On April twenty seventh, nineteen sixty one, John F.

Kennedy's plane touched down at LaGuardia Airport.

It was his first visit to New York since becoming president.

He stepped off the aircraft and slid into a black limousine, which whisked him to his suite at the Carlisle on Madison Avenue.

Hours later, a police motorcade accompanied Kennedy south to the Waldorf Astoria.

Outside the hotel, more than three thousand people jammed Park Avenue to greet the new leader of the Free world.

It was Press Week in New York, an annual gathering of more than twelve hundred editors, publishers, and newspaper executives.

President Kennedy had come to the Waldorf that evening to address the American Newspaper Publishers Association.

His appearance was especially newsworthy.

One week earlier, US backed forces had flown the white flag in Cuba.

The Bay of Pigs invasion may have failed to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro, but it did succeed in escalating the Cold War, a major foreign policy blunder.

Just months into Kennedy's term, Dressed in white tie, Kennedy approached the lectern in the Waldorf's dazzling Grand ballroom.

His speech was titled The President and the Press.

Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded the President versus the Press, but those are not my sentiments tonight.

Instead, Kennedy said he had a more sober topic to discuss.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to re examine his own standards and to recognize the nature of our country's peril.

In time of war.

The government and the press have customarily joined in an effort, based largely on self discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy.

In times of clear and present danger.

The courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

These were perilous times, as evidenced by the situation in Cuba.

War hadn't been declared, but Kennedy wanted the press to act as if it had.

He claimed America's enemies had learned about covert preparations from simply reading the newspapers that they'd been able to glean quote the size, the strength, the location, and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use.

He said that in at least one instance, details about a secret satellite mechanism had been published.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible, and well meaning.

Had we been engaged in open warfare, the undoubtedly would not have published such items.

But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security.

And my question, deny it is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

That question is for you alone to answer.

No public official should answer it for you.

No governmental plan should impose its restraints against Joe Will.

But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bail and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not command this problem to your attention and urge its thoughtful consideration.

Kennedy ended his address by affirming his respect and admiration for the Fourth Estate.

He said he shared journalism's obligation to inform the American people, to give them the facts to spark debate He wasn't asking those in attendance to support his administration.

He understood their watchdog rule.

He not only accepted the accountability of newspapers, he welcomed it.

And so it is to the printing press, to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help, man will be what he was born to be, free and independent.

The next day, Kennedy's remarks were front page headlines.

The New York Times declared, President urges press limit news that helps reds.

But there was something the Times story didn't mention.

Kennedy wasn't just speaking to America's journalists as their president.

He was speaking as someone who, at least for three months in nineteen forty five, had been one of them.

Even if you were well versed in other aspects of JFK's microscopically scrutinized life, you could be forgiven if you were less familiar with this one, That is, if you are familiar with it at all.

I was sixteen and JFK was assassinated.

That's Rob Reiner, the famous director Spinal Tap.

Rob Reiner, Princess Bride, Rob Reiner, A few good men, Rob Reiner, and in the podcast space Who Killed JFK.

Reiner His twenty twenty three show spent several weeks atop the Apple Top podcast charts.

I had written a paper in high school about the Cuban missile crisis, so I was focused on him as a president.

I knew, obviously a little bit about him as a senator.

I knew about PT One nine, and we all knew about his heroics during the Second World War.

But even Rob Reiner wasn't dialed in on this chapter of JFK's story.

As far as him being a journalist, I didn't really know very much about that, and I'm hearing about it essentially for the first time here.

It was a brief and relatively under the radar period in JFK's life.

At the same time, it had a lasting impact on one of the most iconic presidents in American history.

Welcome to very special episodes and Iheart's original podcast.

I'm your host Danish Schwartz, and this is JFK Is Forgotten Summer in Journalism.

Welcome back to very special episodes.

I'm Jason English.

She is Danish Schwartz.

He is Aaron Burnett, And on this podcast we tell one great story each week, and I'm going to start here.

I love a good prequel.

Better call Saul Wicked the Muppet Babies.

Just give me the back story.

The Muppet Babies.

Did you see Solo?

That's the real test of whether you like a prequel.

I did see that one, and that is a real test.

So on the topic of presidential jobs by Osmosis, we've heard these stories over the years.

Barack Obama worked at Baskin Robbins and Ron Reagan, Joe Biden, they were lifeguards.

Grover Cleveland was a hangman.

I don't know if you guys knew that.

He's carried out at least two executions.

Did not know Grover Cleveland.

The Grover Cleveland.

Richard Nixon got to get him in here.

He worked at the Family gas station, naturally, and LBJ owned the Muzak distribution rights.

He was in the radio business with his wife and they owned Muzak rights and in.

The Austin area.

I don't think any of those stories are going to be worthy of very special episodes.

Oh no, the hangman one sounds kind of interesting.

Yeah, Hangman and Musach are both interesting angles.

It's a little dark.

I'm talking about the muzak one.

But jfk is a journalist.

Yeah, I love it because I actually started as a journalist.

Yeah, it's right.

It is my prequel.

Jason knew me when.

I'm looking forward to your presidential run as well.

Yeah, I'll be the one to set things right.

He already got my vote though.

For John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the seeds of service were planted at a young age.

It's often said that he was born into a rich family.

That's not exactly true.

Fred Logoval is one of Kennedy's by biographers.

His father, Joe Sr.

Became extraordinarily wealthy.

Let's say the first ten years of Jack's life is really when he makes his fortune.

You know what's notable about this family, of course, is that he and his wife Rose instill in their children, all of them, really, this idea that they need to think beyond themselves, They need to give something back, They need to commit themselves at least a little bit to public service.

And I think that's something that Jack takes in.

After graduating from Harvard in nineteen forty, Jack had his eye on law school.

His plans changed when the United States' entry into World War Two seemed inevitable.

Jack and his older brother, Joseph Kennedy Junior, enlisted in the US Naval Reserve.

Both brothers want to serve in the war.

They both want to see combat, which is an interesting decision on their port beca as you say, they could have avoided this, but they both serve and of course get into harm's way before too long.

And in Jack's case, that becomes as a commander of a pet boat.

PT boats were small, fast, and heavily armed.

Jack's was the eighty foot PT one oh nine, part of a fleet in the Pacific theater.

As US forces battled the Japanese, the twenty six year old lieutenant commanded his vessel through the waters of the Solomon Islands.

In terms of combat assignments, it didn't get much riskier.

At the same time, the mission suited Jack.

He had practically grown up on the sea during summers at the Kennedy Compound, sailing Nantucket Sound off the coast of Hyanna's Port.

Still, no amount of nautical expertise could have prepared him for the danger he would face in the wei hours of August second, nineteen forty three.

It was a moonless night.

They're in the Beckett Straight in the Solomons.

PT boats are patrolling looking for Japanese vessels.

Some of the PT boats had radar.

Lieutenant Kennedy's did not have radar, which really limited what he was able to perceive on this very dark night.

And what happens is he does not see that a Japanese destroyer is bearing down on them.

The Japanese warship slammed into Jack's boat, slicing it in half.

The PT one nine didn't stand a chance.

That might have been the end of John F.

Kennedy right then and there.

No Congress, no Jack ee O, no White House, no Bay of Pigs, no Cuban missile crisis, no Lee Harvey Oswald, no JFK airports.

These are the events that change history.

He knew what war was.

I mean, obviously Eisenhower did.

But here was a man who really was in the midst of the horrors of war.

Miraculously, Jack survived, so did most of his crew.

They could see a small island in the distance.

Now all they had to do was swim to safety.

Jack had as good a chance of making it as any.

A few years earlier, he'd competed on the Harvard swim team.

He just hadn't ever trained for a long distance swim through shark infested enemy waters with a wounded comrade in tow.

He drags this injured member of his crew for these three and a half four hours, so he has to not just swim for himself, but for his comrade.

And they make it to this island, and then they have to figure out what to do from there.

The whole time there's the possibility, of course, that Japanese will spot them.

Ultimately, they are restored.

On August twentieth, a front page New York Times headline claimed Kennedy's son is hero in Pacific.

In his book JFK.

Coming of Age in the American Century, Fred Logowl describes the episode as a pivotal moment.

His World War two experience, and especially his experience in the Pacific, has a very important effect on young Jack Kennedy.

I think it boosts his belief that he belongs, that he can make decisions, that he can be a leader.

So it's a real shot in terms of his self confidence and his self belief.

I also think it shapes his worldview, his belief that coming out of this war, the United States needs to play a primary role in world affairs.

It affects how he sees the world, how he sees the US role in that world.

That, I think, in a way will stay with him till the end of his days.

One year after Jack's near death experience in the Pacific, his older volunteered for a highly perilous operation.

Joe Junior's orders were to fly a plane packed with explosives towards France and then jump out with the parachute.

He didn't make it.

It's what kind of suicide mission?

Really?

The plane will continue well, it explodes before they can bail.

Joe Junior's death was almost too much to bear for his father, a former SEC chairman who'd served as the US ambassador to the United Kingdom earlier in the war.

The Boston Globe reported quote from the time the family received the Navy telegram, the ex ambassador has kept to his room.

His grief is deep.

Joe Junior had been the golden child and heir apparent of a proud political lineage.

From a young age, his father had been grooming him for greatness.

Now Joe's goal of becoming America's first Catholic president had been cut tragically short.

You had Joe Kennedy, who always wanted the family to be considered legitimate and to be accepted in the political world.

I don't think Jack thought of himself for somebody who was going to take up that mantle.

I think he always thought his older brother was going to be the one.

It was a devastating turn of events for the family.

It also had major implications for the Kennedy clan's second oldest son, because the family's hopes and dreams didn't just die with Joe Junior.

Rather, they were transferred onto Jack.

Following his exploits in the Pacific, Jack sought treatment for chronic back pain that had ailed him for years.

He ended up up having surgery, which officially put an end to his military career.

On March first, nineteen forty five, Lieutenant Kennedy was honorably discharged, his future laid out before him.

Still mourning the death of his brother, Jack found himself at a crossroads.

He emerged from his Navy service a household name, the torchbearer of his family's political ambitions.

Politics was in his blood.

In addition, to the roles his father had played in government.

Jack's maternal grandfather had been a mayor of Boston and a US congressman.

His paternal grandfather had been a state senator.

Both of his great uncles were state senators, and his father's first cousin was once the mayor of Brockton, Massachusetts.

But in that spring of nineteen forty five, as the war entered its final inning, Jack had a lot to consider.

He could go to law school, which he has flirted with, not because he has a particular interest in the law, but because it's a career step for somebody who doesn't maybe quite know what they want to do.

He's interested in journalism, and I think he is thinking about politics.

Jack was already an accomplished writer.

Senior year at Harvard, he wrote a thesis exploring British appeasement in the run up to World War Two.

Joe Senior encouraged his son to publish it.

To make the work commercially viable, they enlisted Joe's friend Arthur Kroc, the Pulitzer Prize winning Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

In his memoirs, Kroc would write of Jack's thesis quote, it was remarkable for the fine perception of the fundamental problems of a peace loving democracy threatened with dictatorial regimes.

Kroc helped Jack turn the thesis into a book called Why England Slept, with a forward from Henry Luce, the founder of Time magazine.

It became a best seller, and the book's thesis persuaded Krock that Jack was quote suited to a career in journalism.

Five years later, as Jack wade career options, Joe Senior got in touch with his old pal William Randolph Hurst.

He had known.

Joe Senior had known Hurst from his days as a Hollywood mogul in the nineteen twenties.

Late nineteen twenties, Joe Kennedy became a serious player in Hollywood, made a good deal of money in Hollywood.

Got to know Hurst at that point, partly through Mariam Davies, and in the nineteen thirties, Joe Kennedy convinced Hurst to back Fdr for reelection in nineteen thirty six.

So they have these connections.

Joe Senior helped Jack get a gig as a syndicated special correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers, which included the San Francisco Examiner, the Chicago Herald American, and the New York Journal American.

The idea was that Jack would cover the unfolding post war order from a quote serviceman's point of view.

Hearst got to splash his papers with the byline of best selling author John F.

Kennedy, identified at the top of each article as a quote.

Recently retired p boat hero and son of former Ambassador Joseph P.

Kennedy, Jack got to test the journalistic waters while elevating his profile in a way that could prove advantageous to a future in politics.

His first assignment was a banger.

At the end of April nineteen forty five, Hurst sent him to San Francisco to cover the founding Conference of the United Nations.

Jack suddenly found himself at the the center of international policymaking, breathing the same air as illustrious statesman.

Delegates representing forty six nations came to San Francisco on April twenty fifth, nineteen forty five, representing almost two thousand million people, more than eighty percent of humanity, all at war.

When the conference was begun.

They came with hope born of common struggle.

If you were a cub reporter like Jack Kennedy, this was the place to be.

Kennedy joined twelve hundred accredited journalists from established scribes like James Rustin, Walter Lippman, and the Kennedy's friend Arthur Krock, two gossips like Walter Winschell, Earl Wilson, and Peta Hopper.

Describing the media spectacle, Life Magazine observed a quote like Pilgrim's drawn to Mecca.

The nation's newspapermen flocked to San Francisco.

They were all there, the whys and the witless, the sober and the silly, the pundits, pontificators, and performing seals.

The goal of the conference was to create a template for global diplomacy in the interest of preventing future wars.

In his first dispatch on April twenty eighth, Kennedy warned readers not to get their hopes up.

There is an impression that this is the conference to end wars and introduce peace on Earth and goodwill toward nations, excluding, of course, Germany and Japan.

Well, it's not going to do that.

Kennedy's debut also included a man on the Street interview with a decorated marine who told him quote, I don't know much about what's going on, but if they just fix it so that we don't have to fight anymore, they can count me in.

Kennedy replied, me too, Sarge.

In the evenings, Kennedy swanned about San Francisco with the elite.

Kroc, writing in his memoirs years later, painted some memorable scenes of the humble Hurst correspondent cutting in on a dance with the British Foreign Secretary's wife on his bed at the Palace Hotel, with a high ball in one hand and a telephone receiver in the other.

Hello there, Yeah, I want to speak to the managing editor of the Chicago Herald Examiner.

Not in.

We'll put somebody on to take a message.

Cook.

Will you see that the boss gets this message as soon as you can reach him.

Thank you.

Here's the message.

Kennedy will not be filing tonight.

Tempting as it may have been, Kennedy wasn't there to party.

Over the course of a month, he wrote sixteen columns at about three hundred words apiece, exactly the most grueling journalistic assignment, but well worth the rate Hurst was paying him seven hundred and fifty dollars, which is about thirteen thousand today, Plus it was exciting work.

Kennedy basically had a front row seat to history, reporting on the birth of the UN as the Allies declared victory in Europe.

I mean, it's hard to overstate the symbolic importance of the San Francisco Conference, Even if the sort of basics of that world order have already been laid out at prior conferences among the Allies, there's already a sense that this is now going to be effectively a two power world.

The United States and the Soviet Union will be the key players, and the young reporter Jack Kennedy, his stories filed from San Francisco are so fascinating.

Kennedy's stories weren't exactly straight news, and his point of view wasn't just that of a serviceman, but someone who had his own ideas about world affairs.

May first, this conference from a distance may have appeared so far like an international football game.

Well, that part's over and they are scheduled tomorrow to get at the real work of the conference.

This will consist of trying to solve a number of more or less technical problems upon how these dull problems are settled may depend our peace in the upcoming years.

May sixteenth, The Russians have recognized our difficult position and have taken full advantage of it.

They have attempted to embarrass Us and the British at every turn.

May eighteenth, there is growing discouragement among people concerning our chances of winning any lasting peace from this war.

There is talk of fighting the Russians in the next ten or fifteen years.

We have indeed gone a long way since those hopeful days early in the war when we talked of union.

Now in one world there is a fundamental distrust between Great Britain and the United States on the one hand, and Russia on the other.

The growing distrust between Russia and the US was a running theme of Kennedy's reportage.

Kennedy picks up on this.

He's as quick as anybody else, I would argue, at least in terms of the reporting at the conference, to see how these two players were going to be the most important players, number one and number two, how they were destined to come into conflict.

There's a realism in his articles.

These pieces stand up pretty well.

If one were to go back now and read all of them.

They're solid in the context of their time.

I would say they're even solid in terms of what he saw, maybe at least to a degree before others did, about this new world order.

The San Francisco Conference carried on until June twenty six, when the assembled delegates signed the historic Charter of the United Nations.

By then, Kennedy was gone.

Another story had beckoned, this time across the ocean.

Kennedy hadn't been to Europe since nineteen thirty nine.

He had visited Germany right before the invasion of Poland, then he had traveled to London.

On September third, nineteen thirty nine, Kennedy observed Britain's declaration of war in the House of Commons, where soon to be Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, we are fighting to save the whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defense of all that is most sacred to man.

Nearly six years later, the Allies had won that fight and Churchill was up for reelection.

The conventional wisdom held that Churchill's wartime leadership would make him a shoe in, but one journalist was and so sure In fact, this journalist, a fresh faced correspondent for the Hearst Papers, had a hunch that the Prime Minister's days were numbered.

In June nineteen forty five, Kennedy flew to London and checked into a two room suite at the Grovenor House Hotel.

It was Jack's first international assignment, and he'd gotten business cards with his Hearst affiliation, John Fitzgerald Kennedy International News Service.

A letter to the US Consul General from the manager of the news service made it official.

This is to certify that mister John F.

Kennedy is on special assignment in Europe for Hearst Newspapers.

The British elections were scheduled for July fifth.

Kennedy arrived just in time for the frenzied home stretch of the campaigns.

He's fascinated by electoral politics in a democratic system.

Again, He's grown up experiencing this with his grandfather, Honey fitz a legendary Boston politician.

He has followed elections, you know, as a student.

Now he's seeing it up close, and I think it absolutely inclines him more as much as he's enjoying I think the reporting gig to seek out political possibilities for himself.

Churchill seemed to have the upper hand.

At least of his high approval ratings were any indication.

Speaking at a campaign stop where thousands of cheering supporters lined the streets, the Prime Minister said, this election is one of great importance because it comes at a moment when the future of our country is at stake.

Around the same time, Kennedy filed his latest story lines that appeared with the article in various Hurst publications sounded ominous.

Churchill's defeat possible in new tide sweeping Europe.

Labor rights may defeat Churchill, says writer.

Churchill may lose election.

Here's Kennedy in his own words.

This may come as a surprise to most Americans, who feel Churchill is as indomitable at the polls as he was in the war.

However, Churchill is fighting a tide that is surging through Europe, washing away monarchies and conservative governments everywhere, and that tide flows powerfully in England.

England is moving towards some form of socialism.

If not in this election, then then surely at the next.

Kennedy's article turned out to be precient.

On July twenty sixth, after all the votes were finally counted, the Labor Party beat Churchill's Conservative government in a landslide.

Croc later said that Kennedy's writings were quote the only intimation I got from anyone that Churchill would be defeated.

Even in one or two of his pieces from San Francisco, he suggests that the Conservatives are in some trouble, which too many people seems absolutely crazy.

Churchill in trouble politically, how can that be?

He's one of the great leaders of the twentieth century.

I think people already understood.

Kennedy even before he gets to London, says that this is a possibility.

What he then proceeds to do in the weeks prior to the vote is to follow the campaign, and he shows a reporter's nos for a good story.

On the heels of Churchill's defeat, Kennedy wrote.

England has been hit by some blockbusters in the last five years, but none of them have a shoko like today's election results.

Explanations for the crushing defeat we're already forthcoming, and they will be pouring in for the next few weeks.

It was one of his last dispatches from the United Kingdom, but Kennedy still had a few more stops on his tour as a correspondent for Hurst.

From England, he traveled to Paris and then on to Germany.

That's where the US, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain were hashing out a plan for post war Europe at the Potsdam Conference.

The historical record is a bit fuzzy as to whether Kennedy actually filed any stories from this last leg of the trip.

It seems like he probably didn't.

He did, however, keep a diary.

You can buy a reprint of it for under ten bucks.

It's called Prelude to Leadership, The European Diary of John F.

Kennedy.

The diary reflects on the utter destruction in places like Berlin.

The devastation is The streets are relatively clear, but there is not a single building which is not gutted.

On some of the streets, the stench, sweet and sickish from dead bodies is overwhelming.

The people all have completely colorless faces, a yellow tinge with pale tan lips.

They were all carrying bundles.

Where are they going?

No one seems to know.

I wonder whether they do.

In one entry, Kennedy describes a somber conversation with a young German girl.

This girl is about twenty two, speaks some English, and is a Roman Catholic.

She said it was difficult to get to Catholic church after the Nazis came to power, though it was possible.

She thought the Germans were going to win the war, but the first victories were just shining.

She thought the future of Germany is melancholy.

The final entry is arguably the most chilling one.

Kennedy writes about his visit to Hitler's bombed out chalet in the Bavarian Alps, as well as a nearby building.

After visiting these two places, you can clearly understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived.

He had boundless ambition for his country, which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world.

But he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived, in the manner of his death that will live and grow after it.

He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.

For the record.

Kennedyologists who have written about this entry have noted there's no indication that jfk harbored any sympathies for the Fear or Nazi Germany.

What I take away from the diary is a sense that the world order has fundamentally shifted.

In part again, is based on seeing the destruction all around him, his awareness that Britain is a faded power, that Britain is emerging drastically weakened from the war.

Now he's seeing that Germany is destroyed coming out of the war.

He understands that there's going to be a division of Germany.

What's the strength in his analysis is the degree to which he perceives that this division between East and West, the United States the leader of one camp, if you will, and the Soviet Union the leader and the other.

That I think is affirmed for him in these weeks in Germany, and again I repeat because I think it matters a conviction that he has, which is that the United States must become the leader of the West going forward.

In addition of the diary published in nineteen ninety five, include an introduction by Hugh Sidney, who covered Kennedy's presidency for Time.

He writes, quote Kennedy shows in his diary that he has the instincts of a good journalist, the unflagging curiosity, the eyes, the ears.

Others in Kennedy's orbit have described that spring and summer of nineteen forty five as a key step in his political evolution.

Close friend and speech writer Ted Sorenson wrote in his own JFK biography quote in a brief fling at journalism, he had observed the power politics at Potsdam and the San Francisco UN Conference, and covered the British election.

All this sharpened his interest in public affairs and public service.

Two of JFK's White House aides said he considered his journalistic dalliances quote the thing that finally moved Jack Kennedy toward active politics.

Having a close look as a reporter at the post war political leaders in action, he decided that he might be able to find more satisfaction and to perform more useful service as a politician than as a political writer.

Kennedy left Europe in early August as the war was hurtling toward its catastrophic conclusion in Japan.

By the end of the year, he had made the decision to run for office in April nineteen forty six, he officially entered the race to represent his home state's eleventh congressional district.

And while the rest is history.

Nobody thought of this at the time, but present in Potsdam are the thirty third President of the United States, Harry Truman, the thirty fourth President of the United States Dwight Eisenhower, and the thirty fifth President of the United States, young Jack Kennedy.

He was the youngest president ever to be elected.

I was only a teenager, but he felt like one of us.

But here was a guy, he was forty three at the time, and we thought, Wow, this is somebody that's almost in our generation, somebody who we actually can look up to and respect.

And he was funny, he had a quick wit.

That guy can be a president.

That was really cool to us.

He was a hero to our generation.

One day in nineteen sixty, when Kennedy was running for president, he sat down to dictate some notes.

He would do this from time to time, preparing for the memoirs he expected to write.

On this particular occasion, Kennedy reflected on his trajectory from pt boat captain to candidate for America's highest office.

My brother Joe was killed in Europe as a fire in August nineteen forty four, and that ended our hopes for him.

But I didn't even.

Start to think about a political profess more than a year later.

When the war came.

I didn't know what I was going to do, and I didn't find it oppressive that I didn't know.

Forty four and forty five, I had been in the hospital for about a year, recovering from some injuries I received in the Pacific, and I worked as a reporter covering the San Francisco Conference, the British election, and the Potsdam meeting tall in nineteen forty five.

A few beats later.

In the recording, which you can find online at the website of UVa's Miller Center, Kennedy explains why journalism didn't captivate him the way politics ultimately did.

A reporter is reporting what happens.

He's not making it happen underline, making underline reporter.

Even the good reporters, the ones who are really fascinated by what happens and who find real stickless putting their noses into the center of even they in a sense are in a secondary profession.

It's reporting what happened coma, but it isn't participating.

By all accounts, JFK would have made a fine journalist, and if fate hadn't intervened, maybe that's exactly what he would have ended up being.

Let's suppose that Joe Junior survives.

He was seen by his father and others as the one who would enter politics.

So he does so, let's say, and let's say he rises to the talk or near the talk.

I actually suggest that there are reasons why Joe Kennedy Junior would not have been as successful as his brother was in politics.

But let's assume that he would have been.

I think Jack Kennedy probably would have pursued, at least in the early going, a journalistic career, and I think he would have been successful at it.

It's not impossible to imagine that he stays with that career, that he becomes a kind of Walter Lippman for a later generation.

And because of his skill as an observer, because of his intelligence, because of his ability to write pretty well and pretty quickly, which is important in journalism, a very little reason to believe that he would have not been highly successful in that capacity.

It's a fascinating scenario.

He had a curious mind and he had a great way of expressing himself.

Would he have made a great journalist, Of course he would.

So this should be a movie.

This one a little added cinematic flair because the great director Rob Reiner gave us a nice cameo.

Here, aren, have you put your casting director hat on?

I did, and in the spirit of Rob Reinder, I thought a lot about this.

I wanted to get the casting right.

He's really good at casting, so I thought, Okay, I give this one up for Rob, so for casting for young JFK the guy, the kid looks like him.

So this one was easy.

That kid Finn Wolfhart from Stranger Things.

I mean, he's got the floppy hair.

Do you think he looks like JFK?

Out of all the young actors I was looking at, he was the closest appearance.

Right Tony Goldwyn, the guy from Law and Order and from Scandal, he looks the most like a Kennedy.

But I think he's too old now to play young Jack.

So I was looking for a young Jack.

You know what, I'm gonna give you a crazy pitch, what young solo himself?

Whoa that's back?

Yes?

Bring him back good jawline poll too Okay.

Now for Joe Kennedy Senior, for the Father, I thought Tim Blake Nelson Delmar from O Brother, Where art thou?

He looks like Joe Kennedy Senior.

I looked up Joe Kennedy Senior.

I'm like, oh, that's that's a done deal, Tim Blake Nelson.

And then for like William Randolph Hurst, I thought this one.

I was like, okay, once again, looked at the man difficult face because he has a kind of like, you know, like that Time Traveler pre iPhone face.

You're like, okay, who am I to get?

Edward Horton was as close as I could get, being like boom.

I think he's got the acting chops.

He can do the gravitas.

And then for Winston Churchill, this was a surprise Patton Oswalden a play for an Oscar.

Wow, whoa.

I love when a comedian goes serious, right, I thought that could be fun because Toby Jones was the other one, the British actor, but he's already played him, so that was like, okay, that's too easy.

Yeah, British people always get mad when Americans play Winston Churchill because of the crown.

It was John Letgow, John Lithgow, and they got mad.

But he did a great job.

So you know, I did not see that though, John Lithgow, that's an interesting choice.

He seems like too tall.

He was great.

Yeah, so I think we can give it to another American.

Okay, I like that call.

And John Lithgow, quick aside, will be playing buzz Aldrin and an upcoming podcast that launches I think it's July ninth.

Really, yeah, fighting buzz Aldrin, my man.

Your guy.

Maybe we put Rob Reiner in this as kind of the narrator.

He can be like the Peter falk roll from Yeah where that fits into the narrative.

But let's working.

Then he plays the newspaperman who assigned JFK.

A It's a non historical character, but just the scrappy newspaper man who's a mentor to JFK in the movie version.

So that's good, good call, good screenwriting.

I love to think that one thing about this story is it's a perfect reminder that a great truth of leadership, the secret to being a great leader is be a great storyteller, you know what I mean, Like, think about all of our great American presidents.

They're almost all great storytellers.

So if JFK the journalist was coming up today, what would be your advice It start a sub stack focus on social.

Wow, that's tough one.

I would say you, Oh, you have family, money, great, You'll be just fine.

Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.

Today's episode was written by Joe Pompeo.

Joe is one of our regulars.

You can find out what else he's up to at Joe Pompeo dot net.

This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaren Burnett, and Jason English.

Our producer is Josh Fisher.

Editing and sound design by Jonathan Washington and Josh Fisher.

Additional editing by Mary Doo, fixing and mastering by Josh Fisher.

A big thanks to our JFK voice actor, Tom anton Ellis.

It's very hard to do reenactments in an episode that also includes archival audio of the guy you are re enacting, but I thought Tom nailed it.

Great to work with him again, And of course big thanks to Rob Reiner for agreeing to talk to us po see Spinal Tap two in theaters this September.

Thanks to Roco at Rob's Company for helping coordinate original music by Alis McCoy, research in fact checking by Austin Thompson and Joe Pompeo.

Show logo by Lucy Kintonia.

Our executive producer is Jason English.

If you ever want to email the show, you can reach us a Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com.

Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts m