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‘Mystery Story’? A Kennedy family biographer begs to differ with Gore Vidal’s contention that his image was erased from a photograph of John and Jacqueline Kennedy taken at the Washington International Horse Show. B Y S a l ly B e d e l l S m i t h
G
ore Vidal’s conspiratorial assertion in his new book, Snapshots in History’s Glare, that he was “totally cut out of ” a photograph with Jack and Jackie Kennedy “and replaced by Alice Roosevelt Longworth and her black hat” (Washington Life, Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010) is dead wrong. Not only does Mr. Vidal invent a conspiracy – what he calls the “mystery story” of his book – he refuses to acknowledge what is in plain sight, and he imagines a “black hat” where none is in evidence. The photograph in question, which appeared in my book about the Kennedy White House, “Grace and Power,” shows Jack and Jackie Kennedy with a group of friends – identified in the caption as Alice Longworth, Bill Walton, Eunice Shriver, and Eve Fout – at the Washington International Horse Show on Oct. 27, 1961. Mr.Vidal writes in his book that when he and I discussed the photograph several years ago, I “could not believe that the Kennedy White House would rearrange a picture for political reasons,” namely that Bobby Kennedy wanted to “prove” it was not possible that Mr.Vidal “could have ever posed with the Kennedys.” Mr. Vidal conveniently ignores that in my caption I noted, “Gore Vidal was also with the group, which had earlier dined at the White House.” While writing the photo captions for my book, I spoke to Mr. Vidal on Feb. 5 and 6, 2004, when he insisted that my picture “was a fake” because it did not show him between Jack and Jackie as they appeared in a photo in his collection. He also said that Mrs. Longworth did not attend the horse show.
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2010
results of my inquiry, but he refused to budge from his theory that my photo had been “cooked,” even after I told him it came from Eve Fout’s private collection, was taken by a horse show photographer, and had been hanging on her wall for more than 40 years. He did finally concede that Alice Longworth must have been at the horse show. The strangest twist in Mr. Vidal’s peculiar descr iption of my photograph is his insistence that Alice Longworth “had actually been seated about five rows behind us.” Yet in his book he reproduces still another photo of the event, with Mrs. Longworth in the same position as in my photograph: the front row of the box. She certainly isn’t wearing a black hat, nor is Eve Fout, who is visible in my photo between Jack and Jackie, seated slightly behind where Mr. Vidal had appeared in his own photo. All of this leads to the only logical, although not remotely mysterious, conclusion: Perhaps Mr. Vidal had simply left the box, for whatever reason, and one of the horse show photographers had snapped another picture. But that, of course, would not square with Mr. Vidal’s conspiratorial narrative of “how the Kennedy White House played ball.”
Left: Gore Vidal’s photo of himself with President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy at the Washington International Horse Show in 1961 (Collection Gore Vidal) Below: President and Mrs. Kennedy with Alice Roosevelt Longworth (center) and other guests at the same event (Fout Family Collection)
I immediately checked with the late Eve Fout, Jackie’s close friend who had given me the photo. “Alice Longworth was definitely there,” Eve told me. And, she added, “We had regular photographers there who did horse shows.” I then looked at an “American Masters” public television documentary about Mr.Vidal and found a section showing the Kennedy group walking into the box at the horse show: Jackie, Jack, Gore Vidal, and Alice Longworth (clearly identifiable with her white hair and black dress), followed by Bill Walton and Eunice Shriver. On Feb. 10, 2004, I called Mr.Vidal with the
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