JACQUELINE KENNEDY, HISTORIC CONVERSATIONS: THE FIFTH CONVERSATION IV
Knoxville, Tennessee (JFK+50) Today JFK+50 continues our report on the fifth conversation from "Jacqueline Kennedy, Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy", published by Hyperion.
The fifth conversation was recorded on March 24, 1964.
Arthur Schlesinger says:
"The President had been interested in Latin America, particularly because it became such a major interest in the administration. Of course he had gone to Argentina....in 1939."
Jacqueline Kennedy replies:
"Yes. I think he'd been to Brazil...but he was really quite young then & I don't think--I never remember him talking especially about Latin America before. It was really when he got into the White House."
Mrs. Kennedy said that during their visit to Mexico, President Lopez Mateos "really began to see that Jack believed all those things he was saying about 'our revolution was like yours.'"
Lopez Mateos & the Kennedys
Hotel Maria Isabel
Mexico City
June 30, 1962
Photo by Robert Knudsen
JFK Library Photo
"At last, they had someone they could trust who felt about them."
Mrs. Kennedy says the trip to Mexico was the most exciting. She says:
"It looked like a pink snowstorm--that paper coming down, & the cheers, & the 'vivas' about. 'Viva Kennedy! Viva Los Kennedys Catolicos! Viva everything.'"
Mr. Schlesinger said that he thought one of the greatest things JFK did as President was to restore the sense of a common hemisphere.
