Dinner in Camelot : the night America's greatest scientists, writers, and scholars partied at the Kennedy White House / Joseph A. Esposito.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Esposito, Joseph A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nobel Prize winners.

Political culture--United States--History--20th century.

Political culture.

Entertaining--Washington (D.C.)--History--20th century.

Entertaining.

United States--History--1961-1969.

United States.

United States--Politics and government--1961-1963.

Washington (D.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century.

Washington (D.C.).

White House (Washington, D.C.)--History--20th century.

White House (Washington, D.C.).

Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Friends and associates.

Kennedy, John F.

Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 PDF (xx, 230 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates) :) illustrations (some color)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[Lebanon, New Hampshire] : ForeEdge, [2018]

Summary:

In April 1962, President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy hosted forty-nine Nobel Prize winners--along with many other prominent scientists, artists, and writers--at a famed White House dinner. Among the guests were J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was officially welcomed back to Washington after a stint in the political wilderness; Linus Pauling, who had picketed the White House that very afternoon; William and Rose Styron, who began a fifty-year friendship with the Kennedy family that night; James Baldwin, who would later discuss civil rights with Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Mary Welsh Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's widow, who sat next to the president and grilled him on Cuba policy; John Glenn, who had recently orbited the earth aboard Friendship 7; historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who argued with Ava Pauling at dinner; and many others. Actor Frederic March gave a public recitation after the meal, including some unpublished work of Hemingway's that later became part of Islands in the Stream. Held at the height of the Cold War, the dinner symbolizes a time when intellectuals were esteemed, divergent viewpoints could be respectfully discussed at the highest level, and the great minds of an age might all dine together in the rarefied glamour of "the people's house."

Contents:

Prologue : heading to dinner

America in transition

Camelot at midpoint

Poetry, prose, and politics

America's queen and America's hero

Redemption and promise

Is that Linus Pauling?

"The fire next time"

A galaxy of geniuses

An after-party

Lives connected

Epilogue : nothing like it since.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Description based on print record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781512602555

1512602558

OCLC:

1032589752