Who has turned down Presidential Medal of Freedom? Question brings surprising answers, including Jackie Kenne - OregonLive

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Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel asked Twitter a straightforward question on Tuesday: “Before Belichick, who was the last person to turn down a Medal of Freedom?”

Bill Belichick, for those who don’t follow football, is the longtime New England Patriots head coach. The six-time Super Bowl champion said in a statement Monday that following “the tragic events of last week … the decision has been made not to move forward with the award. Above all, I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation’s values, freedom and democracy.”

The coach clearly is referring to the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. The rioters had been urged by the president and other Republican leaders to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump.

So who was the last person to turn down a Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Many of Weigel’s social-media followers took up the question, but as it turns out, a definitive answer isn’t all that easy to nail down. Wikipedia, the internet’s heavily trafficked collaborative encyclopedia, insists Belichick is the first person to refuse the medal. Yet the New York Times wrote in 2015 that President Lyndon Johnson wanted to honor President John F. Kennedy posthumously, along with his widow Jacqueline Kennedy, but that Jackie “declined the medal” for herself.

The reason? Jackie apparently didn’t think much of her husband’s successor. She did not attend Johnson’s second inauguration in January 1965 or the White House Rose Garden dedication in her honor. Wrote author Christopher Andersen in the biography “Jackie After Jack”: “For the remainder of the Johnson administration, Jackie received an official invitation to every state dinner and scores of other White House functions. No longer hiding the fact that she considered LBJ a coarse usurper, she did not bother to answer a single one.”

Then there was Major League Baseball catcher Moe Berg.

This time the source is the Washington Post, which, in an article last year pegged to the release of a documentary about Berg, pointed out that the ballplayer was a spy for the U.S. in the 1930s and ’40s. Among his accomplishments during World War II:

“Berg was eventually handed the seemingly impossible task of finding Antonio Ferri, an Italian aerodynamics expert who had gone into hiding and had been privy to the secret workings of German scientists connected to the Nazi nuclear program. Berg found him and -- because the former ballplayer spoke passable Italian -- helped translate a cache of hidden documents.”

Moe Berg is seen here during spring training in 1938.(AP Photo/File) APAP

The newspaper adds: “He was awarded a presidential Medal of Freedom in 1945 but refused to accept it. He never explained why ….” The Baseball Hall of Fame states that Berg’s sister “claimed the award” after her brother died in 1972 and donated it to the baseball museum in Cooperstown, New York.

The Medal of Freedom was originally given out for notable civilian service during World War II. President Kennedy later reimagined the medal as a broader honor, to be presented to people who the president determined had advanced national security, world peace or achieved “cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

-- Douglas Perry

dperry@oregonian.com

@douglasmperry

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