John F. Kennedy We are all mortal EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: America. 1963. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR CLIP: I'm happy to talk with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. JOHN F. KENNEDY CLIP: I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war. And frequently, the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR CLIP: Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. JOHN F. KENNEDY CLIP: It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated -- as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR CLIP: This momentous decree came as a grand beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. JOHN F. KENNEDY CLIP: Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing rights as well as reality. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR CLIP: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. NEWS CLIP: It's not known for sure, but it is believed that President Kennedy has been shot. President Kennedy was in a motocade en route to the trademark where he was to address a Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 gathering shortly after noon today. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: I'm Lillian Cunningham The Washington Post and this is the 34th episode of “Presidential.” PRESIDENTIAL THEME MUSIC LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: This episode is about JFK and death, but not his assassination. Our whole episode this week is basically going to focus on John F. Kennedy before 1963. In fact, even before 1961, when he takes over the presidency. We're going to focus on three experiences he had confronting death earlier in his life, and how those shaped the man and the president he would become. The first is when he confronted his own mortality because of his sicknesses since childhood. The second is when he confronted the mortality of those close to him, particularly with the death of his older brother. And the third is when he confronted the mortality of the wider human race, highlighted by his experience in war. To cover all this there are three great JFK experts who are going to talk with us this week: Michael Beschloss, Robert Dallek and Fredrik Logevall. So, we're going to start by talking about Kennedy's own personal sense of mortality and his poor health. And for this, I went to visit Robert Dallek at his home in Washington, D.C. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Hi, so nice to meet you. ROBERT DALLEK: Me too. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Thanks. I actually live on the other side of the park. ROBERT DALLEK: Do you? LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Bob wrote the iconic Kennedy biography called 'An Unfinished Life,' in which he uncovered many of JFK's illnesses that had been kept from the public for decades. I asked him to tell me the story about how he discovered this hidden part of Kennedy's personal life. ROBERT DALLEK: I was in the Kennedy Library doing research. I asked the archivist about the Kennedy medical materials -- because there were allegations since 1960 that he had Addison's disease, that he had a variety of ailments. And Bobby Kennedy -- he denied it. The campaign denied it. And it was not something that came up all that much during his presidency. So, the archivist woman named Megan Desnoyers said to me, 'Yes, there are medical records, but they're locked up. And there is a committee that oversees them -- three people on that committee.' She said, 'You could apply, but nobody's been given access [even] 40 years after his death.' So, I said, 'Well, I guess there's nothing to lose.’ So, I applied and there was a former Kennedy administration official, who was a professor at Harvard; another one who was a professor at Yale. And both of them gave me permission. And Ted Sorensen -- speechwriter, principal adviser to Kennedy -- he was the third party, and he was reluctant. So, I went to New York and I talked him into opening the medical records to me. He later regretted it very much because the medical Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 records were not entirely flattering. Well, Ted Kennedy read the book and said he didn't know about his brother's health issues as well -- as fully -- as I detailed them in the book. And Arthur Schlesinger, who was White House intellectual historian, also found it very attractive what I did, because they both felt that I'd made Kennedy look heroic. I didn't do it purposely, but there was that element to it. He had such a variety of ailments. He, as a boy, had what's called spastic colitis. He was sent to the Mayo Clinic when he was 17-years old, and they didn't know how to treat it at the time. When steroids became available, which was in 1938, he was at Harvard as an undergraduate. And they didn't know how to dose, so they gave him more than they should've been giving him. And while it reined in the colitis when they gave him these steroids, what it did was it triggered his back problems. People thought the back problems were the result of an accident during World War II, when his PT boat was cut in half and he had to swim and rescue one of his men and go to an island. In fact, it was the steroids that were causing osteoporosis of the lumbar spine. And he lived with terrible pain and misery and was on all sorts of painkillers. Well, when they told me I could see the medical records, I took a man named Jeffrey Kellman with me to Boston because he is a brilliant physician. They rolled out these 10 boxes -- they were cartons. See, normally, presidential papers are in these beautifully appointed gold and blue and yellow boxes, and these were in old, beat-up cartons. And I said to him, 'Jeff, I think we may have hit pa dirt here. These have never been looked at.’ So, we opened it up, and what we found to begin with was that in the 1950s, before he even ran for president, he had been hospitalized 19 times for a variety of ailments -- the Addison's Disease, which is the malfunctioning of the adrenal gland; the terrible back problems; he had some back surgeries; he also had some sinusitis and prostatitis. He was just someone who had a constant series of ailments. And it was hidden from the public. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Do you think that the fact that he had to hide so much of his medical problems did anything to make him feel a sense of always being a performer? ROBERT DALLEK: You know, all these presidents are actors on a world stage. And, of course, the larger the stage as we move through the 20th century, the more they feel compelled to be great actors. Franklin Roosevelt said to Orson Welles, the great Hollywood actor, he said to him at one point, 'Orson, you and I are the two greatest actors in America.' Kennedy understood that the public persona was something that was different from the private man. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Do you think that a sense of his own mortality shaped him? ROBERT DALLEK: John Kennedy lived with a sense of mortality, a sense that his life might be full of grief. And, of course, it's ironic because it's true -- he died at the age of 46, but not because of his health problems, because of being assassinated. But still, he had a sort of fatalistic feeling. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: From a young age, one of JFK's favorite poems was, 'I have a rendezvous with death,' by Alan Seeger. This is how it goes: Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 3 I have a rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade, when spring comes back with rustling shade and apple blossoms fill the air – I have a rendezvous with death when spring brings back blue days and fair. It might be he shall take my hand and lead me into his dark land and close my eyes and quenched my breath -- It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with death on some scarred slope of battered hill when spring comes round again this year and the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows ‘twere better to be deep pillowed in silk and scented down, where love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, where hushed awakenings are dear… But I have a rendezvous with death at midnight in some flaming town, when spring trips north again this year, and I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.