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Donald J. Stedman Oral History Interview—JFK #1, 12/18/1968 Administrative Information Creator: Donald J. Stedman Interviewer: William McHugh Date of Interview: December 18, 1968 Location: Nashville, Tennessee Length: 41 pages Biographical Note Donald J. Stedman (born 1931) served as the Associate Director for Research at the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation from 1962 to 1963. This interview focuses on the mission and inner working of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, the Kennedy family’s advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities, and Stedman’s admiration for Eunice and Sargent Shriver, among other issues. Access Restrictions Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed August 20, 1971, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Stedman, Donald J., recorded interview by William McHugh, on December 18, 1968, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. GENERAL SERVICES ADMLNISTRATION NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY I, Donald J . Stedman of Nashville , Tennessee, do hereby give to the John F. Kennedy Library, for use and administration therein, all my rights, titl e and interest, except as hereinafter provided, to the tape recording and transcript of the interview conducted at Nashville, Tennessee on Dec . 18, 1968 for the John F. Kennedy Library. The gift of this material is made subject to the following terms and conditions: The interview is to be opened to general research at the discretion of the Director of the John F . Kennedy Library; his decision to be based on such considerations as potential embarrassment to living persons or their immediate successors, the interests of national security, or potential prejudice to the friendly relations between the United States and foreign nations. Researchers who have access to the transcript of the interview may listen to the tape; however, this is to be for background use only. Researchers may not cite, paraphrase or quote from the tape . I hereby assign literary property rights in this interview to the United States Government. Copies of the interview transcript may be provided only to researchers actually presenting themselves at the Kennedy Library . This agreement may be revised or amended by mutual consent of the parties undersigned. ~ .do)t,7/ Date Donald J. Stedman—JFK #1 Table of Contents Page Topic 1 First introduction between Dr. Stedman and members of the Kennedy family 2 President Kennedy’s Panel on Mental Retardation 4 Organization and mission of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation 5 Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. as driving force behind the Foundation 7 Eunice and Sargent Shriver’s contributions to Foundation 12 Inability of NIMH to set up substantial program for people with intellectual disabilities 14 JFK’s National Plan to Combat Mental Retardation 15 Disagreements among Foundation Panel 17 Establishment of National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) 21 Kennedy administration’s earmarks for state governments and universities to conduct research on causes of mental retardation 28 Lack of support from the Office of Education 32 Kennedy family’s advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities 34 Eunice Kennedy’s decision to write newspaper article about Rosemary Kennedy’s intellectual disability 36 Stedman’s admiration for Sarge Shriver Donald Stedman Oral History Interview with DONALD J. STEDMAN December 18, 1968 Nashville, Tennessee By William McHugh For the John F. Kennedy Library McHUGH: Dr. Stedman, could you tell us when you first met the president (John F. Kennedy) or any member of his family? STEDMAN: The first contact I had was when I was in California doing my internship; I was at the Child Study Center (of University of California) at Berkeley. I got a phone call one noon hour. I took the call and a voice on the other end says, "This is Sargent Shriver (R. Sargent Shriver). I want to talk to you about coming to Washington. 11 I' 11 be frank with you, I didn't even know who Sargent Shriver was. Berkeley, I think, was where the first speech was made about the Peace Corps and where the concept of the Peace Corps was introduced. That was in 1960, wasn't it? Something like that. McHUGH: Yes. STEDMAN: Anyway I said, "Well, I'm not sure what this is all about, 11 something foolish, I'm sure. What he was doing was responding to a suggestion of a couple of people that one good way to formalize the (Joseph P., Jr.) Kennedy Foun­ dation, by way of starting a staff and developing an office in Washington, was to bring in one or two people who were trained and interested in th~ area of mental retardation. At that time I was doing research at Sonoma State Hospital in California with mongoloid infants, and I had done some publishing of research and writing, so I guess that lead to it. -2- Apparently, prior to that phone call, a decision had been made to go ahead and establish a Kennedy Foundation office in Washington. It had been headquartered in New York City--the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Memorial Foundation it was called at that time. We dropped out the "memorial" about a year and a half af'ter we started. The idea was to develop an office in Washington to be close to the Shrivers. He'd come in to head up the Peace Corps; they'd moved to Rockville (Maryland). She, Mrs. (Eunice Kennedy) Shriver, was very active and interested in it. So she wanted to be close to it. Also, the President's Panel (on Mental Retardation) was in the wind in terms of coming up, and they wanted to have a staff that was close and could implement their involvement and augment the president's panel staff, to get information, to help write reports and so forth. A good friend of mine, Rick Heber, who also trained here, was then the quarterback for that staff, later on Leonard Mayo. But the very first thing, before either the foundation or the president's panel formalized, both Rick and I were in Washington helping to con­ jure this thing up. (Bertram S. ) Bert Brown who is now out at NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) was also there. McHUGH: When you say you were helping to conjure this up, and you also said that the president's panel was in the wind, or something like this, just what do you mean? What indica­ tions did you have and where did you get them? STEDMAN: When I went to Washington to talk about it, Mr. and Mrs. Shriver said, "Look, some of the people have been appointed to the panel and it's going to have a larger membership. We're interested in the panel's activities. It's going to be a one­ year intensive look at the state of the nation in mental retardation. We'll hopefully come up with rifle shot recommendations about what can be done to improve research and services, training, the whole bit. We'd like somebody on board at the Kennedy Foundation who will work closely with the panel and its staff." At the same time, the other major interest was Sargent's idea that an international awards program (The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. International Awards) should be started. There had been three of those already, as you probably know. So, he wanted also to have a staff to assist him in setting up the format : How do you go about getting candidates for awards? How do you go about getting information on those candidates? Settilig up a review group, and so forth? So, that was the other big piece of what they wanted to do immediately. Then they also wanted to launch some grants programs to establish mental retardation centers by direct funding from the Kennedy Foundation. So, that's really how it started out, a kind of a three-pronged deal. McHUGH: Do you know who recommended you originally? Or had you had any previous contact? -3- STEDMAN: I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that (Nicholas) Nick Hobbs and George Tarjan probably did.

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