Susan E.B. Schwartz

Susan E.B. Schwartz is an American non-fiction writer who is a Partner to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports [ [http://www.fitness.gov/50thanniversary/50th_partners_pages/50th_anniv_partner_connecticut.htm The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports - 50th Anniversary Partners - Colorado ] ] and writes about the outdoors, fitness and sports. She is also the author of the biography of medical and rock climbing pioneer, Hans Kraus ("Into the Unknown: The Remarkable Life of Hans Kraus"). The book was a finalist at the Banff Book Competition and won the 2006 Eric Hoffer Award and Writer’s Notes Award.

In the 1950s, Kraus became the first to identify the relationship among exercise, fitness, and muscles, and also the first to identify how exercise impacts mental, emotional and physical health. Kraus was also the first to warn Americans that children were not getting enough exercise and were watching too much television.

Eisenhower championed Kraus and his campaign to get Americans to exercise. However, by 1957, it was clear that Kraus was unsuccessful. Kraus was broadly opposed by the AMA and gym teachers (who felt Kraus was disparaging to their leadership) and many Americans, as "Sports Illustrated" reported in 1957, who worried that mandatory exercise programs for children would “Hitlerize American youth."

In October 1961, Kraus became President Kennedy’s secret White House back doctor. [ [http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/21/an_exercise_guru_helped_ease_jfks_back_pain/ An exercise guru helped ease JFK's back pain - The Boston Globe ] ] The story of Kennedy’s back had never prior been reported, although there was much speculation; but Kraus and Kennedy’s two other White House doctors had sworn confidentiality. In April 2006, over ten years after Kraus’s death, Kraus’s widow donated Kraus’s White House medical records on Kennedy to the Kennedy Library. They are now available to historians as well as the general public. [ [http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Archives+and+Manuscripts/fa_kraus.htm Hans Kraus, M.D. (#345) - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum ] ] Additionally, some of Schwartz’s book interview tapes of Hans Kraus are also archived in the Kennedy Library and available for research.

Kraus’s medical records show that by the time of Kennedy’s death in Dallas, using exercise, Kraus had virtually cured Kennedy of his lifelong back pain. [ [http://www.fitcommerce.com/Blueprint/WebControls/Announcements/ViewAnnouncement.aspx?ItemID=1018&mid=112&portalId=2&cid=112 New Finding Reveals President John F. Kennedy's New Exercise Routine Was Healing His Back Pain ] ] . Kraus’s White House medical records also contain several entries about Kennedy’s back corset, which Kennedy had worn since Harvard. As Kraus wrote in the medical records, Kraus had grown convinced that the corset was impeding Kennedy’s recovery and that Kennedy needed permanently to stop wearing it. Finally, in October 1963, Kennedy told Kraus that he would stop wearing his corset permanently in January 1964. Several leading presidential historians, including James Reston and Robert Dallek, have theorized that Kennedy might have survived Dallas if he had not been wearing his corset. [ [http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Opinion/FK27Df02.html The Standard - How steel back brace made JFK a sitting duck in Dallas - Opinion Section ] ] [ [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/12/dallek.htm The Atlantic | December 2002 | The Medical Ordeals of JFK | Dallek ] ]

Personal

A current member of the Literary Board of the American Alpine Club [ [http://www.americanalpineclub.org/ The American Alpine Club — Home ] ] , Schwartz formerly sat on the Board of Directors of the American Alpine Club and sits on committees for the Mohonk Preserve, the largest non-profit nature in New York State. Schwartz also taught scuba diving in Manhattan and was a shipwreck divemaster on New York harbor shipwrecks. She grew up outside New York City and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall and Harvard.

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