American Lady : The Life of Susan Mary Alsop (9781101601167) (25 page)

2
.  Cited in a letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 14, 1960.

3
.  Ibid.

4
.  There are several versions of the Moscow incident of February 1957. I have based my account on the CIA file, which includes letters from CIA director Allen W. Dulles to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover dated March 27 and April 1, 5, and 16, 1957. The letter from April 1, 1957, contains a memorandum written by Joe Alsop in Moscow. For the incident’s consequences, I have followed Robert W. Merry’s biography of Joe and Stewart Alsop,
Taking on the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop, Guardians of the American Century
(New York: Penguin, 1997), 363, 591–92.

5
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, December 2, 1960.

6
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her mother, January 4, 1961.

7
.  Letter from Frankie FitzGerald to Susan Mary, January 16, 1961.

8
.  William S. Patten,
My Three Fathers and the Elegant Deceptions of My Mother, Susan Mary Alsop
(New York: Public Affairs, 2008), 191.

9
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 3, 1976, from the Joseph Alsop and Stewart Alsop Papers, Library of Congress, box 224. (Hereafter, JA and SA Papers.)

10
.  Adapted from a letter from Susan Mary to her mother, January 25, 1961.

11
.  Several books on the Kennedys, seldom the best ones, hint or even state that the newly elected president took to bed one or even several of the women present that evening at Joe Alsop’s house. For a discussion and refutation of this claim, see Patten,
My Three Fathers,
205–6, and Merry,
Taking on the World,
358, 591.

12
.  Cited in Sally Bedell Smith,
Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House
(New York: Random House, 2004), 378.

13
.  The date of this dinner varies according to the source. Susan Mary mentions it without specifying the date in
Marietta
(42–43), as does Joe Alsop in his memoirs,
“I’ve Seen the Best of It”
(446–48). Charles E. Bohlen gives the date as October 18, 1962, in his book
Witness to History
(489). Robert Merry in
Taking on the World
(384) and Walter Isaacson in
The Wise Men
(623, note 802) say October 17. Richard Reeves in
President Kennedy: Profile of Power
(377), Arthur Schlesinger in
A Thousand Days
(802), Sally Bedell Smith in
Grace and Power
(312), and Katharine Graham in
Personal History
(295–96) all date the dinner to October 16. I have chosen to side with the latter date because it corresponds with the copy of the White House agenda of President Kennedy accessible on the Web site of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. This is also the date mentioned in Sir Isaiah Berlin’s interview with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. recorded on April 12, 1965, for the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Oral History Project.

14
.  Adapted from a letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, June 26, 1963.

15
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Avis Bohlen, December 2, 1963, from the Marietta Tree Papers in Harvard University’s Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. (Hereafter, Radcliffe.)

16
.  Joseph W. Alsop, interview recorded by Elspeth Rostow, June 26, 1964, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Oral History Project, 99.

17
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Avis Bohlen, December 2, 1963.

18
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 3, 1976, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

19
.  Undated letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, probably autumn 1964.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 3, 1976.

21
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, July 1, 1967.

VIII. ANATOMY OF A MARRIAGE

1
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Avis Bohlen, October 1968, Radcliffe.
Cela vaut la peine
means “It’s worth it.”

2
.  Adapted from a letter from Susan Mary to her son, December 2, 1964.

3
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her daughter, March 11, 1969.

4
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, August 30 (year not indicated), JA and SA Papers, box 128.

5
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, July 28, 1969, JA and SA Papers, box 128.
Va-et-vient
means “coming and going.”

6
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, September 22 (year not indicated, probably 1966), JA and SA Papers, box 128.

7
.  Ibid.

8
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, July 5, 1969, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

9
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, July 22, 1969, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

10
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, March 15, 1970.

11
.  Ibid.

12
.  Ibid.

13
.  Ibid.

14
.  Letter from Richard Nixon to Susan Mary, May 8, 1970, JA and SA Papers, box 134.

15
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 3, 1976, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

16
.  Art Buchwald,
Sheep on the Runway
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1969), 133–35.

17
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 22, 1970, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

18
.  Letter from Joe Alsop to Mrs. Adams, November 2, 1970, JA and SA Papers.

19
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, August 2, 1968.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, July 29, 1968.

21
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, October 1969.

22
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, January 11, 1972.

23
.  Undated letter from Susan Mary to her son, probably from the spring of 1972.

24
.  Adapted from a letter from Susan Mary to her son, February 12, 1971.

25
.  Notes taken by Susan Mary during a dinner at the White House on March 29, 1972, recounted in a letter to her son, March 31, 1972.

26
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, November 22, 1972.

27
.  Cited in Merry,
Taking on the World,
508.

28
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, November 3, 1976.

29
.  Marina Sulzberger,
Letters and Diaries of Marina Sulzberger,
ed. C. L. Sulzberger (New York: Crown, 1978), 458.

30
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, July 28, 1969, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

31
.  Merry,
Taking on the World,
519.

32
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, May 17, 1973.

33
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, November 29, 1973, Radcliffe.

34
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, January 7, 1974.

35
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, cited in Patten,
My Three Fathers
, 267.

36
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, December 16, 1973, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

37
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, February 23, 1974, JA and SA Papers, box 128.

IX. THE PLEASURE OF WRITING

1
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Mary Whitehouse, March 3, 1975, Whitehouse archives. The quote is in French in the original letter.

2
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, May 1, 1975, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

3
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, May 8, 1975, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

4
.  Undated letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, probably May 1975, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

5
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, June 4, 1975, Radcliffe.

6
.  Ibid.

7
.  Ibid.

8
.  Antonia Fraser, “So Chic, So True, So Sad,”
Evening Standard,
March 16, 1976.

9
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, November 19, 1975, Radcliffe.

10
.  Ibid.

11
.  Ibid.

12
.  Cited in a letter from Susan Mary to Marinette Berry, September 24, 1976, Sulzberger Archives.

13
.  Ibid.

14
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marinette Berry, November 5, 1976, Sulzberger Archives.

15
.  Ibid.

16
.  Walter Isaacson,
Kissinger: A Biography
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 722.

17
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marinette Berry, November 12, 1977, Sulzberger Archives.

18
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marinette Berry, December 19, 1976, Sulzberger Archives.

19
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marinette Berry, March 14, 1977.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, April 6, 1951.

21
.  Letter from Joe Alsop to Susan Mary, August 23, 1976, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

22
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, January 10, 1978, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

23
.  Charlotte Hays, “Lunch with Nancy,”
Washingtonian,
November 1981.

24
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, April 9, 1982.

25
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, June 18, 1986, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

26
.  Ibid.

27
.  Susan Mary Alsop,
Yankees at the Court: The First Americans in Paris
(New York: Doubleday, 1982), 65.

28
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, September 19, 1980, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

29
.  Susan Watters, “Alsop’s Fables,”
Women’s Wear Daily,
November 4, 1983.

30
.  Letter from Selwa Roosevelt to Susan Mary, September 23, 1988, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

31
.  Susan Mary Alsop, introduction to Edith Wharton,
Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas
(New York: Macmillan, 1987).

32
.  This drypoint print was commissioned from the painter Vidal-Quadras by Pierre Bordeaux-Groult.

33
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Joe Alsop, June 27, 1980, JA and SA Papers, box 224.

34
.  Postcard from Susan Mary to Sybil Patten, September 18, 1988.

X. AND NIGHT CAME

1
.  Joseph Alsop and Adam Platt,
“I’ve Seen the Best of It”: Memoirs
(New York: Norton, 1992), 469.

2
.  Letter from Susan Mary to her son, May 11, 1990.

3
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Anne de Rougemont, December 9, 1989, Rougemont Archives.

4
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Cy Sulzberger, January 2, 1991, Sulzberger Archives.

5
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Marietta Tree, April 9, 1982.

6
.  Maureen Dowd, “On Washington; The WASP Descendancy,”
New York Times,
October 31, 1993.

7
.  Ibid. This omission would be made up for a few years later. After Hillary Clinton left the White House, she invited Susan Mary and Paige Rense to lunch, along with the decorators Rodd Brown and Todd Davis. Former President Clinton came to see Susan Mary when lunch was over, but Susan Mary was in a bad mood because her companions had kept her from smoking at the table.

8
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, October 1, 1951.

9
.  Sidney Blumenthal, “The Ruins of Georgetown,”
New Yorker,
October 21–28, 1996.

The main sources for this book have been the letters, photographs, albums, and articles generously made available to me by William S. Patten, Susan Mary Alsop’s son. To these must be added the five hundred love letters written by Susan Mary to Duff Cooper between 1947 and 1953 and rediscovered by Duff and Diana Cooper’s granddaughter, Artemis Cooper. John Julius Norwich, their son, allowed me to use this remarkable unpublished correspondence. Lord Norwich also allowed me to read the unpublished parts of his father’s diary.

Sylvia Blake, Anne de Rougemont, and David Sulzberger also lent me unpublished letters from Susan Mary Alsop.

I also consulted documents in the following archives:

BOOKS BY SUSAN MARY ALSOP

Alsop, Susan Mary.
The Congress Dances
. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

———.
Lady Sackville: A Biography
. New York: Doubleday, 1978.

———.
To Marietta from Paris, 1945–1960
. New York: Doubleday, 1975.

———.
Yankees at the Court: The First Americans in Paris
. New York: Doubleday, 1982.

HISTORICAL STUDIES

Abdy, Jane, and Charlotte Gere.
The Souls
. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1984.

Aldrich, Nelson W.
Old Money: The Mythology of America’s Upper Class
. New York: Knopf, 1988.

Almquist, Leann Grabavoy.
Joseph Alsop and American Foreign Policy: The Journalist as Advocate
. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1993.

Aron, Raymond.
République impériale: Les États-Unis dans le monde, 1945–1972
. Paris: Calman-Lévy, 1973.

Azema, Jean-Pierre.
De Munich à la Libération,
1938–1944
. Paris: Seuil, 1979.

Beevor, Antony, and Artemis Cooper.
Paris after the Liberation
. New York: Doubleday, 1994.