Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [182]
77 “A reporter is reporting what happens”: Presidential recordings, John F. Kennedy Library.
77 Writing his stump speech himself: Ibid. “The first speech I ever gave was on ‘England, Ireland, and Germany: Victor, Neutral, and Vanquished.’ It took me three weeks to write and was given at an American Legion post.”
78 “For all Irish immigrants”: Ibid.
78 “I had in politics, to begin with”: Ibid.
78 “Says I’ll be murdered”: Diary, pp. 79–80.
79 In politics you don’t have friends: Ibid., p. 80.
79 “The one great failure of American government is the government of critics”: Ibid., p. 83.
79 The shrewd first hire was Billy Sutton: Billy Sutton, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
80 The person most surprised by this was his father: Goodwin, p. 828.
80 The fact that he was a returning: Dave Powers in the Flying Tigers, Bart Barnes, “JFK Aide David Francis Powers Dies at 85,” Washington Post, March 28, 1998.
80 “I think I know how you feel”: Jack’s appearance before a group of Gold Star Mothers, Goodwin, p. 823.
80 Not surprisingly, the daily slog of introducing: Sutton OH.
81 “I couldn’t believe this skinny”: O’Neill, p. 73.
81 “wasn’t looking healthy”: Sutton int.
81 “skeleton”: Mark Dalton description of JFK, Hamilton, pp. 747–48.
81 “My father thought I was hopeless”: John F. Kennedy’s January 5, 1960, interview with Ben Bradlee.
81 “This impatience that he passed on”: Spalding quote, Hamilton, p. 690.
82 “even though I was a Republican”: Red Fay quote, ibid., p. 745.
82 “My God”: JFK had forgotten to file his nomination papers, Fay, p. 147.
82 Kennedy pulled off other escapades: Joe Russo newspaper ad, Boston magazine, June 1993.
83 Tip O’Neill recalled a far more daunting: O’Neill, p. 77. “During the campaign, the Kennedys flooded the district with copies of that article [John Hersey’s on PT-109] and sent reprints to every returning veteran. Using the mails to send out campaign literature was a new and expensive proposition. Normally, a volunteer would give it out on the street or hang a flyer on your door. Naturally, the Hersey article served as a good reminder that only one of the candidates has much of a war record.”
83 Jack’s father and mother: Tea party at Hotel Commander, Goodwin, p. 830.
83 Kennedy was starting: O’Neill, p. 76. “Jack Kennedy, of course, was a Democrat. But looking back on his congressional campaign, and on his later campaigns for the Senate and then for the presidency, I’d have to say that he was only nominally a Democrat. He was a Kennedy, which was more than a family affiliation. It quickly developed into an entire political party, with its own people, its own agenda, and its own strategies.”
84 “He was probably the first”: Hamilton, p. 756.
85 “I guess I’m the only one”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys: An American Drama (New York: Summit Books, 1984), p. 153.
85 “Womanpower”: O’Neill, p. 78.
85 “They would scream”: Fay quote, Hamilton, p. 767.
85 “My chief opponents”: Presidential recordings, John F. Kennedy Library.
85 “We were constantly”: Reardon quote, Hamilton, p. 757.
86 “Remember, we were all”: Billings quote, ibid., p. 769.
87 “fighting conservative”: Diary, p. 10.
87 “What about Communism?”: Hamilton, p. 774.
CHAPTER FIVE: COLD WARRIOR
89 Jack Kennedy knew well before: Parmet, p. 147.
89 Besides, he’d formed: Joseph P. Healey, John F. Kennedy Oral History Program. “I know he had felt a particularly warm regard and feeling for Senator Saltonstall, who had been very helpful to him in his years in Washington.”
91 “Don’t you think”: Sutton OH.
92 “Stop ’n’ Shop”: Sutton int.
92 Richard Nixon had just beaten: Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician (New York: Holt, 1990), p. 293.
92 “So you’re the guy”: Sutton int.
93 “How’s it feel?”: Ibid.
93 “John wanted to know”: Author interview with Mark Dalton.