In 1984 I was working as News Director of a small to medium market AM – FM radio station in New York where the owner of the station was a friend of the once famous Protestant preacher Norman Vincent Peale,* who, together with Jimmy Cagney and others, was to receive the Medal of Freedom award. My father and I always admired Cagney films. In short I flew to the White House and witnessed the awards in the East Dining room where I’m told both Lincoln and JFK were laid out for a time after their assassinations. Ordinarily I would have been stuck down stairs with the “radio pool” of reporters but we had connections so I stood on the TV camera scaffolding very near President Reagan and the recipients.
When it came time for Jimmy Cagney, by this time aged and wheelchair-bound, to receive his award, the President handed it to him with great tenderness as Cagney wept. Needless to say it was a very moving moment for all of us there. And I will never forget it. SH.
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* Peale was the author of the Best Seller, The Power of Positive Thinking. I interviewed him and his wife at our FM station the same year and found them both to be delightful persons.
