OCR Text |
Show City, Utah, is trying desperately des-perately to finance a ski complex. Does it ordinarily take quite a while'.'" With just five words President Pres-ident Kennedy set into motion the machinery which has transformed Park City from an (almost) ghost town into a thrivingyear-around, fast-growing fast-growing city: "Mr. Salinger, look into it." Mr. Salinger made a quick note. Two weeks later Mayor Bill Sullivan had his loan. I'm proud I could help. WHEN HE VISITED Salt Lake City I saw him again. To my regret, I wrote a piece about how silly it was, to go to such extremes to protect the President. I ended end-ed with: "Who would ever I , f v ' 4 tzr y' ground. IN AN EFFORT to sound out grass-roots opinions, the President invited at random publishers from several states, to have a luncheon session with him. Utah was about Number Eight on the list. Whether he learned anything any-thing of value from Utah publishers pub-lishers is a moot question, but certainly it was a most wonderful public relations gesture, and one which might have been duplicated by N xon. Visiting publishers were unanimous in their admiration admira-tion of the man's great in-telligence, in-telligence, his personal interest in people, his tremendous personality and charm. AT THE TABLE were the three Utah daily publishers, seven weekly publishers, Pierre Salinger and, of course, President Kennedy. By sheer lucky accident, I was President that year of the Utah Press Association and so was seated at Mr. Kennedy's right hand. The others drew lots for places. It was the greatest honor of my life. I shall always respect, admire and revere his memory. To get to know John Kennedy was to love him. WE EXCHANGED a couple of confidences and then, in a lull, we got a taste of his famous wit. I hoped he would tell the story of his boyhood visits to the friendly neighborhood pawnshop to augment his allowance. al-lowance. I asked: Mr. President, may I ask you a personal question?" IF IT'S NOT too personal." person-al." (That Boston accent! Watch it, Buster! Hope he didn't think I was going to ask anything about Jackie. She was in Europe at the time.) "When you were a little boy, where did you get your spending money?" "From my fawthaw. And I still do." The roar of laughter was at my expense, of course. But I loved it, naturally especially when he reduced the pressure with a slight nudge. Later I remarked: "MR. PRESIDENT, somewhere some-where in one of the Bureau drawers here there is a request for an ARA loan for one of my communities. Park ACCORDING TO the newspapers news-papers and magazines, there is one date, which EVERY ONE can remember what he or she was doing at a certain cer-tain time. That date is Nov. 22,1963. The time is when you first heard of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ken-nedy. Certainly I shall never forget it. I was in the State House, just going into the office of-fice of Gov. George D.Clyde. His receptionist was on the phone, pale and shaken, gasping "No, oh NO, you can't MEAN it." SHE RAN INTO the Gov ernor's office with the tragic news. His right-hand man, Roland Robison, formerly of Morgan, hurried in with the same news, and took me in with him. Most vivid memory is the expression on the face of the Governor. And so today I may be forgiven, I hope, for reminiscing rem-iniscing about the time, a year before that, when I was a luncheon guest of President Kennedy in the White House. We have hundreds of new subscribers who have not seen the picture of the occasion, oc-casion, and do not know that I was quite innocently responsible res-ponsible for getting the restoration res-toration of Park City off the |