Often his only real meal of the day would be breakfast, and it was almost always the same: two four-and-a-half-minute boiled eggs, four strips of broiled bacon, toast, coffee, and orange juice. On a rare evening off, he liked to go to the movies. Upon entering the theater he would hunt for a seat behind an empty one—so that he could prop up his knees and thereby relieve the pain in his back. His favorites that year included The Lost Weekend and The Bells of St. Mary’s.14
Behind the scenes, the candidate also proved his worth. In the late evenings he would go down to the Ritz-Carlton and have a bowl of tomato bisque. Campaign aide Peter Cloherty would meet him there with a folder of letters that had been typed earlier that evening or afternoon. “He was very meticulous about every single letter,” Cloherty remembered. “It wasn’t just a question of signing them. If the letter was addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Stewart’ and it should have been ‘Dear John,’ he would change it, possibly have that one retyped, or add a personal footnote to it in his own hand. Then we’d bring them back up in the morning and put them in the mail.”15
George Taylor, Jack’s African American valet from Winthrop House days, marveled at the determination and the attention to detail. Since Jack’s graduation, the two men had kept in touch, Jack penning occasional letters to George from one of his naval postings. Now Taylor was back in his employ, as valet and chauffeur. The two enjoyed a casual, teasing relationship, smoking cigars together and chatting about their mutual interest in women. Occasionally, too, Taylor would be a political sounding board—after a campaign speech Kennedy would ask Taylor to offer his frank critique, which Taylor duly did. He also introduced Jack to leaders in Cambridge’s black community. And always, when motoring from one event to another, the candidate would urge his driver to step on it: “He’d say to me sometimes, ‘George, you’re driving too slow. Push over and let me take the wheel.’ And when he took the wheel, he was a fast driver.”16
The hard-charging approach resulted in part from a realization on the part of Jack and his aides that orthodox campaigning alone would not do the job. People who showed up at rallies were already committed to you, and handshaking on street corners, though not without worth, wouldn’t bring many new voters into the fold. Radio time and newspaper ads had their place, but their effectiveness was diluted by the fact that these media covered all of metropolitan Boston.17 So how to reach uncommitted or apathetic voters? The only way was to go where they lived—literally. For Jack Kennedy this meant trekking through neighborhoods, scaling the stairs of three-decker upon three-decker, and knocking on door after door, sore back be damned. (Often he wore a brace.) And it meant organizing house parties in all corners of the district, with refreshments and flowers provided by the campaign. With careful logistical planning, Jack’s team found that he could take in six or more of these parties in a single evening; at each one, aides would take attendees’ names and add them to a mailing list. On some evenings, sisters Eunice and Pat would join in.*1 The candidate was, moreover, in his element in these more intimate settings, winningly shy at the outset but then flashing his high-voltage smile and his self-effacing humor as he laid out, as succinctly and clearly as he could, why he sought their votes. And he took the high road, refraining as a matter of course from discrediting or disparaging the other candidates.
One group of voters responded especially well to this approach, the campaign quickly realized: women. Joe DeGuglielmo, a councilman in Cambridge, saw a clear pattern in the house parties there.
Somehow or the other the minute he came into a room where there was one or more women, the females that were in the room forgot everything else. It didn’t make any difference what emergency there was. They gravitated towards him. And that would happen many times….The minute the women would see him they’d drop everything, and I know I’ve gone into those same homes in the past and since and, heck, I can go in and they’ll keep on doing what they were doing. It doesn’t make a particle of difference. But when he came in, at that time, there was some sort of—I don’t know what you’d call it—some sort of electricity or something, some indefinable electricity in the air that would make the women stop and come to him. And they didn’t want him to go.18
Powers saw the phenomenon, too, soon after he answered a knock on the door of his third-floor apartment in the Bunker Hill section of gritty Charlestown and found the young Kennedy standing there in the dimly lit hallway, out of breath and smiling. Though ostensibly committed to another as-yet-undeclared candidate in the race, Powers agreed to Kennedy’s plea to join him for an evening event with Gold Star Mothers (mothers who had lost a son in the war) at the local American Legion hall. As Kennedy concluded his prepared remarks, which ran ten minutes in length, he paused, then said softly, “I think I know how all you mothers feel because my mother is a Gold Star Mother, too.” In that instant, Powers remembered, the candidate established a kind of “magical link” with everyone in the room, made himself real, showed that he understood their grief. “Suddenly, swarms of women hurried up to the platform, crowding around him and wishing him luck. And I could hear them saying to each other, ‘Isn’t he a wonderful boy, he reminds me so much of my own John’ or ‘my Bob.’ It took a half hour for him to get away.” To Powers, a political junkie who’d been going to rallies since he was ten, “this reaction was unlike any I had ever seen. It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he reached into the emotions of everyone there.” He joined the campaign that evening.19
The anecdote speaks to another element in Jack Kennedy’s favor: his record of service in the war. Veterans, who numbered some sixteen million by conflict’s end (fewer than half saw combat), were a formidable political force in America in 1945–46. Their sheer number was one factor, but so was the fact that they came from every corner of the union and from all walks of life—from the most humble to the loftiest. Hollywood stars like Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, and Tyrone Power had donned uniforms, as had several hundred major league baseball players, including Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Bob Feller, and Joe DiMaggio. All four of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s sons served. At the unit level, the experience of having so many men from different backgrounds thrown together generated tensions (African Americans and Japanese Americans served in separate units, while Chinese Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics served in “white” units), but it also brought cohesion and, to a degree at least, a blurring of the lines between classes, a diminution of prejudice and provincialism. In time, that cohesion would dissipate, but in 1946 it remained potent, as reflected in the success of veterans all across the country who sought political office that fall.
Kennedy, moreover, had a particularly powerful personal story to tell. At stop after stop, he introduced himself to voters as a combat veteran returning to help lead the country for which he had fought. (“The New Generation Offers a Leader,” read the campaign slogan, coined by Joe Kane, who adapted it from Henry Luce’s foreword to Why England Slept: “If John Kennedy is characteristic of the younger generation, and I believe he is, many of us would be happy to have the destinies of the Republic turned over to his generation at once.”) He regularly referred to his older brother’s service and selfless courage, and organized a new Veterans of Foreign Wars post named for him. He sought invitations to speak at events honoring veterans.
About his own specific experiences in the South Pacific he was reluctant to say much. Then and later, he played down his PT 109 heroism with his famous quip “I had no choice. They sank my boat.” To an aide he remarked early in the campaign that he had no taste for “trying to parlay a lost PT boat and a bad back into political advantage.” But gradually Kennedy came to see that his story, already familiar to some voters, was too good not to use, and he crafted a concise and powerful speech that described the sinking of the 109, minimizing his own role in the rescue effort and lauding the perseverance of his men. At his father’s insistence, some 100,000 reprints of the condensed version of John
Hersey’s “Survival” article (the one that appeared in Reader’s Digest) were distributed, at a cost of $1,319 (for the printing and the envelopes), plus postage, arriving in mailboxes mere days before the vote. Volunteers were recruited to address the envelopes and do the mailing. The effort paid off. One opposing candidate’s wife reportedly was so moved by the article that she said she might have to vote for Kennedy.20
III
For all the positive attributes Jack Kennedy brought to the table, he still faced the tall task of prevailing against a deep field of rivals on the Democratic side. All told, ten candidates made the ballot, including one woman. Several of them were better known in the district and more experienced in local politics than Kennedy. The most formidable of them was Mike Neville, of vote-rich Cambridge, the son of a blacksmith from Cork and an affable, experienced attorney. Neville had worked for the phone company and gone to law school at night, then had climbed the political pole to state legislator and mayor; he had the backing of Governor Tobin as well as many of the older lawmakers in Cambridge and Somerville. John F. Cotter, of Charlestown, also caused worry on the Kennedy side—as administrative assistant to two former congressmen, Jim Curley and John P. Higgins, Cotter had built close connections to numerous wards in the district, and he knew how to campaign.
Leaving nothing to chance, Jack’s team worked to spread his support across as much of the district as possible, the better to minimize the damage done by favorite-son candidates like Neville and Cotter. And they were not above bare-knuckle shenanigans: when a respected Boston city councilman named Joseph Russo declared his candidacy and looked likely to win broad support in the Italian North End and among Italian Americans elsewhere, Joe Kane scrounged up another Joseph Russo and got him on the ballot, in order to divide the councilman’s tally.21
Throughout, Joseph Kennedy made heavy use of his checkbook, though just how heavy remains unclear. He himself quipped that “with what I’m spending I could elect my chauffeur,” and many subsequent accounts give the impression of virtually unlimited outlays of money, much of it handed out in cash by Eddie Moore. But Mark Dalton, a key member of the campaign team, maintained otherwise: “The way congressional campaigns go, I would say it was not an extraordinarily expensive campaign. I would say certainly it was well financed and it was. We had many, many billboards, and we had the advertising material which was presented all through the community. There certainly was no shortage of funds, but on the other hand, I say this with all sincerity, it was not an exorbitant campaign.” Though the figures $300,000 and $250,000 were thrown around, another campaign insider estimated the amount spent to be in the neighborhood of $50,000. Whatever the ultimate sum, the Kennedys certainly outspent the competition, which led to no little grousing among other candidates, all of whom got precisely what Joe Kane meant when he said it takes three things to win an election: money, money, and money.22
The candidate at dinner with family and friends. Seated, from left: Francis X. Morrissey, Josie Fitzgerald, Eunice, Jack, Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, and Joseph F. Timilty. Lem Billings is standing behind Josie. Kenny O’Donnell—later to become a close aide—and Helen Sullivan (the future Mrs. O’Donnell) are standing behind Jack and Honey Fitz.
In the final weeks before the vote, the Kennedy family came out in force. Eunice, Pat, and Jean walked up and down streets, knocking on doors and holding out their brother’s campaign brochure, often to the startled delight of the person inside. Young Teddy, age fourteen, sometimes accompanied them and also served as general errand boy. Bobby, now twenty and out of the Navy, was assigned the job of running a campaign office deep in enemy territory, in East Cambridge, with the hope that he could trim the anticipated vote against Jack from five-to-one to four-to-one. Working three mostly Italian wards, and doing much of it on foot, Bobby shook hands and handed out literature, from early morning until late at night, occasionally pausing to eat spaghetti with a receptive family. Rose Kennedy, too, became a dedicated and effective campaigner, especially with women in the district—as a Gold Star Mother, she could speak mom to mom about her treasured Jack. She was, moreover, comfortable in this environment, having grown up accompanying her father, Honey Fitz, on the hustings. She not only knew how the game was played but enjoyed playing it.
Most of all, of course, it was the candidate’s father who made his presence felt, in ways large and small. Though officially Mark Dalton had the title of campaign manager, everyone knew (not least Dalton) that the job really belonged to Joe Kennedy. No decision of consequence was made without his involvement. He and his son would strategize continually, in person and on the phone, and he insisted on being in the know on every aspect of the campaign. “Mr. Kennedy called me many, many times, to know exactly what was happening,” Dalton said afterwards. “As a matter of fact that was one of my problems. He’d keep you on the phone for an hour and a half, two hours.”23 A master of media manipulation and PR, Joe spent hours on the phone with reporters and editors, seeking information, trading confidences, and cajoling them into publishing puff pieces on Jack, ones that invariably played up his war record in the Pacific. He oversaw a professional advertising campaign that ensured ads went up in just the right places—the campaign had a virtual monopoly on subway space, and on window stickers (“Kennedy for Congress”) for cars and homes—and was the force behind the mass mailing of Hersey’s PT 109 article.
To some observers, then and later, the old man was more than a de facto campaign manager; he was a puppet master, a Svengali who had decided before war’s end what he wanted—to get his oldest surviving son into political office—and then set about making it happen. He called all the shots, according to this view, and made every strategic decision of consequence. It’s not really true. Jack Kennedy, as we’ve seen, had his own attraction to politics as a career, had made his own decision to run in the Eleventh, and he was at all times central in his own campaign. When the two men disagreed on strategy or tactics, Jack’s view prevailed. (He admired his father’s business accomplishments no end, but doubted his political discernment.)24 Still more untenable is the opposite argument, made by some Jack loyalists, that the father’s role in 1946 was incidental.25 Joe’s bottomless finances and forceful personality ensured that he would loom large, as did his son’s deep devotion to him. He was a legendary figure in Massachusetts, one who was not shy about using his varied connections on his son’s behalf. He hadn’t built his empire by leaving things to chance, and he was not about to change his modus operandi now.
The elder Kennedy made only one public appearance with his son, but an extraordinary one it was. Having noted Jack’s appeal to female voters, the campaign conceived an event that would become a staple of his future races: a tea reception for women voters that allowed them to meet the candidate and members of his family. Eunice served as coordinator, supervising a team of twenty-five volunteer secretaries to hand-address thousands of engraved invitations requesting the pleasure of the recipient’s company at a formal reception at the Commander Hotel in Cambridge, just off Harvard Square. Seasoned pros scoffed at the notion—who had ever heard of voters getting dressed up just to meet a political candidate?—and the Kennedys themselves were unsure how it would go. But on an unseasonably hot Sunday evening in mid-June, some fifteen hundred mostly female voters showed up at the hotel, many in rented ball gowns. The queue snaked around the block. At the head of the receiving line stood Joe and Rose, he in white tie and tails, she in a stylish new dress from Paris.26
To Mike Neville’s campaign manager, the Commander Hotel event was the clincher, not only because of the large turnout but because of the media coverage it received. Photos and stories filled the local press, and one reporter called it “a demonstration unparalleled in the history of Congressional fights in this district.”27 How many votes it actually gained Kennedy is unknowable, but in the primary election, three days later, he coasted to victory, taking 22,183 votes to Neville’s 11,341, John Cotter�
�s 6,671, and (the original) Joe Russo’s 5,661. (The “Kennedy Russo” managed to siphon off 799.) In a ten-candidate race, his share of the vote, at 41 percent, was impressive, as was the fact that he almost bested Neville in Cambridge. Turnout fell below expectations, however, in part because of a steady rainfall; only 30 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. In the evening, Jack took in a movie—the Marx Brothers’ A Night in Casablanca—while the returns were coming in, then he visited each campaign office before returning to headquarters well after midnight to celebrate in the low-key style that would become his custom. Honey Fitz, however, did not hold back: the octogenarian danced a jig on a table and belted out his theme song, “Sweet Adeline.”28
“Of course I am a happy man tonight,” Honey Fitz declared. “John F. Kennedy has brains, industry, and above all, character. He will make a great representative of the 11th Congressional District.”29
Joseph Kennedy, on the other hand, was strangely subdued. “I couldn’t understand it,” Dalton recalled. “He wasn’t going around saying, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for what you’ve done for my son.’ He wasn’t doing that at all.”30 Perhaps the patriarch was holding his enthusiasm in check pending the outcome of the general election, in November. Or perhaps he was haunted by what might have been. Joe Junior, after all, was the son he had envisioned in this role, the one carrying the Kennedy name to new and glorious political heights—not the frail and reticent second son. Perhaps it was both. And perhaps there was also this: to Joe Kennedy, a congressional seat was but a first step for Jack, and therefore not something to get too excited about.
The Boston Traveler, in accounting for the victory, downplayed the importance of Joe’s money: “If any of the other candidates had spent twice as much as the Kennedy campaign cost, Kennedy would still have won….Kennedy as a candidate had attributes which his opponents did not have and could not buy—a well-known name and family background and connections. He also had personality and a superior war record.” No less important, the paper went on, Kennedy had an asset that should have been “of the utmost concern to the older politicians”: a political machine that was “built overnight” and “based on voters under the age of 35,” many of them veterans full of enthusiasm and idealism. “Most of the workers who crowded into his seven headquarters nightly for two months, addressing envelopes and making telephone calls, also were youthful. They may have been amateurs, but they did the tiresome tasks which bring in votes, and they were worth more than all the ward ‘pols’ in the district combined.”31
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