My first passport stamp
I visited JFK Library and Museum
I was planning to visit John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum after History Camp Boston already. When my uncle unexpectedly sent me a Passport to Presidential Libraries, that sealed the deal. (Can you believe I received it a week after revisiting Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum? Guess I have to make another trip.)
JFK is tricky for me.
He’s endlessly fascinating. Obviously. But I have yet to get a decent likeness! I’m sure that’s due to a combination of my skill level and the fact that he’s so recognizable. It’s far easier to get away with a subpar Polk portrayal than a decent depiction of Kennedy.
See what I mean?
Exhibit 4 was inspired by The Last of the President’s Men, by Bob Woodward. Nixon lost his mind when he learned that staff had photos of the late JFK on their desks. He called it an “infestation.” Alexander Butterfield had to institute a “picture policy,” ensuring loyalty to Nixon and no former presidents. And no one could know that was Nixon’s idea.
Here’s a random assortment of doodles and photos collected after my visit.
JFK promised Eleanor Roosevelt he’d focus on civil rights
He did. And she backed him. He continued to take her counsel during his presidency.
Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962, by Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
KENNEDY WINS
… with a “razor-thin” margin.
Doodle inspired by An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s possible the article specified that JFK was the youngest president elected… not just the youngest president. I confess I didn’t read the article. I just went ahead and started doodling.
Wallace. Augh.
This cartoon with a little George Wallace leaving a grenade on Mr. Kennedy’s desk of course made me think of how he used his wife to continue running the state after he could no longer be governor… and basically let her die. Lobbed her a grenade. So to speak. I’m simplifying it, but not by a whole lot. If you scroll about halfway down this post, you can read more about it. If you want to be infuriated, that is.
Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, by Julia Sweig
Charles de Gaulle
Jackie kept a framed photo of herself with President de Gualle in her dressing room. (Truman thought de Gaulle was a “son of a bitch.”)
Too dangerous and too unpredictable
JFK Library has a special Presidential Pets exhibit on display through the end of the year, which gives me the opportunity to share that First Lady Jackie Kennedy loved animals. She tried to get deer for the White House, but when Chief Usher J. B. West checked with the zoo he was told they were “dangerous and unpredictable.”
He went ahead and recycled that excuse when she requested peacocks.
Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies, by J. B. West
Gorgeous seating charts
Jackie had stunning seating charts made up to help the social aides with seating, including this example for a dinner in honor of André Malraux, France’s Minister of Culture. I was so excited because I have a doodle about the Chief of Protocol’s wine-stained shirt and how Chief Usher J.B. West gave him his shirt before he was to escort Malraux.
Unfortunately, he was escorting Italian President Saragat. My memory betrayed me.
I was also pretty excited because Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr. is on the seating chart and I have a doodle of him!
Unfortunately, I do not.
I have a doodle of his father.
I thought.
But that can’t be true either because Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr. died in 1912.
I thought perhaps the guy on this seating chart is actually Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, III.
But he died in three years before this dinner.
Maybe the “T.” doesn’t stand for “Thomas” at all. Maybe it’s entirely irrelevant and I need to move on.
WAIT! Ok, I think maybe it’s Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, IV. He lived in Boston! They called him Jeff! He died in 2005! He would have been 29 years old when this dinner happened! Apparently he was known as “60 Minutes Coolidge” because he played offense AND defense for the Harvard football team! Guess who one of his teammates was?? Senator Edward M. Kennedy! He was in the Marines, the CIA, Korea! He was not into bureaucracy! I gotta say — he sounds pretty fascinating. You could call me “60 Minutes Rogers” for how much time I spent down this rabbit hole.
It was totally worth it.
And also — stunning seating chart, no?
Doodles inspired by Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies, by J. B. West and Mary Lynn Kotz and The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King, by Rich Cohen
Cuba
The Cuba exhibit is fascinating. And horrifying. This video shows more:
You can also check out JFK Library’s online exhibit: World on the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I read One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs years before I started doodling while I read. (Loaned to me by the very same uncle who just gave me the Passport to Presidential Libraries — Hi, Uncle Glenn!)
The Bay of Pigs Invasion came up again recently in The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King, by Rich Cohen. Yikes. I won’t stop blabbing about this book any time soon. It’s (pardon my overused pun) bananas. Scroll through more doodles in this post if you don’t believe me.
The Resolute Desk
The Resolute Desk at JFK Library is a replica based on the gift from Queen Victoria, who sent the HMS Resolute in search of a missing soldier. The HMS Resolute had to be abandoned after getting trapped in the ice. When we found the ship three years later, we fixed it up and returned it. Two decades later when the ship was decommissioned, Queen Victoria had desks made of it… and she gave one to President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Decision Points, by George W. Bush
His young staff
I still can’t get over how young everybody was.
The world’s best glass
The West Virginia Hillbilly thanked Jackie for ordering glassware from their state. I like to think she filled the glassware with champagne and ice cubes, but I don’t know for sure.
Doodle inspired by An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Oh this will be perfect!”
Something at the museum made me want to share this doodle of Jackie jumping on a trampoline.
I don’t remember what. Or why.
And yet here is Jackie jumping on a trampoline.
She had holly trees planted around the ground-level trampoline so she could play with her kids and not have everyone see them. “All they’ll be able to see is my head, sailing above the treetops!”
Bunny Mellon designed the Rose Garden
Jackie invited aristocrat/horticulturist Bunny Mellon to redesign the grounds of the White House. She lived to 103! Longer than the Rose Garden, which lasted only 64 years…
Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, by Julia Sweig
… which is coincidentally how old Jackie was when she died. 💔
She was still working as a book editor a few days a week up until shortly before she died.
First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, by Kate Andersen Brower
“We have definitely decided to stop any fooling around.”
17-YEAR-0LD JACK TO HIS DAD, ABOUT HIS POOR SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
“All of this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this plant. But let us begin.”
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
For more field trips, check out these posts:
🪦🍂