Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [31]
You feel this was because he was a Catholic, or because he was an easterner, or were they equally suspicious of anybody—Hubert, or anybody?
I think that in Wisconsin, they're just suspicious of anyone sort of gregarious. I mean, I don't think they like someone coming up, or a band, or anything. And I think they were suspicious of him for all those reasons. Whereas in West Virginia, you know, they're a bit gayer, even though they're so poor. But I loved—I never met one person in West Virginia I didn't like, except for this strange man running around with his handbills wherever we spoke. And I never met one person in Wisconsin I did like, except for the people who were working for Jack.
THE KENNEDYS CAMPAIGNING IN THE WISCONSIN PRIMARY, 1960
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
When he was exhausted, he'd snap back quickly though, wouldn't he?
Oh, yeah, you'd stumble into some hotel bed and you'd get up at six in the morning. He could snap back. He could have a day home and just sleep all through it, and you'd get all his laundry done or something in the daytime, and pack him at night, and off he'd go or off we'd both go. And he could always sleep. He could sleep in the plane, almost like a soldier. I think that's—so many people's troubles are when they can't sleep.
Clem Norton51—I don't know if you've heard the tape of his—said Teddy has a street personality, the President didn't have a street personality.
That's true, he didn't. I mean, at the end, you know, he had that incredible thing.52 But Teddy's more nineteenth century. He can go down and tell stories. He's more like Clem Norton, and more like Honey Fitz. But Jack never—he never said, "Hi, fella," or put his fat palm under your armpit, or, you know, any of that sort of business. It was embarrassing to him.
But he didn't actively dislike campaigning. He rather enjoyed it, didn't he?
Yeah, he enjoyed it. I mean, if you asked him his three favorite things he can do in a day, I don't think he'd say campaigning.53 But when he got caught up in it, and when it was going well, then he really liked it and responded. And the last—you know, as time went on, he was doing better and better. And he loved the people who really were glad to see him—the little old ladies, or children, or what.
DURING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY CAMPAIGN
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
I always felt that when he went out as President on a trip and saw crowds, he'd really come back very refreshed. Didn't you feel him filled with new energy and confidence—
Yes, it was so good for him. And he'd say how good it was to get out of Washington, where it's this little group that just writes—in and in and in—you know, little correspondents hashing others. It was so good for him to get away and to see that he was adored. You know, it was great whenever he did that. And when he went to Europe this June.
Last time, we started talking about the convention, and the months before the convention in 1960, and the President's view of his various opponents and problems, and one of the things that always surprised me was the way in which liberals—the arguments I used to have to have with some of the older liberals and academics and so on, about the President. It sounds very odd now, because no one obviously has done more for intellectuals in the White House since Jefferson. I suppose one of the big reasons for it was the whole McCarthy business. How—you knew McCarthy?1
No, I didn't know him. I just went to see one of the hearings once. But Jack was sick at the time of the McCarthy thing, wasn't he?
Yes, he was.
And then they knew that his father had been a friend, or hadn't he been to the Cape once?