RECORDING

Did JFK have a hunch that he was going to be assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963?

Some are suggesting that the president may have intuited his demise.

 
The final 45 hours of White House recordings secretly taped by John F. Kennedy during the last three months of his presidency were released to the public yesterday. Researchers, historians, conspiracy theorists, and all the rest of us have a whole lot of conversation to process.

 
Like this juicy tidbit: In a scheduling discussion with a member of his staff, three days before his assassination, JFK comments about the very date that is destined to become the day of his funeral.

"Monday?" he asks a staffer. "Well that's a tough day."

"It's a hell of a day, Mr. President," the staffer replies.

Was it Presidential Premonition? Presidential Staffer Premonition? Presidential Staffer Overscheduling Overscheduled President Preposterously?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The unfiltered tapes are out, and open to interpretation. The president made the tapes deliberately, keeping them a secret from even his top aides. The recorded conversations relay his interest in politics, public relations, and his image. Speaking with his distinctive accent, JFK challenges aides who give him varying reports on the same issue. He expresses occasional boredom, annoyance, and frustration. He chats with world leaders and his kids. He swears. The really bad words.

"The president's intelligence really comes across," says Maura Porter, an archivist from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library who worked on the tapes for a decade. "Listening to the tapes, the intonation in the president's voice, the ebb and flow of a conversation offer historians a unique view that cannot be captured in official meeting minutes.”

We live in an age where most of our conversations are the equivalent of official meeting minutes: letters and abbreviated words on cell phone screens that we decipher, attempting to determine tone, nuance, implication, level of sincerity, and significance.

It’s no wonder that the secretly recorded conversations of an assassinated president are mesmerizing.

But what possessed JFK to make the secret recordings? After all, he died before he could edit them. Porter believes the president may have eventually used them either for a memoir, or to prove the veracity of his conversations.

Clever, that JFK.

Don’t tell anyone, but I am copying both the president's sneakiness and his cleverness. I have- unbeknownst to my housemates- made a secret Palace Recording; documentation my kids can eventually use in their memoirs, or share with their shrinks; documentation that will prove the veracity of our conversations to my grandchildren forty years from now when their parents offer conflicting reports about our family life.

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The Palace Recording is a snapshot of daily life; relaying my interest in keeping 702 balls in the air without dropping even one in a spectacular crash. I chat with family members, spouse, kids, friends, Dog and Puppy. I express frustration and annoyance. I wish for boredom. I never swear. The really bad words.

Note: The 24 hour recording is an unusually rich collection of comments being made in real time. It is a valuable, raw look inside my abode. It is unfiltered, and hasn't been massaged by committees or by the Palace Press Machine. Just like JFK's recording.

It is unimaginably, inconceivably, unbelievably dull. Just like...

My voice is my voice. Feel free to determine intonation and the ebb and flow of conversation.

THE TAPE

Background noises: Shouting. Laughter. Canine growls. Puppy yelps. Occasional clanging of pans on stovetop and shattering of dishes on tile floor. Slamming of garage door. Singing. Guitaring. Opening and closing of refrigerator and freezer doors. Bickering. Teasing.

Conversation: Do it. NOW.

Late? How late is late?

Get the little bugger outside! FAST!

Are you actually killing people in that video game?

Super. Is it broken? We're not going for another X Ray unless it’s broken.

You think this is a negotiation?

Eat something HEALTHY!

Pick it up! Throw it out!
 

Who made up the concept of dinner, anyway?

Technically, that's not burned.

Who took it? Who ate it? Who left it? Who moved it?

Touch him one more time, and I will remove your head from your shoulders.

FINI!

Yikes.

Kindly strike that last comment from the Palace Recording.

It could be released to the public one day. 

I wouldn't want researchers, historians, conspiracy theorists, and all the rest of you to judge.

Me.

And Mom Premonition.

 

QUING Hereby Decrees:  Careful what you say. Everyone is listening.