The Patriarch

by David Nasaw

  Though he had stayed fifteen hundred miles away and kept his mouth shut, Kennedy found it impossible to escape the publicity that trailed after him. On April 5, 1960, primary election day in Wisconsin, Drew Pearson devoted his column to a lengthy conversation he’d had earlier with the senator at his home in Washington. The first question he had raised was about the senator’s Catholicism, the next about his father.

  “‘I confess to being skeptical about your father’s influence over you,’ I said. This is a tough statement to throw at a man who has been close to his father, but young Kennedy took it with good humor.

  “‘Well, father wants me to be President all right,’ he said. ‘He tells everyone that I’m going to be President. But as far as influencing me, I think my voting record in the Senate speaks for itself. He and I have disagreed on foreign policy and domestic issues for many years, but always very amicably.’”

  When asked “about reports that your father poured money into the New Hampshire primary,” the senator responded that his father hadn’t spent “‘a penny in New Hampshire. . . . I would have been foolish to spend a lot of money in New Hampshire, even if I’d wanted to. It’s a small state and all my friends were out bursting with energy and working without any money.’” He confessed that he was spending money in Wisconsin, but not more than Humphrey.17

  —

  Jack won the Wisconsin primary, but not by the landslide he needed. Worse yet, he lost three predominantly Protestant districts in the west of the state.

  “What does it all mean, Johnny?” Eunice asked her brother as the returns came in.

  “It means that we’ve got to go on to West Virginia in the morning and do it all over again,” Jack said. “And then we’ve got to go on to Maryland and Indiana and Oregon, and win all of them.”18

  There were several primaries to come, and Jack needed to win them all to demonstrate to the party bosses who controlled the bulk of the delegates—only a minority were selected on the basis of primary voting—that he was a viable candidate. In states with significant Catholic populations, such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Maryland, he was going to need the help of those who remained on the sidelines because they did not think he could win and feared the long-term repercussions of his losing. “I can understand why a great many people might not like Jack—some say that he’s too young, some that he’s a Catholic, etc., etc.,” Kennedy wrote Michael Morrissey, the Catholic publisher of a string of Massachusetts newspapers, in early April. “But I really have no patience with the Catholics who want to duck a fight. . . . When you said to me that you hated to see these bigoted ideas arise, I asked you what we were supposed to do, just duck this question for the rest of our lives. If Jack’s heart is broken because he may be beaten on the religious question, then so be it. He has demonstrated that he is the greatest vote getter in the Democratic Party and it is certainly up to him to carry on the battle. A little help from a lot of people might bring him victory.”19

  From Wisconsin, the Kennedy and Humphrey campaigns turned their attention to West Virginia. It was here that Jack would have to demonstrate that Protestants were willing to vote for him. “Only about 3 percent of the state is Catholic, probably the smallest percentage in the United States,” Kennedy wrote Lord Beaverbrook on April 20. “And they are passing out religious leaflets up and down the line. The Baptists are the most bigoted group. The Gallup Poll came out today and showed that Jack is pulling farther and farther ahead of all the other candidates; so that he will have a very good call on the nomination. If he is thrown out because he is a Catholic, I doubt very much if a Democrat will win.”20

  According to Ben Bradlee of Newsweek, who was invited to sit in on one high-level strategy meeting at Palm Beach, Kennedy had “argued strenuously against JFK’s entering [the West Virginia primary]. ‘It’s a nothing state and they’ll kill him over the Catholic thing.’ A few minutes later JFK spoke out: ‘Well, we’ve heard from the ambassador, and we’re all very grateful, Dad, but I’ve got to run in West Virginia.’”21

  Once the decision was made, Kennedy backed his son completely. Winning in West Virginia would require bags of money for local candidates who agreed to put Senator Kennedy on the primary election slates they headed and for party professionals, officeholders, poll watchers, election officials, drivers, and, it appeared, everyone else who stuck out a hand. The Kennedy camp was not the only one to throw money around, but it had more of it and did it better. Leo Racine, who worked out of Kennedy’s New York office, had been dispatched to Wisconsin and West Virginia for the campaign. He recalled that money arrived in satchels. “It just kept flowing in. . . . All anyone in the campaign had to say was ‘we need money’ and it was on the way.”22

  To help his son win the Protestant vote in West Virginia, Kennedy got in touch with Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., who, like his brother James, had done well neither in politics nor in business and was at the moment selling Fiats in New York and contemplating a return to politics. Kennedy asked Roosevelt Jr. to fly to Palm Beach to meet with Bobby and Jack. After speaking with them, he agreed to join the campaign. His presence—and physical likeness to his father—bolstered Jack’s attempt to define himself as a New Deal liberal who, much like FDR, would employ the power and resources of the federal government to rescue West Virginia’s impoverished miners. Roosevelt called attention as well to the fact that Kennedy had fought overseas in World War II while Humphrey had stayed at home. “‘You know why I’m here in West Virginia today?’ Frank would say. ‘Because Jack Kennedy and I fought side by side in the Pacific. He was on the PT boats and I was on the destroyers.’”23

  In the midst of campaigning in West Virginia, Senator Kennedy returned to Washington to deliver a major speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in yet another attempt to counter the anti-Catholic literature, speeches, whispers, and rumors that he feared were pushing every other issue to the side. He was not, he declared as emphatically as he could, “the Catholic candidate for President. I do not speak for the Catholic church on issues of public policy, and no one in that Church speaks for me. My record . . . has displeased some prominent Catholic clergymen and organizations and it has been approved by others. The fact is that the Catholic church is not a monolith—it is committed in this country to the principles of individual liberty.” He was even more emphatic back on the campaign trail in West Virginia. In his final television speech, he repeated again that as president he “would not take orders from any Pope, Cardinal, Bishop or priest, nor would they try to give me orders. . . . If any Pope attempted to influence me as President, I would have to tell him it was completely improper.”24

  On May 10, 1960, Jack Kennedy won the West Virginia primary with 61 percent of the vote, which should have, but did not, put to rest the question of whether Protestants would vote for a Catholic. A week later, he won the Maryland primary with 70 percent, his ninth consecutive primary victory. The New York Times reported the Maryland primary victory on the front page. Just below, it ran a second front-page story with a Rome dateline: VATICAN PAPER PROCLAIMS RIGHT OF CHURCH TO ROLE IN POLITICS. The official Vatican newspaper had declared in an editorial that “the Roman Catholic hierarchy had ‘the right and the duty to intervene’ in the political field to guide its flock. It rejected what it termed ‘the absurd split of conscience between the believer and the citizen.’ . . . The Roman Catholic religion, the editorial asserted, is a force that ‘commits and guides the entire existence of man.’ The Catholic, it went on, ‘may never disregard the teaching and directions of the church but must inspire his private and public conduct in every sphere of his activity by the laws, instructions and teachings of the hierarchy.’”25

  The timing, placement, language, and emphasis of the Vatican paper editorial called into question everything Jack Kennedy had been saying about his religion. Pierre Salinger, his press spokesman, responded at once that Senator Kennedy supported “the principle of separation of
church and state as provided in the United States Constitution [and] that this support is not subject to change under any condition.” His statement was buried on page thirty-one.

  The following day, May 19, lest there be any confusion, the New York Times confirmed that the editorial in the Vatican paper had “been given to the newspaper for publication by the Vatican Secretariat of State, the Department of the Church’s Central Government that assists the Pope in political business,” and that earlier reports that the “editorialist . . . did not have in mind the United States Presidential campaign” were inaccurate.

  Joseph Kennedy was both distressed and baffled. His fears that the church was out to defeat his son were now fully confirmed. “You must have been aware,” he wrote Galeazzi, “of how terribly shocked we were by that editorial in L’Osservatore Romano on the separation of church and state. . . . It was a bad shaking up and it did not do us a bit of good. I cannot understand why my two friends, Tardini [the Vatican secretary of state] and the other man [another papal adviser on foreign affairs] could ever have let anything like that come to America when it could create so much difficulty over something that has already been established as a fact here in the country, namely, the separation of church and state.”26

  The Vatican pronouncement, fortunately, did not do the immediate harm that Kennedy had feared it might. Though featured in the New York Times, the story was buried elsewhere by the news that Senator Kennedy had won the Maryland primary. For his father, it was an omen of things to come.

  —

  The final primary for Kennedy was held in Oregon on May 20. With every possible candidate listed on the ballot, Kennedy took 51 percent of the vote; favorite son Wayne Morse got 31.9 percent; Humphrey, 5.7 percent.

  To celebrate the victorious conclusion of the primary season—and Jack’s birthday—the family gathered for a long weekend at Hyannis Port. Frank Falacci of the Boston Post was among the throng of reporters who awaited the senator’s arrival at the Barnstable Airport terminal on Cape Cod. “For a long time,” he reported, “no one noticed the man in the blue suit with the yachtsman-type buttons, who carefully checked his watch against the wall clocks. When recognition did come, the reporters made a rush towards him, and Joseph P. Kennedy, tycoon, former ambassador, and father of the presidential candidate, greeted them with a grin.

  “His first concern, he said, was for ‘the boys.’

  “‘They all look tired in their pictures,’ he said. ‘Bob especially seems to have lost weight.’

  “His eyes glowed when he spoke of the work his three sons had done in the primaries across the country. . . . He had special praise for his youngest son, Ted. ‘When Jack’s voice was gone in West Virginia, Ted really took over and kept the ball rolling.’”27

  —

  Kennedy was more and more convinced that his son was going to win the nomination, though there remained obstacles in his path—primarily Adlai Stevenson and Lyndon Johnson, each of whom wanted the nomination; and Harry Truman, who had declared that Jack Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be president. On July 4, a week before the convention was to open, Senator Kennedy held a televised press conference to answer President Truman. If “fourteen years in major elective office is insufficient experience,” he said, “that rules out . . . all but a handful of American Presidents, and every President of the twentieth century—including Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman.” His father, listening on the radio from his cottage at Cal-Neva, told Joe Timilty, who was with him, that he thought it was the best speech his son had ever given. “That evening,” Timilty later recalled, “we went over to the Tahoe Lodge for dinner and were joined by one Wingie Grober, who had the reputation of being quite a character. Mr. Kennedy said to Wingie, ‘Wingie, you go out and beg and borrow as much money as you possibly can and place it on Jack to win on the 1st ballot.’”28

  Kennedy, who had absented himself from every stop on the campaign trail, accepted Marion Davies’s invitation to stay at her beach house in Santa Monica during the convention. The house was fully staffed, had a pool, rooms for children and grandchildren, a large television set, and it was outside the reach of the press. SEN. KENNEDY’S FATHER WATCHES IN HIDEAWAY, reported the Los Angeles Times on July 14. “Joe Kennedy, 71, has refused to grant any interviews. His wife explains that he has always been a rather controversial figure and thinks it is easier for his sons if he does not appear on the scene.”

  —

  On July 5, Lyndon Johnson—the man whom Joe Kennedy had always considered the strongest threat to his son’s candidacy—after staying out of the primaries, declared himself a candidate for the nomination. Johnson and his supporters, who had never had much of anything positive to say about Jack Kennedy, now began raising questions about his health and his father. Johnson’s spokesmen told the press that Jack Kennedy had Addison’s disease. Lyndon Johnson attacked the candidate’s father directly. “I wasn’t any Chamberlain umbrella man. I never thought Hitler was right.” With the nomination almost within their grasp, the Kennedys ignored the charges about Joe Kennedy, claimed that Jack didn’t have “classically described Addison’s disease,” and concentrated their attention on securing the last few delegate votes they needed for a first-ballot nomination.29

  Joseph Kennedy stayed out of sight, declining every interview request except one from John Seigenthaler of the Nashville Tennessean, who had worked with Bobby and whom Bobby suggested his father talk to. “He was wearing swimming trunks and a . . . matching sports shirt, and he had on a straw hat with the brim turned down—a very narrow brim which he had turned down all the way round,” Seigenthaler later recalled. The two men talked outside on Marion Davies’s patio in the blazing Los Angeles sunshine for about two hours. Most of the interview was off the record, as Kennedy insisted that he didn’t want to draw attention from his son’s campaign. “This is Jack’s fight, and this is his effort. He doesn’t need me making wise cracks or making speeches for him. . . . I don’t want my enemies to be my son’s enemies or my wars to be my son’s wars. I lived my life, fought my fights, and I’m not apologizing for them. . . . It’s now time for a younger generation. . . . I don’t want to hang on. . . . They’ll make it on their own. They don’t need me to fight my fight again.” While they talked, the radio was playing in the background. When it was announced that Johnson had invited Jack to debate before the Texas delegation, Kennedy insisted that if he “were Jack, I wouldn’t get within a hundred yards of him. We got this won. Jack’s got the votes. Johnson can’t change them, and he’s desperate. . . . Hell, I wouldn’t touch him. I wouldn’t go near him.” Then, a bit later, came the report that Jack had accepted Johnson’s challenge, and without a moment’s hesitation Kennedy declared that Jack would easily win the debate.

  Seigenthaler was astounded at how forthcoming Kennedy was on every issue that he raised. When he asked about Rosemary (whom Time magazine had that week reported suffered from “spinal meningitis,” a known cause of mental retardation, and was in a “nursing home in Wisconsin”), Kennedy responded that he didn’t “know what it is that makes eight children shine like a dollar and another one dull. I guess it’s the hand of God. But we just do the best we can and try to help wherever we can. . . . Eunie knows more about helping the mentally retarded than any individual in America.” He had never before spoken publicly about Rosemary.30

  —

  On the evening of July 13, 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as his father had predicted, was nominated on the first ballot. Bobby, Ted, Jack’s sisters and their husbands, Rose, and the grandchildren watched the proceedings or worked the floor. We don’t know where Joe was. Rose said he stayed at home; Ted recalled that he watched the vote, then “slipped out of the convention hall with no fanfare.”31

  That evening, the candidate, his brother, and his senior advisers gathered to discuss the vice-presidential nomination. Kennedy had already made clear that his preference was Lyndon Joh
nson. When Jack offered the nomination to Johnson and Johnson accepted, the fallout from the liberal wing of the party was considerable. Kennedy remained upbeat. Charles Bartlett, visiting at Marion Davies’s mansion, recalled “Mr. Kennedy . . . standing in the doorway . . . with his smoking jacket on and slippers. And the whole scene was rather downcast, considering this was the day after a great Kennedy triumph. And I remember old Mr. Kennedy saying, ‘Don’t worry, Jack, in two weeks, they’ll be saying it’s the smartest thing you ever did.’”32

  On Friday, the day that his son was to accept the nomination for president of the United States, Kennedy was nowhere to be found. Chuck Spalding, Jack’s friend, later remembered having found Kennedy packing the night before. “I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘I have to get on a plane tonight and get back to New York and get working on this thing. We’ve got to keep moving.’”33

  Kennedy had telephoned Henry Luce in New York and, Luce later recalled, “asked whether he could come to see me, I think he mentioned around five o’clock in my apartment at the Waldorf.” In the long run up to the convention, the Luce magazines not only had provided Jack with plenty of coverage, but had been exceedingly fair on the religious issue. Kennedy expected that Luce, a lifelong Republican, would endorse Nixon, but he was not going to leave the country for France (which he planned to do on Monday, July 18) without trying to change his mind.

  When Kennedy’s morning flight was delayed, he called to ask if he could see Luce for dinner instead. Luce asked what he wanted to eat. “Well, he wanted lobster, so by the time he got there we had the dinner about ready and, as I remember, two lobsters. He ate a very hearty meal and he was in great form. . . . [Dinner] was over about nine o’clock and, as I remember it, the television [and Jack’s acceptance speech] wasn’t going on till ten. I thought that Joe hadn’t come to see me just for chitchat about the convention, so I thought I better get down to cases. I said to him when we were in the living room: ‘Well, now, Joe, I suppose you are interested in the attitudes Time and Life, and I, might take about Jack’s candidacy. And I think I can put it quite simply.’ I divided the matter into domestic and foreign affairs, and I said, ‘As to domestic affairs, of course Jack will have to be left of center.’ Whereupon Joe burst out with, ‘How can you say that? How can you think that any son of mine would ever be a so-and-so liberal?’ . . . It’s well known that Joe Kennedy’s colorful manner of speech is not always suitable for the tape recording. . . . I think the conversation may have gone on about that for a while, but not very much. Then pretty soon the moment came, the television was on and the nominee, Jack Kennedy, got up to make his speech while the three of us [Luce’s son was with them] were watching the television screen.” Luce thought the speech was acceptable, but not great, and he objected to something in the opening, to which Joe had replied, “Oh, well, now, don’t mind that.” When the speech was finished, “Joe left and at the door he said, ‘I want to thank you for all that you’ve done for Jack.’ I think this was said with great sincerity and, if I recall, he repeated it.”34