The Reagans and Kennedys

The Kennedys and the Reagans weren't the most likely of friends until a simple speech drew them together, Peggy Noonan reveals in The Wall Street Journal. In 1981, Rose Kennedy visited the White House for the first time since her son was president, delighting the Reagans, and the families struck up a friendship. A few years later, President Reagan gave an eloquent speech at Ted Kennedy's McLean, Virginia home to help raise money for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library—the only presidential library without an endowment. In the speech, Reagan called JFK a man of "contradictions" who "loved mankind as it was, in spite of itself," and had "a good, hard, unillusioned understanding of man and his political choices." Afterward, at the meet and greet, Jackie O. said Reagan had perfectly described her former husband. The next morning, Ted Kennedy wrote an impassioned thank-you letter, telling Reagan, "The country is well served by your eloquent graceful leadership." And so, a friendship was born.