Maureen Callahan

uh, she gave an interview, uh, I believe this was the one to Arthur Schlesinger, not long after the assassination, like really in the immediate days after.

And she was talking about the Cuban missile crisis, which he caused, um, read Christopher Hitchens on this, you know, anyway.

Um, and the entire, uh, East coast of America was, um, preparing to be attacked by the Russians and blown to bits and nuclear annihilation.

And, um,

Jack Kennedy had tried to send her away with the children and she said, I just want to be here with you.

I'm going to read...

the salient part about what really happened in the plane from Ask Not, okay?

So this is after John has left the lit up coastline to turn out over to the pitch black Atlantic, even though he could only fly by sight and it was super, super hazy that night.

We'll get into that.

Now I'm reading from the book would have been the time to start using his instruments, but John couldn't.

Now would have been the time to radio air traffic control.

But John, who loved to get himself into near-death situations, did not.

Was he that sure he could get himself and Carolyn and Lauren out of it?

Or was there a part of him, subconscious or not, that didn't care if he died, taking his wife and sister-in-law with him?

His magazine was on the verge of collapse.

His marriage was failing, contrary to the scene we just watched.

His marriage was failing.

His sister, upset that John was trying to stop her from auctioning off their mother's possessions, Jackie's deathbed suggestion, was now barely speaking with him.

His life was coming apart on all fronts, and John did not have great internal resources to draw upon.

the kind of inner strength forged only from being humbled, humiliated, pushed down, and then forcing oneself to get back up again.