Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [46]
Dalton, obviously very fond of his friend in those days, believed he saw a side of Jack that rarely showed itself to others. “As I look back, the things that I liked most about John Kennedy were the small flashes of sentiment.” He recalled a particular incident. “One morning I was at mass with him in the early congressional days down at the Cape, at St. Francis there. We were alone. We were about to leave the church, and John said, ‘Will you wait a minute? I want to go in and light a candle for Joe.’ And I was stunned at it. But it showed the deep attachment that he had for his brother Joe, and it also showed his religious nature. You know, there was a strong bond.
“Another day I can remember riding along with him in the car. He was driving. It was over by the Charles River here in Boston and he was humming a tune to himself, but he was way off. And I said to him, ‘What are you thinking about?’ And he said, ‘I was thinking of Joe.’ “
He would soon lose someone closer still. His sister Kathleen, widowed when her husband, Billy Hartington, was killed in 1945, now was being courted by another English aristocrat, Peter Fitzwilliam. In February 1948, Kick took the bold step of telling her mother about this new relationship. It was with yet another Protestant, this one married. Her mother threatened to disown her. But nothing could dissuade Kathleen. She had found true, passionate love and would not let go.
Now came tragedy. She and Fitzwilliam had left Paris on a chartered flight to Cannes. They had persisted in flying despite the bad weather, and then, in heavy rain, their plane crashed into the side of a mountain. Jack was listening to music on his Victrola when the first, preliminary call came.
When the next call confirmed the tragedy, he sat quietly listening to a recording of the Broadway musical Finian’s Rainbow. He would never make it to the funeral of the person he loved most. Setting out for the flight to Europe, he got only as far as New York. For whatever reason, he couldn’t go on.
“He was in terrible pain,” Lem Billings recalled of Jack. “He couldn’t get through the days without thinking of her at the most inappropriate times. He’d be sitting at a congressional hearing and he’d find his mind drifting back uncontrollably to all the things he and Kathleen had done together and all the friends they had in common.”
Chuck Spalding could see the specter the deaths of his friend’s brother and sister had left in their wake. “He always heard the footsteps. Death was there. It had taken Joe and Kick and it was waiting for him.”
Now he started to take risks. In September 1948 Kennedy decided to make a target of the powerful American Legion, declaring that this mainstream, middle-American organization of veterans hadn’t had “a constructive thought since 1918.” It was one of those marks of independence—his risk-taking again—that helped make him a hero to the young.
One of those who thrilled to Jack’s taking on the Legion was Kenneth O’Donnell. A Harvard roommate of Bobby Kennedy and captain of the football team, he’d served in the Army Air Corps. When Jack “took on the American Legion,” said O’Donnell, “that was big to the average veteran.” Veterans, O’Donnell believed, were looking for “a fresh face in politics.”
Jack Kennedy fully intended to be that face. Dave Powers had put a Massachusetts map on the wall of Kennedy’s Boston apartment, with colored pins indicating towns Jack had visited. “When we’ve got the map completely covered with pins,” Jack told his aide, “that’s when I’ll announce that I’m going to run for statewide office.”
By his second year in Congress, Jack Kennedy had committed to a cause: the Cold War. He’d already triggered a mild stir with his tough grilling of the left-leaning Russ Nixon and his indictment of Harold Christoffel. In 1948, when East Germany cut off West Berlin, Kennedy went there and saw for himself the heroic survival of