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mater will always ask not “What can she do for me?” but “What can I do for her?” ’ Clearly this was the inspiration source for George St. John who knew Briggs from his own Harvard days in the late 1890s. In 1911, as headmaster, he asked Briggs to give the commencement address at Choate.”

In Counselor, on p. 29, Ted Sorensen cited St. John as the “most credible theory” on the derivation of the “Ask not” exhortation. For whatever reason, he was not able to get Choate administrators to produce St. John’s “quote book” for him. On a visit to Choate in 2010, archivist Judy Donald showed me the “quote book” that contained the Briggs essay. It was right there on an early page of St. John’s loose-leaf binder, right below the hymns to be sung that day.

326 “greatly exceeded the boldest”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 114.

326 “The positions of the USA, Britain, and France”: Ibid., p. 303.

327 During those early weeks: Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), pp. 103–6.

328 Lem Billings arrived on Friday: Pitts, pp. 191–92.

328 He joined the couple, too: Ibid., p. 212.

329 “What would you do now”: Fay OH.

329 “Listen, Redhead”: Ibid.

329 But, clearly, the president: Pitts, p. 184.

329 for Rip Horton to: Horton OH.

329 “The presidency is not a good place”: Pitts, p. 184.

329 “The president is counting on you”: The account here of the early organization of the Peace Corps is taken from Wofford’s Of Kennedys and Kings.

330 “When he became president, Jackie changed”: Author interview with Rachel Mellon.

331 “Victory has a hundred fathers”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 289.

331 The disembarking Cubans had been assured by Agency officials: An “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation,” revealed in 2011, said the CIA task force in charge did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. The task force met on November 1960 to prepare a briefing for President-elect Kennedy. It failed to share with him its assessment that an invasion plan limited to the brigade of Cuban exiles could not succeed. The revelation came through a Freedom of Information request by the National Security Archive.

332 “Operation Zapata”: Jim Rasenberger, The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs (New York: Scribner, 2011), pp. 138–40.

332 Background on Guatemala coup: Ibid., pp. 61–62.

332 Kennedy and Bissell meet during campaign: Harris int.

332 Bundy and McNamara support Zapata: Rasenberger, p. 159.

332 But what really clinched it: Ibid., pp. 136–40.

332 “In a parliamentary government”: Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 115.

334 landing point shifted from Trinidad: Rasenberger, p. 139.

334 Castro rounded up: Ibid., pp. 323–25.

334 Prisoner exchange: Ibid., pp. 361–78.

336 “I probably made a mistake”: Schlesinger, Journals, 112.

337 “How could you expect the world”: Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 103.

337 For the first time: Ibid, p. 95.

337 “I’m the responsible officer”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 290.

337 83 percent in a Gallup poll: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 386. (That April 1961 number would be the highest in his administration.)

337 “In the months that followed”: Fay, p. 171.

337 Even on vacation in Hyannis Port: Ibid.

337 “I will never compromise the principles”: Ibid., pp. 172–73.

339 The French president expressed doubts: KOD.

340 His practical advice: Ibid.

340 even the appearance of negotiating: Ibid.

341 “snapping at him like a terrier”: O’Donnell and Powers, p. 296.

341 “Not too well”: Leaming, p. 309.

342 He tried everything: KOD.

342 Kennedy requested a third meeting: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 402.

343 “If that’s true, it’s going to be a cold winter”: Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 171.

343 “I never met a man like