An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (121 page)

p. 45: “I can’t help it”: JFK to Billings, July 25, 1934, NHP.

p. 46: “I had an enema”: JFK to Billings, June 19, 1934, LBP.

p. 46: “The nurses here”: JFK to Billings, June 27, 1934, NHP.

p. 46: “a bundle from”: JFK to Billings, Oct. 21, 1936, NHP.

p. 46: “I can now get”: JFK to Billings, Jan. 13, 1937, NHP.

p. 46: “dirty”: See the JFK letters in Billings papers for 1934-1937, NHP.

p. 46: “He was interested”: LeMoyne Billings OH.

p. 46: “brother John”: Michaelis, 152.

p. 46: “because he was”: Billings OH.

p. 47: His father’s infidelities: Hamilton, 350-51.

p. 47: “went down to the Cape”: JFK to Billings, Oct. 16, 1936, LBP.

p. 47: “locker room stories”: Collier and Horowitz, 212.

p. 47: “needed female”: Doris Goodwin, 724.

pp. 47-48: JPK’s visits to Hollywood: Hersh, 27.

p. 48: go “down next week”: JFK to Billings, Oct. 16, 1936, LBP.

p. 48: “little party”: JFK to Billings, Oct. 21, 1936, in NHP.

p. 48: JFK’s fascination with the Cecil book: Hellmann, 29-32; Hersh, 25.

p. 48: “didn’t have to lift” and “Hello, kid”: Hersh, 22-23.

p. 48: “Still can’t get use to”: JFK to Billings, Oct. 4, 1940, NHP.

pp. 48-49: The anecdotes about “only fifteen minutes” and “foreplay” were told to me respectively by a journalist and a colleague at Boston University, whose roommate dated JFK.

p. 49: “Slam, bam”: Hellmann, 28.

p. 49: as “compulsive as Mussolini”: Collier and Horowitz, 212.

p. 49: “a true count”: William Walton Interview in NHP.

p. 49: The arrangement to pay Billings’s way: Hamilton, 177.

pp. 49-53: The itinerary of the trip and most of the JFK quotes about what he saw are in JFK Diary, Box 1, PP. For other quotes, see LeMoyne Billings,
The New Yorker,
April 1, 1961, 126-27; Hamilton, 183, 185, 192-93; Collier and Horowitz, 85; Burns, 32.

p. 53: The Maryland mansion: Doris Goodwin, 450-51.

p. 53: The Spee and “It was a status symbol”: Hamilton, 205-9.

p. 53: Appointment as ambassador: Dallek,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
533; Beschloss,
Kennedy and Roosevelt,
123-28.

p. 53: “The moment the appointment”: Quoted in Doris Goodwin, 509.

p. 54: “London is where”: Arthur Krock OH.

p. 54: “You don’t understand”: Beschloss,
Kennedy and Roosevelt,
126.

p. 54: “Don’t go buying”: Collier and Horowitz, 88.

p. 54: For Jack’s summer: Doris Goodwin, 537, 539-40, 545; Hamilton, 233-37; Hugh Fraser OH; William Douglas-Home OH.

p. 54: Jack’s 1938-39 academic record is in Box 2; his fall course list, grades, and tutorial record agreeing to the reading and thesis plan are in Box 3, PP.

p. 55: “a rather thin”: A. Chester Hanford OH.

p. 55: For the Holcombe quotes, see Meyers, 23.

p. 55: The visit to New Orleans: Hamilton, 254.

pp. 55-56: Pro-Chamberlain speech and “It’s pretty funny”: JFK to Parents, n.d. (but probably Oct. 1938), Box 1, PP.

p. 56: “feeling very important”: JFK to Billings, Mar. 1939, NHP.

p. 56: had had “a great time”: JFK to Billings, Mar. 23, 1939, LBP.

p. 56: “graciously declined”: Ibid.

p. 57: “living like a king”: JFK to Billings, April 6, 1939, NHP.

p. 57: “Plenty of action”: Postcard, April, n.d., 1939, NHP.

p. 57: “Things have been humming”: JFK to Billings, April 28, 1939, NHP.

p. 57: “Jack sitting”: Bullitt, 273. Offie remembers this as the summer of 1938, but other evidence suggests 1939.

p. 57: “The whole thing”: JFK to Billings, May 1939, NHP. Also see JFK to Billings, April 28, July 17, and Aug. 20, 1939, and JFK to JPK, n.d., 1939, all in NHP; and Burns, 37-38.

p. 58: August travels: Meyers, 28; Kennan, 91-92.

p. 58: The Riviera: Dietrich, 182.

pp. 58-59: Visit to Parliament, JPK’s reaction to the war, and the rescue mission: Hamilton, 279-86; Beschloss,
Kennedy and Roosevelt,
163-64.

p. 59: Return to America: See undated 1939 letters from JFK to JPK, Boxes 1 and 4B, PP.

p. 59: “I saw the rock”: CBS transcribed interview in the JFKL Audio-Visual Archive.

p. 59: “got this odd, hard look”: Quoted in Collier and Horowitz, 102.

p. 59: Why the masses obey: Payson S. Wild OH.

p. 59: JFK editorial, Harvard
Crimson,
Oct. 9, 1939.

p. 59: “everyone here is ready”: JFK to JPK, n.d., 1939, Box 1, PP.

p. 60: On JPK’s appeal to Washington to mediate, see
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939,
I (Washington, D.C.), 421-24.

p. 60: “He seemed to blossom”: Wild OH.

p. 60: The editorial board: Parmet,
Jack,
66.

p. 60: “I seem to be”: Undated 1939 letters from JFK to JPK, Boxes 1 and 4B, PP.

p. 60: “The war clinched”: Ed Plaut interview with JFK, n.d., in Ralph G. Martin Papers, Boston University.

p. 60: For JFK’s courses, see JFK, Course List, Harvard University, Box 3, PP. Also see Wild OH and Hamilton, 297-302.

p. 61: On Lothian, see Hamilton, 306-7.

p. 61: “We used to”: Ibid., 314-15.

pp. 61-62: On JFK’s initial exchanges with Seymour, see JFK to Seymour, Jan. 11, 1940; Seymour to JFK, Jan. 11, 1940; JFK to Seymour, Jan. 30, Feb. 9, 1940; Seymour to Paul Murphy, Feb. 8, 1940; Seymour to JFK, Feb. 12, 1940; Murphy to Seymour, Feb. 27, 1940; all in Box 1, James Seymour Papers, JFKL.

p. 62: The unpublished thesis “Appeasement at Munich” is in the PP. The Yeomans and Friedrich Reports on Thesis for Distinction are in Box 2, PP.

p. 62: “a deep thinker”: Wild OH.

p. 62: “imagination and diligence”: Bruce C. Hopper, “Notes: Jack Kennedy as a Student at Harvard (Candidate for Honors),” July 1960, Box 2, PP.

p. 62: “again elated”: Hopper to B. O’Riordan, Jan. 6, 1964, Box 2, PP.

p. 63: “a typical undergraduate”: Burns, 40.

p. 63: JFK’s argument is stated repeatedly throughout the thesis.

p. 63: “While Daddy Slept”: Parmet,
Jack,
70.

p. 64: “to give up their personal interests”: JFK, “Appeasement at Munich,” 91.

p. 64: “In this calm acceptance”: Ibid., 146.

p. 64: “While it is the book”: Quoted in Freedman, 590.

p. 65: “it was amateurish”: Krock OH. Also see JFK to JPK, n.d., 1940, in Meyers, 33-34. The details of arranging publication, including “sales possibilities” and “things moving,” are in Hamilton, 329-30.

p. 65: “as soon as possible”: JFK to JPK, n.d., 1940, Box 4A, PP. For the revisions, see JFK to JPK, n.d., but clearly spring 1940, Box 1, PP; JPK to JFK, May 20, 1940, Box 129, POF; and Parmet,
Jack,
72-76.

p. 65: For the reviews and sales, see Parmet,
Jack,
74, 77; Parmet says sales amounted to 80,000 copies, but Nigel Hamilton says the figure was well below that (p. 380).

pp. 65-66: “I read Jack’s book” and “The book will do you”: Quoted in Rose Kennedy, 271, 261-62.

p. 66: “Jack was downstairs”: Charles Spalding OH.

p. 66: On health problems and JFK’s plans to attend Yale, see Blair, 91.

pp. 66-67: “I don’t think”: Quoted in ibid., 90.

p. 67: For JFK’s term at Stanford, see ibid., 91-104.

p. 67: “He was fascinated”: Quoted in Hamilton, 350.

p. 67: JFK conversation with Stanford student body president and “remote westerners”: Harry Muheim, “Rich, Young, and Happy,”
Esquire,
Aug. 1966.

p. 67: For JFK’s counsel to his father, see JFK to JPK, Dec. 5, 1940, Box 4A, PP.

p. 67: On Lend-Lease: “a supplemental note,” n.d., but Dec. 1940, Box 4A, PP; Hamilton, 393-97.

p. 68: For JFK’s visit to Latin America, see Muheim,
Esquire,
109-110; Hamilton, 403-5, and the notes for these pages on p. 841.

p. 68: On family requirements of a serious life purpose, see Doris Goodwin, 457.

Chapter 3: The Terrors of Life

p. 69: “was surprised”: Collier and Horowitz, 212.

p. 69: “Gee, you’re”: Rose Kennedy, 93.

p. 69: Billings’s recollections: Doris Goodwin, 353.

p. 69: Rose’s insistence: Davis, 53.

p. 70: She “organized and supervised”: Hellmann, 10.

p. 70: Billings quoted in Doris Goodwin, 353.

p. 70: Jack quoted in Burns, 21.

p. 70: Rose never told him: Hersh, 17.

p. 70: Spalding quoted in Hamilton, 690-91.

p. 70: “history made him”: Interview with Jacqueline Kennedy, “The Camelot Papers, 1963-1964,” Theodore H. White Papers, JFKL.

p. 70: Staged minor rebellions: Rose Kennedy, 93-94. Also see Hellmann, 10-11.

p. 70: “I enjoy your”: Quoted in Doris Goodwin, 631.

p. 71: “I looked on”: Rose Kennedy, 81. Some 200 of the 500 pages of Rose’s book are devoted to a discussion of child rearing.

p. 71: Rose as mother: Also see Sheldon M. Stern’s persuasive letter to Nigel Hamilton, June 10, 1994, describing Rose’s behavior as a mother; Stern gave me a copy of his letter.

p. 71: The most thoughtful and sensitive discussion of Rosemary Kennedy is in Doris Goodwin, 356-63.

p. 72: “a marvelous capacity”: William Walton interview in NHP.

p. 72: On Rosemary’s lobotomy, Doris Goodwin, 639-44.

p. 73: “‘On your feet’”: Parmet,
Jack,
16. On JFK’s stoicism, see JPK to Paul B. Fay, Mar. 26, 1945, Paul B. Fay Papers, JFKL.

p. 73: “The Goddamnest hole”: JFK to Billings, June 19, 1934, NHP.

p. 73: “We used to joke”: LeMoyne Billings OH.

p. 73: The medical records with a diagnosis of colitis are from his naval service, in Box 11A, PP.

pp. 73-74: The initial diet and hopes to be at Mayo only a few days: JFK to JPK, n.d., but on Rochester hotel stationery, Box 4B, PP.

p. 74: “I am suffering”: JFK to Billings, June 19, 1934, NHP.

p. 74: “God what a beating”: JFK to Billings, June 21, 1934, LBP.

p. 74: “Shit!! I’ve got something wrong”: JFK to Billings, June 27, 1934, NHP.

p. 75: “still in this”: JFK to Billings, June 30, 1934, NHP.

p. 75: “diffuse duodenitis”: Dr. Sara Jordan to Capt. Frederick L. Conklin, July 14, 1944, Box 11A, PP; and JFK Navy Department Medical Record, Dec. 15, 1944, Box 11A, PP.

p. 75: Emotional stress: Choate report on JFK to Harvard University, Apr. 30, 1935, Box 2, PP.

p. 75: Colitis therapy: “Chronic Ulcerative Colitis: Progress in Its Management,”
Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic,
vol. 9 (Jan. 3, 1934), 1-5; “Illeosigmoidostomy for Chronic Ulcerative Colitis,”
Proceedings,
vol. 11 (Dec. 9, 1936), 798; “Further Studies in Calcium and Parathyroid Therapy in Chronic Ulcerative Colitis,”
American Journal of the Medical Sciences,
vol. 190 (Nov. 1935), 676-83. Mayo’s pioneering work on adrenal-hormone extracts is discussed in Dr. Timothy Lamphier interview with Nigel Hamilton, May 1, 1991, NHP.

p. 75: “We always had”: Dr. George Thorn interview with Nigel Hamilton, June 4, 1991, NHP.

p. 76: “Ordering stuff”: JFK to JPK, “Early 1937,” Box 1, PP. A parathyroid extract was available by 1935 and DOCA was available by 1937. See “Absorption of Desoxycorticosterone from Tablets Implanted Subcutaneously,”
Lancet,
vol. 1 (Mar. 2, 1940), 406-7; and chap. 72, especially p. 1609, of
The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics
. There are listings of articles on DOCA in the 1939
Index Medicus
.

p. 76: “a little knife”: Paul B. Fay OH.

p. 76: It is also possible that the DOCA: Dr. Seymour Reichlin to author, Nov. 23, 2002.

pp. 76-77: Nevertheless by 1942: Goodman and Gilman, 1608.

p. 77: No one can say: Conversations with Dr. Jeffrey Kelman and Dr. Lawrence Altman.

p. 77: Celiac sprue: Dr. Peter Green to author, Nov. 21, 2002, and “What is Celiac Sprue?” Celiac Sprue Research Foundation, Palo Alto, Calif. Also, Richard J. Farrell and Ciaran P. Kelly, “Current Concepts: Celiac Sprue,”
New England Journal of Medicine,
Jan. 17, 2002, 180-88. Dr. Jeffrey Kelman described to me why a diagnosis of celiac sprue could not be conclusive.

p. 77: Jack’s blood count: See the numerous communications between October 1934 and June 1935 about monitoring JFK’s blood count in Outline of Choate JFK Letters, Box 1, PP.

p. 77: Agranulocytosis: Dr. William Murphy to JPK, Box 4B, PP.

p. 77: Illness while in London: JFK to Billings, Oct. 1935, and Princeton records in NHP.

p. 78: “the most harrowing”: JFK to Billings, Jan. 1936, LBP.

p. 78: “At 1500”: JFK to Billings, Jan. 18, 1936, NHP.