Report of the County Chairman (5 page)

“Don’t you wish it was as simple as that?” she asked on her way to bed.

I refused to dignify her doubt with an answer, but as I looked at my diagram I was assailed by an ugly fear and had my first premonition that John Kennedy might not win this election after all. Suppose that the Republican party had sense enough not to nominate Richard Nixon, who might not win, but Nelson Rockefeller, who most certainly could. What would be the situation then? With some apprehension I altered my diagram and studied its fateful signals:

Stevenson    Kennedy    Undecided    Rockefeller    Goldwater

How different the strategy was now. The extreme right would have no place to go, so they’d have to vote for Rockefeller. But what was important was that the Undecided could now slide into the Rockefeller camp with no embarrassment. And I was convinced that a large proportion of Stevensonians could leapfrog over Kennedy and join Rockefeller without insulting their common sense. “With all that support,” I said glumly, “Rocky can win!”

Very soberly I went to bed and told my wife, “I’ve just figured out that if Rockefeller runs against Kennedy, the Republicans will win. If I can see this, I’m sure the Republican bosses can see it, too. So they’ll nominate him. How do you think he’ll do?”

“I’d vote for him,” my wife said without hesitation, and I realized with dismay that so would each of the other ten Stevensonians who had been arguing with me that night.

During the primaries my personal work took me to Mexico, where I had the good luck to form an acquaintanceship with our ambassador, Robert C. Hill, a new type of State Department man with a most aggressive determination to see, to know and to appreciate all of his command. We spent a week together flying in a small plane to the most remote airfields, where Mexicans awaited us with mariachi bands, festivals and dinners. Ambassador Hill was an eye-opener, both to me and to the Mexicans, and he apparently accomplished a good deal for the United States, for wherever we went the crowds immediately recognized him, and favorably. They also asked him embarrassing
questions, which he tried to answer in stride, insofar as his orders from Washington would permit.

Apart from getting to know Mr. Hill, the most enjoyable part of the trip came when we were aloft, with only ourselves to worry about and with the forthcoming Presidential election to discuss. Ambassador Hill, naturally, was a Republican. In private life he had been a successful businessman and had been hand-picked by the administration, rather than by the State Department, for the critical Mexico job. He loved politics and was friendly to both Richard Nixon, whom he expected to see in the White House, and to Lyndon Johnson, who was a political hero of his. Robert Hill was never afraid to say what he thought, and we had some vigorous debates.

His entourage on this particular trip was also mainly Republican, which was proper, since he served under a Republican administration, but he did have along with him a hilarious press officer from the Midwest, and this delightful man was an ardent supporter of Hubert Humphrey. I was the other Democrat aboard and the first John Kennedy man that any of the group had met in person. I remember the astonishment that greeted my announcement that Kennedy was going to be our next President.

“He really believes it!” the ambassador’s group joked.

We were en route to one of the bleakest areas of Mexico, Santa Margarita Island, off the western coast of Baja California Sur, when the reports of the Wisconsin primary were due. I insisted that Kennedy would defeat Humphrey roundly, and remember taking some bets to that effect. The general consensus was that he would merely
squeak through, and I fear that no one in the plane except me thought that whether he won or not he had much chance of either the nomination in July or victory in November.

We had flown on to La Paz, the capital of the great arid state of Baja California Sur, when the radio announced the Wisconsin results. I remember being somewhat stunned, for although Kennedy had won, his margin of victory was much less than I had been predicting. Wisconsin seemed to be a setback, even though Kennedy had contested a primary in another man’s backyard. Ambassador Hill and his team had a good deal of fun at my expense, and as on the night I had drawn the diagram showing that Rockefeller could win, I began to wonder if Kennedy had the invincibility that I had accorded him. Then came West Virginia.

I will always think of that West Virginia primary with special affection, for not only did it seal my candidate’s chances for the nomination, not only did it exorcise the ghost of Al Smith and the anti-Catholicism he suffered, but it also came when I was far from home and engaged in some of the best political debate I have known. I was in Guatemala with a group of American military personnel who loved politics and who were extraordinarily adept in piecing together data and making deductions therefrom.

Day after day we gathered to discuss the impending conventions, and at each meeting one or another of us would have some special information gleaned in some special way. Adlai Stevenson had lately been through the area and he had said thus. Lyndon Johnson had been
visiting Ambassador Hill and he had reported so. Ambassadors from other countries had been of this opinion. An admiral who had flown in from Washington had spent some hours with Nixon, and he offered new data. I doubt if there could have been many places, in those exciting weeks, where the political fortunes of the United States were more vividly and intimately discussed than in Guatemala.

And all we heard or knew confirmed our belief that the West Virginia primary was going to be the critical test. Those who knew the South were convinced that West Virginia’s natural anti-Catholic animus would defeat Kennedy. Those who knew Hubert Humphrey were satisfied that he had picked for his maximum effort the one state which was most likely to yield him victory. Finally a group of us gathered one night in Guatemala City to argue politics only, in an orderly way and with each man citing his sources, for a period of about four hours.

The conservative and Republican side was defended by a brilliant naval captain, Jacob Heimark. The shrewd middle-of-the-road position was expressed by the cleverest man of the group, the naval aviator and certificated lawyer, John Meisenheimer. The liberal position was defended by me, while two or three army officers stood by to subject anything said to rigorous analysis. In the exciting months that were to follow I often found myself wishing that I could reconvene that brilliant group of men, who though far from America were yet so conversant with American problems.

As the evening wore on, circumstances required each man to put up or shut up, for clarity demanded that each
say exactly what he thought was going to happen. I shall not report what voting preferences Captain Heimark and Lieutenant Meisenheimer expressed, for our meeting did have a kind of confidential nature about it, since we were being brutally frank in our expressions, but I can recall my own avowed position on the eve of the West Virginia primary.

Even though our meeting was held during the days when American newspapers were reporting the likelihood of a 60-40 vote in favor of Humphrey, I argued that Kennedy would win the West Virginia primary by not less than 54 percent of the total vote. My contention was so surprising that two members of the group forced me to bet money on my belief, and after I had done so they asked, “How can you possibly believe that Kennedy will win?”

I remember stopping and trying to reconstruct the reasons why I was so sure that the Massachusetts senator would win, and I recall saying, “I think so because to think any other way would be to admit defeat. And Jack Kennedy is not going to lose either the nomination or the election.”

“You call that logical thinking?” Captain Heimark pressed.

“I’m not even sure it should be called thinking, logical or not,” I replied. Then gradually the basis for my irrational position became clear to me and I said, “What I mean is this. I’m perfectly willing to agree that the people of West Virginia are bigoted, but I’ve worked in that state and I know they are not damned fools. In this primary they have no real option. It’s Kennedy against Mister
Nobody, and Kennedy has got to win because the people of West Virginia will not throw away their votes on a man like Senator Humphrey, who has no real chance.”

“But if Kennedy were running against Lyndon Johnson in this primary, who would win?” Captain Heimark probed.

For the first time in the primaries I said something that was slowly penetrating my consciousness: “Captain, if either Lyndon Johnson or Adlai Stevenson were contesting the West Virginia primary, they would probably win, and Jack Kennedy would have no chance for the 1960 nomination. But neither of these men had the guts to contest it, so Kennedy’s going to win, and he’ll go on to win the nomination, too.”

Captain Heimark asked, “And you really think your man will win by 54 percent of the votes cast tomorrow?”

“I suspect he’ll win by much more,” I said. “But I’m positive he’ll win by at least 54 percent.” When the votes were counted he had won by 60 percent, and any substantial chance of stopping him in Los Angeles had vanished, although as you will see shortly, I didn’t recognize this latter fact at the time.

My next two guesses that night in Guatemala were not so good. As to the Republican nomination, I was forced by the debaters into betting that Nelson Rockefeller would be the choice. When pressed for my reasons I said, “It’s perfectly obvious to me that President Eisenhower doesn’t want Richard Nixon. You know that, so I must suspect that the general electorate knows it, too. I know that the professionals in the party turned Rockefeller down last Christmas, and I know they don’t want him now.
But they’re not going to commit suicide and turn down a sure winner. Watch! At Chicago they’ll swallow their pride and nominate Rocky.”

Lieutenant Meisenheimer would have none of this. He argued, “I think it was Boise Penrose of Pennsylvania who said, ‘If a real politician ever faces a choice between losing control of his party or losing a specific election, he never hesitates a moment. He’ll throw away the election and keep the party.’ The professionals will never accept Rockefeller, because he smells too much like Wendell Willkie. I’ve known some real Republicans who truly hated Roosevelt, but they hated Willkie a lot more, because all Roosevelt did was win elections, whereas Willkie won control of the party.”

I countered by pointing out that friends had told me the same thing about the professionals in 1952: “They’ll never turn down Taft and take Eisenhower.” I pointed out that in the end they had been forced to do just that.

Lieutenant Meisenheimer replied, “But General Eisenhower was in every respect a special case. Besides, Taft couldn’t have won. Nixon can.”

My third prediction was that if Rockefeller did not win the nomination he would certainly accept the Vice Presidency. Again Lieutenant Meisenheimer challenged me with the single most incisive comment I was to hear during the nominating period. As I recall the course of his argument he reasoned, “We must assume that the differences between Nixon and Rockefeller are real. And these differences, being intellectual, constitute irreconcilable elements. Now either Rockefeller is an adventurer or he is not. If he is an adventurer, he’ll accept the Vice
Presidency, but I’m convinced he’s not an adventurer, so as an honest man he will have to reject compromise. The reason I think he’s an honest man is that the reports of the Rockefeller brothers practically constitute a platform for the Democratic party, and he is either going to have to rescind every one of those reports, or he is going to have to stand on them. He’ll do the latter, I’m quite sure, and if he does that he cannot possibly at the same time accept second place on any team running on the Republican platform. So you can forget Rockefeller as Nixon’s Vice President. He cannot possibly accept such a position, not because of vanity but because he is a logical and an honest man.

“Furthermore,” Lieutenant Meisenheimer continued, “if Nixon wins in November he’ll certainly run again in 1964 and will probably win then, too. In this century the only incumbents to lose at the end of one term were Taft, because Teddy Roosevelt led a splinter party, and Hoover, who got caught in a depression. In 1968 Vice President Rockefeller would be too old to run. Moreover, if he were the Vice President to Richard Nixon’s President, he’d find the job unrewarding and stifling, because Nixon’s view of the Presidency would surely be much different from Eisenhower’s. I doubt that Nixon would permit his Vice President to wind up in 1968 as the inevitable choice for the nomination.

“And finally,” Meisenheimer argued, “Rockefeller would not have issued those reports unless he was pretty sure that Nixon would lose in 1960. He knows that Nixon is doomed. His logical game is to sit aside, watch the debacle, and offer himself to the party in 1964.”

When Lieutenant Meisenheimer was making these remarks I did not recognize their pertinence, for I responded, “You overlook one thing, John. Nixon running with Rockefeller might possibly win the election. Nixon without will surely lose. Now if the old professionals know that their side lost simply because Rockefeller refused to lend a hand, he will be forever dead in the Republican party. You claim that if he sits to one side and watches Nixon lose, he can then offer himself as an alternative in 1964. If he contributes to the loss of this election every professional will work to destroy him in 1964.”