A First-Rate Madness (41 page)

135
not “a careful, direct-line administrator”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
384.

135
“Mr. President, you know you've got to let the cattle graze”:
Ibid., 135.

136
why not just shoot forty-nine thousand instead?:
Jackson,
That Man,
149.

136
“My fellow immigrants . . . ”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
67.

136
about 60 to 80 percent of newspapers opposed him:
Graham J. White,
FDR and the Press
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 70.

136
“You know, we had to buy that fucking paper”:
Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 172.

137
almost a thousand press conferences in all:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
134–136.

137
“Innovations never frightened him”:
Ibid., 64–66.

137
He loved to read:
Ibid., 118–119.

137
After Yalta, FDR was headed to Saudi Arabia:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
88–89.

138
“You sometimes find something pretty good in the lunatic fringe”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
115.

138
once writing a memorandum:
Ibid., 115.

138
“That fellow in the White House”:
Ibid., 115.

138
“Mr. President, are you a Communist?”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
330.

139
Roosevelt . . . read some of Kierkegaard's works:
Ibid., 146–148.

139
FDR scribbled . . . China's coastal contours:
Jackson,
That Man,
13.

139
Family history provides some evidence:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
156–161.

140
in some genetic studies of bipolar disorder:
Sermin Kesebira, Simavi Vahipa, Fisun Akdeniza, Zeki Yüncüa, Müge Alkana, and Hagop Akiskal, “Affective Temperaments as Measured by TEMPS-A in Patients with Bipolar I Disorder and Their First-Degree Relatives: A Controlled Study,”
Journal of Affective Disorders
85 (2005): 127–133. S. G. Simpson, S. E. Folstein, D. A. Meyers, F. J. McMahon, D. M. Brusco, and J. R. DePaulo Jr., “Bipolar II: The Most Common Bipolar Phenotype?”
American Journal of Psychiatry
150 (1993): 901–903.

140
“I have one wish for you”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
168.

141
“It's ridiculous to tell me”:
Ibid., 238.

141
he fell, or almost fell, about five times:
Ibid., 236.

142
the “ultimate humility”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
44–45.

142
“When he reached the top”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
267–268.

142
was the worst aspect of his disability:
Ibid., 236.

142
“an untried rather flippant young man”:
Ibid., 242

142
Roosevelt was
disciplined
by his illness:
Jackson,
That Man,
171.

143
“Roosevelt underwent a spiritual transformation”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
29.

143
“This is the Happy Warrior”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
245–250.

144
“A governor does not have to be an acrobat”:
Ibid., 253.

144
“Ten years ago, Governor Roosevelt suffered an attack”:
Ibid., 266.

144
“nothing in human judgment is final”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
164.

145
“recovery was not enough”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
289.

145
a government “that cannot take care of its old”:
Ibid., 289.

145
“We can't sell the United States short in 1980”:
Perkins,
The Roosevelt I Knew,
294.

145
“Isn't this Socialism?”:
Ibid., 299.

145
FDR did not take a class with James:
At my request, my colleague at Harvard Dr. Eugene Taylor examined the registrar's records there for Roosevelt's college years of 1900–1904 and documented that Roosevelt was never a student in a class taught by William James.

146
“the greatest political personality of the century”:
John Kenneth Galbraith,
Name Dropping
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 43.

146
“He would certainly have been President”:
Gunther,
Roosevelt in Retrospect,
243.

147
“If that crazy Muckers club had been mine”:
Christopher Matthews,
Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 23.

147
“I do not think it particularly helpful”:
January 22, 1963, JFK Presidential Archives, Box 1, Choate School Archives.

148
an IQ of 119:
Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 33.

148
“a very able boy”:
James N. Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy: The Role of Medical Ailments in the Life of JFK, 1920–1957,”
Journal of Family History
31 (2006): 362.

148
At age thirteen he was hospitalized:
Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy,” 361. Dallek,
An Unfinished Life,
34.

148
Robert joked that if a mosquito bit Jack:
Arthur Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 13.

148
At age seventeen, he had his worst infection ever:
Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy,” 361. Nigel Hamilton,
JFK: Reckless Youth
(New York: Random House, 1993), 101–105. Dallek,
An Unfinished Life,
35.

149
He was diagnosed with fatal leukemia:
Dallek,
An Unfinished Life,
77. Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy,” 363.

149
His father, unwilling to accept this death sentence:
Joseph P. Kennedy to George St. John, September 15, 1934: “About the early part of the summer we sent Jack to Mayo's and he remained there a month. A thorough investigation of his physical condition . . . unable to find the cause of Jack's illness during the winter. If there is the slightest tendency to a relapse he would have to be taken out of school for a year.” JFK Presidential Archives, JFK Personal Papers, Box 1. They had discovered that he had many allergies—to “animal hair, house dust, and certain foods, including lamb, pork, and to a lesser extent, whole milk, beef, and various grains.” Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy,” 363.

149
a month of testing at the Mayo Clinic:
Dallek,
An Unfinished Life,
73.

149
“they have not found out anything as yet”:
Giglio, “Growing Up Kennedy,” 365.

149
“Joe's blood count was 9400”:
Ibid.

149
“one of the things I am a little disturbed about”:
Ibid., 367.

149
“One thing I want to be sure of”:
Ibid., 368.

150
Kennedy fended off lifelong whispers of hypochondriasis:
In the oral history interview between Kennedy's close adviser Ted Sorensen and Kennedy's personal White House physician, Janet Travell, Sorensen asks, “Did you ever feel that he complained, or did not complain but suggested maladies that perhaps weren't something he had—that he had any tendencies toward being hypochondriac?” Travell responds, “Oh, no, he was the opposite of a hypochondriac. It was difficult to get him to state his complaints, unless they were very acute.” (JFK Presidential Archives, Oral History Collection, interview of Janet Travell by Ted Sorensen, January 20, 1966.) The association of ulcers and colitis (today called irritable bowel syndrome) with psychiatric or emotional causes is now, perhaps paradoxically, less strongly held than it was in the 1930s. Peptic ulcer disease, long considered a classic psychosomatic illness, is due in many persons to a previously unrecognized bacterial infection, and treatable with an antibiotic. Irritable bowel syndrome seems more common in those with psychiatric conditions, like depression, and improves somewhat with antidepressants, but it also occurs in persons without psychiatric diagnoses and improves with nonpsychiatric medications too. It is important to note that an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the bowel called celiac disease can mimic irritable bowel syndrome and is often misdiagnosed.

We cannot know for sure the cause of John Kennedy's lifelong gastrointestinal illness; perhaps it was partly psychosomatic and due to his nervous and anxious and active temperament; partly, or even fully, it might have been part of a larger autoimmune disorder, which manifested a bit in his allergies, more in his irritable bowel syndrome, and even more, soon thereafter, in his near-fatal Addison's disease.

150
evidence of hyperthymia:
Hamilton,
Reckless Youth,
131–133. Long before he took steroids, he was seen as extremely sociable, charismatic, and energetic, getting elected by his peers “most likely to succeed,” which was, as Hamilton notes, “a complete travesty of his record at Choate.”

150
visiting prostitutes and probably contracting venereal diseases:
Ibid., 153–158, 341–342.

150
“Senator Kennedy evidently woke up each morning”:
Evelyn Lincoln,
My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy
(New York: Bantam, 1966), 3.

151
“When you see the President”:
William Manchester,
Profile of a President
(London: Michael Joseph, 1967), 26–27.

151
“He usually sat in his office”:
Lincoln,
My Twelve Years,
25.

151
He “continued to vibrate with energy”:
Manchester,
Profile of a President,
26–27.

151
“Two White House chairs have collapsed”:
Ibid., 144.

152
“two months after taking the oath”:
Ibid., 26–27.

152
“He's really a great gossip”:
Ibid., 49.

152
would reply two hundred times per day:
Ibid., 54.

152
Kennedy's wit was famous:
Bill Adler, ed.,
The Kennedy Wit
(New York: Citadel, 1967).

153
Lyndon was doing such a great job:
Lincoln,
My Twelve Years,
125.

153
“I hear
you're
losing Ohio”:
Manchester,
Profile of a President,
131.

153
“Well, the answer to the first is yes”:
Helen Thomas,
Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 23.

153
“I feel as a Catholic”:
Adler,
The Kennedy Wit,
40.

154
a widely read 1962 article:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, “Hope for Retarded Children,”
Saturday Evening Post,
September 22, 1962, available at
http://www.eunicekennedyshriver.org/articles/print_article/148
(accessed February 27, 2011).

154
Rosemary received a frontal lobotomy:
Ronald Kessler, “Rosemary Kennedy's Inconvenient Illness,”
http://newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Rosemary-Kennedy/2008/06/17/id/324146
(accessed February 16, 2010). Jack El-Hai,
The Lobotomist
(New York: Wiley, 2005), 171. Hamilton,
Reckless Youth,
409–412.

154
“agitated depression”:
Kessler, “Rosemary Kennedy's Inconvenient Illness.”

154
Freeman carefully avoided documentation about her:
El-Hai,
The Lobotomist,
174.

154
Rose Kennedy, in her 1974 memoir:
Rose Kennedy,
Times to Remember
(New York: Doubleday, 1974), 286.

154
nocturnal sexual encounters:
Kessler, “Rosemary Kennedy's Inconvenient Illness.” Hamilton,
Reckless Youth,
409–412. Access to Rosemary Kennedy's personal file, within Joseph Kennedy Sr.'s personal papers at the JFK Presidential Archives, is more restricted than access to the president's medical records. I was not able to obtain permission to see Rosemary's file.

154
mentally ill, not just mentally retarded:
Kessler interviewed Dr. Bertram Brown, who was a member of the president's panel on mental retardation, and Dr. Brown stated that he and his colleagues at that time had believed that she had mental illness. In retrospect, he believes that the Kennedys downplayed her mental illness in reaction to social stigma being higher for that condition than for mental retardation. Kessler also found that FBI records quoted Joseph Kennedy's Boston attorney at the time as saying that Rosemary had mental illness.