Witness

By Hugh Sidey

John Glenn was floating back down to Earth after becoming the first astronaut to orbit the planet. Along with the other White House correspondents, I was waiting for the President's statement when I was suddenly summoned to the Oval Office. I was jubilant, believing Kennedy was going to reward me because of TIME's interest in space with an exclusive view of him talking by phone to Glenn.

But as the door of the office swung open, I saw Kennedy behind his desk with a dark face reading TIME. "Where'd you get this story about me posing for the cover of Gentlemen's Quarterly? It's all a lie." I really did not know anything about the story, I stammered, but would find out.

He blew up, got red in the face, threw the magazine down on his desk, ranted about how we were out to destroy him, then marched around his desk and shook his fist in my face. "People remember other people for one thing," he ranted on. "They remember Calvin Coolidge for wearing an Indian headdress. They remember Arthur Godfrey for buzzing the tower at Teterboro Airport. They will remember me for posing for a clothing magazine."

Just then, Tazewell Shepard, the naval aide who was holding a telephone, called out, "Mr. President, Mr. President, Colonel on the line." Kennedy's whole demeanor changed. With a lilting, joyous tone, he shouted his greetings to Glenn. Then, after five or so minutes of congratulations and chitchat, he gave the phone back to Shepard, stalked back to me and resumed the attack.

Later, I learned that Press Secretary Pierre Salinger had rigged a group picture so that Gentlemen's Quarterly could claim an exclusive. Our short item about the picture was taken from that magazine's press release. Salinger never confessed to me. Kennedy never mentioned it again--and I never raised it.

--Hugh Sidey