Volume 1, Number 9 · December 26, 1963
The Fate of the Union: Kennedy and After
By Richard H. Rovere
I was not one of the Washington journalists who knew him well and saw him often. Before his nomination, I knew him scarcely at all. The first time I sat down alone with him was only a few days before his election. He had had a wild day campaigning in and around Philadelphia. He had shaken so many hands that his own right one looked like raw beef. One woman, running alongside his car, had held on to avoid losing her balance and perhaps being run over. There was a chance that he had dislocated a shoulder. It hurt badly. Around midnight, I joined him at supper in his cabin on the Caroline. After getting me settled, he said, 'What do you know about Taper?' I couldn't imagine what he meant. I had to ask him. 'Taper,' he said, 'you know, the one who writes that column in the Spectator.' I was at the time a correspondent for the London Spectator, and Taper was a pseudonym used by Bernard Levin, a political writer for that magazine, who has since become theater critic for the London Daily Mail. I told him what I knew, which wasn't very much; Kennedy said he admired Levin and would enjoy meeting him.
Feature, 641 words
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