An Unfinished Life

Although these matters of state held Jack's interest, they initially commanded less of his attention than practical questions about his Senate influence and even more mundane ones about organizing his Senate office. Republican control of the Upper House by a two-seat margin-49 to 47-meant that Kennedy, a freshman member of the minority, would be one of the least-influential members of the Senate. Like the House, the Senate placed greater value on members.h.i.+p in the majority and seniority than on a new senator's abilities, however impressive they might be.

But even if circ.u.mstances were different, Jack's top priority had to be setting up an office that met the needs of his home state. He relied on the same devoted and effective a.s.sistants that had helped him in the House. Ted Reardon became his D.C. administrative a.s.sistant, and Frank Morrissey continued to head the Boston office. To meet his larger responsibilities as a senator, Jack hired two native Nebraskans, Evelyn Lincoln as his personal secretary and Theodore C. Sorensen as his number two legislative a.s.sistant.

Mrs. Lincoln, as Jack always addressed her, was born Evelyn Maurine Norton in the hamlet of Polk, Nebraska. Her father, a farmer and devoted Democrat, served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the late 1920s and early 1930s. As a resident of the capital, Evelyn Norton earned a degree from George Was.h.i.+ngton University. After marrying Harold Lincoln, a political scientist, Mrs. Lincoln worked on Capitol Hill from 1950 to 1953, where she became acquainted with Congressman Kennedy and worked in his 1952 Senate campaign. "A pleasant brunet with a ready twinkle," the forty-year-old Mrs. Lincoln impressed Jack as certain to be a devoted aide who would patiently meet every request. He was not disappointed. As he later told Sorensen, "If I had said just now, 'Mrs. Lincoln, I have cut off Jackie's head, would you please send over a box?' she still would have replied, 'That's wonderful. I'll send it right away. Did you get your nap?'"

Sorensen was another exceptional find for a new ambitious senator. Jack hired him after two five-minute interviews; but he had ample information about the twenty-four-year-old lawyer from Lincoln, Nebraska, who had been "a lowly attorney" at the Federal Security Agency and then counsel to the Temporary Committee of the Congress on Railroad Retirement Legislation. Sorensen came from a progressive Republican family with a father who had been a crusading Nebraska attorney general and ally of Senator George W. Norris. Sorensen's mother, Annis Chaikin, was the offspring of Russian Jews and, like her husband, a social activist committed to women's suffrage and other progressive causes. Kennedy also knew that Sorensen was his parents' child-a civil rights activist, an avowed pacifist, and an outspoken member of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), an organization supporting reform candidates and causes.

Sorensen was an unlikely choice. In fact, before he went to his first interview, a knowledgeable D.C. attorney told him, "Jack Kennedy wouldn't hire anyone Joe Kennedy wouldn't tell him to hire-and, with the exception of Jim Landis [a former dean of the Harvard Law School and Kennedy family lawyer], Joe Kennedy hasn't hired a non-Catholic in fifty years!" But Jack needed a stronger liberal voice in his circle than his own if he were to advance his political career, and Sorensen was the sort of cerebral, realistic liberal Jack felt comfortable with. Sorensen saw himself as someone moved more by "intellectual than emotional persuasion. I am personally convinced," he said, "that the liberal who is rationally committed is more reliable than the liberal who is emotionally committed." When Joe Kennedy first met Sorensen eight or nine months after Jack hired him, Joe told him, "You couldn't write speeches for me. You're too much of a liberal. But writing for Jack is different."

Despite agreeing to work for Kennedy, Sorensen had doubts about the senator's willingness to fight the good fight. He wrote later that he immediately liked Kennedy, "impressed by his 'ordinary' demeanor. He spoke easily but almost shyly, without the customary verbosity and pomposity. The tailor-made suit that clothed a tall, lean frame was quietly stylish. A thatch of chestnut hair was not as bushy as cartoonists had portrayed it. He did not try to impress me, as officeholders so often do on first meetings, with the strength of his handshake, or with the importance of his office, or with the sound of his voice. Except for the Palm Beach tan on a handsome, youthful face, I saw few signs of glamour and glitter in the Senator-elect that winter." But Sorensen felt that if he "were going to throw in with him, there were certain things [I] wanted to know. I didn't want us to be too far apart on basic policy and so I asked the questions-about his father, Joe McCarthy, the Catholic Church." Jack was self-effacing and ready to tell Sorensen what he wanted to hear. Blessed with the instincts of the politician who can read an audience or intuit how to put himself in line with a listener's concerns, Kennedy described himself as more liberal than his House record suggested. "You've got to remember," he said, "that I entered Congress just out of my father's house," that is, still partly under his conservative influence.

Lincoln, Reardon, and Sorensen set to work in room 362, a four-room suite, in the Old Senate Office Building. In time, the middle room, where the door was always open during work hours, became a hive of activity, crowded with desks, filing cabinets, ringing telephones, clattering typewriters, and a constant stream of visitors. Mrs. Lincoln presided over this domain, while two small offices to the left housed Reardon and Sorensen, who in time were joined by several other aides providing expertise on domestic and foreign issues. To the right was Jack's s.p.a.cious inner office with a large gla.s.s-faced bookcase topped by models of World War II s.h.i.+ps and a stuffed nine-foot sailfish Jack caught off Acapulco in 1953. The wall in the far right corner of the room displayed old prints and inscribed framed photos of political friends. The senator sat at a large desk set in the center of the room before a green marble fireplace. Books, reports, and souvenirs, including the coconut sh.e.l.l Kennedy had used to arrange the rescue of his PT 109 PT 109 crew, covered his desk. "An air of intense informality hung over the office," making it, at times, seem "like a five-ring circus, as Kennedy simultaneously performed as senator, committee member, Ma.s.sachusetts politician, author, and presidential candidate." Sorensen in particular unstintingly put his exceptional talent as an a.n.a.lyst and writer in the service of his new boss: He was "devoted, loyal, and dedicated to the Senator in every way possible," Evelyn Lincoln would say later. "Time meant nothing to him-he gave it all to the Senator." crew, covered his desk. "An air of intense informality hung over the office," making it, at times, seem "like a five-ring circus, as Kennedy simultaneously performed as senator, committee member, Ma.s.sachusetts politician, author, and presidential candidate." Sorensen in particular unstintingly put his exceptional talent as an a.n.a.lyst and writer in the service of his new boss: He was "devoted, loyal, and dedicated to the Senator in every way possible," Evelyn Lincoln would say later. "Time meant nothing to him-he gave it all to the Senator."

The first task Jack set himself and the staff was fulfilling the promise of his campaign to do more for Ma.s.sachusetts than his predecessor. Asked on Meet the Press Meet the Press shortly after his election what accounted for his victory over Lodge, Jack pointed to the decline of the state's economy "in the last six years with its compet.i.tion with the South and its loss of industry. The feeling of the people of the state was that our interests had been neglected." shortly after his election what accounted for his victory over Lodge, Jack pointed to the decline of the state's economy "in the last six years with its compet.i.tion with the South and its loss of industry. The feeling of the people of the state was that our interests had been neglected."

Sorensen, Harvard economist Seymour Harris, and three members of Joe's New York staff developed forty proposals for New England economic expansion. Jack described them in three carefully crafted Senate speeches in the spring of 1953. "The Economic Problems of New England-A Program for Congressional Action" argued that what was good for New England was good for America. "This Nation's challenge to meet the needs of defense mobilization and to achieve national and international economic stability and development," Jack a.s.serted, "cannot be fully met if any part of the country is unproductive and unstable economically." The program urged help for various Ma.s.sachusetts industries, including fis.h.i.+ng, textiles, and s.h.i.+pbuilding, as well as for the Boston seaport. Kennedy's suggestions for stimulating the region's economy appealed to Democrats and Republicans alike by offering benefits to business and labor and promising to serve the national defense. The Congress would eventually enact most of the program, though slowly and with little fanfare.

Congress's tortoiselike pace meant that, as Ted Reardon told a supporter, "no great fireworks... resulted" from Jack's initiative. Since the object of the exercise was not only to help New England but also to publicize Jack's fulfillment of 1952 campaign promises, the office blitzed the media with publicity. Reardon distributed 30,000 copies of the program to special interest groups throughout New England, and Jack and Sorensen collaborated on articles about it in American Magazine, American Magazine, the the Atlantic Monthly, Atlantic Monthly, the the New Republic, New Republic, and the and the New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine.

The aggressive promotion of Jack's achievements and reputation included blunting attacks on him in the state. When Elmer C. Nelson, the chairman of the Republican State Committee, "made some slurring remarks about Jack," describing him as a "young Democratic fellow with a whirlygig in his hair" who went around serving tea to ladies to get elected, Jack sent word that if Nelson continued to refer to him that way, he would "take actions which he thinks are called for." Nelson did not test Jack's resolve.

THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING the first Catholic president intrigued Jack from the start of his political career. To advance his national visibility, he staked out a controversial position on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a proposed river transit system between northern Canada and the Great Lakes. Although advocates of the project argued its value to the national economy in general and the Midwest in particular, concerns that it would crimp the economic life of Boston's port had kept Ma.s.sachusetts senators and representatives from casting a single vote for the project on the six occasions over the twenty years it had been before Congress. Jack wrestled with the issue for months before deciding to speak for the bill's pa.s.sage in January 1954. the first Catholic president intrigued Jack from the start of his political career. To advance his national visibility, he staked out a controversial position on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a proposed river transit system between northern Canada and the Great Lakes. Although advocates of the project argued its value to the national economy in general and the Midwest in particular, concerns that it would crimp the economic life of Boston's port had kept Ma.s.sachusetts senators and representatives from casting a single vote for the project on the six occasions over the twenty years it had been before Congress. Jack wrestled with the issue for months before deciding to speak for the bill's pa.s.sage in January 1954.

Few issues had troubled him as much during his years in Congress, he declared at the start of his speech. But several considerations had persuaded him to break with prevailing opinion in his state and support U.S. partic.i.p.ation in building and managing the Seaway. First, if necessary, Canada would build the waterway without the United States. Second, a joint effort would give America part owners.h.i.+p and control of a vital strategic international artery, which would facilitate the s.h.i.+pment of high-grade iron ore the United States might need for national defense. Third, he believed there would ultimately be little, if any, damage to Boston's port, where 75 percent of traffic was "coastwise, intraport and local, which no one has claimed would be affected by the Seaway." Fourth, though he saw no reason to think that the city and state would benefit directly from the project, he believed that it would provide indirect economic gains. Finally, to oppose the Seaway would be to take "a narrow view of my functions as a U.S. Senator." Quoting Daniel Webster, Kennedy concluded, "Our aim should not be 'States dissevered, discordant [or] belligerent'; but 'one country, one const.i.tution, one destiny.'"

Although the Boston Post Boston Post a.s.serted that he was "ruining New England," Jack won more than he lost from what some described as a courageous stand for the national interest. At least one Ma.s.sachusetts newspaper came to his defense and two members of the state's congressional delegation, persuaded by Jack's arguments, voted with him for the Seaway. More important from Jack's perspective, his outspoken backing of the St. Lawrence project won him attention. In February 1954, when he appeared on NBC's a.s.serted that he was "ruining New England," Jack won more than he lost from what some described as a courageous stand for the national interest. At least one Ma.s.sachusetts newspaper came to his defense and two members of the state's congressional delegation, persuaded by Jack's arguments, voted with him for the Seaway. More important from Jack's perspective, his outspoken backing of the St. Lawrence project won him attention. In February 1954, when he appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, Meet the Press, the host described him as only the third Democrat in Ma.s.sachusetts history to win a U.S. Senate seat. "His sensational victory [had] created international interest. He is in the news again because of his position on the St. Lawrence Seaway." His stand on the St. Lawrence project, Ted Sorensen said later, "certainly had the effect of making him a national figure." the host described him as only the third Democrat in Ma.s.sachusetts history to win a U.S. Senate seat. "His sensational victory [had] created international interest. He is in the news again because of his position on the St. Lawrence Seaway." His stand on the St. Lawrence project, Ted Sorensen said later, "certainly had the effect of making him a national figure."

So did his p.r.o.nouncements on defense and foreign policy. Even after Eisenhower arranged a Korean truce in July, three of the four most worrisome issues to people were ousting communists from government, preventing another war, and formulating a clear foreign policy. In April 1954, 56 percent of Americans remained primarily concerned about threats of war, communist subversion, and national defense. By June, despite strong confidence in Eisenhower's leaders.h.i.+p, the number of citizens troubled by these issues had risen to 67 percent. When asked directly about the possibility of a war in the next five years, between 40 and 64 percent of Americans saw a conflict as likely. A majority of the country expected atomic and hydrogen bombs to be used against the United States.

Kennedy's readiness to speak out on such questions was partly a case of cynical s...o...b..ating. He understood that, as a journalist friend told him, his p.r.o.nouncements on foreign affairs put his "eager boyish puss and ingratiating tones... all over the place." If he was going to run for president, establis.h.i.+ng himself as a Senate leader on foreign affairs seemed like an essential prerequisite. But foreign policy was also his long-standing area of expertise, and joining a debate on vital matters of national security appealed to him as the highest duty of a senator.

It was, of course, rather courageous of a retired navy lieutenant and junior senator to take on a popular president whose credentials as a successful World War II and NATO military chief had carried him to the White House. But Jack believed that the Eisenhower-Dulles policy of reduced defense spending to balance the federal budget and reliance on ma.s.sive retaliation or nuclear weapons rather than more conventional ones was an inadequate response to the communist menace. His recollections of misguided naval actions initiated by high-ranking officers in World War II encouraged his outspokenness.

In a Jefferson Jackson Day speech in May 1953, Kennedy said that it may be that Moscow will continue to rely "on the weapons of subversion, economic disintegration and guerilla warfare to accomplish our destruction, rather than upon the direct a.s.sault of an all-out war. But we cannot count on it." The Soviets and their satellites were devoting a large percentage of their national production to war preparations. Their large land armies supported by air and sea forces exceeding those in the West put America's national security in peril, especially when one considered the military budget cuts proposed for 1954 by the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy could "not see how the Western Alliance with a productive potential substantially larger than that of the Communist bloc, can be satisfied with anything less than a maximum effort, one that has some relation to the unrelenting efforts of the Soviets to build irresistible military strength." This was not an issue "on which the Democrats can win elections, for only disaster can prove us correct." Rather, it was a matter of serving the cause of peace and national well-being, or so he believed.

Kennedy had little impact on the Eisenhower defense budgets, and his fears of an all-out war were a misreading of Soviet intentions. As George Kennan, the architect of containment, understood at the time, the Soviets viewed their buildup as defensive, a response to Western plans for the destruction of communism. Their goal was to defeat the West not with a full-scale war, which they saw themselves losing, but by political subversion. Kennedy's defense proposals, however, were an improvement on Eisenhower's policy of ma.s.sive retaliation, which provided "more bang for the buck," as the administration advertised, while reducing America's capability to fight a limited or non-nuclear war. Nevertheless, the increased defense spending Kennedy favored threatened to expand the arms race and bring the two sides closer to an all-out conflict. Kennedy's proposals were less an imaginative way to ease tensions with Moscow than a variation on what Kennan described as "the militarization of the Cold War."

KENNEDY'S EFFORTS to alter the American response to France's struggle in Indochina were wiser than his p.r.o.nouncements on defense budgets. As France's hold on the region became increasingly tenuous, Jack's concern to find an effective means of addressing the crisis was amplified. He asked Priscilla Johnson, a foreign-policy specialist on his staff, to calculate the extent of French spending on Indochina's economic welfare and to suggest reforms that would spur the anticommunist war effort. Johnson replied that the proportion of French spending on welfare was very small compared with military aid. She added that the French had given limited control of affairs to citizens of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam-the three a.s.sociated States, as they were called; it was difficult to suggest reforms, Johnson reported, "since the problem is not that of changing existing inst.i.tutions, which are being maladministered, but of introducing inst.i.tutions which so far do not exist at all." to alter the American response to France's struggle in Indochina were wiser than his p.r.o.nouncements on defense budgets. As France's hold on the region became increasingly tenuous, Jack's concern to find an effective means of addressing the crisis was amplified. He asked Priscilla Johnson, a foreign-policy specialist on his staff, to calculate the extent of French spending on Indochina's economic welfare and to suggest reforms that would spur the anticommunist war effort. Johnson replied that the proportion of French spending on welfare was very small compared with military aid. She added that the French had given limited control of affairs to citizens of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam-the three a.s.sociated States, as they were called; it was difficult to suggest reforms, Johnson reported, "since the problem is not that of changing existing inst.i.tutions, which are being maladministered, but of introducing inst.i.tutions which so far do not exist at all."

In May 1953, Jack privately told Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that increasing aid would give the United States the right to insist on changes that would give "the native populations... the feeling that they have not been given the shadow of independence but its substance. The American people want in exchange for their a.s.sistance the establishment of conditions that will make success a prospect and not defeat inevitable." The State Department agreed that a transfer of authority to the a.s.sociated States was desirable but saw no way to make this more than a "gradual" process.

In response, Kennedy put his case before the Congress and the public. In the summer of 1953, he urged the Senate to make U.S. aid to the French in Indochina contingent on policies promoting freedom and independence for Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. He believed that French resistance to reform was r.e.t.a.r.ding the war effort. Jack acknowledged that these were "harsh words to say about an ancient friend and ally," but he spoke them in the belief that America's financial share of the fighting, which was at 40 percent and rising, ent.i.tled the United States to recommend changes that held out greater hope of success than the stumbling French policy followed since 1946. He was reluctant, however, to give the French an ultimatum, as Arizona's Republican senator Barry Goldwater urged; withholding aid unless France initiated democratic reforms in the a.s.sociated States seemed likely to force Paris to abandon the war in Indochina and open all of Southeast Asia to communism. Jack proposed instead that American aid "be administered in such a way as to encourage through all available means the freedom and independence desired by the peoples of the a.s.sociated States."

As French military failure grew more likely in the winter of 1953-54, Jack pressed the case for a French commitment to end its colonial rule. He also asked the White House to explain how ma.s.sive retaliation could save Indochina and the rest

On Meet the Press Meet the Press in February 1954, Kennedy was asked if he was suggesting that the United States replace France in Indochina. No, he answered, because without commitments to independence for these French colonies, the United States would be facing a hopeless task. Since he was on record as saying that to lose Indochina was to lose all of Asia, didn't he believe it essential for the United States to fight? No, he said, because he saw no prospect of victory, "and therefore it would be a mistake for us to go in." However, he still had hope that the French could alter matters by promising independence and bringing educated local leaders and enough manpower to their side to reverse the tide of battle. But U.S. military involvement without this promise would be doomed to failure: "No amount of American military a.s.sistance in Indochina," he told the Senate, "can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, 'an enemy of the people' which has the sympathy and covert support of the people." The only path to victory was through the creation of a "native army" that expected sacrifices in blood and treasure to bring self-determination. in February 1954, Kennedy was asked if he was suggesting that the United States replace France in Indochina. No, he answered, because without commitments to independence for these French colonies, the United States would be facing a hopeless task. Since he was on record as saying that to lose Indochina was to lose all of Asia, didn't he believe it essential for the United States to fight? No, he said, because he saw no prospect of victory, "and therefore it would be a mistake for us to go in." However, he still had hope that the French could alter matters by promising independence and bringing educated local leaders and enough manpower to their side to reverse the tide of battle. But U.S. military involvement without this promise would be doomed to failure: "No amount of American military a.s.sistance in Indochina," he told the Senate, "can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, 'an enemy of the people' which has the sympathy and covert support of the people." The only path to victory was through the creation of a "native army" that expected sacrifices in blood and treasure to bring self-determination.

Kennedy's a.s.sessment of French policy received strong support in the United States. But it meant nothing to the outcome in Southeast Asia, where French resistance collapsed in May 1954 with the defeat at the fortress of Dien Bien Phu in the Vietnamese highlands. As agreed to by China, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union at a Geneva conference later that year, the country was split in two at the Seventeenth Parallel-a North Vietnam under a communist government in Hanoi led by Ho Chi Minh and a South Vietnam under a pro-Western regime in Saigon led by Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic backed by promises of U.S. economic and military aid. Determined to supplant French influence in the south, Was.h.i.+ngton engineered Diem's replacement of Bao Dai, the ruling emperor, who had been a figurehead chief beholden to French power.

Kennedy was now more emphatic than ever that U.S. military involvement would be a mistake. In a TV appearance in May, he emphasized the pointlessness of committing U.S. forces, which echoed what the White House was saying. He feared that Indochina "is lost, and I don't think there is much we can do about it.... There is no outright military intervention that the United States could take in Indo-China which I believe would be successful." Indeed, U.S. intervention seemed certain to provoke a Chinese reaction, and "we'd find ourselves in a much worse situation than we found ourselves in Korea."

Kennedy's response to the crisis won him substantial attention and considerable praise in the press for sensible realism. His disagreements with earlier predictions by Eisenhower officials that "the French are going to win" moved commentators to describe Kennedy as an astute foreign policy a.n.a.lyst with a bright political future. No one noted, however, that Kennedy had exaggerated hopes for what could be expected of a so-called autonomous Vietnam-a country that would be dependent on American money and supplies in any further struggle against communist insurgents. This imperfect judgment would become apparent to Kennedy himself and others only in time.

KENNEDY'S POLITICAL FUTURE partly depended on finding ways to avoid alienating antagonistic factions debating McCarthy's anticommunist crusade. Because McCarthy had little proof to back up his charges and kept changing the number of subversive government officials, opponents labeled him a reckless demagogue. Yet others saw the loss of China, the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and the convictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for atomic spying and of Alger Hiss, a once respected State Department official, for falsely denying that he had pa.s.sed secrets to the Soviet Union as giving the ring of truth to McCarthy's accusations. partly depended on finding ways to avoid alienating antagonistic factions debating McCarthy's anticommunist crusade. Because McCarthy had little proof to back up his charges and kept changing the number of subversive government officials, opponents labeled him a reckless demagogue. Yet others saw the loss of China, the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and the convictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for atomic spying and of Alger Hiss, a once respected State Department official, for falsely denying that he had pa.s.sed secrets to the Soviet Union as giving the ring of truth to McCarthy's accusations.

In spite of increasing doubts about McCarthy's reliability, in November 1953, 46 percent of those surveyed said it was a good idea for the Republicans to raise fresh questions about communists in government during the FDR-Truman years. The following month, the public listed getting rid of communists in government as the country's number one problem, and 50 percent approved of McCarthy's commitment to do so.

But they did not like his methods. In the first months of 1954, 47 percent of Americans disapproved of his behavior, and when he launched an investigation of subversion in the U.S. Army in the spring, it further undermined confidence in his tactics. In May, 87 percent of Americans knew about the McCarthy hearings, but a majority thought they would do more harm than good. By the summer, 51 percent of those with an opinion were opposed to McCarthy.

His intemperateness had largely contributed to his decline. He had called President Truman "a son of a b.i.t.c.h" counseled by men drunk on "bourbon and Benedictine," and he had attacked General George C. Marshall, a World War II hero, as the architect of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man." When he also accused Protestant clergymen and U.S. Army officers of, respectively, supporting and s.h.i.+elding communists, it increased public doubts about his rational good sense.

Democrats, led by Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, now saw an opportunity to break his hold on the country. McCarthy is "the sorriest senator up here," LBJ had told Senate secretary Bobby Baker. "Can't tie his G.o.dd.a.m.n shoes. But he's riding high now, he's got people scared to death some Communist will strangle 'em in their sleep, and anybody who takes him on before the fevers cool-well, you don't get in a p.i.s.sin' contest with a polecat." Understanding how daily exposure would go far to defeat him, Johnson arranged to have McCarthy's army hearings televised. Thirty-six days of TV coverage between April and June 1954 allowed people, in Johnson's words, to "see what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was up to." McCarthy's physical features-his unshaved appearance and nasal monotone-joined with evidence of his casualness about the truth to ruin him. In September, after nine days of hearings orchestrated by LBJ, a special Senate committee recommended that McCarthy be "condemned" for breaking Senate rules and abusing an army general. In December, after the congressional elections, the Senate voted condemnation by a count of 67 to 22.

The only Senate Democrat not to vote against McCarthy-or more precisely, not not vote on the issue-was Kennedy. Jack had no illusions about the man's ruthlessness and unreliability. In 1953, when a reporter asked what he thought of Joe, he replied, "Not very much. But I get along with him. When I was in the House, I used to get along with [Vito] Marcantonio and [John] Rankin," demeaning McCarthy by lumping him with extremists on the left and the right. In January 1953, when Jack heard that his father had arranged for Bobby to be appointed as counsel to McCarthy's subcommittee on investigations, he regretted what his father had done. "Oh, h.e.l.l, you can't fight the old man," he said in disgust. Jack was especially critical of the false charges McCarthy brought against foreign service officers for the "loss" of China. He dismissed as "irrational" allegations of communists in the diplomatic corps. In February 1954, he publicly complained of McCarthy's "excesses." "You reach the point of diminis.h.i.+ng returns in all of these extreme charges and countercharges," he added. vote on the issue-was Kennedy. Jack had no illusions about the man's ruthlessness and unreliability. In 1953, when a reporter asked what he thought of Joe, he replied, "Not very much. But I get along with him. When I was in the House, I used to get along with [Vito] Marcantonio and [John] Rankin," demeaning McCarthy by lumping him with extremists on the left and the right. In January 1953, when Jack heard that his father had arranged for Bobby to be appointed as counsel to McCarthy's subcommittee on investigations, he regretted what his father had done. "Oh, h.e.l.l, you can't fight the old man," he said in disgust. Jack was especially critical of the false charges McCarthy brought against foreign service officers for the "loss" of China. He dismissed as "irrational" allegations of communists in the diplomatic corps. In February 1954, he publicly complained of McCarthy's "excesses." "You reach the point of diminis.h.i.+ng returns in all of these extreme charges and countercharges," he added.

Jack also differed with McCarthy on a number of appointments needing Senate confirmation. In 1953, Jack voted in support of Charles Bohlen as amba.s.sador to Russia and in 1954 for James Conant as amba.s.sador to West Germany, despite McCarthy's attacks on both men as insufficiently anticommunist. These votes, however, required no direct confrontation with McCarthy. Neither did Jack's support of a ban on speeches by former McCarthy aide Scott McLeod, who, as a State Department employee, was violating civil service rules against political activities. But Jack's successful opposition to appointing former senator Owen Brewster, a McCarthy friend, as counsel to the investigations committee, and Robert Lee, another McCarthy friend, to the Federal Communications Commission incensed McCarthy. "Now wait until you try to get some special legislation for Ma.s.sachusetts," McCarthy threatened Jack. "He was really furious," Jack said. "After that, it was just 'h.e.l.lo Jack' when we pa.s.sed in the hall, but he never really talked to me again after that."

Kenneth Birkhead, who was a.s.sistant to the Senate Democratic whip and the party's expert on McCarthy, later recalled that Kennedy was in constant touch with him about McCarthy's background and current accusations. "I don't think there was any other member of the Senate," Birkhead said, "who spent as much time contacting me about McCarthy as did the then Senator Kennedy." In July 1954, at the close of the army hearings, when the Senate initially considered censuring McCarthy, Jack was ready to vote against him. Sorensen prepared a speech that Kennedy never delivered, because of a decision to delay consideration of the charges against McCarthy until after formal hearings and the November elections. In July, however, Jack was prepared to say that the issue of McCarthy's censure "is of such importance that it is difficult for any member not to set forth clearly his position on this matter." Though the speech was hedged with numerous qualifiers, it defended the "dignity and honor" of the Senate by censuring McCarthy's conduct-or more precisely, the conduct of two of his aides for whom he was responsible.

Why then did Jack fail to vote for condemnation, a lesser charge than censure, at the end of 1954? After all, by then McCarthy had been largely repudiated. Historian and Kennedy supporter Arthur Schlesinger Jr. later said that an unequivocal stand against McCarthy might have antagonized some Ma.s.sachusetts Catholics, but it would have improved Jack's standing with millions of others in the state. Connecticut senator Brien McMahon, from a state with a similar percentage of Catholics to that of Ma.s.sachusetts, had openly opposed McCarthy, and Schlesinger said that "it didn't hurt him." But not everyone concurred. One Ma.s.sachusetts newspaper may have accurately described the current mood in the state when it said: "[It was] certainly futile to expect any candidate running for Ma.s.sachusetts statewide political office with any chance of winning to criticize Senator McCarthy. Adherents of both parties are evidently scared to death of offending the Boston electorate." Ex-governor Paul Dever said, "Joe McCarthy is the only man I know who could beat Archbishop Cus.h.i.+ng in a two-man election fight in South Boston." Most important, Kennedy's gut told him that his const.i.tuents would punish him if he acted against McCarthy. Reflecting on these judgments, Jack told one critic of his failure to take a stand, "What was I supposed to do, commit hara-kiri?"

Jack came to regret his decision. His failure to join all his fellow Democrats and a majority of the Senate in condemning McCarthy's disgraceful behavior became an enduring political problem. Jack gave a number of unconvincing explanations for his non-vote. "I never said I was perfect," he began one defense of himself in 1960. "I've made the usual quota of mistakes. The Joe McCarthy thing? I was caught in a bad situation. My brother was working for Joe. I was against it, I didn't want him to work for Joe, but he wanted to. And how the h.e.l.l could I get up there and denounce Joe McCarthy when my own brother was working for him? So it wasn't so much a thing of political liability as it was a personal problem." It was a weak and, if believed, selfish excuse.

His father, Kennedy also claimed, exerted pressure. "He liked McCarthy," Jack said in the same interview. "He still has a good word to say for McCarthy if you were sitting around with him in the evening. Contribute money to support McCarthy? I wouldn't doubt it for a minute."

In addition, Jack's non-vote rested on a detached view of the people McCarthy attacked. "I had never known the sort of people who were called before the McCarthy committee," Jack later told a journalist. "I agree that many of them were seriously manhandled, but they all represented a different world to me. What I mean is, I did not identify with them, and so I did not get as worked up as other liberals did." Unquestionably, former Communist Party members, 1930s radicals hoping Marxism might rescue America from the Depression, were not part of any circle Jack frequented. But intellectuals and foreign service officers? They were objects of McCarthy's public attacks as well, and Jack knew and admired some of these people.

In the final a.n.a.lysis, Jack offered a legalistic explanation for his non-vote. Reminding critics that he was in the hospital for back surgery during the Senate's final deliberations on McCarthy, Jack said he was like an absent member of a jury who had not heard all the evidence and was not ent.i.tled to vote. This is, to say the least, not very convincing. The matter was more a moral issue than a legal or technical one, and it had not come out of the blue but after years of McCarthy's misbehavior. Jack may have been more candid when he told a journalist in 1960, "I went into the hospital and I heard nothing about it and cared less and I didn't have any contact with anyone at my office and maybe Ted [Sorensen] should have paired me [i.e., joined someone with an opposite vote in abstaining], but at the time I didn't care about the thing. I couldn't care less. I was in bad shape and I had other things on my mind." His preoccupation with his health is no doubt true. Yet it seems inconceivable that Joe, Bobby, and others attentive to Jack's political future would have let the vote on McCarthy slide by without a decision on what he should do. For someone who admired courage of any kind-physical, emotional, political-Kennedy failed the test by ducking the vote, avoiding taking a stand for reasons of political expediency, and short-term political expediency at that.

Jack's inaction would have negative political consequences for the next six years. He repeatedly had to explain his non-vote to political opponents. His caution also bothered his conscience and made him more attentive to matters of political independence and courage. The best one can say about his pa.s.sive response to the Senate's vote on McCarthy is that he subsequently questioned his own decision and publicly celebrated past examples of senators who had shown more political courage than he had.

PRIVATE CONCERNS PREOCCUPIED Kennedy during the debate on condemning McCarthy's behavior. In 1953, he had reluctantly decided to marry. Up till that time, he had seemed perfectly content to be the "Gay Young Bachelor," as a Kennedy during the debate on condemning McCarthy's behavior. In 1953, he had reluctantly decided to marry. Up till that time, he had seemed perfectly content to be the "Gay Young Bachelor," as a Sat.u.r.day Evening Post Sat.u.r.day Evening Post article then described him: a handsome, casual millionaire who dashed about Was.h.i.+ngton in "his long convertible, hatless, with the car's top down," and had the pick of the most beautiful, glamorous women in and out of town. But Jacqueline Bouvier, a beautiful twenty-two-year-old socialite, had entered his life, and political necessities dictated that he end his career as the "'Senate's Confirmed Bachelor.'" One close Kennedy friend doubted that Jack would have married if he had lost the senate race in 1952, but a wife was essential for a young senator intent on higher office. article then described him: a handsome, casual millionaire who dashed about Was.h.i.+ngton in "his long convertible, hatless, with the car's top down," and had the pick of the most beautiful, glamorous women in and out of town. But Jacqueline Bouvier, a beautiful twenty-two-year-old socialite, had entered his life, and political necessities dictated that he end his career as the "'Senate's Confirmed Bachelor.'" One close Kennedy friend doubted that Jack would have married if he had lost the senate race in 1952, but a wife was essential for a young senator intent on higher office.

This is not to suggest that he was marrying strictly for reasons of political expediency; he had, in fact, fallen in love with Jackie. In 1951, after they met at a dinner party given by their journalist friend Charlie Bartlett, they began a two-year courts.h.i.+p. From the first, Jackie seemed like an ideal mate, or as close to it as Jack was likely to find: physically attractive, bright and thoughtful, shy but charming, and from a prominent Catholic Social Register Social Register family. Jackie also added to Jack's public aura, which partly satisfied the political side of the marriage. She helped legitimize Jack's standing as an American Brahmin-a royal marrying another member of the country's aristocracy. family. Jackie also added to Jack's public aura, which partly satisfied the political side of the marriage. She helped legitimize Jack's standing as an American Brahmin-a royal marrying another member of the country's aristocracy.

They shared backgrounds of personal suffering. Jackie's parents, John Vernou Bouvier III, a New York Stock Exchange member, and Janet Lee Bouvier, had divorced when Jackie was nine. Tensions with her mother and an absent father, whose drinking and womanizing further separated him from his family, had made Jackie distrustful of people and something of a loner. By contrast, Jack had countered his anguish about his health and parental strains by constant engagement with friends. Though outwardly opposites in their detachment from and affinity for people, beneath the skin they were not so different.

"He saw her as a kindred spirit," Lem Billings said. "I think he understood that the two of them were alike. They had both taken circ.u.mstances that weren't the best in the world when they were younger and," Billings emphasized, "learned to make themselves up make themselves up as they went along.... They were so much alike. Even the names-Jack and Jackie: two halves of a single whole. They were both actors and I think they appreciated each other's performances. It was unbelievable to watch them work a party.... Both of them had the ability to make you feel that there was no place on earth you'd rather be than sitting there in intimate conversation with them." Chuck Spalding said that "Jack appreciated her. He really brightened when she appeared. You could see it in his eyes; he'd follow her around the room watching to see what she'd do next. Jackie as they went along.... They were so much alike. Even the names-Jack and Jackie: two halves of a single whole. They were both actors and I think they appreciated each other's performances. It was unbelievable to watch them work a party.... Both of them had the ability to make you feel that there was no place on earth you'd rather be than sitting there in intimate conversation with them." Chuck Spalding said that "Jack appreciated her. He really brightened when she appeared. You could see it in his eyes; he'd follow her around the room watching to see what she'd do next. Jackie interested interested him, which was not true of many women." him, which was not true of many women."

But there were also frictions that threatened the potential union. Joe Kennedy worried that Jack might not want to give up his freedom. "I am a bit concerned that he may get restless about the prospect of getting married," Joe wrote Jack's friend Torb Macdonald six weeks before the wedding. "Most people do and he is more likely to do so than others."

Jack's reluctance expressed itself in a "spasmodic courts.h.i.+p" that bothered Jackie. She was in Europe for a while after they began dating, and when she returned, Jack's campaign for the Senate took priority over the courts.h.i.+p. After that, Jack was often in Ma.s.sachusetts, where he would call her "from some oyster bar... with a great clinking of coins, to ask me out to the movies the following Wednesday in Was.h.i.+ngton." Possibly more threatening to the relations.h.i.+p were rumors of Jack's womanizing. But this, in fact, actually seemed to make him more attractive to Jackie. Chuck Spalding believed that "she wasn't s.e.xually attracted to men unless they were dangerous like old Black Jack [Bouvier]," her father, whose philandering had destroyed his marriage to Jackie's mother. "It was one of those terribly obvious Freudian situations," Spalding said. "We all talked about it-even Jack, who didn't particularly go for Freud, but said that Jackie had a 'father crush.' What was so surprising was that Jackie, who was so intelligent in other things, didn't seem to have a clue about this one."

They married at Jackie's stepfather's estate in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12, 1953. It was a celebrity affair attended by the rich and famous and numerous members of the press, who described it as the social event of the year-the marriage of "Queen Deb" to America's most eligible bachelor. "At last I know the true meaning of rapture," Jack wired his parents during his honeymoon in Acapulco. "Jackie is enshrined forever in my heart. Thanks mom and dad for making me worthy of her."

This devotion did not last long. The first fifteen months of their marriage produced tensions that were some of the "other things" that were on Jack's mind during McCarthy's condemnation. Jackie was unhappy with the priority Jack gave his work over her; even when he was at home, she said, he seemed so preoccupied that she might "as well be in Alaska." "I was alone almost every weekend," she recalled. "It was all wrong. Politics was sort of my enemy and we had no home life whatsoever." Jack complained that she spent money like water and redecorated their various residences so often that he felt "like a transient." He tried to rein her in. "[Jack] insists that Jackie either travel or eat well," Rose wrote daughter Pat, "so the week ends she spends money on traveling she has to practically starve at home."

Since they had not lived together before marrying, Jackie was unprepared for what she called Jack's "violent" independence-by which she meant not just his habit of going off with his male friends but, more important, his thinly disguised promiscuity. In theory, she may have been drawn to her husband's bad side, but the practical result was painful. She was not, Lem Billings recalled, "prepared for the humiliation she would suffer when she found herself stranded at parties while Jack would suddenly disappear with some pretty young girl." Jackie rationalized Jack's behavior by saying, "I don't think there are any men who are faithful to their wives. Men are such a combination of good and evil." But one of Jack's friends recalled that "after the first year they were together, Jackie was wandering around looking like the survivor of an airplane crash."

Jackie's unhappiness was no inducement to Jack to restrain himself. In the summer of 1956, while she was in the late stages of a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage, Jack went on a yachting trip with George Smathers in the Mediterranean, where he enjoyed "a baccha.n.a.l, with several young women getting on and off the boat at its ports of call." He was especially drawn to "a stunning but not particularly intelligent blonde who... referred to herself as 'Pooh.'" Even after getting the news that Jackie had lost their child, Jack did not decide to go home until Smathers warned him that a divorce would play havoc with his presidential ambitions. In 1958, when younger brother Ted got married, Jack was caught on tape whispering to him "that being married didn't really mean that you had to be faithful to your wife."

Health problems compounded Jack's marital tensions. After the diagnosis of his Addison's disease in September 1947, he continued to struggle with medical concerns. Over the next six years, headaches, upper respiratory infections, stomachaches, urinary tract discomfort, and almost constant back pain plagued him. He consulted an ear, nose, and throat specialist about his headaches, took medication and applied heat fifteen minutes a day to ease his stomach troubles, consulted urologists about his bladder and prostate discomfort, had DOCA pellets implanted and took daily oral doses of cortisone to control his Addison's disease, and struggled unsuccessfully to find relief from his back miseries. "Senator Kennedy has been a patient of the Lahey Clinic at intervals since 1936, and has had quite a variety of conditions," a Lahey Clinic urologist summed up Jack's problems in March 1953. The physician described him as "doing well" in regard to his Addison's disease. In 1951, however, while in j.a.pan during his Far East trip, he had suffered a severe Addisonian crisis. He ran a temperature of 106 degrees and the doctors feared for his life. The episode convinced him to be more fastidious about taking his medicine, and over the next two years his back problems became his princ.i.p.al complaint.

In July 1953, Kennedy entered George Was.h.i.+ngton University Hospital for back treatment. By the following January, with no relief in sight, he consulted a specialist at New York Hospital, and then in April he entered the Lahey Clinic for further consultations. The pain had become almost unbearable. X rays showed that the fifth lumbar vertebra had collapsed, most likely a consequence of the corticosteroids he was taking for the Addison's disease. He could not bend down to pull a sock on his left foot and he had to climb and descend stairs moving sideways. Beginning in May, he had to rely on crutches to get around, and his walks to the Senate from his office on hard marble floors for quorum and roll calls became daily ordeals. His discomfort made him so short-tempered that Evelyn Lincoln considered leaving her job. A brief stay in the Bethesda Naval Hospital in July provided no remedy. In August, a team of Lahey physicians visited him at the Cape, where they described a complicated surgery to achieve spinal and sacroiliac fusions. They explained that without the operation he might lose his ability to walk, but they warned that so difficult a surgery on someone with Addison's disease posed a grave risk of a fatal infection.

Rose Kennedy said later, "Jack was determined to have the operation. He told his father that even if the risks were fifty-fifty, he would rather be dead than spend the rest of his life hobbling on crutches and paralyzed by pain." Joe tried to dissuade Jack from chancing the surgery, reminding him of FDR's extraordinary achievements despite being confined to a wheelchair. But Jack a.s.sured him, "'Don't worry, Dad, I'll make it through.'" After he entered New York's Hospital for Special Surgery on October 10, the team of endocrinologists and surgeons postponed the operation three times until October 21 to ensure an "extended metabolic work-up prior to, during, and after surgery."

The more-than-three-hour operation was a limited success. A metal plate was inserted to stabilize the lumbar spine. Afterward a urinary tract infection put Jack's life in jeopardy. (Steroids are also immunosuppressives and make infection more likely and more serious.) He went into a coma, and a priest was called to administer the last rites. Fearful of losing his second son, Joe wept openly before Arthur Krock. "His entire body shook with anger and sorrow," Rose recalled. But by December, Jack had shaken the infection and recovered sufficiently to be moved to the family's Palm Beach home. It was clear, however, that he remained far from well; his doctors could not promise that he would ever walk again. Moreover, there was reason to believe that the plate itself was infected. Consequently, in February, another operation was performed at the same New York hospital to remove the plate. Extracting it meant removing three screws that had been drilled into the bone and replacing shattered cartilage with a bone graft. After another three months recuperating in Florida, Jack returned in May to Was.h.i.+ngton, where he received a warm welcome from Senate colleagues who admired his determination to maintain his career in the face of such debilitating medical problems.

Because his absence from Was.h.i.+ngton over so long a period could not be hidden, the Kennedys had no choice but to acknowledge his illness. Public knowledge of Jack's surgery and slow recovery, however, benefited rather than undermined his image. Jack came through this medical ordeal looking courageous-not weak and possibly unfit for higher office, as his family had feared. Nevertheless, the Kennedys did not trust that coming clean about Jack's health problems in the future would generate a similar result.

Throughout it all, Jack worried that his non-vote on McCarthy's censure had been politically unwise and morally indefensible. In December, as he was about to be carried on a stretcher from the hospital for his trip to Florida, Chuck Spalding, who was in his room, recalls him saying, "'You know, when I get downstairs I know exactly what's going to happen. Those reporters are going to lean over my stretcher. There's going to be about ninety-five faces bent over me with great concern, and every one of those guys is going to say, 'Now, Senator, what about McCarthy?'" And he said, "'Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to reach back for my back and I'm just going to yell, Oow, and then I'm going to pull the sheet over my head and hope we can get out of there.'"

INCREASINGLY FASCINATED with the issue of moral and political courage-"at which point and on which issue he [a politician] will risk his career"-Kennedy now began thinking about writing a book on the subject. This was partly a retrospective coming to terms with his moral lapse on McCarthy, but it was also more: He had been interested in the subject for a long time, going back to at least the failure of British political leaders in the thirties to oppose popular resistance to rearming. And his election to the House and the Senate gave him added reason to think about the proper role of an elected legislator in dealing with conflicting pressures every time he had to vote. Where is the line between satisfying local demands and sometimes defying them for the sake of larger national needs? Early in 1954, after reading in Herbert Agar's with the issue of moral and political courage-"at which point and on which issue he [a politician] will risk his career"-Kennedy now began thinking about writing a book on the subject. This was partly a retrospective coming to terms with his moral lapse on McCarthy, but it was also more: He had been interested in the subject for a long time, going back to at least the failure of British political leaders in the thirties to oppose popular resistance to rearming. And his election to the House and the Senate gave him added reason to think about the proper role of an elected legislator in dealing with conflicting pressures every time he had to vote. Where is the line between satisfying local demands and sometimes defying them for the sake of larger national needs? Early in 1954, after reading in Herbert Agar's Price of Union Price of Union about the independence demonstrated by John Quincy Adams, Kennedy asked Ted Sorensen to find other examples of senators "defying const.i.tuent pressures." Feelings about conforming to his father's wishes and acting on his own judgment were surely also part of the interest that drew Kennedy to the problem. about the independence demonstrated by John Quincy Adams, Kennedy asked Ted Sorensen to find other examples of senators "defying const.i.tuent pressures." Feelings about conforming to his father's wishes and acting on his own judgment were surely also part of the interest that drew Kennedy to the problem.

Kennedy understood that there were varieties of courage. He had firsthand knowledge of the bravery men showed in war and compet.i.tive sports. There was also self-mastery of the sort Franklin Roosevelt had shown in overcoming private suffering to pursue a successful public career. Jack quoted Eleanor Roosevelt's description of her husband's polio attack as a "turning point" that "proved a blessing in disguise; for it gave him strength and courage he had not had before." Jack's colitis, Addison's disease, and back miseries had provided him with a similar, if not as large, challenge. In a 1956 magazine article about his back surgery, "What My Illness Taught Me," Jack described a letter he had received from a ninety-year-old lady when he was flat on his back in the hospital and feeling glum. Though she was bedridden, she was "full of hope and good humor." She had never voted for a Democrat and wanted the chance to vote for at least one before she died. She thought it "might stand me in good stead up above. So I want you to be up to running in 1958. Don't waste away feeling sorry for yourself," she advised. "Keep busy. Do all the things you never had time to do." Jack said the letter was "a tonic for my spirits," and if he had not received it, he might "never have got around to writing my book." Whether the lady's advice was quite as important as Jack represented it to be is beside the point; his illness gave him additional inspiration to write what would eventually be called Profiles in Courage Profiles in Courage.

The book recounts the careers of eight senators-John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Lamar, George W. Norris, and Robert Taft-all of whom had shown uncommon courage in risking their political careers by taking unpopular stands that put them at odds with majorities in their parties, states, and regions. It was a celebration in a time of uncertain prospects for democracy in its compet.i.tion with communism, and a healthy antidote to the periodic cynicism that besets Americans about politicians and the country's system of self-rule.

Published in 1956, the book became a national bestseller and added to Jack's prominence, but it also raised questions. Where did a busy U.S. senator sidelined by serious medical problems find the wherewithal to write so successful a book? According to one earlier biographer, interviews and research into contemporary papers, including those of Ted Sorensen, who helped Jack with the book, prove "Jack Kennedy's involvement: from start to finish, the responsibility was clearly his.... Personalities to be included were suggested by several people; the Preface acknowledges many debts, but the choices, message, and tone of the volume are unmistakably Kennedy's." Sorensen and Professor Jules Davids of Georgetown University, with whom Jackie had taken courses, gathered materials for the book and drafted chapters, but the final product was essentially Jack's. He edited what Sorensen and Davids gave him and then dictated final chapter drafts for a secretary to type. The tapes of these dictations, which are available at the John F. Kennedy Library, provide conclusive evidence of Jack's involvement. Jack did more on the book than some later critics believed, but less than the term author author normally connotes. normally connotes. Profiles in Courage Profiles in Courage was more the work of a "committee" than of any one person. was more the work of a "committee" than of any one person.

As interesting as the debate about Jack's authors.h.i.+p were his private and public reactions to questions that were raised about it. Suggestions that the book was not his idea or the product of his work incensed him. In 1956, when a Harvard cla.s.smate and radio journalist ribbed Jack about the allegations, he became furious. Jack normally loved that kind of repartee with old friends, but questions about his authors.h.i.+p were different; they touched something in him that left no room for humor. When New York Times New York Times editor John Oakes privately pa.s.sed along the rumor that Jack was not the author, Jack confronted him with "evidence" to the contrary. ("I sure wasn't convinced by this," Oakes said. "Undoubtedly Ted [Sorensen] or someone else wrote it.") When columnist Drew Pearson a.s.serted in a television interview that the book was "ghostwritten," Jack asked prominent Was.h.i.+ngton attorney Clark Clifford to compel a retraction, which Pearson reluctantly gave. editor John Oakes privately pa.s.sed along the rumor that Jack was not the author, Jack confronted him with "evidence" to the contrary. ("I sure wasn't convinced by this," Oakes said. "Undoubtedly Ted [Sorensen] or someone else wrote it.") When columnist Drew Pearson a.s.serted in a television interview that the book was "ghostwritten," Jack asked prominent Was.h.i.+ngton attorney Clark Clifford to compel a retraction, which Pearson reluctantly gave.

Jack certainly hoped that Profiles Profiles would identify him with uncompromising political responses to national dangers. He yearned for a challenge that would give him an opportunity to act like a political hero. The best he could find was a congressional proposal to reform the electoral system. Jack took up the cudgels against what he described as "one of the most far-reaching-and I believe mistaken-schemes ever proposed to alter the American const.i.tutional system. No one knows with any certainty what will happen if our electoral system is totally revamped as proposed." Jack emphasized how well the existing electoral system had worked to ensure the influence of the popular vote, the two-party system, and "the large-State-small-State checks-and-balances system." The proposed amendment, which he feared could destabilize American politics at a time of grave foreign challenges, was nothing voters had demanded or even knew about. Although Jack gave a lengthy, authoritative Senate speech that contributed to the defeat of the amendment, his opposition hardly registered on the press or the public; reform of the electoral college was an invisible controversy. would identify him with uncompromising political responses to national dangers. He yearned for a challenge that would give him an opportunity to act like a political hero. The best he could find was a congressional proposal to reform the electoral system. Jack took up the cudgels against what he described as "one of the most far-reaching-and I believe mistaken-schemes ever proposed to alter the American const.i.tutional system. No one knows with any certainty what will happen if our electoral system is totally revamped as proposed." Jack emphasized how well the existing electoral system had worked to ensure the influence of the popular vote, the two-party system, and "the large-State-small-State checks-and-balances system." The proposed amendment, which he feared could destabilize American politics at a time of grave foreign challenges, was nothing voters had demanded or even knew about. Although Jack gave a lengthy, authoritative Senate speech that contributed to the defeat of the amendment, his opposition