Ben Bradlee: Jack Kennedy -- My Friend, My President
[Bradlee, the longtime Washington Post editor, is a vice president at the newspaper and former Washington bureau chief of NEWSWEEK.]
Jack Kennedy was many things when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1961: a glamorous figure, the youngest man ever elected to the office, the first Catholic president. He was also my friend.
He looked to me like a breath of fresh air, with his Hollywood good looks and impossibly attractive family—his wife with the velvety voice and their two gorgeous children. He lived a few doors down from me in Georgetown. We ate and drank together. We played golf. We’d been to Hyannis Port. I made him laugh. You never think a friend is going to make it all the way to the top. And there was a moment when it hit: my God, Jack is going to be president of the United States.
But who the hell knew what kind of president he’d be? Nobody. I sure didn’t.
I was a NEWSWEEK correspondent who had relocated to Washington and didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about American politics. As a junior reporter, I had drawn the junior presidential candidate, who happened to win.
Jack was fascinated by journalists because we tried to answer the question, “What’s he like?” And when we would get together, we often gossiped about people we knew; our wives did the same. It was a respite, for him, from the constant grind of politics....
Read entire article at Newsweek
Jack Kennedy was many things when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1961: a glamorous figure, the youngest man ever elected to the office, the first Catholic president. He was also my friend.
He looked to me like a breath of fresh air, with his Hollywood good looks and impossibly attractive family—his wife with the velvety voice and their two gorgeous children. He lived a few doors down from me in Georgetown. We ate and drank together. We played golf. We’d been to Hyannis Port. I made him laugh. You never think a friend is going to make it all the way to the top. And there was a moment when it hit: my God, Jack is going to be president of the United States.
But who the hell knew what kind of president he’d be? Nobody. I sure didn’t.
I was a NEWSWEEK correspondent who had relocated to Washington and didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about American politics. As a junior reporter, I had drawn the junior presidential candidate, who happened to win.
Jack was fascinated by journalists because we tried to answer the question, “What’s he like?” And when we would get together, we often gossiped about people we knew; our wives did the same. It was a respite, for him, from the constant grind of politics....