"The Memoir that President Kennedy Never Got to Write"

"Unlike the Nixon taping system, which was voice-activated, Kennedy’s had to be started by pressing a button, so he was obviously aware that he was being recorded. On a grim day in 1963, Kennedy turned to his Dictaphone to record his thoughts about a coup in Vietnam. He rued into the machine that his administration was responsible for the coup, and he was going over the blunders that had led to it, when suddenly a child’s voice chirped 'hello.'       

"John F. Kennedy Jr., then not quite 3, had toddled into the Oval Office and, most likely, into his father’s lap. The president made a seamless transition from burdened commander in chief to doting father and began a nursery word play with his son.

"Kennedy: 'Why do the leaves fall?'       

"John: 'Because it’s autumn.'       

"After questions about winter and spring, the president asked: 'When do we go to the Cape? Hyannis Port?'       

"John: 'Because it’s summer.'       

"'It’s summer,' repeated the youthful father, though it was November and in less than three weeks, he would be dead."

 

In The New York Times, Katherine Q. Seelye reports on the release of tapes from John Kennedy's Oval Office.