Читать книгу CHINA BOYS: How U.S. Relations With the PRC Began and Grew. A Personal Memoir - Nicholas MD Platt - Страница 15

Vivid glimpses of Washington’s glitterati enlivened the plain daily grind of language learning. The advent of the Kennedy administration brought columnist Joe Alsop to the height of his influence. A World War II veteran of a Japanese internment camp in Hong Kong and service in Chungking with Flying Tiger General Chennault, Joe had strong opinions about China. He also believed he had influenced my decision to study the language and kept in close touch when we returned to the capital.

One summer morning, he telephoned to say that he was organizing a dinner for “the Young Man.” Would we join him, bring the guitar, and provide the entertainment? Sheila took the call sitting on the staircase with Windsor-born two-year-old Oliver behind her, a bottle of shampoo in his hand, poised over her head. As she struggled to guess which “young man” Joe had in mind, Oliver began to pour. Quelling him, she realized Alsop was talking about the President of the United States. The idea of singing for John F. Kennedy terrified us both (by now duets with Sheila were our best numbers), but we accepted immediately.

Georgetown was bathed in a lovely summer evening light as we approached Alsop’s house on Dumbarton Avenue, guitar case in hand, shadowed along the street by discreet well-dressed men with hearing aids. They closed in as we moved to enter the house and thoroughly inspected the guitar in the decorous Secret Service manner. Once inside, we found Joe’s closest friends, people like the British ambassador, Phil and Katharine Graham of the Washington Post, the Chip Bohlens, all straining to create a natural atmosphere for the “Young Man,” who was relaxed and cordial. Jacqueline Kennedy was in Newport, so the gorgeous Mary Meyer (later tragically murdered while jogging on the Georgetown Canal) kept the president company on this occasion. As normal for Washington parties, the talk covered all the issues of the day, particularly Medicare, which had that day failed to pass in Congress. At Joe’s after dinner roundtable, the president voiced his disappointment in no uncertain terms. Phil Graham kindly asked me if I had anything I wanted to say, in which case he would arrange for me to get a word in edgewise. I demurred, having no view on the topic.

Later in the garden, Sheila and I sang “St. James Infirmary,” “I’ll Fly Away,” and “John Henry.” The president listened politely. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, arriving late from a trip to Michigan, chinned himself in a nearby tree.