Menticide in the Eastern Bloc – A shocking tale

The story of Mihail Shipkov is indicative of what happened to many people in communist regimes in the years after World War Two. For his opposition to the government, he was to pay a heavy price – the disturbingly titled “Menticide”. Richard H. Cummings returns to the site (after the podcast based on his book here) and explains.

Mihail Shipkov.

Only in the contest of ideas can there be a final victory, which will yield us one world dedicated to peace with freedom.

 - Breakdown, April 1950

The March 13, 1950 issue of Time magazine carried a story "COMMUNISTS: How They Do it," which, in part, read:

The U.S. State Department last week published a remarkable document. It was one answer to a question which has interested the West since the famous Moscow purge trials of 1936-38, a question which has become increasingly urgent with such postwar trials as that of Hungary's Cardinal Mindszenty, Bulgaria's 15 Protestant leaders and the U.S.'s Robert Vogeler: How do Communist secret police extort "confessions?? The Communists' first victim to tell his first-hand story is Michael Shipkov.

Psychiatrist A. M. Meerloo Joost in the Journal of Psychiatry, February 1951, coined the term "menticide," when he wrote that an "organized system of judicial perversion and psychological intervention, in which a powerful tyrant transfers his own thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of the victims he plans to destroy or to use for his own propaganda."

He presented Nazi propaganda as "social menticide" and the Cardinal Mindszenty case mentioned in the Time magazine article as an example of "individual menticide." We will look at the case of Mihail Shipkov and "individual menticide."

Mihail Shipkov’s life

Mihail (Michael) Todorov Shipkov was born to a wealthy family in Bulgaria on January 1, 1911. His secondary education was at the prestigious American founded and Christian based Robert College on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. His family had derived its wealth from extracting rose oil. With the coming of Communism in Bulgaria after World War Two, the family lost their wealth when their rose fields and factories were nationalized. Reportedly, Communist authorities confiscated 9,000 kilograms of rose oil. Fluent in English, Mihail Shipkov then became a translator at the American Legation in Sofia.

It was the worst of political times in Bulgaria. The Cold War was hot: staff members of the American Legation were harassed, arrested, and some died under very suspicious circumstances. For example, in August 1949, Ivan Seculov, a Bulgarian translator employed by the American Legation, died after "falling" out of a four-story window three days after his arrest by the state security militia (secret police). One report has him committing suicide rather than being released from prison to work as a police agent. The truth might never be known.

In 1949, the American Legation attempted to get Mihail Shipkov, then 39 years old, and his family exit visas to leave Bulgaria for the United States. The police (militia) opened an investigative file with the code name "Розовият", translated as "Pink" - not referring to the color, but to his family's rose oil production.

Arrest

On Saturday, August 21, 1949, at 2:30 PM, Mihail Shipkov was arrested by the state security militia, after leaving the American Legation, and taken to the National Assembly building. For the next 32 hours, he was subjected to extreme physical and psychological torture (menticide) by seven different militia men to obtain a six-page "confession" that he was an American spy: "At the end, when I wrote down the confession of guilt and repentance, I remember that the whole thing appeared fantastic and ridiculous but it seemed to give them complete satisfaction." He was then released on Sunday evening under the conditions that he work for the Communist militia against the American Legation, using a suggested code name "Kamenov." It is not known if he actually signed any agreement to do so.

Shipkov went home, washed up, had a meal of sausage with red wine, and went to bed. On Monday morning he went to the American Legation and reported what had happened over the weekend. He then submitted a hand-written, 8,000 word report in order to clear his conscience of the sense of guilt he had for the persons he had incriminated in his "confession."

Responding to an official US protest, Foreign Minister Vladimir Poptomov confirmed officially to Donald R. Heath, head of the American Legation, “his conviction that Michael Shipkov was innocent … and assured Mr. Heath on October 11, 1949, that the maltreatment of Shipkov was absolutely against the policy of his Government.” He added that, “He had personally recommended to the Interior Minister that passports and exit visas should be granted to the Shipkovs.” That never happened.

Mihail’s report was later published verbatim in the US Department of State Bulletin, March 13, 1950: "The Story of Michael Shipkov's Detention and Interrogation by the Bulgarian Militia." In part of his report, he described how he was tortured:

I was ordered to stand facing the wall upright at a distance, which allowed me to touch the wall with two fingers of my outstretched arms. Then to step back some twelve inches, keep my heels touching the floor, and maintain balance only with the contact of one finger on each hand. And while standing so, the interrogation continued ... I recall that the muscles on my legs and shoulders began to get cramped and to tremble, that my two fingers began to bend down under the pressure, to get red all over and to ache, I remember that I was drenched with sweat and that I began to faint, although I had not exerted myself in any way. If I would try to substitute [fingers], I would be instantly called to order . . . And when the trembling increased up to the point when I collapsed, they made me sit and speak. I did get several minutes respite, catching my breath and wiping my face, but when I had uttered again that I was innocent, it was the wall again.

After a time of this, I broke down. I told them I was willing and eager to tell them all they wanted ... And if I were to stop and plead fatigue, or poor memory, or ask to rest - the wall again, and the slaps, and the blows in the nape [of the neck]. And I remembered I would come up gasping and talk and talk and feel utterly broken.

Escape?

Newspapers in the U.S. carried the Shipkov story. For example, the Idaho State Journal, March 7, 1950, printed a cartoon showing the torture of Shipkov, with the headline: "Shipkov Reveals Red Torture Methods."

From the time of his reporting what had happened to him in August 1949 until February 1950, Donald Heath hid Shipkov from Bulgarian authorities in the attic of the American Legation. Shipkov spent his time analyzing and translating Bulgarian newspapers for the Embassy staff.

Relations soon worsened between Bulgaria and the United States, and it became clear that official relations were to be broken off and the US Embassy to close. A CIA plan was hatched to secretly send Shipkov out of Bulgaria to safety over the Greek or Turkish border near the town of Svilengrad. 

American diplomat Raymond F. Courtney gave Shipkov a Bulgarian identity document, provided by the British Legation, of Nikolay Boyadjiev, who had previously escaped from Bulgaria to Turkey. He was also given, a knife, compass, money and a cyanide pill, in addition to other items. He departed the Embassy on February 11, 1950, in the company of diplomat Courtney. 

One version of his escape attempt has him staying at two safe houses on his way to meet two couriers, who were to escort him over the snow covered mountains into Greece and presumably then to Turkey. But the couriers did not show up. 

On February 14, 1950, Shipkov was discovered by the militia and arrested at the Plovdiv train station, located about halfway between Sofia and Svilengrad. 

Communist authorities accused Donald Heath of being an intelligence agent, declared him persona non-grata, and ordered him out of Bulgaria. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Bulgaria were broken off and remained so for the next ten years. 

On February 21, 1950, Shipkov was indicted for the following "treasonous" crimes: his family background, his act of seeking employment with the American Legation, his expression of opposition to the Communist creed, and to some of the Government policies." All Sofia newspapers reported on the indictment and 16 persons associated with the American Legation were implicated. On that date, the US Department of State issued a press statement reviewing the Shipkov case.

Trial and exile

On February 24, 1950, the American Legation was evacuated, and American staff and families made it to safely to Trieste, Italy, with a stop over in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Reportedly 30 plain-clothes policemen were at the train station in Sofia as the train departed.

From March 6-8, 1950, Mihail Shipkov and four others were accused of espionage at a show trial, in which Shipkov confessed to his "crimes." The co-defendants were Zhivka Tomova Rindova (former telephone operator in the US Legation), Stefan Kratunkov, Nikolay Liubomirov Tsanov, and Vasil Malchev. The accused reportedly "pleaded guilty and confirmed the written confessions of spying for the Americans that they had made to investigating police before the trial." Shipkov said, "I distorted, slandered and calumniated the initiatives of the fatherland front."

Shipkov was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.  There was widespread coverage in American newspapers of his trial. On March 8, 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a statement to the press, in which he denounced the Shipkov trial and "disregard for human rights and human values demonstrated by the Bulgarian regime." 

After the trial, the Press Department in Sofia published a 125-page report, The Trial of American Spies in Bulgaria. The listed author was Henry Spetter who, ironically, would also be a victim of "individual menticide" in 1974, when he was subjected to psychological torture and forced to sign a confession as a spy for the US and Israel. He was sentenced to death but it was not carried out. In August 1974, he was flown to East Germany, escorted to West Berlin, and emigrated to Israel.

The cover of The Trial of the American Spies in Bulgaria.

Reportedly, Mihail Shipkov was released from prison after serving some 12 years and then exiled to the provincial town Troyan, where his wife and daughter had been exiled in 1950.

Shipkov's exact date of death is unknown but in an interview with journalist Alexenia Dimitrova in the Sofia newspaper 24 Hours, on January 26, 2010, his granddaughter Marina said that Michael Shipkov died in 1990 in Troyan. Alexenia Dimitrova has also written a four-part series on Henry Spetter for the newspaper 24 Hours, which can be read in Bulgarian at:

http://www.24chasa.bg/Article.asp?ArticleId=2257030

http://www.24chasa.bg/Article.asp?ArticleId=2260343

http://www.24chasa.bg/Article.asp?ArticleId=2257497

http://www.24chasa.bg/Article.asp?ArticleId=2257539

But wait! This story is not over yet… Part 2 will be here soon!

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This article is based on a piece that originally appeared on the fascinating site, http://coldwarradios.blogspot.com.

Cold War People - Episode 5 - Dwight D Eisenhower

Hello All,

Dwight D Eisenhower was US President throughout much of the 1950s, and lived an extraordinary life before then.

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Eisenhower was so much more than a 1950s Cold War President. In spite of the fact that he led the US during the period when the Cold War was in full swing, Eisenhower had a great and long life before that. Indeed, in many respects Eisenhower’s greatest accomplishment came before his time as President.

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Enjoy the show...

George Levrier-Jones

Cold War People - Episode 4 - Walter Ulbricht

Hello All,

In the latest episode of Cold War People we look at an important and controversial figure, and the leader of East Germany for decades after World War 2. Walter Ulbricht.

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He was closely involved in the events that led to the building of the Berlin Wall, and was the dominant figure in East German life throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He became an important and influential Communist not just in East Germany, but also the wider Communist world.

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Enjoy!

George Levrier-Jones

PS - the next episode is on Dwight Eisenhower..

Cold War People - Episode 3 - Harry S Truman

Hello Everybody,

The man who authorized the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in World War 2, and the man in charge when the Cold War began, is the focus of this episode of Cold War People - former US President Harry S Truman.

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Truman was President of the USA over the years 1945-1953, the years when the Cold War really got going. In Cold War History, we saw how instrumental Truman was as Europe became divided in the post-war years and during the Korean War, but in this episode we shall look at Truman’s wider life.

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Enjoy!

George Levrier-Jones

Five Great Historical Buildings… That We’ll Never See

Amazing buildings have been destroyed due to mortars, terrorism, free will and the musings of politicians. It seems mad to us now, in an age when preservation is a priority, that buildings of historical significance have been torn down without any governmental say-so. In every part of the globe, our lands are littered with the remains of what's been left behind, or the spaces where things 'could have been'.

So what are we, as historical tourists, missing exactly in our archaeological passports? What should have been that is no longer here? Hollie Mantle explains…

Sophienkirche - Dresden

World War Two attacked few cities to the same extent it ravaged the German city of Dresden. While people were captured, fled or hid in basements, the city around them, and its beautiful baroque architecture, was being blitzed by a persistent rain of bombs.

Whilst the destruction of baroque architecture was undoubtedly an utter tragedy, one building of unusual note was also left in disrepair by the war. The city’s gothic Sophienkirche, with twin neo-gothic spires, was the admiration of local people. Though the bombs blasted some of the church’s exterior, however, it was not the war which eventually saw to the church’s demise, but the fateful words of a contemporary politician, who said: ‘a socialist city does not need gothic churches’. And so, in the early 1960s, the Sophienkirche was demolished.

The area where the Sophienkirche existed is now a much more unsightly collection of 1990s-style buildings, and not worth a trip for travellers. In the middle of the city, though, the beautiful Frauenkirche cathedral was restored in 2005, and should feature high on any tourist’s ‘to-do’ list.   

Dresden's Sophienkirche.

Carthage – Tunisia

It surprises most to hear of the wide presence of Ancient Roman ruins in northern Africa, and that one of Ancient Rome's most famous sites in fact lies in Tunisia. The ancient city of Carthage was a hot bed of shipbuilding and imports of jewels, glassware, gold, and ivory. However, the city – which was only second to Rome in its splendor in the region – was destroyed around 146BC in the Third Punic War against Rome, after which point the Carthaginian Empire was defeated . After its demise, the city was rebuilt by the Romans, but was eventually destroyed for the second time several centuries later by the Muslim conquest.

Today Carthage lies in ruin in modern Tunisia, and is a great pull for tourists visiting the country. The outlines of homes, palaces and the harbor can still be seen, giving a glimpse of the grandeur of this historic Mediterranean empire. For those who want to avoid the capital, the coastal towns of Sousse, with its ‘Medina’, and Hammamet, are brimming with ancient ruins and museums that will give you a rounded overview of the country’s history.

The Library of Alexandria - Egypt

The loss of this great library, which stood in the city of Alexandria in Egypt, still represents the destruction of public knowledge for many historians. Why, how and when it was exactly lost is difficult to establish, but most books on the subject point fingers at Julius Caesar, Emperor Theodosius I or the Muslim Army of Amr ibn al ‘Aas as culprits, and suggest it was destroyed by fire.

In the last centuries of the period before Christ, the library was the greatest in the ancient world. It had reading rooms, lecture halls, gardens and shelves brimming with papyrus scrolls containing all the knowledge of ancient times. When it was destroyed, some scrolls were preserved and moved to other locations, but most suffered damage again in their second homes.

For visitors wanting to see the ruins now, that is not possible. There are none. Instead, the Biblioteca Alexandrina, a modern library built to commemorate the Library of Alexandria, stands in its place, though with less of the glory of its predecessor. 

The Library of Alexandria

Shakespeare’s House - Stratford upon Avon

Tourists flock to an English town to see the site where the world’s most famous wordsmith was brought into the world.

After his childhood, however, Shakespeare moved to London, where he began his career as an actor and writer – though very few records can mark him down in one particular place at a given time.

As a wealthy, middle aged man, though, we do know this: Shakespeare bought a home in Stratford. New Place was purchased in 1597 for the great sum of £60, and was home to his wife Anne and his children, until he too eventually returned there in 1610, to commence his retirement. It was also the unfortunate stage for his death, six years later, in 1616.

So why do we not visit and revere this home, where the adult Shakespeare housed his family during the prime of his career?

When Anne Hathaway later died in 1623, the house was sold and passed into different hands, before becoming the property of Francis Gastrell. Angered by visitors pestering the outside of his home to see the site where Shakespeare lived, Gastrell tore the place down in 1759.

The piece of land where New Place once stood is protected by the Shakespeare Trust, but is unfortunately just that; a space. All we have now are artists’ drawings and our imaginations to attempt to conjure an image of “the forms of things unknown”.

Ancient Aleppo Markets - Syria

Due to the recent conflict, the cost of disruption and human lives in Syria far outweighs the damage to buildings. But the ancient Aleppo Markets, registered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, have suffered tremendously during city wide fights, eventually becoming engulfed in flames that destroyed the majority of the ancient 'souk'. Somewhere in the region of 700-1,000 shops were destroyed, as water strikes meant that containing the fire was nigh on impossible. What was once a huge tourist attraction within this thriving city is now just a marker of the tragedy that has taken over and ripped the country apart.

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Cold War People - Episode 2 - Joseph Stalin

Hello All,

In this episode of Cold War People, we look at the life of one of the most important men of the 20th Century, Joseph Stalin.

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He presided over one of the most brutal regimes in history and many millions of people died as a result of his policies and actions. But, the changes he made to the Soviet economy ultimately allowed the Soviets to overcome Nazi Germany in World War 2. In this episode, we look at Stalin the man, and ask how he came to be such a bloody tyrant.

Enjoy the podcast!

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George Levrier-Jones

Cold War People - Episode 1 - Winston Churchill

Hello All,

Hot on the heels of our book release, we’re back with our brand new series, Cold War People.

This series will look at the lives of some of the most important people involved in the Cold War. We will provide interesting, introductory overviews of them rather than necessarily looking in detail at their involvement in the Cold War.

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And the first episode looks at one of the most important men of his age, Winston Churchill. The British war-time leader played a key role for the allies throughout World War 2, and in the war-time conferences when the Allied Powers were deciding how the post-war world would look. But, there was so much more to Winston Churchill than that. He had a long and distinguished career before then.

Enjoy the podcast!

George Levrier-Jones

PS – the next episode will be on Joseph Stalin.

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Cold War History Series - Episode 10 - End of the Cold War

The End of the Cold War, the final episode in itshistorypodcasts.com’s Cold War series, is out now..

The episode looks at what happened as a result of the changes that Gorbachev unleashed in the USSR.

Last time we saw how Cold War tensions rose before the world changed once more - the policies of Reagan and Gorbachev led to a breakthrough on nuclear weapons. However, it would be the reforms that came from the Eastern bloc that led to a world transformed and the end of the Cold War.

Enjoy the podcast!

George Levrier-Jones

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Cold War History Series - Episode 9 - Renewed Cold War

The Renewed Cold War, episode 9 in itshistorypodcasts.com’s Cold War series is here..

The episode looks at how relations between the super-powers fell to levels not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Following growing tensions in the late 1970s, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. This led to a large increase in US defense spending from US President Carter. But this wasn’t enough for many in the US, and a much more aggressive US-government led by Ronald Reagan came in to power. The consequences were a world where fear once again dominated people’s thinking.

Enjoy the podcast!

George Levrier-Jones

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A changed relationship? Eleanor Roosevelt and President John F. Kennedy

After winning the 1961 election, the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy became ever more intriguing. Roosevelt tried to influence the president in a variety of ways, and JFK was normally ready to listen. Indeed, over the first two years of JFK’s presidency they forged a bond that seemed unlikely to some just a few years before.

Here, Christopher Benedict follows-up on his article about Roosevelt and JFK in the 1950s (available here) and the dramatic 1960 US election between Nixon and Kennedy (available here).

The official presidential portrait of John F. Kennedy.

Support Any Friend, Oppose Any Foe

Although she was not seated prominently on the rostrum beside new first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her past and future peers Lady Bird Johnson, Mamie Eisenhower, and a disagreeable-looking Pat Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt was in attendance when John F. Kennedy took the oath of office. On that frigid January morning in 1961, JFK’s breath was billowing visibly from his mouth as he implored his fellow Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” She would ride past the president on the reviewing stand in the inaugural parade with fellow representative of America’s war years Edith Wilson, Woodrow’s eighty-eight year-old widow, and later write to Kennedy of the “sense of liberation and lift to the spirit” she had experienced during his address.

Six weeks later, President Kennedy hosted Eleanor at the White House on the day he issued the Executive Order making the Peace Corps a reality. She was thankful for the opportunity to “have a glimpse of the children…and of the lovely redecorating that you are doing,” adding that “with all the responsibilities and aggravations that are bound to come your way, it does make a difference if one’s surroundings are pleasant and cheerful.” Kennedy outlined for her the agency’s systemic particulars and stressed how vital public service among the nation’s youth was to the success of his policies and to their own best interests. The Advisory Council for the Peace Corps would be one of several pro-active brain trusts (others including Tractors For Freedom, George McGovern’s Food For Peace, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, as well as the Cancer Foundation bearing her name) to which Eleanor would contribute during the twenty months of earthly existence left to her.   

I Might Be of Use

Appointed in 1945 by President Harry Truman to the first American delegation to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt was unanimously elected to chair the newly formed Commission on Human Rights. Before magnanimously stepping down from the position in 1951 (then forcibly resigning from the UN altogether a year later, per President Eisenhower’s request), Eleanor was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, still considered, nearly seventy years later, a monumental achievement.

Kennedy, at the urging of UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, reinstated her to the General Assembly just before the official formation of the Peace Corps. She sat in on plenary meetings, consulted with international delegates, traveled the globe extensively on productive good will missions, and used the My Day column to proliferate her message from the exclusivity of private chambers out into the court of public opinion.

In July 1961, with the physical, moral, and ideological wounds sustained by African Americans in Alabama and Mississippi during the Freedom Rides still very fresh, a bulk mailing was sent out across the country with the endorsement of Harry Belafonte, including one addressed directly to President John F. Kennedy in care of the White House, soliciting donations for CORE, or Congress of Racial Equality. Among their esteemed advisory committee were the likes of Reverend Ralph Abernathy, novelist James Baldwin, Jackie Robinson, FDR’s main civil rights critic A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. Eleanor contributed a note inside each envelope which beseeched that “you and I keep faith with those who suffered” and demanded the continuation of vigilant activity “until buses and terminal facilities are open to all - everywhere - in our country.”

She personally appealed to Kennedy for mercy in the case of fifteen year-old Preston Cobb Jr., a black Georgian found guilty and condemned to death for the murder of a seventy year-old white farmer. Though Cobb admitted in an unsworn statement to having shot Frank Coleman Dumas to death, Eleanor branded “unthinkable” the County Superior Court’s eye-for-an-eye retribution against “a boy of fifteen, whether black or white.”

She also petitioned the president on behalf of convicted Communist Junius Scales who, after weighing the facts of his case, Eleanor believed was “deserving of compassion”, determining that “in a democracy, the fate of an individual is important”.

You Can Take the Boy Out of Boston…

Kennedy’s elocution, and the general delivery of his speeches, which could be mistaken by some for condescension, caused Eleanor to remark that his public addresses would never “take the place of fireside chats”, FDR’s famous form of communication while he was in the White House. As for his harsh Boston accent, which she wished he would “deepen and strengthen” to convey more sincere “strength and personality”, Jack could only volley back light-heartedly, “It is difficult to change nature, but I will attempt to nudge it.” In the very next sentence he mirrors Eleanor’s somber concern over the nuclear arms race with the Soviets in which there could be no winner. “It would be possible to be among the dead rather than the quick,” he wrote. “This has been the weapon on which we have relied for our security…we are going to attempt to improve this, however.”

In light of this, it seems a bit ironic that Eleanor would forward to President Kennedy, “with every good wish and apologies for the number of things I keep sending your way”, the January 1962 issue of Computers and Automation. The cover story was a report on the advancements made to military weapons capabilities called Computers and War Safety Control, which she hoped would be of use to Kennedy and the scientific community in beating their Soviet counterparts to the atomic punch. 

This Great Society of Ours

In recognition of her numerous global humanitarian endeavors, President Kennedy sent a letter to the Nobel selection committee nominating Eleanor Roosevelt for 1962’s Nobel Peace Prize. “I am grateful for your kindness,” she humbly wrote to him, “but shall not be surprised if nothing comes of it.” Unfortunately, nothing did. The golden medallion went instead to molecular biologist Linus Pauling who had previously won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954.

Kennedy was the special guest on Eleanor’s Prospects of Mankind program, broadcast in April 1962 on WGBH, Boston’s public television affiliate. Discussing their joint venture, the Committee on the Status of Women, the president opined that “providing equal pay and equal conditions for women” was a “matter of great national concern”. After acknowledging the sincerity of his sentiments, Eleanor laments the dichotomy of the situation in relation to foreign nations wherein “women can be found in higher positions, policy-making positions or legislative decisions than they are in this country.” A recurring theme of the president’s boys’ club mentality throughout the interview centered around “how a mother can meet her responsibilities to her children and at the same time contribute to society.” To prove his commitment to the cause, Kennedy, just weeks later, joined Eleanor for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Housing Project dedication in New York City.

These Particularly Difficult Days

In mid-June, with the Cold War heating up daily by calculable degrees, Kennedy responded to Eleanor’s despair in regard to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy’s proposal to conduct high altitude nuclear testing, recognizing “an apparent contradiction between our efforts to advance the peaceful uses of outer space at the UN and experiments like these.”

Unwell yet unwavering, Eleanor dictated a September 27 letter to President Kennedy asking for the use of his name as Honorary Chairman of the Wiltwyck School for Boys, “a unique residential treatment center for deprived, neglected, and disturbed children all under the age of twelve” of which she was a founder and member of its Board of Directors. Five days later, Eleanor mailed Kennedy a typed thank you note for the flowers he sent, along with the cryptic disclosure that “the cause of my fever has been discovered” above her alarmingly shaky signature. The unspecified “cause” was bone marrow tuberculosis.

The handwritten note Eleanor received from Kennedy for her 78th birthday would sadly conclude their personal correspondence. She passed away in her Manhattan apartment on November 7, 1962. An Executive Order issued the following day decreed that, until her internment, flags of all buildings, grounds, embassies, legations, consular offices, military facilities and vessels be flown at half-mast. Mary Todd Lincoln was the only other first lady up to that point to be accorded such a distinctive honor, and only then because of her husband’s extraordinary achievements.

Typically defiant, even while staring into the grim face of her own mortality, Eleanor expressed her desire for her public farewell to be quiet and intimate, a wish which even she must have known on some level was absurd and would be disregarded. She was laid to rest on November 10 beside Franklin in Hyde Park, New York in what was tantamount to a state funeral, attended by her dear old friend Adlai Stevenson, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower alongside Bess and Mamie, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson with Lady Bird. 

John and Jackie Kennedy arrived on the first flight made by the new Air Force One, the very same plane that would, not much more than a year later, convey the body of the assassinated President Kennedy back to Washington from Dallas and on which Lyndon B. Johnson would assume command of the mourning nation as Jackie stood boldly by his side in her blood-spattered pink suit.

In a statement issued on October 11, 1963, Kennedy (as both President of the United States and Chairman of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation) celebrated what would have been her 79th birthday with the release of the Eleanor Roosevelt commemorative stamp.

“Her memory serves as an abiding reminder of the ideals of which she provided the most complete embodiment among Americans of this age,” declared Kennedy. “The ideals of justice, of compassion, and of hope.”

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And remember, you can read Chris’ article on JFK and Roosevelt in the 1950s here, and his article on 1960 election between Nixon and Kennedy here.

Sources

• Papers of John F. Kennedy (with relation to Eleanor Roosevelt) from the Archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
• Eleanor vs. JFK: The Back Story by Elizabeth Deane (Inside the Open Vault, WGBH Boston).
• Eleanor Roosevelt’s Anything But Private Funeral by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer (The Atlantic, November 4, 2012).