Kennedy

by Ted Sorensen

  But two courageous clergymen helped get the project under way. One was the Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, Jr., Dean of the Washington Episcopal Cathedral, and grandson of President Woodrow Wilson, who instantly saw that the ugly repercussions of continued religious divisions could irreparably harm the nation. He agreed to serve as coordinator for the letter and drafted the basic document.

  The other was Methodist Bishop Oxnam, whose long years of opposing the Catholic hierarchy as a leader of the POAU gave him impeccable credentials as a signer of this letter. Two years earlier, the Senator had joshed at the Gridiron Dinner, “Should I be elected, I do hope that Bishop Bromley Oxnam of the POAU will be my personal envoy to the Vatican—and he is instructed to open negotiations for that transatlantic tunnel immediately.” But since then the Senator had appeared with Oxnam before the Methodist Council of Bishops and a seminar for Illinois Methodist ministers, corresponded with him about the Cushing article and answered all questions on church and state. The Bishop agreed to meet me in New York and after some improvement in the wording, Bishop Oxnam agreed to sign the letter and to help seek other signers.

  Other Protestant leaders began to respond favorably. Finally, on May 3, one week before the West Virginia primary, an “open letter” to their “Fellow Pastors in Christ” was issued from Dean Sayre’s office over the signature of thirteen nationally known Protestant leaders. “Quite apart from what our attitude toward the Roman Church may be,” the letter read, religious lines should not be drawn. Protestant ministers should preach “charitable moderation and reasoned balance of judgment…. We are convinced that each of the candidates has presented himself before the American people with honesty and independence, and we would think it unjust to discount any one of them because of his chosen faith.”

  Copies of the letter went to every Protestant minister in West Virginia. Like the ASNE speech earlier, it had a beneficial effect in West Virginia, where plans for a mass of anti-Catholic sermons on the Sunday before the primary had previously reached our ears.

  The Senator, meanwhile, was presenting himself with the honesty and independence of which the letter spoke. Shortly after the Episcopal Bishop of West Virginia announced his opposition to a Catholic President, Kennedy pleaded for fairness. “If religion is a valid issue in the Presidential campaign,” he hoarsely told his audience, “I shouldn’t have served in the House, I shouldn’t now be serving in the Senate, and I shouldn’t have been accepted by the United States Navy.” For the oath of office was practically identical in each case, he pointed out—an oath sworn on the Bible to defend the Constitution.

  While a Baptist minister in Chelyan, West Virginia, was distributing copies of a bogus Knights of Columbus oath, which showed Catholics seeking a war on Protestants, Senator Kennedy was at Bethany College telling questioning students that he did not approve of clerical political power in Spain, that he had no desire to impose his personal views on birth control or any other subject, and that, if he received a political directive from his Archbishop, “I simply would not obey it.” He recalled that no one questioned his oath of allegiance “before I spent long months in a Veterans Hospital, or before my brother died on a mission to Germany.” No priest or Pope would influence his decisions, he said, and no pastor or anti-Catholic pamphlet should influence their vote. He thought West Virginia deserved a fair shake, and he hoped West Virginia would give him one.

  This was not a constant theme of his speeches—economics was still his chief issue—but it was stressed in his preliminary remarks and in his answers to questions. The Kennedy charm worked, too, even on his religious antagonists. One Kenneth Klinkert from Wisconsin, who had peddled anti-Catholic literature at Kennedy rallies in that state and then followed him around in West Virginia, suddenly returned to Wisconsin. The Senator had spoken kindly to him, he said, and showed no anger: “It takes a big man to…come up smiling and genuinely friendly after his religion is being constantly attacked.” Klinkert was for Kennedy.

  Finally, in a moving televised question-and-answer session with Franklin Roosevelt that closed the primary campaign, he made his position clear as West Virginia crystal. He answered fully and fervently the toughest religious questions I could devise for Frank to ask. He was opposed to the persecution of Protestants abroad, he could attend as President any Protestant funeral service, and he could, above all, swear unswerving allegiance to the Constitution. 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…. If you took orders from the Pope, you would be breaking your oath of office…and commit a sin against God…. You would be subject to impeachment and should be impeached.

  Catholic Boston, he said, had in 1948 overwhelmingly supported Baptist Harry Truman “because of the man he is. I would like the same fairness Harry Truman was shown.”

  Some said his answers were only “fanning the controversy.” Others said he was “running on the religious issue in West Virginia.” And still others said he could hardly complain inasmuch as his candidacy had created the issue. The Senator made no complaint, but he steeled himself for defeat, arguing that he would still be in the race by virtue of his other victories. “After all,” he said, “Franklin Roosevelt didn’t win all the primaries in 1932.” Putting aside the gloomy press and expert forecasts (the Wall Street Journal predicted a 60-40 Humphrey victory), he remained in Washington on Primary Day and tried to relax at a movie.

  Whatever his secret hopes, the returns late that night must have amazed him. The people of West Virginia, anxious to disprove the charge of bigotry, and convinced that this was the man who could relieve their plight, gave Jack Kennedy a thunderous endorsement by a 61-39 margin. He carried all but seven of its fifty-five counties. He carried towns dominated by the Mine Workers Union. He carried Negro wards (which linked Robert Byrd with the Ku Klux Klan), and he carried Robert Byrd’s home town. He carried farm areas and urban areas. But, above all, he heavily carried the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant vote. He flew that night back to West Virginia, and there he accepted Hubert Humphrey’s gracious statement of withdrawal from the Presidential race. The religious issue, he said with jubilation, had been “buried here in the state of West Virginia.”

  The attempt to disparage this victory, so successful in Wisconsin, was unsuccessful in West Virginia. Liberal analyst Louis Bean, the same man who in 1956 attacked the Bailey Memorandum on the grounds that there was no Catholic vote, issued a purported analysis of the results which said there was indeed a Catholic vote in 95 percent Protestant West Virginia and it was responsible for Kennedy’s landslide victory. The Christian Science Monitor thought it significant that Kennedy had carried by a large margin a county which was only 70 percent Protestant. But little attention was paid to this kind of obvious bias. Instead, Kennedy was charged with winning with purchased votes. Several newspapers, the supporters of other Democratic candidates and the Republican Department of Justice all combed West Virginia for proof of irregularities. They found, as was customary in West Virginia, some vote-buying for local candidates and slates; and Kennedy campaign money may well have been diverted to this use. But no evidence could be found of Kennedy’s “buying” popular votes, for none had ever existed. “We sent two of our best men out,” wrote the editor of the Charleston Gazette. “They spent three to four weeks checking. Kennedy did not buy that election. He sold himself to the voters.”

  To be sure, the number of would-be adversaries who were publicly accusing Kennedy of illegal expenditures and other improprieties that spring (the wealthy supporter of one of his lesser competitors put a private detective on his trail) was nearly matched by the number of would-be friends who were privately asking for them. One self-appointed go-between was certain he could deliver the votes of a Southern delegation but wanted to talk to the Senator’s father about their “transportation difficulties.” A promoter suggested t
hat $150,000 worth of subscriptions would ensure the support of a certain publisher. Another suggested we win the farm vote by purchasing a struggling farm newspaper. A veterans’ convention was also offered “for sale” by a promoter who neither owned it nor influenced it. Needless to say, the Senator was not interested in any of these offers. He had heard similar offers in Massachusetts politics and had rejected them all.

  THE WRAP-UP

  The Senator’s victory in West Virginia was the signal for both pro-Kennedy and anti-Kennedy delegates to come out of hiding. Those who had counted on his losing either Wisconsin or West Virginia promptly dismissed all primaries as meaningless. Those who had hesitated to endorse him for fear of a Humphrey victory eagerly rallied to his banner. In New York, for example, DeSapio disclosed that more than a majority of that 114-vote delegation was for Kennedy.

  The Senator continued his nonstop campaigning in the primaries, but the results were no longer uncertain. “There isn’t any doubt in my mind,” Kennedy told West Virginians that fall, “that West Virginia really nominated the Democratic Presidential candidate.” In Nebraska, on the same day as the West Virginia primary, he secured the largest Democratic vote since Roosevelt’s 1940 record and most of the delegates as well (though, as in West Virginia, they were not bound by the primary). A week earlier in Indiana, and in impressive spontaneous write-in showings in Illinois and particularly in Pennsylvania (he did not campaign in either primary), he continued to startle the “bosses” with his popular appeal. In Maryland, one week after West Virginia, he overwhelmed Wayne Morse with a nearly 4-1 margin.

  Oregon, the final primary, was important. That state’s model primary law not only automatically entered all Presidential candidates but bound its delegation to the winner until either he released them or his total convention vote dropped below a specified level.3 This unusual state statute meant that Kennedy faced not only popular favorite son Morse, whom many had picked to win, and familiar foe Humphrey, whose name remained on the ballot. He also, at last, faced both Symington and Johnson, who had refused to campaign though their names had been entered. Stevenson’s name was not entered only because he filed an affidavit swearing “I am not now and do not intend to become a candidate for President…”—an affidavit which had a prominent place in our file on “other candidates” (along with such other choice items as Humphrey’s record on McCarthy, Nixon’s Senate votes against civil rights and a 1959 Lyndon Johnson letter which boasted of his support of the Taft-Hartley Bill).

  One week before the Oregon vote, former President Truman, who had campaigned in the primaries in 1948, publicly blasted all primaries and endorsed Symington. All he had against Kennedy, he said, was the latter’s residence in Massachusetts—to which Kennedy replied, “I have news for Mr. Truman. Mr. Symington was born in Massachusetts.”

  The religious issue was also raised briefly when the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano told Catholics that the church “has the duty and the right” to tell them how to vote. Vatican “sources” were reported as stating that the editorial applied to Americans as well as others, although it was believed to be aimed at Communist candidates, particularly in Italy. The Senator issued a statement that his support of church-state separation “is not subject to change under any conditions.” Privately he remarked, “Now I understand why Henry VIII set up his own church,” and once again he wondered whether the statement had been deliberately timed to harm his prospects.

  In other respects the campaign was smooth. Kennedy’s Oregon organization drew from all the state’s many Democratic factions. And in the end he polled more votes than all the other candidates combined.

  The primaries were over, but not Kennedy’s preconvention campaign. He still hoped to reduce the number of other candidates monopolizing first-ballot votes. He had an inconclusive meeting with Stevenson, who still talked of a dark-horse liberal, still dreamed of his own election and, according to our intelligence agents, had said of Kennedy to one Democrat, “If only he had ten more years.” Kennedy had both private and public meetings with Hubert Humphrey, for whom he had never lost his respect and affection despite two bitter and heated campaigns. He tried in vain—as I had in an earlier meeting—to convince New Jersey’s Governor Meyner that springtime was the time for Meyner to join the Kennedy team, which would surely be looking for talented friends to join its Washington team when Meyner’s governorship ended. Kennedy aides also talked with Governors Pat Brown in California, Herschel Loveless in Iowa and George Docking in Kansas.

  The most successful effort was with Michigan’s Governor Mennen Williams. In the midst of the West Virginia contest, I had attended the Michigan State Democratic Convention. With the sympathetic help of Senator Philip Hart, UAW leader Leonard Woodcock and National Committeewoman Mildred Jeffrey, I obtained a postmidnight conference with the state’s Democratic leadership and a morning audience with Governor and Mrs. Williams. I answered a rough series of questions on Kennedy’s liberalism, executive ability, financial interests, campaign expenditures, civil rights stand, foreign policy and devotion to new ideas. I denied rumors about vote-buying and wiretapping in West Virginia, gave assurances that Michigan would be represented in the highest councils of the campaign and committed the Senator to answering in writing a forty-one-part questionnaire covering his views on all national issues from automation to youth.

  Michigan newspaper polls already showed Kennedy with more voter support than all other Democratic candidates combined, and the state Democratic ticket needed this kind of help, they knew, in 1960. Once Humphrey (and Williams himself) were no longer contenders, and the issue was posed as Kennedy vs. Symington or Johnson, Michigan Democrats were sufficiently realistic to know that the latter two (for whom they were not enthusiastic) would be aided by either a Stevenson endorsement or a delay; and that an appreciative and victorious Kennedy was more likely to make use of Williams’ talent for public service than an unappreciative Kennedy or a nonvictorious Stevenson. On June 2, following a Kennedy visit to the Governor’s summer home on Mackinac Island, Williams ringingly endorsed Kennedy—and 42 more votes out of Michigan’s 51 were added to the Kennedy total.

  In the midst of his travels, the Senator also found time for a major foreign policy address on the Senate floor. The downing of an American U-2 “spy plane” over the Soviet Union and the consequent break-up of the Paris Summit Conference had raised new fears about world peace, and about Kennedy’s age and experience. Before a shopping-center crowd in Eugene, Oregon, he told a questioner that instead of the series of false, contradictory and then overly frank statements the administration had issued before suspending the flights, he would have been willing to cool the crisis by expressing “regret that the flight did take place…regret at the timing and give assurances that it would not happen again…. A week before the summit…was obviously the wrong time…. Every time we go up in a plane…it may come down sooner than we thought. The maintenance of peace…should not hang on the constant possibility of engine failure.” His words were promptly distorted into a “suspicion of appeasement” by Republican Senator Scott of Pennsylvania, backed by Senator Dirksen of Illinois. He was attacked as “naive” by Vice President Nixon. And Lyndon Johnson, now campaigning more openly, shouted to each audience as a part of his speech: “I am not prepared to apologize to Mr. Khrushchev—are you?”

  Kennedy’s Senate floor speech on June 14 ignored these critics and dealt comprehensively with America’s foreign policy agenda. One of those assisting with the first draft was Congressman Chester Bowles of Connecticut, who earlier in the year had been publicly entitled Kennedy’s “foreign policy adviser.” As a Connecticut Democrat, Bowles’s endorsement meant comparatively little. But as a symbol to liberals in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, California and New York, his prominent role in the preconvention campaign was important. It had required, as a preliminary to his final meeting and exchange of letters with the Senator, a long winter afternoon’s conversation with me at the Yale Club in New York
. He told me of his own potential following for the Presidency, his chances for the Cabinet under other candidates, his unwillingness to campaign against Humphrey, and his hope that Kennedy, if unable to win a convention majority, might throw all his support behind him.

  Finally, after flying trips to the Dakotas, Montana, Colorado and Iowa, and several to New York, the Senator could rest. He had decided not to give an image-building lecture in England. He still had his share of detractors—both Southerners and Negroes were criticizing him on civil rights, and both Hoffa and leading industrialists were attacking his labor reform bill. And he still had strong and active competitors—particularly Symington and Johnson, whose efforts have been necessarily unreported in these pages but were still powerful that June. For they, too, had likable families, extensive financial resources, appealing personalities, considerable ability and shrewd public relations. They won no popularity polls, but they were favored at the outset by most of the best-known “pols.” They did not risk a single primary and had no fears of overexposure with the voters. Without declaring their candidacies, they had made their views known and their names available. Without formally collaborating to stop Kennedy (which would have required one to defer to the other), their supporters nevertheless could and often did approach state bosses and conventions in harmony. Their strategy seemingly had every desirable characteristic—save success.