Jackie Kennedy expressed concern that the Kennedy Center would “sink into the realm of political patronage” in a letter that went viral after the cultural institution’s Make America Great Again revamp. In October 1964, the then-first lady wrote a letter to Roger Stevens, the center’s president, detailing her concerns about naming the Washington, D.C., institution for her husband, John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated the previous year. “Last winter, when the decision was made to name it after him, I was unable to make any decision – many people were pressuring me,” she wrote. “I don’t think he needs any monuments – his tomb and library are these. The center is an issue he inherited – and he would have done it differently if he had initiated it. My concern now is to avoid him being controversial. He has a right to peace now. So you have to understand my hesitation.”
Jackie Kennedy’s 1964 Letter Comes Back to Haunt Trump
