JFK's secret trip to Naples in late '63.

[Cory Santos]

This is interesting because it was being set up yet the JFK Library has no info about it.  It seems some preparations would be in the records.  

https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/columnists/brent-batten/2019/11/30/brent-batten-another-jfk-mystery-1963-visit-naples-works/4317509002/

 

[Joseph McBride]

i discovered in my Frank Capra research that JFK had invited him and other

film community leaders to a luncheon at the White House on Dec. 10, 1963. The

invitation, postmarked Nov. 21, arrived the day of JFK's funeral. I checked at the Kennedy Library to

see what this was about, but they told me they did not keep records about plans

he had beyond Nov. 22 (if that is true; perhaps they have some records they weren't sharing

when I went there in the 1980s). I asked George Stevens Jr., who had been

director of the USIA's Motion Picture Service during the Kennedy administration (after JFK died, it

produced JOHN F. KENNEDY: YEARS OF LIGHTNING, DAY OF DRUMS, the agency's first full-length feature,

one that contains color footage of the funeral procession shot expressly for it), and he said that 1963

meeting in effect would have been about the creation of what became the American

Film Institute (of which George became the founding director). But that founding was delayed until 1967,

under LBJ. George said Richard Goodwin was writing a press release about the

Dec. 10 event on the day JFK was killed. I write in my Capra biography that

the planned event was "regarded in Hollywood as a long-overdue official recognition

of the growing cultural status of motion pictures."

 

Edited December 4, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[Cory Santos]

2 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

i discovered in my Frank Capra research that JFK had invited him and other

film community leaders to a luncheon at the White House on Dec. 10, 1963. The

invitation, postmarked Nov. 21, arrived the day of JFK's funeral. I checked at the Kennedy Library to

see what this was about, but they told me they did not keep records about plans

he had beyond Nov. 22 (if that is true; perhaps they have some records they weren't sharing

when I went there in the 1980s). I asked George Stevens Jr., who had been

director of the USIA's Motion Picture Service during the Kennedy administration (after JFK died, it

produced JOHN F. KENNEDY: YEARS OF LIGHTNING, DAY OF DRUMS, the agency's first full-length feature), and he said that 1963

meeting in effect would have been about the creation of what became the American

Film Institute (of which George became the founding director). But that founding was delayed until 1967,

under LBJ. George said Richard Goodwin was writing a press release about the

Dec. 10 event on the day JFK was killed. I write in my Capra biography that

the planned event was "regarded in Hollywood as a long-overdue official recognition

of the growing cultural status of motion pictures."

 

Why did they not keep plans post 22nd? Under whose instructions?  That could be nothing but sounds strange.

[David Josephs]

They planned to change NSAM 263 to 273... and kept that plan... 

and weren’t the film people meetings to talk of spreading art to the countries leaning communist under the thought that artistry tends to make communism look even worse...  thought I read that recently...

[Joseph McBride]

I find it hard to believe the library didn't have his post-Nov. 22 schedue. His trips

and appointments had to be planned long in advance. On that same visit I

asked to see Ambassador Kennedy's papers. The person I asked said, "Who??"

I said, "Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy Sr." "Oh!" she replied with alarm. "We

don't let people look at THOSE!" (They later have shown some to some scholars.)

[Ron Bulman]

39 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:

I find it hard to believe the library didn't have his post-Nov. 22 schedue. His trips

and appointments had to be planned long in advance. On that same visit I

asked to see Ambassador Kennedy's papers. The person I asked said, "Who??"

I said, "Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy Sr." "Oh!" she replied with alarm. "We

don't let people look at THOSE!" (They later have shown some to some scholars.)

Why would Joseph Kennedy's papers still be kept secret at that point?  The Ambassador part regards 1937-40.  Are they still?

What does USIA stand for?  I sounds almost CIA'ish though I know I'm cynical and suspicious.

[Joseph McBride]

You surely know Joseph Kennedy was and is a highly

controversial figure. USIA = United States Information Agency.

I went through Edward R. Murrow's papers on the USIA and some other materials while

I was at the library frustrated at not seeing Joe Kennedy's papers, etc.

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[James DiEugenio]

From my understanding, Nasaw saw everything.

BTW, for many years that hack/plagiarist/fabricator Steve Ambrose tried to say that somehow there was this great effort from both NARA and the JFK Library to conceal documents.

When in fact it was really the Nixon Library that was doing this; in other words Ambrose's guy, who he wrote  a three part biography about.

With the coming of the ARRB, there is almost no modern president who has as much openness about his administration than Kennedy.

And the thing is, the more we find out about Kennedy, the better he looks.  The more we find out about Nixon, the worse he gets.   Which is  the opposite of what Ambrose said. I know this since I did that four part review of the worthless Burns/Novick documentary about Vietnam. Nixon, quite literally, fought any declassification of documents from his papers with a fleet of lawyers in court. He did this until his death in 1994.  To my knowledge, no other president ever did this to the extent he did. And this was really bad for Ambrose since his three volume set was all published before RMN died.  Same with Oliver Stone since his film came out in 1995, just one year after Nixon passed on.

Once he died, there was a concerted movement to declassify Nixon's papers. Unfortunately, Ambrose's trilogy has already been published and most of the work on Oliver Stone's film Nixon had been done.  Because with the declassification of these documents, Nixon looks much worse than he was depicted in both of those works.  Let me give credit to Professor Jeff Kimball of Ohio University for this.  It is one thing for an archives to declassify documents. It is another for someone to be willing to sit in a cubicle and read the papers and listen to the tapes for hours on end. Kimball did that. What Nixon and Kissinger did in Indochina, from the beginning, was simply a disgrace.  By the beginning I mean the first October Surprise back in 1968. That move literally stopped any hope for a settlement for five more years. And let us not forget, Nixon dropped more bomb tonnage on Indochina than Johnson did. And he extended the war into Cambodia and Laos.  The former caused the fall of Sihanouk and one of the worst genocides of the modern world.  The idea that both Nixon and Kissinger were these sophisticated and visionary foreign policy leaders has been demolished by this declassification process.  They were nothing but dressed up Cold War fruitcakes.

(For an example of Kimball's fine work exposing this click here https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/40336)

[Joseph McBride]

I was doing that research back in 1984, and as I say they

were shocked, shocked! that I asked to see Joe Kennedy's papers,

and at first the person I requested them from at the library didn't recognize his name.

It was comical. Later they started opening previously secret files to

selected researchers, including that much-honored plagiarist and hagiographer and LBJ intimate Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[Rob Couteau]

---delete---

Edited December 5, 2019 by Rob Couteau

[James DiEugenio]

Rob,

I think they are talking about Naples, Florida.  Right?  I think you are talking about Italy.

[Rob Couteau]

On 12/4/2019 at 9:17 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I think they are talking about Naples, Florida.  Right?

Ha! I hereby forbid myself from making anymore 3 a.m. bleary-eyed posts. Thanks for catching that Jim.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Rob Couteau

[James DiEugenio]

Happens to the best of us.

BTW, Naples Florida is almost as beautiful as Naples, Italy.  

 

[James DiEugenio]

Joe:

Where was Goodwin accused of being a plagiarist?  I missed that.

[Rob Couteau]

On 12/4/2019 at 11:15 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Goodwin accused of being a plagiarist?

I think Joe is referring to this incident:

"Plagiarism row topples Pulitzer judge. The US historian Doris Goodwin admits to borrowing passages from other authors, but critics reject her claim that it was all an accident":
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/06/internationaleducationnews.humanities

Edited December 5, 2019 by Rob Couteau