Because Good Medicine Deserves Better Explanations
This is the 11th episode in The Heart of Power: Medical Histories from the White House, a series that looks past the legends to the bodies and pressures behind them. John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe are almost always mentioned together as rumor, as shorthand, as something half-imagined. But when I looked closer, the familiar … Read more
It was late afternoon, April 12, 1945. Harry Truman had just settled into his Senate office when the phone rang. He was told to come to the White House at once.
When he arrived, Eleanor Roosevelt was waiting. Her face was pale, her words simple: “Harry, the President is dead.”
Truman staggered. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
Eleanor shook her head. “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.”
The words hit harder than any diagnosis…..
The sirens were still wailing as the limousine skidded to a halt at Parkland Hospital. Secret Service agents leapt out, blood on their sleeves, shouting for help. A stretcher rattled through the emergency doors with the President’s broken body. Moments later, from another car in the motorcade, came his doctor. George Gregory Burkley walked quickly … Read more
He knew it was coming. The way a storm announces itself in the bones.The way a man knows the land he’ll die on. Lyndon Baines Johnson had already faced the thing most men spend their lives avoiding: death. It had gripped his chest, dropped him to the bedroom floor of his Texas ranch, and whispered … Read more
“The 37th President Is First to Quit Post.” — The New York Times, August 9, 1974 In just a few blunt words, the New York Times closed the book on Richard Nixon. The next morning, standing before a weary nation, Gerald Ford offered something like absolution. In his first speech as president, he spoke a … Read more