David M. Barrett, author of The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy, has a timely remembrance of how President Kennedy exploded when he discovered Air Force brass had bought top-of-the-line furniture for Otis Air Base on Cape Cod.
Supposedly, Barrett writes at the History News Network, the brass bought the $5,000 bed it in case the famously pregnant First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy needed it in an emergency. But when Kennedy woke up to an embarrassing feature story about it in the July 25, 1963 Washington Post, he was infuriated.
Fortunately, for those who love political history, the tape recorder was rolling when JFK telephoned two people just after seeing a photo in the morning's Post of an Air Force officer with the furniture.
But let Barrett tell the rest of the story -- and hear JFK's taped rage -- an echo of the latest Air Force furniture-spending scandal.
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