Almost exactly 30 years ago, I first visited Boston. I was at PepsiCo and was invited to attend a senior leadership programme at Harvard for six weeks.
I liked Boston. A great sports city, a great college town and of course, an important part of America’s history. The Irish and the Italians make for an eclectic, dynamic, cultural mix.
The highlight of my visit 30 years ago was three hours spent in the newly opened John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which was opened in 1979. It’s a great building designed by I.M. Pei who, at the time, was relatively unknown. (President Kennedy – alongside Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol – was an early hero of mine, and for many of my generation. I still have an original iconic poster of the presidential candidate and his ‘Leadership for the 60’s’ campaign.)
Trudy and Kendall joined me in a nostalgic return to the Presidential Museum last week. It’s a wonderful way to spend a morning as you track through the July 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles – the campaign trail, the campaign office with the Kennedy/Nixon debates playing on TVs from the 60s. The Inauguration is covered, and then you are taken through the White House corridor, the Briefing Room, and the Oval Office which are all full of original pieces. The Space Programme, the Peace Corps, the Cuban Missile Crisis along with the Strategy of Peace are all beautifully covered, and there are interesting insights into the life of the First Lady. There’s a great concluding Legacy exhibit.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we had a leader of his calibre and his beliefs leading the US today?
