John F. Kennedy

C

2

Illness and Convalescence

Less than a year after his marriage, Kennedy underwent a spinal-disk operation. Four months later, after a painful convalescence, a second back operation was performed.

While Kennedy was in the hospital, the Senate voted to censure Wisconsin’s Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for his conduct as a member of a Senate subcommittee. In February 1950 Senator McCarthy had charged the State Department with knowingly employing 205 Communists. An investigation found all of the charges to be false, but McCarthy continued to accuse other government officials of Communist sympathies without any evidence. He was eventually discredited, but Kennedy refused to take a position against McCarthy. As a result, many liberal members of the Democratic Party opposed Kennedy when he sought both the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956 and the presidential nomination in 1960.

During his convalescence, Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage, a book of essays on American politicians who risked their careers fighting for just but unpopular causes. Published in 1956, the book received the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. Because of the success of Profiles in Courage, many people who had known little about Kennedy came to admire him, both for his literary skill and for his understanding of the great issues of American history. Nevertheless, it remained for the 1956 Democratic National Convention to bring Kennedy widespread national attention.

C

3

Presidential Election of 1956

At the Democratic convention, Kennedy nominated former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for the presidency. Stevenson left the selection of a vice-presidential candidate to the vote of the convention. Kennedy attempted to win the nomination but on the third ballot the convention chose Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kennedy then moved that the vote be made unanimous.

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Kennedy’s failure to gain the vice-presidential nomination probably did more good than harm to his political career. The convention had brought him to the attention of the nation without associating him with Stevenson, who lost the election to Eisenhower. During the 1956 presidential campaign Kennedy spoke on behalf of Stevenson and Kefauver in 26 states.

C

4

Later Senate Career

In 1957 Kennedy became a member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he later won a place on the Senate Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor Management Field, on which his brother Robert served as chief counsel. In 1958 he spent many of his weekends campaigning for reelection in Massachusetts. His margin of victory, 874,000 votes, was the largest ever recorded in a Massachusetts senatorial contest.

Kennedy now began speaking out on foreign affairs. He was a severe critic of France’s refusal to make concessions to its colony, Algeria, and he advocated Algerian independence. He urged increased economic aid to underdeveloped nations.

Furthermore, Kennedy’s ideas contributed to the Landrum-Griffin Law. This act guaranteed the rights of union members to union meetings, free speech and assembly, and the election of union officers by secret ballot. It also required labor and management organizations and labor consultants to file detailed financial reports of their dealings. As chairman of the Senate Reorganization Subcommittee, Kennedy supported many of the proposals of a commission led by former U.S. President Herbert Hoover for improving the efficiency of the federal government and translated them into law.

D

Election of 1960

Kennedy wanted the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, and almost as soon as the 1956 election was over, he began working for it. He faced several major obstacles. Many party leaders considered him too young and too inexperienced for the presidency. Many also doubted that a Roman Catholic could win a national election in a country that was mostly Protestant. In addition, Kennedy still lacked the support of many Democratic liberals, who backed either Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota or Adlai Stevenson.

Kennedy announced his candidacy early in 1960. By the time the Democratic National Convention opened in July, he had won seven primary victories. His most important had been in West Virginia, where he proved that a Roman Catholic could win in a predominantly Protestant state.

When the convention opened, it appeared that Kennedy’s only serious challenge for the nomination would come from the Senate majority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. However, Johnson was strong only among Southern delegates. Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot and then persuaded Johnson to become his running mate.

Two weeks later the Republicans nominated Vice President Richard Nixon for president and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., who was ambassador to the United Nations and whom Kennedy had defeated for the Senate in 1952, for vice president. In the fast-paced campaign that followed, Kennedy made stops in 46 states and 273 cities and towns, while Nixon visited every state and 170 urban areas.

Although the Republican candidate refused to make Kennedy’s religion an issue, it was an important factor in many areas of the country. Many Protestants feared that a Catholic might be subject to the orders of the head of the Roman Catholic church, the Pope. In a speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Kennedy said, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from ... [an] ecclesiastical source.”

Kennedy promised to “get the nation moving again” with a political program he called the New Frontier, a name that reminded many of the New Deal program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) and the Fair Deal of President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953).

The two candidates faced each other in four nationally televised debates. Kennedy’s manner, especially in the first debate, seemed to eliminate the charge that he was too young and too inexperienced to serve as president, and many believed these debates gave Kennedy victory.

Another important element of the campaign was the support Kennedy received from blacks in important Northern states, especially Illinois and Pennsylvania. They supported him in part because he and Robert Kennedy had tried to obtain the release of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. King, who had been jailed for taking part in a civil rights demonstration in Georgia, was released soon afterward.

The election drew a record 69 million voters to the polls, but Kennedy won by only 113,000 votes. He won 49.7 percent of the popular vote, and Nixon won 49.6 percent. It was the closest popular vote in 72 years. However, because Kennedy won most of the larger states in the northeastern United States, he received 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219.

IV

President of the United States

Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he emphasized America’s revolutionary heritage. “The same ... beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe,” Kennedy said.

“Let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”

Kennedy called for “a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.” He recognized the difficulties of this goal. “All this will not be finished in the first 100 days,” he said. “Nor will it be finished in the first 1000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

Kennedy challenged Americans to assume the burden of “defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.” The words of his address were, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

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