The Real Making of the President Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election by W. J. Rorabaugh
Kansas, 250 pp., $34.95 Richard Nixon always thought he would not get a fair shake from history: History is written by historians and historians are liberals, he thought. Conversely, John Kennedy, who was everything Nixon was not--rich, handsome, and a Democrat--would be rewarded.
But after nearly a half-century, the verdict may be otherwise--at least on the Kennedy side of the 1960 campaign. So concludes this fourth volume in the excellent series from the University Press of Kansas in which a noted historian is asked to recount a presidential election.
W. J. Rorabaugh, whose eclectic scholarship includes a book on alcohol consumption in early America, roams far beyond standard works, reaching into campaign biographies, opposition research, memoirs of minor players, and several archival collections, often in search of a gritty quotation.
"The man is a sh--, -- a total sh--," said Kennedy of Nixon, after one of their televised debates.
Unfortunately, a good book is soiled by the author's (or publisher's) effort to promote it as a "corrective" to The Making of the President, 1960 (1961), Theodore H. White's sycophantic portrait of Kennedy, which has long ago been corrected. White, who died in 1986, was a mere journalist--first draft of history and all that--and his book's opening page informs us that "historians" will "tell the story of the quest for power in 1960 in more precise terms" and with a greater wealth of established fact. The importance of White was not his instant insights but his backstage reportage, which created a new and exciting way to cover presidential politics.
In 1960 Vice President Nixon had an easy romp to the Republican nomination, despite a last-minute challenge from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. Kennedy, a back bench senator, had to find ways to defeat contenders with longer and more distinguished records of public service: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson, Stuart Symington.
The Kennedy formula, according to Rorabaugh, was an abundance of money, always there in the deep pockets of his father; a professional staff, with talents that included producing speeches rich in contrapuntals while thin on policy details; a sure sense of communicating through the relatively new political medium of television; a glamorous family, complete with movie star brother-in-law, always available to spread the message; and a unique ability to charm reporters into accepting puff answers to tough questions.
Humphrey, when confronted by this juggernaut in Wisconsin, the first key primary state, lamented, "I feel like an independent merchant competing against a chain store."
Moreover, the Kennedy charm was matched by the Kennedy ruthlessness. In the other key primary state, West Virginia, Rorabaugh writes that Franklin Roosevelt Jr.
was handed a speech that charged, in effect, that Humphrey had been a draft dodger in World War II. Roosevelt balked, refusing to say anything so mean, nasty, and untrue. . . . Robert Kennedy put heavy pressure on Frank Roosevelt . . . and Roosevelt, rumored to be financially strapped, finally agreed to make the false charge. He did so not once but several times. . . . After the damage had been done, John Kennedy sanctimoniously disavowed Roosevelt's slur.
Later, as the convention neared, a Johnson surrogate charged that Kennedy suffered from Addison's disease, a potentially fatal illness. This was promptly denied by Kennedy's physician, Janet Travell. A "brazen lie," writes Rorabaugh: "As Doctor Travell revealed in her oral history opened more than 30 years later, Kennedy did have Addison's and was being treated for the disease with cortisone derivatives."
At the Los Angeles convention, over strong opposition from important parts of the party, as well as his own staff, Kennedy chose Johnson to be his running mate, a story nicely told by Rorabaugh, who then adds the book's most important chapter on how Johnson held the reluctant South (and victory) for Kennedy.
In the general election both Kennedy and Nixon were moderates with little enthusiasm for ideology, which is fine if you win and potentially decisive in a loser's party. Rorabaugh's assessment of Nixon: bad strategic judgment, weak staff. Against President Eisenhower's advice, he agreed to the first televised debates in presidential campaign history. Part of Nixon's problem was that he had been recently hospitalized for a serious infection, had lost considerable weight, and looked on TV like a man whose suit was a size too big. He also lost time and started playing catch-up, racing around the country to honor a foolish pledge to wage a 50-state campaign instead of concentrating on decisive states.
Religion had to be the election's biggest question mark, given that Kennedy might become the first Roman Catholic president. The issue was squarely addressed by Kennedy in his brilliant speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, and the campaign sliced the speech into short commercials and bought time on television in largely Catholic areas. Would additional Catholics come out to vote for Kennedy, or would additional Protestants come out to vote against him? In the end, Rorabaugh concludes, the vote was "offsetting" and "the overall effect was no net religious vote in 1960."
Race also figured in the campaign when Martin Luther King was jailed in Georgia. Kennedy called Coretta King, then six months pregnant: "This must be pretty hard on you," he told her, "and I want to let you know that I'm thinking about you and will do all I can to help." When reporters asked Kennedy why he had made the call, according to Rorabaugh, "the nominee said simply that [Mrs. King] was a friend of the family. This was an almost comical lie, but it had political utility. The two had never met and, in fact, never did."
The final tally showed Kennedy receiving 49.7 percent of the total and Nixon receiving 49.6 percent. Rorabaugh makes the case that the election was stolen for Kennedy in Texas and Illinois, but since there was no legal way to get a recount in Texas, and it was not to Nixon's advantage to throw the election into the House of Representatives, he chose not to contest it.
What, then, is history's verdict on the 1960 campaign, at least if The Real Making of the President reflects the consensus of academic historians? Fascinating election, yes; defining election, no. Otherwise history reminds us that gloss ultimately tarnishes.
Stephen Hess, a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff in 1960, is the author, most recently, of What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect (Brookings).