Monday, December 26, 2011

JFK Intel

Hope everyone had a great holiday. I took a little break for family events. Back now and ready to ring in 2012. In the meantime, some interesting information that I was not fully aware of, and I thought you might not be either.

Both during the campaign and his presidency Jack Kennedy was a walking pharmaceutical crash dummy. Recent biographer, Robert Dallek--An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (2003)--reports that "JFK was routinely injected with drug cocktails that included painkillers, amphetamines, steroids, cortisone, procaine, testosterone, codeine, and Ritalin." (Quote from Andrew J Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War [2005], 294 n.4). More from this great book tomorrow.

(I'll betcha J. Edgar Hoover's file on JFK was 6 inches thick. JFK was randy as a goat and three times as active, as is well known.)

2 comments:

Kevin said...

JFK's regular injections as well as Jackie's from the same doctor, who visited them at the White House, was dramatized in the mini-series The Kennedys. That's where I first heard about it.

Unknown said...

I knew he was medicated--didn't know about Jackie--but not to the extent he was.