Six Crises (62 page)

I have no complaints and am doing no second-guessing on that score, incidentally, but one possible improvement would be to have debates in future campaigns conducted as was our third round, with the candidates in separate studios, allowing for the special kind of lighting that is needed and appropriate for each. In essence, what ought to be decisive in selecting a President is what is in a man's head rather than the type of beard he may have on his face. Anything that gets in the way of communicating this mental content ought, if possible, to be eliminated.

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With the debates over, we moved our campaign into high gear. Back in Washington on Sunday—another one of those days labeled “rest”—we prepared for our week of whistle-stopping. But that afternoon, I called an emergency strategy conference. In New York I had seen evidences of the use by Kennedy and his associates of a time-worn but highly effective campaign technique—the victory blitz. Kennedy and all of his associates were now talking in terms not just of victory but of a landslide. Lou Harris, his private pollster, was predicting a four-to-five million vote popular margin. Too many Republican leaders and campaign workers, on the other hand, were talking—probably with complete honesty but still with political naïveté—of a “close election.” Some evidence of defeatism (with suitable quotes) was creeping into the “dope stories” being written by leading columnists and editorialists. I asked Len Hall, Bob Finch, and our National Committee Headquarters under Thruston Morton's direction, to get the word out to the field to counteract Kennedy's tactics with an affirmative optimism campaign of our own. In fact, we were not just talking. Claude Robinson's polls still showed the race even, with no evidence whatever of Kennedy pulling away in key areas. Gallup and Roper were making the same forecasts: 50–50, take your pick. I recalled to my associates what Jim Farley had been saying at the Al Smith Dinner—that Kennedy was going to carry forty states. Farley as an experienced pro couldn't possibly have reached so ridiculous a conclusion; but he knew that in a close election, those who tend always to “play the winner” might determine the outcome, and he was doing his bit to see to it that everybody he could reach would think that Kennedy was a “sure thing.”

Despite our best efforts, however, we were unable to make much impression on the press and radio commentators who were now spearheading the blitz. In the two weeks before Election Day, the newspapers
and airwaves were full of predictions of everything from a close Kennedy victory to a Kennedy landslide. NBC's “Election Countdown,” on October 20, showed Kennedy having increased his lead during the three preceding weeks. “Three weeks ago,” said emcee Leon Pearson, “Kennedy was leading in states representing 180 [electoral votes] and now the figure is 326, according to our boys. Three weeks ago Nixon was leading in states representing 162, and now it is 105.” Again on October 27, Elmer Peterson, reporting on trends in the Western states, said, “The tendency has changed rather dramatically to Kennedy.” On Election Eve pollster Sam Lubell said: “Kennedy will win in an uneven sweep across the country.”

In the press, Rowland Evans' October 31 report in the New York
Herald Tribune
said, “Kennedy's private polls show an increasingly upward trend. Ohio, tipping toward the Senator at better than 52 to 48. California—moving his way.” The New York
Times
for October 24: “The reports based on a study of polls and interviews with voters in 50 states suggest that the Kennedy tide, if unchecked, would be enough to elect him.” On the same day, Joe Alsop reported “a surge toward the Democrats that may well be strong enough to produce a fairly dramatic vote on Election Day.” David Lawrence, commenting on a Gallup forecast of a possible 50 per cent shift in the Catholic vote from Eisenhower in '56 to Kennedy in '60, wrote on November 1 in his widely syndicated column: “This is such a sensational shift that, if corroborated by election returns, it could mean not only a landslide for Kennedy but possibly one of the largest popular vote totals ever given to a presidential candidate in American history.” James Reston didn't go quite that far—but in his November 2 column in the
Times
he entered the “sinking ship” note: “Eisenhower is engaged in a rescue operation but it is very late in the game to reverse the forces now moving with Senator Kennedy.”

The three mass-circulation news weeklies also followed the same general line.
U.S. News & World Report
predicted “Kennedy-Johnson, with electoral votes to spare.”
Newsweek
reported that “forty of the fifty Washington correspondents and political writers predict that Senator Kennedy would win, most by substantial margins. Only ten thought that Nixon would win, most by narrow margins.”
Newsweek
also predicted that Kennedy would carry 21 states with 278 electoral votes as against 159 for Nixon, with 100 electoral votes undecided—still enough to win—and Ernest K. Lindley said flatly: “Kennedy will be elected by a substantial margin.”
Time
saw a two-to-one Kennedy
margin in electoral votes and said “the likeliest forecasts seem to run from a close Nixon victory to a Kennedy electoral landslide.” I would say, incidentally, that at least fifteen million Americans read one of these three magazines every week—and usually swear by it as a political authority.

All these reports were brought to my attention. I did my best to counteract them, and I urged my campaign associates to do likewise, but we learned that political reporters often predict with their hearts rather than with their heads. Back in 1952, I recalled, the Washington correspondents covering the Eisenhower-Stevenson campaign had confidently predicted a Stevenson victory (4 out of 5 of them also declared their personal preference for Stevenson). I jokingly told my staff that Sunday afternoon that I knew how Harry Truman must have felt in 1948.

But, like Truman, I was not going to let the Kennedy bandwagon discourage me. I was tremendously buoyed up and encouraged by the enthusiasm of our campaign crowds. As our campaign train moved through Pennsylvania and Ohio during the week of October 23, I stepped up the attack on Kennedy's rash campaign statements and his inexperience:

You have the choice between two men—one who has had the opportunity of dealing with the problems of keeping the peace, and another man who, on occasion after occasion, has indicated that when the chips are down he would have made the mistake which could have led, in my opinion, either to war or to surrender of territory. Let me give you three examples.

In 1955 President Eisenhower had to meet the threat of Communism in the Formosa Straits. He asked for the right to defend that area. Senator Kennedy opposed this policy, he opposed it again in 1958, and he opposed it in our second and third debates. He was wrong. The President was right.

We find that he disagreed with the President in his conduct at the Paris Conference. Senator Kennedy said the President could have apologized to Khrushchev, he could have expressed regrets. The President was right; again Senator Kennedy was wrong.

More recently, in Cuba he says that our policy of quarantining Castro is too little and too late. He advocates a policy which was universally interpreted as intervention in the affairs of Cuba. Again he was wrong, and the President was right.

On all of these points, I recognize that Mr. Kennedy has said he has changed his mind. He now supports the President on Quemoy and Matsu. He has agreed that the President conducted himself properly at
the Paris Conference. As far as Cuba is concerned, he didn't really mean what he said.

I know from experience that when a President speaks, when a President makes a decision, it is for keeps. He doesn't get a second chance. He can't call a bullet back after he shoots from the hip. It goes to the target. In these critical times we cannot afford to have as President of the United States a man who does not think first before he speaks or acts.

•  •  •

I could feel the tide running our way. I have often been asked about this by newsmen—how does a candidate “feel” the trend of a campaign? It is hard to describe this emotion, except to say that it is not simply the size of the crowd or the applause that greets a speech but rather the spirit of the mass of people which, some way or other, conveys itself to the candidate.

When 20,000 people stood in a driving rain to hear me speak at midday in downtown Dayton, I knew that at least in Ohio the reports of our early demise were somewhat exaggerated.

When I reached Toledo, I made what I consider to be one of the most significant speeches of the campaign. I had long felt that we should resume our underground atomic testing program—the uncontrolled, uninspected moratorium was at this time two years old—but my views had not prevailed within the Administration. Consequently, I hit the issue head on and announced that if elected I would ask President Eisenhower to send Cabot Lodge at once to Geneva to prod the stalled test-ban negotiations—and, agreement or not, I would order the resumption of underground testing no later than February 1, 1961.
⁶

Our train moved triumphantly through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois during the week. Every stop we made, with each crowd far exceeding expectations, raised our hopes higher. The train trip had been so successful that we were sorry when it came to an end at Carbondale, Illinois, where we transferred again to an airplane for more prop-stopping.

Saturday, October 29, took us back to Chicago where we motorcaded through heavily Republican suburban territory in order to stimulate the big turnout we needed on Election Day. I finished the day in the Chicago area with a statewide telecast, after which I held a “background briefing” for the press corps traveling with us. They bombarded me with questions about the “Kennedy landslide.” I tried to
give an honest appraisal of my strength in each of the major states and said I felt that those who were writing in terms of a decisive Kennedy victory were being taken in by a political gimmick. I released the figures on some of Claude Robinson's confidential polls in California, Ohio, and other key states. All those who were present accurately reported that, far from being downhearted and pessimistic, I thought our campaign was going well and was confident about the outcome. But from the reports that Herb Klein gave me later, I realized that most of them—perhaps understandably—thought I was just whistling in the dark and therefore continued to write what was their actual belief—that it was going to be Kennedy, and probably by a big margin.

There was one incident during our week of whistle-stopping which, in retrospect, might have been avoided or at least better handled. Back on October 19—at the time of the Legion speeches in Miami when the Cuba issue fired up—the Reverend Martin Luther King, nationally respected leader and symbol of the anti-segregation forces, had been arrested, along with some fifty others, at an Atlanta restaurant sit-in. The rest were quickly released on bail but King was held and, on October 26, was given a “quick” four-month sentence based on a former charge of driving without a valid license. Robert Kennedy, realizing the tremendous political potential of King's misfortune, wasted no time in calling the judge in the case.

Herb Klein, in response to inquiries from the press, asked me what comment I had on Robert Kennedy's action. I told him: “I think Dr. King is getting a bum rap. But despite my strong feelings in this respect, it would be completely improper for me or any other lawyer to call the judge. And Robert Kennedy should have known better than to do so.”
⁷
Under the circumstances, Klein answered the press query by saying that I had “no comment” on the matter.

This incident was widely interpreted by Negro leaders both North and South as indicating that I did not care about justice in the King case. As a matter of fact, immediately after Klein brought the case to my attention, I took up the problem with Attorney General Bill Rogers, who by that time had joined our campaign train, and asked if this were not a case in which King's constitutional rights had been infringed—thus paving the way for Federal action. Rogers, in turn, strongly recommended that a statement be made by Hagerty from the White
House to the effect that the Justice Department had been instructed to look into this question. Had this recommendation been adopted, the whole incident might have resulted in a plus rather than a minus as far as I was concerned. But Rogers was unable to get approval from the White House for such a statement.

The ironic part of the whole incident is that well-informed Washington observers knew that I had been one of the most consistent and effective proponents of civil rights legislation in the Administration. I had made several key rulings in the Senate which were essential in getting such legislation to the floor for debate. As Chairman of the President's Committee on Government Contracts, I had helped develop an effective program, among companies with government contracts, which resulted in providing job and promotion opportunities for thousands of Negroes in Northern and Southern states alike. As far as Martin Luther King himself was concerned, I had met him in Ghana and respected him for his advocacy of non-violence in working for equal rights for his people. But this one unfortunate incident in the heat of a campaign served to dissipate much of the support I had among Negro voters because of my record.

Despite this episode, as I flew home to Washington from Illinois late Saturday night, I looked back on the past week with great satisfaction and with my morale and confidence as high as they had been since the start of the campaign. I was convinced that our campaign had received the lift it needed, and at just the right time. The Kennedy victory blitz which had bowled over so many press, radio, and television commentators, and even some of my own people, had been blunted. The Kennedy campaign had peaked in New York two and a half weeks before Election Day, roughly at the time of the fourth debate. Ours was now moving forward toward the high point which we hoped to reach on Election Day. And the big crowds that had just greeted our whistle-stopping were strong evidence that the tide was running our way. Some of the veteran Washington correspondents on our train, many of whom had gone out on a limb predicting a decisive Kennedy victory just a few days before, were beginning to have second thoughts.