America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (23 page)

After less than a year with Hearst, Kennedy's father began to prod John about his prospects for a career in politics.  John returned to America in the fall of 1945, and his father gave him ample opportunities to give speeches throughout Massachusetts.  Though they were generally well-received, Joseph had concerns that his son's more reserved and quiet style was not fitting of a politician.  John was generally shyer than the typical politician, often refusing to hob-nob with voters  after giving a speech.

Nonetheless, Joseph thought his son was suited for a more administrative sort of government job.  He suggested John begin his career by running for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor.  Family friends and other Massachusetts politicos, however, were less certain.  At just 28 years old, John Kennedy would be strongly criticized for his lack of experience.  The Lieutenant Governorship was a position that demanded expertise.

Besides, Kennedy had other ideas for himself.  In 1946, the strongly Democratic 10
^th
District House of Representatives seat in Massachusetts was vacated when its holder decided to run for Mayor of Boston.  John Kennedy thus seized the opportunity and ran for the seat.  It was his first political campaign.

Kennedy's first political candidacy was ultimately successful, but not without enormous challenge.  Opponents charged that Kennedy was a snob who could not relate to the working class constituents of the 10
^th
District.  Others said he had barely spent any time in the 10
^th
since he was a child. Together with the Kennedy family, however, John countered these attacks effectively.  His campaign lauded his position as a war hero.  The Boston Catholic Church, perhaps prompted by Joseph's expensive contributions, loudly endorsed John for the seat.  With the Kennedy fortune funding his campaign, John won the Democratic nomination and the election by rousing margins.

When Kennedy arrived in Congress in early 1947, he was surprised to find himself in the minority party.  The 1946 elections had swept the Republicans into a majority that they hadn't held in over a decade. Regardless, Kennedy’s initial participation in Congress gave the nation its first glimpse into his political positions.  Unlike many post-New Deal Democrats, Kennedy was actually fairly conservative on fiscal issues.  He opposed budget deficits and opposed tax cuts that would worsen deficits.  Though many of his fellow Democrats drafted legislation supported by unions, Kennedy thought unions were ultimately self-interested in the same way corporations were; to Kennedy, they supported the interests of union leadership, not workers themselves. Kennedy's time in Congress reflected a mixed voting record.  He was not a very partisan Democrat, and often voted with Republicans.

U.S. Senator and Marriage

Kennedy was reelected to the House twice and served there until 1952, but by then Kennedy had the presidency on his mind. Thus, he looked to climb the political ladder by deciding to run for a spot in the U.S. Senate, a better platform from which to gain national attention and run for President.  Though the Senate had not typically produced many Presidents in recent years, it nonetheless seemed a viable option.  Kennedy also considered the Governorship, but ultimately he thought the Senate suited him better, given his interest in international relations.  The current Governor of Massachusetts, a Democrat, was considering running for the Senate as well.  Kennedy waited for the Governor to make his decision before announcing his intent to run.  When the Governor decided against the Senate, Kennedy opted in.

Kennedy's Republican opponent, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., was running for reelection.  Like Kennedy, the iconic Republican Senator was himself a war hero during World War II, and he was all the more noteworthy for being the first sitting Senator since the Civil War to serve in active duty.  He was also from a prominent New England political family, perhaps one even more prominent than the Kennedy's.  Predictably, both were Harvard alums.

Despite the stiff challenge, Kennedy prevailed by a narrow margin on Election Day, defeating Lodge 51.3 to 48.3%.  His victory was due in large part to his appeal to “white ethnics,” particularly Jews and Catholics throughout Massachusetts.

As a Senator, Kennedy's positions were relatively conservative.  A major moment in Kennedy's career came in 1957, when his procedural votes on Eisenhower's 1957 Civil Rights Act were seen as appeasements of Southern Democrats. He also made comments about the French War in Indochina, a precursor to the Vietnam War, and the French attempt to maintain its Algerian colony, which Senator Kennedy opposed.  Senator Kennedy also refused to condemn Senator McCarthy's “red baiting,” perhaps because McCarthy was a family friend.  A final and controversial stance Senator Kennedy took was his position in favor of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a transportation system between Canada and the Great Lakes.  The position was not favored in Massachusetts because many thought it would move economic productivity away from Massachusetts and send it westward towards upstate New York.  His position received national attention as a courageous act, and partly inspired his later authoring of
Profiles in Courage.

Apart from the Senate, Kennedy found time for marriage.  John Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier first met in 1951 and began dating after Kennedy's election to the Senate.  Jackie was also from a prominent and wealthy family.  They were married in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1953.  The first years of their marriage, however, were largely spent apart, with John busy with his duties in the Senate.

Health and Profiles in Courage

Despite his meteoric rise politically, Kennedy continued to suffer bad back issues as a result of his war wounds. Since the war, his spine had deteriorated, to the point that he needed crutches to navigate the halls of the US Senate.  By 1954, Kennedy needed a potentially life-threatening surgery, which was performed at the Lahey Clinic.  A metal plate was inserted into his spine to further prevent the deterioration of his lumbar vertebrae. 

Though ultimately successful, the surgery nearly killed Kennedy.  Within days of the operation, Kennedy developed a urinary tract infection.  This was complicated by his Addison disease, which lessened his ability to fight infection.  Antibiotics were not working, and Kennedy fell into a coma in late 1954.  His father Joe called in a priest to administer Catholic last rites. 

Kennedy, however, recovered slowly.  By the following spring, he was able to return to the Senate.  In total, he spent over half a year away from Congress. During his recovery, however,

Kennedy authored a Pulitzer-Prize winning book,
Profiles in Courage. 
The book detailed the lives of historical American politicians who had to walk tight lines between personal convictions and constituent interests. Although Kennedy won accolades for his book, it was widely suspected that it had actually been co-written by longtime speechwriter Ted Sorenson, who finally verified the rumor 45 years after Kennedy’s death.

Election of 1956

At the Democratic convention in 1956, Kennedy's name was thrown into the ring as an attractive Vice Presidential candidate.  Putting Kennedy on the ticket would help keep “white ethnics,” who were tempted by Eisenhower, in the Democratic column.  Additionally, Kennedy could deliver Massachusetts and other parts of the Northeast, which was considered “battleground” territory in the mid-1950's.

Kennedy didn't win the nomination; he came in second.  Delegates thought his Catholicism was still a liability, and his father privately believed the loss was a good thing because the chances of the incumbent Eisenhower losing were slim.  Moreover, though he had won in Massachusetts with his local appeal, it was widely believed Kennedy was still too young for such a prominent position. As it turned out, the Democrats would lose the 1956 election to Eisenhower, while Kennedy had the good fortune of giving his name a national spotlight while not being associated with defeat.

Kennedy's Presidential ambitions were further hardened two years later, when he was reelected to the Senate by a landslide margin.  The Republicans didn't even both to nominate an opponent. With no incumbent in the 1960 election, the Kennedys had laid the groundwork for a presidential run.

Chapter 3: Running for President, 1960

Winning the Democratic Nomination 

Privately, John and his father Joe had discussed the 1960 Presidential Election since Kennedy's Vice-Presidential hopes in 1956.  John thought his Catholicism was the biggest barrier to the Presidency, while his father thought otherwise.  To Joe Kennedy, the nation had grown beyond its anti-Catholic sentiments and was ready to accept a Catholic President. Furthermore, since the 1956 Convention, the media had viewed Kennedy as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  Polls of Democratic voters confirmed this view, showing Senator Kennedy in a tie with former nominee Adlai Stevenson for the 1960 nomination. In late 1959, John Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.

Members of the Democratic Party elite, however, held reservations.  Coming off the popular Eisenhower Presidency, the Democrats felt they had no room to nominate a “risky” candidate.  Many still saw Kennedy's youth and his Catholicism as liabilities that could give the election to the Republicans in a close race.  President Eisenhower's Vice-President, Richard Nixon, was favored to win the Republican nomination. Having successfully rehabilitated his image with the infamous “Checkers Speech”, the experienced Nixon seemed a formidable candidate against the youthful and seemingly inexperienced Kennedy. 

Other members of the Democratic elite stirred factions of the party against Kennedy.  Among the most important anti-Kennedy leaders was Eleanor Roosevelt, who despised Joe Kennedy and thought his son to be too conservative.  In part because of Mrs. Roosevelt, liberal Democrats were increasingly deterred from the Kennedy candidacy.

At the start of the campaigning, a poll of Congressional Democrats put Kennedy in fourth behind Lyndon Johnson, Adlai Stevenson and Stuart Symington for the nomination. Stevenson had long been a national figure, and Lyndon Johnson was one of the most influential members in Congress. Kennedy thus had a difficult campaign on his hands. Winning the nomination would require convincing Democratic liberals of his candidacy (despite his fairly conservative Congressional voting record), ensuring his religion would not be a distraction or a negative, and beating several potentially tough opponents.

Kennedy ultimately prevailed over all of these issues.  Throughout the few primaries that were conducted that year, Kennedy had the opportunity to prove his broad appeal to the Convention's party elders.  His win in the largely white and Protestant state of West Virginia seemed to clinch his claim that he did not just appeal narrowly to fellow Catholics.  At the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot.  Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was selected as his running mate, with the hope that he would help secure conservative and Protestant parts of the South.

The General Election

In the general election, Kennedy and Johnson faced Vice President Richard Nixon and Former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who Kennedy had defeated for the Senate seat in Massachusetts 8 years earlier. To open the campaign, Kennedy gave his famous New Frontier Speech at the Democratic Convention.  In it, he branded his forward-looking ambitions for the United States.

Nevertheless, the 1960 election focused heavily on John Kennedy's Roman Catholicism.  He was only the second Catholic nominated for President, after Al Smith in 1928.  Groups for religious freedom contended that Kennedy's Catholicism would make governing the nation as President difficult.  Many were suspicious that he would accept demands from the Pope and the Catholic Hierarchy.  By September, Kennedy closed the issue in a speech in Houston, where he said he was running to be a “President who happens to be Catholic,” not a “Catholic President.”  For the remainder of the campaign, Kennedy's religion no longer fascinated the media, though it was still privately on the minds of many voters.

Undoubtedly the most important moment in the 1960 campaign came when Kennedy and Nixon faced off in the first-ever televised Presidential debate.  On September 26, 1960, a little over a month until Election Day, the two candidates met in Chicago for a CBS-sponsored debate.  Though Nixon went into the debate favored to win, by the end of the night it was clear that Nixon had yet to master television media.  70 million tuned in, while millions more listened on radio. Those who only heard the debate on radio believed Nixon had won the contest, but those watching saw a pale, sickly looking older man standing next to a young, tan man who looked invigorated. Americans trusted their eyes instead of their ears, and the debate turned a slight Nixon lead in the polls into a slight Kennedy lead.