Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [31]
During this period, when he was pounding out stories for afternoon newspaper readers in Chicago, Kennedy also kept a personal diary. The entries in it further reveal him as unable to move past the idea of war’s deadliness: “We have suffered the loss of nearly 8 hundred thousand young men—many of whom might become the leadership we will so desperately need.”
What’s more, he wrote presciently—somehow intuiting the existence of the atomic bomb, which wasn’t yet publicly known—of what he saw in the future. “The clash may be finally and indefinitely postponed by the eventual discovery of a weapon so horrible that it will truthfully mean the abolishment of all the nations employing it. Thus science, which has contributed to much of the horror of war, will still be the means of bringing it to an end.”
When it came to the ideological currents back home, he was critical of FDR. “Mr. Roosevelt has contributed greatly to the end of Capitalism in our own country, although he would probably argue the point at some point. He has done this, not through the laws which he sponsored or were passed during his Presidency, but rather through the emphasis he put on rights rather than responsibilities.”
In Europe, Kennedy saw the brutality of the Russians to the vanquished Germans. “People did not realize what was going on in the concentration camps. In many ways, the ‘SS’ were as bad as the Russians.” But he predicted the Red Army’s treatment of defeated Berlin, especially its women, would leave a lasting mark.
As he was returning home from Europe—stopping briefly in London—he became alarmingly sick. His traveling companion at the time reported that it had “scared the hell out” of him, and that he’d never before seen anyone run such a high fever. It lasted for several days. When it was over, Jack claimed it had just been his malaria acting up.
Around Thanksgiving, his health improved, and he was back with his family at Hyannis Port. Rip Horton remembers watching him as he practiced with a tape recorder. “He made me speak into it and then played back the tape . . . and your voice always sounds awful to you. That was the first indication as to where his inclinations were then leading him.”
Soon, though, Jack was being up front with his close friends about his intentions. “I’ve made up my mind,” he told Chuck Spalding. “I’m going into politics.”
“Geez, that’s terrific,” Spalding replied. “You can go all the way!” Taken aback by such confidence from a close friend, Kennedy asked, “Really?”
“All the way!” Spalding recalls repeating.
Years later, Spalding explained that he’d believed Jack was one of those who’d come out of the war experience whole. “He was never pushed off this hard, sensible center of his being. I think he was beginning to get a kind of picture of himself. I think the picture of a public figure interested and capable in this area added to the dim outline of a successful politician.”
Lem Billings, who by then was in the navy—he had used new contact lenses to get past the physical—took a similar view. “A lot of stories have been written and said about it. I think a lot of people say that if Joe hadn’t died, Jack might never have gone into politics. I don’t believe this. Nothing could have kept Jack out of politics. I think this is what he had in him, and it just would have come out, no matter what. Somewhere along the line, he would have been in politics. Knowing his abilities, interests, and background, I firmly believe he would have entered politics even had he had three older brothers like Joe.”
When Jack asked Torby Macdonald what he thought of his running for Congress, his former college roommate—who’d grown up in a town near Boston—flatly stated that if his friend ran, he’d win.
Of all Jack’s best pals, Red Fay was the sharpest in seeing Jack’s inner directedness. When Jack told him of the pressure he was getting from his father—“I tell you, Dad is ready right now and can’t understand why his fine son Jack isn’t ready”—Fay understood that that wasn’t actually the whole story. “Although