The Kennedy Half-Century (125 page)

11
. President Ford Committee Records, 1975–76, Research Office: Carter Quotes—Carter Family, Box H23, Folder “Congress (1),” Gerald R. Ford Library. Earlier, as governor of Georgia,
Carter gave a private indication of his equivocal view of JFK, noting that “Kennedy still occupies a position representing youth, idealism, vigor, etc.—which he may or may not actually deserve. Politically, of course, the image is the reality.” See Gary M. Fink,
Prelude to the Presidency: The Political Character and Legislative Leadership Style of Governor Jimmy Carter
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 18–19.

12
. Witcover,
Marathon
, 610–11.

13
. See Gallup poll numbers, Sept.–Oct. 1976, iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut,
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html
 [accessed January 27, 2012].

14
. Handwritten notes, Michael Raoul-Duval Papers, Box 30, Folder “Meeting with the President,” Gerald R. Ford Library; President Ford Committee Records, 1975–76, Research Office: Carter Quotes—Gay Liberation, Box H27, Folder “Image,” Gerald R. Ford Library.

15
. For more information on Ford’s gaffe and how the intense press coverage of it affected Ford’s poll numbers, see my book
Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics
(New York: Free Press, 1991), 127–29.

16
. Carter told a cheering crowd in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, “I had the best organization any candidate ever had. Had the best family any candidate ever had. Had the best home community any candidate ever had. Had the best supporters in my home state any candidate ever had. And the only reason we were close last night was because the candidate wasn’t quite good enough as a campaigner. But I’ll make up for that when I’m president …” Martin Schram,
Running for President 1976: The Carter Campaign
(New York: Stein and Day, 1977), 357.

17
. 281 of the 293 Democrats who were elected to the House of Representatives in 1976 received a higher vote percentage than Carter. During the same year, twenty winning Democratic Senate nominees surpassed Carter’s vote percentage. John L. Moore, Jon P. Pre-imesberger, and David R. Tarr,
Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections
, vol. II, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 1302–6 and 1434–71.

18
. Jimmy Carter, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1977, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=6575
 [accessed January 4, 2012].

19
. I was in attendance with a good seat at the inauguration, thanks to the beneficence of a Virginia politician, former lieutenant governor Henry E. Howell, Jr. Carter’s address bore no resemblance to John Kennedy’s; it sparked little applause and fell flat even among his most ardent admirers. But the unexpected stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue electrified the tens of thousands of spectators. I do not recall seeing Secret Service personnel, but photographs of the Carter walk show wide-eyed agents understandably looking even more serious and concerned than usual.

20
. Jimmy Carter,
Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President
(New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 24.

21
. Sensing defeat, Sorensen requested that Carter withdraw the nomination. Facing stiff opposition from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sorensen said, “It is now clear that a substantial portion of the United States Senate and the intelligence community is not ready to accept as director of Central Intelligence an outsider who believes as I believe,” and “It is equally clear that to continue fighting for this post, which would be my natural inclination, would only handicap the new administration if I am rejected, or handicap my effectiveness as director if I am confirmed.” See Wendell Rawls, Jr., “Sorensen
Withdraws, Bowing to Resistance to C.I.A. Nomination,”
New York Times
, January 18, 1977.

22
. E-mail from Ted Sorensen, October 12, 2010.

23
. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

24
. See Gallup poll numbers, Feb.–Nov. 1979, iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut,
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html
 [accessed January 27, 2012].

25
. Peter Maer, “Time Has Not Cooled Jimmy Carter / Ted Kennedy Feud,” CBS News, September 17, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20016854-503544.html
 [accessed January 4, 2012]; Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

26
. Jimmy Carter,
White House Diary
(New York: Parrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 365–66.

27
. Ibid., 356.

28
. Jimmy Carter, “Boston, Massachusetts Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the John F. Kennedy Library,” October 20, 1979, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=31566#axzzifr6tBNRy
 [accessed December 7, 2011].

29
. Ibid.

30
. Ibid. Despite Carter’s emotional reaction to November 22, 1963, he made no comment when the House Select Committee on Assassinations presented its report on July 17, 1979. In part, that may have been because of his disagreement with its finding of conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Carter told me in an interview on June 18, 2013, that he had consistently accepted the findings of the Warren Commission from the 1960s onward, in part because of his admiration for Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, a member of the commission.

31
. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

32
. Kennedy’s reply was clumsy and stumbling: “Well, I’m—were I to make the announcement and to run, the reasons I would run is because I have a great belief in this country. That it is—there’s more natural resources than any nation in the world; the greatest education population in the world; the greatest technology of any country in the world; the greatest capacity for innovation in the world; and the greatest political system in the world.” Sam Allis, “Losing a Quest for the Top, Finding a New Freedom,”
Boston Globe
, February 18, 2009,
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/02/18/chapter_4_sailing_into_the_wind/
 [accessed January 4, 2012]. Kennedy’s staff suggested that the senator feared invoking the formal candidacy provisions of federal campaign finance law—although there were ways to give a powerful, conditional answer (“If I were to run, it would be because …”). Vincent Bzdek,
The Kennedy Legacy: Jack, Bobby and Ted and a Family Dream Fulfilled
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 176.

33
. Ted Kennedy did not specifically invoke JFK or RFK, and he broke with their tradition in choosing a Boston location to launch his candidacy instead of his brothers’ locale, the Senate Caucus Room in D.C. Perhaps he wished to avoid the charge that his candidacy was dynastic, built on legacy and not policy. See Jon Margolis, “Kennedy in Race, Hits Carter,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 8, 1979. The portion of Kennedy’s speech quoted in the text was transcribed from YouTube: “Kennedy Declares Presidential Bid,” ABC News, YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-UYpwtHopg&feature=youtu.be
 [accessed January 27, 2012]; Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

34
. Jimmy Carter, “Boston, Massachusetts Question-and-Answer Session with Newspaper and Television Reporters,” October 20, 1979,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=31567#axzziiQDToBWW
 and “East Rutherford, New Jersey Interview With Dick Leone of WNET-TV,” October 25, 1979,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=31591#axzz1iQDToBWW
, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
[accessed January 4, 2012]; Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

35
. After his father’s death, Ted Kennedy, Jr., told
60 Minutes
, “Most people keep coats and umbrellas in their coat closet. My father kept bulletproof vests in his coat closet. And believe me, we would walk by that coat closet every day, fearful about some crazy person out there wanting to make a name for themselves. And that, I think, was in the back of our minds, almost every time that my father would appear in public.” See “Kennedy’s Son Reflects on Dad’s Legacy,” CBS,
60 Minutes
, September 13, 2009,
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-5303789.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
 [accessed January 27, 2012]. According to Richard E. Burke, “They [the Secret Service] provided Kennedy with two versions of a bulletproof vest. One was built into a trench coat and reasonably comfortable; this would come in handy on rainy days. But the fair weather version, made to be worn under a shirt and suit jacket, was heavy and cumbersome.” See Richard E. Burke with William and Marilyn Hoffer,
The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy
(New York: Macmillan, 2003), 227.

36
. 
Guide to U.S. Elections, vol. 1, 6th ed
. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 638.

37
. Peter G. Bourne,
Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency
(New York: Scribner, 1997), 458–60.

38
. Ibid., 460.

39
. Carter replaced him with Maine senator Edmund Muskie (D).

40
. Hamilton Jordan,
Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), 274.

41
. Jimmy Carter, “The President’s News Conference,” April 29, 1980, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33342
 [accessed December 8, 2011].

42
. Bzdek,
Kennedy Legacy
, 182. Bzdek also quotes
Washington Post
reporter Rick Atkinson as saying, “It was the most electrifying speech that I’d ever heard personally … People were crying because, I think, it was so evocative of the dead prince.”

43
. Carter,
White House Diary
, 457–58, 528; Interview with former President Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

44
. Jimmy Carter, “Carter/Kennedy Unity Celebration Remarks at the Democratic Party Dinner,” October 19, 1980, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45328
 [accessed December 2, 2011]; Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

45
. See
http://electionstudies.org/studypages/1980_panelmajor/1980_panelmajor.htm
. National Election Studies, 1980 Major Panel Study [dataset]. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Political Studies [producer and distributor], 1999.

46
. Carter,
White House Diary
, 417.

47
. Peggy Noonan, “The Reagans and the Kennedys: How They Forged a Friendship That Crossed Party Lines,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 28, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376951136648912.html
 [accessed January 5, 2012].

48
. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013. If President Carter’s allegation is correct, Senator Kennedy could have been in violation of a federal statute. The direct or indirect promise of public office by a candidate in order to “procure support” is forbidden by law. See Title 18, Part I, Chapter 29, Section 599 of the U.S. Code, which says: “Whoever, being a candidate, directly or indirectly promises or pledges the appointment, or the use of his influence or support for the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” However, this is a difficult charge to prove, and the discussion between a candidate and a possible officeholder can be filled with conditional terms that make successful prosecution all but impossible.

49
. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

17. REAGAN AND KENNEDY: OPPOSITES ATTRACT

1
. Telephone interview with Ron Reagan, Jr., March 8, 2012.

2
. Think through JFK’s successors. No one has ever accused LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, or Obama of excessive wit, and only the unelected Ford and perhaps Bush 43 demonstrated the ability to make fun of their own shortcomings with any regularity.

3
. See Thomas W. Evans,
The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of his Conversion to Conservatism
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 55–97, and Lou Cannon,
Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power
(New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 83–122.

4
. Stephen E. Ambrose,
Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–62
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 546; “Text of 1960 Reagan Letter,”
New York Times
, October 27, 1984.