Controlling The Narrative

[richardfinegold]

I’m in Boston and yesterday we were at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library. 3 months ago we visited the Gerald R Ford Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A couple of years ago the Franklin Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. Back home in Chicago construction continues on the Obama Library.
The term library is misleading. The first two mentioned are museums, and the Roosevelt is several buildings spread over a family compound and is actually a National Park. There is a s National Park here in Boston for John Adams and John Q Adams that I saw several years ago.
My favorite of these is actually the Ford Museum. Partly this is because I was becoming Politically Aware as these events unfolded, whereas I was 5 years old when JFK was assasinated. The Ford Museum however treats the most controversial aspects of his Presidency-pardoning Nixon , for example-thoughtfully, with some balance. There is also an entire section given over to the activities of Betty Ford including her work for decades after being First Lady.
At the JFK Museum one would never learn that the Family Patriarch made his fortune as a bootlegger, or that he was a fierce isolationist There is absolutely no discussion of JFK
private life. The small section given over to Jacqueline doesn’t discuss a day after the assasination.
Googling about Jackie I learned that she was a major force in the creation of the Museum. She had squashed the first book to mention JFK private life, in the late sixties. I’m guessing the omissions in the Library are due to her editorial choices.
The FDR library had a thoughtful special exhibit on the internment of the Japanese Americans in WWII. I would hope that these museums could move beyond the vision of their founders to ultimately offer a more balanced and comprehensive discussion

[kernelbogey]

Reading a review in the Guardian of the book Ask Not by Maureen Callahan completely changed my opinion of JFK and his family.

[eighthobstruction]

.....recently reading the memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....two thirds through it....No where in it is there (so far) is there any mention of alcohol, his dependance on it, or his depressions, or threatening of suicide ; which I have found elsewhere....what I have surmised, though he doesn't say so himself, is that his long association of being a Quartermaster must have had a great deal to do with the building up and timing of delivering men, munitions and stores, animals, fodder to various Fronts....

[smittims]

Thanks , Richard , for that informative post. I had not heard of any of those establishments. The urge to memorialize 'eminent men' is curious . I suppose in some way the aim is to counter the 'debunking' that often takes place, but when it is so whitewashed as that it enters the realm of fiction and becomes absurd.

For the same reason autobiographies often need to be treated with caution. Osbert Sitwell's five volumes, for instance, were often taken to be fact, perhaps because they are well-written and consistently amusing. Yet they avoid any mention of his sexuality, which was a vitally-important part of his life, and his portrait of his father has been criticised (by his brother among others) for its misleading emphasis.

I've wondered when we're going to give up statues in Britain. In an age of TV they seem obsolete; the Thatcher statue has had an unhappy career, and the Diana fountain was likened to a urinal , a sad end for that unfortunate and naive woman . Even the Churchill statue looks grotesque to me. I wonder if the people who set up these things ever think about whether they'e appropriate.

[Retune]

No discussion of these notable institutions would be complete without mentioning the Donald J Trump Presidential Library, perhaps the most remarkable of all. It can be virtually visited here:

https://djtrumplibrary.com/

[richardfinegold]

I was tempted in my OP to add tha Trump Library would be stack of porno mags

[richardfinegold]

Some miscellaneous comments.
Apparently JFK was secretly taping the cabinet meetings during the Cuban Missle Crisis. Hearing the Hawkish members talking in real time chilling, or the advice of Curtis LeMay (the Air Force Chief, who argued for a preemptive Nuclear Strike). McGeorge Bundy had the bright idea during the ‘quarantine’ (blockade) to drop very small depth charges on the 2 submerged Russian subs accompanying the Russian freighters. The argument was that the depth charges were to tiny to damage the subs and were intended to scare them.
Unbeknownst to Kennedy’s advisers-and revealed during a conference in 2002- the subs each carried a Nuclear Torpedo, with the potency of Fat Man (Hiroshima). The Russian subs were staying submerged and running out of oxygen. They had not been able to communicate with Moscow. The skipper of one of them , who upon being greeted with depth charges and fired at with live bullets, concluded that WWIII had started and gave the order launch the Nuclear Warhead. This was prevented at the last minute by a junior officer

[richardfinegold]

Reading a review in the Guardian of the book Ask Not by Maureen Callahan completely changed my opinion of JFK and his family.

It’s amazing how they are so forgiven for everything

[Serial_Apologist]

Some miscellaneous comments.
Apparently JFK was secretly taping the cabinet meetings during the Cuban Missle Crisis. Hearing the Hawkish members talking in real time chilling, or the advice of Curtis LeMay (the Air Force Chief, who argued for a preemptive Nuclear Strike). McGeorge Bundy had the bright idea during the ‘quarantine’ (blockade) to drop very small depth charges on the 2 submerged Russian subs accompanying the Russian freighters. The argument was that the depth charges were to tiny to damage the subs and were intended to scare them.
Unbeknownst to Kennedy’s advisers-and revealed during a conference in 2002- the subs each carried a Nuclear Torpedo, with the potency of Fat Man (Hiroshima). The Russian subs were staying submerged and running out of oxygen. They had not been able to communicate with Moscow. The skipper of one of them , who upon being greeted with depth charges and fired at with live bullets, concluded that WWIII had started and gave the order launch the Nuclear Warhead. This was prevented at the last minute by a junior officer

Dr Strangelove was much nearer the truth than the mere satire intended.

[oliver sudden]

[If my memory and Wikipedia are correct, Fat Man was Nagasaki, the Hiroshima bomb was Little Boy, end pedantry interlude]