Madison in the Sixties
Kennedy and Madison: Seven Days in November, 1963
On November 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy starts his last full day in the White House by sending a Western Union telegram to Madison for UW president Fred Harvey Harrington to read at the dedication of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Memorial Laboratories, funded in part by a $250,000 grant from the family foundation. The president, whose sister Rosemary suffered a botched lobotomy in 1941 and is currently institutionalized in Jefferson, Wisconsin, salutes lab director Dr. Harry Waisman on his efforts to “conquer the vast field of mental retardation and its attendant problems.” Senator Edward Kennedy and brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps director, tour the lab, attend a symposium, and hold a dedicatory luncheon at the Memorial Union.1
Around 11:30 a.m. on November 22, about eight hundred festive Badger boosters board a special twenty-car Milwaukee Road train bound for Minneapolis and the UW–Minnesota football game. Eleven months after their thrilling Rose Bowl loss, Wisconsin hopes to salvage a disappointing season by at least keeping Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
In downtown Dallas about an hour later, two Madison men see the presidential motorcade go by. Holmes Tire and Supply
