Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [178]
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14 Joseph Kennedy’s handsome eldest boy: Parmet, p. 31.
14 Jack Kennedy, almost as soon as he got to Choate: Examples of JFK’s early, wry sense of humor appear in Hamilton, pp. 83–84, 93.
15 What happened to Jack when: Robert Kennedy’s recollection of his brother’s illnesses appears in his foreword to the 1964 edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage (New York: Harper, 1956), p. 8.
15 So it was in the sickbed: Reading King Arthur and Sir Walter Scott, Leaming, p. 17.
16 Leukemia was one of the grim possibilities: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 77.
16 “Ratface”: Joan Meyers, ed., John Fitzgerald Kennedy—As We Remember Him (New York: Atheneum, 1965), p. 15.
16 “Gee, you’re a great mother”: Rose Kennedy, Times to Remember (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), p. 93. Francis Kellogg, a classmate of Jack’s, responded to a Choate class survey and wrote: “I remember clearly one thing which surprised me during my four years at Choate: to the best of my knowledge, I do not believe Jack was ever visited during those four years by either his mother or father.”
16 Chilly and restrictive: Choate’s English influence, Parmet, p. 29.
16 Perhaps because he suddenly: JFK’s going to church, Hamilton, p. 146.
16 At night, he knelt next to his bed: David Michaelis, The Best of Friends: Profiles of Extraordinary Friendships (New York: Morrow, 1983), p. 137.
16 He understood, too: Parmet, p. 33.
17 While at the Catholic school: Leaming, p. 21.
17 Soon he was getting: Ralph “Rip” Horton, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
17 There would come over his face: Maurice A. Shea, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
18 Lem was a big kid: Pitts, p. 8.
18 With all the strength of: Kennedy and Billings meeting at the Brief, Michaelis, p. 132.
18 He would confide in Lem: LeMoyne Billings, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
18 Jack was willing to divulge: Lem’s family background, Pitts, p. 9.
18 “God, what a beating I’m taking”: Hamilton, p. 111.
19 As Joseph Kennedy, Sr., wryly observed: “As Dad liked to say, with some exasperation, Lem Billings and his battered suitcase arrived that day and never really left . . .” This is taken from Edward Kennedy’s published eulogy, May 30, 1981.
19 Next came Ralph: Parmet, p. 34.
19 The rest followed: Shea OH. 20 Yet there is another: Story of the “Muckers Club,” Hamilton, pp. 122–32.
20 Troublemaking by kids: Public Enemies Number One and Two, Michaelis, pp. 131–32.
20 Strategically astute: Muckers as “wheels,” Class of 1935 survey conducted in 1985, courtesy of Choate Rosemary Hall Archives. Robert Beach, a classmate of Kennedy’s, recalled in a class survey that “the main thesis was that we were such ‘wheels’ your father couldn’t kick us out.”
22 Jack, Lem, and one of the girls: The barn story, Michaelis, pp. 138–40.
23 Jack wanted “Most Likely to Succeed”: Shea OH.
23 In this long-ago microcosm: Tip O’Neill with William Novak, Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O’Neill (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 76.
Headmaster George St. John kept a number of loose-leaf binders over the years containing selected choral hymns and sermon notes. Choate archivist Judy Donald allowed me to study and copy from an early page in the binder that contained the essay written by Dean LeBaron Russell Briggs of Harvard, who was St. John’s mentor and lifelong hero. It’s from this essay, marked “Dean Briggs Essay,” that St. John would recite the “Ask not” lines once or twice a year (more on this in Chapter Thirteen notes).
Tom Hawks, a bank president, was a ’35 classmate of Jack’s. He wrote in a class survey taken in 1985 how angry he was at hearing those familiar words in Jack’s January 20, 1961, inaugural address. “What bugged me most was the way he plagiarized (the Head) in his inaugural address. I boil every time I hear the ‘ask not’ exhortation as being original with Jack. Time and again we all heard the Head say that to the