Dead Presidents
By Anthony Bergen
E-Mail: bergen.anthony@gmail.com
“Men are products, expressions, reflections; they live to the extent that they coincide with their epoch, or to the extent that they differ markedly from it.” — José Martí, Cuban Revolutionary/Poet/Patriot, 1887
Men die — even Revolutionaries like Ché Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chávez (well, maybe not Fidel, he’s still fighting). The true measure of their impact, however, is not simply what they did, but what remains once they are gone. In my latest article for AND Magazine, “¿Viva La Revolucíon?”, I look at a connection between Ché and Chávez, and wonder whether their Revolutions died with the Revolutionaries. I also question those Americans who celebrated Chávez’s death much like they celebrated Osama bin Laden’s despite the fact that bin Laden planned terror attacks which killed thousands of Americans while Chávez was basically just an obnoxious presence. Is it as much of a capital crime to antagonize America with annoying rhetoric as it is to target innocent Americans for murder through terror? While I don’t make apologies for Hugo Chávez, in the wake of his death, I try to see his impact through the eyes of his neighbors in Latin America whose interactions with the late Venezuelan leader were largely affectionate. Go check out my article in AND Magazine, “¿Viva La Revolucíon?”, and please click the Facebook “like” or “recommend” button underneath the article’s title!
Almost exactly one hundred years prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, another act of terror on a bright September day in New York rocked the United States during the first year of a new century. In the photo above, President William McKinley is shown walking up the steps at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York just minutes before he was shot. McKinley had recently been re-elected to a second term and was extraordinarily popular after successfully leading the country through the Spanish-American War.
At the Pan-American Exposition, President McKinley spent time attending receptions, meeting dignitaries, and shaking hands with visitors to the fair. It was work McKinley enjoyed doing. The 58-year-old President was a kindly, gentle man who doted over his beloved wife who was nearly invalid. Ida McKinley was epileptic and the President took care of her constantly, never shying away from her illness or allowing it to affect his responsibilities or his public duties. At dinners, if Ida suffered an epileptic fit or seizure, the President would quietly and gently drape a handkerchief over her face or distract everyone’s attention and continue conversation as usual. McKinley thoughtfully included Ida in as much as she could handle and never made her feel embarrassed about her condition.
McKinley was kind to other people, as well. The President hated to disappoint people, hated to tell people no, and hated to be the person to break bad news to someone else. Often, McKinley would wear a pink carnation in his lapel, which he would give to those who might be disappointed after a difficult meeting. President McKinley wanted people who met with him to at least walk away with something when they left his office, even if they didn’t get what they had come for.
It was this thoughtfulness which led William McKinley to deflect worries by his personal secretary George B. Cortelyou that the public receptions at the Pan-American Exposition might be a security risk. It was McKinley’s gentle manner which led him to refuse Cortelyou’s suggestions to cancel the public receptions in Buffalo. It was McKinley’s good heart which led him to genuinely believe that “No one would wish to hurt me.” It was the way that McKinley put other people first that caused him to notice the man in line at the Temple of Music with a bandaged right hand and decide to reach to shake the man’s other hand.
The man with the bandaged hand was Leon Czolgosz, a 28-year-old unemployed mill worker originally from Detroit. The son of Polish immigrants, Czolgosz had become interested in anarchism and after witnessing a speech by famed anarchist Emma Goldman, Czolgosz decided to make a statement by killing the President. A day earlier, Czogolsz had planned to shoot McKinley as the President gave his President’s Day speech at the Exposition, but the assassin could not get close enough. On September 6th, Czoglosz got as close as one could be to the President of the United States and took advantage of William McKinley’s kindness.
As the line queued in the Temple of Music, President McKinley shook hands while surrounded by his personal secretary, Cortelyou, the Exposition’s administrator, John Milburn, and a Secret Service agent. The Secret Service was not normally charged with the protection of Presidents in 1901, but on this day, two agents accompanied President McKinley as he greeted the large crowd of well-wishers in Buffalo. The photo above shows the inside of the Temple of Music and an “x” marks the spot where President McKinley stood to shake hands with Leon Czolgosz at 4:07 PM on September 6, 1901.
When the President noticed the bandage on Czolgosz’s right hand, McKinley quickly changed hands to shake Czolgosz’s uninjured left hand. As the two men grasped hands, Czogolsz grabbed McKinley and pulled him close. Underneath the bandage in Czogolsz’s right hand was a .32 Iver Johnson revolver and he quickly shot President McKinley twice, point-blank.
The first bullet struck a button and grazed the President’s breastbone without penetrating the skin. The second shot that Czolgosz fired was far more dangerous. At point-blank range, so close that it left powder burns on McKinley’s abdomen, the second bullet passed through the President’s stomach, clipped the top of his left kidney and lodged deep in McKinley’s pancreas. Still standing for a moment after the shooting, McKinley fell backwards into the arms of one of the Secret Service agents and his secretary, George Cortelyou.
Czolgosz — his bandage in flames due to the gunshots — was quickly grabbed by the person in line behind him, James Parker. Parker, a 6’5” black man, punched the assassin and knocked him to the ground. The Secret Service agents later admitted that they hadn’t noticed Czolgosz’s suspicious bandaged hand because they were closely watching the large black man, Parker, who was directly behind the assassin. Buffalo policemen and some fair-goers jumped on Czolgosz and began beating him. When the seriously wounded President saw this, McKinley yelled, “Don’t let them hurt him!”.
Lying on the floor of the Pan-American Exposition’s Temple of Music, President McKinley thought of his ailing wife. To his loyal secretary, the President pleaded, “My wife, be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her — oh, be careful.” McKinley was rushed to a hospital on the fairgrounds.
At first, it appeared as if McKinley would survive. In modern terms, McKinley’s gunshot wounds were far less dangerous than those suffered by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Had McKinley received the same level of care and expertise that President Reagan did eighty years later, he likely would have survived. However, the doctors in Buffalo searched in vain for the bullet that lodged in his pancreas and left behind bacteria which caused an infection. After rallying within the first few days of the shooting, McKinley’s condition rapidly deteriorated. On September 11, 1901, there was hope as McKinley ate solid food for the first time since the shooting. Sadly, within 24 hours, hope had dissipated.
In the home of the Exposition’s president John Milburn on the morning of September 14, 1901, a quiet crowd surrounded the outside of the building while on the inside, a vigil mounted by his friends, doctors, and colleagues watched over the dying President. At 2:15 AM on September 14th, President William McKinley died. What really killed McKinley — besides Czologsz’s act of terror — was a gangrenous infection. Ironically, President McKinley could have been saved by an X-Ray machine and at the Pan-American Exposition that day there was an experimental X-Ray machine on display. Nobody thought to retrieve it.
Czolgosz quickly confessed to the assassination, stating “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn’t believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none.” Less than a month-and-a-half later, Czolgosz was executed in the electric chamber of New York’s Auburn State Prison
Much like what the United States would experience exactly one hundred years later in the days following the September 11th terrorist attacks, a stunned nation had an outpouring of grief after President McKinley’s assassination. Americans could hardly believe that such a beautiful September day in New York could turn so ugly, especially as everyone celebrated the first year of a new century. The flag was everywhere and red, white and blue was displayed along with black crepe mourning the tragedy.
As with what would happen again 100 years later, the people were united in their sorrow, buried their victim, and looked to a future full of new battles. In 1901, as in 2001, the United States faced a new day of challenges when an act of terror robbed the country of some of its innocence on a beautiful September day in New York.
The Iron Sheik Is Trapped In A Character He Created
(Originally posted in AND Magazine)
One of my best friends, Chris, is commonly referred to as a “shock jock”, although everyone referred to as a “shock jock” quickly and dismissively rolls their eyes at such a clichéd label. Since before we even became friends, Chris has hosted successful and controversial radio shows in places such as Syracuse, Wichita, Sacramento, San Antonio, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and, currently, Portland, Oregon Atlanta, Georgia.
The KiddChris Show is not for everyone. It is brutal, straightforward, random, offensive, and, more often than not, a four-hour-long inside joke. Since late-2001, I have been involved with Chris’s radio show on various levels, alternating between being intensely involved on a daily basis (in Sacramento), making infrequent appearances and/or helping behind-the-scenes (in San Antonio, Philadelphia/Pittsburgh), and not being involved on pretty much any level whatsoever (my current status). Through the radio show, I’ve met some very interesting people, found myself in unusual situations, and experienced some very surreal things, but nothing was as unusual or surreal and no one was as interesting of a character as the man who I spent the better part of three days talking to, listening to, and helping out in May 2006 — a man who many people know as the Iron Sheik.
In May 2006, I caught a flight for a trip to Philadelphia thanks to my friends at CBS Radio and the legendary rock station that Chris worked at, WYSP. Chris’s show was wildly successful in Philadelphia and had a bigger, more fervent fanbase in the Philly area than it had experienced in any other city it had been broadcast in. Philadelphia fans are viciously loyal as many people who follow sports know quite well (Philly is where Santa Claus was once heckled with boos and then pummeled by a barrage of batteries thrown by Eagles fans). When it comes to radio, the fans are just as loyal and crazy and, to be honest, kind of creepy. They are so loyal and crazy and, to be honest, kind of creepy that Chris’s Philly listeners became known as simply “The Underbelly”. The Underbelly helped make Chris’s show one of the top talk shows on-the-air in Philly, and I headed back to the City of Brotherly Love for Chris’s big birthday celebration at a local bar that would feature a live broadcast of the show, comedy, music, and the Iron Sheik.
As a little kid, I remembered the Iron Sheik as the terrible Iranian bad guy on WWF television with wrestling boots which curled into sharp points and made him look like he stole the shoes of a violent, sadistic elf. I remembered that prior to his matches, the Sheik would proudly wave the Iranian flag and stand at attention with his manager, Classy Freddie Blassie, while his tag team partner Nikolai Volkoff sang the Soviet national anthem. After Volkoff’s rendition of the Soviet anthem was finished, the Sheik would inevitably take the microphone and amid a chorus of boos, yell, “Iran: number one! Russia: number one! USA: Hack-poot!” as he spit with disdain. I don’t remember how Iran and Russia could both be number one, but I wasn’t going to argue with the Iron Sheik in the 1980’s because he had pointy boots and he beat Bob Backlund with the Camel Clutch to win the WWF Championship in Madison Square Garden. I remember that detail because the Iron Sheik mentions it. Constantly. Each and every day, over twenty years later, the Iron Sheik seems to have an internal clock which prompts him every half-hour to say in his eternally broken English: “Madison Square Garden! Most famous arena in the world! I beat the Bob Backlund, the Howdy-Doody look-a-like Bob Backlund, with the Camel Clutch! I humbled him and won the Double-yoo Double-yoo Heff Championship! Most famous arena in the world, New York City!”.
Some people abuse the exclamation point when writing, and I do my best not to use that form of punctuation unless absolutely necessary. In the case of the Iron Sheik, it is constantly necessary. The Iron Sheik speaks in capital letters and exclamation points. Even now — long after his glory days — he is always speaking in sound bites, as if he is cutting one more big promotional monologue for one last big match. The Sheik has likely wrestled his last match. He is still a draw to wrestling fans on the minor league independent wrestling circuit, but it is because of his appearances on radio shows like those belonging to my friend or to Howard Stern, or because of the viral videos on YouTube of an intoxicated or otherwise under-the-influence Sheik profanely insulting and threatening former pro wrestling colleagues. The sad truth is that the Iron Sheik is comic relief, and probably never was much more than that to wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans. He was, and is, a real-life cartoon character. And, today — much like he was when I spent time with him in 2006 — the Iron Sheik is a man in his mid-60’s who can barely walk but who is shuttled around from one place to the next to make a dollar for himself and five dollars for the people who take advantage of him; a man who lives paycheck-to-paycheck despite always working; a man who is best known for his long career in a fake sport despite the fact that he was an accomplished real athlete; and a man who people laugh at even though they think they are laughing with him.
In just three days, I realized that he is all of those things, but he is most importantly a man. He is not a cartoon character and there is nothing funny about the man behind the Iron Sheik character. The guy I watched on TV waving an Iranian flag as professional wrestling’s “evil foreigner” of the 1980’s — the symbolic Ayatollah Khomeini to Hulk Hogan’s Ronald Reagan — is a patriotic U.S. citizen who loves his adopted country, a country he immigrated to forty years ago. In the process, he embarked upon the quintessential American journey: he found a calling, he became rich, he became famous, and, of course, he lost everything. He lost his money, he lost his fame, he lost his family, and, somewhere along the way, he lost himself.
The Iron Sheik really seems to believe that he always has to be the Iron Sheik. I think that he forgot how to be Khosrow Vaziri, the man born in 1943 in Tehran. The Sheik gets paid to be the Sheik, but beneath the crazy, surreal surface that gets on the radio or on YouTube and calls Hulk Hogan a “Hollywood blonde jobroni” and threatens to “humble” former wrestling colleagues by raping them is an old man who is sad and tired and who nobody truly knows. He doesn’t wave an Iranian flag; he wears a gold medal that he legitimately won at the 1971 U.S. Amateur Athletic Union Greco-Roman wrestling tournament. He doesn’t praise the Ayatollah Khomeini while calling Iran the “greatest country in world”; he talks about guarding the Shah of Iran, praying for his family after the Iranian Revolution and working as an assistant coach to the U.S. Olympic team in 1972 and 1976. He doesn’t wear curly, pointy boots or talk about breaking someone’s back with the Camel Clutch; he walks gingerly with the assistance of a cane in his New Balance sneakers and on knees and hips that need to be replaced due to decades of punishment. Most of all, he doesn’t yell non-sensically about humbling his enemies or talk with disdain about the United States (“hack-poot!”); he quietly talks about being a Muslim, being tired, about wanting to be back home in Atlanta, and, he sadly reminisces about his daughter, who was brutally murdered by her boyfriend in 2003.
And, yes, even when reflecting quietly and trying to remember about life as Khosrow, the man behind the Iron Sheik also still reminds us about beating Bob Backlund for the “Double-yoo Double-yoo Heff” championship in “Madison Square Garden! Most famous arena in the world!”. And when that happens, he is back to being the Iron Sheik.
I don’t know if he loses himself in his character because he wants to escape, or if he loses himself in his character because that’s the only place he can find himself. Either way, I think that the Iron Sheik character is pretty much the furthest thing away from who Khosrow Vaziri truly is, and that is exactly why he spends so much time there.
•••
I already knew that I was going to meet the Iron Sheik when I flew to Philadelphia in May 2006. It was the first time I had been on an airplane in quite some time, and as my flight flew into darkness and we headed from day-to-night all I could think about was how it seems like the sun sets more quickly when you’re above the clouds.
There was a lot of excitement about my trip because I was visiting friends, seeing Philadelphia (a city I had always wanted to visit) for the first time, and looking forward to doing a couple of days of good radio before partying at my friend Chris’s big birthday celebration. I didn’t think much about the Iron Sheik. Like many people, I had largely forgotten about the Sheik until Chris recently began having him call-in to the radio show as a guest. The Sheik was entertaining, but also seemed completely out of his mind 88% of the time. The other 12% of the time, I just couldn’t understand what he was saying. I figured that meeting the Iron Sheik would be memorable, but for all of the wrong reasons.
My flight arrived in Philadelphia just before 10:00 PM, and I quickly claimed my luggage and turned my cell phone on to find out where another friend of mine, Thomas, was waiting for me. Thomas answered and said that he was at a restaurant and that there weren’t any interns from WYSP available to pick me up from the airport, either. Thomas said that I could just catch a cab and WYSP would reimburse me, so I said I would do that and asked where I should go. He said, “We’re at a restaurant called LaScala’s on Chestnut with the Iron Sheik. Meet us here — and hurry up, the Sheik is waiting for you.”
I assured Thomas that I would hurry and after hanging up, I thought, “The Sheik is waiting for you”? That sounded almost ominous, as if I were late for a meeting with Osama bin Laden. “The Sheik is waiting for you”. I definitely hoped that the NSA wasn’t listening in to cell phone conversations at Philadelphia International Airport at that very moment. I also wondered why the hell the Iron Sheik was waiting for me — a guy he had never met, spoken to, or heard of. I found a cab driver and told him where I needed to get to, and that I needed to get there quickly. I had been looking forward to taking in some of the sights of Philadelphia — one of the most history-filled cities in the United States and the birthplace of the Constitution — but not like the tour I got from my taxi ride from airport to the center city district. I’m not sure if the lights and sights of the city were racing past us, or if we were racing past the lights and sights of the city, but the cab driver followed through on his promise to get me to LaScala’s quickly despite Philadelphia’s old, narrow streets. The impact of seeing Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell is certainly diminished when you drive past them in a cab at 50 mph over cobblestone. Nonetheless, the cab driver got me to LaScala’s as quickly as possible and after giving him a nice tip for taking me on a rocket ride through Philly, I headed inside.
LaScala’s looks like the last place you would meet a professional wrestler. It is a nice upscale Italian restaurant in the Center City neighborhood of downtown Philadelphia and they were nice enough to stay open later than usual for our visit that night. When I walked in, I saw Chris and Thomas at a big table with some people from the radio station WYSP, an avid listener/friend of the show named Constantine, our friend “the Reverend” Bob Levy, and, of course, the Iron Sheik. The Sheik was accompanied by his “business manager” whose name was “Double P”. Double P was, as you might imagine, somewhat shady, very sweaty, and nearly bursting through his button-up shirt with a large stomach.
The Iron Sheik was finishing up a large plate of pasta and drinking beer. He had a prominent beer-belly that seemed to be working against him as he attacked his food, and he had a replica of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt draped over his shoulder. Around his neck was a necklace with a medal attached to what looked like a cross made out of yellow electrical tape. The medal was dull and tarnished by age and years of handling, but when I looked at it later I realized that it was a gold medal from the 1971 AAU Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship. That’s not professional wrestling, by the way. That is real, amateur, Olympic-style wrestling. In the United States in 1971, there were no better Greco-Roman wrestlers in the 180.5 pound weight class than Khosrow Vaziri.
Oddly, the Sheik also seemed to think he was in Pittsburgh. Not just at the dinner, either. Over the next couple of days, he either forgot he was in Philadelphia, thought he was in Pittsburgh, or just didn’t care. At dinner, the Sheik wore a Pittsburgh Steelers beanie and a shirt paying tribute to Pittsburgh’s Kurt Angle, a former Olympic gold medalist and WWE wrestler. Many times throughout the next few days, the Sheik mentioned how much he loved Pittsburgh and Kurt Angle and Bruno Sammartino (another wrestling legend and Pittsburgh native). People corrected him many times over the next few days or pointed out that he was in Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh, but the Sheik kept mentioning Pittsburgh and I could never figure out why. He was in Philly at that moment, currently lives in Atlanta, spent most of his years in the U.S. in Minneapolis, and was born in Tehran, but the Iron Sheik just seemed to love Pittsburgh.
The Sheik could have left the dinner earlier, but Chris had told him that I wanted to meet him, so he said he would stay until I arrived. When I walked in to LaScala’s, the Sheik stood up and said, “This must be An-TONEE!”. He never called me “Anthony”; it was always “An-TONEE!”, and always with the exclamation point. When there are a lot of people around, the Iron Sheik still speaks as if he is trying to be heard over the boos of 23,000 in Madison Square Garden. I laughed and walked over to greet the Sheik before I even said hello to my friends because this poor guy was 63 years old — 50 years of which were spent beating his own body up in amateur and professional wrestling — had spent all day traveling, and yet was nice enough to hang out a little longer because Chris said I wanted to meet him.
When I shook his hand, I expected him to give me some tough-guy handshake. I knew he had a legitimate background in amateur wrestling and spent years wrestling professionally, so I figured he would give me a strong handshake like my grandfather used to give me. The kind of handshake that makes you wish you had just gone for the fist-bump. Instead, I was greeted with a soft, gentle handshake. He barely even squeezed my hand. I thought that maybe he had an injury or some sort of arthritic condition from years in the ring, but he told me later that the gentle handshake is kind of like a secret handshake of sorts amongst professional wrestlers. It’s called a “worker’s handshake”. In professional wrestling, the wrestlers basically put their safety in the hands of the people they work with and trust them to take care of them and not hurt them in the ring. With the gentle “worker’s handshake”, one wrestler or “worker” is telling his colleague “I work gently. I will not hurt you. You can trust that I will take care of you and protect your body in the ring.” I found that very interesting.
I also found it interesting that the Iron Sheik is very famous. People walking by LaScala’s would do a double-take when looking into the restaurant and knock on the window when they realized that they were looking at the Iron Sheik. The Sheik was definitely big in professional wrestling in the 1980’s and even appeared on Saturday morning cartoons, but I was surprised by how many people almost instantly recognized him. He would wave happily when he was recognized by fans, as if their recognition of him validated every silly thing he ever had to do in the ring. I think the Sheik was genuinely excited to be back in the spotlight, even if it was a much smaller spotlight than he was used to in the 1980’s.
Although I’d like to think that the Iron Sheik waited at LaScala’s later than he intended in order to meet me, that ended up not being completely true. It turns out that the Sheik likes beer, and at LaScala’s the radio station was paying for the beer. The Sheik also likes “medicine”, as he calls it. This love of “medicine” actually got him fired from the World Wrestling Federation in 1987 when he was arrested on drug charges along with on-screen rival Jim Duggan. The Sheik has struggled throughout the years with substance abuse problems, and this is why I started feeling sorry for him after I met him.
As funny as he could be, and as outrageous as the things are that he says, the truth is that he is under the influence of a lot of things when he says them. He is not Khosrow Vaziri, the quiet, proud Muslim. He is the Iron Sheik. He is the guy with the pointy boots and the curly mustache and the Iranian flag. He goes into character and cuts promos and gets lost in these random, hysterical, bizarre monologues because it is what the fans have always expected him to do. The Iron Sheik is never very far away from Khosrow Vaziri, but Khosrow is definitely still there, too. You can see it in his eyes when he starts to get lost in the Iron Sheik character. You can see that he would be ready to retire the gimmick and quit being a cartoon character if he knew how to be Khosrow all the time. You can see that he just doesn’t know how to do that.
And that’s why he needs his “medicine”, which is why he was still at LaScala’s when I arrived. Because someone was tracking down some “medicine” for him. So, until then, he was part-Khosrow, part-Sheik, and drank his beer and ate his pasta and took photos with us while regaling us with stories about life on the road.
When the “medicine man” arrived with his “medicine”, he got lost in the “medicine” and then got lost in the Sheik character again. Then he left. Dinner with the Sheik was over and I was mesmerized by this man and this character with all these stories and who had been all these different places. In the short time I spent with him that night, he seemed to be so many different people that I was fascinated.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he thought he was in Pittsburgh. If I didn’t know who I was, I wouldn’t know where I am, either.
•••
Attempt for a moment to imagine this: You are standing on a 20’ x 20’ stage surrounded by 23,000 people screaming at you, booing you, reacting to who you are and what you are doing. You are wearing spandex tights and shiny boots, but you are not wearing a shirt. A spotlight is shining on you and you are inciting this crowd, eliciting exactly the type of reaction that you want to receive from them. You are the ringmaster in your own personal circus and the people who have their eyes on you have paid to see you pretend to fight another person dressed in gaudy underwear for anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes.
You are in control. You hold 23,000 people in your hand in the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden. You are on the stage in the biggest city in the United States. At that moment, more people are watching you wave an Iranian flag and curse their hero than in any musical theater on Broadway. You are in control and it is addictive. It is a drug that you love, that you seek, that you need. It defines you and always will, no matter what you’ve done in the past, and no matter what you’ll do in the future. But, for that moment, in that arena, in that city, you are in control.
Your job is to lie to people and to trick people. You are surrounded by real-life cartoon characters. Some of them wear masks, some of them wear facepaint, some of them are incredibly muscular specimens, some of them are just freakishly fat. Some are great actors, some are great athletes, and some are neither actors nor athletes. These are your co-workers. These are your colleagues. When you work with them, though, they are considered your opponent.
Your job is to make it appear as if you are trying to hurt your opponent as badly as possible at the exact same time that you are actually trying to protect your opponent from getting hurt. Your goal is to pin the opponent for three seconds or make him submit to a referee that isn’t sanctioned by any athletic commission anywhere in the world. Your goal is to win every match, yet there are no standings and nobody keeps a record of who wins and loses.
Your job is to make people believe that you are solving a problem that you have with someone else in a 20’ x 20’ wrestling ring, breaking numerous criminal laws while your body somehow breaks the laws of physics in the process. You bounce off of ropes that are not actually ropes, but steel cables wrapped in rubber which have no give. You jump off turnbuckles that have no springs. You land flat on your back on a thick piece of plywood covered with a thin piece of canvas which is only there for aesthetic purposes. The plywood hurts and it has no give; it is constructed on top of steel beams which are supported by steel columns.
You wear a championship belt that you didn’t really win. You don’t get paid less money for losing. You sometimes have a manager who doesn’t actually manage anything, but might help you cheat at something that has no legitimate rulebook. There is a formula that you rarely deviate from. You will spend your match pretending that your left leg or left arm or left something is injured. You will try to injure something on the left side of your opponent’s body. You and your co-workers never hurt the right sides of your bodies for some reason, but no one really notices that.
You “sell” your apparent injury to the fans because selling results in money. You tell a story every night that builds up to a big conclusion because good storytelling results in money. Sometimes, if the situation calls for it, you will bleed because bleeding equals money, red equals green. Your blood is not fake. It is not ketchup, it is not red paint, it is not corn syrup and red food coloring. Your blood is real. Your cut is self-inflicted with a sliver of a razor blade that you hide somewhere on your body and use to slice across your forehead. You will have scars on your forehead for the rest of your life, but those scars equaled money, so those scars are not regrets.
When you are in that ring, you are in control and you are experiencing a rush, a high, a feeling that cannot be replicated. You perform before packed houses and live crowds and you are an artist. Your profession is ridiculed, people think you are silly or cartoonish, but you are an artist. You and your colleagues are actors and athletes and stunt men. You are masters of improvisation and you are storytellers and you feel like you are on top of the world from the moment you enter the arena to the moment you leave the ring and return backstage. You head back to the dressing room and shake the hand of the man you just pretended to fight, you get congratulatory slaps on the back by your colleagues, you get complimented on your match or your performance by your supervisors. You are in control.
Then you go back to your hotel, in a city you’ve been to dozens of times; a city that is familiar, yet not home; a city that is distant even while you are present. You are in your hotel room and there are no more screaming fans, no more colleagues, no more noises. You are surrounded by a crippling silence — a silence which amplifies all of your other senses, spotlights your thoughts, magnifies your demons. You are confronted by fear — a fear about who you are and what you might become, a fear that scares the blood into rushing through your veins at abnormal speeds, a fear that forces your heart to race, your brain to get lost. You are losing control.
You are a professional wrestler and you make a lot of money, but you travel 350 days out of the year. You have a show each day where you put your body on the line and do indeed get hurt and then you travel to the next town and do it again. You have to do this 350 times a year in order to get paid. There is no vacation time, no off-season.
There is no employee’s union in professional wrestling. There are no healthcare benefits in professional wrestling. There is no pension plan in professional wrestling. You are an independent contractor. You pay for your own air travel, you rent your own car, you pay for your own hotel room, you pay for your own meals, and you do this 350 times a year because it is what you have to do — what you need to do — in order to get paid. You do not have a guaranteed contract. You could get hurt and get fired. You could get boring and get fired. You could simply not look as good as you used to look or be as entertaining as you used to be and get fired.
You love it, though. You need it. It is a drug. The adrenaline rush of performing without a net in front of thousands of people wearing your merchandise or your opponent’s merchandise cannot be replicated by anything synthetic or substantive. It is an experience you have to seek out every night and wake up seeking again the next morning.
You are hurting constantly, so you take pills to mask the pain. You are hyped up on adrenaline after your show, which usually ends late at night, so you find something to do while you come down. You go eat, you go to the gym, you might travel to the next town, and when you get into your hotel, you take more pills or smoke marijuana or drink alcohol to calm down and sleep. You struggle to wake up, so you take pills or snort cocaine to awaken. Once you are awake, you realize that you are hurting once again and it’s back to the pain pills. This happens every day and every night for the remainder of your career, probably for the rest of your life.
Your job is to lie to people. Your job is to be someone you are not, to convince people of things that are not real, to do things that are seemingly impossible. When you are trying to be this other person who does these strange things, you are in control. When it is time to be yourself and live life normally, you lose control. You don’t know who you are. You don’t even know who you want to be.
This is the Iron Sheik’s dilemma. As he has aged, his ability to wrestle has diminished, if not completely evaporated. Physically, he is unable to perform in a wrestling ring because his body is broken-down from decades of punishment. In 2001, the Sheik participated in a battle royal at WrestleMania in Houston’s Astrodome with other retired or semi-retired wrestlers. The goal of a battle royal is to be the last man standing in the ring after every other wrestler has been thrown over the top rope and eliminated from the match. Winning the match was probably the last wrestling highlight of the Iron Sheik’s career and he stood victorious with a smile on his face after the match in front of 70,000 fans. However, the Sheik won the match for one reason only — because he was physically unable to be thrown over the top rope and to the arena floor due to his many injuries. The Iron Sheik could barely walk in 2001. When I met him in 2006, he was forced to get around using a cane.
Today, the Iron Sheik is still booked by independent wrestling companies throughout the United States. He is featured on radio shows and internet sites. He is arguably a bigger star in 2010 than he was in 1985. Yet, this is because he is a spectacle — a train-wreck at times. He gets drunk and curses former colleagues, threatens people, says outlandish things that are either belligerent rants or warning signs. There are more videos on YouTube of the Iron Sheik doing and saying something outrageous than there are of the Iron Sheik wrestling.
The thing is, I don’t know how much of that Iron Sheik is Khosrow Vaziri losing control and succumbing to his demons and how much of it is Khosrow Vaziri giving people what they want. Is he crazy or is he just compensating for his inability to wrestle to earn money by saying such insane things that people want to pay him in order to hear what he might say? In professional wrestling, “working” is the act of tricking a “mark” or fan into believing something or suspending their disbelief enough to be entertained by something. Is the Iron Sheik still just “working” everyone after all these years?
I didn’t spend enough time with him to figure it out, but I do know this. When I met the Iron Sheik, he was kind and generous, soft-spoken and quiet. When I spoke to him during commercial breaks, he wasn’t yelling about putting people in the Camel Clutch or calling Hulk Hogan a “faggot”. When I spoke to him during commercial breaks, he told me about his daughter, who was strangled by her boyfriend in 2003. He was sad while talking about it, obviously affected, and stated that he wished nothing more than to get revenge for his daughter’s murder. I expected him to rant about grabbing his daughter’s murderer and detailing everything he wanted to do to the man, but instead, the Sheik quietly pointed out that he knows he can’t do what he hoped to do, but that he is a Muslim and that he truly believed in an eye for an eye. It wasn’t bluster or bravado; it was a grieving father wanting revenge.
And, then, the “ON-AIR” light brightened and the Sheik entered the radio studio and he was the loud, wild, frantic Iron Sheik yelling about beating Bob Backlund for the “double-yoo-double-yoo-heff” championship in the “Madison Square Garden. Most famous arena in world!”. It was fascinating and unusual, and I don’t know which side of the Sheik was the character. If he was “working” us, he was a magician.
On the night of my friend Chris’s birthday party, over 1,000 people packed a bar in Philadelphia for a live broadcast, comedy show, musical performance, and special appearance by the Iron Sheik. The Sheik was positioned at a table near the stage and he sold t-shirts and photographs to a rabid crowd of radio show listeners. I was roaming the bar with a wireless microphone throughout the night, but one of my main responsibilities was interviewing the Sheik every once in a while and making sure he was doing okay.
I had taken a cab to the bar with the Sheik and his manager and he was quiet, thoughtful Khosrow during the ride. The Sheik was obviously tired and obviously not looking forward to four hours inside a packed bar with rabid Philadelphians surrounding him. Twenty years earlier, a sold-out Philadelphia Spectrum would have excited him, but this was a bar gig with people who weren’t even old enough to know what the Iron Sheik was before he was a punchline. In the cab, the Sheik told me about his home in Atlanta and how he didn’t get to spend enough time there. He gave me one of his t-shirts. I was grateful for his generosity and was nice enough to resist telling him that I couldn’t imagine a situation where I would willingly wear a white shirt with a giant photo of the Iron Sheik in wrestling tights, an open robe and a kaffiyeh.
I thought it would be rough for the Sheik at the birthday party, and it was, but no one who met him or listened to him or watched him ever knew this. Throughout the night, Sheik signed hundreds of autographs and took scores of photographs. He would grab the microphone from me and rally the crowd or get the fans to make noise. He seemed energized and capable of being ringmaster for as long as he was needed. He was — without a doubt — the Iron Sheik.
As the night drew to a close, the crowds did not get any smaller, but the Sheik was exhausted. He continued signing autographs and greeting fans, but whispered to me at one point, “Sheik needs to get sleep, brother.” When he left after four hours at the party, I helped clear a path for him through the crowd of alcohol-soaked listeners and the Sheik looked just like he did when he’d enter an arena in the early-1980’s and interact with fans. He shook hands and commented to people and kept the act going, but would whisper every few seconds “I follow you, brother.”
When we finally got backstage, the Sheik sat down on a couch and said, “I am getting too old for the shows” and at that moment, he looked every moment of his 63 years. He leaned his scarred forehead against the handle of his cane. He pulled on the ends of his famous mustache. He looked weary and grandfatherly, lonely and lost. He didn’t look like a cartoon character. He looked every part that he had ever played all rolled into one elderly, broken-down, exhausted man.
I knew then that he was Khosrow Vaziri. Whatever he might say, whomever he might pretend to be, he knew who he was and wanted to be. He had “worked” everyone. He made them believe that he was the crazy Iron Sheik because that was his job and his job was to trick people. Really, though, he was Khosrow Vaziri and, for the first time, I called him by that name.
“Khosrow,” I said, “are you ready to go back to the hotel?”
He looked at me with tired eyes, his body language shifted upright, his head bolted upwards from the handle of his can, and he started to stand.
“Sheik needs his medicine,” he said. “Can you find a medicine man, brother?”
I could only laugh. Just when I thought I had figured him out, the Iron Sheik had “worked” me. I guess I should have known better. After all, the man is in a Hall of Fame devoted to the best tricksters in a business known for trickery. If he can’t figure himself out, I have no hope for doing so. My only hope is that he finds the answer someday, even if he makes us believe otherwise.
It’s been quite a while since I made recommendations of some of the articles that I’ve recently found interesting, and that’s mostly because I haven’t had the time to go through my Instapaper account and read the articles that I’ve saved. I caught up with the articles in the past few days, so here’s some of my recommendations. Many of these articles that I’m recommending to you were recommended to me by three of my favorite sites: Longreads, Longform.org, and Give Me Something To Read.
•These first two articles were two of the most fascinating to me, and focused on the same subject, the tragic story of a suicidal man in Zanesville, Ohio who opened the cages of his private menagerie and let loose dozens of exotic, dangerous animals in the countryside around his suburban home, leaving authorities no choice but to shoot and kill 50 animals such as lion, tigers, bears, primates, and others:
·18 TIGERS, 17 LIONS, 8 BEARS, 3 COUGARS, 2 WOLVES, 1 BABOON, 1 MACAQUE, AND 1 MAN DEAD IN OHIO: Terry Thompson and the Zanesville, Ohio Zoo Massacre (GQ, March 2012)
·ANIMALS (Esquire, March 2012)
•THE MARK: When FBI informants go too far (The New Yorker, May 2, 2011, via Cazart.net)
•DR. YANG’S FIGHT CLUB (Utne Magazine/Tin House, January/February 2012)
•MAN AS MACHINE (The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2012)
•TOMORROWLAND: Kazakhstan’s Capital City — Astana (National Geographic Magazine, February 2012)
•THE MYSTERY MONK MAKING BILLIONS WITH 5-HOUR ENERGY (Forbes Magazine, Feb. 27, 2012)
•OBAMA, EXPLAINED (The Atlantic Monthly, March 2012)
•WELCOME TO SEALAND. NOW BUGGER OFF. (Wired, August 2007)
•SEX, LIES, AND HIT MEN! (Texas Monthly, February 2012)
•THE FIRST SEXUAL REVOLUTION: LUST AND LIBERTY IN THE 18TH CENTURY (The Guardian, Jan. 20, 2012)
•THE HARD WAY OUT OF AFGHANISTAN (New York Times Magazine, Feb. 5, 2012)
•THE FAST, FABULOUS, ALLEGEDLY FRAUDULENT LIFE OF MEGAUPLOAD’S KIM DOTCOM (Wired, January 2012)
•THE MOST FAMOUS STORY WE NEVER TOLD (Fortune Magazine, Sept. 19, 2005)
•THE VAGABOND KING: Valentine Strasser and Sierra Leone (The New Statesman, Feb. 2, 2012)
•HIS HOUR UPON THE STAGE: Lincoln’s love of Shakespeare (The American Scholar, Winter 2012)
•SWALLOWED BY A WHALE — A TRUE TALE? (Salon.com, Jan. 15, 2012)
•ACHES ON A PLANE: The 1994 FedEx Cargo Plane Hijacking (Damn Interesting, Jan. 5, 2012)
•JULIAN ASSANGE: The Rolling Stone Interview (Rolling Stone, Jan. 18, 2012)
•TWO SOLDIERS: How the dead come home (The New Yorker, Aug. 9, 2004)
•GIL SCOTT-HERON: More Than A Revolution (Pitchfork, Jan. 18, 2012)
•LOVE ME, HATE ME, JUST DON’T IGNORE ME: Terrell Owens (GQ, February 2012)
•HOW OBAMA’S LONG GAME WILL OUTSMART HIS CRITICS (The Daily Beast/Newsweek, Jan. 16, 2012)
•THE AWAKENING: Inside the Burmese Spring (The New Republic, Jan. 11, 2012)
•KICKOFF: “MADDEN NFL” AND THE FUTURE OF VIDEO GAME SPORTS (Grantland, Jan. 17, 2012)
•BILL CLINTON: SOMEONE WE CAN ALL AGREE ONE: The Esquire Interview (Esquire, February 2012)
•LOVE, BOXING, AND HUNTER S. THOMPSON (Los Angeles Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2012)
•THE SHOT THAT NEARLY KILLED ME: WAR PHOTOGRAPHERS — A SPECIAL REPORT (The Guardian, June 18, 2011)
•FROM PAKISTAN TO AFGHANISTAN, U.S. FINDS CONVOY OF CHAOS (BusinessWeek, Dec. 14, 2011)
•WHAT REMAINS: Conversations With America’s Funeral Directors (The Awl, Jan. 11, 2012)
•RICKY GERVAIS WOULD LIKE TO NON-APOLOGIZE (New York Times Magazine, Jan. 15, 2012)
Almost exactly one hundred years prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, another act of terror on a bright September day in New York rocked the United States during the first year of a new century. In the photo above, President William McKinley is shown walking up the steps at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York just minutes before he was shot. McKinley had recently been re-elected to a second term and was extraordinarily popular after successfully leading the country through the Spanish-American War.
At the Pan-American Exposition, President McKinley spent time attending receptions, meeting dignitaries, and shaking hands with visitors to the fair. It was work McKinley enjoyed doing. The 58-year-old President was a kindly, gentle man who doted over his beloved wife who was nearly invalid. Ida McKinley was epileptic and the President took care of her constantly, never shying away from her illness or allowing it to affect his responsibilities or his public duties. At dinners, if Ida suffered an epileptic fit or seizure, the President would quietly and gently drape a handkerchief over her face or distract everyone’s attention and continue conversation as usual. McKinley thoughtfully included Ida in as much as she could handle and never made her feel embarrassed about her condition.
McKinley was kind to other people, as well. The President hated to disappoint people, hated to tell people no, and hated to be the person to break bad news to someone else. Often, McKinley would wear a pink carnation in his lapel, which he would give to those who might be disappointed after a difficult meeting. President McKinley wanted people who met with him to at least walk away with something when they left his office, even if they didn’t get what they had come for.
It was this thoughtfulness which led William McKinley to deflect worries by his personal secretary George B. Cortelyou that the public receptions at the Pan-American Exposition might be a security risk. It was McKinley’s gentle manner which led him to refuse Cortelyou’s suggestions to cancel the public receptions in Buffalo. It was McKinley’s good heart which led him to genuinely believe that “No one would wish to hurt me.” It was the way that McKinley put other people first that caused him to notice the man in line at the Temple of Music with a bandaged right hand and decide to reach to shake the man’s other hand.
The man with the bandaged hand was Leon Czolgosz, a 28-year-old unemployed mill worker originally from Detroit. The son of Polish immigrants, Czolgosz had become interested in anarchism and after witnessing a speech by famed anarchist Emma Goldman, Czolgosz decided to make a statement by killing the President. A day earlier, Czogolsz had planned to shoot McKinley as the President gave his President’s Day speech at the Exposition, but the assassin could not get close enough. On September 6th, Czoglosz got as close as one could be to the President of the United States and took advantage of William McKinley’s kindness.
As the line queued in the Temple of Music, President McKinley shook hands while surrounded by his personal secretary, Cortelyou, the Exposition’s administrator, John Milburn, and a Secret Service agent. The Secret Service was not normally charged with the protection of Presidents in 1901, but on this day, two agents accompanied President McKinley as he greeted the large crowd of well-wishers in Buffalo. The photo above shows the inside of the Temple of Music and an “x” marks the spot where President McKinley stood to shake hands with Leon Czolgosz at 4:07 PM on September 6, 1901.
When the President noticed the bandage on Czolgosz’s right hand, McKinley quickly changed hands to shake Czolgosz’s uninjured left hand. As the two men grasped hands, Czogolsz grabbed McKinley and pulled him close. Underneath the bandage in Czogolsz’s right hand was a .32 Iver Johnson revolver and he quickly shot President McKinley twice, point-blank.
The first bullet struck a button and grazed the President’s breastbone without penetrating the skin. The second shot that Czolgosz fired was far more dangerous. At point-blank range, so close that it left powder burns on McKinley’s abdomen, the second bullet passed through the President’s stomach, clipped the top of his left kidney and lodged deep in McKinley’s pancreas. Still standing for a moment after the shooting, McKinley fell backwards into the arms of one of the Secret Service agents and his secretary, George Cortelyou.
Czolgosz — his bandage in flames due to the gunshots — was quickly grabbed by the person in line behind him, James Parker. Parker, a 6’5” black man, punched the assassin and knocked him to the ground. The Secret Service agents later admitted that they hadn’t noticed Czolgosz’s suspicious bandaged hand because they were closely watching the large black man, Parker, who was directly behind the assassin. Buffalo policemen and some fair-goers jumped on Czolgosz and began beating him. When the seriously wounded President saw this, McKinley yelled, “Don’t let them hurt him!”.
Lying on the floor of the Pan-American Exposition’s Temple of Music, President McKinley thought of his ailing wife. To his loyal secretary, the President pleaded, “My wife, be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her — oh, be careful.” McKinley was rushed to a hospital on the fairgrounds.
At first, it appeared as if McKinley would survive. In modern terms, McKinley’s gunshot wounds were far less dangerous than those suffered by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Had McKinley received the same level of care and expertise that President Reagan did eighty years later, he likely would have survived. However, the doctors in Buffalo searched in vain for the bullet that lodged in his pancreas and left behind bacteria which caused an infection. After rallying within the first few days of the shooting, McKinley’s condition rapidly deteriorated. On September 11, 1901, there was hope as McKinley ate solid food for the first time since the shooting. Sadly, within 24 hours, hope had dissipated.
In the home of the Exposition’s president John Milburn on the morning of September 14, 1901, a quiet crowd surrounded the outside of the building while on the inside, a vigil mounted by his friends, doctors, and colleagues watched over the dying President. At 2:15 AM on September 14th, President William McKinley died. What really killed McKinley — besides Czologsz’s act of terror — was a gangrenous infection. Ironically, President McKinley could have been saved by an X-Ray machine and at the Pan-American Exposition that day there was an experimental X-Ray machine on display. Nobody thought to retrieve it.
Czolgosz quickly confessed to the assassination, stating “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn’t believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none.” Less than a month-and-a-half later, Czolgosz was executed in the electric chamber of New York’s Auburn State Prison
Much like what the United States would experience exactly one hundred years later in the days following the September 11th terrorist attacks, a stunned nation had an outpouring of grief after President McKinley’s assassination. Americans could hardly believe that such a beautiful September day in New York could turn so ugly, especially as everyone celebrated the first year of a new century. The flag was everywhere and red, white and blue was displayed along with black crepe mourning the tragedy.
As with what would happen again 100 years later, the people were united in their sorrow, buried their victim, and looked to a future full of new battles. In 1901, as in 2001, the United States faced a new day of challenges when an act of terror robbed the country of some of its innocence on a beautiful September day in New York.
Over the holidays, I caught up on some more of the articles in my Instapaper account, and here are some recommendations that I liked and you might, too:
•Q&A WITH LOUIS CK (Jonah Weiner, The Writearound, November 16, 2011)
•NORTH KOREA’S DIGITAL UNDERGOUND (The Atlantic, April 2011)
Lots of good articles about North Korea and it’s eccentric leadership were published and republished in the wake of Kim Jong-Il’s death in mid-December.
•IN THE LAND OF THE DEAR LEADER (PBS.org/Originally published in Harper’s Magazine, July 1996)
Is anybody else as interested as I am in visiting North Korea? It’s such a creepy, bizarre place that I would really like to experience while it’s still a reclusive, closed, controlled society.
•WHO RUNS RUSSIA? (Financial Times, December 16, 2011)
•THE PAKISTANIS HAVE A POINT (New York Times Magazine, December 18, 2011)
Excerpt from Bill Keller’s article: “If you survey informed Americans, you will hear Pakistanis described as duplicitous, paranoid, self-pitying and generally infuriating. In turn, Pakistanis describe us as fickle, arrogant, shortsighted and chronically unreliable. Neither country’s caricature of the other is entirely wrong, and it makes for a relationship that is less in need of diplomacy than couples therapy, which customarily starts by trying to see things from the other point of view. While the Pakistanis have hardly been innocent, they have a point when they say America has not been the easiest of partners.”
•POSTSCRIPT: CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, 1949-2011 (The New Yorker, December 16, 2011)
•BEING BABE RUTH’S DAUGHTER (Grantland, December 19, 2011)
•CHUCK BERRY GODDAMN! (Esquire, January 2012)
A profile of the rock-n-roll legend who continues to play live shows at the age of 85.
•EXIT HAVEL (The New Yorker, February 17, 2003)
Vaclav Havel was a freedom fighter who helped bring an end to Communism in Eastern Europe, the last President of Czechoslovakia, the first President of the Czech Republic, and an accomplished playwright. Havel died last month, but this New Yorker article was a look at his legacy as he retired from the Czech Presidency in 2003.
•HIV, FAILED CAREER DEFINES TOMMY MORRISON (Wichita Eagle, February 13, 2011)
The sad story of boxer Tommy Morrison whose rising career was derailed by an HIV diagnosis. Morrison now denies that he ever had HIV, but the article paints a tragic story of a delusional, very sick man.
•ALONE IN THE DARK (The New Yorker, September 8, 2003)
More on North Korea and Kim Jong-Il
•EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE GITMO WITH DETAINEE 061 (Mother Jones, March 9, 2008)
•THE SECRET LIVES OF KILLER AMERICAN DRONES (Mother Jones, December 20, 2011)
•AMERICA’S SECRET DRONE EMPIRE (Mother Jones, October 17, 2011)
•MY SUMMER AT AN INDIAN CALL CENTER (Mother Jones, July/August 2011)
•HOW DEMOCRATS FOOLED CALIFORNIA’S REDISTRICTING COMMISSION (Mother Jones, December 21, 2011)
•BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF KIM JONG-IL’S REGIME (Mother Jones, May/June 2003)
•THE WEIRDEST THING ABOUT THE NORTH KOREA SUCCESSION (Mother Jones, December 19, 2011)
•A WEEK WITH THE NEW JERSEY NETS (Grantland, December 22, 2011)
•THE PERCEPTIONIST: HOW STEVE JOBS TOOK BACK APPLE (The New Yorker, September 8, 1997)
It’s always funny to read things like this with the benefit of hindsight: “In all probability, Apple is destined to become, at best, a break-even company in an industry where the leaders — Compaq or Dell in hardware, for instance, and Microsoft or Netscape in software — often grow by more than thirty per cent a year.”
•TAKEN BY PIRATES (New York Times Magazine, October 9, 2011)
•STEVE JOBS, 1955-2011 (wired.com, October 5, 2011)
•A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Vanity Fair, October 2005)
This is just a heartbreaking story — the first-person account of a terminally-ill young mother, Marjorie Williams, and how she came to terms with her definitive death sentence: “There is a staggering vulnerability in asserting one’s right to hope.”
•IF WE ONLY HAD WINGS: THE DARING DREAM OF PERSONAL FLIGHT (National Geographic, September 2011)
•HOW AT&T CONQUERED THE 20TH CENTURY (Arts Technica, September 2011)
•A MOUNTAIN OF TROUBLE: AMERICAN HIKERS ARRESTED IN IRAN (Outside Magazine, April 21, 2010)
•WELCOME TO NEWBURGH, MURDER CAPITAL OF NEW YORK (New York Magazine, September 25, 2011)
•IN DESTITUTE SWAZILAND, LEADER LIVES ROYALLS (New York Times, September 6, 2008)
Happy Birthday to Richard Milhous Nixon! It seems that everybody has an opinion on Richard Nixon. There are certainly a lot of reasons to dislike Nixon, but he also possessed some extraordinary talents. At times, it is difficult to defend Nixon because he was forced to resign the Presidency in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal. However, we often neglect to do what President Clinton urged at Nixon’s 1994 funeral: “to remember President Nixon’s live in totality” so that Americans could move past the days of “judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career”.
The 37th President of the United States was born 99 years ago today, on January 9, 1913 in a small home that his father ordered from a Sears & Roebuck catalogue and built in Yorba Linda, California. Nixon was born into a Quaker family and his mother was devoutly religious. The future President’s childhood was not easy. The Nixon family was poor and every business venture that Nixon’s father attempted seemed to fail. Nixon was the second of five children — all boys — and as a young boy he watched tuberculosis claim the lives of a 7-year-old younger brother and his 23-year-old older brother.
Always smart, naturally hard-working, and exceptionally tenacious, Nixon excelled at Whittier High School in Southern California and then Whittier College, where he played football, was the captain of the debate team, and student body president. In 1934, Nixon graduated second in his class from Whittier and entered Duke University Law School in North Carolina, which he graduated from in 1937 third out of 25 students.
Returning to California after graduating from Duke, Nixon passed the bar exam and began practicing law in Whittier. At one point, Nixon attempted to start a company that sold frozen orange juice but his business had the same luck that Nixon’s father’s businesses had — it failed. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Nixon — who had worked for one of the National Youth Administration projects created by FDR’s New Deal in order to earn extra money at Duke — took a job with the Office of Price Administration in Washington, D.C. It was during this experience that Nixon’s Republican beliefs were solidified as he grew frustrated with what he saw as bureaucratic waste and inefficiency from a bloated federal government.
In June 1942, Nixon enlisted in the United States Navy. After basic training and Officer Candidate school, Nixon was stationed for a bit in Iowa before he was granted his request to be moved closer to the front lines. Because Nixon was a Quaker, he could have easily requested a deferment due to the pacifist nature of his faith, but Nixon felt duty-bound to fight for a cause that he believed in. Nixon was shipped out to the South Pacific where he helped organize operations and logistics on Bougainville Island and Green Island in present-day Papua New Guinea. While Nixon was not directly engaged in combat, he served with honor and distinction and rose to lieutenant commander by the time he left the Navy in March 1946.
Almost immediately upon returning home to California, Republican businessmen in Los Angeles County recruited the 33-year-old veteran to challenge Rep. Jerry Voorhis, a five-term incumbent in California’s 12th Congressional district. Nixon’s stunning upset of Voorhis skyrocketed him into Washington. Nixon’s rise was meteoric, and helped by his active role in drafting the Taft-Hartley Act (as a freshman in the House of Representatives, no less) and becoming a passionate anti-Communist with a visible role as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. By 1950, Nixon was a national figure with his controversial targeting of former State Department official Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy. Hiss wasn’t charged with espionage due to the statute of limitations, but he was convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about his connection to the Soviets.
Riding a wave of popularity as a Communist fighter and Cold Warrior, Nixon defeated a fellow member of California’s Congressional delegation, Helen Gahagan Douglas, for a seat in the United States Senate. Nixon’s campaign against Douglas was almost solely based on painting her as a Communist, or Communist-puppet at best. Due to his lack of reluctance to get down-and-dirty with the campaign, the 1950 Senate campaign was where Nixon earned his nickname, “Tricky Dick”.
At 33, Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives and just a few days before he turned 38 years old, he was now Senator Nixon. Yet, he continued to rise. In 1952, the most respected military leader in the world. the man who commanded the D-Day Invasion of France in World War II, and the most admired person in the nation, Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to seek the Republican nomination as President. Once Eisenhower was nominated, it was almost a foregone conclusion that he would win the election. On Election Day 1952, Eisenhower was going to be 62 years old and a moderate Republican from the Midwest, so Ike balanced the ticket in every way by choosing Nixon as his running mate. Nixon was young, he was conservative, and he balanced everything geographically by coming from California.
Nixon almost didn’t make it to Election Day 1952, however. During the campaign, the New York Post reported that wealthy supporters had given Nixon a secret $18,000 fund that he used for personal expenses. Many Republicans urged Eisenhower to dump Nixon from the ticket, and Ike seriously considered it. But on September 23, 1952, Nixon took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of taking his case to the people of the United States. In a 30-minute speech broadcast on televisions throughout the nation, Nixon explained everything he owned, how much money he had, how much he was worth, and what his obligations were while vehemently denying the Post’s story. There was a special fund set up by supporters, but Nixon insisted that he had never used a cent for personal expenses. Nixon did admit to one gift — a cocker spaniel named “Checkers” that was given to his daughter Tricia by a supporter in Texas. Looking into the camera and into the homes of Americans across the country, Nixon said of Tricia’s pet dog, “I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.” Switchboards and telegram offices were inundated with messages of support for Nixon, and when he met with Eisenhower the very next day, Ike smiled at him and simply said, “You’re my boy!”.
Inaugurated as Vice President on January 20, 1953, Richard Nixon had celebrated his 40th birthday less than two weeks earlier, making him the second-youngest Vice President in American History (President Buchanan’s VP, John C. Breckinridge, was 36 years old when he was inaugurated). Vice President Nixon took a more active role in the Eisenhower Administration than almost any of his predecessors had previously possessed. Twice during his eight years as Vice President, it appeared as if Nixon might have to assume the Presidency due to President Eisenhower’s 1955 heart attack and a minor stroke in 1957 that temporarily impaired the President. Nixon also played a visible part in the famous “Kitchen Debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at an American exhibition in Moscow and when his vehicle was attacked by protesters during a visit to several South American countries in 1958.
As the 1960 Presidential election approached, Nixon was the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination. Despite his loyal service over the previous eight years, Nixon was somewhat hindered by lukewarm support from President Eisenhower, who didn’t immediately endorse Nixon while the Vice President was still battling Republican challengers for the nomination and really hurt Nixon by saying, “If you give me a week, I might think of one” when a reporter asked Ike for an example of major decisions or issues that Nixon had played a big part in. Still, Nixon claimed the Republican nomination and faced the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, in the general election.
Nixon and Kennedy were both young men in 1960. Even after six years in Congress and eight years as Vice President, Nixon was just 47 years old on Election Day 1960. JFK was four years younger. Both men were energetic, relentless campaigners and the race was a close one all the way up until Election Day. Nixon exhausted himself during the campaign by following through on a pledge to campaign in all 50 states of the union and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks with a serious infection. Although JFK was fair enough to suspend his campaign during Nixon’s hospitalization, the Vice President was robbed of any momentum he had gained after clinching the nomination at the Republican National Convention.
What is best-remembered is the very first nationally-televised Presidential debates. Nixon and Kennedy engaged in four debates prior to Election Day and 120 million Americans watched at least one of them. Most Americans (more than 70 million) either watched or listened to the first debate, on September 26, 1960. Those who listened to the debate on the radio considered Nixon to be victorious, but those who watched on television had a very different opinion — and the effect that the televised debate had on American politics permeates every aspect of contemporary politics, whether it is Presidential, Congressional, state, or local. JFK was tanned, fit, and dressed sharply, and even though it was watched in black-and-white, Kennedy definitely looked better. Nixon had only been out of the hospital for a few days and had lost a noticeable amount of weight, he refused to wear television makeup so he looked pale and unshaven, and underneath the klieg lights the Vice President — who had a problem with sweating profusely in almost any situation — simply looked like a sick man. With that first debate, image became an indelible aspect of American politics.
Even with the setbacks, the Presidential election on November 8, 1960 was one of the closest in American History. A shift of just a small amount of votes in a few key states would have guaranteed a victory for Nixon. As it was, widespread voter fraud was alleged in Texas (home of JFK’s running mate, powerful Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson) and Cook County, Illinois (where it’s almost certain that the dominant machine of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley pulled some strings and pushed some buttons to ensure that JFK won Illinois). Many of Nixon’s supporters and friends advised him to challenge the clearly shady results, but Nixon refused and insisted that the country needed to be stable and that challenging the Presidential election would result in turmoil both at home and abroad.
After JFK was inaugurated, Nixon went home to California to make some money by practicing law and by writing. In 1962, he challenged California’s popular Democratic Governor Pat Brown. Just two years after losing the Presidency by the narrowest of margins, Nixon was soundly defeated by Governor Brown in the gubernatorial race. Not only was it a stunning setback, but it seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of Nixon’s once-promising political career. As he conceded the election to Brown at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles the next morning, Nixon was visibly irritated, humiliated by the loss, and angry at the press. To the reporters gathered in the ballroom, Nixon rambled about his press coverage and told the assembled media, “As I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
And just like that, it seemed that the shooting star which Richard Milhous Nixon’s political career appeared to be had somehow burned itself out. Nixon went into a sort of self-imposed political exile. He and his family moved to the East Coast and Nixon made some good money practicing law in New York. He did a little bit of campaigning for Barry Goldwater in the Republican’s doomed 1964 Presidential campaign against President Lyndon B. Johnson. He went to the dinner and cocktail parties that he actually despised attending, but he did it to quietly build support, to listen to the people, and to reconnect to the political life which he seemed to have been forever stripped of.
We know what happened. In 1968, he easily won the Republican nomination and narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Hubert H. Humphrey to finally win the White House after the incumbent President, Lyndon Johnson, declined to seek reelection and JFK’s brother, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated after the California Primary. In 1972, Nixon was reelected by one of the largest popular and electoral vote margins in American History. Throughout his term, Nixon’s brilliance in formulating policies and engaging in international diplomacy was hindered by his domestic paranoia and his inability to just be satisfied with winning as opposed to destroying his opponents, or, as he would call them, his “enemies”.
There was a bungled burglary at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex. There was a cover-up and a concerted effort to obstruct justice and evade the consequences of the actions of the President and his Administration. People went to jail, a nation was torn apart, the institutions that we were supposed to trust became untrustworthy, and the Presidency and the politics surrounding the Presidency would never be the same again.
Finally, when Nixon could no longer fight; when he knew he could no longer count on anyone’s support; when he knew that the tapes which implicated him in the crimes that he denied were impossible to hide, Nixon did what he said he would never do. He quit. A month later, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned Nixon in order to get the country moving forward. It was unpopular and probably cost Ford a chance to be elected President in his own right, but almost every historian and politician from both sides of the aisle now feel that Ford’s actions were not only correct, but courageous.
When Nixon left the White House in August 1974 and returned to La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, it seemed to be the final exile. While he somehow resurrected himself after his disastrous defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial campaign, there was definitely no coming back from Watergate. Nixon was radioactive — political suicide for anyone who got too close.
Then a funny thing started happening in the 1980s. People started asking Nixon for advice, particularly on foreign relations, especially in regards to China and the Soviet Union. Nixon began speaking to groups, writing books, and somehow shaping his legacy. He built a Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, with his birthplace — that little house his father bought from Sears and built himself — on the grounds. Sometimes President George H.W. Bush would call him for advice. When his Library was finished, there was a remarkable scene — Nixon alongside Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush. Nixon was no longer radioactive; he was an elder statesman.
In 1993, a young Democrat, Bill Clinton, moved into the White House. Clinton was a college student and young adult during Nixon’s Presidency. He worked for George McGovern, Nixon’s opponent in 1972. The new First Lady, Hillary Clinton, was a staff member on the House Judiciary Committee that prepared to impeach Nixon prior to his resignation in 1974. Yet, they reached out to Nixon. They invited him to the White House. Clinton would call Nixon for hours to discuss Russia and China. Nixon said he had never been treated better by a President than Bill Clinton.
In June 1993, Nixon’s wife, Pat, died. Nixon hadn’t always been the greatest husband, but his love for Pat was obvious and enduring. The first time he met her in 1937 — literally on their very first date — Nixon proposed marriage. She though he was insane and turned him down, but Richard Nixon was tenacious and determined. When she dated other guys, Nixon volunteered to drive her on her dates, to make sure that she was safe. He was in love and she soon reciprocated that love. They were married in 1940 and had two daughters.
The Presidency took a toll on Pat Nixon, too. She suffered strokes in 1976 and 1983 and Nixon painstakingly waited on her, helped her with her therapy, and challenged her to work harder at overcoming her impairment. When she died, Nixon was devastated. There is video of Nixon at her funeral, inconsolable. An 80-year-old man with big, heaving sobs of pure despair and loneliness. Nobody who witnessed it could be anything besides touched. Nixon’s rival in the 1972 campaign, George McGovern, was the victim of many of “Tricky Dick’s” dirtiest tricks, and stunned at how hard Nixon was taking the loss. When a reporter asked McGovern why he would show up at Pat Nixon’s funeral after everything he had to deal with from her husband, McGovern was almost disgusted. “You can’t keep campaigning forever,” said McGovern.
Nixon died exactly ten months after Pat Nixon passed away. While sitting at his writing desk in Saddle River, New Jersey, surrounded by books and the yellow legal pads he always jotted notes down on, Nixon suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994. By the time Nixon was transported to the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, he was paralyzed on his right side, unable to speak or see. Soon afterward, he slipped into a deep coma and never awakened. At 9:08 PM on April 22, 1994, Richard Milhous Nixon died at the age of 81.
Instead of a state funeral in Washington, D.C, Nixon’s was flown in one of the planes that is usually Air Force One back to California. Thousands of mourners braved heavy rain to line up and pay their respects at Nixon’s closed casket at it lied in repose in the lobby of the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda. At the funeral for the former President, outside of his Library and in the shadow of his birthplace, family, friends, and dignitaries gathered. There were former aides and associates, enemies and opponents, and every living President, former President, Vice President, and former Vice President. Nixon’s first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had resigned in disgrace a few months before Nixon did, but even he attended.
In the front row were Nixon’s five successors — President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan (in his last official public appearance before Alzheimer’s began taking its heavy toll), President George H.W. Bush, President Clinton, and their respective First Ladies. President Clinton and California Governor Pete Wilson spoke of reconciliation and forgiveness and Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, uttered a sentence that was just as true of Nixon as it probably was of our nation’s experience with Nixon: “He achieved greatly, suffered deeply”.
Today, two simple, black gravestones mark the final resting places of Pat Nixon and Richard Nixon. They are just a few feet from the back door of the house that the 37th President of the United States was born in. And in that quiet corner of Yorba Linda, the Southern California sun is usually shining on these words “The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.”
I’m a big fan of Longreads and I figured I’m important enough to share my Top 5 Longreads of 2011.
Now, as much as I would love to include my own work in the Top 5, I am not going to rank articles of mine such as “Crossover: The Unique Appeal of Jon Huntsman” or “Rick Perry’s ‘Oops’ Moment: How Bad Was It?” from AND Magazine, or “Thank You, Mr. President” and “Brújula” from right here on Dead Presidents because that would just be shameless plugging and this ranking is obviously not about me.
1. “King of Kings: The Death and Legacy of Muammar Qaddafi” by Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker
Anderson’s vivid account of the inglorious end of one of history’s most eccentric and enduring dictators, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, was my favorite piece of journalism of not just 2011, but of the past few years. I especially loved the comparisons between the fall of Qaddafi and the end of other well-known dictators. Anderson also puts Qaddafi’s 42 years of power into perspective while recounting the chaotic final moments when the long-suffering Libyan people finally got their hands on their brutal ruler. Spoiler alert: they didn’t give the Colonel a golden parachute and wish him a happy retirement.
2. “Killing Bin Laden” by Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker
Another first-class bit of reporting from The New Yorker about justice being brought to another evil person. Schmidle’s story of the conclusion of the nearly 10-year-long worldwide manhunt for al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden is probably the most definitive account we will ever get about the biggest event of 2011. I’ve read Schmidle’s article several times and it doesn’t get less exciting or less satisfying. Schmidle’s thrilling narrative makes us feel like we’re tagging along with the Navy SEALs as they raid the compound in Abbottabad and kill the world’s most wanted terrorist.
3. “The Ultimate Oral History of ‘Wet Hot American Summer’” interviews by Whitney Pastorek, Details
Ten years after Wet Hot American Summer was released, the film is a cult classic that is more popular ever and many of its cast members are some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Whitney Pastorek interviewed most of those cast members — all of whom are hilarious — about the making of the film and its unlikely legacy. If for no other reason, this makes my list because of this quote from Michael Ian Black: “I would have loved it if a kid had gone airborne, been projected across the room, and splatted against the wall. Nothing would have made me happier. They were all well-behaved children, but if one had died in the service of our art, that would have been fine.”
4. “California and Bust” by Michael Lewis, Vanity Fair
Michael Lewis — author of books such as Moneyball and The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine — is one of the best financial journalists of our time. In this article, he illustrates just how bad things truly are in California and how they got that way, with a little help from California’s former Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
5. “Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation” by Steven Hyden, The A.V. Club
Hyden began his mammoth, 10-part series on the alternative music of the 1990s in October 2010, but it finished up in February 2011, so I’m counting it as one of this year’s best reads. For anyone who grew up in the 1990s, wore flannel, was sad when Kurt Cobain died, and realized that they were starting to get old when Korn started getting popular, this series is for you (and me).
When Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President on board Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, Jackie Kennedy was standing next to him, her pink Chanel dress, white gloves, and bare legs smeared with the blood and brain matter of her assassinated husband. Traumatized and almost certainly in shock, Jackie wanted to support the new President and new First Lady as power was officially transferred in the same solemn ceremony that has always marked such an occasion in American History. As the Presidential airplane left Dallas and returned to the nation’s capital, Jackie sat in the back of the plane with the coffin containing her husband’s body.
Despite her deep personal loss, her traumatic experience, and her obvious physical exhaustion, Jackie threw herself into planning President Kennedy’s funeral as soon as she returned to Washington, D.C. Jackie was sensitive to the needs of the country and protective of her husband’s legacy. When she arrived at the White House, she requested information about the exact specifications of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral after he was assassinated in 1865. Even though it was the middle of the night, Kennedy staffers went to the National Archives and the Library of Congress to research the Lincoln funeral and Jackie helped make plans for the pageantry that would commence over the next few days. With a few minor exceptions, JFK’s funeral was nearly an exact replica of Lincoln’s funeral almost 100 years earlier. The effect was monumental. Kennedy’s funeral will always be remembered as a dignified, iconic moment in our nation’s history.
As Jackie Kennedy prepared to bury the 35th President, Lyndon Johnson consumed himself with becoming the 36th President, continuing Kennedy’s work and leading the nation through the darkness of the assassination and its aftermath. When Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base on the night of November 22nd, the Secret Service urged now-President Johnson to take a helicopter directly to the White House. Johnson immediately vetoed the move as he thought it would disrespectful for him to land on the South Lawn of the White House (as Presidents regularly do) while Kennedy’s family still lived in the building. When LBJ arrived at the White House via motorcade to begin his work that night, the new President went directly to an office in the Old Executive Office Building rather than working out of the Oval Office.
Over the next few weeks, President Johnson extended many kindnesses to Jackie Kennedy. LBJ and Jackie had always had an extremely close relationship, and Johnson never forgot how kind Jackie had been when LBJ was Vice President — a depressing time for Johnson due to his lack of power and influence. During his Vice Presidency, Johnson had experienced many problems with members of Kennedy’s Administration, but was always treated very well by President and Mrs. Kennedy.
The Kennedys had two young children who had just lost their father, and the first thing that LBJ did as President was write two letters to President Kennedy’s children to read when they were old enough to understand them. When JFK was elected President, the Kennedys hoped that their daughter Caroline would be able to attend a normal school with children her age. When it became apparent that the logistics wouldn’t allow that, a room was prepared at the White House for Caroline’s teacher to hold class daily. When JFK was assassinated, LBJ insisted that Caroline’s class continue using the White House for classes as long as Jackie wished. In fact, LBJ urged Jackie to continue living in the White House throughout the entirety of his term. Jackie moved out within a few weeks, but she appreciated President Johnson’s offer.
What Jackie Kennedy most appreciated, however, was President Johnson’s presence at John F. Kennedy’s funeral. On November 25, 1963, the entire nation stopped and world leaders gathered in Washington to bury the slain President (one place that the nation didn’t stop was Dallas, where JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed as he was being transferred to another police facility). Kennedy’s funeral was historic and emotional. The enduring image is of John F. Kennedy, Jr. — celebrating his 3rd birthday on that very day — stepping forward to salute as father’s flag-draped casket passed by.
Another stirring image from that day was accompanying President Kennedy’s funeral cortége. As Kennedy’s casket rested on the exact same caisson that carried Abraham Lincoln’s casket, a remarkable procession of some of the most famous, powerful people in the world followed behind it. Led by Jackie Kennedy and the slain Presidents two brothers, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, scores and scores of political leaders, diplomats, monarchs, and more trailed the casket, marching in complete silence other than the sounds of their feet on the pavement. Dozens upon dozens of countries were represented — not just by ambassadors or minor officials, but by Kings, Queens, Emperors, Presidents, and Prime Ministers. When one looks at the photos, our eyes are immediately drawn to the majestic strength of Jackie Kennedy leading the procession. If the faces of those behind her are scanned, they reveal legendary leaders such as Charles de Galle, Haile Selassie, U Thant, Golda Meier, King Baudoiun I, Lester Pearson, Willy Brandt, Queen Frederica, Eamon de Valera, Prince Philip, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and scores of other international figures, not to mention the leading Americans, who took to the streets of Washington, D.C. — on foot — to honor President Kennedy.
It’s often forgotten that Lyndon Johnson was there. Johnson was such a larger-than-life character and so rarely relegated to the background that it’s difficult to imagine a scene where he would not be the major player. Since President Kennedy had been murdered in broad daylight on the streets of a major American city just three days earlier, the Secret Service — understandably nervous due to their failure to protect one President that week — was adamantly opposed to President Johnson’s participation. Johnson overruled the Secret Service concerns and turned down their insistence that he ride in an armor-plated limousine. For maybe the only time in his life, Lyndon Johnson — now President of the United States — went virtually unnoticed to the public.
Yet, one person did notice. And, on November 26, 1963, despite all that she had been through; despite all that she was feeling; despite all that she had lost; despite the fact that just 24 hours earlier she had buried her husband, the father of her two young children, the 34-year-old widowed former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy sat down in the White House and wrote this letter to the new President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson:
November 26
Tuesday
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for walking yesterday - behind Jack. You did not have to do that - I am sure many people forbid you to take such a risk - but you did it anyway.
Thank you for your letters to my children. What those letters will mean to them later - you can imagine. The touching thing is, they have always loved you so much, they were most moved to have a letter from you now.
And most of all, Mr. President, thank you for the way you have always treated me - the way you and Lady Bird have always been to me - before, when Jack was alive, and now as President.
I think the relationship of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential families could be a rather strained one. From the history I have been reading ever since I came to the White House, I gather it often was in the past.
But you were Jack’s right arm - and I always thought the greatest act of a gentleman that I had seen on this earth - was how you - the Majority Leader when he came to the Senate as just another little freshman who looked up to you and took orders from you, could then serve as Vice President to a man who had served under you and been taught by you.
But more than that we were friends, all four of us. All you did for me as a friend and the happy times we had. I always thought way before the nomination that Lady Bird should be First Lady - but I don’t need to tell you here what I think of her qualities - her extraordinary grace of character - her willingness to assume ever burden - She assumed so many for me and I love her very much - and I love your two daughters - Lynda Bird most because I know her the best - and we first met when neither of us could get a seat to hear President Eisenhower’s State of the Union message, and someone found us a place on one of the steps on the aisle where we sat together. If we had known then what our relationship would be now.
It was so strange - last night I was wandering through this house. There in the Treaty Room is your chandelier, and I had framed - the page we all signed - you - Senator Dirksen and Mike Mansfield - underneath I had written “The day the Vice President brought the East Room chandelier back from the Capitol.”
Then in the library I showed Bobby the Lincoln Record book you gave - you see all you gave - and now you are called on to give so much more.
Your office - you are the first President to sit in it as it looks today. Jack always wanted a red rug - and I had curtains designed for it that I thought were as dignified as they should be for a President’s office.
Late last night a moving man asked me if I wanted Jack’s ship pictures left on the wall for you (They were clearing the office to make room for you) - I said no because I remembered all the fun Jack had those first days hanging pictures of things he loved, setting out his collection of whales teeth etc.
But of course they are there only waiting for you to ask for them if the walls look too bare. I thought you would want to put things from Texas in it - I pictured some gleaming longhorns - I hope you put them somewhere.
It mustn’t be very much help to you your first day in office - to hear children on the lawn at recess. It is just one more example of your kindness that you let them stay - I promise - they will soon be gone -
Thank you Mr. President
Respectfully
Jackie
At the LBJ Library on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, there are many displays of priceless, historic artifacts that tell the story of the years of Lyndon Johnson, his service to the United States, and the world that he knew. As you pass through the exhibits, it’s difficult not to be astonished, inspired, and touched by what you see around you during your visit. Many of the things you’ll see there will take your breath away, but nothing leaves an impression on your heart and soul like the seven pieces of paper containing these words in Jackie Kennedy’s handwriting — words that somehow convey strength and fragility, evoke optimism and sadness, and simultaneously project support while demonstrating a sense of loss that very few of us can imagine. Items like these are the source materials for what history truly is — a biography of humanity, a story about people.
(Today is the 207th anniversary of Franklin Pierce’s birth, so here’s an article I wrote in August 2009 about a tragic, unique link between Pierce and Abraham Lincoln)
You would be hard-pressed to find many comparisons between Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States, and Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. Most historians agree that Lincoln is probably the greatest President in American History; a similar amount of historians usually rank Pierce as one of the worst. Lincoln guided the country through Civil War and to victory; the policies of Pierce’s Administration helped divide the nation and make Civil War a reality. Despite being born in the South, Lincoln fought during every minute of his Presidency to keep the Union together; Pierce, born and raised in New Hampshire, was a “doughface”, Southern sympathizer, and close friends with Confederate President Jefferson Davis who served as Secretary of War in Pierce’s Administration. Lincoln died just days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox and was immediately considered a martyr by the American public after his death. After dispersing a crowd that angrily gathered in front of his home following Lincoln’s assassination, Franklin Pierce went back to doing what he had done since leaving the White House in 1857 — drinking himself to death.
There is one thing that links these two men beyond the fact that they were both Presidents during the most divisive period in American History — tragedy. In the exclusive fraternity of American Presidents, it’s impossible to find two more melancholy individuals than Franklin Pierce and Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln battled deep depression throughout his life and, as a young man in Illinois, Lincoln admitted that he contemplated suicide at times. During his career as a lawyer riding the Illinois court circuit, Lincoln’s friend Joshua Speed recalls the future President remarking “If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode that I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
What troubled Lincoln is difficult to pinpoint. Before he married Mary Todd, Lincoln was romantically interested in Ann Rutledge, the daughter of a New Salem, Illinois tavern owner. Lincoln was a frequent visitor to the Rutledge home and was devastated when Ann died of typhoid fever in 1835. William H. Herndon — Lincoln’s longtime law partner and one of the first biographers of Lincoln — acknowledged that the future President loved Ann Rutledge and that the grieving Lincoln was suicidal in the days and weeks following Ann’s funeral. Five years after Ann Rutledge’s death, Lincoln and Mary Todd were engaged, and the couple married in 1842. Mary had a terrible temper and her mental condition was so tenuous that her son, Robert, finally had her committed to an asylum after President Lincoln’s death. Mary was a lot of things that Lincoln was not — short, overweight, confrontational, insecure, and temperamental. The marriage was rocky at times, but Lincoln was passionately defensive about charges against his wife. When Mary lost control and screamed at Lincoln or charged the President with jealous accusations, Lincoln walked away from the fights and always returned to check on Mary’s condition once she cooled down. For a President trying to save his country from destruction, these personal domestic crises had to be taxing on Lincoln.
To find a bright spot somewhere, Lincoln turned to his children for solace. Lincoln’s four sons were all born in Springfield, Illinois with Robert Todd Lincoln leading the way in 1843. By the time of Lincoln’s Presidency, Robert was an adult attending Harvard and he spent the last months of the Civil War on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. The second son, Edward Baker Lincoln, was another source of sadness for the Lincolns. Edward died at the age of four; an event that left Mary on the brink of breakdown and pushed Lincoln to cherish the next two children, Willie (born in 1850), and Tad (born in 1853). As President, Lincoln was horrified by dispatches describing the ongoing Civil War, tried to shut out the distractions caused by his unstable wife, and discovered happiness only in those moments where he could play with Willie and Tad.
Willie Lincoln was dedicated to his love for books, much like his father, and it was no secret to anyone that Willie was the President’s favorite child. Tad was more rambunctious, always into joking and playing around, and Lincoln took great satisfaction from Tad’s affinity for dressing up like the soldiers who protected Washington and the White House from the rebel forces. Like the Biblical Job, however, Lincoln had to face adversity while persevering relentlessly towards his goal. In February 1862, Willie Lincoln took ill after riding his beloved pony in chilly weather. Doctors ordered bed rest and Willie rallied at first, but on February 20th, he died from what is thought to be typhoid fever. The Lincolns were devastated, Mary was inconsolable and shut herself off from the world for three weeks. Lincoln worried about Mary while also nursing his youngest son, Tad, who came down with the same illness that killed Willie and was in critical condition himself. Tad recovered, but Lincoln was at times overcome by sadness. Every Thursday for several weeks, Lincoln locked himself in the Green Room of the White House, the room where Willie died, and cried for his lost son. Willie’s death “showed me my weakness as I had never felt it before.” The light had gone out of Abraham Lincoln’s life forever. Only once more did he feel a pinch of happiness and that was on the day that he truly considered the Civil War to finally be over — April 14, 1865. That night, John Wilkes Booth ended Abraham Lincoln’s suffering.
It was Willie Lincoln’s death in the White House in 1862 that brought Franklin Pierce and Abraham Lincoln the closest that they would ever be. Men of different political parties, different backgrounds, and different viewpoints on the biggest issue of the day; they were as far apart politically as they were in physical appearance. Lincoln was described by even his closest friends as “ugly” and his opponents likened him to a “baboon”. Lincoln wore the same old suit constantly, he rarely took the time to comb his hair, and he didn’t care what people thought of his “style”. Franklin Pierce looked like a Roman statue come to life. Pierce had long, curly, jet-black hair that he combed over the side of his forehead, he dressed impeccably, and one historian calls him “perhaps the most handsome President”. Even President Harry Truman — a vicious detractor of Pierce’s Presidency — called Pierce “the best-looking President the White House ever had” and suggested that he “looked the way people who make movies think a President should look”.
Behind those looks, however, was a man who was as unsuccessful at fighting depression as he was at fighting alcoholism. Franklin Pierce was ambitious and rose to the Presidency at a younger age than any of his predecessors. His ambition, however, strained his marriage with Jane Means Appleton, who hated politics and hated Washington, D.C. Pierce didn’t help the marriage by not consulting with Jane before undertaking a life-changing experience such as accepting the Democratic nomination for President in 1852. Jane had heard that Franklin was being considered as a compromise choice by the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, but believed that he had no chance against better-known names such as James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, and Stephen A. Douglas. While out for a carriage ride in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a rider galloped up to the wagon carrying the Pierces with the news that Franklin had won the Democratic nomination. Franklin smiled excitedly, but Jane nearly passed out. Pierce had promised that he was done with politics, that they were done with Washington forever, and now it was a near-certainty that he would be elected President of the United States.
Like the Lincolns, the Pierce family had lost two sons at young age. The first born, Frank Jr., died as an infant, and their second son, Franklin Robert Pierce, died at the age of four. Their son Benjamin was their only surviving offspring, and they devoted all of their parental love to Bennie. In times of the deep depression that both Franklin and Jane suffered from, both parents could turn to Bennie for some joy and to remind themselves that not all was lost. Like his mother, Bennie was shy and unhappy about a potential move to Washington. Shortly after Pierce won the Democratic nomination, Bennie wrote his mother: “I hope he won’t be elected for I should not like to be at Washington. And I know you would not be either.” The hopes and prayers of his wife and his son were in complete opposition to those of Franklin Pierce. He wanted, more than anything, to be President. On Election Day, he was granted his wish as he trounced General Winfield Scott on won the Presidential election.
While Franklin prepared to take the reins of the country, Jane and Bennie prepared for the dreaded move into the White House in Washington. Jane tried her best to project some happiness for Franklin’s sake, and she found some assistance from her religious devotion. As 1853 began, the Pierces prepared for the move to Washington, D.C. and left New Hampshire in January, deciding to stop in Massachusetts for visits with family and friends before arriving in Washington for the inauguration scheduled on March 4th.
On January 6, 1853, a train carrying the young President-elect, his wife, and their only surviving son left Andover, Massachusetts. Just a few minutes after departing Andover, the passenger car detached from the train and rolled down an embankment. None of the passengers including Franklin Pierce and his wife were injured except for one person. In front of his horrified parents, Benjamin Pierce was thrown from the train and was nearly decapitated as his head was gruesomely crushed. Bennie Pierce was killed instantly, and his parents would never be the same.
Less than two months later, Pierce was sworn in as President. The only President who memorized his inaugural address, Pierce started by telling the crowd in front of the U.S. Capitol, “It is a relief to feel that no heart but my own can know the personal regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been borne to a position so suitable for others rather than desirable for myself.” Traumatized by Bennie’s death, Jane refused to continue any further towards Washington than Baltimore. Pierce had to face the Presidency and the mourning period for their son without his wife. As he told the American public in his inaugural address, “You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me with your strength.”
When Jane finally arrived at the White House, she still didn’t make much of an impact. People referred to her as “the shadow of the White House” and she frequently closed herself off in an upstairs bedroom where she wrote letters to her dead children and stuffed them in a fireplace. Jefferson Davis’s wife, Varina, often substituted as White House hostess. In a way, Jane indirectly blamed her husband for Bennie’s death, claiming that God took Bennie from them so that Franklin would have nothing distracting him from his accomplishments. When Jane died in 1863, Pierce’s closest friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, said that she was never interested in “things present”.
Franklin’s “accomplishments” were not much. He had a difficult time saying “no”, and often agreed to go along with the last person he talked to before making a decision. Pierce was indeed absent of distractions, but he needed some. The country was being torn apart by the slavery question and the Kansas-Nebraska Act inflamed tensions; it was no longer a matter of debate — in some places, open warfare was breaking out. The President found his distraction came in the form of a bottle. The President was an alcoholic and in 1856, his own party refused to consider him for re-election. As his term ended at the beginning of 1857, Pierce said, “There’s nothing left to do but to get drunk.” He lived by that motto until his drinking finally killed him in 1869.
During Franklin Pierce’s retirement, he spoke out against Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War itself. Some called him a traitor, and even his close friends snubbed him. When Pierce’s friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, died, he wasn’t even allowed to be a pall bearer as Hawthorne requested. But despite their many differences, Lincoln found himself in a place that only Franklin Pierce knew — mourning a lost child and worrying about an unstable wife while running a divided country. A few weeks following Willie’s death, President Lincoln received this letter:
Concord N. H.
March 4 1862
My dear Sir,
The impulse to write you, the moment I heard of your great domestic affliction was very strong, but it brought back the crushing sorrow which befel me just before I went to Washington in 1853, with such power that I felt your grief, to be too sacred for intrusion.
Even in this hour, so full of danger to our Country, and of trial and anxiety to all good men, your thoughts, will be, of your cherished boy, who will nestle at your heart, until you meet him in that new life, when tears and toils and conflict will be unknown.
I realize fully how vain it would be, to suggest sources of consolation.
There can be but one refuge in such an hour, — but one remedy for smitten hearts, which, is to trust in Him “who doeth all things well”, and leave the rest to —
“Time, comforter & only healer
When the heart hath broke”With Mrs Pierce’s and my own best wishes — and truest sympathy for Mrs Lincoln and yourself
I am, very truly,
Yr. friend
Franklin Pierce
The melancholy Presidents — so far apart in each and every other aspect of their lives — could at the very least find companionship, if not comfort, in the other’s strength through painful weakness.
There is peril to power and danger in ambition. They called him “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills” and “Handsome Frank”. He looked like a poet and lived a Shakespearean tragedy. He was intelligent and eloquent, with top-notch oratorical skills and impressive charisma. Unable to resist the political opportunities that opened up to him, Franklin Pierce’s trajectory from New Hampshire lawyer to 14th President of the United States was so steep that he couldn’t fathom the ramifications of his quick rise. In fact, by the end of his life, it seemed Franklin Pierce had made a Faustian bargain — he gave up his world, ruled the nation, and ended up drinking himself to death and dying alone.
Franklin Pierce was haunted in the White House by personal demons and national difficulties. Stunningly elected over Mexican War hero Winfield Scott, Pierce was just 48 years old when he took the oath of office in 1853, and for four years he barely presided over a divided nation that burst apart into Civil War just four years after he left office. Throughout his term, he was shadowed by the weight of his political aspirations, the menace of alcoholism and depression, his own malleable nature, and the madness of a grieving wife who despised politics and blamed Pierce for the many tragedies which had befallen their young family.
Pierce was strikingly handsome, with dark, pained eyes and trademark, jet-black hair that was long, curly, and swept over his forehead. In photographs of Pierce, he almost exudes sadness, as if he were some pale, gothic specter sprung from the pages of an Edgar Allan Poe story. And that’s without even knowing Pierce’s history.
Born exactly 207 years ago today, November 23, 1804, Pierce was the son of a Revolutionary War veteran and New Hampshire Governor, Benjamin Pierce. The only President born in New Hampshire, Pierce grew up in the Granite State and went to school at Bowdoin College in Maine where his classmates included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the person who would become Pierce’s best friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne. After graduating from Bowdoin, Pierce practiced law in Hillsborough, New Hampshire before being elected to the New Hampshire General Court — the state legislature — in 1829.
Just 25 years old when he entered the statehouse, Pierce skyrocketed from there. At 27, he was elected Speaker of the General Court of New Hampshire. At 29, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives — at the time, Pierce was one of the youngest Congressmen elected in American History. In 1834, Pierce married Jane Means Appleton, the sister-in-law of one of Pierce’s instructors at Bowdoin. Jane hated politics, but loved her husband and believed Pierce when he urged her that politics was a temporary phase in his young life.
She probably should have known better. The Pierces’ honeymoon was a trip to Washington, D.C. so Pierce could return to work representing New Hampshire in Congress. Their first home was a crowded boardinghouse in swampy Washington, D.C., a horse-trading post for politicians, as well as a city full of slaves and slaveowners — anathema to Jane, a New Englander. Jane didn’t last long in Washington; she returned to New Hampshire while Pierce served out his term in Congress. In 1836, Jane gave birth to their first child, but the infant died several days later and the Pierces were devastated by the loss.
Franklin remained in Washington and began drinking heavily. Always a social drinker, Pierce was well-known for being a fun companion. His company was well-regarded and sought out at parties and political events in Washington while Congress was in session. Along with being outgoing, Pierce had an addictive personality and an aversion to saying no. When he later became President, it was said that Pierce’s decision would match the argument of whoever the last person was to speak to him. In the heavy-drinking days of Jacksonian-era Washington, Pierce was not one to hold back. Some people even openly worried about whether Frank Pierce had a drinking problem.
Besides alcohol, Pierce was driven by his ambition. His grief over the child that he and Jane had lost was tempered by news that he had been elected to the United States Senate, taking office in 1837 at the age of just 32 years old. During his five years in the Senate, Pierce showed himself to be a strong Democrat and a “doughface” — a Northerner with Southern sympathies. Pierce voted with Southerners on many issues related to slavery and ignored the abolitionists who made up the majority of his constituency in New Hampshire. Pierce, however, was popular among people in New Hampshire and extremely popular among his colleagues in Congress. The young Senator was a rising star.
While his political career grew, his personal life was troubled. Pierce was blinded by ambition and accomplishments. His wife was frequently ill and her health became worse anytime she visited Pierce in Washington. As Pierce was making a name for himself in the Senate, Jane began wishing that he would leave politics altogether, worrying that if his workaholic manner didn’t kill him, his increasingly alcoholic lifestyle would. The birth of two children — Frank in 1839 and Benjamin in 1841 — helped Jane’s spirits, but also gave her a good platform on which to argue her case. After Bennie’s birth, Franklin Pierce caved in to his wife’s demand and promised to quit politics forever. In 1842, the 37-year-old Pierce resigned from the Senate and moved back to New Hampshire to practice law.
Jane was ecstatic, happy, and her health improved quickly upon Pierce’s return to New Hampshire. Pierce was depressed, but he kept his promise and even refrained from drinking for quite a while. The pull of politics was alluring. Pierce participated in local and state party politics, helping choose Democratic candidates in New Hampshire and even making speeches in support of candidates in districts throughout the state. Still, Pierce impressively turned down an appointment by the Governor to return to the U.S. Senate in 1845. Franklin and Jane’s son, Frank Robert, had died in 1843 and Pierce kept his promise to his wife. When President James K. Polk offered to nominate Pierce to join the Cabinet as Attorney General, Pierce turned Polk down, as well. Pierce continued practicing law and still kept his promise about not leaving to re-enter political life.
Instead, he went to war.
When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, Pierce immediately began working to gain a commission as a military officer. Jane, of course, didn’t know anything about it and would have strongly objected as Pierce the soldier was an even worse idea to her than Pierce the politician. When Pierce was offered to be commissioned as an infantry colonel, the ambitious future President held off on accepting the position — and on notifying his wife. When he was commissioned a brigadier general, he finally accepted — but still didn’t tell Jane, writing to his friend Congressman Edmund Burke, “My purpose is fixed…although I have not yet broached the subject with my wife.”
Pierce’s military record is blurry. His political opponents labeled him a “coward” and claimed that he fainted in battle, which he did. However, Pierce’s soldiers revered him and explained that his fainting came from a severe knee injury that Pierce ignored while leading his men and succumbed to during the battle, yet refused to allow his men to evacuate him to safety until the battle was over. When Pierce finally returned home to New Hampshire, it was with a reputation as a war hero — and war heroes tend to become political icons.
Pierce knew that he could easily be elected Governor of New Hampshire upon his return to the Granite State, but he promised his wife that he was done with politics, and he continued to resist breaking that promise. However, as happy as it was making his wife, it was tearing him apart. Still active in state and local politics, Pierce was jumping at any chance to be involved. He knew that he had promise as a politician, but he had the promise not to be a politician holding him back.
In 1852, Franklin Pierce could no longer resist.
As Democrats prepared to nominate a Presidential candidate in 1852, the New Hampshire Democratic Party put forth Franklin Pierce as a “favorite son” candidate. For the most part, favorite son candidates are not serious candidates. The favorite son is more of a parliamentary procedure, used to hold and shift delegates from one major candidate to another. Pierce wasn’t seen as a legitimate candidate for the Presidency. After all, he had been out of elective office for ten years and had shown no indication that he would re-enter public life due to his promise to his wife.
Along the way to the Democratic National Convention in June in Baltimore, Franklin Pierce worked quietly to break his promise and promote his candidacy. Jane had no idea what was going on, but Franklin Pierce was no longer sitting on the sidelines and he was no longer interested in being a place-holder for delegates. As the convention approached, Pierce was being touted as a potential compromise candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
The favorites in Baltimore were James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, and Stephen Douglas. On the first day of voting at the convention, no candidate was able to clinch the nomination. By the next night, the convention had held thirty-three ballots without agreeing on a nominee. Franklin Pierce sat at a telegraph office in Concord, New Hampshire and followed the deliberations of the convention as news was reported. The convention remained deadlocked for the next several days as Pierce nervously awaited word on whether his name had been introduced as a compromise.
On June 5, 1852, Franklin and Jane went for a carriage drive outside of Boston, where they had traveled the day before. Jane had no idea what was going on in Baltimore and Franklin didn’t let on that he had knowledge of anything unusual happening at the Democratic Convention. As the carriage was winding through the woods of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a messenger on a horse rode towards the Pierces. “Sir,” the rider exclaimed to Pierce, “the Democrats have nominated you for President!”. Pierce excitedly shouted his appreciation and smiled while his wife, who had no idea that her husband was a candidate for anything let alone the Presidency, fainted.
Pierce had become a compromise candidate at the Democratic convention — someone who everyone could unite behind once the major candidates became deadlocked. On the forty-ninth ballot, the exhausted delegates in Baltimore nominated Pierce for the Presidency. Jane openly prayed that he would be defeated, but Pierce faced his old Mexican War commander Winfield Scott, who was hindered by a weakened Whig Party. On election day, Pierce trounced General Scott, 254-42 in the electoral college.
Franklin Pierce’s victory in November 1852 was an astonishing rise for a dark horse compromise candidate who had been retired from national politics for the previous decade. In the Pierce Homestead, the change was stunning and Jane Pierce dreaded the fact that her family was now going to have to return to dreary Washington and become the center of the American political world. During the campaign, 11-year-old Bennie Pierce — the only surviving child of Franklin and Jane — wrote a letter to his mother. Bennie was doted on by his parents. Both Franklin and Jane had been genuinely devastated by the losses of their first two children — the infant Franklin Jr. in 1836 and four-year-old Frank Robert in 1843. In Bennie’s letter to Jane, he worried about the fact that his father might become President. “I hope he won’t be elected,” Bennie wrote, “for I should not like to be at Washington. And I know you would not be either.”
On January 6, 1853, the President-elect and his family were traveling on a train outside of Boston. The train derailed and rolled down a hill, but almost no passengers were injured — except for a young boy. Bennie Pierce was thrown from the car, nearly decapitated and killed when his head was crushed while his horrified parents watched. Jane Pierce took Bennie’s death as a sign that God was removing all distractions from her husband’s path so that he could focus on his duties as President. This did not help her feelings about political life. Franklin took Bennie’s death as a sign that God was punishing him. This did not help his depression or ability to govern.
Jane didn’t know that Franklin Pierce had broken his promise and willingly returned to politics. After his nomination by the Democrats, Franklin insisted that he was simply a compromise candidate and had no choice in the matter. After his election, Franklin claimed that it was his duty as a public servant and a patriot to fulfill the wishes of the American electorate and serve as their President. The week of Pierce’s inauguration, Jane found out that Pierce had broken his promise and outright lied to her. Not only had he re-entered political life, but had actively worked to earn the nomination and be elected President. Jane — already in precarious physical and mental health due to Bennie’s gruesome death — became bitter and angry at Franklin, directly blaming him for the death of their only child.
On March 4, 1853, Pierce was inaugurated as the 14th President of the United States. Pierce was the first President to ever “affirm” his oath of office rather than swear it, and placed his hand on a law book instead of the customary Bible. A strong speaker with a prodigious memory, Pierce was the only President in American History who memorized his Inaugural Address and spoke without notes. Addressing his personal tragedy, Pierce also foreshadowed an insecurity in his own abilities as he began his speech, “It is a relief that no heart but my own can know the personal regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been borne to a position so suitable for others rather than desirable for myself.” In one of the more candid comments ever made in a President’s Inaugural Address, Pierce told his fellow Americans, “You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength.”
Pierce’s Inaugural Address, though, went on to set the tone for his Administration. Pierce, who was the son of a Revolutionary War veteran who fought for independence and someone who grew up in New England, the cradle of the abolitionist movement, clearly stated his support for the institution of slavery. “I believe,” Pierce said, “that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right…I fervently hope that the question (of slavery) is at rest.”
President Pierce built a Cabinet which was dominated by one of his closest friends — the Secretary of War, who happened to be future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Pierce had a reputation for being pliant, and his support for Southern institutions made him deeply unpopular in his native North. As sectarian violence spread throughout the United States due to pro-slavery and free-soil advocates clashing over newly admitted territories, Pierce remained unmoved. A bloody mini-Civil War broke out between the opposing sides in the Kansas and Nebraska Territory, but Pierce did nothing, holding to his definition of federal power which limited government intervention in the matters of individual states.
While his nation was being torn apart, President Pierce’s home was a dark, gloomy place. If other First Ladies made their mark with their style and designs, Jane Pierce decorated the White House with melancholy. Dressing in her black mourning clothing throughout her husband’s term, Jane mainly stayed in an upstairs bedroom of the White House Residence, writing letters to her dead children and burning them in the fireplace. Most White House events were hosted not by Jane, but by Varina Davis, the wife of the Secretary of War and the future First Lady of the Confederacy. Pierce, for his part, barely tried to cheer his wife up. In fact, Pierce spent most of his Presidency depressed and fighting a losing battle against alcoholism.
In 1856, Pierce became the first — and, to this day, only — elected President in American History who was denied renomination by his own party. The Democrats knew that Pierce was deeply unpopular in the North and his support in the South wasn’t strong enough to carry him to victory throughout the rest of the country. Pierce had hoped to be renominated, but there was no chance. When he left office in 1857, the United States was in drastically worse shape than it had been upon his inauguration four years earlier.
When Pierce turned over the White House to his successor, James Buchanan, an observer noted that Pierce left office as “a staid and grave man, on whom the stamp of care and illness was ineradicably impressed.” Pierce put it more simply, saying that “There’s nothing left to do but to get drunk.” For a while, retirement wasn’t too bad. Pierce and Jane traveled to Europe and Jane’s health improved quite a bit from its low point during her time in the White House. Jane, however, died in 1863 and Pierce was lonely and bored.
Two friendships continued throughout his retirement. Pierce’s closest friend was the legendary author Nathaniel Hawthorne — a classmate at Bowdoin who wrote Pierce’s campaign biography in 1852 and was appointed U.S. Consul in Liverpool during his friend’s Presidency. After Pierce left the White House, Hawthorne remained loyal — even as Pierce’s popularity continued to plummet and the former President’s support for the Union was questioned. Pierce was at Hawthorne’s bedside when the author died in 1864 while he and Pierce were on vacation in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Pierce was devastated by his friend’s death and even more deeply hurt when Hawthorne’s family and friends refused to allow the unpopular former President to act as a pallbearer at Hawthorne’s funeral.
By the time of Hawthorne’s funeral, Pierce was practically despised in the North — even in his home state of New Hampshire. The famous abolitionist and author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, called Pierce an “archtraitor”. It wasn’t merely his “doughface” views that caused the hostility towards Pierce. The former President’s other closest friend was Jefferson Davis, the leading voice for Southern secession, Pierce’s Secretary of War, and the President of the Confederate States of America. Pierce and Davis had been friends for decades by the time the Civil War broke out, but the friendship continued throughout the war. In 1860, Pierce had recommended Davis for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
During the war itself, Union soldiers captured Davis’s plantation in Mississippi and found a trove of letters between Pierce and Davis. While Pierce remained loyal to the Union, he also largely blamed Northern abolitionists and agitators for secession and for the outbreak of violence. Pierce also heavily criticized Abraham Lincoln during the war, blasting the suspension of habeas corpus, and denouncing the Emancipation Proclamation as an interference “with states’ rights and the right of private property.” However, when Lincoln’s young son Willie died in the White House in 1862, Pierce wrote a heartfelt, extraordinary letter to Lincoln, commiserating with his fellow President as a father who lost a young child in a difficult time, “Even in this hour, so full of danger to our Country, and of trial and anxiety to all good men, your thoughts, will be, of your cherished boy, who will nestle at your heart, until you meet him in that new life, when tears and toils and conflict will be unknown.”
For the most part, Pierce drank. When Lincoln was assassinated, an angry mob gathered outside of Pierce’s home in Concord, New Hampshire. A similar mob had vandalized former President Millard Fillmore’s home in New York, claiming that Fillmore hadn’t shown enough tribute to the fallen President. The crowd outside of Pierce’s home challenged the former President and questioned his patriotism, inquiring where his American flag might be. In one last gasp of oratorical magic, the 60-year-old former President said that he didn’t need a flag to demonstrate loyalty as he had spent his entire life in public service and that was his demonstration. The crowd, impressed by Pierce’s passion, dispersed without further trouble.
In the last few years of his life, Franklin Pierce did nothing to rehabilitate his reputation. Pierce didn’t write a book or defend his record. His most public action after Lincoln’s assassination was a trip to Fortress Monroe in Virginia to visit his imprisoned friend, Jefferson Davis, and call for his release by Andrew Johnson. Largely forgotten and widely reviled, Pierce literally drank himself to death. On October 8, 1869, the 64-year-old former President died alone in his home in Concord, New Hampshire, a victim of chronic stomach inflammation and cirrhosis of the liver. Funeral services were quiet and he was buried next to his wife and three young children in Concord. It took nearly fifty years for his home state to recognize Franklin Pierce with a statue at the New Hampshire State Capitol. It wasn’t until 1946 that a granite memorial was placed at his grave. When he died, Franklin Pierce’s obituary wasn’t printed until the third page of The New York Times.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about his friend that, “He has in him many of the chief elements of a great ruler. His talents are administrative, he has a subtle faculty of making affairs roll onward according to his will, and of influencing their course without showing any trace of his action. There are scores of men in the country that seem brighter than he is, but he has the directing mind, and will move them about like pawns on a chess-board, and turn all their abilities to better purpose than they themselves could do.” Hawthorne, obviously, was too sympathetic. Theodore Roosevelt said that Pierce was “a small politician, of low capacity and mean surroundings, proud to act like a servile tool of men worse than himself but also stronger and abler.” That might be too harsh. Pierce’s obituary in the Times in 1869 may have put it best: “His place will not be missed by those actively engaged in political affairs, and although his record as a statesman cannot command the approbation of the nation, he still should be followed to the grave with that respect which is due to one who has filled the highest office in the gift of the people — a President of the United States.”
Franklin Pierce was a complex figure, consumed by ambition and crippled by personal obstacles, who was overmatched by the times that he was destined to preside over. His story, however, is fascinating and has slipped through the cracks of a history featuring giant personalities that were bigger than he could ever measure up against. Presidents come and go. They are good and bad, effective and incompetent, legends and failures. What’s important to remember, though, is that each of them was a person — an individual with triumphs and tragedies and real feelings that, in the case of Pierce, are almost unfathomable to us, especially in conjunction with the awesome responsibilities that come along with the position that they hold. Franklin Pierce is one of the most obscure Presidents in American History, but he held the same office as George Washington and is a member of the most exclusive fraternity in the history of the world. It’s sometimes difficult to remember that these guys are people — individuals just like you and I — and then you learn about obscure Franklin Pierce and you pull the thread and see all of the stories that are a part of him. And I don’t know about you, but that’s when I am most amazed by the power of history and the magnificence of the people who make history.
On July 6, 1826, the people of Charlottesville, Virginia braved stormy conditions and pushed through the rain as they marched along a muddy road leading to the top of a hill on the outskirts of town. At the top of the hill was Thomas Jefferson’s beloved estate, Monticello – a home which had been a work-in-progress since Jefferson began designing and building it nearly 60 years earlier.
It had been two days since the Fourth of July – the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration Aof Independence. Throughout the nation, celebrations had been underway to commemorate that special day. On that very day, two of the men who had not only signed that Declaration but largely drafted it were breathing their last breaths, surrounded by family and friends. In Quincy, Massachusetts, 90-year-old John Adams, the 1st Vice President and 2nd President, drifted in-and-out of consciousness. Before he died at about 6:00 PM, Adams muttered his last words – which was more of an exclamation: “Thomas Jefferson still survives!”
Unbeknownst to Adams, Thomas Jefferson did not still survive. Right around the time that Adams spoke his last words, Jefferson had died in his bed at Monticello at the age of 83. Two of the giants of the Revolution, the 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents and the 2nd and 3rd Presidents, not only died on the same exact day, but that day happened to be the 50th anniversary of their greatest triumph. No matter how many times that fact is written or referenced, it will always remain amazing.
Now, two days later, the people of Virginia prepared to bury their legendary neighbor. The burial service at Jefferson’s graveside was not as simple as the former President had indicated he wanted. The residents of Charlottesville planned for a large procession of townspeople to head to Monticello and pay their respects to Thomas Jefferson. However, rain disrupted those plans and after some delays, a much smaller group grew tired of waiting for the rest of the honor guard and set off for Monticello on their own. The burial service was quick and when the first delegation from Charlottesville headed back down the mountain to their homes , they ran into the second delegation of Charlottesville residents – more than 1,500 of Jefferson’s neighbors, friends, and distant family who were extraordinarily disappointed that they had missed out on the ceremony to bury the former President.
Through it all, a young man lingered at Jefferson’s grave. Just 17 years old, he hovered around the burial site before the ceremony, listened attentively as the Episcopalian minister conducted Jefferson’s graveside service in a driving rain, and continued watching as the competing delegations from Charlottesville came, argued with one another and disappeared, and, finally, looked on intently as Jefferson’s wooden casket was lowered into the ground. To his friends, the boy was strange – even macabre at times – with a morbid sense of humor and what seemed like an unusual and unhealthy obsession with death.
Yet, even if he was unusual, his friends enjoyed his company. The young man had a tendency to make up funny poems on the spot. Often, they were satirical or even ghoulish and morbid. But on July 6, 1826, the 17-year-old boy who was watching the burial of Thomas Jefferson’s body at the family cemetery at Monticello wasn’t laughing, cracking jokes, or making up poetry. The mood was too solemn, so instead, he lingered around like some sort of haunting presence – the type of haunting presence that he would write about in the years to come.
The 17-year-old witness to Thomas Jefferson’s burial just happened to be a student at the educational institution that Jefferson proudly helped establish. Unfortunately, after one semester, the boy was out of money and about to drop out of the University of Virginia. After he left Virginia, he turned to following through on those poems he used to recite.
That haunting young man who watched the slaves/gravediggers bury Thomas Jefferson’s body at Monticello two days after the 50th anniversary of Independence Day was Edgar Allan Poe.
