Nine Days

by Paul Kendrick

  Though Martin, like his colleagues, dressed in sharp business suits, his presence was more grounded; his face, at forty-seven, had softened. His steady professional demeanor was conveyed by a staccato voice with Georgia inflections, and he wore thick black glasses and a neat mustache. In addition to appreciating Martin’s direct style, Wofford marveled at his partner’s sure-footed way of sensing which levers to press, what calls to make. The editor’s decades of experience in managing Black newspapers for John Sengstacke’s Defender empire meant he knew everyone in that world who mattered. Shriver’s hunch was clearly paying off.

  If Martin seemed confident, he was. He didn’t mind the rumors that he was a millionaire; this meant that people would never think he would take a bribe. He had successfully built the Michigan Chronicle newspaper for the company that owned the Chicago Defender, and his wife Gertrude’s father’s insurance agency provided financial assurance of a kind few Black families experienced. Today, Martin’s daughter Toni says they were hardly rich, but points out that their grandfather achieved setting up a trust fund in the Jim Crow era for all five granddaughters’ college educations.

  Martin never had a problem being bold. As a young man, he showed up at the University of Michigan without having applied. A shocked admissions officer asked why he had not even brought a transcript, but Martin persuaded the man to allow him to take the entrance exam. He passed, then thrived at school, where he discovered a world of “white classmates, scores of students who were, if anything, dumber than I was. Indeed, a few were so stupid I began to wonder how they would fare in the advanced and highly competitive white society that controlled American life.”

  Later called a president whisperer, Martin smoothly moved within this rarefied world and built his success while expecting little from white men. He had painful childhood memories from Savannah, Georgia, that left him with a deep-seated skepticism of even those who claimed to have good intentions. Yet since joining the Kennedy campaign, he had judged Shriver and Wofford to be worthy of his trust. They seemed sincere in wanting to take on racism, but did not drone on about how they were going to do it; they just got on with the work at hand, making room for him to operate. Despite what Martin called the “quicksand of racial relations,” he thought that Wofford and Shriver asked the right questions, appreciated all they did not know, and didn’t take themselves too seriously.

  Settling into his new job, Martin scored a major coup by getting John Kennedy and his wife, Jackie—then pregnant—to make an appearance at a forum on human rights at Howard University. Hoping for photographs of Kennedy offering a campaign speech in a place so full of meaning to Black Americans, Martin was pleasantly surprised that the cautious senior staff, known colloquially as the Irish Mafia, approved. This was the first time that Martin sensed that the trademark Kennedy charm, so enchanting to white voters, might possibly resonate with Black voters as well.

  Martin felt it was Jackie’s appearance at this event that conveyed something especially powerful to the Black community. White politicians, if they appeared at all before Black audiences, rarely brought their wives. If differences in policy and rhetoric between the candidates were marginal—and Black Americans were used to white officeholders delivering little—the aide believed Black voters were looking for clues as to who was even slightly less prejudiced, who could be trusted not to disappoint them more.

  After being introduced to an overflowing crowd in Rankin Chapel, Kennedy said, “I regret that the Republican member has not shown up as yet,” getting laughter. Kennedy drew blood by making sure the audience knew that Nixon, though he had been invited to the forum, had not bothered to make an appearance. Leaving the campus, they were nearly overwhelmed by excited students. Martin had the photo opportunity he needed to start earning the trust of Black voters.

  * * *

  The race was hurtling toward being the closest in generations—tight everywhere, state after state, in all regions of the country. It was excruciating for both campaigns, knowing that the smallest mistake, the tiniest edge surrendered, could cost them the presidency. Both candidates were seen as moderates without strong views—young (perhaps callow) political technocrats eager to please an electorate that was not sure either man was ready to lead. Neither candidate said much during the campaign that was particularly compelling, and the mundane quality of the issues they latched onto, like falling behind the Soviet Union in missile development and China’s interest in the obscure islands of Matsu and Quemoy, should have made the election of 1960 uneventful, but that is not how the story unfolded. Voter turnout would be more than 63 percent, the highest in decades. That year’s debates, the first in a presidential general election to be televised, drew the intense interest of voters across the country.

  Because both men had so much to prove, these four televised debates were crucial, especially for Kennedy. Nixon showed up at the first debate, on September 26, looking haggard, strangely passive, and so pale and five-o’clock shadowed that his mother, watching on television, inquired if her son was sick. Nixon had been up six points in midsummer, but Kennedy found himself up one after the first debate, and up by three after the second. It was at this debate on October 7 in Washington (just hours before Kennedy arrived at Howard University) that the two candidates unintentionally broke their silence on civil rights.

  Ten minutes into the debate, Nixon was asked about his accusation that Kennedy avoided speaking about civil rights in the South. Nixon, looking more comfortable and assertive than he had in the first debate, made reference to the sit-in movement, saying, “I have talked to Negro mothers. I have heard them explain, try to explain how they tell their children how they can go into a store and buy a loaf of bread, but then can’t go into that store and sit at the counter and get a Coca-Cola. This is wrong and we have to do something about it.”

  Kennedy replied, invoking stalled progress on equal education and employment: “Those are the questions to which the president must establish a moral tone and moral leadership.” But while Kennedy and Nixon could have escalated the battle with a month to go, they retreated to their corners. Neither foresaw that the pastor each of them had cautiously, gingerly, courted would be the one to force open the issue of race in Atlanta.

  * * *

  It had taken him years, and much frustration, to get onto the White House grounds, but E. Frederic Morrow was thrilled to leave his job in the Executive Office Building to work on Nixon’s presidential campaign. Morrow, the nation’s first Black White House staffer, had scheduled two months’ leave from the Eisenhower administration to campaign for Vice President Nixon. A former CBS television executive, he had spent the last six years navigating expectations of being “the first,” working alongside white colleagues who did not know how to relate to him, much less utilize his executive talents.

  He found the experience emotionally draining, and only his deep respect for Eisenhower sustained him. To Morrow, occupying the role of the administrative officer of special projects at the White House meant drafting speeches and occasional memos gently prodding the president out of his passivity regarding race. To the rest of the staff, it meant Black affairs only, whether or not he wanted that. Having given up a groundbreaking position at CBS, Morrow resisted and resented being marginalized. He had once even been asked to arrange White House parking spots.

  Morrow’s time on the Nixon campaign began auspiciously with the honor of speaking at the Republican convention, where he said, “One hundred years ago today my grandfather was a slave. Tonight I stand before you a trusted assistant of the President of the United States.” However, once he arrived at the national campaign headquarters, he found himself without money or staff. His excitement was being ground down, and he was frustrated by the blind assurance of young white staffers who thought they knew Black voters better than he did. Morrow tried to respond to the cascade of requests directed at him from Black Republicans around the country, but as he did, he sensed he was being shunted to the sidelines, without access to
his candidate. He was, as he put it, “in a rear car.”

  He could not understand why he was being ignored. Morrow believed Nixon needed to hear what he had to say. He sensed the candidate was in a precarious position, paying no heed to all the things Morrow had learned over his last six years in the White House. They had a chance to reawaken the party of Lincoln, with all that might mean to the Black community. The voters in 1956 had clearly responded with increasing support for Eisenhower, despite the sleepiness and occasional tone deafness displayed by the administration.

  In 1958, at a time when Morrow was discouraged by his dealings with a president he found decent yet oblivious, it was Nixon who went out of his way to invite Morrow into his office. Vice President Nixon listened, commiserated, offered career advice. After telling Morrow he should stick with government work because he was forging a trail for others, Nixon promised that if he ever achieved a position beyond the vice presidency—and there was only one—he would use it to open doors for Black Americans in government. Morrow vowed to stay on, believing that the president was not racist as much as misguided and that Nixon was intent on finding a better way forward.

  Morrow found Nixon sincere, earnest, and capable of working toward making America more equal. No one else in Washington had invited Morrow to his home for dinner as he had, or so graciously greeted his new wife, Catherine. Morrow found Nixon to be a good listener, a cause for optimism that he would advance civil rights. Morrow was not alone in this view: a 1959 Jet survey revealed that Nixon was the most popular presidential candidate among Black Republicans. Morrow’s convention experience affirmed these hopes. When he was invited to participate in Nixon’s midnight deliberations regarding his choice of running mate, Morrow advocated for the racial moderate Henry Cabot Lodge, the man Nixon ultimately selected.

  Yet Morrow had not been allowed to participate in this level of decision making since the convention, or even to have a direct conversation with his candidate. Morrow was almost at the point of heading back to his post at the Executive Office Building, thinking the frustrations there were no worse than those at the candidate’s headquarters. The constant calls and nearly frantic letters from Black leaders all over the country convinced him that the campaign was somehow going wrong.

  But finding it hard to blame Nixon, Morrow stayed put, waiting for an opportunity to reassert himself and to help his candidate.

  * * *

  Louis Martin looked around the Metropolitan AME Church on M Street in Washington, D.C., a few blocks down Fifteenth Street from his office. He was there, surrounded by Black voters packed into wooden church pews, to observe Jackie Robinson. He would see just how persuasive the legend who broke the color line in baseball could be in his support for Dick Nixon. Now, with the election only a month away, the sight of Robinson tearing into Kennedy in front of an audience of Black voters drove home the problems facing the CRS.

  When Kennedy tried to recruit the now-graying Robinson in a July meeting, the senator confessed his shortcomings on racial issues and promised to do better, doing something rare for a Kennedy—asking for another chance. But everything Kennedy said only seemed to make Robinson more suspicious and angry. When Kennedy asked Robinson, now a New York business executive, what he needed in order to view his candidacy more positively, Robinson thought he was being asked what kind of a bribe he might accept. It did not go well.

  After leaving his executive position with the coffee company Chock full o’Nuts to go on the campaign trail, Robinson employed a devastating line of attack all over the country, telling his mostly Black listeners that Kennedy had never once, during the entirety of their conversation, met his eyes. As Martin watched Robinson deliver this charge, he saw a physical reaction from the crowd: not dignifying a Black person’s gaze was a devastating indictment.

  Robinson added, “I intend to cover as many cities as possible to tell colored people to stand together until this game is over.” With Robinson crisscrossing the country, speaking in more than twenty-two states in the final weeks, how many more voters at the margins would he generate for Nixon?

  And yet, despite seeing hundreds of voters filing out of the Metropolitan AME Church as the speech ended, Martin still believed the Kennedy campaign might be better positioned to face the uncertainties of these final weeks. Judging by where he was making campaign stops, Nixon seemed to be growing more conflicted about appearing in front of exactly these Black voters. His focus seemed to be shifting to white southerners.

  * * *

  Though Kennedy and Nixon had not staked out bold positions thus far, they were both proving to be dogged campaigners, sometimes touching down in eight cities a day. Nixon proclaimed at his convention that he would visit all fifty states, and even though he lost nearly two weeks recovering from an infection brought on by a knee injury, the awkwardly earnest nominee was determined not to let his rival, covering ground in his personal campaign plane, the Caroline, leave him behind. To the distress of the Kennedy team, they could not seem to put Nixon away; he just kept coming back in the polls.

  For generations, Republican candidates had hardly bothered to visit the solid Democratic South, but as this campaign season began, Nixon decided he would challenge Kennedy anywhere and everywhere he could. He scheduled a campaign stop in Atlanta for the late summer, and the turnout on August 26 staggered even the Nixon team.

  The vice president was exhilarated at the unexpected sight of between 150,000 and 250,000 Georgians cheering for him, spilling out of Five Points to Hurt Park on Edgewood Avenue and up Peachtree Street. Never in his meteoric political career had he seen anything like this, and any observer couldn’t help but wonder, could the South be the future of the Republican Party? In 1956, Eisenhower had been the first Republican since 1928 to gain a majority of the South’s electoral votes, but he was a popular general and had won nationally in a blowout. Was it possible to build on that momentum, especially since the Democrats had nominated a young Roman Catholic from Massachusetts? The Alabama newspaper columnist John Temple Graves II had written to Nixon, “The South is the wave of your future.” Graves advised, “The political answer for Republicans is to cater no longer to a labor and Negro vote they can’t get but to a southern one they can get—if they have the courage.”

  The turnout in Atlanta did signal a coming turning point in American politics, but in the short run it was a temptation for Nixon to stray from a solid electoral plan and spend precious time in pursuit of white southern votes. There were Black voters, too, in the vast Atlanta crowd, but staunch Black Republican leaders such as Daddy King were not featured at the rally. Nixon made no effort to link up with the Atlanta minister he had worked so hard to befriend over the previous three years, nor his influential father. A path to the White House that ran through the white voters in the crowd was too enticing.

  King and Nixon had first met in March 1957, when they were both in Ghana to celebrate the nation’s independence. They ran into each other as they were leaving a ceremony at a white stone, terra-cotta-roofed university hall on a hill beyond Accra. The White House aide Fred Morrow was charged with facilitating the overseas visit and was leading Vice President Nixon out of the sweltering university auditorium when the twenty-eight-year-old King spied Nixon standing near him. He extended his hand and introduced himself to Morrow.

  When Morrow heard the name King, he recognized the impressive young minister. He quickly turned to bring King’s presence to the vice president’s attention. King smiled and explained that he had just been writing to Nixon’s office trying to arrange a meeting with the person in Washington he believed was most open to Black concerns. How fortuitous, King added, to meet each other here, so many thousands of miles from home.

  Nixon replied, “You’re Dr. King. I recognized you from your picture on the cover of Time. That was a mighty fine story about you. I’d like to meet with you when you are back in Washington.”

  They saw each other again at a white-jacket reception that night at the Parliament Hou
se, where they were photographed chatting comfortably (though King in fact felt quite ill). At midnight, the Union Jack was lowered forever, and the nation of Ghana was formally declared independent.

  Back in Washington, a meeting between Nixon and King was promptly arranged; the vice president was true to his word. That June, a month after King had spoken at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington on May 17 (a forerunner of 1963’s March on Washington), King visited Nixon in his Capitol office. They talked for two hours, Nixon scribbling notes while King explained why Congress should go ahead and pass the 1957 civil rights bill, even though Democrats were busy scaling it back. King pressed for greater presidential leadership on racial equality, and Nixon dutifully offered the administration’s perspective, but not defensively. Both were pleased by how well the meeting went and by their easy rapport and seemingly shared purpose.

  In a subsequent letter, King thanked Nixon for their “rich fellowship … and fruitful discussion.” Assessing Nixon’s work in helping the first civil rights measure since Reconstruction to be enacted, however limited the bill’s impact, King wrote that Nixon had shown “dauntless courage … This has impressed people all across the country.” Demonstrating King’s foresight as a political strategist, he said that Nixon’s efforts showed “an expression of your political wisdom. More and more the Negro vote is becoming a decisive factor in national politics. The Negro vote is the balance of power in so many important big states that one almost has to have the Negro vote to win a presidential election.” The following year, King sent Nixon a copy of his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, with a note that began, “To my friend.”