Word: public
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...kind of private behavior that is tolerated in public figures varies considerably from nation to nation. Each country has its own unwritten code of seemly behavior. It would have been acceptable for the Prince of Wales to carry on a discreet affair with Mrs. Wallis Simpson, if he had wanted to; but for him as King Edward VIII to marry a divorced American woman was unthinkable. Class resentment and sexual envy were aroused in the British public by the disclosure that the Tory Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, had fraternized with Christine Keeler and assorted other shady characters...
...friend Bernard Goldfine with the Federal Trade Commission, Sherman Adams, Eisenhower's Presidential Assistant, did not do anything much out of the ordinary in Washington. But congressional Democrats, who were smarting from charges of corruption during the Truman Administration, seized their opportunity and drove Adams from public life. Former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas exercised bad judgment when he accepted a retainer from the foundation of Financier Louis Charles Wolfson, whose case was due for review by the court. Yet Fortas might have been able to keep his seat on the bench if he had not been associated with...
Even if they are surrounded by enemies ready to pounce at their first lapse, public figures can get away with a lot if their misdeeds are only a matter of gossip. The U.S. President, in particular, is well insulated against excessively prying eyes. Warren Harding employed the Secret Service to keep watch over his liaisons in the White House. Franklin Roosevelt's affair with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer, was successfully kept out of print even though it almost broke up his marriage. Washington gossips amused themselves with stories about John Kennedy's attentiveness...
There is a kind of safety in the undocumented rumor. On the other hand, even relatively innocuous events can become damaging once they are matters of public record. Justice Hugo Black's brief, youthful membership in the Ku Klux Klan did nothing to shape his judicial philosophy; yet when Black's Klan affiliation was revealed shortly after his appointment to the Supreme Court, he was almost forced to resign. Nelson Rockefeller had a possible shot at the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. But he was removed from contention when he divorced his wife of 18 years to marry...
...women are emerging from second-class citizenship, politicians are accustomed to entertaining guests with bar girls hired for the occasion. Last winter, Premier Eisaku Sato's wife admitted in an interview that her husband used to run around with other women and even beat her up occasionally. The public was not outraged but amused...