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Cultural Diplomacy
Honoring Nobel Prize Winners
On April 29, 1962, the Kennedys hosted a dinner honoring 49 Nobel Prize winners then living in the Western Hemisphere, all but three in the United States. Additional guests included intellectuals and scientists such as James Baldwin, Robert Frost, and the astronaut John Glenn. The Kennedys even invited two scientists from opposing sides of the nuclear debate, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had developed the atomic bomb, and physicist Linus Pauling, who had spent the hours before the dinner protesting nuclear testing outside the White House gates.
LIFE magazine declared, “this was the President’s party.” Kennedy himself quipped that the dinner was “the President’s Easter Egghead Roll.” But the dinner had a serious purpose. It showcased American leadership in science, medicine, literature, and peace. |