Episode 24 Hour of Decision: JFK: Who was this man? Pt. 1 His crooked path to the White House

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Who was JFK? Amoral politician with no beliefs and a lot of enemies? A standard liberal Democrat? A Fabian socialist? A cold warrior and neoconservative type? A man of the Left who wanted to dismantle our cold war institutions? You can easily find at least one or more authors who advance one of these conclusions. We examine the contradictory currents running through his political life which have caused people with drastically different views to feel an affinity with him.

JFK’s father Joseph P. Kennedy was one of the wealthiest men in America. He had been an early funder of FDR, and planned to run for president in 1940. But FDR decided to run for a third term. Meanwhile Kennedy, the Ambassador to England as the European war was beginning, came out strongly against the idea of war with Hitler. In defying both FDR and Churchill, The senior Kennedy killed any future political ambitions he might have had and ended his public life.

Joseph Kennedy then planned to set up his son Joe, Jr in politics, but he died in the war. The mantle then fell on JFK. JFK returned from WWII and won election to the Congress in 1946. Family friend Sen. Joe McCarthy aided JFK’s 1952 senate victory by refusing to help his opponent.

JFK’s White House quest, driven by brother Bobby, featured moves to both the left and the right. They made deals with southern segregationists to gain convention delegates. JFK found support from Marxist United Auto Workers head Walter Reuther, and endorsed the Marxist revolution in Algeria against France, to bolster weak support on the left. JFK’s senate committee, responding to public outrage over union corruption, investigated the mob-connected Teamsters, but not the left-wing UAW, who was conducting a violence-filled strike against the Kohler company.

As the 1960 presidential campaign began Joseph Kennedy was spending unheard of amounts of money and JFK’s poll numbers steadily rose. The Catholic JFK won a convincing primary victory in W. Virginia, where 95% of voters were protestant, muting the religious question hovering over the campaign. However, JFK outspent his opponent 75 to 1 to do it, and may have used organized crime to “get out the vote.”

In 1960, 80% of national delegates who would determine the party nominee were selected by party regulars, sometimes in backrooms. The Kennedys’ national network and bottomless supply of cash gave their huge army of operatives many methods of persuasion. On the eve of the national convention, former president Harry Truman held a national press conference decrying the pressure being put on delegates by the JFK campaign.

The ruthless methods of JFK’s team were evident from coast to coast. JFK was loose with some facts in his televised debates with Richard Nixon while his charisma dominated these encounters. Both candidates supported internationalism and some expansion of the role of the federal government. JFK won by a razor-thin margin and Nixon refused to pursue allegations of voter fraud.