The Kennedy Half-Century (14 page)

Whatever the philosophical wisdom of that today, their advice then would have been deadly. In 1960, millions of Americans fervently embraced the
mistaken idea that Catholic politicians were controlled by the Vatican. Kennedy would have only confirmed their suspicions if he had extended the discussion and elaborated on how his faith guided his political decisions. In order to win the election, he needed to sidestep the issue, not step in front of it, which is precisely what he did in Houston.
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Kennedy scored even more political points when he debated Vice President Nixon on national television. According to Ted Sorensen, JFK was “amazed” when the vice president agreed to four TV debates. “Nixon was apparently confident that having defeated Khrushchev [in the famous 1959 ‘Kitchen Debate’ in Moscow], he could certainly defeat a young, comparatively unknown United States senator,” Sorensen recalled. Eisenhower advised Nixon to avoid the debates “on the grounds that Nixon was much better known than Kennedy and therefore should not give Kennedy so much free exposure.” Nixon ignored the advice. He had known Jack Kennedy for years and felt certain that he could derail the senator’s campaign. Sorensen and Meyer “Mike” Feldman, another Kennedy campaign adviser, used note cards to train their man. “Mike had prepared a little blue card with Kennedy’s position, Nixon’s position, the positions of the two party platforms, and any votes or comments that either candidate had made,” said Sorensen. Kennedy would either say “I know that one, go on to the next one” or request additional information. On the afternoon of the debate, JFK took a nap. “The story I like to tell is of when they delegated me to go wake him up,” Sorensen recalled. “I opened the door and peeked in and there he was, lights on, sound asleep, covered in note cards.”
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Kennedy was also glowing with a healthy-looking tan, having practiced with Sorensen on the sun-splashed roof of the hotel.

Still sick from a stint in the hospital after a knee had become badly infected, Nixon refused to wear professional makeup for the debate. But he did allow an aide to slather “Lazy Shave” on his perpetual five o’clock shadow.
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According to TV debate director Don Hewitt, Sorensen admitted that Kennedy had gone “behind closed doors and out of sight” to receive a “light coat” of makeup.
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Rejecting cosmetics wasn’t Nixon’s only mistake. He also agreed to discuss domestic issues during the first debate even though Republicans had traditionally struggled in this area. “Foreign affairs was my strong suit, and I wanted the larger audience for that debate,” the vice president later revealed, blaming his aides for the error. “I thought more people would watch the first one, and that interest would diminish as the novelty of the confrontation wore off. Most of my advisers believed that interest would build as the campaign progressed, and that the last program, nearest election day, would be
the most important one. I yielded to their judgment and agreed that in the negotiations to set up the debates I would agree to scheduling the domestic policy debate first and the foreign policy debate last.”
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At half past eight on September 26, 1960, Howard K. Smith, a seasoned journalist working for CBS, stared into a camera in a Chicago TV studio and intoned, “Good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. The candidates need no introduction.” An estimated 70 million Americans, approximately equal to the almost 69 million who actually voted in the November election, were watching and listening.
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Kennedy opened the debate by saying that America’s image abroad depended on sound policies at home. Now was the time to get the country “moving again.”
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The ailing Nixon leaned on the podium to ease his knee pain, and he came across as nervous, overly inclined to approve Kennedy’s arguments, and unpresidential in appearance and approach. At one point, Nixon offered an extended “me-too” comment: “The things that Senator Kennedy has said many of us can agree with. There is no question but that we cannot discuss our internal affairs in the United States without recognizing that they have a tremendous bearing on our international position. There is no question but that this nation cannot stand still; because we are in a deadly competition, a competition not only with the men in the Kremlin, but the men in Peking. We’re ahead in this competition, as Senator Kennedy, I think, has implied. But when you’re in a race, the only way to stay ahead is to move ahead. And I subscribe completely to the spirit that Senator Kennedy has expressed to night, the spirit that the United States should move ahead.”
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In Nixon, Americans saw a physically unimposing man on their screens, dressed in a gray suit that faded into the set’s background. The Republican was “half slouched, his ‘Lazy Shave’ powder faintly streaked with sweat, his eyes exaggerated hollows of blackness, his jaw, jowls, and face drooping with strain.” Kennedy, on the other hand, looked healthy and confident. Questions about his youth and inexperience no longer seemed as relevant. The young man from Boston had shown that he could at least hold his own with the vice president of the United States, and maybe best him.
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Nixon’s aides did their best to contain the damage. Herbert Klein, the vice president’s campaign press secretary, blamed television for his boss’s ghoulish appearance. “Mr. Nixon is in excellent health and looks good in person,” he explained. Nixon’s own mother didn’t buy it. Shortly after the debates, Hannah Milhous Nixon phoned Rose Mary Woods, Nixon’s secretary, to find out if her son was “feeling all right.”
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Ironically, JFK’s mother, Rose, who had listened to the debate over the radio, thought that “Nixon was smoother.”
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Rose’s and Hannah’s contradictory opinions were shared by many other Americans. According to a survey conducted by Sindlinger and Company, those who saw the debate on TV believed that Kennedy had won the debate; radio listeners arrived at the opposite conclusion. While there is no irrefutable polling or statistical evidence that the Kennedy-Nixon debates had a decisive impact on the election, or even that Kennedy “won” the first debate or the others, reporters following the campaign almost unanimously adopted that point of view. Campaign professionals on both sides cited anecdotes that supported the reporters’ conclusions, and these informal assessments changed the tone of the coverage and perhaps the momentum of the campaign. Whether the pro-Kennedy assessment of the debates originated with the public or the press, there is little question that Kennedy received a perceptible boost. Television sets had replaced radios in many American homes by the time this campaign got under way. In 1960, 88 percent of U.S. households had one or more TV sets, an 11 percent jump from the previous decade.
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One debate effect was visible on the campaign trail. Suddenly, everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of America’s first made-for-TV politician. “The size and enthusiasm of [Kennedy’s] crowds increased immensely and immediately” after the first debate. On September 28, twenty thousand people greeted JFK’s plane when it touched down in Erie, Pennsylvania, and he had been mobbed the day before by two hundred thousand Ohioans. Local police had trouble containing the huge crowds. In a precedent that would continue during the Kennedy presidency, Kenny O’Donnell had to “ask police officers not to push or pull Senator Kennedy while attempting to get him through crowds.” O’Donnell explained that although the senator appreciated “the difficulties of officers [handling] crowds,” he preferred that they “merely try to clear the way” rather than rush JFK past friendly voters. More than crowds were moved by the debate. Some skittish Southern Democratic governors were nudged off the fence because they sensed a winner. Ten of the eleven governors, all Democrats, who attended the Southern Governors’ Conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas, signed a telegram congratulating Kennedy for his “superb handling of Mr. Nixon and the issues facing our country.”
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Whatever the real political impact in 1960, the Kennedy-Nixon debates became mythical, and they are a sizable part of the Kennedy legacy. Every four years, the story of Kennedy’s “triumph” leads the run-up to the presidential debating season, recycling the flickering images of those dynamic encounters. The contrast between JFK and Nixon on-screen still serves as a warning to politicians who are ill at ease on television. It is no accident that both LBJ and Nixon—two of the more media-awkward presidents—refused to participate in any TV debates in 1964, 1968, and 1972.

Jackie Kennedy generated as much excitement as her husband did. Cards
and letters flooded into her office in the wake of her husband’s TV appearances. Nancy Harrison, one of Jackie’s secretaries, complained about the increased workload until she realized that she could send out “robot letters” containing standard responses like these:

“I am so glad you like my hair style and manner of dressing. A candidate’s wife is no different from other women—she’s pleased to know when people approve. Much more important, though, is the winning of this election, and I know you are doing all you can.”

“I am enclosing our favorite recipe, as you requested.”

“I’m so sorry, but it is impossible for me to send out my old clothes. I would never have enough clothes to fill the requests.”
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Pregnant at the time with John Jr., Jackie’s appearance also signaled to the public that JFK was a family man. As the world now knows, her husband cheated on her every chance he got—a fact some of the press knew at the time, but never reported. During the winter of 1960, Kennedy began a long affair with a beautiful brunette named Judith Campbell. At about the same time, Campbell also took up with the well-known Chicago mobster Sam Giancana. Kennedy pursued additional partners as well. During the Los Angeles convention, he rented a three-bedroom apartment so that he could be close to the “nearby home of a former diplomat’s wife” and surprised Campbell by introducing her to a twenty-five-year-old beauty who had agreed to join them in a ménage à trois. When Campbell refused, Kennedy made sure that his newer friend got a ticket to the convention. The senator also hired prostitutes, apparently procured by close aides. Jackie was painfully aware of at least some of her husband’s infidelities, but most of the time she dutifully played the role of a presidential politician’s wife. Her motives can only be guessed at, but it was not an uncommon arrangement in a culture with very different gender norms than our own.
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The electorate and party activists were unknowing, luckily for John Kennedy. The carefully nurtured image of “the perfect family” encouraged the energetic efforts of housewives, who held Kennedy coffee klatches by the hundreds in their homes, and the babysitting skills of “Kennedy Girls,” who watched children while parents voted.
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On the less wholesome side of the political tracks, the Kennedys believed the best defense for sleaze was a good offense. The journalist Jack Anderson, who sided with the Democratic ticket, investigated a secret, never-repaid $205,000 loan from Las Vegas mogul Howard Hughes to Donald Nixon, Vice President Nixon’s brother. Drew Pearson, who was Anderson’s editorial superior, preferred not to print the story late in the campaign, but Anderson was determined to make the information public—even if he lost control of the
story. Anderson decided to tell a senior Nixon adviser that he was investigating the subject. The Nixon campaign then slipped a less damaging version to a GOP-leaning journalist working for the Scripps-Howard news service. But the Scripps-Howard headline gave an excuse to Anderson and Pearson to print a “correction” that included the unvarnished, damaging particulars. Remarkably, Anderson and Pearson even drafted follow-up statements for Lyndon Johnson and Texas Democratic congressman Jack Brooks calling for Senate hearings on the Nixon family’s finances.
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Anderson had learned about the Hughes scandal from a Kennedy lawyer named James McInerney. When he visited McInerney’s D.C. office one day, the attorney handed him confidential documents on the scandal. As the researcher Mark Feldstein assessed it: “How did JFK’s campaign obtain this incriminating evidence? By paying the contemporary equivalent of $100,000 to a Los Angeles accountant named Phillip Reiner, one of Hughes’ middlemen used to conceal Nixon’s role in the deal. Reiner was a Democrat who recently had a falling out with his partners. With his attorney, Reiner had contacted Robert Kennedy, [JFK’s] campaign manager. Soon after, a break-in occurred in the accountant’s old office—and the Kennedys suddenly acquired a thick file filled with secret records documenting Nixon’s shady deal. (Reiner’s estranged partner filed a burglary report with police, but the crime was never solved.)” Twelve years before the Watergate break-in, the Kennedys proved that they were willing to break a few laws of their own so that they could win the White House.
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Unquestionably, Pearson’s and Anderson’s tactics would be rejected by any modern journalists who seek objectivity. Even in 1960, these actions were beyond the pale, and retrospectively they are an embarrassment for the two reporters. Yet many journalists at the time “liked Kennedy, agreed with his politics, and reveled in their acceptance by, and association with, the glamorous, dashing, wealthy, jet-setting Kennedys.” Most were willing to overlook the clan’s faults and write stories that burnished the family myth. David Halberstam, a reporter for the
New York Times
, called it the “gentlemen’s agreement” among “The Good Journalists of Washington.” According to Halberstam, these journalists believed that “the Kennedy Administration was one of excellence, that it was for good things and against bad things, and that when it did lesser things it was only in self-defense, and in order that it might do other good things.” Those “lesser things” included campaign shenanigans.
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Nixon had no such luxury: Imagine what would have happened had the press caught wind of similar dirty tricks by him.