Presidential Pet Museum

Andrew

PUSHINKA Is Here!

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Pushinka: The Fictionalized Story of John F. Kennedy’s Dog is now available for order on Amazon!

In 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sent Jacqueline Kennedy a gift: a fluffy white puppy with a tiny passport. Pushinka became a beloved part of the Kennedy family, witnessing history and developing a romance with JFK’s dog, Charlie. This book gives readers the history of Camelot from a dog’s-eye-view!

The POTUS Pets series strives to illuminate presidential history while celebrating the animals America’s leaders loved.

Pushinka was written by our Historian-in-residence Andrew Hager and illustrated by Nora Sawyer.

New POTUS Pets Book Coming September 18!

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The second book in our POTUS Pets series, Pushinka, arrives on September 18!

Historian-in-residence Andrew Hager tells the story of the Kennedy administration through the adventures of the fluffy dog given to Mrs. Kennedy by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Follow the Communist canine as she meets John Glenn, Eleanor Roosevelt, and more in this sweetly humorous children’s book, ideal for grades 4-6.

Nora Sawyer’s charming illustrations add the perfect touch of early-1960s style to the proceedings. (She previously illustrated Old Ike, the first POTUS Pets book.)

Pushinka will be available via Amazon and CreateSpace on 9/18, and will also be found in discriminating bookstores shortly thereafter!

PPM Picks: ENGLISH HISTORY MADE BRIEF, IRREVERENT, AND PLEASURABLE

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By Andrew Hager, Historian-in-residence

PPM Picks is a weekly feature offering film, book, or music recommendations from our staff. The links provided in the article go to product listings on Amazon. Purchases made using these links support the Presidential Pet Museum. That said, we were not paid to review or promote any of the items mentioned. We just legitimately like them.

When I visited the Tower of London in the summer of 2015, I was greatly intrigued. Not just by the gruesome tales of torture and beheadings, mind you, but by the Beefeaters who served as tour guides. Ours was particularly lively.

“Any Americans here?” he asked at the outset. A few of us raised our hands.

“If you had paid your taxes, all this could be yours!”

He then asked if any of us had studied American History. I raised my hand. At the time, I was a social studies teacher.

“That took you what, two hours? You’re about to find out what history really means.”

All jokes aside, he’s not incorrect. Coming from a land where “old” means two hundred years ago, I found it hard to fathom artifacts and architecture dating back to the twelfth century. English history can be daunting, a seemingly endless parade of depraved monarchs, bloody conquest, and political betrayal that somehow resulted in a modern culture of stiff upper lips, quiet dignity, and tea.

Fortunately, then, we have Lacey Baldwin Smith’s aptly titled English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable, which cover nearly two millennia in fewer pages than J. K. Rowling needs to describe a semester at Hogwarts. Those of us with a cursory knowledge of the United Kingdom learn a great deal, quickly and without succumbing to boredom.

Of particular interest to me was the final chapter, which examines the reign of every British monarch in brief, providing lots of historical gossip in the process. Myths are punctured, legends are replaced with the (often more interesting) truth. If your knowledge of English monarchs comes from Shakespeare and Hollywood, this may surprise and delight you.

PPM Picks: THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST

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By Andrew Hager, Historian-in-residence

PPM Picks is a weekly feature offering film, book, or music recommendations from our staff. The links provided in the article go to product listings on Amazon. Purchases made using these links support the Presidential Pet Museum. That said, we were not paid to review or promote any of the items mentioned. We just legitimately like them.

One of the reasons people love reading about presidential pets is that it allows them to see behind the carefully managed political events they’re used to. Yes, presidents use their animal companions as political tools, but something real, something unscripted comes out when people and pets interact. We relish seeing these iconic figures being real.

For the same reason, I have long enjoyed behind-the-scenes histories of the White House. Bob Woodward is probably the most famous chronicler of executive intrigue, but he wasn’t the first. Around four years before the excellent Woodward and Carl Bernstein book The Final Days (which detailed the end of Nixon’s presidency), David Halberstam had compiled a massive, sobering book called The Best and the Brightest, which explained in great detail how America entered the Vietnam War.

Halberstam had been in Saigon in 1962 as a young reporter for the New York Times. He arrived with the idea that the North Vietnamese communists could and should be stopped, but, as time passed, he realized that the realities of the war did not support the optimism of American politicians. He had believed in the rational, moderate men of the Kennedy administration, men of wit and charm and brilliance. How these left-leaning intellectuals walked into a horrific foreign policy disaster puzzled him, and so he set out to write this book.

As you might have guessed, this is history, not a gossip-soaked beach read like the recent Fire and Fury. Halberstam cares about the private lives of these men only if they impact the decision-making process. We don’t hear about affairs or unhappy marriages. What we get is the extensive debate about American foreign policy that occurred at the highest levels of government in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as detailed backgrounds on all of the major players–Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, George Ball, and others. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson are not the focus, although we get to know them from the way they respond to pressure and the choices they make. It is not a particularly flattering portrait of either.

We all want our government to be run by intelligent leaders, but Halberstam draws a distinction between genius and wisdom. It’s good to be smarts, but it’s better to be wise.

PPM Picks: THE DOGS OF CAMELOT

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By Andrew Hager, Historian-in-residence

PPM Picks is a weekly feature offering film, book, or music recommendations from our staff. The links provided in the article go to product listings on Amazon. Purchases made using these links support the Presidential Pet Museum. That said, we were not paid to review or promote any of the items mentioned. We just legitimately like them.

It seems almost silly to write a lengthy review of The Dogs of Camelot. If you are visiting this website, particularly if you come here often, you need to read this book in the same way someone studying American novels needs to read The Great Gatsby or someone studying film needs to see The Wizard of Oz. This is essential presidential pet reading.

Filled with photos and anecdotes reaching back to John F. Kennedy’s childhood, Margaret Reed and Joan Lownds’ history is a warm portrait of a man who loved dogs (despite his allergies). Each White House-era canine is covered with his or her own chapter. We learn birth dates, breeders, how the Kennedy family acquired each pup, and everything important related to that dog’s life through the fall of 1963 and beyond.

The authors spent countless hours sifting through archives at the Kennedy library, reading oral histories and notes. They also make good use of Dog Days at the White House, the classic memoir of JFK’s dog wrangler, Traphes Bryant. This legwork pays dividends.

They take great care to place each animal in the history of the era. The book notes, for example, that during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK took a quick break from high-level discussions to play with Charlie and center himself before making critical decisions. Even presidents sometimes need emotional support animals,

The Dogs of Camelot is, above all, a satisfying read. As Labor Day approaches and you try to squeeze in one more beach book, consider this page-turner. It overflows with history, good humor, and a strong love of dogs. If you’re here, you need it.

PPM Picks: THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON

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By Andrew Hager, Historian-in-residence

PPM Picks is a weekly feature offering film, book, or music recommendations from our staff. The links provided in the article go to product listings on Amazon. Purchases made using these links support the Presidential Pet Museum. That said, we were not paid to review or promote any of the items mentioned. We just legitimately like them.

Eugene Cernan will never be as widely known as Neil Armstrong. Everyone knows the first man on the moon–his “one small step” quote is embedded in our culture and Ryan Gosling will play him in a movie this fall. Cernan, by contrast, appears in the documentary The Last Man on the Moon (based on his own memoir) but has never been a household name. He is the last of only 12 men who have stood on the lunar surface, but he wasn’t first.

The Last Man on the Moon does not wallow in resentment or self-pity. Armstrong and Cernan were friends, and Cernan felt fortunate to be allowed the chance to travel to space at all. Rather, the movie digs into the more mundane aspects of astronaut life–the long work hours, the emotional strain on their families, the bonds between the men. The neat trick here is that these astronauts feel like real people, not icons, so every tragedy and triumph resonates that much more. This film is startlingly emotional.

It’s also beautiful. Combining actual footage and some re-creations, director Mark Craig creates a visually stunning companion to Cernan’s engaging narration. Key events–particularly Cernan’s spacewalk during the Gemini 9 mission–offer both tension and beauty.

What’s most appealing about The Last Man on the Moon, however, is it’s complete lack of triumphalism. Cernan did important, exciting things, but the sacrifices made by his wife and daughter are not brushed aside. Career devotion comes at a cost, one that both the movie and the man acknowledge. You don’t walk on the moon if your life isn’t fully dedicated to NASA, and though your spouse and child are supportive and proud, no doubt they would prefer more time with you.

“If you think going to the moon is hard,” Cernan’s first wife, Barbara says, “try staying home.”

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