Kennedy (17 page)

Stevenson won the nomination, and then dramatically announced that he would leave to an open convention the selection of his Vice Presidential running mate. Despite the bitter arguments of several party leaders who thought it a dangerous experiment and certain to aid Kefauver, he regarded it as a stimulant to a dull convention, as a contrast with the Republican selection of Nixon, and as a way out of the conflicting political pressures on him created by the number of friendly candidates.

His late night announcement that a genuine balloting on the Vice Presidency would be held the next day set off twelve hours of feverish political activity. Bob Kennedy and John Bailey held a hectic meeting of family and friends in our suite. Assignments were handed out. Efforts were made to reach key leaders. But we acted largely in a state of confusion and ignorance. We had no plans, no facilities, no communication, no organization, little know-how and very few contacts.

There have been many sensational stories about that Vice Presidential race: that Kennedy backers pressured Stevenson into throwing the convention open—that Kennedy was furious with Stevenson for throwing the convention open—that Kennedy decided to try for it only when Georgia announced for him—that Chicago’s Dick Daley and New York’s
Carmine DeSapio were both slighted because no one in the Kennedy camp recognized them—that Joseph P. Kennedy lined up several delegates by transatlantic phone—that John McCormack deliberately aided Kefauver over Kennedy—and that the Senator was stunned, tearful or deeply hurt when he failed to secure the nomination. Not one of those stories is accurate. There have also been many conflicting claims about which Kennedy friend lined up which delegation. I do not know which of those claims is accurate. I could not line up one delegate, even in my own state of Nebraska, which was solidly for Kefauver.

As always, the Senator was his own best campaigner, seeing state leaders and visiting several state caucuses. He still had doubts about the desirability of the nomination—but this was where the action was, and his combative spirit would not let him run away from a fight or run out on his friends. His brother Bob and sister Eunice toured other delegations. A handful of Congressmen—including Edward Boland and Torbert Macdonald of Massachusetts and Frank Smith, a Mississippi progressive—never rested.

I rounded up material for the nominating and seconding speeches, but it was of little use. Abe Ribicoff gave a ringing, largely extemporaneous, nominating speech. George Smathers, who could give us very little help in the Florida delegation, gave a hasty seconding speech (sample: “Jack Kennedy’s name is magic in Ohio, Cincinnati, Akron, California and other areas. It will be great for us to have him on the ticket”). And John McCormack, literally propelled toward the platform at the last minute by Bob Kennedy, gave a politically oriented seconding speech (“It is time to go East”) that was identifiable as a Kennedy speech only by its closing lines.

With surprising speed, the nominations closed and the balloting opened. Kefauver, Kennedy, Humphrey, Wagner, Gore and others were all in contention. I sat alone with the Senator as he lay on his bed in the Stockyards Inn, behind Convention Hall, watching the race on television. He shook his head in amazement at his unexpected strength in Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada and Virginia. “This thing is really worth winning now,” he said.

Illinois’ 46 (of their 64) votes gave him a boost. Maine disappointed him by splitting their 14 votes. He muttered something unprintable when Ohio’s Mike DiSalle and Pennsylvania’s David Lawrence, both fearful of a fellow Catholic on the ticket, delivered more than 100 of their 132 combined votes to Kefauver. “You better hustle over to the platform and find out what I do to make Kefauver’s nomination unanimous,” he said.

At the end of the first ballot, it appeared that Humphrey, Gore and Wagner would not make it, though the first two still hoped for a deadlock. On the next ballot many of their votes, as well as some favorite-son
votes, would in all probability start switching to the leaders—either to Kefauver, who led Kennedy by a ratio greater than three to two, or to Kennedy. From our television set came the report that Humphrey was on his way to Kefauver’s suite in the Stockyards Inn, presumably to switch his votes to the Tennessean. “Get up there and intercept Hubert,” the Senator said. “Tell him I’d like to see him, too.”

Outside Kefauver’s door I found nothing but the chaos of competing cameramen and newsmen. No one knew who was inside, coming in or coming out. Hurrying to the speaker’s platform, I checked briefly on the procedures for making Kefauver’s nomination unanimous and raced back to the inn. En route I met Humphrey’s manager, Eugene McCarthy, and delivered Kennedy’s invitation (which assumed Humphrey was visiting Kefauver). Congressman McCarthy sadly shook his head. “All we have are Protestants and farmers,” he said, negating any get-together. Kefauver, it later turned out, had personally come to plead with the distraught Humphrey, as had Michigan’s Governor Mennen Williams, on Kefauver’s behalf. McCarthy was quoted as feeling slighted that Kennedy, instead of coming himself, had sent a callow youth to offer Humphrey an “audience.”

Meanwhile, the second ballot was already under way and a Kennedy trend had set in. The South was anxious to stop Kefauver, and Kennedy was picking up most of the Gore and Southern favorite-son votes. He was also getting the Wagner votes. Kefauver was gaining more slowly, but hardly a handful of his delegates had left him. Bob Kennedy, John Bailey and their lieutenants were all over the floor shouting to delegations to come with Kennedy.

When New Jersey and New York in rapid succession gave Kennedy 126½ votes he had not received on the first ballot, the press chaos was transferred from Kefauver’s corridor to ours. Our television set showed wild confusion on the convention floor and a climbing Kennedy total. But the Senator was as calm as ever. He bathed, then again reclined on the bed. Finally we moved, through a back exit, to a larger and more isolated room.

The race was still neck and neck, and Kennedy knew that no lead was enough if it could not produce a majority. Oklahoma stayed with Gore (“He’s not our kind of folks,” the Governor of Oklahoma said to a Kennedy pleader, summing up in six words the Senator’s inability to dent the Western Protestant farm and ranch areas). Wagner’s votes in Pennsylvania went to Kefauver instead of Kennedy. “Lawrence,” muttered the Senator. Puerto Rico stayed with Wagner, despite his withdrawal. “They didn’t get the word,” said the Senator somewhat ruefully.

Tennessee, torn by the conflicting ambitions of its two Senators and Governor, stayed with Gore. Then Lyndon Johnson rose for Texas. With
the help of several Congressmen, he had beaten down the anti-Catholic sentiment within his delegation, including that of Sam Rayburn, and he announced the full 56 votes of Texas “for that fighting Senator who wears the scars of battle…the next Vice President of the United States, John Kennedy of Massachusetts.”

I stretched out a hand of congratulation. “Not yet,” said the Senator. But as his total grew, he finished dressing and, between glances at the television, began to discuss what he should say to the convention if nominated. North Carolina, which had passed on the second ballot, now switched half its votes to Kennedy. Kentucky’s chairman announced that his delegation, “which has consistently been with the minority all through this convention, enthusiastically joins the majority and changes its vote to John Kennedy.”

It almost was a majority—but not quite. In the entire nineteen-state West-Midwest area between Illinois and California, excepting Nevada, Kennedy could get no more than 20 of their 384 convention votes. Suddenly the tide turned again.

Albert Gore earlier in the year had seemed to endorse Kennedy (“I would like to see Jack Kennedy in either the first or second place on the Democratic ticket in either 1956, 1960 or 1964”). But now he released his Tennessee delegates to Kefauver. Oklahoma switched from Gore to Kefauver. Minnesota and Missouri switched their Humphrey votes to Kefauver. Illinois and South Carolina tried to stem the avalanche by switching a few more votes to Kennedy. But it was to no avail. The Kennedy current had run its course. More Kefauver votes followed.

The Senator remained silent until the television screen showed Kefauver with a majority. “Let’s go,” he said and plunged through the maelstrom outside his door to walk to the convention platform. Brushing aside those officials who wished him to wait until it was all over, he strode to the rostrum with a tired grin. Speaking briefly and movingly without notes, he thanked those who had supported him, congratulated Stevenson on his open-convention decision and moved to make Kefauver’s nomination unanimous.

Afterward, we reviewed the accidents of chance that prevented a few dozen more delegates from putting Kennedy over the top:

• If the large electric tote board in the back of the hall had not been dismantled the night before, so that all delegates could have seen Kennedy nearing a majority…

• If Convention Chairman Sam Rayburn had called for a recess and a third ballot instead of second-ballot switches…

• If some of our friends had not unknowingly left town the day before…

• If Kennedy had possessed an organized campaign machine with a communications and control center…

• If South Carolina, Illinois and Alabama, which wished to announce switches favoring Kennedy, had been recognized by Mr. Rayburn before Tennessee, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Missouri…

• If additional Kennedy supporters in the California, Indiana and other delegations had not been prevented from switching their votes to the Senator when his “bandwagon” was still rolling…

• If there had been time for the television viewers back home to make their views known to the delegates…

But Jack Kennedy paid little attention to the “ifs.” The basic fact was that he had run out of potential votes and could get no more in the Midwest or West. Back in his room at the inn, joined by Jacqueline and members of his family, the Senator was quiet. He was neither angry like Bob nor crying like Ben Smith. He had a few caustic comments on supposed friends who had let him down, and he composed with more sarcasm than hurt an imaginary wire to David Lawrence, who had earlier asked him to Pittsburgh. But his disappointment did not even last until his departure for Europe—it was vanquished that evening in a noisy, joking dinner with family and friends.

The convention adjourned that night on a note of intergroup harmony, with Negro soprano Mahalia Jackson singing “The Lord’s Prayer” accompanied by the Chicago Swedish Glee Club. The Senator flew off to Europe with no foolish claims, charges, tears or promises to retract or regret. He was content.

Perhaps he already realized that his prominent role in the convention, his tense race with Kefauver and his graceful acceptance of defeat had made him overnight a nationally acclaimed figure. Perhaps he knew that his showing among Southern delegates—even if many of them had been motivated by their opposition to Kefauver—was the first chink in the Al Smith myth that no Catholic could win national office. And, more importantly, perhaps he already knew that were he to occupy second place on a losing Stevenson ticket in 1956, neither he nor any other Catholic would be considered again for several decades.

In later years, weary of the myth that he had entered politics as an involuntary substitute for his deceased brother Joe, he commented that Joe was more of a winner, that he, too, would have won the Congressional and Senatorial elections Jack did, that he, too, would have sought the Vice Presidency, but that he would have won the nomination—“And today Joe’s political career would be a shambles.” Certainly there was far more truth than humor in his quip at the Gridiron Dinner two years later:

I am grateful…to “Mr. Sam” Rayburn. At the last Democratic Convention, if he had not recognized the Tennessee and Oklahoma delegations when he did, I might have won that race with Senator Kefauver—and my political career would now be over.

J
OHN
F. K
ENNEDY WANTED SOMEDAY
to be President of the United States.

This wish did not suddenly seize him at some particular time. It was not an obsession to which all other interests were subordinated. It was not inherited from his brother, imposed by his father or inspired by his illness. He was not dissatisfied with his life as a Senator, had no fascination with power for the sake of power and needed no glory for his ego. He would not have felt cheated and frustrated had the office never been his; and, prior to the events of 1956 which thrust it within the realm of possibility, he had no timetable or plans for obtaining it. Nor did he seek the job in the belief that he was fulfilling his nation’s destiny or because he had some grand design for the future.

John Kennedy wanted to be President simply because, as he told a newsman early in 1956 when he had no specific intentions toward the office, “I suppose anybody in politics would like to be President”—because, as he said so often in 1960, “that is the center of action, the mainspring, the wellspring of the American system”—because, as he said in 1962, “at least you have an opportunity to do something about all the problems which…I would be concerned about [anyway] as a father or as a citizen…and if what you do is useful and successful, then…that is a great satisfaction.”

As a Democrat he believed four more years of Republican rule would be ruinous. As a citizen he feared for the course of his country in the sixties. As a politician and public servant he aspired, as many men do, to reach the top of his profession. As a member of both houses of
Congress he was daily more aware of how limited was their power to improve our nation and society. Nothing could better sum up his reasons for seeking the Presidency than seven words he used constantly in the campaign: “because I want to get things done.”