Incredible documents, spanning from everything from papal ambassador from the congo in 1608, to the first printing of the u. S. Constitution, and so forth. Its an opportunity to get close to history through interaction with documents. Whats exciting about this evening is that we not only have the documentation, but we also have living witnesses to history to 11 and deepen our understanding of these events. From the karen archive, we decided to expand the event. Figure was on her way this evening and was instrumental in organizing the event by introducing me to jean the otherand panelists, but who unfortunately got stuck in denver in a snowstorm and was unable to join us. Part of her collection is on display in the corner which she generously lent to us to show. Through sue, serendipitously, by chance i came back to washington and have been to meet mary gallagher, who contacted me here in washington. Collectionincredible she shared with me and has been kind enough to share some of her treasures with me as well. Subsequent to that, i met preston bruce, who was sitting here in the front row. Was the secondr longestserving member of the white house staff in the 20th century. He was the chief doorman from the eisenhower and ford administrations. Hes generously offered to bring some of his collection to show here. We encourage you to have a look at the collections at the end of the evening and learn about their stories individually. We have Kathy Rafferty tolleson who works in the white house and his friends with all of these individuals here. We had a wonderful luncheon meet two weeks ago to everybody and share some of the stories of their days in the Kennedy Administration. We thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to partner with this exhibition by sharing some of their recollections. All the members of the panel were in the Kennedy Administration in one form or another and are and have been generous with their time or it one of my first friends in washington, who understands the history,documents and to moderate the panel. Thank you so much. [applause] i was not in the Kennedy Administration. He went onuce and got his doctorate degree, and i think thats remarkable. His father was in the white house from eisenhower until ford. There is a wonderful anecdote that perhaps we will get later, where eisenhower intervened and helped him to realize his own aspirations athletically. The president of the united honing a head team to recruit you, dr. Bruce. Very happy to have you with us. Thank you. [applause] preface, hece actually made these comments which are quite fitting to start with. Nnot single out any one day as the time i began to understand john kennedy is a human being. Gradually i discovered the simplicity of this mans taste and demeanor was, well genius and genuine, deceptive as well as disarming. That thisrned in time cool, analytical mind was stimulated by a warm, compassionate heart. Kennedy,one new john the more one like tim. Those of us who came to know him well, though we rarely heard him discuss his personal feelings, came to know the strength and warmth of this dedicated man and his logic. As he himself said about robert frost, his sense of human tragedy fortified him against selfdeception and easy consolation. This evening were extremely fortunate to be with six exceptional ladies and men senators. [laughter] six individuals whose lives intersected with mr. And mrs. Kennedy who have unbelievable story straight two weeks ago we had lunch together, and i assure you, this is the most this is a most entertaining group. We would haveht, stories all night. But we only have an hour. I hope that in our fellowship afterwards we might be able to continue these wonderful stories and conversations about what it was like when they all worked in the Kennedy Administration. I would like to share with you two observations i took away from that luncheon. A brightnesse was on the face of each of these individuals when they spoke about their years in the administration. The second observation i made was that everyone spoke of his concern and care about the individual, his stepping outside of his senate office, talking to a secretary, and hes making the assumption or the claim that they knew everything. All of a sudden they started to realize, yes, maybe we do know everything. We want to know everything. A sense of an courage meant in their own growth, individually and he tracked them and kept in touch with their kids. Some of the homes of these individuals. This is how we will proceed. Id like to introduce each of the panelists individually. I will ask each of you won our two questions, and then i would like to go back to the panel and ask you another question. There one memory or recollection you have from those years that you will forever hold onto . The floor to q a. The floor will open to q a. He helped to cofound the peace corps and later served as United States senate from pennsylvania. President ,s college bryn mawr. I like to ask you, tell us about how instrumental you were introducing Martin Luther king to jfk. Martin luther king was skeptical about kennedy. He had actually been impressed with nixon when they met him. It was not an easy thing for kennedy to win him over. I would say it was i need the help. Can you hear . The moment that i realized that the gifts that kennedy has, that he enjoyed displaying, and that counted a lot, was his smile. Martin luther king liked his smile. Let me tell you one reason why. Question on the First Television debate was, what do you think about the questionable language that president truman had used about his adversary, nedy the smile began saying, if mrs. Truman get control his language, im not going to try. [applause] answeringixon started. A long, pious answer about his heart that was broken. He went on and on about how the terror of america are in because of this terrible language. Throughout this holes be a whole spiel from nixon, they kept showing kennedy with a careful smile. Afterwards as well as on the spot, he lost by 120,000 votes that smile in that moment was probably worth more than 100,000 votes. I have 2 or 3 other moments of smiles. Hink you might smile at me if you get back to me, i will give you your revolution, your position here. It isnt the tangible artifacts that we can see and touch, but it is something as intangible as a real and good smile. Ator, you were with president kennedy at the founding of the peace corps. Can you tell us about how that was inspired . Edy was very late at the university of michigan, where he was going to spend the night after a Television Debate with nixon. It was approaching 2 00 a. M. They got there with no plan for. Talk he looked at the 10,000 people estimated, mainly students and townspeople and faculty. And he winged it. He had a strong feeling coming back from Southeast Asia about how american diplomacy needed to be very different. He started giving a sense of it and then asked several questions, would you be willing to give 3, 4, 5 years of your life serving in ghana . He asked for or five of those questions. He got a big roar each time, but there was no press. He went to bed. And the students went to work. Sargent shriver who built the ce corps for kennedy others who were helping him knew came from one of our civil rights agents in michigan, called to say her daughter had heard kennedy, and they are all excited, and they formed a committee, michigan students for world responsibility, and they are taking a scroll around. They have almost 1000 students saying, we will go if you give us a way. They called me because they wanted to find a way to get there scroll to the candidate. That was a quick talk to fred it. Nt, who ever arranged ted sorenson says, its when ass phone call came to them they were touring the midwest, when it came, kennedy said, this idea is really catching hold. Lets make a major proposal of it. And he did, in san francisco. That is the beginning of the peace corps. Smile i remember from kennedy and the peace corps was as i was leaving the white house to go to the representative in africa and for two years, directing the program, he had sworn in the white house lawn, 600 peace corps volunteers in the first wave going to africa or anywhere else. It had he had already gone to ghana once. Having veryack, appropriate remarks on the way back you looked at me with his smile and said and i have to say, he had his doubts about the peace corps off and on. He no longer was thinking out of the things that were dubious for him. He was thinking of what in two done,they hd done, had and here was another group of 600. He said, this will be really 100,000 peacets corps volunteers a year. That would mean a million americans in a decade with firsthand experience in asia, africa or africa, and asia. And then we will have a constituency for a good foreign policy. That came with a big smile. Wow. This is jean lewis at my left. I have to let you know that right before we actually met at lunch, one of your colleagues said that is jean lewis. Shes 97 years old and drives a convertible. Then i later discovered we have something in common. We are both from alabama. She came to the senate in 1950 1958 in sorens old office and work for larry obrien who went on to the dnc. He was also associated with the watergate reagans. You worked in that office for a long time and all the interesting people would come and go. Give me a physical description of what the office was like and what you experienced on a daytoday basis. When i reported in 1958, i had already heard about what a glamorous person senator kennedy was. I was really looking forward to getting into the office, looking around and being part of this operation. I expected my colleagues, the girls would look like models. I expected a very glamorous setting. Much to my surprise, here was this office with about seven desks lined up into rows. My desk was at the back of the Office Facing the wall. My colleagues were nicelooking women, but they were not model types. The office was a mess. It was piled high with books and papers and later on, i found onion skin copies of profiles in courage all stacked up on a chair. One of the things i did was get the files off the chair. We had many visitors. Many of them were nuns that would come in. We had a stream of visitors all the time. One of them would be Vice President nixon whose office was across the hall. One day someone came in very charming and shook our hands will stop when he left, i said he was that. It was hubert humphrey. We never knew who is going to come in one day or the next. Sorensons office, this was a time when kennedy was running for reelection in massachusetts. He was out of the office a lot and ted sorensen was with him. I decided it was good to have the to have to clean up tents office. They were well overdue and i gathered them up and sent them back to the library of congress in the first thing he did was to order them all back and stop order them all back. Did you have any interaction with senator kennedy at the time when you are working with obrien . Obrien came on the scene later. He was still in massachusetts when i worked for ted sorensen. He was writing speeches and i was typing speeches. The male was coming in from all over the country as well as massachusetts, so my job was to answer all the mail from side massachusetts and you can imagine there was a tremendous quantity of mail. I would see kennedy from time to time and my desk was about 10 feet from his office door. He was out of town quite a lot that all. Thank you so much. [applause] you make alabama proud. Mrs. Gallagher, you have the microphone with you. Mrs. Gallagher was the chief personal secretary to Jackie Kennedy. We have some wonderful stories we will share. You came to work for senator kennedy when he was in congress, correct . When he was first ready for the Senate Election in massachusetts as a congressman. Tell us how you came into the life of mrs. Kennedy and took on that role. Its a wonderful story because it engaged me to be able to remain in the service of the then senator kennedy when i was forced to leave after three and a half years into the tenure with him in the senate because i had a child due to be born within two weeks and if i stayed another day longer in the senate , my associates would be having a nervous fit. About two weeks before the birth of my first son, the senator stop my my desk and asked how i was feeling. I was sitting at the typewriter instead i feel just great. He said then you will be around a while longer. I said maybe so if you consider two weeks and my longer two weeks a while longer. He said you felt fine. I said first things first. From there, my son was born four days after that an hes standing in the back of the room. There he is in the back of the room. That was 60 years ago. And there is risk. Now we know how old you are. Than a year and nine days later, son number two, gregory. When i left the senate office, only because of the fact i was forced into it and had the great pleasure of having this new person in a happy life, i decided that i had that urge to serve the senator and they would him him and call me at home every day. He kept asking if mary was able to come back to work. Long story short, three months later, when they knew i could not do full time in the senate, i had a call from the senators motherinlaw, mrs. Kennedys mother who called and said jack suggested she call me and she him was calling because she needed a secretary to go to her estate and wanted to know if i had the time. I said if i could get a babysitter to sit with chris, i would be happy to. After i did three or four months with her, mrs. Kennedy called from georgetown and said i understand you are going todays week. Will you alternate the other two days and come to georgetown . Suddenly, even though i couldnt work fulltime in the senate any longer, i was on a part time basis with mother and daughter. For the years of 57, 58, 59 until 1960, now it became a matter of having to be with mrs. Kennedy in georgetown, all day, every day, 24 7. I just thought i would be so happy when this year is over because after that, i had every intention of resuming my domestic life motherhood, caring for my husband and all of that. It was in palm beach florida on a trip with jackie before the inauguration. Three days before we were ready to leave is when they wanted to send out the announcement of this secretaries mrs. Kennedy was taking to the white house. Prior to that, i heard nothing about being asked to go to the white house. Im in the firm belief that when this year is over, i will go back and look. The press secretary, i was in palm beach at the time and he came from one of the president s bedroom to mrs. Kennedy and she was dictating to me at the typewriter. He said the president wants a press release to go out and she sat up and he said i know you have your social secretary and then, he said im sitting there, how about mary . Without even asking me, she walks over and said yes, mary has to come to the white house. I was so stunned, i looked over and said are you to buy any chance discussing this mary . [laughter] she came over and said yes, you must. I said this is the first im hearing about it, i dont think i can do it. I tried for the next 20 minutes to convince her it would not work because it would not be a parttime job. Supposedly, i started with her parttime and i was hoping that this isnt the end, having done this campaign and i fulfilled my obligation. Mary, i need you again. We wont be working every day. When im away, you can have those days off and go back to parttime like georgetown. I tried to let her understand that it would be more like to secretaries fulltime. Eric said we only have an hour here. I have one more question for you. Can i give you one more question . [laughter] i have already talked about five minutes. I tried to the ground work there so you can understand it was 12 years later that i was seated i was leaving the service of Jacqueline Kennedy. I have with me my cards, i wrote a book in 1969. For everything i can tell you this evening and enjoy talking to you about it, pick up a copy of my life with Jacqueline Kennedy your cap Jacqueline Kennedy. [laughter] [applause] there was nothing parttime about your commitment to mrs. Kennedy. But she relies on you so much, all the way to the end and im hesitant to ask you this its a rich part of this narrative of your life. You were with her that day in dallas. Could you give us a bit about what that was like . I will try to be as brief as i can because thats one memory that when it comes back always brings chills to my arms and shoulders and all over. But i remember it like yesterday. It was 53 years ago could it really be that much . It is. It was a case where i think i can only talk about how difficult it was to have an right there, but im glad i was because for mrs. Kennedys sake, i could embrace her when we got into the plane and we were ready to leave. I wont go into the details but it was one of the saddest experiences i have ever been through. When i look back on it now and try to recall it, it is almost too much to do. Im almost speechless. Where do we go from here . I dont know it is difficult. [applause] i will say i go into detail in the book. The memory that comes back to my mind is being on the vip bus and the president s car and motorcade, seeing this policeman climbing the grassy knoll with his run drawn and that is when i knew something serious happened and i said to the president s secretary, something awful, terrible has happened. Look at the policeman climbing the grassy knoll. We went to the luncheon that was scheduled and it was just utter chaos with everyone screaming about the president being shot. From there, i talk about going to Parkland Hospital and the next few hours, however long it took to go back to washington. It is a very sad note and i would rather think about the happy times when his kennedy visited our house. Mrs. Kennedy and the children visited the day before she left for her big trip to india because she needed a day to get away and caroline wanted to visit tom kitten. This was part of the relationship i had that i enjoyed. It was like family. After we soon got into the white house, mrs. Kennedy asked if i would have tom kitten board at the house has board at the house. I was not aware of the president was allergic to animals. But carolines cat, because she was the same as same age as our two sons, they would come to visit and she would come periodically, mostly on wednesdays to come and visit, but before mrs. Kennedy went on her trip to india, she wanted a day to herself so caroline and she could come visit with tom kitten and that would give her a day of relax