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WORK TITLE: Dinner in Camelot
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.josephaesposito.com/
CITY:
STATE: VA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
Served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Pennsylvania State University, B.A., M.A.; George Mason University, M.A.; Georgetown University, M.A.L.S.; University of Pennsylvania, M.G.A.; University of Virginia, M.Ed.; also studied at Fordham University, Harvard University, Duke University, and American University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Historian, writer and educator. Senate of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA, communications specialist, 1973-76, senior research analyst, 1976-79; George Bush for President campaign, director of press and research for PA and NJ, 1979-80; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC, special assistant, 1981-82; USAID, Washington, DC, narcotics affairs coordinator, special assistant, 1982-93; freelance writer, 1997-2002; U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC, senior advisor to the deputy secretary, 2002-03, deputy under secretary for international affairs, 2003-05; Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, Washington, DC, working group chair, 2003-04; Northern Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, adjunct faculty, 2005-10; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, adjunct faculty, 2008-09; ; Cardinal Newman Society, director of research, 2007-09, Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education founding director, 2008-09; Virginia Community College, Annandale, VA, adjunct associate professor of history, 2009–. Has also worked as a book reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books and Kirkus Reviews.
MEMBER:Biographers International Organization, American Numismatic Association, Virginia Numismatic Association, Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Medical Collectors of America, Colonial Coin Collectors Club, Conder Token Collector’s Club, Early American Coppers, Token and Medal Society.
AWARDS:Ellis Island Medal of Honor, National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, 2002, for outstanding citizenship, individual achievement, and encouragement of cultural unity.
WRITINGS
Editor and principal writer for the first edition of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College.
SIDELIGHTS
Joseph A. Esposito is a historian, writer and educator. He has worked in the fields of public service, communications, nonprofit work, and education throughout his life. Esposito earned master’s degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia. He has worked for three presidential administrations, including as deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education and as a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. He serves as a book reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books and Kirkus Reviews. Since 2009 he has worked as an adjunct associate professor of history at Northern Virginia Community College.
Esposito published Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House in 2018. The account looks into a dinner hosted by President John F. Kennedy and his wife on April 29, 1962, where many of the era’s greatest minds were brought together. Esposito highlights the combination of intellectual culture and research of the 1960s as it was presented at the highest levels in Washington in an era when the president and his family were looked up to. The book offers snapshots into various conversations, gossip, tensions, and initial encounters of many of the notable individuals at this dinner.
In a guest post on the Pauling Blog, Esposito discussed the aura around the Kennedy White House. He recorded: “Much has been made about Camelot, a focus that will surely intensify during the upcoming centennial of John F. Kennedy’s birth. And while images of the 1,036-day presidency of the young leader will forever be intertwined with his untimely, tragic death, it is also clear that Kennedy could uplift the nation through soaring words, measured action, and the ability to bring together people who sought only America’s best interests. A partisan when necessary, he also understood civility and the value of respectful dialogue.”
Writing in Washington Post Book World, Thomas Oliphant found it to be “a delightful, detailed account of the dinner” that Kennedy himself described as having “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Oliphant remarked that “Esposito brings a solid blend of intellectual and writing background to his task. He has taught history, written it and lived it in three administrations. The book is a largely skillful mix of diligently researched detail and chatty anecdotes, all woven together without excessively florid Camelot rhetoric. Readers with equally rich backgrounds can probably skip the frequent digressions (histories of White House rooms, for example), but we generalists appreciate the added information.” In speaking about the guests at the celebrated dinner, Larry Matthews said in a review of the book in the Washington Independent Review of Books that “Esposito goes into detail about most of them. He also goes into detail about the White House, sometimes painstakingly…. But Dinner in Camelot is impressive in its description of a time when Americans admired their first family, who embodied grace and intelligence.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews mentioned that “ultimately, Esposito presents a book that makes us wonder what the world could have been.” The same reviewer called Dinner in Camelot “an exciting glimpse into a long-gone era of politics and cultural activity.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2018, review of Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House.
PR Newswire, March 27, 2002, “Medal of Honor Awarded to Joseph A. Esposito, President and CEO Of eResearchTechnology, Inc. for Outstanding Citizenship, Individual Achievement, and Encouragement of Cultural Unity.”
Washington Post Book World, May 25, 2018, Thomas Oliphant, review of Dinner in Camelot.
ONLINE
Authors Guild website, https://www.authorsguild.net/ (July 10, 2018), author profile.
Joseph A. Esposito website, https://www.josephaesposito.com (July 10, 2018).
Northern Virginia Community College website, https://www.nvcc.edu/ (July 10, 2018), author profile.
Pauling Blog, https://paulingblog.wordpress.com/ (April 26, 2017), Joseph A. Esposito, “Dinner in Camelot: What an Evening 55 Years Ago Tells Us Today.”
Washington Independent Review of Books, http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/ (April 5, 2018), Larry Matthews, review of Dinner in Camelot.
Dinner in Camelot: What an Evening 55 Years Ago Tells us Today
Posted on April 26, 2017 by scarc
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Science News Letter, May 12, 1962
[Ed Note: Today we are pleased to publish this guest post authored by Joseph A. Esposito, who served in three presidential administrations. His book on the Nobel Prize dinner will be published in 2018 by Fore Edge, an imprint of the University Press of New England.]
As the nation grapples with polarization and rancor, it is instructive to look at the state of discourse a half century ago. Perhaps there is no better prism to do so than the dinner that President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy hosted for Nobel Prize winners and other American intellectuals fifty-five years ago, on April 29, 1962.
Coming at the mid-point of the Kennedy presidency, this dinner honored forty-nine Nobel laureates and spoke to the accomplishments of America while at the height of its power during the Cold War era. In the background, foreign and domestic challenges faced the country as the rivalry with the Soviet Union was intense and growing; race relations were frayed and becoming increasingly violent; and a number of important social issues were just emerging.
But there was optimism. Certainly this dinner celebrated American achievement and a belief that the United States could tackle and surmount any problem. And surely part of that feeling was due to the leadership exhibited by the president. Kennedy, whatever his flaws, was a charismatic figure who used words to inspire while understanding the need to be conciliatory and pragmatic in dealing with public issues.
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Pasadena (California) Star-News, April 29, 1962
Prior to the dinner, Linus Pauling, the 1954 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, had been picketing the White House for the previous two days because of stalled nuclear test ban talks with the Soviet Union and the announcement that the United States would resume its own testing following a four-year halt. After picketing on the Sunday that the event was to be held, Pauling and his activist wife, Ava Helen, changed for dinner and headed to the White House.
In the receiving line, Kennedy greeted Pauling cordially, commending him for expressing his views. Pauling was ambivalent about Kennedy, but enjoyed himself that evening, even leading the dancing.
As the dinner was being held, the Tony Awards were also being presented in New York. The award for drama went to the play “A Man for All Seasons,” which is about Thomas More, who placed principle over loyalty to his government; Paul Schofield was honored with a Tony for his role as the lead character. Linus Pauling might have smiled about the coincidence. Pauling subsequently received a second Nobel Prize for Peace, the culmination of years’ worth of social activism such as he had exhibited that day. A nuclear test ban agreement was signed in 1963.
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Time, May 11, 1962.
James Baldwin was another guest at the White House dinner. Baldwin, then thirty-seven years old, had already written several books, including Notes of a Native Son. He would interact with Robert Kennedy at the Nobel event, and this conversation would have important implications for the civil rights movement. One year later, Baldwin and Robert Kennedy met with African American leaders in New York. The meeting was acrimonious, but it proved educational for the attorney general. Eighteen days later, President Kennedy delivered his famous civil rights speech in which he envisioned the future Civil Rights Act. As it turned out, his brother was alone among his advisors in supporting this televised address.
Also present at the White House gathering was J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had run afoul of McCarthyism and had his security clearance revoked by the Eisenhower administration. Having spent the past eight years in political purgatory, Oppenheimer was invited by Kennedy to the gala dinner. The President understood the value of reconciliation and redemption; the following year, Kennedy selected the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” for the prestigious Fermi Award.
Indeed, the dinner brought together some of the nation’s greatest minds. Among the collection of writers present were Robert Frost, Pearl Buck, John Dos Passos, William Styron, and Katherine Anne Porter, whose A Ship of Fools became the number one bestseller that day. The scientists in the room included Glenn Seaborg, responsible for the discovery of ten elements; several others associated with the Manhattan Project; and a veritable who’s who of American physicists, chemists, biologists and medical researchers. Astronaut John Glenn, the hero of the hour who had recently orbited the Earth, was also there.
bio6.008.264b
Much has been made about Camelot, a focus that will surely intensify during the upcoming centennial of John F. Kennedy’s birth. And while images of the 1,036-day presidency of the young leader will forever be intertwined with his untimely, tragic death, it is also clear that Kennedy could uplift the nation through soaring words, measured action, and the ability to bring together people who sought only America’s best interests. A partisan when necessary, he also understood civility and the value of respectful dialogue.
So too was Linus Pauling a man who respected principal and the exchange of ideas. While he appreciated that special evening in 1962 and had been hopeful of the young president’s potential, he was not reluctant to speak out about the great issues of the day. Above all, Linus Pauling was a distinguished scientist and a committed activist for peace. He was truly “a man for all seasons.” We can learn much from him as well.
Joseph A. Esposito is a historian, writer and educator. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He also held various positions over eleven years at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. He has taught history at three colleges, and is currently an adjunct associate professor at Northern Virginia Community College. His book, Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House (ForeEdge), will be published in April 2018.
Joseph A. Esposito is an educator, historian, and writer. He has taught at several universities, and is currently an adjunct associate professor of history at Northern Virginia Community College. Esposito served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He also held various positions over 11 years at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which submitted its report to President George W. Bush in 2004. He is working on a book, Dinner in Camelot, about the evening that President and Mrs. Kennedy hosted for Nobel Prize winners and other American intellectuals in April 1962. Among those present were Linus Pauling, J. Robert Oppenheimer, James Baldwin, Pearl Buck, William Styron, Robert Frost, John Dos Passos, Mary Welsh Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, and John Glenn. It is to be published by the University Press of New England. Esposito received his undergraduate degree in history, Phi Beta Kappa, from the Pennsylvania State University, and has master’s degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia. He is a member of Biographers International Organization (BIO).
Joseph A. Esposito
Joseph A. Esposito
Writer, Historian and Educator
Springfield, Virginia
Writing and Editing
Current
Independent Writer, Northern Virginia Community College
Previous
American Public University System, Regent University, University of Virginia
Education
University of Virginia
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Dinner in Camelot
May 28, 2018
Iam delighted with the review of my new book, Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House, in yesterday’s print edition of the...
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April 30, 2017
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April 6, 2017
Today is the one hundredth anniversary of Congress finally declaring war against Germany. Here is a photo of the House members of the 65th Congress, theWar Congress, which hangs above my desk....
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Summary
Joseph A. Esposito has had a long career in the fields of public service, education, writing and communications, and nonprofit work. He served in three presidential administrations, the most recent being Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. His focus is now primarily on writing.
Experience
Independent Writer;
Independent Writer
February 2015 – Present (3 years 5 months)
My book, "Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House," was published on April 3, 2018 by ForeEdge, an imprint of the University Press of New England.
Reviewer, Washington Independent Review of Books.
Northern Virginia Community College
Faculty (Current Adjunct Associate Professor)
Northern Virginia Community College
2009 – Present (9 years)
Taught more than 100 classes (online and in-person) on world history and Western civilization.
American Public University System
Faculty
American Public University System
2009 – February 2015 (6 years)
Taught more than 150 classes online, including world history, Asian history, Eastern civilization and research methods in history. Full-time faculty member from January 2010 to February 2015. Designed new course on the history of China.
Regent University
Adjunct Faculty
Regent University
2005 – 2010 (5 years)
Taught 31 classes on Western civilization and United States history.
University of Virginia
Adjunct Faculty
University of Virginia
2008 – 2009 (1 year)Northern Virginia Center
Taught three classes on charter schools and homeschooling in the graduate program in social foundations of education.
Founding Director, The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education
Cardinal Newman Society
2008 – 2009 (1 year)
Editor and principal writer, first edition of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College.
Cardinal Newman Society
Director of Research
Cardinal Newman Society
2007 – 2009 (2 years)
U.S. Department of Education
Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs
U.S. Department of Education
2003 – 2005 (2 years)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Led U.S. Department of Education's role in international education. Advisor to secretary of education on international education issues. Actively involved with federal agencies on many aspects of international education. Had major responsibility for the preparatory work in the United States' return to UNESCO in 2003. Worked with various education ministries at the highest levels in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Initiated bilateral agreement with Ireland and managed bilateral project with China. Worked on APEC issues in Washington, D.C., China and Chile. Secretary's representative to the Vietnam Education Foundation. Advisory board member, Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA). Launched International Briefing Series. Managed 13-person staff.
Working Group Chair
Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba
2003 – 2004 (1 year)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Coordinated ten agencies' work on issues related to education, health, nutrition, social services and short-term humanitarian aid in a post-Castro era. Delivered report to President Bush in 2004.
U.S. Department of Education
Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
2002 – 2003 (1 year)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Worked on a variety of issues, including financial literacy, rural education, migrant education and insular affairs.
Professional Writer
Freelance Writer
1997 – 2002 (5 years)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Positions included Washington Bureau Chief, National Catholic Register and Senior Correspondent, Our Sunday Visitor; other freelance work, including the preparation of two book manuscripts. Wrote on a wide variety of issues, including international religious freedom, human trafficking and capital punishment.
USAID
Narcotics Affairs Coordinator, Special Assistant
USAID
1982 – 1993 (11 years)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Agency-wide Narcotics Affairs Coordinator; Special Assistant, Asia Bureau; Special Assistant, Asia and Near East Bureau; Special Assistant, Bureau of Policy and Program Coordination. Traveled extensively in Asia.
HUD
Special Assistant
HUD
1981 – 1982 (1 year)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Special assistant and acting deputy assistant secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research. Coordinated 1982 National Urban Policy Report.
Director of Press and Research (Pa. and N.J.)
George Bush for President
1979 – 1980 (1 year)
Full-time staff member working in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Senior Research Analyst
Senate of Pennsylvania
1976 – 1979 (3 years)Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Area
Aide to Senate minority whip. Assistant to Local Government Commission (issues included education and transportation).
Communications Specialist
Senate of Pennsylvania
1973 – 1976 (3 years)Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Area
Staff writer.
Education
University of Virginia
University of Virginia
Master of Education (MEd), Social Foundations of Education
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
Master of Governmental Administration (M.G.A.)
American University
American University
A.B.D., History
Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (M.A.L.S.), Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities
George Mason University
George Mason University
Master of Arts (MA), History
Penn State University
Penn State University
Master of Arts (MA), Journalism
Penn State University
Penn State University
Bachelor of Arts (BA), History
With High Distinction, Honors in History
Activities and Societies: Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Alpha Theta, Alpha Phi Omega (President)
Skills
Higher EducationInternational RelationsAdult EducationTeachingPublic PolicyE-LearningJournalismPublic RelationsDistance LearningInternational EducationSpeech WritingBloggingNews WritingHistoryNonfiction Writing
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Great•Has errors
Courses
Independent Coursework
Certificate, The Fordham Center for Nonprofit Leaders (Fordham University)
Certified Professional Coach Certificate (Ctr. for Coaching Cert.)
Charter Schools: Chartering a Course for the Next Decade (Harvard GSE)
Duke Certificate in Nonprofit Education (Duke University)
St. John's College Executive Seminar (Leadership) (2014-2015)
Virginia MasterTeacher Seminar
What the Best Teachers Do Summer Institute
Yale Writers' Conference (Biography) (2013, 2014, 2015)
Organizations
American Numismatic Assn., Virginia Numismatic Assn., Numismatic Bibliomania Society, Medical Collectors of America, Colonial Coin Collectors Club, Conder Token Collector's Club, Early American Coppers, and Token and Medal Soc.
Biographers International Organization
Mensa
National Book Critics Circle
Joseph A. Esposito is a historian, writer and educator. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He also held various positions over 11 years at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which submitted its report to President George W. Bush in 2004. He also has taught history at three colleges, and is currently adjunct associate professor at Northern Virginia Community College.
Esposito received his undergraduate degree in history, Phi Beta Kappa, from the Pennsylvania State University, and has master’s degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia. He also did doctoral work at American University.
He is a book reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books and Kirkus Reviews. He is a member of Biographers International Organization and the National Book Critics Circle.
Esposito is married and has two sons and lives in Virginia.
JOSEPH A. ESPOSITO has had a long career in the fields of public service, education, communications, and nonprofit work. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He is currently an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College.
Joseph Esposito
Adjunct Instructor
Communication/Human St.
Contact Information
Northern Virginia Community College
Esposito, Joseph A.: DINNER IN CAMELOT
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Esposito, Joseph A. DINNER IN CAMELOT ForeEdge/Univ. Press of New England (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 4, 3 ISBN: 978-1-5126-0012-4
A look at a night that fused politics, art, science, and socialites in the White House.
On April 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, hosted a dinner that would be remembered as a rare occurrence when many of the era's great minds were together at the White House. In this historical account, Esposito, who has served in three presidential administrations, unpacks the many conversations, first encounters, and moments of tension, and he explains the high stakes of the event. Starting with a brief description of the political climate at the time, the author explains that the book is intended to be a "snapshot" of "some of the most impressive qualities of this nation: research and thinking at the highest levels, often accomplished by people fleeing from tyranny and turmoil in other countries." Looking back on a time when those in power capitalized on the possibilities and impact of the intellect only agitates our disbelief for today's state of affairs, but Esposito's work is a fascinating entry point to the cultural and academic environments of the 1960s. The list of luminaries is impressive: writers James Baldwin, Robert Frost, Katherine Anne Porter, William Styron, and Pearl S. Buck; scientists Linus Pauling and Glenn T. Seaborg; "peacemakers" Ralph Bunche and Lester Pearson; and others, including Mary Welsh Hemingway. Esposito tells engaging stories of conversations that the president had with Hemingway and the clashing opinions gathered around a table at a time of political upheaval. Ultimately, Esposito presents a book that makes us wonder what the world could have been and that allows us to dream, at least for 200 pages. "Alfred Nobel could not have imagined many of the achievements of the men and women chosen for his awards," writes the author, "but he certainly would have been impressed by the gathering that President Kennedy assembled on a warm spring night in April 1962."
An exciting glimpse into a long-gone era of politics and cultural activity.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Esposito, Joseph A.: DINNER IN CAMELOT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461532/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0f74b1b9. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461532
When Nobel winners dined with Kennedy
Thomas Oliphant
The Washington Post. (May 25, 2018): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Thomas Oliphant
"Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House"
By Joseph A. Esposito
ForeEdge. 230 pp. $29.95
- - -
The credit for arguably the best idea ever for a White House event goes to the fertile brain of Richard Goodwin. In a note to Jacqueline Kennedy in November 1961, the president's aide was to the point: "How about a dinner for the American winners of the Nobel Prize?"
Within six months, the largest social event of the New Frontier had occurred. By contemporary accounts, it was a smash. And it has resonated through the decades as a symbol of what that "one brief, shining moment" was capable of on its best days, and of the impact a White House can have on American culture and the creative minds who inhabit it. Comparisons to the disgusting atmosphere of the present are obvious.
John Kennedy was pleased, but not entirely. According to his and his wife's friend, the artist William Walton, the president called him later to complain about the woman who had been seated on his right, Ernest Hemingway's fourth wife and widow for a year, Mary, who gave him repeated guff for his Cuba policy; Kennedy was more impressed by the dignified woman on his left, Katherine Marshall, the widow of George C. Marshall, the World War II commander and architect of the postwar reconstruction plan that bore his name.
"Well, your friend Mary Hemingway is the biggest bore I'd had for a long time," Walton quoted JFK as saying. "If I hadn't had Mrs. Marshall I would have had a terrible night."
Walton couldn't say much in reply: Mary Hemingway was right next to him in his Georgetown home when the call came.
According to author Joseph A. Esposito - whose "Dinner in Camelot" is a delightful, detailed account of the dinner, its background, its repercussions and its lasting meaning - the 127 seated guests (at 19 tables, 14 in the State Dining Room and five more in the Blue Room, where Mrs. Kennedy was located) included 49 Nobel laureates and spouses. The vast majority had toiled in the hard sciences; for the April 29, 1962, affair, the list expanded to include a sprinkling of Latin American luminaries and one Canadian, Lester Pearson. He was on his way to becoming prime minister after getting a Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his efforts as foreign minister to end the fighting over the Suez Canal. It also included several bright lights in the emerging field of American letters. Of the five U.S. winners of the literature prize, three were dead (Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill and Hemingway); William Faulkner, in his final weeks and under care in Charlottesville, said he thought 100 miles was a bit too far to go for supper; and John Steinbeck, who got his Nobel later that year, pleaded business in Europe. T.S. Eliot, a St. Louis native and eventually a British subject, wasn't invited; but Pearl Buck was there and briefly debated Korea policy with Kennedy before the post-supper program in the East Room.
Relative youth also had its place. Thirty-eight-year-old William Styron (his wife, Rose, wrote the forward to the book) and 37-year-old James Baldwin attended. They were close friends, with much of their creative and activist lives ahead of them. But 43-year-old J.D. Salinger, already a budding recluse, declined without an excuse.
Esposito brings a solid blend of intellectual and writing background to his task. He has taught history, written it and lived it in three administrations. The book is a largely skillful mix of diligently researched detail and chatty anecdotes, all woven together without excessively florid Camelot rhetoric. Readers with equally rich backgrounds can probably skip the frequent digressions (histories of White House rooms, for example), but we generalists appreciate the added information. He calls his work "a paean to what America can be."
Even at the height of the Cold War, the evening was boldly inclusive. It marked the formal reemergence of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physics genius and scientific manager of the Manhattan Project. He had famously lost his security clearance eight years earlier during the McCarthy days - a dark period that a younger Kennedy had done nothing to combat. And two of the guests, along with their wives, had that very afternoon picketed the White House during a demonstration supporting a ban on atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that Kennedy would propose 14 months later: Linus Pauling, whose chemistry Nobel would be supplemented by the Peace Prize later that year; and Clarence Pickett, a veteran leader of the American Friends Service Committee, the Peace Prize recipient in 1947. Preferring wit and grace to posing, the Kennedys knew all about them. Jacqueline Kennedy even asked Pauling in the receiving line, "Do you think that it is right to walk back and forth out there where Caroline can see you so that she asks 'What has Daddy done wrong now?' "
At an affair like this, even the food was notable (the menu was entirely in the first lady's favored second tongue, French, though the main course was an anti-Napoleonic filet de boeuf Wellington). Rene Verdon, the first executive chef at the White House, had been on the job for more than a year and had already drawn favorable notice from no less than Craig Claiborne on the front page of the New York Times. After a long apprenticeship in Paris and time as an assistant chef at the Carlyle Hotel and Essex House in New York, he was secure and well served by his Italian deputy, Julius Spessot. Lest anyone forget, the Kennedy White House was minutely attentive to politics; the applications by the two men for American citizenship were expedited. When Verdon returned to the real world in 1965, The Washington Post editorialized that his departure "truly signals the end of the Kennedy era."
The evening is best known for one of Kennedy's better lines, commencing the after-dinner program: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
The line was not in the draft of his remarks, mostly the work of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. But the copy of it in the book includes familiar Kennedy scribbles with "Jefferson" visible as his prompt.
The evening's performer was the distinguished actor Fredric March, who read then-unpublished material from Hemingway as well as excerpts from George Marshall's plan-unveiling speech at Harvard. White House social secretary Letitia Baldrige noted ahead of time that March was extremely nervous and led him upstairs to lie down for a half-hour. When she informed him where he was, on the huge bed in the Lincoln Bedroom, tears formed in the actor's eyes.
Barely 18 months later, ABC produced a tribute to the president days after his murder that was entirely about his and the first lady's vigorous promotion of American arts and letters. The host was Fredric March.
- - -
Oliphant is co-author, with Curtis Wilkie, of "The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign."
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Oliphant, Thomas. "When Nobel winners dined with Kennedy." Washington Post, 25 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540285185/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=615d41ce. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540285185
Medal of Honor Awarded to Joseph A. Esposito, President and CEO Of eResearchTechnology, Inc. For Outstanding Citizenship, Individual Achievement, and Encouragement Of Cultural Unity
PR Newswire. (Mar. 27, 2002):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2002 PR Newswire Association LLC
http://www.prnewswire.com/
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PHILADELPHIA -- eResearchTechnology, Inc. (eRT), , a leading e-research technology and services provider, today announced that their President and CEO, Joseph A. Esposito has been awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (www.neco.org) for outstanding citizenship, individual achievement, and encouragement of cultural unity.
The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO), Inc. is the largest organization of its kind in the United States. The coalition was formed with the intention of educating and encouraging cultural unity. With that in mind, each year NECO presents the Ellis Island Medals of Honor. Designed to pay homage to the immigrant experience, as well as individual achievement, medals are awarded to U.S. citizens from various ethnic backgrounds. The honorees are remarkable Americans who exemplify outstanding qualities in both their personal and professional lives, while continuing to preserve the richness of their particular heritage.
The Ellis Island Medal of Honor was created in 1986 to honor the many ancestral groups who through struggle, sacrifice and success, helped build this great nation. Four Presidents, several Senators and Congressman and Nobel Prize Winners are among the remarkable group of individuals to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for their outstanding contributions to America. This year, the prestigious Medal has again been presented to outstanding Americans who have distinguished themselves as citizens of the United States.
The Ellis Island Medal of Honor celebrates the richness and diversity of American life. The award honors not only individuals but also the pluralism and democracy that has enabled our ancestry groups to maintain their identities while becoming integral parts of the American way of life. The United States Congress sanctions the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and recipients' names are listed in the Congressional Record.
The Ellis Island Medals of Honor will be presented at the gala event on Ellis Island planned for May 11, 2002.
Based in Philadelphia, PA, eResearchTechnology, Inc. (http://www.ert.com/) is a provider of technology and services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries on a global basis. The Company is a market leader in providing centralized core-diagnostic electrocardiographic (ECG) services to evaluate cardiac safety in clinical development. The Company also offers technology and services designed to streamline the clinical trial process by enabling its customers to automate the collection, analysis, and distribution of clinical data in all phases of clinical development.
Statements included in this release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties such as competitive factors, technological development, market demand, and the Company's ability to obtain new contracts and accurately estimate net revenues due to variability in size, scope and duration of projects, and internal issues in the sponsoring client. Further information on potential factors that could affect the Company's financial results can be found in the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 and in its Reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Contact: Joan Sterlacci of eResearchTechnology, +1-908-704-8010, ext. 134, or Matt Hayden of Hayden Communications, +1-843-272-4653, for eResearchTechnology
Website: http://www.neco.org/
Website: http://www.ert.com/
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Medal of Honor Awarded to Joseph A. Esposito, President and CEO Of eResearchTechnology, Inc. For Outstanding Citizenship, Individual Achievement, and Encouragement Of Cultural Unity." PR Newswire, 27 Mar. 2002. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A84217665/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0c2eba39. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A84217665
When an extraordinary collection of talent gathered at the White House
From left, novelist Pearl Buck, President John F. Kennedy, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and poet Robert Frost exchange greetings before the after-dinner program at the White House on April 29, 1962. (Associated Press)
by Thomas Oliphant May 25
Thomas Oliphant is co-author, with Curtis Wilkie of “The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign.”
The credit for arguably the best idea ever for a White House event goes to the fertile brain of Richard Goodwin. In a note to Jacqueline Kennedy in November 1961, the president’s aide was to the point: “How about a dinner for the American winners of the Nobel Prize?”
Within six months, the largest social event of the New Frontier had occurred. By contemporary accounts, it was a smash. And it has resonated through the decades as a symbol of what that “one brief, shining moment” was capable of on its best days, and of the impact a White House can have on American culture and the creative minds who inhabit it. Comparisons to the disgusting atmosphere of the present are obvious.
John Kennedy was pleased, but not entirely. According to his and his wife’s friend, the artist William Walton, the president called him later to complain about the woman who had been seated on his right, Ernest Hemingway’s fourth wife and widow of a year, Mary, who gave him repeated guff for his Cuba policy; Kennedy was more impressed by the dignified woman on his left, Katherine Marshall, the widow of George C. Marshall, the World War II commander and architect of the postwar reconstruction plan that bore his name.
[Kennedy and King: The remarkable intersection of two great lives]
“Well, your friend Mary Hemingway is the biggest bore I’d had for a long time,” Walton quoted JFK as saying. “If I hadn’t had Mrs. Marshall I would have had a terrible night.”
“Dinner in Camelot,” by Joseph A. Esposito (ForeEdge)
Walton couldn’t say much in reply: Mary Hemingway was right next to him in his Georgetown home when the call came.
According to author Joseph A. Esposito — whose “Dinner in Camelot” is a delightful, detailed account of the dinner, its background, its repercussions and its lasting meaning — the 127 seated guests (at 19 tables, 14 in the State Dining Room and five more in the Blue Room, where Mrs. Kennedy was located) included 49 Nobel laureates and spouses. The vast majority had toiled in the hard sciences; for the April 29, 1962, affair, the list expanded to include a sprinkling of Latin American luminaries and one Canadian, Lester Pearson. He was on his way to becoming prime minister after getting a Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his efforts as foreign minister to end the fighting over the Suez Canal. It also included several bright lights in the emerging field of American letters. Of the five U.S. winners of the literature prize, three were dead (Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill and Hemingway); William Faulkner, in his final weeks and under care in Charlottesville, said he thought 100 miles was a bit too far to go for supper; and John Steinbeck, who got his Nobel later that year, pleaded business in Europe. T.S. Eliot, a St. Louis native and eventually a British subject, wasn’t invited; but Pearl Buck was there and briefly debated Korea policy with Kennedy before the post-supper program in the East Room.
Relative youth also had its place. Thirty-eight-year-old William Styron (his wife, Rose, wrote the forward to the book) and 37-year-old James Baldwin attended. They were close friends, with much of their creative and activist lives ahead of them. But 43-year-old J.D. Salinger, already a budding recluse, declined without an excuse.
Esposito brings a solid blend of intellectual and writing background to his task. He has taught history, written it and lived it in three administrations. The book is a largely skillful mix of diligently researched detail and chatty anecdotes, all woven together without excessively florid Camelot rhetoric. Readers with equally rich backgrounds can probably skip the frequent digressions (histories of White House rooms, for example), but we generalists appreciate the added information. He calls his work “a paean to what America can be.”
Even at the height of the Cold War, the evening was boldly inclusive. It marked the formal reemergence of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physics genius and scientific manager of the Manhattan Project. He had famously lost his security clearance eight years earlier during the McCarthy days — a dark period that a younger Kennedy had done nothing to combat. And two of the guests, along with their wives, had that very afternoon picketed the White House during a demonstration supporting a ban on atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that Kennedy would propose 14 months later: Linus Pauling, whose chemistry Nobel would be supplemented by the Peace Prize later that year; and Clarence Pickett, a veteran leader of the American Friends Service Committee, the Peace Prize recipient in 1947. Preferring wit and grace to posing, the Kennedys knew all about them. Jacqueline Kennedy even asked Pauling in the receiving line, “Do you think that it is right to walk back and forth out there where Caroline can see you so that she asks ‘What has Daddy done wrong now?’ ”
At an affair like this, even the food was notable (the menu was entirely in the first lady’s favored second tongue, French, though the main course was an anti-Napoleonic filet de boeuf Wellington). Rene Verdon, the first executive chef at the White House, had been on the job for more than a year and had already drawn favorable notice from no less than Craig Claiborne on the front page of the New York Times. After a long apprenticeship in Paris and time as an assistant chef at the Carlyle Hotel and Essex House in New York, he was secure and well served by his Italian deputy, Julius Spessot. Lest anyone forget, the Kennedy White House was minutely attentive to politics; the applications by the two men for American citizenship were expedited. When Verdon returned to the real world in 1965, The Washington Post editorialized that his departure “truly signals the end of the Kennedy era.”
[Book review: ‘The Kennedy Half-Century’ by Larry J. Sabato]
The evening is best known for one of Kennedy’s better lines, commencing the after-dinner program: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
The line was not in the draft of his remarks, mostly the work of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. But the copy of it in the book includes familiar Kennedy scribbles with “Jefferson” visible as his prompt.
The evening’s performer was the distinguished actor Fredric March, who read then-unpublished material from Hemingway as well as excerpts from George Marshall’s plan-unveiling speech at Harvard. White House social secretary Letitia Baldrige noted ahead of time that March was extremely nervous and led him upstairs to lie down for a half-hour. When she informed him where he was, on the huge bed in the Lincoln Bedroom, tears formed in the actor’s eyes.
Barely 18 months later, ABC produced a tribute to the president days after his murder that was entirely about his and the first lady’s vigorous promotion of American arts and letters. The host was Fredric March.
Dinner in Camelot
The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House
By Joseph A. Esposito
ForeEdge. 230 pp. $29.95
Book Review in Non-Fiction, History, United States
Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House
By Joseph A. Esposito ForeEdge 252 pp.
Reviewed by Larry Matthews
April 5, 2018
A detail-rich account of the evening the country's best and brightest dined with JFK.
I imagine that most of us have, at one time or another, played the “what if” game. What if you could invite anyone in the world to dinner? Who would it be? Rock stars? Writers? The Kardashians?
Now suppose you are president of the United States and you’re married to a beautiful, cultured woman who has just redecorated the White House in an elegant, much-praised style. You admire and are friendly with the world’s smartest people.
If you’re of a certain age, you probably know where I’m going with this.
The “dinner of the century” was held on April 29, 1962. It was hosted by President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline. There’s been nothing like it since. It was not a small, intimate gathering. There were 175 guests, 49 of them Nobel Laureates, including one who had joined picketers outside the White House that afternoon to protest Kennedy’s nuclear-arms policies.
There were writers, including James Baldwin, Pearl S. Buck, John Dos Passos, Robert Frost — the leading American poet at the time — and Katherine Anne Porter, who’s Ship of Fools had made the New York Times bestseller list that very day.
Joseph Esposito’s Dinner in Camelot is a thin book thick with details about the dinner, the Kennedys, the guests, and the period that came to be known as “Camelot.” (Kennedy and Jackie were fond of a Broadway musical by that name that was popular in the early 60s.)
There’s a bit of gossip in the book. We learn that Robert Oppenheimer, “Father of the Atomic Bomb,” and Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling were once good friends at Cal Tech until Oppenheimer made a clumsy pass at Pauling’s wife. Nevertheless, they both attended the dinner.
J.D. Salinger was invited but declined, something that was not unusual for him. William Faulkner, dying in Charlottesville, thought the trip to Washington was too far. Others decided that no journey was too great for such an honor and came from great distances and even other continents.
Esposito goes into detail about most of them. He also goes into detail about the White House, sometimes painstakingly. The chandeliers. The china. The windows. The paint. I found myself wondering, “Who cares about this stuff?” Maybe history buffs who want every tidbit?
But Dinner in Camelot is impressive in its description of a time when Americans admired their first family, who embodied grace and intelligence. Esposito tells us about the dinner guests and how they came to be at the fashionable tables, but he also gives us a peek into the politics of the early 1960s, when Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy circled each other like rival wolves seeking to rule the pack.
We get a glimpse of the racial tensions that were about to explode across the nation. Of the 175 guests, only three were black, including Baldwin, whose books offered a window onto the burdens of African Americans.
But for one night, in the supernova that was the Kennedy administration, it was magic. It was Camelot. The president, in welcoming his guests that evening, issued what is arguably the most-quoted line in the history of White House dinners.
Gazing out at this unrivaled assemblage of the best and brightest, he said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”