Jack and Lem by David Pitts

Author:David Pitts [Pitts, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786732241
Publisher: Da Capo Press

PART TWO

The White House Years

9

ONE FINE DAY (THE INAUGURATION, 1961)

“So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness and sincerity is always subject to proof.”

—John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961

You knew the inauguration of John F. Kennedy was going to be different. On inauguration eve, a heavy snow carpeted the nation’s capital. Not since William Howard Taft took the oath of office in 1909 had so much snow fallen on Washington. Throughout the night, a crew of thousands cleared the eight-mile parade route from the White House to the Capitol. But the city as a whole was still largely immobilized as it prepared to welcome the new occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Jack, armed with a speech that he believed was second to none, prepared for his inauguration like a king preparing to claim his crown. As he and Jackie exited their Georgetown home on N Street in the upscale northwestern section of the nation’s capital, they both looked every bit the part. The television networks followed their short automobile journey to the White House, where, in a break from tradition, they had coffee with President Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, before heading to Capitol Hill. Eisenhower had first met Jack sixteen years earlier, at the Potsdam summit. They could not have known at that time that they would each become president of the United States, one following the other.

The Kennedys then made the short journey to the Capitol, where the inauguration ceremony was to take place. Family members had the best seats in the house, although Rose complained that she was out of range of the cameras. The cabinet-to-be sat behind them. As a special guest, Lem was placed with the family. He sat in Row C with Teddy and his wife, Joan, ahead of Bobby, who was sitting farther behind, with the rest of the cabinet-to-be.

To signify his support for civil rights, Jack asked the great contralto Marian Anderson to sing the national anthem. In 1939, she had been prevented from singing in Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because she was black. Eleanor Roosevelt came to the rescue and arranged for her to sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial to a huge crowd of admirers. On this day, twenty-two years later, she sang at a presidential inauguration.

To highlight his support for the arts, Jack invited a host of literary giants to the inauguration, including W. H. Auden, John Steinbeck, Robert Lowell, and Robert Frost. He also asked one of his favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway, to attend, but Hemingway was too sick and depressed by then. He killed himself later that year. Frost, who was very old, was supposed to read a poem that he’d written for the occasion. He managed to deliver the first three lines without too much difficulty, even though a small fire erupted from short-circuited electrical wires beneath the lectern. “Summoning artists to participate in the august occasions of the state seems something artists ought to celebrate,” Frost said.

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