An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (35 page)

It had been the first time Jack had been “caught in a mud-slinging Boston Irish political brawl. We never saw him so angry and frustrated,” O’Donnell and Powers wrote. During and after the fight, Kennedy took pains to divorce himself publicly from “gutter” politics. In an article published in the April
Vogue
and a June commencement address at Harvard, when the university gave him an honorary degree, he decried the current antagonism between intellectuals and politicians and reminded readers and listeners that the two were not mutually exclusive. Recalling the careers of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and the Adamses, he said “[The] nation’s first great politicians . . . included among their ranks most of the nation’s first great writers and scholars.” Recounting an anecdote about an English mother who urged her son’s Harrow instructors not to distract him from a Parliamentary career by teaching him poetry, Jack declared, “If more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew politics, I am convinced that the world would be a little better place to live.”

The speech partly eased Jack’s discomfort with the ugly fight he had just passed through, and it may also have been aimed at Adlai Stevenson, who shared Jack’s affinity for a union of poetry and power. But more important, it expressed his genuine idealism about what he wished to see in American political life. Seven years later, at the height of his public influence, he repeated the value he placed on those committed to the life of the mind. In an October 1963 speech at Amherst College, he would say, “The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”

IN 1956, JACK
thought less about the uses of power than about its acquisition—specifically, how to gain the vice presidency. In September 1955, after Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and speculation arose that he might not run again, Democratic party prospectsin 1956 brightened. A vice presidential nomination for Jack could be the prelude to an eight-year term as VP, followed by a run for the White House in 1964, when he would be only forty-seven years old.

For the Democrats to win the White House, however, Joe and Jack thought that the party would have to find a nominee other than Adlai Stevenson. They preferred Lyndon Johnson. Although no southern Democrat had won the presidency or even been nominated in the twentieth century (Woodrow Wilson, a Virginian by birth, ran as governor of New Jersey), Johnson seemed a reasonable bet to break that tradition. A dominant figure in the Senate and the party, with credentials as a moderate who could appeal to all regions of the country, Johnson was keenly interested in running.

In October 1955, Joe asked Tommy Corcoran, a prominent Washington “fixer” and friend of LBJ’s from the New Deal days, to carry a message to Johnson. If Lyndon would declare for the presidency and privately promise to take Jack as his running mate, Joe would arrange financing for the campaign. Because raising enough money would not be easy for any Democrat in 1956 and because Jack would bring a number of attributes to the ticket, Joe believed his offer would get serious consideration. But LBJ immediately rejected it. Reluctant to declare before he was sure that Eisenhower would not run and fearful that an announcement would encourage other candidates to join a “stop Lyndon” movement, Johnson simply said he was not running. According to Corcoran, Johnson’s response “infuriated” Bobby Kennedy, who declared it “unforgivably discourteous to turn down his father’s generous offer.” In a conversation between Jack and Corcoran in Jack’s Senate office, Kennedy said, “‘Listen, Tommy, we made an honest offer to Lyndon through you. He turned us down. Can you tell us this: Is Lyndon running without us? . . . Is he running?’” Corcoran answered, “Of course he is. He may not think he is. And certainly he’s saying he isn’t. But I know God damned well he is.” Joe Kennedy called Lyndon directly, but the answer was still no.

Johnson’s rejection did not deter Jack from putting himself forward as a potential running mate. In January 1956, when a Massachusetts state senator advised Jack that he wanted to start such a campaign, Jack agreed to talk with him but cautioned against an overt effort; he preferred to keep a low profile until he had convinced Democrats, especially Stevenson, that he would be a strong addition to the ticket. Part of this quiet strategy entailed controlling the Massachusetts delegation to the party’s national convention. It also meant getting sympathetic journalists to talk up Jack’s candidacy. In February 1956, Fletcher Knebel, a
Look
writer, described Jack as on everyone’s list of possible Stevenson running mates. Jack had “all the necessary Democratic assets”: youth, good looks, liberal views, a record of military bravery, and proven vote-getting ability. Moreover, his religion, which would have been a bar to nomination in the past, was described as no longer a problem. On the contrary, Knebel cited a document Ted Sorensen had prepared arguing that a Catholic on the ticket in 1956 would be a distinct asset in northern states with large Catholic populations. In June, Knebel addressed the issue directly in an article, “Can a Catholic Become Vice President?”

Sorensen also prepared a comparative study of twenty-one potential Stevenson running mates, analyzing their attributes in twelve categories: availability, compatibility, political outlook, public reputation, marital condition, officeholding or political experience, age and health, military record, voter appeal, TV personality, and wealth. On Sorensen’s chart, not surprisingly, only Jack received a positive mark in every category. (Sorensen apparently did not know the full story of Jack’s various health problems.) In August, shortly before the convention met, Sorensen put the case for Jack before Stevenson through an aide. Despite a growing list of public endorsements, led by New England governors and Tennessee senator Albert Gore Sr., Stevenson—who saw Kennedy’s Catholicism as an insurmountable obstacle—was not convinced. Jim Farley, FDR’s Catholic postmaster general and Democratic party “wheel horse,” concurred, telling Adlai that “America is not ready for a Catholic yet.” House Speaker Sam Rayburn weighed in against Jack as well. “Well, if we have to have a Catholic,” he said, “I hope we don’t have to take that little piss-ant Kennedy. How about John McCormack?”

And if Stevenson was the nominee, Joe remained convinced that Jack should not run. Eisenhower’s recovery from his heart attack and decision to stand again made it unlikely that Stevenson could win. A straw poll in June 1956 showed the president with a 62 to 35 percent lead over Adlai. Moreover, Joe feared that a Democratic defeat would be blamed on Jack’s Catholicism and would undermine his chances for the presidency.

But Jack was not convinced. He continued to press the case for his nomination, telling Joe that “while I think the prospects are rather limited, it does seem of some use to have all of this churning up.” In July, Sargent Shriver, Eunice Kennedy’s husband and director of Kennedy enterprises at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, directly urged Jack’s candidacy on Stevenson during a plane trip from Cape Cod to Chicago. Shriver made clear to Adlai that despite Joe Kennedy’s publicly stated misgivings, he would be “100% behind Jack” and described Joe as ready to return from his summer vacation in France in twenty minutes if Jack wanted him. Eunice wrote her father in August that without a vice presidential nomination and campaign, which would make him “better known,” Jack did not think the party would “select him as a presidential candidate any . . . time in the future.”

Stevenson was not swayed. He believed he needed a southerner, or at least a border state senator. Moreover, with a number of candidates actively seeking the nomination, he hoped to avoid alienating any of them by letting the convention choose for him. It was a thin tightrope to walk. Stevenson was eager to maintain good relations with Joe Kennedy, who was a promising source of campaign funds in what “looked like a thin year for the Democrats.” But Adlai’s refusal to follow tradition by picking a running mate angered the Kennedys, who saw it as a way to avoid taking Jack.

Although Stevenson’s decision made it extremely difficult for Jack to win the nomination, he did have several things working in his favor. On Monday, August 13, the first night of the Chicago convention, he was the narrator of a film celebrating the Democratic party and its recent heroes such as Roosevelt and Truman. The
New York Times
compared his appearance to that of a “movie star” whose personality and good looks made him an instant celebrity. And before the convention even met, Kennedy supporters had set up a headquarters in the Palmer House hotel to promote Jack’s candidacy.

On Wednesday, ostensibly to give Jack greater visibility and prominence but largely as a way to blunt Jack’s drive for the second spot, Stevenson asked him to put his name in nomination for the presidency. Jack complied, and although Stevenson denied it, Kennedy accurately saw Stevenson’s request as a compensatory gesture for being denied the vice presidency. And indeed, Stevenson’s decision to leave the VP choice to the convention had placed significant obstacles in Kennedy’s way. Instead of having only to convince Stevenson and his advisers to put him on the ticket, Jack now had to bring a majority of the convention delegates to his side. In a competition with Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, who had a large base of delegate support, Jack had little chance to win.

But Jack was determined to push ahead. Jack instructed Bobby to call their father on the Riviera to tell him about Stevenson’s maneuver, to say that Jack was running, and to ask Joe to press Jack’s case over the telephone with as many influential Democrats as he could reach. Joe Kennedy thought his son was making a terrible mistake. According to Rose Kennedy and Kenny O’Donnell, Joe exploded in anger. He “denounced Jack as an idiot who was ruining his political career.” “Whew! Is he mad!” Bobby said after the phone connection was lost. Anticipating Joe’s reaction, Jack had left the room; deciding to run was an act of defiance against his father, and it was easier to let Bobby take the heat. (Lem Billings recalled that Jack had initially experienced “a sudden warmth” after deciding to ignore Joe’s advice—as if he had drunk “an entire bottle of wine.” But Jack suffered a “momentary paralysis” after hearing Joe’s reaction.) True, once Jack had made up his mind to run, Joe did everything in his power to help. But it was no small act of personal courage for Jack to make so big a political decision without his father’s initial approval.

Kennedy’s backers entered the fight with a “realistic sense of futility.” Led by Jack and Bobby, they spent the night after Stevenson announced the open VP contest arranging for the banners, buttons, leaflets, placards, and noisemakers needed for a winning effort. They also ran from one convention hotel to another, asking, begging, cajoling, flattering, and pressuring delegates to join the swelling ranks of a man they described as a likely future president who would remember their support in his hour of need.

Kefauver retained a significant lead. His unsuccessful competition with Stevenson for the presidential nomination had nevertheless left him with a large number of delegates—4831/2—who were ready to back his vice presidential candidacy, despite having no mandated obligation to do so. This was, however, 203 short of selection, and Jack’s first ballot total of 304 turned the nomination into a real contest. Because Kefauver was unpopular in the South, where his support of civil rights had made him a renegade and because Stevenson had broken precedent by allowing the convention to choose his running mate, the nomination was genuinely up for grabs. With support from anti-Kefauver southerners led by the Texas delegation—“Texas proudly casts its fifty-six votes for the fighting sailor who wears the scars of battle,” LBJ announced—Jack surged ahead of Kefauver on the second ballot by 648 to 5511/2, just 38 short of nomination. But Kefauver’s backers promptly persuaded several state delegations, led by Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Missouri, to switch and shift the momentum back to him. A vote of 7551/2 to Jack’s 589 gave Kefauver the victory and the nomination.

Bobby Kennedy would later remember that “we lost because we weren’t properly organized. If the delegates had known when Tennessee had switched that we were only thirty-eight votes from a majority, there wouldn’t have been all those switches to get on the Kefauver bandwagon. They didn’t realize we were that close.” But other things worked against Jack as well. Liberals, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, who had resisted Jack’s request for her support by complaining that he had not actively opposed McCarthy, were generally unenthusiastic about putting Kennedy on the ticket. In addition, a lot of Democrats, including many Catholics, believed that a Catholic running mate would undermine chances of beating Eisenhower and of holding the Congress. Ike’s illness had forcefully reminded voters that a VP was “only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.” Kefauver’s runner-up status for the presidential nomination, however circumscribed by the limited number of primaries (he had won 39 percent of Democratic primary votes to Stevenson’s 52 percent), had also made it difficult for the party to deny him second place.

Although the defeat stung Jack, most commentators agreed that his candidacy had been a net gain. An appearance before the convention to ask unanimous backing for Kefauver was a triumph of public relations, as was the impression he made throughout the proceedings. Despite his defeat, Jack “probably rates as the one real victor of the entire convention,” a Boston journalist wrote. “He was the one new face that actually shone. His charisma, his dignity, his intellectuality, and, in the end, his gracious sportsmanship . . . are undoubtedly what those delegates will remember. So will those who watched it and heard it via TV and radio.” Joe agreed: He thought that Jack had come “out of the convention so much better than anyone could have hoped. . . . His time is surely coming!” Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote Jack that “you clearly emerged as the man who gained most during the Convention. . . . Your general demeanor and effectiveness made you in a single week a national political figure. . . . The campaign provides a further opportunity to consolidate this impression.”