas for my exhibition. I could talk with the director whenever I wanted. I’ll never forget what he said to me on a Friday in August 1982, at noon, “You’re not coming back this afternoon?”
I replied, “No. You know Mr. Fenn, this afternoon, I am going to Hyannis Port to knock on Rose Kennedy’s door.” Dan laughed, and a friendship for life was born, based on determination, perseverance and wit, that Dan and I both share.
The exhibition I was preparing finally took place in November 1983, with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (JFK’s niece and eldest daughter of Robert Kennedy) and her husband David, and Dan Fenn at the opening ceremonies.
Choosing the guest list generated the following fine anecdote (against me): Dan proposed Maria Shriver and her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger because Maria’s mother, Eunice Kennedy, was the President’s sister. Eunice was married to Sargent Shriver; the Peace Corps Director, during the Kennedy Presidency. I telephoned Dan and said “No, Mr. Fenn, I don’t need a Shriver. And who the hell is Arnold Schwarzenegger?” A year later, he became world-famous through his Terminator movies.
Around Christmas 1988, Dan’s parents encouraged me to write a book about JFK. They thought that my perspective, feelings and thoughts about the 35th President of the United States were fascinating. Anna Fenn died on December 28, 1998. Thirty years after her encouragement, and twenty years after her death at 99, I finally fulfilled her wishes and my dream. That being said, I had wanted to start years earlier with my project but couldn’t find the time. It is very time-consuming to be a certified accountant, defending clients against the IRS.
I am aware that it is a challenging undertaking, writing yet another Kennedy book. It is a daunting task, trying to find an original approach. Not being a scholar, nor a history professor, simply nurturing a deep love of this history, trying to find out historical truth on John F. Kennedy is like a drug to me. My point of view and candor may surprise you. Politics containing excessive lies and too many compromises is completely unacceptable to me. However, I am fascinated with American political history, along with world history, and always will be. I have the utmost respect for historians, but I want to confront various authors, historians, and scholars, on what they wrote about many events surrounding the Kennedy administration, not least Cuba, Vietnam, the African Americans, the race to the moon, and personal issues of JFK’s life, his health, and his womanizing. In this book, these subjects have been approached without making them seem salacious, while acknowledging that the entire historical truth is elusive. That being said, I can confidently say that I have been able to expose a lot of falsehoods.
Historian Michael Beschloss asserted during a stimulating television discussion with Thomas C. Reeves, “The burden on all of us who write about those things is to be fair to him (JFK). How much reliability can we place on some of these sources about all these women? Many of them, I’m sure are true, but again, you have to be fair to someone.” That Kennedy’s liaisons were extensive is undeniable, but not all of those ascribed to him could have logistically taken place.
Hence, not forgetting the influence of his parents on the shaping of JFK, I have looked for the truth in order to discover fabrications, contradictions, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies about his marriage and his character. I have searched for real truths or blunt lies, determined to set the record straight. For example, historically there are glaring errors in the mentioning of certain dates that make a tremendous difference, such as with the US Independence Day being on July 4th, 1776 not July 5th 1776, or “l’appel du June 18th, 1940,” the famous speech by General Charles De Gaulle was not delivered on June 19th, 1940. Similarly, authors don’t get the exact birthday of Rose Kennedy right, which is 21st of July 1890 and not the 20th or 22nd.
In ‘Conversations with Kennedy’ by Benjamin C. Bradlee, Kennedy is quoted as saying: “What makes journalism so fascinating, and biography so interesting, is the struggle to answer that single question: “What’s he like?” I have tried to find answers to that fascinating question.
The Camelot legend created by Jacqueline Kennedy during a Life Magazine interview with Theodore White, and published on December 6th, 1963, is now consigned to its original origins in the Middle Ages. The reference to a fictional, idyllic world in the Kennedy White House seems to have done more harm than good to the legacy of John F. Kennedy. I think President Kennedy himself would not have liked the “Camelot” idea at all. Indeed, his exemplary display of fortitude while facing adversity would suggest the opposite—he would have been disgusted and outraged by the very idea of it.
As with all politically charged depictions, sometimes the approach to President Kennedy depends on the political affiliation of the author, democrat or republican. Other authors seem to have more propensity towards writing science fiction stories than actual history. In 1989, C. David Heymann, in his book called, “A Woman Named Jackie”, wrote that according to the actor Peter Lawford, Marilyn Monroe was crazy about Jack. He expounds the theory that the actress had devised all sorts of madcap fantasies with herself in the starring role: Marilyn would have JFK’s children, she would take Jackie’s place as First Lady. Marilyn was said to have told Lawford that she had telephoned Jackie at the White House, and Peter Lawford states that according to Marilyn, Jackie wasn’t shaken by the call and, in fact, agreed to step aside.
She would divorce Jack, and Marilyn could marry him. She stipulated that Marilyn would have to move into the White House and, if Marilyn wasn’t prepared to live openly in the White House, she might as well forget about it.
In his book “Joe and Marilyn” which came out in 2014, two years after C. David Heymann’s death on May 9th, 2012, Heymann attributed that story to Ralph Roberts, the late actor and masseur, a dear friend of Marilyn Monroe. Subsequently, Christopher Anderson, in his 2013 book, “These few precious days,” tells the 1989 version of the author Heymann’s Marilyn Monroe story on “CBS This Morning.” A so-called new revelation was made when Mr. Anderson told the story of Peter Lawford’s claim. The question is, do you really believe this story?
There is another amazing story repeated in a large number of Kennedy books about a quote attributed to the late Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. After President Kennedy was assassinated, Moynihan, the then Assistant Secretary of Labor, was speaking with the Washington Post’s star writer, Mary McGrory. Mary sadly commented, “We’ll never laugh again.” Moynihan replied, “Heavens, Mary, we’ll laugh again, but we’ll never be young again.” This has now become a historical comment. “We’ll never be young again” is even the title of a book by Chuck Fries and Irv Wilson with Spencer Green from 2003 with recollections on President Kennedy by many famous people. Yet, the simple truth is that the quote, “Heavens, Mary, we’ll laugh again but we’ll never be young again,” was from Dan H. Fenn Jr. At the time, Dan was Staff Assistant to President Kennedy. The comment was made in a car on the day of JFK’s funeral, November 25th, 1963, on the ride to Arlington Cemetery. The first and only author who quoted Dan Fenn instead of Moynihan was Larry J. Sabato in 2013. In future books on JFK, they should give credit to my friend, Dan.
With the spiritual help of my friend Dan Fenn Jr., my book on President John F. Kennedy is the fulfillment of a wonderful hobby. I consider Dan to be my second father. He was an exceptional man who combined a great intellect with a great sense of humor and humility. He would have been proud that his encouragement was the catalyst for my years of research, now coming to fruition in these pages. For me, writing a book on JFK is the fulfillment of the never-ending American dream. If you ask me about the link between Kennedy (a man I never met), Dan H. Fenn Jr. ( my friend), and me, humbly, I would venture to state that it is our sense of humor. If the pharmaceutical industry could produce a humor drug instead of a drug for less cholesterol, can you imagine taking a humor drug every day? I bet our cholesterol would go down from alleviating stress through humor!
It is also imperative to mention here that the photograph on the cover is an illustration as well as an explanation of my title, “Life is Unfair.” Depicted is the two-year-old John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., climbing around the resolute desk in the Oval Office. The iconic photo has the young John looking through the small door. John Kennedy Jr. has said this is one of the memories of his father, “I have a few. He had this desk in the Oval Office, and I just remember the inside, you could climb around in it. He used to give us chewing gum because my mother didn’t like us to chew gum. So we used to go over the Oval Office at night and he’d feed us gum under the desk.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. died on July 16th, 1999, when the airplane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. His wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren were also killed in the same crash. He was on his way
to attend the wedding of his cousin Rory Kennedy, the daughter of his father’s brother, Robert Kennedy. He was 38 years old and in the prime of his life. How can life be more unfair?
That tragic event taking a toll on the remaining Kennedy clan was inevitable. The gracious way that John, Jr.’s sister, Caroline Kennedy, handled the tragedy was phenomenally dignified. Personally, I was privileged to witness her grace myself while attending a ‘Meet and Greet’ event at the Kennedy Library on November 4th, 2009. Caroline generously signed four books for my library, one of them titled, “A Family of Poems.” She opened it, then raised the book to her lips and gave it a discrete kiss. Her lovely gesture touched me deeply. I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life.
Finally, each chapter in this book will also show some photographs relevant to the topic at hand, and will illustrate the moments that altered their lives to invoke empathy which, I think, is a wonderful human virtue.