Lorraine Motel, night of April 4, 1968: #Groskinsky
Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where MLK was assassinated, was named in 1945 for “Sweet Lorraine,” popularized by Nat King Cole, who stayed there, as did other Black stars such as Sarah Vaughn, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong:
Dr. King's still-open briefcase, photographed in his room at Lorraine Motel, Memphis, just after his assassination, tomorrow night 1968: #Groskinsky
Both looking alert in the Oval Office, Harry Truman and his Vice President, Alben Barkley: #AP
Reelected to the Senate as a junior member after his Vice Presidency, Barkley told a Washington and Lee audience in 1956, "I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty.” Then he collapsed and died of a heart attack.
Audio of ex-Vice President Alban Barkley’s last words and death, 1956:
Bed like this, designed by Max Ernst, was donated by VP Nelson Rockefeller for main bedroom of Vice President’s Residence (although he refused to live there) at Naval Observatory in Washington DC — had seven-foot mink coverlet, tinted mirrors, trap doors:
Trap doors in Nelson Rockefeller’s Max Ernst bed for Vice President’s official bedroom were used for lamps, stereo controls, telephones. Or so Rockefeller claimed.
Nelson Rockefeller ordered that mirrors on the Max Ernst bed he purchased for Vice President’s bedroom be painted over in order not to offend some voters. Rockefeller insisted that he had haggled over price of the bed for weeks before buying it.
James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) wrote about the notion of transforming leadership. A transforming President seeks not only to make deals and solve problems but bring enduring changes to the political system for the better.
With the subject’s cooperation, James MacGregor Burns also published the first book-length biography of JFK, in 1960 (shown here with Kennedy in Palm Beach after his victory over Nixon): #Burns
Jacqueline Kennedy wrote a long letter to Jim Burns in November 1959 to complain that his biography of JFK (then pre-publication) did not take him seriously enough:
Politico reports that ex-President will soon be taking many meetings at home with authors writing books on him:
Citizen Kane’s biographer interviewed some of Kane’s ex-friends, including this one, who was by then confined to a psychiatric hospital:
Interview by Citizen Kane’s biographer with Kane’s ex-wife, whom Kane had cut off financially. By then almost penniless, the ex-wife was trying to support herself by performing in a seedy nightclub: