Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [38]
What did you think during the first debate?
Oh, well, I thought what everyone else did. I just couldn't believe it. You know, it was so obvious. It was just so clear. That really changed everything. Jack always told me the thing that changed his '52 campaign—this was before we were married—was his appearance on Meet the Press with Lodge.27 He said that that was the hump and then everything started to go his way. Well, that first debate was—I always thought it—but I was so glad that it was just so obvious. Because you could just see he'd won it, and hear it in the street and everywhere.
SENATOR KENNEDY IN THE FIRST DEBATE AGAINST VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON, SEPTEMBER 26, 1960
AP/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
Was there any talk before that about the—I mean, the President obviously thought that the debate would be a great opportunity, if he could get it, but didn't suppose that Nixon would go along. Do you remember any of that?
Not really. I remember sort of talk on and off all spring about the debates. No, I don't know what made Nixon finally decide to—
This was his great miscalculation. And I think he did it because he'd been a champion debater at Whittier College and thought that he could win. I'm sure there was no—I think he thought that this would make the experience for him, if he would get up there with this young kid.
But I remember the talk in evenings of which debate would be—wasn't one foreign policy, one domestic?—I remember all those evenings when they were hashing out—a lot of people would come and they'd decide how the debates would be made up. But I don't really remember the leading-up-to-it part.
I know you weren't, because of John, weren't around, along, all the time on the campaign. Do you have any impression on whom the President relied particularly in campaign strategy and the like?
Well, himself really. Because whenever he was home you'd hear him calling and I mean, he'd be telling people what to do. I suppose he did rely on Bobby—didn't he?—most of all. Bobby—
And he always checked his judgment with Bobby. Didn't always take it, as in the case of Lyndon Johnson, but I think he always wanted to see what Bobby reacted—how Bobby would react.
Then his father was always—you know, I was so glad Mr. Kennedy had a chance to do something. But he would be taking Billy Green to Pavillon or something—or maybe that was all before.28 But he'd talk to his father too, but more to hear what his father reported. You know, all those old men—
John Bailey, did he matter?29
Oh, yeah, well, John Bailey—I don't really know—
He was the chairman of the committee—
Yeah. We always loved John Bailey. That's the first place we ever went when we were married, and Jack made a speech in Connecticut. But no, I don't think he was calling up John Bailey for advice.
As far as whatever I saw, it seemed to me he was really running the whole show himself.
Yeah. And then he'd say, and Bobby would say, and everyone—you know, "Nobody must ever get mad at the candidate." So that's where Bobby was sort of the buffer. And everyone who had a fight or then somebody hated Ted Sorensen in some state, and somebody else—there'd be two chairmen and which one would be the one. All those things Bobby would have to do, so that those people wouldn't get mad at Jack. You know, which Bobby gladly did. That's another reason—he got the sort of image of being someone people disliked, but he had to be so tough for Jack. And Bobby said that to me the other day—you know, it's so nice to have someone for you who can fight your fight—I mean, be the one that people