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By Root 1117 0

questions, but then with all those flames and Diem and everything,50 the only time I really did, I asked him something and it was at the end of the day. And he said, "Oh, my God, kid"—which was—it sounds funny but I got used to it—it was a sort of a term of endearment that I suppose his family used. He said, "I've had that, you know, on me all day and I just"—see, he'd just been swimming at the pool and sort of changed into his happy evening mood, and he said, "Don't remind me of that all over again." And I just felt so criminal. But he could make this conscious effort to turn from worry to relative insouciance.

That was a great source of strength, I think, to be able to do that.

So, I wasn't asking him about—and then, and then he said to me either that time or another, "Don't ask me about those things." He said, "You can ask Bundy to let you see all the cables." [Schlesinger laughs] Or "Go ask Bundy." And I said, "I don't want to see all the cables." I used to get all the India-Pakistan cables because I loved to read Ken Galbraith's cables.51 And I used to get the weekly CIA summary. But finally, I just couldn't bear to read through those anymore. They put me into such a state of depression. There was never one good thing in them. Jack had to read those all the time. But he'd say, oh, "Go ask Bundy everything you want to know about that—he'll tell you." So I decided it was better to live—you get enough by osmosis and reading the papers, and not ask, and live in—I always thought there was one thing merciful about the White House which made up for the goldfish bowl and the Secret Service and all that was that it was kind of—you were hermetically sealed or there was something protective against the outside world. You didn't realize, you didn't hear mean things people were saying about you until a lot later. And you could sort of live in your strange little life in there. He couldn't but—I mean, as far as your private life went. And I decided that was the best thing to do. Everyone should be trying to help Jack in whatever way they could, and that was the way I could do it the best—you know, by being not a distraction—by making it always a climate of affection and comfort and detente when he came home. And the people around that he—I would try to have people who'd divert him. I mean, there were always people from Washington or something, but who wouldn't be—right on the subject that he'd thrashed about all day, and good food, and the children in good moods, and if you ever knew of someone who was in town or could get someone interesting, you know, try to do that.52

Did you do all the inviting?

Yes.

He had absolute confidence in you.

Yeah, and a lot of times if I couldn't think of someone, or something, I'd call up Mrs. Lincoln and say, "If the President wants anyone, tell him to ask whoever he wants for this evening." A couple of times, you'd arrange a little dinner of six people and it might be a night where he wanted to go to bed. So, I must say our last year was just one or two people all the time and then he'd decide when with Mrs. Lincoln, or else—you know Walton, or anyone.53

Do you remember when President Nkrumah came?54

Oh, yes. He was—I think he was the very first visitor we had. He came up and sat with us in the West Hall, you know, in our private part—private—sitting—

Apartments?

Apartments [chuckles] and Stas was there, and Lee. And Stas had just told us before that Nkrumah had bought the biggest yacht in the Mediterranean that belonged to some shifty Greek friend of Stas's—the Radiant. So Stas asked him about it, and his eyes sort of rolled and he said, "Yes, it's being used to train the Ghanaian navy!" And Jack had a good laugh about that later with Stas. But he was very—you know, he was nice, he was gay, he had this laugh. You didn't realize what a bandit he was going to turn out to be.

Of course, he behaved in the most terrible way recently, but that was quite a—agreeable visit, wasn't it?

Terribly agreeable, and he was so—you could see he was so delighted to be in the family