Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [55]
In fact, the very visible strains of his physical infirmities caused Jack Kennedy—greeting voters as he stood there on crutches—to resemble distantly, and despite his wealth, a character like Dickens’s Tiny Tim. His simple fortitude compelled people to root for him. When X-rays taken of Jack’s spine in 1951 showed the collapse of support bones in his spinal column, it could hardly have been surprising to anyone who spent time with him, especially out on the road. Charlie Bartlett, who joined him on some of these trips, remembered Jack keeping a stiff upper lip through it all. “I must say, he always had a sort of stoic, sociable quality about it. He’d drive all over that damn state. With that back it must have hurt like hell, and he’d sit there with the coat collar up and drive through those cold Massachusetts evenings.”
But even though Ken O’Donnell was now convinced Jack might actually have a very good shot at winning against the formidable Lodge, what was still needed was someone to run the show. “The whole operation had degenerated into a three-ring circus, with Joe Kennedy coming in once in a while disrupting things, Jack showing up only rarely, and nothing getting done the minute he left.” Somebody had to play middleman.
“I knew the Kennedys well enough by then to know the only one who can talk to the Kennedys is a Kennedy. It took a Kennedy to take on a Kennedy. I knew Bobby was the only one with enough sense, who was tough enough and a regular enough guy to run the campaign. He’d be the only one able to turn to the father and say, ‘No, Jack won’t do it.’ “
At this point Ken made his move. He phoned Bobby and laid it on the line, all but demanding he drop everything and get up to Massachusetts to run his brother’s campaign. Otherwise, Jack was going to have his butt handed to him. Bobby hated what he was hearing, for the understandable reason that he wanted to build his own career as a Justice Department lawyer and thus his own life. But he could hear his friend’s argument, knew it, probably, even before he heard it. Someone had to broker matters between his dad and Jack. He was the one—the only one—to do it, and do it right.
Now that Bobby seemingly was willing to leave his job and come run the campaign, there was the problem of selling Jack on the idea. O’Donnell recalled the scene in the car when he and his boss went head to head on it. The truth was, Jack didn’t like hearing Ken had talked to Bobby without going through him first, but, at the same time, and despite his irritation, he saw the point.
First, Jack sounded off. He, above all, seemed stunned to learn that there’d been any lack of action on the part of his people. As O’Donnell remembers the tongue-lashing, Kennedy couldn’t believe they hadn’t begun naming local secretaries across the state. “As far as I’m concerned, this moment you can go ahead and begin. I’m not interested in the nuts and bolts of who’s going to run what. That’s the job of the organization and not the candidate.”
But, after he’d finished giving O’Donnell a taste of his anger, he’d also obviously talked his way into a decision. Ken O’Donnell had won. “That was the day that Bobby decided he would move to Massachusetts. Bobby, as I recall, went back to get his own personal affairs in order, and then he came up.”
Mark Dalton had seen it coming. Though he had his own law practice, he’d been volunteering time for Jack’s political career, mainly writing speeches, ever since the victorious ’46 race. He’d now given up his practice and come to work full-time for the congressman. It was a change in status, from friend and unofficial counselor to paid aide, and it would matter.
For him, the decisive incident occurred at a meeting at a social club in Fall River. As he made to leave, Kennedy had to pass the bar, where was parked a convivial trio “feeling no pain.” The men garrulously corralled Kennedy. Dalton, ignoring the candidate’s plight, had continued