Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [141]
During those early weeks after they’d moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Bartletts came to visit and the First Couple took them on a stroll down the streets surrounding the White House. Escaping through the guard gates was a way of testing his freedom. That night both Jack and Jackie spoke of their commitment to saving the buildings surrounding Lafayette Park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue. The Eisenhower administration had considered leveling the historic townhouses to put up government office buildings. They also mentioned their desire to restore the White House itself. When they found their way up to the ornate Indian Treaty Room in the Old Executive Building, Kennedy practiced using the microphone used by Ike during press conferences. Charlie sat in the back, listening to how the new president sounded from there. The brand-new president was having fun in his discovered world and sharing it with a beloved pal. He wasn’t letting his hidden dread affect the occasion. As Chuck Spalding once told me, even amid crisis, “Jack’s attitude made you feel like you were at a fair or something.”
Lem Billings arrived on Friday and stayed a week. He was the Kennedys’ first houseguest and their most frequent. Soon he’d have his own room, and would show up unannounced and stay as long as he liked. He was never issued a White House pass, but the Secret Service agents all knew him. He joined the couple, too, on weekends at Glen Ora, their retreat in the Virginia horse country. Often, Jackie was the one inviting him. She wanted Jack to have someone to hang out with when she was out riding. The presence of Jack’s old Choate roommate ensured there’d always be company to lighten the mood.
Lem never took for granted Jack’s friendship, cherished it, and was always there for him. “Jack was the closest person to me in the world for thirty years,” he said, and no one doubted it. Still, even he found it difficult to explain Jack’s enduring loyalty. “I’ve often wondered why, you know, all through the years, we continued to be such close friends, because I never kept up on politics and all the things that interested him. What he really wanted to do, on weekends, was to get away from anything that had to do with the White House.”
In fact, escaping the White House even on weeknights appealed greatly to its new occupant. One time he had Red Fay buy tickets ahead of time for Spartacus, allowing them to slip into the nearby movie theater unnoticed once the lights were down. Fay never forgot an incident that occurred a few nights later, walking across Lafayette Park. A fellow standing in the shadows caught the attention of the Secret Service agents, who checked him out by shining their flashlights at him. “What would you do now if that man over there pulled a gun?” Kennedy suddenly asked his buddy from the PT boat days. “What would you do to help your old pal?”
As they walked on, they began talking about assassination, the word itself rather antiquated, given that there’d been none since McKinley. “You know, this really isn’t my job, to worry about my life,” Kennedy said. “That’s the job of the Secret Service. If I worry about that, I’m not going to be able to do my own job. So I have just really removed that from my mind. That’s theirs to take care of. That’s one of the unpleasant parts about the job, but that’s part of the job.”
Fay had moved from California to work at the Navy Department. Once he was on the federal payroll, Jack teased him. “ Listen, Red head, he’d say, I didn’t put you over there to be the brightest man that ever held the job of Undersecretary.” He said that he wanted him there for his honest judgment about what he saw. But, clearly, the president wanted Fay’s company as well. Jack had arranged for another PT buddy, Jim Reed, to be made assistant secretary of the treasury, and for Rip Horton to go to the Army Department. “The presidency is not a good place to make new friends,” Jack said.