Poetry in American History

John F. Morrisson in Philadelphia Daily News in reviewing a tell-all about Jackie Kennedy has this to say about a "loving but chaste" relationship between Robert McNamara and Jackie:

"Men can't understand his sex appeal," she said of McNamara. McNamara recalled, "She was flirtatious."

They shared a fondness for the poetry of the Chilean writer, Gabriela Mistral, and read it together.

Please join me in the wayback machine to another time and place when there was such a fleeting wisp of glory where the First Lady and the Secretary of Defense would read aloud such lines:

I Am Not Alone

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone!

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!