Kennedy: The Classic Biography (65 page)

His real problem in 1962 was with the Republicans, in stemming the historical trend of mid-term elections, which, with the exception of 1934, had invariably cost the party in the White House some three dozen seats in the House and a comparable number in the Senate. His own margin had been so thin in 1960 that few observers gave him much chance of keeping GOP gains down even to the fifteen to twenty additional House seats he publicly conceded. Aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. argued in a thoughtful memorandum that Roosevelt had made no campaign at all for the Congress in 1934, the one exception to the mid-term rule, and that Roosevelt had lost Democratic seats in both houses when he did campaign in 1938 and 1942. Kennedy’s intervention in the campaign, it was argued, would only invite blame for a historical trend beyond his control, and to avoid this loss of prestige he should remain above the battle.

A prominent Republican also suggested that a President should limit himself to nonpartisan appearances representing all the people. No, said Kennedy,

… it is a responsibility of the President of the United States…to have a program and to fight for it….I do not believe that in this most critical and dangerous period that Presidents…should confine themselves to ceremonial occasions, ornamenting an office at a time when this country and this world need all of the energy and the action and the commitment to progress that [we] can possibly have.

In 1962 the opinion polls showed less than 30 percent of the Democrats, compared with 43 percent of the Republicans, planning to turn out to vote. To offset this apathy, the President planned a mid-term campaign more vigorous than that of any President in history. “I have never overstated what a President could do in these matters,” he told his news conference, and he was not campaigning, as most people assumed, simply because he enjoyed it. “I don’t enjoy it very much,” he told a surprised interviewer.

One of the great myths in American life is that those who are in politics love to campaign. Well, maybe some do; but it’s hard work making a lot of speeches, and I have a good many other things to do. But…[this] is going to decide what kind of Congress we’re going to have for the next two years. So…there’s no place that I ought to be in these weekends that is more important.

A Western “conservation tour” in the summer, a Southern space missile tour in September, and then quick trips to a dozen states by mid-October were indeed hard work. Then the Cuban missile crisis intervened to cancel the rest of his schedule. But the hard work paid off, aided to an undeterminable extent by his handling of the crisis. It was the largest turnout, except for 1938, of eligible voters in any mid-term election recorded, and it was the best showing, except for 1934, by any party in power in modern political history. The Republicans gained only two seats in the House and lost four seats in the Senate. “We are about where we were the last two years,” said the President; but he knew it was better than he had hoped.

LEGISLATIVE LEADERS AND LIAISON

One of those Senate races had given him extra joy—and extra anxiety. His youngest brother Ted, long touted as the most natural campaigner in the family, defeated Henry Cabot Lodge’s son George to keep the President’s old Senate seat in the Democratic column. Because the loss of his own state would have been a heavy blow, because the polls showed that only Teddy could carry the state for the Democrats, and because he would not stand in his younger brother’s way, the President was willing to endure far more complaints than he had foreseen about “nepotism” and “dynasty.” But the greatest strain growing out of Teddy’s candidacy was that placed on the President’s relations with the new Speaker of the House, John McCormack, whose nephew Eddie sought the same Senate seat.

In Washington all the old stories about bad blood between the two families were revived. In Massachusetts the lines were tightly drawn for a bruising battle. But neither the President nor the Speaker took any public part or, at our weekly legislative breakfasts, any private notice. Both felt strongly about the outcome, but neither blamed the other for the contest and both were determined not to let it interfere with their collaboration, despite statements to the contrary by their Boston backers. Comparing the primary by implication to Vietnam, where American troops were officially present only as advisers and trainers, the President quipped to the Gridiron Club off the record:

I have announced that no Presidential aide or appointee would be permitted to take part in that political war in Massachusetts. Of course, we may send up a few training missions…. All I can say is: I’d rather be Ted than Ed.

I made a few “training missions,” as did others, and both the President and Attorney General helped coach their younger brother—who in fact was less nervous when performing out of their presence. The President was nervous, too, over his own reputation rising or falling with each controversial question Teddy might be asked—on aid to parochial schools or civil rights, for example—and for this reason turned off one TV panel interviewing his brother.

But without requiring any overt help or improper pressure from either brother, Ted Kennedy won the nomination in September, 1962. The Speaker, while deeply disappointed, merely chewed his cigar more vigorously at the next legislative breakfast.

These weekly Tuesday morning breakfasts, like meetings of the Cabinet, usually served little more than as a means of maintaining rapport,
esprit de corps
and open channels of communication. The President, leading the discussion on the basis of memos prepared by O’Brien and me, valued the meetings as a regular check for him on all pending bills, but the information he received and delivered was usually available without a full meeting.

O’Brien, O’Donnell, Salinger and I attended from the staff. Majority leader Mike Mansfield, Majority Whip Humphrey and Democratic Conference Secretary Smathers attended from the Senate. In 1961 Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House, John McCormack was Majority Leader and Carl Albert Assistant Leader or Whip. Rayburn died at the close of that session, McCormack and Albert each moved up and Hale Boggs succeeded Albert as Whip.

Each of these men became devoted to Kennedy, including Rayburn who had bitterly opposed his nomination, Humphrey who had fought him in the primaries, Smathers who voted frequently against him and McCormack with whom he had differed over Bay State politics. After Rayburn’s death, each of them was as new to his post as Kennedy and Johnson were to theirs, and together they made mistakes as they learned.

Sam Rayburn had been increasingly grumpy and uncommunicative in his last months, but no man, including Henry Clay, ever served as Speaker for more years or with more distinction. He knew how, when and from whom to wheedle votes, dispense favors, intimidate newcomers and appease old-timers. In his absence, more power inevitably seeped to the conservative committee and subcommittee chairmen, and John McCormack, accustomed to the more aggressively partisan role of Majority Leader, found himself unfairly assailed from both wings of his party for failing to fill “Mr. Sam’s” shoes.

Kennedy had, in fact, been strenuously urged to oppose McCormack’s elevation to Majority Leader. But the President noted that those so urging had no clearly electable candidate of their own, and no candidate with any better claim than McCormack to either the President’s help or the post itself. Unable to risk gaining many more enemies in high places, he stayed out of a fight he felt certain he would lose. Party organization in the House, moreover, had been steadily improving ever since that day early in 1961 when the minimum wage bill had been defeated by one vote with sixty-four Democrats absent.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield was also being unfairly and unfavorably compared with his predecessor, the Vice President. The kind and careful Mansfield, faced with the very different task of enacting the program of his own party’s President, was endowed with very different personal assets. A gentle, usually soft-spoken Montanan, he was even more low-key and low-pressure than Kennedy. At times the President, who had been fully consulted on the makeup of the Senate leadership team, was frustrated by what he felt were Mansfield’s excessive pessimism, caution and delays. But in view of his consistent string of successes in the Senate, he was deeply appreciative of Mansfield’s loyalty and labors, held him in close personal affection, and felt that no Senate leader in those years could have done better in the long run.

Working closely with the House and Senate leaders was the most organized White House legislative liaison effort in history under Larry O’Brien. His aides, unlike the rest of the White House staff, were selected with a careful eye to geography: Wilson of North Carolina, Manatos of Wyoming, Donahue of Massachusetts, Daley of California and DeSautels of Maryland. Although charged with employing high-pressure tactics and threats, the O’Brien team pumped far more arms than they twisted and brandished far fewer sticks than carrots: advance notification of Federal contracts, special privileges for White House tours, detailed data on a bill’s effect, material for speeches and releases, birthday notes from the President, campaign help from the National Committee, autographed pictures from the President, and whatever flexibility was possible on patronage, public works and other budget items.

O’Brien, genial, tactful and tireless, added names and dates to the President’s lists of dinner guests, baseball companions, speaking engagements, appointment calendar and phone calls. Aware that the President’s interest in domestic legislation and the time he had available for any legislation were both limited, he increased the value of personal Presidential appointments for Congressmen by keeping their number low, but he never denied access to anyone insisting on seeing the President. A thoroughgoing political professional, he spent his evenings as well as his days with Congressmen, lobbying them, listening to them, laughing with them, always offering. more blandishments than bargains. He mobilized pressure from Democratic state and party leaders back home, from labor and other lobbyists, and from each of the departments and agencies. He maintained a card file on every Senator and Representative, complete with personal and political data and information on their districts. As crucial votes approached, he and his aides stationed themselves outside the doors of the appropriate chamber or set up temporary headquarters in the Speaker’s or Majority Leader’s office. On votes where there was no roll call, an O’Brien aide sometimes sat in the gallery watching how each member voted, although Larry himself felt it improper for him ever to appear there.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION

O’Brien’s original hope was to be named National Chairman—especially when he learned that the President, presumably on the assumption that the religious issue was now dormant if not dead, was paying no attention to those who insisted that the tradition of a Catholic chairman should be broken with a Catholic in the White House. But within a few months of inauguration, Kennedy, O’Brien and the rest of us were once again embroiled in the religious issue—only this time, remarked the President wryly, “with new teams.”

Kennedy had in fact never agreed with those who wrote that the 1960 election had banished religion for all time as an issue. An un-American tradition had been broken. Clearly a Catholic could be elected. The campaign had illuminated many a dark corner of intolerance and ignorance. But the real test, he remarked soon after his victory, was not his election but his administration. The hard-core religious opposition which nearly defeated him would remain and flourish, to be cited by future conventions against the practicality of nominating a Catholic,
if
he lowered the bars between church and state, yielded to the pressures of the hierarchy or otherwise confirmed the religious opposition’s suspicions. But if his conduct of the office was in keeping with his campaign pledge and constitutional oath, then, while unreasoning bigotry would always remain and legitimate church-state questions would always be raised, the unwritten law against a Catholic President would be not only temporarily broken but permanently repealed.

The issue was presented swiftly and forcefully on the one domestic subject that mattered most to John Kennedy: education. Throughout his campaign and throughout his Presidency, he devoted more time and talks to this single topic than to any other domestic issue. Without notes he would cite all the discouraging statistics: only six out of every ten students in the fifth grade would finish high school; only nine out of sixteen high school graduates would go on to college; one million young Americans were already out of school and out of work; dropouts had a far higher rate of unemployment and far lower rate of income; 71 percent of the people, according to Gallup, expected their children to go to college but only 51 percent had saved for it. As he climbed back onto his plane after a speech in Ohio, he said to me, “That’s the fifth governor I’ve talked to who doesn’t see how he can squeeze any more from property taxes to build enough schools.”

Both as a Senator and President he addressed countless college audiences, imploring them

to give to the world in which you were reared and educated the broadest possible benefits of that education…. I would not adopt from the Belgian Constitution of 1893 the provision giving three votes instead of one to college graduates—at least not until more Democrats go to college…. But I do strongly urge the application of your talents to the great problems of our time.

Each year he was in the White House he sent to the Congress a message on education more forceful than the previous year’s. He linked education to our military, scientific and economic strength. “Our progress as a nation,” he said, “can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

No number of setbacks discouraged him. When an omnibus bill failed, he tried for each of its parts, and vice versa. When elementary and secondary school aid was blocked, he worked on higher education. Racial and religious
⁴
overtones, sniping from public school lobbyists and quarrels between the House, the Senate and individual members all combined to block passage of his higher education bill in 1962, even after both houses had passed it in different forms. But patience on the part of the President, perseverance by a new and talented Commissioner of Education, Francis Keppel, and a more constructive leadership in the National Education Association produced the Higher Education Act of 1963, authorizing several times more college aid in a five-year period than had been appropriated under the Land Grant College Act in a century, and providing classrooms for several hundred thousand students, twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes and better college libraries. A separate bill enacted the same year provided similar assistance to medical and dental schools.