Kennedy Is Remembered By Panel of Friends at IOP

An overflow audience last night heard three distinguished friends of the late President John F. Kennedy '40 trade stories about the slain leader at the Kennedy School of Government Forum on the eve of the 20th anniversary of his assassination.

"We didn't want a series of formal declamations about how the Presidency has been interpreted by historians," said Jonathan Moore, Director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) and an organizer of the event. The Institute instead wanted to set up a program that would show the human element of Kennedy's career.

Role Model

The discussion between Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee '43, John F. Kennedy Library Curator David Powers, and Director of the MIT Program in Science and Society Carl Kaysen was originally planned as the opening for a program on politicians who took their inspiration from Kennedy.

Powers, who had worked with Kennedy since his successful campaign against Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952, said "he was the kind of man you'd do things for that you wouldn't do for your own mother."

Excitement

Kaysen recalled leaving Harvard to become Kennedy's Deputy National Security Advisor. "If you get away from the superficial awe and the glamour and the good looks...on a much deeper level it was always exciting at the White House, gratifyingly so," Kaysen said.

Bradlee, who covered the White House for Newsweek during the Kennedy Administration, said that among the President's aspirations was the Harvard Presidency, but added that "he decided it would be too much work."

The reflections by the panelists were preceded by film clips of Kennedy compiled by Forum employee Ruth Bellinger '82.

"Even using film clips from public appearances I could show his charm, his wit, his rapport with people," she said.

Half A Show

The IOP had planned to follow last night's discussion with another panel tonight, made up of prominent public officials who had been influenced or aided by Kennedy, but it was cancelled at the last minute, when several of the panel's members cancelled, said Derek A. West '87, a member of the Student Advisory Committee (SAC), which had organized the panel.

In the introduction to last night's panel, moderator Richard E. Neustadt, professor of public administration at the K-School, expressed his regret that the SAC program had been cancelled, saying, "the SAC decided the best way to celebrate this anniversary was to hear a panel of people who got their start...under the inspiration of JFK."