Topeka Capital-Journal
August 26, 1994

Almost every day, it seems, there is another story in the news about the benefits of exercise, particularly for senior citizens. Studies keep offering strong evidence that physical activity is the best investment for those who want to stay healthy longer.

Americans listen to what is being said about the value of exercise. There are so many people into it now the time surely will come when there will be more miles of walking, jogging, hiking, and skating paths then there are miles of interstate highways.

Traffic on the paths is heavy now and can only get worse. There is an exercise explosion, taking place, and you can see men and women of all ages, with the latest student equipment and attire, trying to shape up and maybe prolong the inevitable.

You also can see old crocks, who remind you more of hobo looking for handouts than exercise buffs. They are proof the benefits of activity are available to all, and that you don’t have to cater to fat or fashion to fight fat and seek the fountain of youth.

Where did all this start? I think it started with a long walk more than 30 years ago. Robert F. Kennedy, appointed by his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who said at the time that Bobby could use the experience.

One Saturday or Sunday, I don’t recall which, Bobby went to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal toll path, where horses once pulled barges on the waterway, and walked up into Maryland for 50 miles. He did it without fanfare, without inviting the media to tag along. He just went out and did it.

What prompted it was publicity about Marines routinely making 50-mile marches, if walking that far can ever be routine.

President Kennedy liked to needle his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, who loved the good life and had the shape to prove it, and one day Kennedy, in front of the media, said Pierre, to prove his metal, should walk 50 miles.

Salinger responded with one of the most unforgettable lines ever to come out of Washington. He said, “I may be plucky, but I’m not stupid.“ He knew that if he tried to go 50 miles, he stood a good chance of coming back in a box.

But the president kept the needle in, and after Bobby’s walk became front page news, the pressure was really on Salinger. The media covering the White House wouldn’t let it die, so he needed help. Believe it or not, he turned to yours truly.

At the time, I was administrator of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and in the wake of Bobby’s walk, we had issued a warning to everybody who was saying, “if Bobby can do it, I can do it.“ We said don’t try it unless you’ve been cleared by your doctor.

Salinger seized on that. He called me and said, “you’ve got to get me off the hook.“ So, I issued a statement, saying Salinger was too much a national treasure to risk losing over a simple hike, probably could do without working up a sweat, and that he was exactly who we had in mind in the medical warning.

The media knew it was hokum, and accuse Salinger of hiding behind a bureaucrat, but it died out. Salinger later wrote a book about his White House years, and my wife asked him to autograph a copy she was giving me as a gift. He wrote, “you saved me from a fate, worse than death.“

It was President Eisenhower, who created the Council on Physical Fitness. But it was the Kennedy administration that energized it. The people who came to Washington with the Kennedy’s didn’t just talk fitness; they did it.

One of them was Dean Markham, who had played football in Harvard University with Bobby. He asked me to play golf, so before work one morning I met him at a course. I teed off first, and then he teed up, hit his ball, grabbed his golf bag and took off in a dead run down the fairway. I stood there dumbfounded.

Finally, he stopped, turned and yelled to me, “come on, we’re not going to get any exercise just walking around this golf course.“ What he said is as true today as it was then, but that still is the only time I have run 18 holes. Obviously, I never played with Markham again.

To be sure, there were joggers and walkers, and what have you before the Kennedys came along, but I always will believe they triggered the sudden popularity of exercise for everybody.

And about Bobby’s walk: after he did it, I was worried that as administrator of the fitness program, I would be asked if I had tried it. I was afraid that any minute the phone would ring and I would be embarrassed.

So, one Sunday morning, in the company of two Pentagon Marines, and a friend who said he wanted to try it just for the hell of it, I set out. If I told you what happened, you wouldn’t believe me. The point is, nobody ever asked me if I tried it. Nobody.