JFK's Final Days: November 5, 1963
On Tuesday, November 5, 1963 (50 years ago today), the President and First Lady had Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee and his wife Tony over to the White House for a dinner party. He talked about the lunch meeting he had with J. Edgar Hoover the previous Thursday. Kennedy told Bradlee that Hoover had "dirt" on a number of senators, but hid the fact that he was the one who had in fact gone offside with Ellen Rometsch.
One of the topics of discussion was a report the Surgeon-General had released about the link between smoking and lung cancer, which was ironic because Kennedy discussed the report in the middle of his chain-smoking three cigars. Kennedy told Bradlee that he was concerned that the report would adversely affect tax revenues from cigarette sales as well as the economic health of the tobacco growers.
One of the dinner guests was British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore. An dinner that evening, the two men discussed the Soviet Union. Author Thurston Clarke, in his recent book JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, writes at pages 284-5:
After the test ban treaty had been initialed in Moscow, Ormsby-Gore had spent a weekend in Hyannis Port with him and Bobby discussing further steps to improve US-Soviet relations. Bobby had said that his brother should visit the Soviet Union, and over dinner on Tuesday, Kennedy reminded Ormsby-Gore of that conversation. "You know, I have made up my mind that one of the things I really must do is go to the Soviet Union," he said. "I believe that this would be in everybody's interets - whether I can do it before the presidential elections next year may be a bit doubtful, but sometime I am determined to go."
One of the topics of discussion was a report the Surgeon-General had released about the link between smoking and lung cancer, which was ironic because Kennedy discussed the report in the middle of his chain-smoking three cigars. Kennedy told Bradlee that he was concerned that the report would adversely affect tax revenues from cigarette sales as well as the economic health of the tobacco growers.
One of the dinner guests was British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore. An dinner that evening, the two men discussed the Soviet Union. Author Thurston Clarke, in his recent book JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, writes at pages 284-5:
After the test ban treaty had been initialed in Moscow, Ormsby-Gore had spent a weekend in Hyannis Port with him and Bobby discussing further steps to improve US-Soviet relations. Bobby had said that his brother should visit the Soviet Union, and over dinner on Tuesday, Kennedy reminded Ormsby-Gore of that conversation. "You know, I have made up my mind that one of the things I really must do is go to the Soviet Union," he said. "I believe that this would be in everybody's interets - whether I can do it before the presidential elections next year may be a bit doubtful, but sometime I am determined to go."