The Kennedy Half-Century (73 page)

I don’t know if this is true, but it’s a story I’ve been told. And it’s not a bad one because it reminds us that history is a living thing that never dies. A life given in service to one’s country is a living thing that never dies—a life given in service, yes.

History is not only made by people; it is people. And so, history is, as young John Kennedy demonstrated, as heroic as you want it to be, as heroic as you are.
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Ted, Caroline, and John Jr. all wrote Reagan to thank him for his extraordinary tribute. But the most memorable lines had been written just after the Oval Office meeting with Reagan by John Jr., in a postscript that cemented the warm mutual feelings that had developed between families of different partisan stripes: “I was not one of the ‘irritated Democrats’ when you quoted my father. I thought it was great! Please quote him all you want!”
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Much of this tale of two clans is simply smart political relationship building
in the snake pit of Washington, where the era of good feelings ended with President James Monroe. As Jimmy Carter learned too late, genuine friendships in your own party and across the aisle can make a difference when a president gets into a tight spot. Ronald Reagan and Edward Kennedy were naturally congenial and enjoyed bipartisan repartee. Unlike many prominent politicians of our own era, they could usually separate their public statements—the ones predetermined by ideology and partisanship—from after-hours personal relationships. They also shared a love of the game and an intimate knowledge of the Oval Office’s hothouse. Families that have made it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have much in common, since they are members of the most select club in the country. It may also be true that Reagan understood that a cordial relationship with the Kennedys would give him more leeway to cite JFK in his speeches without fear of rebuke from Ted or others.

Reflecting on the ties that developed between his parents and the Kennedys, Ron Reagan, Jr., detected shared admiration for those who performed well under the hot lights of the public stage. “My parents were show folk, basically, and while the Kennedys didn’t come from Hollywood, they understood that leadership required good performance. There was a respect and appreciation for the way the Kennedys handled the public spectacle. Ted Kennedy became a very good friend of my mother’s and would call to check up on her, particularly when my father was out of office and ill. They became rather close and my mother was very fond of him.”
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Whatever the basis of their reciprocated esteem and friendliness, it worked politically for both families, especially the political patriarchs, Ronald Reagan and Edward Kennedy. It was the kind of bipartisan arrangement that is difficult to achieve today, when the personal and the political are one and the same.

Despite the loss of Republican control of the U.S. Senate in 1986 and the subsequent Iran-Contra scandal that cost him much of his effectiveness throughout 1987, President Reagan enjoyed an economy robust enough to support a rebound in popularity, just in time for the 1988 presidential election. Reagan had a favorite, his onetime foe, George H. W. Bush, who had been his loyal vice president for eight years. On paper, Bush was an odd combination of the Boston-Austin, Kennedy-Johnson ticket. Born in Massachusetts, Bush had developed his political career in Texas, though he was unlike the Bay State’s JFK or the Lone Star State’s LBJ. Bush had no well-defined style or base, but he was fortunate to have Reagan, and as the election unfolded, that was all that mattered.

Bush’s political career was long, varied, and intertwined with that of every
modern president. The son of a senator, Prescott Bush of Connecticut, Bush won his first elected post in February 1963 as chairman of the Harris County (Houston, Texas) Republican Committee. But he had his eye on something much bigger: the U.S. Senate seat of liberal Democrat Ralph Yarborough. Conservatives who dominated Texas politics were unhappy with some of Yarborough’s views, and it was mainly this dispute between John Connally’s conservative faction and Ralph Yarborough’s liberal faction that would, at Lyndon Johnson’s urging, draw President Kennedy to the state in November 1963. Had the assassination never happened, Republican Senate nominee Bush might well have defeated Yarborough in 1964. Texas was turning increasingly Republican—the GOP’s John Tower had captured LBJ’s vacated Senate seat in a 1961 special election—and the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, which squeaked to victory in the Lone Star State in 1960, probably would not have won the same massive majority (63 percent) that Johnson on his own secured in Texas in 1964. But Johnson’s presidential coattails sank Bush’s first Senate bid, and he lost 56 to 44 percent.

Bush was persistent. He won election to the U.S. House from a conservative Houston district in 1966, and with his strong familial Capitol Hill ties, became the first freshman in sixty years to gain a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. The GOP House caucus was a sharp spur in Lyndon Johnson’s side, but Bush was careful to maintain his family’s good relations with the president.
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In January 1969, when Johnson yielded the presidency to Nixon, Bush broke away from the inaugural ceremonies and went to the airport to help see off LBJ and Lady Bird.
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The Johnsons never forgot this kindness, extended at a time when Johnson’s popularity was at low ebb.

Of course Bush knew Johnson’s influence in Texas would still be considerable in 1970, when Bush intended to try again to defeat Yarborough. It was to be a reasonably good Republican year in the South, and Bush would probably have succeeded in his quest—except conservative Democrat Lloyd Bentsen took out Yarborough first, in a Democratic primary. Bush went down to his second Senate defeat against Bentsen by 54 to 46 percent.

The resilient Bush became the Nixon-appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1971, and then the chairman of the Republican National Committee as Nixon began his second term in 1973. Defending Nixon during Watergate was not a choice assignment, but Bush managed to avoid being tarred. President Ford considered Bush for vice president, before choosing Nelson Rockefeller, and sent Bush instead to head the U.S. liaison office in the People’s Republic of China. His last assignment for Ford, extending a year until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency, was to head the CIA. In 1976, Ford again thought about Bush to replace Rockefeller as vice president, but Bob Dole was selected.

Bush had hoped Carter might keep him on as CIA director, and if that had happened, Bush might never have become president. Instead, Carter gave him a pink slip. Out of office for the first time in a decade, Bush set his sights on the White House in 1980, announcing his candidacy in May 1979. After winning Iowa and a few other contests, he yielded to Reagan and was eventually asked to join the GOP ticket as a safe backup to a failed effort to make Gerald Ford Reagan’s running mate.

In 1988, Bush’s moment had finally arrived, though politically he was not in a commanding position at first. There was a natural desire for change after eight turbulent years under Reagan, and Bush was the personification of the status quo. Democrats sensed impending victory, and other Republicans saw an opportunity to dislodge Bush by presenting themselves as standing for both change and continuity. Bob Dole was foremost among them, and he bested Bush in Iowa, where the sitting vice president did so poorly he placed third, behind the evangelical preacher Pat Robertson. With the critical help of Governor John Sununu in New Hampshire, Bush turned it around in the Granite State and became the Republican nominee presumptive.

Yet Bush’s general election poll ratings were still dismal, and a bevy of Democrats was attracted to compete for their party’s nomination. Once again, several of them decided that modeling their candidacy after John F. Kennedy—and presenting themselves to the voters as the next JFK—was the ticket to victory. Gary Hart came back for a second bite at the apple, and was the presumed frontrunner, until his extramarital affair with Donna Rice was revealed in May 1987.
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Delaware senator Joseph R. Biden, in the first of two unsuccessful campaigns for president, seized the Kennedy mantle by consciously applying JFK’s inaugural dictum about defense policy to domestic concerns: “In the spirit of another time, let us pledge that our generation of Americans will pay any price, bear any burden, accept any challenge, meet any hardship to secure the blessings of prosperity and the promise of America for our children.”
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Biden invoked John Kennedy so often that the other candidates kidded him about it, suggesting that in Oklahoma, for example, he might want to announce, “Ich bin ein Sooner.”
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Congressman Richard Gephardt of Missouri was another “neo-Frontiersman,” as the
New York Times
dubbed the Kennedy imitators. Gephardt frequently compared his ambitious agenda to JFK’s moon landing challenge. The eventual Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, was governor of Kennedy’s Massachusetts, so the comparisons were inescapable. Dukakis declared that he would follow JFK’s example of negotiating with the Soviet Union—though Kennedy’s record was full of Cold War clashes and superpower competition. Like Hart and many other Democrats, Dukakis attributed his involvement in politics to JFK’s inspiration. Clearly, there was an emotional tie for the famously unemotional
Dukakis, who was seen wiping away tears at the dedication of a Bay State park to President Kennedy.
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Kennedy fever mainly touched the Democrats, but it was occasionally apparent on the Republican side, too. One of Bush’s early opponents for the GOP presidential nomination, Congressman Jack Kemp of New York, possessed a persona and appearance that had often reminded people of Kennedy. As he campaigned, Kemp claimed Kennedy had set the precedent for a full follow-through on Ronald Reagan’s much discussed but never implemented “Star Wars” missile defense system:
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“John F. Kennedy didn’t just talk about researching and testing [for] putting a man on the moon. John F. Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Ladies and gentlemen, we should not just research and test [the Strategic Defense Initiative]. We should research, test and deploy SDI.”
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And the Reverend Pat Robertson, also in the race, used Kennedy’s Catholicism to deflect criticism of his evangelical Protestant faith. His final newspaper advertisement in Iowa featured JFK’s photo, and reminded readers that Kennedy had been criticized for his religion.
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Of course, Kennedy was not a priest, and he had been elected to the House and Senate; Robertson, a preacher, had never held any elected office, though his father had been a United States senator.
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The best-known intersection of John F. Kennedy and the 1988 campaign occurred on October 5 during the vice presidential candidates’ debate. In fact, it was the single most celebrated moment of that entire political year. George Bush’s choice for the second office, Indiana senator Dan Quayle, had had a difficult couple of months and was seen by some as insufficiently qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. In an effort to dispel that impression, Quayle had been noting in speeches that he had had almost as many years in Congress (twelve) as JFK had served when he ran for president (fourteen). In 1960, of course, Kennedy had been widely criticized for moving too soon with too little preparation for the White House, but almost three decades and an assassination later, JFK was untouchable and, figuratively at least, he had an honored place on Mount Rushmore. Fair or not, Quayle was not perceived by anyone to be in Kennedy’s league. The Republican aspirant had been warned by his staff against utilizing the comparison to JFK, but he had either discounted the advice or forgotten it.
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Quayle’s opponent for vice president, Democratic senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas—the man who had defeated Bush for Senate in 1970—had noticed Quayle’s invocation of JFK. During the debate, panelist Tom Brokaw of NBC asked Quayle if he had a plan in mind for what he would do if he became president.

QUAYLE: Let me try to answer the question one more time … because the question you are asking is what kind of qualifications does
Dan Quayle have to be president … ? I would make sure that the people in the Cabinet and the people that are advisors to the president are called in, and I would talk to them, and I will work with them … I will be prepared not only because of my service in the Congress, but because of my ability to communicate and to lead. It is not just age, it’s accomplishment; it’s experience. I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency …

BENTSEN: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy … [Prolonged shouts and applause]

QUAYLE: That was really uncalled for, Senator. [Shouts and applause]

BENTSEN: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator—and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well taken.
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Quayle never really recovered from this exchange. He became vice president because Bush soundly defeated Dukakis by 53.4 to 45.6 percent, though it is possible Quayle cost Bush a percentage point or two.
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More damaging for Quayle, the image of a not-ready-for-prime-time player stuck, reinforced by other verbal gaffes he committed while in office.
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When Quayle sought the presidency himself in 1999, he fared so poorly—finishing eighth in the well-known Ames, Iowa, straw poll—that he withdrew and backed George W. Bush. Ironically, Quayle had more governmental experience than any other 2000 Republican presidential contender, including Bush, but it was too late for experience to do Quayle much good. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Quayle became the second Republican, after Richard Nixon, whom John Kennedy defeated in a nationally televised debate.