Welcome to Camelot...revisited...

Peggy Noonan

[LisaMalia]

Looking back, I'm glad that I was too young to realize that his man had his "finger on the button".

[LisaMalia]

• Illnesses as serious, varied and potentially debilitating as JFK's, which included Addison's disease, chronic and intense back pain due to the collapse of bones in his spinal column, intestinal problems including colitis and ulcers, chronic prostatitis and urethritis, frequent fatigue, high fevers, increased vulnerability to infection, frequent headaches, diarrhea and a chronic abscess in his back, should have been fully divulged to the American people before they voted in the 1960 election.

• The medications he took, including corticosteroids, procaine, antispasmodics including Lomotil, testosterone, amphetamines to help combat fatigue and depression, Nembutal and, for a few days, an antipsychotic drug were, as we now say, inappropriate in a sitting president, and a standing one too, if he could stand.

• That this information, much of which existed for more than four decades, was suppressed, including by his presidential library, which in effect has used taxpayer money to keep secrets from taxpayers, is a scandal, and the rules and regulations by which presidential libraries operate should, as they say in Washington, be revisited.

But other thoughts arise. When the brilliant journalist Dorothy Thompson watched JFK's inauguration she--a longtime liberal and FDR supporter--fretted to a friend: "There's something weak and neurotic about that young man." She knew his story, knew of the charming monster of a father who was an isolationist in foreign affairs and a constant interventionist in all other spheres, especially his family. In Clark Clifford's memoirs, the old Democratic Party warhorse-in-lawyer's-pinstripes wrote of his first meeting with Sen. Kennedy, in the 1950s. JFK was pliant, pleasing, needed legal assistance. During their meeting old Joe called to bark instructions and yell at the senator and the attorney. Clifford found it chilling. JFK handled his father coolly. To read the scene with recent revelations in mind is to wonder what toll the facts of his life took on JFK, and to ponder a paradox. Old Joe's blind ambition probably made his son president; old Joe probably made his son sick, too.

Robert Dallek, the historian to whom the JFK records were made available, is careful to say in his Atlantic Monthly article that JFK's refusal to complain about his pain was gallant. I would add: and old school. He didn't feel your pain; he felt his, and kept it to himself. You find yourself feeling more personal admiration for him after the revelations, not less. Sick as a dog from childhood, he lived as a wit, an activist, a rake. But Mr. Dallek is perhaps too quick to assert that none of the drugs JFK took, or the conditions he suffered from, seem to have impaired his leadership. He notes that JFK had three doctors treating him, one of whom, the famous "Dr. Feelgood," Max Jacobson, was giving him amphetamine shots during his first summit with Krushchev. There, JFK displayed an utter inability to defend free-market capitalism in the face of Krushchev's coarse onslaughts on the superiority of Marxism. Kennedy flailed. After the meeting Krushchev operated with a new belligerence, cutting Berlin in two with a wall and placing missiles in Cuba.

Two other points. Someday a bright and diligent historian will take a look at the spectacle of JFK celebration in the media that commenced upon his death and has never fully abated. The endless magazine covers, the made-for-TV movies, the pictures, the poems, the bestsellers. All of this involved not just manipulation of the media but enthusiastic and over-the-top media complicity, which created a still-weird dynastic myth that continues in the Democratic party: Kennedys are gods. And this from the party of the working man. If you wonder why even your teenagers are affected by the myth of Camelot, know that the artists, writers, producers, network heads and magazine editors who now dominate the media were children during the great Kennedy celebration. Its images and assertions are embedded in their brains.

The revelations also underscore that JFK was very much a man of his time. He was of the Sinatra generation; they got through the Depression, fought the war, and came home too hip for the room. People think the boomers discovered sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but it was their parents, really--second-generation Americans home from Anzio and the South Pacific, beginning to leave the safety and social embarrassment of their immigrant parents' religion, informed by what they'd been taught as children about World War I and what happened at Versailles, influenced by Scott and Ernest and the lost generation. Add some Marx and the man in the gray flannel suit, throw in some Vat 69, and some pills. Put that all together, shake it, add a pinch of Freud and pour it out; what you get is party. The greatest generation on Saturday night. They were a great generation and they were more than that, and less. They created the boomers, the welfare state, the world we live in. They were one rocking group, and JFK was very much of them.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal

[bcoffey]

He notes that JFK had three doctors treating him...

Interesting... I guess those liberals who are going after Rush for "doctor shopping" would do the same to JFK.

(I doubt it)

[ladyinred]

You did have to admire the man for the fact that he never complained about the obvious horrible pain he lived with. Since finding out about "Dr. Feelgood" one does wonder if that was a good idea for the leader of the free world. In those days, we didn't know the effect of these kinds of drugs, heck, as Peggy says, we didn't even know he took them!

I find it hard to change my fond memories of JFK and I admit it freely. He was the first President I recall, young, handsome, and murdered in the streets. He was my hero for many years, and I guess I can thank him for getting me interested in politics at a very early age.

[LisaMalia]

exactly

[AQGeiger]

The medications he took, including corticosteroids, procaine, antispasmodics including Lomotil, testosterone, amphetamines to help combat fatigue and depression, Nembutal and, for a few days, an antipsychotic drug were, as we now say, inappropriate in a sitting president, and a standing one too, if he could stand.

But remember, none of this affected his ability to perform as President. I guess being one of the liberals' patron saints makes one immune from all sorts of drug side effects.

[MEG33]

I don't know if you were old enough to realize the hype and idealization piled on about the Kennedy years after his death,but it was like worship in some quarters.

[prairiebreeze]

follow up to our discussion of Caroline K. Note the possible family based medical conditions...

Prairie

[Joe_October]

Hard to give up a lie if it's one you like. He was a mutt.

But, nobody shoots our Presidents (even mutts like him).

[liberallyconservative]

It still is. Kennedys have always been romanticized beyond belief. And the fact that Ted had any political future after the Chappaquidick incident tends to show just how untouchable this family has been and still remains.

[bcoffey]

I don't know if you were old enough to realize the hype and idealization piled on about the Kennedy years after his death,but it was like worship in some quarters.

Ah yes, I've been around awhile :)

People always seem to find someone/something to worship. Most go for God... the others have to settle for second best.

[MEG33]

Exactly.I was in Dallas when he was killed and I was devastated.I didn't like him but he was the President.

[LisaMalia]

I can understand with the pain he lived with, and how he coped with it.

However, it makes me wonder about the liberal press, and how they covered for him. Would they have done the same for Nixon?

Remember how bad they maked Nixon look after the debates? (Kennedy, cool as a cucumber, and Nixon, sweating like bullets)

[annyokie]

Is this an excerpt from an earlier essay of Peggy's? I swear I have read this before. (My subscription to the WSJ lapsed a year ago.)

If Rush was indeed doctor shopping, he needs to pay the piper.

Flame-retardant suit on.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Wasn't there a Presidential candidate, years ago, whose visits to a psychiatrist prohibited him from seeking office, i.e., the press would have skewered him for it?

[LisaMalia]

Probably so...one that didn't have a "machine" to protect them.

[x]

Good article. It is strange that Democrats have developed this Kennedy fixation. But given that the Republicans are the party of the solid middle class, the Democrats have come to have a weakness for rich men who can put their money and charm at the party's disposal. They can't win with a working stiff as a candidate -- and in most elections they can't even get his vote. If you want to encourage veneration of the state and dependence upon government, having an attractive leader and a glamorous mythology helps.

Noonan ties things a little too closely together in the last paragraph. Some second-generation Americans might have lived life Frank Sinatra's way in the 1950s and 1960s -- most didn't. And the admirers of Scott and Ernest tended to be the Ivy Leaguers more than Levittowners. It is chilling to see old copies of Playboy, or hear about the Kinsey Report or read John Updike and realize that there were plenty of swingers before the baby boomers, but it's hard to recognize the wild ones in the older people one actually knows.

[bcoffey]

If Rush was indeed doctor shopping, he needs to pay the piper...

I agree, but I would think the "price" wouldn't be as high as some would wish.

[annyokie]

Nixon was sick as a dog with the flu during the debate and all who heard it on radio agreed that he (Nixon) won. JFK was the first TV president; Young, handsome (not in my opinion) well-spoken (not if you listen to the tape).

"Camelot", my left foot.

[wardaddy]

Arguably the most overrated President in our history....not to mention the utter myth of Camelot.

Disgusting media fawning is all it is or ever was.

I'm 46, Southern and remember his death well. First grade and they let us out immediately after word got out he'd been shot. I also remember some adults not being too sad about it. My own family was more ambivalent. My dad despised him but was saddened by the assasination of any US president...even one he loathed. My dad's wing was at Bay of Pigs ....some of that crap is still classified.

We are lucky Jack didn't completely screw the pooch in his dealings with Nikita....anybody who could survive as a challenge to Stalin and Beria was no fool.

[don'tbedenied]

JFK was a decorated war hero. I have not seen the PT 109 story debunked. Rush Limbaugh functioned very well while addicted to Oxycontin. The idiot "Dr. Shopping" law was undoubtedly drafted by a drug warrior and Rush has been supportive of the WOD. Things are not always what they seem nor do they fit in neat little boxes.
This really is a response to the whole string, not your remarks bcoffey.