Scott Kamen

Asst. Prof. of History at the University of New Mexico-Valencia and author of From Union Halls to the Suburbs (

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

@notlokzu @BelRedDevils This can't be a real post, right? Do people think it's real?

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

After dragging out its launch with 20 days of fun Arthur Schlesinger Jr. facts, I can announce that my book is finally available: https://t.co/eJrnEZKlWa

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #20 (last one): Schlesinger did not like curry. He once had too much to drink during an “overlong” cocktail hour at a dinner party, complained loudly that his host was serving curry, and proceeded to leave the party before the dinner was over.

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

3/ anyone was ordering them off the wall now.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #19: Following a confrontation between Schlesinger’s stepson Peter and a Secret Service agent over the shared wall that separated Schlesinger’s lot from Richard Nixon’s, Schlesinger was “summoned.” He “clambered up on the jungle gym, stuck . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ [his] head over the wall and found the Secret Service man.” Schlesinger “took the offensive” by asserting his “half-ownership of the wall,” pointing out that his “children had played on the wall for years without causing any harm to anybody” and asking “by what authority . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ as much right to sit on the wall as Nixon had.” After Peter sat on the wall again he was told by the Secret Service agent, “Last time I asked you, but this time I am telling you: get off that wall.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #18: Soon after the installation of a security camera on the shared wall that separated Schlesinger’s lot from Richard Nixon’s, a Secret Service agent told Schlesinger’s stepson Peter to get off the wall. Schlesinger told Peter “that he had. . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ why he hadn’t been consulted about the installation of a camera on a wall that he co-owned.

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #17: Tensions between Schlesinger and Richard Nixon escalated when the Secret Service installed a security camera on the shared wall that separated their lots. Schlesinger fired off a letter to the chief of the Secret Service asking . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

3/ by 9.” These were, in Schlesinger’s words, “not New York hours.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #16: When Schlesinger was Richard Nixon’s next-door neighbor in New York he kept a close eye on the former president’s house. Schlesinger noted that when he would get up at 7 that Nixon already had a fire blazing in his fireplace. However, . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ Schlesinger stressed that “lest he get too much moral credit for rising so early it should be noted that the Nixons seem to dine around 6 o’clock, an hour or so before” Schlesinger and his wife Alexandra started their “pre-prandial drinking, and the house is generally dark...

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ asked his son what Nixon had done and Robert reported that “he waved at me to get off the wall.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #15: Soon after Richard Nixon moved next door, Schlesinger’s son Robert was playing with a friend in their garden and climbed to the top of the shared wall that separated their lots. Nixon came out and “waved” at Robert. Later, Schlesinger . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #14: When Schlesinger was Richard Nixon’s next-door neighbor in New York he kept a vigilant eye on the former president’s house and noted that his Christmas wreaths were “adorned incongruously with doves of peace.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #13: When asked for his reaction to Richard Nixon becoming his new next-door neighbor by an ABC television crew, Schlesinger remarked “there goes the neighborhood.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ A: No, even worse. Someone you think ought to be in prison.
S: I can’t believe it. Richard M. Nixon.

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #12: In the fall of 1979, Schlesinger learned from his wife Alexandra that they would be getting a new next-door neighbor:
A: Guess. It is not someone you like very much. In fact, it is someone you have no use for.
S: Roy Cohn? . . .

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

2/ “more distinguished.”

[Scott Kamen @scott_kamen]

1/ Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Fun Fact #11: Having made Richard Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List,” Schlesinger reflected on his own enemies in 1992: Gore Vidal, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion, and John Gregory Dunne. He wished his list of enemies was . . .