Chapter 7
During 1955, Kennedy had consulted Travell, a neurologist, about the muscle spasms in his lower left back that radiated to his left leg and made him unable to "put weight on it without intense pain." He asked her repeatedly about the origins of his back troubles, but she found it impossible "to reconstruct by hindsight what might have happened to him over the years." It was clear to her, however, that Kennedy "resented" the back surgeries, which had given him no relief and "seemed to only make him worse." He might have done better, of course, to blame the physicians who had prescribed the steroids that weakened his bones, but he had no idea that this was the root of his back problems.
The medical records from this time describe Kennedy as having zero flexion and extension of his back, with difficulty reaching his left foot to pull up a sock, turn over in bed, or sit in a low chair. He also had problems bending his right knee and could raise his left leg to only 25 percent of what was considered normal. There was "exquisite tenderness" in his back, and he was suffering from arthritis.
The treatments for his various ailments included oral and implanted cortisone for the Addison's and ma.s.sive doses of penicillin and other antibiotics to combat the prostat.i.tis and abscess. He also received anesthetic injections of procaine at trigger points to relieve back pain, antispasmodics-princ.i.p.ally, Lomotil and trasentine-to control the colitis, testosterone to bulk him up or keep up his weight (which fell with each bout of colitis and diarrhea), and Nembutal to help him sleep. He had terribly elevated cholesterol-410, in one testing-apparently caused by the testosterone, which also may have heightened his libido and added to his stomach and prostate problems.
Kennedy's collective health problems were not enough to deter him from running. Though they were an inconvenience, none of them was life-threatening. Nor did he believe that the many medications he took would reduce his ability to work effectively; on the contrary, he saw them as ensuring his competence to deal with the day-to-day rigors of public responsibility. And apparently none of his many doctors-the endocrinologists, neurologists, surgeons, gastroenterologists, or urologists-told him that were he elevated to the presidency, his health problems (or the treatments for them) could pose a danger to the country.
Seeing no compelling reason to stand aside, by the end of 1956 Kennedy had begun campaigning for the Democratic nomination. After the defeat in Chicago, Jack told Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers, "I've learned that you don't get far in politics until you become a total politician. That means you've got to deal with the party leaders as well as the voters. From now on, I'm going to be a total politician." This meant courting all possible factions. After the 1956 convention, where Democratic members of Congress publicly complained that Kennedy's voting record or erratic support of party positions made him a liability in a national campaign, Jack privately wrote Democratic leaders to "set the record straight." He had "actively opposed" Taft-Hartley, he claimed, and had supported Truman's veto. He had opposed legislation giving the Atomic Energy Commission the authority to make contracts with private companies to replace public power generated by the TVA. True, on farm legislation he had opposed guaranteed government payments providing a kind of welfare for all farm families. However, he pointed out, he was "the only New England Senator to support the [Senator Hubert] Humphrey amendment, which would have provided 'payments' for small family farmers, flexible support for medium-sized farmers and no aid to wealthy farmers.... In view of the very vigorous opposition of New England farmers to the entire farm program," he told Missouri representative Leonor Sullivan, "I believe I have gone more than halfway in recognizing the needs in other sections of the country." And in the fall of 1956, when some Mississippi newspapers reported that an "'anti-Southern' att.i.tude and legislative record" had made southern support of Jack's vice presidential candidacy unwise, he wrote the state's governor to convince him otherwise; he had "never been 'anti-Southern' in any sense of the word," he told James Coleman. Although he acknowledged that his support of Ma.s.sachusetts' interests sometimes clashed with those of Mississippi, he had princ.i.p.ally devoted himself to the national interest and looked forward to serving the needs of both their regions in the future.
BUT WINNING SOUTHERN SUPPORT for the 1960 nomination was much more complicated than writing a letter. Since 1955 the Democrats had been in control of the Senate, where Lyndon Johnson had become majority leader and Mississippi's James Eastland chaired the Judiciary Committee, which had blocked civil rights legislation from reaching the floor. In 1957, it was clear to congressional leaders, including Johnson and other southerners, that pressure from southern blacks led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leaders.h.i.+p Conference (SCLC), coupled with Supreme Court decisions mandating desegregation of public schools and integration of the Columbia, South Carolina, and Montgomery, Alabama, munic.i.p.al bus systems, made changes in race relations across the South inevitable, including possible pa.s.sage of a civil rights law. The only question was how fast and far-reaching these changes would be. Johnson, who was also planning on running for president, understood that he could never win the White House unless he established himself as a national leader supportive of reforms giving African Americans full const.i.tutional rights. James Rowe, LBJ's old New Deal friend, urged him to lead a civil rights bill through Congress that would give him "all the credit for... a compromise... with the emphasis in the South on compromise, and emphasis in the North on getting a bill." for the 1960 nomination was much more complicated than writing a letter. Since 1955 the Democrats had been in control of the Senate, where Lyndon Johnson had become majority leader and Mississippi's James Eastland chaired the Judiciary Committee, which had blocked civil rights legislation from reaching the floor. In 1957, it was clear to congressional leaders, including Johnson and other southerners, that pressure from southern blacks led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leaders.h.i.+p Conference (SCLC), coupled with Supreme Court decisions mandating desegregation of public schools and integration of the Columbia, South Carolina, and Montgomery, Alabama, munic.i.p.al bus systems, made changes in race relations across the South inevitable, including possible pa.s.sage of a civil rights law. The only question was how fast and far-reaching these changes would be. Johnson, who was also planning on running for president, understood that he could never win the White House unless he established himself as a national leader supportive of reforms giving African Americans full const.i.tutional rights. James Rowe, LBJ's old New Deal friend, urged him to lead a civil rights bill through Congress that would give him "all the credit for... a compromise... with the emphasis in the South on compromise, and emphasis in the North on getting a bill."
Both Johnson and Kennedy saw such a political strategy as the best way to advance their presidential ambitions. For his part, Jack's interest in civil rights was more political than moral. The only blacks he knew were chauffeurs, valets, or domestics, with whom he had minimal contact. He was not insensitive to the human and legal abuses of segregation, but as Sorensen wrote later, in the fifties he was "shaped primarily by political expedience instead of basic human principles." He could not empathize, and only faintly sympathize, with the pains felt by African Americans. He did not even consider an aggressive challenge to deeply ingrained southern racial att.i.tudes, and he was far from alone. No one could imagine southerners again rising up in armed rebellion, but threats to the traditional mores seemed certain to provoke enough rage to discourage most white Americans from wanting to combat southern racism. Unlike Hubert Humphrey, another rival for the White House, who had a long-standing, visceral commitment to ending segregation, or even LBJ, whose political actions masked a sincere opposition to segregation, Jack Kennedy's response to the great civil rights debates of 1957-60 was largely motivated by self-serving political considerations.
In 1956-57, Jack mapped out a strategy for accommodating all factions of the Democratic party on civil rights, including black voters, who were seen in the late fifties as holding "the balance of power in the big states where elections are won or lost." Yet his concern with political expediency sometimes resulted in contradictions and tangles. During an October 1956 Meet the Press Meet the Press interview, when the host asked Jack why African American voters should want to see Democratic congressional majorities, which would lead in turn to southern committee chairmen blocking civil rights legislation, Jack replied that Congress could bypa.s.s an obstructionist committee and that his party's record of favoring economic and social reforms beneficial to low-income Americans gave it a claim on black voters. But in 1957, when a civil rights bill came to the Senate from the House, Jack opposed bypa.s.sing the Judiciary Committee, where Eastland was certain to table it. Jack said his opposition to invoking Rule XIV, a little-used device for bringing a bill directly to the Senate floor, rested on the belief that this was a "highly questionable legislative course" that would give up "one of our maximum protections" against arbitrary action. It was a "dangerous precedent," he told NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, "which can be used against our causes and other liberal issues in the future." Instead, he favored the conventional but more difficult use of a discharge pet.i.tion to bring the bill to the Senate floor. Knowing that civil rights advocates would win the discharge pet.i.tion fight, which they did by a 45-39 vote, Jack felt free to side with the southerners. And because four liberal western Democrats joined the minority (trading their votes for southern support of the h.e.l.ls Canyon Dam on the Snake River in Idaho, a controversial public power project), it gave Jack some cover with liberals. interview, when the host asked Jack why African American voters should want to see Democratic congressional majorities, which would lead in turn to southern committee chairmen blocking civil rights legislation, Jack replied that Congress could bypa.s.s an obstructionist committee and that his party's record of favoring economic and social reforms beneficial to low-income Americans gave it a claim on black voters. But in 1957, when a civil rights bill came to the Senate from the House, Jack opposed bypa.s.sing the Judiciary Committee, where Eastland was certain to table it. Jack said his opposition to invoking Rule XIV, a little-used device for bringing a bill directly to the Senate floor, rested on the belief that this was a "highly questionable legislative course" that would give up "one of our maximum protections" against arbitrary action. It was a "dangerous precedent," he told NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, "which can be used against our causes and other liberal issues in the future." Instead, he favored the conventional but more difficult use of a discharge pet.i.tion to bring the bill to the Senate floor. Knowing that civil rights advocates would win the discharge pet.i.tion fight, which they did by a 45-39 vote, Jack felt free to side with the southerners. And because four liberal western Democrats joined the minority (trading their votes for southern support of the h.e.l.ls Canyon Dam on the Snake River in Idaho, a controversial public power project), it gave Jack some cover with liberals.
Not surprisingly, civil rights proponents began attacking Kennedy for having sided with the South. In response, he leapt into a Senate debate about t.i.tles III and IV of the House bill, which gave the attorney general broad powers. Southerners complained that the t.i.tle III provision would allow "the reimposition of post-Civil War Reconstruction," specifically military intervention to enforce school desegregation. They also objected to t.i.tle IV, which sanctioned trials by federal judges without juries to punish defiance of the law. Aware that t.i.tle III was too radical to win a Senate majority, Jack felt free to favor it publicly. Thus, when a southern-moderate coalition eliminated the provision by a vote of 52-38, Jack reestablished his credibility with liberals while losing little ground with southern conservatives, who read his vote as a bow to northern interests essential to his political future-again, hardly a profile in political courage.
Elimination of t.i.tle III turned the bill into a voting rights act, and the issue that now divided supporters and opponents was whether violators of someone's right to vote should be ent.i.tled to a jury trial. Advocates of the bill had no confidence that southern white juries would convict registrars barring blacks from the polls. In order to a.s.suage liberals, Johnson agreed to omit jury trials in civil contempt cases while insisting that it apply to criminal proceedings. He also agreed to an amendment guaranteeing "the right of all all Americans to serve on [federal] juries, regardless of race, creed, or color." Americans to serve on [federal] juries, regardless of race, creed, or color."
The battle over the jury trial amendment drew considerable attention and put Jack in a difficult position. Only after consulting several legal experts and the addition of the amendment promising interracial juries did Jack declare his support of jury trials, which he saw as the only way to enact the civil rights bill: A vote against jury trials, he said, would have provoked a filibuster that would have been "impossible" to defeat with cloture (the two-thirds vote needed for ending a filibuster). A majority of his Senate colleagues, who approved the jury trial amendment by a vote of 51-42, agreed.
Not surprisingly, enactment of the law brought an outpouring of criticism from civil rights advocates. The bill was a "mere fakery," a policeman's gun without bullets, and "like soup made from the shadow of a crow which had starved to death." They were right: two years later, not a single southern black had been added to the voting rolls and nothing had been accomplished for other civil rights. Yet some civil rights proponents saw reason for optimism. The law marked the first time since Reconstruction that Congress had acted to protect civil rights. Bayard Rustin saw the measure as establis.h.i.+ng "a very important precedent." And George Reedy, LBJ's Senate aide, said the act was "a watershed.... A major branch of the American government that had been closed to minority members of the population seeking redress for wrongs was suddenly open. The civil rights battle could now be fought out legislatively in an arena that previously had provided nothing but a sounding board for speeches."
Kennedy himself received a lot of criticism. ("Why not show a little less profile and a little more courage?" one Senate colleague asked.) Although his vote allowed him, in the view of one journalist, to maintain a "stout" bridge to the South and border states, it opened him to additional attacks from liberals. Roy Wilkins publicly berated Jack for "rubbing political elbows" with southern segregationists, and in private exchanges initiated by Jack, he continued to criticize him for his jury trial vote. Jack told Wilkins that he could not understand why he was being singled out from the nearly three dozen non-southerner senators who voted for jury trials. The answer was simple and could hardly have escaped Jack's notice: None of the others was running for president, and given Kennedy's southern ties, no black leader had much confidence that a Kennedy presidency would produce significant advances against segregation.
To Jack's satisfaction, events in September muted the criticism. When Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to prevent integration of Little Rock's Central High School and Eisenhower had to federalize the Arkansas Guard to keep the peace and enforce Court injunctions, it made Johnson and Kennedy seem like sensible moderates trying to advance equal treatment of blacks and national harmony through the rule of law. Jack reinforced his image as a centrist during a speaking engagement in Mississippi in October. At the end of a speech urging moderation and national unity, he responded to a query published in the press from the state Republican chairman about Kennedy's vote for t.i.tle III. Jack said, "I think most of us agree on the necessity to uphold law and order in every part of the land. Now I invite the Republican chairman to tell us his views and those of President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon." The audience cheered him.
IN DECEMBER 1956, Bobby Kennedy, who was serving as counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, agreed to look into labor racketeering, particularly among the Teamsters. During the family's Christmas get-together in Hyannis Port, Joe attacked Bobby for jeopardizing Jack's labor support in 1960. The "father and son had an unprecedentedly furious argument." But Bobby would not budge. And after Joe's urging, William O. Douglas failed to dissuade Bobby as well, telling his wife that Bobby "feels it is too great an opportunity."
For Bobby, an intensely moralistic man with an "exacting sense of individual responsibility," the investigation was a chance to eliminate some of the rampant corruption that had taken hold in unions. No small part of his commitment was to the rank and file being cheated and abused by crooked and violent labor bosses. But these n.o.ble ends might produce restrictive legislation that could turn unions against his brother. "If the investigation flops," Bobby told Kenny O'Donnell, "it will hurt Jack in 1958 and in 1960, too.... A lot of people think he's the Kennedy running the investigation, not me. As far as the public is concerned, one Kennedy is the same as another Kennedy."
Yet Jack's vulnerability came more from his own doing than from anything Bobby did. Lyndon Johnson, Bobby recalled, had warned Jack against taking on labor if he was serious about running in 1960. But Jack decided to accept a.s.signment as a member of the joint investigations and labor subcommittee probing the unions. Jack claimed he did so at his brother's urging, to preserve its balance between conservatives and moderates-hardly a compelling reason to risk his chances in 1960.
Yet Jack and Bobby believed that their involvement in the investigation promised greater political gains than losses. They were right. For one, it would keep Jack's name before the public and, regardless of the outcome, identify him with a good cause. The Kennedys also remembered that Senate committee investigations of war profiteering and organized crime had made Harry Truman and Estes Kefauver, respectively, nationally known political figures. Moreover, in the 1950s, labor unions, which were identified with unsavory characters such as Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters, were an inviting target for an aspiring politician. Indeed, the contrast between Jack and Bobby on one side and Beck and Hoffa on the other was a political bonanza. When Beck was convicted of stealing almost $500,000 from union coffers, including money taken "from a trust fund set up for a friend's widow," the Kennedys were in turn identified with union honesty. Hoffa, who escaped going to jail in the fifties, was a more elusive target. But his public image as a ruthless bully more interested in maintaining control than in representing rank-and-file opinion made him a perfect foil for Jack and Bobby. (In the summer of 1959, a seven-part series in the Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, "The Struggle to Get Hoffa," burnished Jack's and Bobby's image as union reformers.) Even if the unions saw themselves as injured by an investigation Jack supported, he was able to win wider public approval as a senator who, like the heroes of his book, put the country above personal political gain. The brothers had correctly perceived that LBJ's advice was largely self-serving. As a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, Johnson was less concerned with protecting Jack from losing labor support than with deterring him from being identified as a successful union critic. "The Struggle to Get Hoffa," burnished Jack's and Bobby's image as union reformers.) Even if the unions saw themselves as injured by an investigation Jack supported, he was able to win wider public approval as a senator who, like the heroes of his book, put the country above personal political gain. The brothers had correctly perceived that LBJ's advice was largely self-serving. As a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, Johnson was less concerned with protecting Jack from losing labor support than with deterring him from being identified as a successful union critic.
The prospect of enacting a Kennedy labor reform bill also drew Jack and Bobby to the controversy. After five years in the Senate, Jack had not attached his name to any major piece of legislation. But partisan politics blunted Jack and Bobby's efforts to advance labor reform. In March 1958, after months of hearings by the McClellan Committee and extensive consultations with leading university experts on labor relations, Jack introduced a bill to prevent the expenditure of union dues for improper purposes or private gain; to forbid loans from union funds for illicit transactions; and to compel audits of unions, which would ensure against false financial reports. Initially, George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, objected to the bill as singling out unions for regulations that could also be applied to government officials and corporate chiefs. (When Jack gave Meany the names of the experts who had helped him draft the legislation, Meany replied, "G.o.d save us from our friends.") Amendments to the legislation and public a.s.surances from Jack that he wished to strengthen unions largely eliminated differences with Meany, but the bill failed anyway. Opposed by the National a.s.sociation of Manufacturers and Eisenhower's labor secretary, James P. Mitch.e.l.l, as too pro-labor, and the Teamsters
Although another Kennedy labor bill would win Senate approval in 1959, the Senate decision to instead agree on the House's more restrictive Landrum-Griffin Act deprived Kennedy of any significant political gain in the labor wars. More disappointing, Bobby and Jack found "appalling public apathy" generating "the merest lip-service" to reform. Yet Jack's image as an honest crusader had been promoted. But even if the public agreed with the Kennedys, when it came to promoting actual legislation, the eyes of the voters glazed over. They paid more attention in 1960, however, when Bobby published The Enemy Within, The Enemy Within, describing the Kennedy crusade to overcome union corruption and break up the Mafia or Italian crime families Bobby had also investigated in 1958-59. describing the Kennedy crusade to overcome union corruption and break up the Mafia or Italian crime families Bobby had also investigated in 1958-59.
OF COURSE, JACK had never seen intervention in domestic issues as the primary means of advancing his presidential ambitions. On the contrary, they were a political minefield in which a presidential aspirant could alienate more voters than he might attract. Although promises of prosperity had been an essential ingredient of every successful twentieth-century presidential campaign, national security often ran a close second, and in 1952 and 1956 it commanded more voter attention than the economy. had never seen intervention in domestic issues as the primary means of advancing his presidential ambitions. On the contrary, they were a political minefield in which a presidential aspirant could alienate more voters than he might attract. Although promises of prosperity had been an essential ingredient of every successful twentieth-century presidential campaign, national security often ran a close second, and in 1952 and 1956 it commanded more voter attention than the economy.
Standing up for the nation, rather than self-serving factions, and arguing in favor of overseas actions that could affect the lives of all Americans and millions of others abroad appealed to Jack's idealism. He was not dogmatic and understood that no one had a monopoly of wisdom on the best means for dealing with external events. But he had a degree of self-confidence about foreign affairs that he rarely displayed in addressing domestic ones. Back in 1953, he had asked Ted Sorensen which cabinet posts would interest him most if he ever had a choice. "Justice, Labor and Health-Education-Welfare," Sorensen replied. "I wouldn't have any interest in any of those," Kennedy said emphatically, "only Secretary of State or Defense."
A focus on foreign policy also helped Jack refute a.s.sertions that his interest in the presidency was largely inspired by his father. During a 1953 meeting of Joe and Jack with some Hearst editors, Joe dominated the conversation with p.r.o.nouncements on how to meet Cold War challenges. Jack abruptly left the room. "Jesus, Jack, what's happening?" his friend Paul Fay, who followed him into another room, asked. "Why did you do that?" Jack responded, "Listen, I've only got three choices. I can sit there and keep my mouth shut, which will be taken as a sign that I agree with him. I can have a fight with him in front of the press. Or I can get up and leave." In 1960, he told a journalist, "My father is conservative. We disagree on many things. He's an isolationist and I'm an internationalist.... I've given up arguing with him. But I make up my own mind and my own decisions."
Jack's appointment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 1957 helped his standing as a party spokesman on foreign affairs. To join the committee, Kennedy needed Johnson's support. Jack's rival for the a.s.signment was Kefauver, whose four-year seniority to Jack gave him a stronger claim. But "I have never had the particular feeling that when I called up my first team and the chips were down that Kefauver felt he ought to be... on that team," LBJ bluntly told Kefauver in January 1955. In contrast, Jack had been cooperative with Lyndon during his four years in the Senate and had been rewarded with Johnson's support for the VP nomination. And appointing Jack to Foreign Relations meant that if Jack's presidential campaign faltered, Lyndon could count on Joe and Jack for their support. According to LBJ, Joe "bombarded me with phone calls, presents and little notes telling me what a great guy I was.... One day he came right out and pleaded with me to put Jack on the Foreign Relations Committee, telling me that if I did, he'd never forget the favor for the rest of his life. Now, I knew Kefauver wanted the seat bad and I knew he had four years' seniority on Kennedy.... But I kept picturing old Joe Kennedy sitting there with all that power and wealth feeling indebted to me for the rest of his life, and I sure liked that picture."
Jack used his committee members.h.i.+p to encourage public discussion of wiser overseas actions and to build his reputation as a foreign policy expert. He had no illusion that anything he said would necessarily alter America's response to the world or reach great numbers of voters. But he believed it useful to speak out anyway: A national debate on foreign policy was essential in the midst of the Cold War, and his contribution to such a discussion could encourage intellectuals and party leaders to take his presidential candidacy more seriously.
An Algerian crisis-the struggle of a French North African colony to gain independence-became an opportunity for Kennedy to restate anticolonial ideas voiced in 1954 over Vietnam. "The most powerful single force in the world today," he declared in a Senate speech in July 1957, "is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile-it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent." And "the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism.... On this test more than any other, this Nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions in Asia and Africa." Neither foreign aid nor a greater military a.r.s.enal nor "new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences" could subst.i.tute for an effective response to anticolonialism. More specifically, he urged U.S. backing for Algerian self-determination through a mediated settlement. If, however, the French refused to negotiate, he favored outright U.S. support of independence.
Kennedy's bold proposal did not sit well with either the French government or the Eisenhower administration, which disputed the wisdom of his recommendations. And though he responded to his critics by restating his firm belief in his proposal, he told his father that perhaps he had made a mistake. Joe a.s.sured him otherwise: "You lucky mush," Joe said. "You don't know it and neither does anyone else, but within a few months everyone is going to know just how right you were on Algeria."
Taking heart from his father's prediction, Jack restated the need to rethink American foreign policy in an article in the October 1957 issue of Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs. "A Democrat Looks at Foreign Policy" left no doubt that he was offering a partisan alternative to Republican thinking about world politics. Nevertheless, the article was more an exercise in a.n.a.lysis than a polemical attack. Kennedy began by urging that America not see the world strictly through "the prisms of our own historic experience." The country needed to understand that we lived not simply in a bipolar world of Soviet-American rivalry but a global environment in which smaller powers were charting an independent course. America needed not only to oppose communism but also to help emerging nations regardless of their att.i.tude toward the Cold War.
Kennedy described "two central weaknesses in our current foreign policy: first, a failure to appreciate how the forces of nationalism are rewriting the geopolitical map of the world... and second, a lack of decision and conviction in our leaders.h.i.+p... which seeks too often to subst.i.tute slogans for solutions." Jack's proposals for change, however, suffered from some of the same limitations as Eisenhower's. He urged policy makers to replace "apocalyptic solutions" with something he called "a new realism," which was to subst.i.tute economic aid for military exports and to work against "the prolongation of Western colonialism." But how? The "new realism" was as much a political slogan as a genuine departure from current thinking about overseas affairs In private, Jack was also critical of his Democratic colleagues. Early in 1958, he told economist John Kenneth Galbraith that "the Democratic party has tended to magnify the military challenge to the point where equally legitimate economic and political programs have been obscured.... It is clear also that, however tempting a target, the attacks on Mr. Dulles [for brinksmans.h.i.+p and insensitivity to the Third World] have been taken too often as a sum total of an alternative foreign policy-a new kind of devil theory of failure." To counter this, he stated his intention "to give special attention this year to developing some new policy toward the underdeveloped areas."
Yet at the same time as he was discussing alternative Cold War actions, Kennedy could not ignore the military compet.i.tion with Moscow. Fears that the Soviet Union was surpa.s.sing the United States in missile technology and would soon be able to deliver a devastating attack on North America made defense policy a centerpiece of all discussions on foreign affairs. In October 1957, the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik I, Sputnik I, a s.p.a.ce satellite that orbited the earth. The accomplishment shocked Americans and produced an outcry for a vast expansion of U.S. defense spending. A government-sponsored committee headed by H. Rowan Gaither, chairman of the board of the Ford Foundation, advised Eisenhower that American defenses against Moscow were inadequate, that there was a missile gap favoring the Soviets, and that unless the United States began an immediate buildup, it would face defeat in a nuclear war. Three members of Gaither's committee urged a preventive war before it was too late. a s.p.a.ce satellite that orbited the earth. The accomplishment shocked Americans and produced an outcry for a vast expansion of U.S. defense spending. A government-sponsored committee headed by H. Rowan Gaither, chairman of the board of the Ford Foundation, advised Eisenhower that American defenses against Moscow were inadequate, that there was a missile gap favoring the Soviets, and that unless the United States began an immediate buildup, it would face defeat in a nuclear war. Three members of Gaither's committee urged a preventive war before it was too late.
Like Eisenhower, who refused to give in to the country's overreaction and launch an arms race, Kennedy urged a balance among military strength, economic aid, and considered diplomacy. In a New York Times New York Times interview in December 1957, he warned against neglecting economic aid programs and disarmament talks in a rush to outdo the Soviet arms buildup. In June 1958, he spoke on the Senate floor against s.h.i.+fting control over foreign economic a.s.sistance from the State Department to the Defense Department. He feared weakening the power of the secretary of state and a greater militarization of the Cold War. interview in December 1957, he warned against neglecting economic aid programs and disarmament talks in a rush to outdo the Soviet arms buildup. In June 1958, he spoke on the Senate floor against s.h.i.+fting control over foreign economic a.s.sistance from the State Department to the Defense Department. He feared weakening the power of the secretary of state and a greater militarization of the Cold War.
Yet the opportunity to take political advantage of what seemed like a major failing on the part of the Eisenhower administration was irresistible. In August 1958, Jack spoke in the Senate about a fast-approaching "dangerous period" when we would suffer a "gap" or a "missile-lag period"-a time "in which our own offensive and defensive missile capabilities will lag so far behind those of the Soviets as to place us in a position of grave peril." The gap was the result of a "complacency" that put "fiscal security ahead of national security."
By criticizing White House defense policy, Jack hoped both to serve the nation's security and score political points. But although his speech enhanced his party standing as a serious a.n.a.lyst of foreign and defense issues, it added little to his hold on the public and did nothing to convince the administration that it needed to substantially alter defense planning. Only a small minority of Americans shared his fears of a missile gap: in October 1957, just 13 percent of a Gallup poll thought that defense preparedness or Sputnik "missiles" was the most important problem facing the country. People were instead far more concerned about racial segregation and finding ways to reach accommodations with Russia that could reduce the likelihood of a nuclear war.
But Jack's growing public appeal-and it was clearly growing-rested on more than his policy p.r.o.nouncements. During 1957-58 he became emblematic of a new breed of celebrity politician, as notable for his good looks, infectious smile, charm, and wit as for his thoughtful p.r.o.nouncements on weighty public questions. "Seldom in the annals of this political capital," one journalist noted in May 1957, "has anyone risen as rapidly as Senator John F. Kennedy." Popular and news magazines-Look,Time,Life, the the Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, McCall's, Redbook, U.S. News & World Report, Parade, Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, McCall's, Redbook, U.S. News & World Report, Parade, the the American Mercury, American Mercury, and the and the Catholic Digest Catholic Digest-regularly published feature stories about Jack and his extraordinary family. ("Senator Kennedy, do you have an 'in' with Life, Life," a high school newspaper editor asked him. "No," he replied, "I just have a beautiful wife.") One critical journalist wrote: "This man seeks the highest elective office in the world not primarily as a politician, but as a celebrity. He's the only politician a woman would read about while sitting under the hair dryer, the subject of more human-interest articles than all his rivals combined." But in the words of another, he had become the "perfect politician" with a beautiful wife and, in November 1957, a daughter, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy.
By the fall of 1959, Joe Kennedy was able to tell reporters that "Jack is the greatest attraction in the country today. I'll tell you how to sell more copies of a book. Put his picture on the cover. Why is it that when his picture is on the cover of Life Life or or Redbook Redbook that they sell a record number of copies? You advertise that he will be at a dinner and you will break all records for attendance. He can draw more people to a fund-raising dinner than Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. Why is that? He has more universal appeal." that they sell a record number of copies? You advertise that he will be at a dinner and you will break all records for attendance. He can draw more people to a fund-raising dinner than Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. Why is that? He has more universal appeal."
Jack's 1958 Senate reelection campaign had borne out his extraordinary political attractiveness. With no Republican of any stature willing to run against him, Jack was able to coast to a record-breaking victory. Despite a campaign designed by Larry O'Brien and Kenny O'Donnell to keep Jack's "direct and personal partic.i.p.ation to an absolute minimum," he won 874,608 votes out of 1.32 million cast, 73.6 percent, the largest popular margin ever received by a candidate in Ma.s.sachusetts and the second-largest margin tallied by any U.S. Senate candidate that year. The numbers seemed to support the predictions of Kennedy admirers that the country was witnessing "the flowering of another great political family, such as the Adamses, the Lodges, and the La Follettes." "They confidently look forward to the day," a friendly journalist wrote months before Kennedy's 1958 victory, "when Jack will be in the White House, Bobby will serve in the Cabinet as Attorney General, and Teddy will be the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts."
JACK'S SIX YEARS in the Senate had schooled him in the major domestic, defense, and foreign policy issues. His education was essential preparation for a presidential campaign and, more important, service in the White House. To be sure, his Senate career had produced no major legislation that contributed substantially to the national well-being. But it had strengthened his resolve to reach for executive powers that promised greater freedom to implement ideas that could improve the state of the world. In a 1960 tape recording, explaining why he was running for president, he stated that the life of a legislator was much less satisfying than that of a chief executive. Senators and congressmen could work on something for two years and have it turned aside by a president in one day and one stroke of the pen. Jack believed that effective leaders.h.i.+p came largely from the top. Being president provided opportunities to make a difference no senator could ever hope to achieve. The time had come. in the Senate had schooled him in the major domestic, defense, and foreign policy issues. His education was essential preparation for a presidential campaign and, more important, service in the White House. To be sure, his Senate career had produced no major legislation that contributed substantially to the national well-being. But it had strengthened his resolve to reach for executive powers that promised greater freedom to implement ideas that could improve the state of the world. In a 1960 tape recording, explaining why he was running for president, he stated that the life of a legislator was much less satisfying than that of a chief executive. Senators and congressmen could work on something for two years and have it turned aside by a president in one day and one stroke of the pen. Jack believed that effective leaders.h.i.+p came largely from the top. Being president provided opportunities to make a difference no senator could ever hope to achieve. The time had come.
PART THREE
Can a Catholic Become President?
I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
- John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960
CHAPTER 7
Nomination
No, sir, th' dimmycratic party ain't on speakin' terms with itsilf. Whin ye see two men with white neckties go into a sthreet car an' set in opposite corners while wan mutthers "Traiter" an' th' other hisses "Miscreent" ye can bet they're two dimmycratic leaders thryin' to reunite th' gran' ol' party.
- Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions, Mr. Dooley's Opinions, 1901 1901
JACK KENNEDY'S REELECTION VICTORY in Ma.s.sachusetts and his growing national visibility since the 1956 Democratic convention put him on everyone's list of possible candidates for the presidency in 1960. He was an appealing alternative to Eisenhower. Ike was much admired, even loved, by millions of Americans, but alongside Kennedy, the sixty-nine-year-old president, who was in declining health and had become the oldest man ever to serve in the office, seemed stodgy. Kennedy's vigor ("vigah," Jack p.r.o.nounced it, in the New England way) was seen as a potential a.s.set in dealing with Soviet challenges, a sluggish economy, racial divisions, and what the literary critic Dwight Macdonald described as the "terrible shapelessness of American life." in Ma.s.sachusetts and his growing national visibility since the 1956 Democratic convention put him on everyone's list of possible candidates for the presidency in 1960. He was an appealing alternative to Eisenhower. Ike was much admired, even loved, by millions of Americans, but alongside Kennedy, the sixty-nine-year-old president, who was in declining health and had become the oldest man ever to serve in the office, seemed stodgy. Kennedy's vigor ("vigah," Jack p.r.o.nounced it, in the New England way) was seen as a potential a.s.set in dealing with Soviet challenges, a sluggish economy, racial divisions, and what the literary critic Dwight Macdonald described as the "terrible shapelessness of American life."
In 1957, more than 2,500 speaking invitations from all over the country testified to Kennedy's appeal. Seizing upon the opportunity to reach influential audiences, he agreed to give 144 talks, nearly one every other day, in 47 states. By early 1958, he was receiving a hundred requests a week to speak. Some Ma.s.sachusetts newspapers, eager to boost a native son, already pegged him as the Democratic nominee. Numerous party leaders agreed. A majority of the party's forty-eight state chairmen described him as the likely choice, and 409 of the 1,220 delegates to the 1956 Democratic convention declared their preference for Kennedy in 1960. Although Democratic governors did not foresee a first-ballot victory, they thought that Jack would certainly lead in the early balloting.
Kennedy backers took additional satisfaction from polls in 1959 depicting him in the most flattering terms. Even Republicans conceded that he was "very smart... nice-looking... likeable... [and] knowledgeable about politics." Although some in the GOP set him down as a "smart-alec... millionaire... headline hunter," others wished that he were a member of their party. Democrats had only nice things to say about Jack, describing him with words and phrases like "truthful," "not afraid to express himself," "family man," "nice-looking," "vigorous," "personable," "intelligent," and "level-headed." Some independents thought he was "too outspoken," but the great majority described him in extremely favorable terms. Sixty-four percent of all potential voters with an opinion about Kennedy believed that he had "the background and experience to be President."
Despite this widespread esteem, knowledgeable political observers, including many in the Kennedy camp, saw formidable obstacles to Kennedy's nomination and election. His positive image, however useful, allowed critics to describe him as more the product of a public relations campaign funded by his family's fortune than the result of political accomplishments. William Shannon, a well-known columnist for the New York Post, New York Post, wrote: "Month after month, from the glossy pages of wrote: "Month after month, from the glossy pages of Life Life to the multicolored cover of to the multicolored cover of Redbook, Redbook, Jack and Jackie smile out at millions of readers; he with his tousled hair and winning smile, she with her dark eyes and beautiful face. We hear of her pregnancy, of his wartime heroism, of their fondness for sailing. But what has all this to do with statesmans.h.i.+p?" Jack and Jackie smile out at millions of readers; he with his tousled hair and winning smile, she with her dark eyes and beautiful face. We hear of her pregnancy, of his wartime heroism, of their fondness for sailing. But what has all this to do with statesmans.h.i.+p?" New York Times New York Times columnist James Reston complained that "[Kennedy's] clothes and hair-do are a masterpiece of contrived casualness." Reston worried that there had been too much emphasis "on how to win the presidency rather than on how to run it." columnist James Reston complained that "[Kennedy's] clothes and hair-do are a masterpiece of contrived casualness." Reston worried that there had been too much emphasis "on how to win the presidency rather than on how to run it." Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News reporter Peter Lisagor and other journalists met with Jack in 1958: They "looked at him walking out of the room, thin, slender, almost boyish really," and one of them said, "'Can you imagine that young fellow thinking he could be President of the United States any time soon?' I must say the thought occurred to me, too," Lisagor recalled. reporter Peter Lisagor and other journalists met with Jack in 1958: They "looked at him walking out of the room, thin, slender, almost boyish really," and one of them said, "'Can you imagine that young fellow thinking he could be President of the United States any time soon?' I must say the thought occurred to me, too," Lisagor recalled.
Polls a.s.sessing Kennedy's candidacy in a national campaign echoed Lisagor's doubts. They foresaw a close contest with Vice President Richard M. Nixon, whose eight years under Eisenhower gave him a commanding lead for the Republican nomination. Moreover, a vigorous campaign for Nixon by Ike, whose approval ratings in the next-to-last year of his presidency ranged between 57 percent and 66 percent, seemed to promise a third consecutive Republican term. But no sitting vice president had gained the White House since Martin Van Buren in 1836, and several straw polls matching Adlai Stevenson and Kennedy against Nixon and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, or Kennedy directly against Nixon, gave the Democrats a slight edge. Nothing in the surveys, however, suggested that Kennedy and the Democrats could take anything for granted.
The criticism and doubts bothered Jack, but he blunted them with humor. At the 1958 Gridiron dinner, an annual Was.h.i.+ngton ritual in which the press and politicians engaged in humorous exchanges, Jack poked fun at his father's free spending in support of his political ambitions. He had "just received the following wire from my generous daddy," JFK said. "'Dear Jack-Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary-I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.'" To answer predictions that a Catholic president would have divided loyalties, Jack promised to make Methodist bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, an outspoken opponent of electing a Catholic, his personal envoy to the Vatican. To counter Oxnam's complaint that a Catholic in the White House would be in constant touch with the pope, Jack declared his intention to have Oxnam "open negotiations for that Trans-Atlantic Tunnel immediately." The Republicans did not escape his barbs: A 1958 recession had moved President Eisenhower to declare that, in Jack's version, "we're now at the end of the beginning of the upturn of the downturn." He added, "Every bright spot the White House finds in the economy is like the policeman bending over the body in the alley who says cheerfully, 'Two of his wounds are fatal-but the other one's not so bad.'"
Jack's wit scored points with journalists but had limited impact on Democratic voters and party officials, who would have the initial say about his candidacy. In 1959, Democrats were evenly divided between Kennedy and Stevenson. Each of them was the choice of between 25 percent and 30 percent of party members. Less encouraging, congressional Democrats put Kennedy fourth behind Lyndon Johnson, Stevenson, and Missouri senator Stuart Symington for the nomination. They thought that the forty-two-year-old Kennedy was too young to be president and preferred to see him run as vice president.
But Jack had no patience with being second. "We've always been compet.i.tive in our family," he explained. "My father has been compet.i.tive all his life, that's how he got where he is." When Newton Minow, a Stevenson law partner, told Kennedy in 1957 that he could probably have the vice presidential nomination in 1960, Jack said: "'I'm not interested in running for vice president. I'm interested in running for president.' 'You're out of your mind,'" Minow replied. "'You're only thirty-nine years old, you haven't got a chance to run for President.' 'No, Newt,'" Jack answered, "'if I'm ever going to make it I'm going to make it in 1960.'" Sensible political calculations were shaping his decision. "If I don't make it this time, and a Democrat makes it," he told a reporter, "then it may [be] for eight years and there will be fresher faces coming along and I'll get shoved in the background." Besides, the vice presidency was "a dead job." Nor did he think he could work with Stevenson, who "is a fussbudget about a lot of things and we might not get along." Settling for second place was tantamount to defeat.
The greatest impediments to Jack's nomination seemed to be liberal antagonism and doubts that a Catholic could or should win a general election. The two were not mutually exclusive. "Catholic-baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals," one conservative declared. The Church frightened progressive Democrats, who regarded it as an authoritarian inst.i.tution intolerant of ideas at odds with its teachings. Suspicion of divided Catholic loyalties between church and state was as old as the American Republic itself, and since the 1830s, when a ma.s.s migration of Catholics to America had begun, Protestants had warned against the Catholic threat to individual freedoms. In May 1959, 24 percent of voters said that they would not cast their ballots for a Catholic, even if he seemed to be well qualified for the presidency.
Most liberals subscribed to the view of Kennedy as an ambitious but superficial playboy with little more to recommend him than his good looks and charm. On none of the issues most important to them-McCarthyism, civil rights, and labor unions-had Jack been an outspoken advocate. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. said later of liberal antagonism to Jack, "Kennedy seemed too cool and ambitious, too bored by the conditional reflexes of stereotyped liberalism, too much a young man in a hurry. He did not respond in antic.i.p.ated ways and phrases and wore no liberal heart on his sleeve." Joe Kennedy's reputation as a robber baron and prewar appeaser of n.a.z.i Germany also troubled liberals. And, despite numerous examples of political divergence between father and son, they saw Jack as little more than a surrogate for Joe, whom they believed to have been planning to buy the White House for one of his children since at least 1940.
Kennedy's threat to a third Stevenson campaign was an additional source of liberal antagonism. Liberals hoped that despite Stevenson's two defeats by Eisenhower, he might be able to win against Nixon in 1960. Some journalists shared this belief. (James Reston privately lamented "the effects upon this country of the advertising profession, the continual deterioration of our citizens, the lulling of their consciences, the degradation of their morals, and Adlai seems to me to be the only one that can raise our sights. He is the only one who speaks with the voice of a philosopher, of a poet, of a true leader.") Journalist Theodore White wrote that California, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin "youngsters Stevenson had summoned to politics with high morality in 1952 had now matured and were unwilling in their maturity to forsake him."
To discourage a stop-Kennedy drive, Jack publicly denied that he was a candidate. In 1958, he said that his campaign for reelection to the Senate required all his attention and that he needed to "take care of that matter before doing anything else." When a journalist pointed out that he was giving speeches in five western and midwestern states in just one month, Jack explained that he was "interested in the Democratic party nationally" and was "delighted to go where I am asked." In 1959, a reporter asked when Jack was "going to drop this public pretense of non-candidacy." The time to declare his future intentions would be in 1960, he replied.
Early in 1958, as Jack's presidential candidacy was gaining momentum, Eleanor Roosevelt published a magazine article in which she repeated her complaint that he had "dodged the McCarthy issue in 1954." In May 1958, she made a more direct attack on Jack's candidacy, telling an AP reporter that the country was ready to elect a Catholic to the presidency if he could separate the church from the state, but that she was "not sure Kennedy could do this." In December, she stepped up her opposition to Jack in a television appearance, expressing doubts about his readiness for the presidency and noting his failure to demonstrate the kind of independence and courage he had celebrated in his book.
Jack avoided any public fight with her, answering her opposition in a private letter. He challenged her to support an allegation made during her TV appearance that his "father has been spending oodles of money all over the country and probably has a paid representative in every state by now.... I am certain you are the victim of misinformation," Jack wrote, and asked her to have her "informant back up the charge with evidence." She replied that if her comment was untrue, she would "gladly so state," but she cited his father's declaration that "he would spend any money to make his son the first Catholic President of this country, and many people as I travel about tell me of money spent by him on your behalf." In response, Jack expressed disappointment that she would "accept the view that simply because a rumor or allegation is repeated it becomes commonly accepted as a fact." He asked her to "correct the record in a fair and gracious manner." When she published a newspaper column quoting Jack's letter, he pressed her for a fuller retraction. When she agreed to write another column if Kennedy insisted, Jack told her not to bother, saying, "We can let it stand for the present." Jack's suggestion that they "get together sometime in the future to discuss other matters" provoked a snide telegram: "MY DEAR BOY I ONLY SAY THESE THINGS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. I HAVE FOUND IN [A] LIFETIME OF ADVERSITY THAT WHEN BLOWS ARE RAINED ON ONE, IT IS ADVISABLE TO TURN THE OTHER PROFILE."
MRS. ROOSEVELT'S REPRIMAND stemmed partly from a conviction that Jack's denials about his father were misleading. She had no direct evidence of Joe's spending in his son's behalf, but she believed that all the rumors were more than idle gossip. And of course she was right. Joe had financed all Jack's campaigns, including the 1958 romp, when he spent an estimated $1.5 million to ensure the landslide that would help launch Jack's presidential bid. stemmed partly from a conviction that Jack's denials about his father were misleading. She had no direct evidence of Joe's spending in his son's behalf, but she believed that all the rumors were more than idle gossip. And of course she was right. Joe had financed all Jack's campaigns, including the 1958 romp, when he spent an estimated $1.5 million to ensure the landslide that would help launch Jack's presidential bid.
As important, between 1958 and 1960, Joe became the campaign's princ.i.p.al behind-the-scenes operator in the nomination fight. "You do what you think is right," Joe told Jack after he was elected to the Senate, "and we'll take care of the politicians." And anything else that needs to be done, he might have added. When Jack wanted prominent civil rights advocate Harris Wofford to join his campaign, Joe pressed Father John Cavanaugh, Notre Dame University's former president, to get sitting president Father Theodore Hesburgh to release Wofford from teaching duties at the law school. When Wofford told Sargent Shriver about Joe's intervention, Shriver replied, "'Don't ever underestimate Mr. Kennedy.' This was the only time I personally saw the long hand of Joe Kennedy," Wofford wrote, "but if he would intervene so vigorously on such a small matter, I could imagine what he was like when he dealt with Mayor Daley for delegates. 'And that is exactly who did deal with Daley most of the time,' said Shriver." Although Jack would pay ceremonial visits to Daley, "the long, tough talks were between the mayor and Joe Kennedy. Shriver said this was true of the negotiations with the Philadelphia leader, Congressman William Green, and with other Irish-Americans of the old school who were in key positions in a number of city and state Democratic organizations, including California and New York."
"[Joe] knew instinctively who the important people were, who the bosses behind the scenes were," New York congressman Eugene Keogh said. "From 1958 on he was in contact with them constantly by phone, presenting Jack's case, explaining and interpreting his son, working these bosses." Tip O'Neill remembered that when Joe learned that Joe Clark, a Pennsylvania state official, was the power behind Congressman Bill Green, he flew Clark to New York for a meeting in his suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. Joe also went to see Pennsylvania governor David Lawrence. During a secret meeting at a Harrisburg hotel, Joe was, as Lawrence remembers, "very vigorous." When Lawrence a.s.serted that a Catholic could not win the White House, Joe recounted a story about a New York bank president who said the same thing. "I was so G.o.dd.a.m.n mad at that fella," Joe added. "I had nine million dollars in that bank and I felt like I'd pull out of that bank that day."
New York party leader Mike Prendergast recalled how Joe "sent a lot of people in to donate money to the state organization, which we used for Jack's election." In July 1959, syndicated columnist Marquis Childs a.s.serted that Joe had already spent one million dollars on Jack's campaign and was the brains behind the whole operation. Jack's acquisition of a plane leased to him by a Kennedy family corporation belied Kennedy denials that Joe had anything to do with the campaign. Harry Truman echoed the concerns about Joe when he told friends, "It's not the Pope I'm afraid of, it's the pop." Jack knew this was the perception, but there seemed no other route to the presidency but along this tightrope.
THE 1958 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS had given the Democratic party a decidedly liberal tilt. A recession producing higher unemployment nationwide and farm failures in the Midwest, Republican support of integration in the South and anti-union right-to-work laws in industrial states, and the "missile gap"-fears that America was losing the arms race to Russia-had translated into nearly two-to-one Democratic margins in both houses; their twenty-eight-seat gain in the Upper House was the most one-sided party victory in Senate history. Of the fifteen new Democratic senators, five were liberals and ten were moderates. had given the Democratic party a decidedly liberal tilt. A recession producing higher unemployment nationwide and farm failures in the Midwest, Republican support of integration in the South and anti-union right-to-work laws in industrial states, and the "missile gap"-fears that America was losing the arms race to Russia-had translated into nearly two-to-one Democratic margins in both houses; their twenty-eight-seat gain in the Upper House was the most one-sided party victory in Senate history. Of the fifteen new Democratic senators, five were liberals and ten were moderates.
Because liberals would thus have a major say in who became the Democratic nominee, Jack had attempted to win Adlai Stevenson's support. But Stevenson was uncooperative. After 1956, he had consistently denied any interest in another campaign, but when one of his law partners privately confided his own intention to back Kennedy, Stevenson predicted that "the Catholic issue is going to be badly against him, and, after all, Nixon must be beaten." The partner took this to mean: "I want to be urged to run, and I want to be nominated." Stevenson also told Newton Minow that Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to handle the job. Stevenson confided his doubts to Time Time reporter John Steele as well, setting Jack down as too ambitious and maybe even a little foolish, a young man reaching too quickly for the coveted prize. He was even more blunt with the British economist Barbara Ward Jackson. "I don't think he'd be a good president," Stevenson said. "I do not feel that he's the right man for the job; I think he's too young; I don't think he fully understands the dimensions of the foreign affairs dilemmas that are coming up." reporter John Steele as well, setting Jack down as too ambitious and maybe even a little foolish, a young man reaching too quickly for the coveted prize. He was even more blunt with the British economist Barbara Ward Jackson. "I don't think he'd be a good president," Stevenson said. "I do not feel that he's the right man for the job; I think he's too young; I don't think he fully understands the dimensions of the foreign affairs dilemmas that are coming up."
With Stevenson refusing to help, Jack explored other means of bringing liberals to his side. In March 1958, when a TV interviewer asked him, "Do you think that the candidate in the Democratic party would have to be definitely a.s.sociated with the liberal wing of the party in 1960?" Jack replied, "I do." "Do you believe that you are in that wing?" the reporter continued. "I do," Jack answered. "Do you count yourself as a liberal?" the reporter persisted. "I do," Jack responded unequivocally.
His answers were part of a larger campaign to convince party liberals that he was one of them, or at the very least would be responsive to their concerns. But he also felt that liberals were uninformed about his record on civil liberties, civil rights, and labor. Consequently, between 1957 and 1960, he publicly emphasized that he had established his "independence from the Democratic party," but that this was "essentially an independence from party organization rather than from its credo." He believed that his votes on progressive issues compared favorably with those cast by congressional liberals. His speeches from this period are replete with references to his support of advanced progressive ideas. Liberals nevertheless remained reluctant to embrace him as a reasonable alternative to Stevenson, and this frustrated and angered him, partially because he believed it unrealistic of liberals to hope that Stevenson could be an effective candidate. In 1960, during a conversation with Peter Lisagor, who predicted that Stevenson would be the nominee, Kennedy "leaned forward-I remember this so vividly," Lisa