Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House

by Joseph A. Esposito, Rose Styron (Other)

Overview

In April 1962, President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy hosted forty-nine Nobel Prize winners—along with many other prominent scientists, artists, and writers—at a famed White House dinner. Among the guests were J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was officially welcomed back to Washington after a stint in the political wilderness; Linus Pauling, who had picketed the White House that very afternoon; William and Rose Styron, who began a fifty-year friendship with the Kennedy family that night; James Baldwin, who would later discuss civil rights with Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Mary Welsh Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s widow, who sat next to the president and grilled him on Cuba policy; John Glenn, who had recently orbited the earth aboard Friendship 7; historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who argued with Ava Pauling at dinner; and many others. Actor Frederic March gave a public recitation after the meal, including some unpublished work of Hemingway’s that later became part of Islands in the Stream.

Held at the height of the Cold War, the dinner symbolizes a time when intellectuals were esteemed, divergent viewpoints could be respectfully discussed at the highest level, and the great minds of an age might all dine together in the rarefied glamour of “the people’s house.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512600124
Publisher:	University Press of New England
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Pages:	252
Sales rank:	143,921
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

JOSEPH A. ESPOSITO has had a long career in the fields of public service, education, communications, and nonprofit work. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He is currently an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College. He blogs about history at www.josephaesposito.com.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Camelot
Preface
Key Attendees to Dinner at the White House, April 29, 1962
Prologue: Heading to Dinner
America in Transition
Camelot at Midpoint
Poetry, Prose, and Politics
America’s Queen and America’s Hero
Redemption and Promise
Is That Linus Pauling?
“The Fire Next Time”
A Galaxy of Geniuses
An After-Party
Lives Connected
Epilogue: Nothing Like It Since
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jay Parini

“This is a remarkable study of a moment in time that may have passed unnoticed by most Americans: a gathering of great minds at the White House in 1962. It took a man of John Kennedy’s aplomb, self-confidence, and intellectual grace to play host to such a gathering. Joseph A. Esposito explores the meaning of this event, placing before us the sublime possibilities that the United States does indeed represent. In doing so, he reminds us how far we have to go simply to return to what we once, almost, possessed.”

Douglas Brinkley

“Dinner in Camelot is a wonderful recounting of the greatest party of the 1960s. A real page-turner. Highly recommended!”

Eugene L. Meyer

“A stunning snapshot of a shining moment in time in mid-century America. Joe Esposito uses this unique dinner to spotlight the era’s’ best and brightest remarkably assembled in one place by a president and first lady who, all too briefly, thrilled and inspired a hopeful nation.”

Chris Whipple

“Read it and weep: A fascinating reconstruction of a once-in-a-century event in presidential history, and how it still resonates today. Joseph Esposito vividly evokes a time when science, intellect and civility trumped disruption, ignorance and rage.”

David O. Stewart

“Re-creating a magical White House evening in 1962 when President and Mrs. Kennedy outshone dozens of Nobel laureates, Dinner in Camelot uses that event as a hinge of American culture in the twentieth century, tracing the paths that led to the dinner and those that sprawled away from it.”

Larry Tye

“Everyone who mattered was there at the White House that night in April 1962. Now, thanks to Joseph Esposito’sDinner in Camelot,we can be there too,feeling the glamour and sharing the hope. It’s difficult to imagine a more thrilling trip back at a moment when we all need not just a distraction but a reason to hope again.”

Evan Thomas

“Joseph Esposito takes us back to a golden moment in time and makes it a fascinating metaphor for an age sadly lost. With deft strokes, he vividly portrays the glamour and grandeur, the vaulting ambition and brilliance (and, yes the pettiness and snobbery) of an evening when America reached its apogee of power and greatness.”

Editorial Reviews

04/23/2018
The April 1962 dinner hosted by President John and Jackie Kennedy for 49 Nobel laureates and other intellectuals was, in the president’s oft-quoted words, “the most extraordinary collection of talent that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Esposito, who served in various roles in three presidential administrations, sets the contextual scene: the Kennedys’ youthful vigor and glamour, the remnants of McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, and a far more unified media landscape than today’s (80 million Americans had watched Jackie’s tour of the White House a few months earlier). Then he narrates the dinner’s importance to several figures. For physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” the dinner represented a “release... from political purgatory.” For writer James Baldwin, the evening ultimately led to his arranging a meeting between Robert Kennedy and African-American leaders that sensitized Kennedy to black concerns. There’s no shortage of A-list glamour, but repetition (it is mentioned three times that White House social secretary Letitia Baldrige referred to the evening as the “brains’ dinner”) and somewhat limp prose make parts of the book a slog. Still, this is a fascinating look back at a time when intellect and culture were respected in the inner sancta of American power. Photos. Agent: Roger Williams, the Roger Williams Agency. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating entry point to the cultural and academic environments of the 1960s. . . . Esposito presents a book that makes us wonder what the world could have been and that allows us to dream, at least for 200 pages.”—Kirkus Reviews


“Esposito’s approach captures all of that remarkable evening’s many dimensions, reading like a melding of American Heritage, Architectural Digest, and Gourmet, along with a national newspaper’s page 1 above the fold and society pages.”—National Book Review


“A fascinating look back at a time when intellect and culture were respected in the inner sancta of American power.”—Publishers Weekly


“A delightful, detailed account of the dinner, its background, its repercussions and its lasting meaning. . . . Esposito brings a solid blend of intellectual and writing background to his task. He has taught history, written it and lived it in three administrations. The book is a largely skillful mix of diligently researched detail and chatty anecdotes, all woven together without excessively florid Camelot rhetoric.”
—Washington Post

From the Publisher

2018-01-08
A look at a night that fused politics, art, science, and socialites in the White House.On April 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, hosted a dinner that would be remembered as a rare occurrence when many of the era's great minds were together at the White House. In this historical account, Esposito, who has served in three presidential administrations, unpacks the many conversations, first encounters, and moments of tension, and he explains the high stakes of the event. Starting with a brief description of the political climate at the time, the author explains that the book is intended to be a "snapshot" of "some of the most impressive qualities of this nation: research and thinking at the highest levels, often accomplished by people fleeing from tyranny and turmoil in other countries." Looking back on a time when those in power capitalized on the possibilities and impact of the intellect only agitates our disbelief for today's state of affairs, but Esposito's work is a fascinating entry point to the cultural and academic environments of the 1960s. The list of luminaries is impressive: writers James Baldwin, Robert Frost, Katherine Anne Porter, William Styron, and Pearl S. Buck; scientists Linus Pauling and Glenn T. Seaborg; "peacemakers" Ralph Bunche and Lester Pearson; and others, including Mary Welsh Hemingway. Esposito tells engaging stories of conversations that the president had with Hemingway and the clashing opinions gathered around a table at a time of political upheaval. Ultimately, Esposito presents a book that makes us wonder what the world could have been and that allows us to dream, at least for 200 pages. "Alfred Nobel could not have imagined many of the achievements of the men and women chosen for his awards," writes the author, "but he certainly would have been impressed by the gathering that President Kennedy assembled on a warm spring night in April 1962."An exciting glimpse into a long-gone era of politics and cultural activity.

Kirkus Reviews

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