Note: I originally shared this story five years ago. Life Story Magic didn't exist yet — the technology to do it efficiently wasn't there. But reading this again now, I can see I was already thinking about exactly this problem.
I once came across a 73-year-old first person account in The Atlantic.
I got completely sucked in.
It was written by Edward Kennedy (1905-1963), who was an Associated Press correspondent in Europe during World War II, and who was the first reporter to break the story of the German surrender — beating the competition by a full day.
Only, Kennedy wasn’t praised for his big scoop; he was pilloried.
Here’s what happened. The German military surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945 at 2:41 a.m., in a schoolhouse in Reims, France, which was part of Eisenhower’s headquarters.
Kennedy was there, along with a dozen other reporters. They’d been allowed to witness the event on one condition: they had to hold the story for a few hours, so the Allies could make their own official announcement first.
As Kennedy told the tale, the U.S. war censors later changed the rules, ordering reporters to withhold the news for 36 more hours, so the Allies could stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin on May 8.
The point was to ignore the first ceremony at the school house, and make the Soviets’ role more prominent.
The reporters chafed at this. But then, the Allies ordered German radio to announce the end of the war to the German people. Kennedy told military censors that he now considered his obligation to hold the news fulfilled.
“Do as you please,” the chief censor told him. Kennedy managed to call London, and he dictated a short story to his AP coworkers.
By the next morning, May 8, Kennedy’s article was on the front page of every newspaper in America. The free world celebrated, but the weight of the U.S. government came crashing down on him.
He was banned from Europe and fired by the AP. Later, the military investigated and vindicated him, but it was too late for his career.
This article in The Atlantic was his attempt a few years later to give his side of the story.
I had never heard of any of this until I read that 1948 article. I was a bit surprised, because I’ve always been interested in both World War II history, and the history of the media. Heck, I was a reporter for Stars & Stripes for a while.
But no matter what side of this 81-year-old debate you might come down on, what really pulled me in was just the fact that Kennedy got the chance to tell his story.
I believe almost everyone has at least one really interesting story to tell. But, most people never get the chance to tell it.
It’s quite sad, if I let myself think about it. Either time passes before they get the chance, or they don’t have the confidence in their storytelling or writing ability, or they just don’t think anyone would be interested.
But later, their loved ones, at least, really do wish they’d shared.
I’m a member of a parenting Facebook group, for example, and a mom was asking if people thought she should come clean to her college-aged children about her wilder days before she’d had them.
One woman replied with an enthusiastic: Yes! Tell them everything!
She explained that her mother is deceased, and she finds herself craving every piece of information about her, good or bad, momentous or mundane. She would have wanted to know.
Anyway, this is sort of what happened with Kennedy. He wrote the article for The Atlantic, then moved to California and ran some smaller newspapers. He died in 1963, at age 58, when he was hit by a car.
But later, it was his daughter, who was then just 16 when he died, who took up his cause.
She followed in her late father’s footsteps and become a reporter; even worked for the AP for several years. As I gather, she then went to business school and did some other things—but she also got an academic press to publish her father’s memoir in 2012.
That led the then-current head of the Associated Press to write an introduction, apologizing for how his organization had treated Edward Kennedy all those years before.
Maybe I’m sentimental, but I’m sitting here on the couch in my living room in New Jersey, putting the final touches on this newsletter.
And I keep thinking that a man who died years before I was born basically reached up from the grave, and led me to read and share his forgotten account once again.
Nobody’s going to live forever. But, it seems to me that people who share their stories like this at least have a fighting chance to be remembered.
I’ve now done dozens of these interviews myself. And I’ll tell you — the families who receive them are always grateful. Not just for the stories they knew, but for the ones they never would have heard otherwise.
Next week I’ll be sharing something special ahead of Mother’s Day. Stay tuned.
Other things worth knowing …
BBC: An 86-year-old French woman whose American husband died in January before her green card application was completed is being detained by ICE in Louisiana. The woman had moved to the U.S. last year after rekindling a 1960s romance; she and her husband had first met during the 1960s, when he was a soldier stationed in Europe, and she a secretary. They had each married, had children, and been widowed before beginning a relationship in 2022. “They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal,” her son told a French news outlet.
KFF Health News: As immigration authorities carry out what President Trump has promised will be the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, several states are passing laws to keep children out of foster care when their detained parents have no family or friends available to take temporary custody of them. The record 73,000 people in detention in January represents an 84% increase compared with one year before; parents of 11,000 children who are U.S. citizens were detained from the beginning of Trump’s term through August.
USA Today: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has secured a parliamentary majority for his Liberal government, a win he has said will help him deal more effectively with the trade war started by President Trump. It also probably means Carney, who took office with no political experience and has earned global praise for his efforts to band middle-power nations together, won’t have to worry about an election for years.
CNBC: United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby reportedly floated the idea of a potential tie-up with rival American Airlines to the Trump administration earlier this year, a suggestion that if acted upon, would create the world’s largest airline. “This would be the biggest of all time. I can’t even see the slightest chance that a court would allow it,” said George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University.
NPR: More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing: 442 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, with a combined 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next 10 years.
Financial Times: Consumer AI chatbots falter when used to make medical diagnoses, particularly when faced with incomplete information, according to new research highlighting the risks of relying on them as digital doctors. A study found that failure rates exceeded 80% for all models when they needed to perform so-called differential diagnosis — when full patient information was lacking.
The Guardian: Faced with high demand for GLP-1 drugs, some cities and states that previously covered the cost of weight-loss medication for low-income residents and public employees have now started to restrict or eliminate coverage. Some legislators and healthcare providers argue that dropping coverage might provide short-term relief for governments but will ultimately harm Medicaid recipients’ health, while cities and states will then have to pay for more health problems related to obesity.
Thanks for reading. See you in the comments.
Now that we are detaining and handcuffing an 86-year old Frenchwoman who is in mourning for her husband, and now that citizens are being gunned down in the street and ICE has the power to ruin innocent lives, can we stop pretending that we have a democracy?
There are so many things wrong with that detention of the 86 year old lady. WTF are we doing here?
As for a giant airline, again, that is also wrong on a bunch of levels and to think it couldn’t happen is just folly. Routes are getting screwed up. My son flies down to Panamá to visit his brother and me once a year. He got online to check fares from Charleston, SC and found with both Delta and United he would be routed via Newark! A more direct route via Houston was $200.00 more and an even longer experience because of an extended layover. It’s crazy out there.