NIXON: The question was whether he was pushing to get information or pushing to get information from bugging.
HALDEMAN: This here is very specific. He was on that particular—
NIXON: Venture.
HALDEMAN:—and the other one, I guess, on Teddy.
NIXON: You mean the tail on him and that sort of thing?
HALDEMAN: Apparently they tried—1 don’t know the details. They tried or did bug him, too, in his operation or something. But the tail was something else.
NIXON: I see.
1. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon both served as junior navy officers during World War II. When Kennedy’s PT boat was rammed in the Solomon Islands, supply officer Nixon was operating “Nick’s Canteen” a hundred miles away. Kennedy returned a war hero, Nixon with a $10,000 kitty, much of it won at poker. Both were elected to Congress on the basis of their war records. Kennedy aide Billy Sutton would say years later that “World War II was their greatest campaign manager.”
2.
3. Both Kennedy and Nixon lost their political virginity in 1946. Kennedy’s father tried bribing one rival out of the race and reduced another’s vote by paying a man of the same name to file for the same office. Nixon tied his liberal rival to the left-leaning CIO-PAC despite the Democrat’s open criticism of postwar strikes and Soviet aggression in Europe.
4. Dick Nixon and Jack Kennedy join for a group photo with other freshman congressmen in 1947. Nixon would compare the two to a “pair of unmatched bookends.” Their mutual friend, George Smathers of Florida, is standing to Kennedy’s right. The three shared an intramural competition to see who would be the first man promoted to the Senate.
5.
6. The first debate. Pennsylvania Congressman Frank Buchanan was asked in April 1947 to invite the rising stars from each political party for an evening face-off in McKeesport. Before heading back to Washington on the midnight Capital Limited, the two had a late supper at a railside diner. One witness described the pair as “young fellows you would like,” who showed a “genuine friendliness” toward each other.
7. July 1952. “Dear Dick: I was tremendously pleased that the Convention selected you for V.P. I was always convinced that you would move ahead to the top—but I never thought it would come this quickly. You were an ideal selection and will bring to the ticket a great deal of strength. Please give my best to your wife and all kinds of good luck to you. Cordially, Jack Kennedy.”
8.
9. Though invited to attend the “wedding of the year,” Nixon accepted President Eisenhower’s once-in-a-vice-presidency offer for a weekend of golf in Denver.
10. “Don’t get mad; get even.” As chief counsel to the Senate Government Operations Committee, Robert Kennedy opened a 1956 investigation of Nixon aide Murray Chotiner. As attorney general five years later, he began a quiet probe of the $205,000 loan by Howard Hughes to Nixon’s brother.
11. Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy chatting with the vice president after an accidental rendezvous at Chicago’s airport in June 1959. Kennedy is holding Allen Drury’s hot new political novel Advise and Consent. Jacqueline would recall the friendly encounter at a private 1971 White House dinner with then-President Nixon.
12. Jack Kennedy, in Room 362 of the Senate Office Building, asked the vice president, across the hall in Room 361, to write something on this Washington Post cartoon showing each of the two 1960 hopefuls keeping a watchful eye on the other man. It came back with: “To my friend and neighbor Jack Kennedy with best wishes for almost everything! Sincerely, Dick Nixon.”
13. The Great Debate. The two candidates stand for picture- taking prior to the first debate of the 1960 campaign. Before Kennedy’s arrival, Nixon was the star. Confronted by his rival’s stunning appearance, the Republican vice president seemed physically overwhelmed. “He looked like a young Adonis,” CBS director Don Hewitt recalled.
14. Jack Kennedy passes the final moments in a New York studio before the third presidential debate; Richard Nixon has taken his seat in Los Angeles. The only encounter in which the two candidates spoke from different locations, it was also the only debate that Richard Nixon clearly won.
15. On January 6, Nixon performed a ritual duty of the Senate’s constitutional president. He stood at the rostrum of the House of Representatives for the official balloting of the Electoral College. The roll call completed, the count stood 303 for Kennedy, 219 for Nixon, 15 for Virginia senator Harry Byrd. After announcing the results, Nixon said: “This is the first time in a hundred years that a candidate for the presidency announced the results of an election in which he was defeated. I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system.”
16. The Monday after election day, Nixon received Kennedy in Key Biscayne. “It was the difference between night and day,” said Nixon press secretary Herb Klein as he recalled the euphoria that swept over his defeated boss when he heard that Kennedy wanted to meet him.
17. Nixon watches as Kennedy takes the oath of office. Nixon loved the cold war rhetoric of the new president’s inaugural address. He also believed “until the day he died” that the election had been stolen from him.
18. “I just saw a crushed man today.” Nixon consoles Kennedy on the failure of the 1961 Cuban invasion. The president tells his guest how California governor Pat Brown is worried about Nixon running against him in 1962. It was a rare reprise of their long-ago cordiality amid the bitterness born of the 1960 election. Nixon spent the rest of the day asking political allies to stand behind Kennedy.
19. On the eve of his 1969 inauguration, Richard Nixon is reminded by an Oliphant cartoon that he is not the only politician awaiting his turn in the Oval Office.
20. Senator Robert Dole offers his emotional tribute at the Nixon grave site in 1994. The two met in 1964 when the former vice president campaigned through Kansas. He shared Nixon’s “cloth coat” Republican roots and resentment toward the liberal elite.
21. The Watergate and the Kennedy Center sitting beside each other along the Potomac River—like unmatched bookends.
PICTURE CREDITS
1 Whittier College
2 John F. Kennedy Library
3 Joel Yale, Life Magazine © Time Inc.
4 George Lacks, Life Magazine © Time Inc.
5 Richard Nixon Library
6 John F. Kennedy Library
7 Courtesy of Richard Nixon Library
8 The Bettmann Archive
9 Eisenhower Library
10 John F. Kennedy Library
11 John F. Kennedy Library
12 The FORBES Magazine Collection, New York
13 The Bettmann Archive
14 © 1960 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
15 Walter Bennett/Time Magazine
16 Richard Nixon Library
17 John F. Kennedy Library
18 Associated Press
19 © Pat Oliphant—courtesy Susan Conway Gallery, Washington D.C. Originally published by Los Angeles Times Syndicate, January 1969.
20 White House photo
21 Kathleen Matthews
ALSO BY CHRIS MATTHEWS
American
Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think
Hardball
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
NOTES
STUDENTS
As a seventeen-year-old senior: the account of the “Muckers” club is drawn primarily from Nigel Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth (New York: Random House, 1992), pp. 122-32.
From his first run for Congress: the case that Jack Kennedy was primarily loyal to the “Kennedy party” is made by Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., Man of the House (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 76.
Arriving at California’s Whittier College: the account of the “Or-thogonians” is drawn primarily from Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 59-64.
“tuxedo boys”: Robert Farnham Oral History
, California State University, Fullerton, p. 18.
CHAPTER 1: WORLD WAR II WAS THEIR GREATEST CAMPAIGN MANAGER
“Operation Titanic”: account of Kennedy covering San Francisco conference drawn primarily from Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, p. 694
“I give him about two more minutes”: Paul B. Fay, Jr., int.
“That’s pretty much the way it was”: Charles Spalding int.
“Americans can now see”: Hearst Newspapers, May 4, 1945.
The Hearst reporter: Herbert S. Parmet, Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (New York: Dial Press, 1980), p. 131.
“He had this attractive gal”: Fay int.
his father had persuaded: Joseph Kennedy used former Boston police chief Joseph Timulty as his go-between, Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, p. 674.
The archdiocese of Boston got a check for $600,000: Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 720.
The $10,000 gift to the Guild of Appolonia: Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, p. 686.
Sgt. Billy Sutton was the first aboard: Billy Sutton int.; account of ’46 Kennedy campaign primarily drawn from Parmet, Jack, and Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth.
He had missed the deadline for filing his petitions: account of Kennedy’s after-hours entry of statehouse in Paul B. Fay, Jr., The Pleasure of His Company (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 147.
Instead of becoming angry at Russo: former police chief Timulty approached the second Russo with the offer. Boston Magazine, June 1993.
“Joe Kennedy called my dad”: Robert Neville int.
For the last sixty days: O’Neill, Man of the House, p. 76.
“The Kennedy strategy was to buy you out or blast you out”: Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, p. 755.
A fellow worked for the party: history of “snow button,” Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., int.
“I couldn’t believe this skinny, pasty-faced kid”: O’Neill, Man of the House, p. 73.
“He wasn’t looking healthy then”: Sutton int.
“a skeleton”: Mark Dalton int.
“If you agreed to invite a few friends”: O’Neill, Man of the House, P. 77.
“Kennedy buttons”: Thomas Reeves, A Question of Character (New York: Free Press, 1991), pp. 81-82.
“I do seem to be the only one here”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys—An American Drama (New York: Summit Books, 1984), p. 153.
“I would like to drink a toast to the brother who isn’t here”: Dalton int.
a pickpocket had gotten to his wallet: Jonathan Aitken, Nixon: A Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993), p. 112.
“an aggressive, vigorous campaign”: Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon, p. 118; Ambrose book served as primary source on Nixon ’46 race.
Too excited to go back to sleep: Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, The Untold Story (New York: Zebra Books, 1986), p. 122.
“I say to you in all sincerity”: Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes (New York: New American Library, 1969), p. 82.
“Now that the Political Action Committee”: Ambrose, Nixon, p. 129.
“I believe the Communists are in substantial control of CIO”: Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1990), p. 293. Account of “PAC” issue in ’46 campaign drawn primarily from Morris.
“This is a friend of yours”: Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon, p. 332.
“Mr. Roosevelt has contributed to the end of capitalism”: John F. Kennedy, Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy—Summer, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1995), p. 10.
“I told them”: Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, pp. 787-88.
“Son of Kennedy Congress Winner”: Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1946.
CHAPTER 2: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
He and Pat drove cross-country: Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon, p. 339.
a U.S. border guard insisted: Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, p. 133.
“same lost feeling”: Ambrose, Nixon, p. 143.
Billy Sutton: Billy Sutton, Oral History, John F. Kennedy Library; account of Kennedy’s behavior the morning of swearing in comes from Sutton.
“there was this fellow over in the corner”: Sutton int.; account of first Kennedy-Nixon meeting comes from Sutton.
“By one of those curious coincidences of history”: Richard M. Nixon, RN—The Memories of Richard Nixon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 42.
Back in Washington: Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 146-47.
One was the young State Department whiz kid: Allen Weinstein, Perjury—The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), PP. 7–8.
The day after Truman spoke: Parmet, Jack, pp. 176-78.
“I was elected to smash the labor bosses”: Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon, p. 343.
“fighting conservative”: Hamilton, JFK Reckless Youth, p. 773.
“John wanted to know”: Dalton int.
“Listen to this fellow”: Dalton int.
“The public was satisfied with labor laws”: McKeesport Daily News, April 25, 1947.
the jeers from the labor seats grew so bellicose: McKeesport Daily News, April 17, 1947.
“The way some of those provisions read”: McKeesport Daily News, April 25, 1947.
“Kennedy was smooth and genteel”: McKeesport Daily News, July 21, 1960.
Nixon was “going to go places”: McKeesport Daily News, July 21, 1960.
“It was hard to tell who had come from the wealthy family”: McKeesport Daily News, July 21, 1960.
“young fellows whom you could like”: McKeesport Daily News, July 21, 1960.
“genuine friendliness”: Eric F. Goldman, Saturday Review, October 16, 1976, pp. 12-13.
Bernard Baruch had just christened the “cold war”: William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932–1972 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), p. 436.
Jack Kennedy went Red hunting: account comes from Parmet, Jack, pp. 178-82.
“I think his whole life ambition in foreign policy started”: Herb Klein int.
his Massachusetts friend: Aitken, Nixon, p. 136.
CHAPTER 3: WHILE KENNEDY SLEPT
“one of a row of identical duplexes”: Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, p. 134.
“Thinking about girls is what kept Jack alive”: Sutton int.
“Emaciated”: George Smathers int.
“You’ll just have to work a little harder”: Parmet, Jack, p. 166.
“I’m coming to your district”: Smathers int.
“Nixon was always supplying us with the red meat”: George Reedy int.
“Mr. Nixon was always a restless soul”: Bill Arnold, Back When It All Began: The Early Nixon Years (New York: Vantage Press, 1975), p. 21.
On August 3, 1948: account of Hiss case drawn from Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 169-72, and Allen Weinstein, Perjury, pp. 5–7.
“I understand yours was Whittier”: Aitken, Nixon, p. 165.
“Nixon had a transcript of the Hiss testimony”: Reedy int.
“If the American people understood the real character of Alger Hiss”: Whittaker Chambers, Witness, as quoted in Time, August 25, 1952.
“None of us wanted him to be guilty”: Reedy int.
“I’m going to debate Norman Thomas”: Dalton int.
“I’m going to dig into this thing”: Timothy J. “Ted” Reardon int.
CHAPTER 4: THE CASTLE OR THE OUTJTHOUSE!
Quietly, he sought the advance backing of the Los Angeles Times: Ambrose, Nixon, p. 199.
the California congressman called for the appointment of a “special prosecutor”: Ambrose, Nixon, p. 201.
“The responsibility for the failure of our foreign policy”: Congressional Record, January 29, 1949.
secret lover of that rising Texas star Sen. Lyndon Johnson: Joseph A. Califano, Jr., The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 337.
“cheap gimmick”: Ambrose, Nixon, p. 209.
“Do me a favor”: Smathers int.
“I will never forget the feeling of revulsion”: Claude Pepper int.
One day that summer: Arnold, Back When It All Began, p. 14. O’Neill, Man of the House, p. 81. A March 3, 1960, note from Rose Mary Woods to Vice President Nixon confirms Kennedy’s visit and campaign contribution, also Nixon’s “flabbergasted” reaction.
In an internal White House directive: report by Secretaries of State and Defense—April 12, 1950.
Nixon’s own campaign: Ron Walker int.
A student at the University of California at Santa Barbara named Richard Tuck: Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1990.
“Why, I’ll castrate her”: Arnold, Back When It All Began, p. 13.
Just before the election: account of Nixon-Warren episode drawn from Ambrose, Nixon, p. 219.
One Democrat remained in Dick Nixon’s corner: John P. Mallan, “Massachusetts: Liberal and Corrupt,” New Republic, October 13, 1952, pp. 10-11.
Kennedy repeated the judgment: Fay int.
To give California’s: Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 237-38; Nixon’s own dramatic account of episode can be found in Robert Sam Anson, Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 219.
The Wisconsin senator “may have something”: Mallan, New Republic, October 13, 1952, pp. 10-11.
In February 1952: Parmet, Jack, p. 245.
“The political point of the Kennedy speech”: Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette, August 21, 1950.
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