Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [90]
It was Bobby, usually politically astute, who made the decision not to alert his brother about what had happened. His reasoning seemed based on the belief that Jack’s returning from a pleasure trip to console his grieving wife would be the wrong sort of reunion. It was a bad call, and the newspapers got the story. George Smathers made it his business to persuade Kennedy to return home pronto, telling him that his marriage was at stake and, along with it, his ambitions for high office.
That fall Jack Kennedy traveled the country for Adlai Stevenson. He owed him, after all. What Stevenson was giving him now was actually better than the vice-presidential nod; it was the perfect trial run. It set Jack loose on the political circuit as a Stevenson man. To the Democratic Party, still dominated by its liberal faction, this was an incalculable benefit. After August 1956 Jack knew what he possessed, and what he needed to change. He was a smart and engaging outsider, a moderate in a party still run by its liberal establishment.
To win the next prize he sought, he’d have to become part of it. He would do what was necessary.
25
Senate Rackets Committee, 1959
26
Ben Bradlee
27
Ted Sorensen
CHAPTER TEN
CHARM
A little touch of Harry in the night.
—William Shakespeare, Henry V
What we are born with are our gifts. What we learn are our prizes. Jack Kennedy came into the world with good looks and wealth, and the social confidence that accompanies them. He possessed an instinctive trait for getting to the heart of a matter that enabled him to direct himself to the essence of a challenge. He possessed also an ability—rare and somewhat unsettling—to separate himself from the emotions of those around him. He was uncannily astute, moreover, when it came to seeing the motives of those he encountered. That he could know what moved others but not be moved himself brought hurt to those close to him, but it was for Kennedy himself a source of strength and provided for him an almost scary independence.
All these gifts would have been his had he never embarked on a career in professional politics. His prizes were what he picked up along the way. He now understood better than he might have before how the candidate who starts early gives himself the advantage. He saw how much simple personal contact mattered when you wanted something from people. He’d recognized the truth of that during his first race, back in ’46, when he was out at dawn, campaigning at the Charlestown docks, and then staying with it until late in the evening when he sat with constituents in their living rooms. To accomplish his goal, he’d practically killed himself—and it had worked.
He’d learned, too, in that first, winning effort, that the ambitious politician such as himself needs to create his own organization; he cannot expect existing political factions to whisk him forward. And he quickly realized that the key to forging loyalty within his organization was the invitation itself. The mere act of asking someone to become a Kennedy person was the step that mattered. Nothing builds fealty like getting people out there working for you. With time, discipline, experience, and trust, Jack Kennedy had forged a strong team, one that had been blooded in battle and now was ready for a fresh attack on an even greater trophy.
At the 1956 convention, Kennedy had begun to set the course for the next four years. Above all, he had made his presence known. But the strong backing for Kefauver, known as both a heavy drinker and difficult maverick, had been a clear sign