The Administration: Big Splash at Hickory Hill

The guest list, 300 names long, for the outdoor dance at Hickory Hill, Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s country place in McLean, Va., was such as to make a splash in any sort of political society. Included were the Lyndon Johnsons, British Ambassador David Ormsby Gore and Lady O. G., Supreme Court Associate Justice Whizzer White, Mrs. John Glenn and her husband (who has been something of a fixture at the Hickory Hill lunching pad since he got back from outer space), the Stew Udalls, the Orville Freemans, the Arthur Goldbergs and assorted White House aides, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Larry O’Brien. The guests of honor were the President’s sister Patricia and her actor husband, Peter Lawford. There was, of course, the dance music of the comparable Lester Lanin.

All told, everybody had a dandy time dancing, sipping drinks, watching Harry Belafonte do the twist, and wondering what the stock market would do next.* But, as it does at many Bobby-and-Ethel parties, the 40-ft. by 16-ft. swimming pool took over. As a kind of gimmick, Ethel had thrown a 2-ft.-wide bridge across the width of the pool. Upon it, smack in the middle, were a table and two chairs. At one moment, Ethel was sitting there with John Glenn. Then Glenn was sitting there alone—while Ethel was floundering about in the water, bright red evening gown and all. Later, no one seemed quite able (or willing) to remember how she got there. Other guests quickly fished her out, and Ethel changed into a dry dress and a brown wig that just happened to be on hand. But that was only the beginning: into the water, at the hands of persons unknown, went Arthur Schlesinger and Mrs. Spencer Davis, wife of a Washington broker and good friend of Ethel Kennedy’s. They, too, were helped out, walked away dripping and rejoined the party wearing clothing borrowed from the host and hostess.

It was great fun—in a traditional sort of way. It reminded everybody of the time that Teddy Kennedy exuberantly dived into the pool fully clad, of how buoy-shaped Pierre Salinger was seen bobbing, fully clothed, in the pool with his cigar poking up and sputtering like a waning beacon.

* Latest anti-Kennedy joke making the circuit:

Q. If Jack, Bobby and Teddy were in a boat that was sinking in midocean, who would be saved?

A,The country.