Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [53]
Mark Dalton, a good friend to Jack whose speechwriting ability was his greatest asset, had been the official “campaign manager” for that first congressional run in 1946. More a pipe-smoking intellectual than a tough, savvy strategist, Dalton was once again nominally in charge of what was happening, but with no title and no real power. Unfortunately, he possessed none of the organization-building or tactical skills necessary to get up and running the sort of statewide campaign now called for. Besides that, he was absolutely incapable of mustering the strength to withstand the meddling of Jack’s father, the nature of whose influence—he was paying the bills—could never for an instant not be dealt with. And this was a job that needed doing.
For all his wily self-made rich man’s shrewdness, the estimable Joseph P. Kennedy lacked political sense. Good at making money, he had little or no gift for democracy. He thought you got your way in this world by cozying up to people at the top, and bossing everyone else. His notion of putting together an effective campaign team was to get a squad of old political hands together and then start barking orders. That was no playbook for winning elections, certainly not the one against Henry Cabot Lodge.
Therefore, the first thing O’Donnell—whose political grasp was instinctive—looked to accomplish once he signed on to Jack’s effort was to get the old man’s hands out of the pudding. And not just that, but from the instant he arrived on the scene, he recognized an even bigger issue, which was that nothing had been done, throughout those early months of 1952, to build a statewide organization that could ever hope to come together to unseat the formidable incumbent. What was deadly clear to O’Donnell was the extent to which the two problems were intertwined.
No one had the nerve to stand up to Joe Kennedy when it came to naming Kennedy “secretaries” across the state. O’Donnell recalled: “I said to Dalton, ‘Look, we need to name a secretary or leader in each community to be a Kennedy man, and then that person can form committees and set up events, but we can’t be sitting in this office.’ “ Soon, Ken would conclude that Dalton simply was “too nice to be in politics.” But that wasn’t the same as solving the problem.
Jack himself could not make up his mind. He wouldn’t fire Dalton, but at the same time he wouldn’t give him the authority to do the job, not even the title. If Dalton was too weak, and he, O’Donnell, too much the newcomer, then who was there around who’d be able to short-circuit Joe Kennedy’s meddling, to talk back to him and keep him on the sidelines? Only one man seemed to fill the bill, O’Donnell concluded: his old roommate, Bobby.
Bobby, O’Donnell knew, understood how to gain his father’s approval, for the simple reason that he’d spent his young life doing it. It was a task that Jack, who kept his distance from his father and was always wary of him, couldn’t manage. By being the good son, Bobby had earned and could now cash in on his father’s trust. If Jack was to win this election, the question of bringing in Bobby would have to be answered. And soon.
The date for Jack’s big decision was April 6. That’s because Governor Paul Dever had scheduled that date to announce which job he was running for. Would the governor think he might be able to beat Lodge, or would he decide to play it safe and seek a third term?
Joe Healey, Jack’s Harvard tutor, went with Kennedy when he was summoned to the meeting with Dever, which took place at the grand old Ritz-Carlton across from the Boston Public Garden. “We arrived at the Ritz about three o’clock, went to a room, and waited. Governor Dever had a topcoat on, and he said—and I think these were his exact words—‘Jack, I’m a candidate for reelection.’ And Jack said, ‘Well, that’s fine. I’m a candidate for the Senate.’ “
There were many factors joining together to favor Jack Kennedy’s Senate run in 1952.
A keen observer, Jack saw it was now the case that, whatever they