Lyndon B Johnson - 1960 - LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: the epic campaign that forged three presidencies

1960

LBJ VS. JFK VS. NIXON

The Epic Campaign That
Forged Three Presidencies

David Pietrusza

New York / London
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
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2008 by David Pietrusza
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Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-6114-0

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To
Harry Price and Catherine Newbold,
two of my finest teachers of the art of history

Requiescant in pacem et lux perpetua luceat eis.

J OSEPH A LSOP Fifty-year-old syndicated columnist. Brother of Stewart Alsop. Blue-blooded establishment Republican. JFKs neighbor and enthusiastic supporter.

B OBBY B AKER Little Lyndon. Secretary of the U.S. Senate. Lyndon Johnsons thirty-two-year-old South Carolinaborn right-hand man.

C HESTER B OWLES Fifty-nine-year-old liberal Connecticut congressman. JFKs naively idealistic foreign adviser.

B EN B RADLEE Boston Brahmin. Salty thirty-nine-year-old Harvard-educated Newsweek correspondent. JFKs Georgetown neighbor, companion, and confidant. Little by little, Bradlee would say, it was accepted by the rest of Newsweek... that Kennedy was mine.

E DMUND G. P AT B ROWN Californias Democratic governor. JFKs erstwhile but unreliable ally in his quest for the nomination. In Bobby Kennedys judgment the fifty-five-year-old Brown remains a leaning tower of putty.

M URRAY M. C HOTINER Veteran Nixon campaign hatchet man. Skewered by RFK in congressional hearings, Chotiner is now shunted aside by the new Nixon.

C LARK C LIFFORD Fifty-five-year-old former Truman White House counsel and campaign aide. Washington power broker. Symington campaign adviser. Kennedy family lawyer.

J OHN B. C ONNALLY LBJs tough, charismatic, and capable forty-three-year-old campaign manager. Big Jawn, observes LBJ, could leave more dead bodies in the field with less remorse than any politician I ever knew.

P ROFESSOR A RCHIBALD C OX Thirty-eight-year-old Harvard law professor. Head of JFKs academic speechwriting team. Cox crafts late-campaign statements regarding Cuba that will infuriate Nixon.

R ICHARD C ARDINAL C USHING Bostons very political, very pro-Kennedy sixty-five-year-old Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston. Ill tell you who elected John Kennedy, Cushing boasts. It was his father, Joe, and me, right here in this room...

M AYOR R ICHARD J. D ALEY JFKs faithfuland invaluableChicago ally. With a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, the fifty-eight-year-old Daley assures JFK on election night, youre going to carry Illinois.

S AMMY D AVIS J R .Frank Sinatras black Rat Pack buddy. I... would do all in my power to help [JFK], says the thirty-four-year-old Davis, even if I were called upon to make a great personal sacrifice. Even if it means deferring his marriage to a white woman until after JFKs election.

D WIGHT D. E ISENHOWER Supreme commander of Allied troops at Normandy. Liberator of Europe. Two-term, two-heart-attack, seventy-year-old president of the United Statesand exceedingly reluctant supporter of Richard Nixon to succeed him. Goddammit, Ike finally explodes, he looks like a loser to me!

J OHN D. E HRLICHMAN Thirty-five-year-old Seattle attorney. Recruited by his UCLA classmate and fellow Christian Scientist Bob Haldeman to work as a Nixon advance manwith a specialty of spying on the Rockefeller and Kennedy camps. Campaigning, Ehrlichman gleefully explains, was like running away to the circus.

J UDITH C AMPBELL (E XNER )Ravishing twenty-six-year-old Hollywood divorce andthanks to Frank SinatraJFKs latest mistress. Do you think you could love me? JFK coos. Im afraid I could, she whispers back.

R OBERT H. F INCH Thirty-five-year-old California attorney. Nixons ablest campaign aide.

J OHN K ENNETH G ALBRAITH Fifty-two-year-old best-selling Harvard economist. Erstwhile Stevensonian. JFK speechwriter and convention floor manager.

S AM M OMO G IANCANA An unusually thuggish Chicago mobster, even by Chicago standards. In RFKs words the fifty-two-year-old chief gunman for the group that succeeded the Capone mob. Judith Exner is Momos mistress. Jack Kennedy is Momos candidate.

B ARRY M. G OLDWATER Fifty-one-year-old U.S. senator from Arizona. Tough-talking right-wing GOP standard-bearer. Author of 1960s best-selling The Conscience of a Conservative. Increasingly frustrated with the Eisenhower-Nixon brand of me-too Republicanism, Goldwater nonetheless lectures conservatives to grow up and support Nixon.

P HILIP G RAHAM Forty-five-year-old Washington Post publisher. Influential LBJ backer.

H. R. B OB H ALDEMAN Rising star in the Nixon campaign apparatus. Brutally tough thirty-six-year-old brush-cut J. Walter Thompson advertising executive. Richard Nixons chief advance man. The Haldeman-Nixon relationship, says one observer, is darkness reaching for darkness.

L EONARD W. H ALL Former Republican national chairman and Richard Nixons longtime champion and advocate. Perhaps the GOPs savviest political operative. In 1960, Nixon repays the sixty-year-old Hall by largely ignoring his counsel.

L OU H ARRIS JFKs thirty-nine-year-old house campaign pollster. His off-kilter predictions in Wisconsin and West Virginia jeopardize the Kennedy effort.

D ON H EWITT Thirty-seven-year-old CBS News producerin charge of the crucial first installment of 1960s great debates.

J IMMY H OFFA Forty-seven-year-old corrupt Teamsters union boss. Sworn enemy of the Kennedy brothersparticularly Bobby. As Mr. Hoffa operates [the Teamsters], RFK writes, this is a conspiracy of evil.

J. E DGAR H OOVER Longtime FBI director. Keeper of the secrets. The sixty-five-year-old Hoover knows all about JFKs fling with a suspected Nazi spyand JFK knows he knows.

H OWARD H UGHES Americas singularly most bizarre and reclusive billionaire. Kennedy operatives will expose the fifty-four-year-old Hughess suspicious loan to Richard Nixons older brother Donaldin an October surprise designed to derail Nixons chances.

H UBERT H. H UMPHREY Fifty-one-year-old U.S. senator from Minnesota. Passionately ebullient liberal. Pioneer civil rights advocate. JFKs financially outgunned opponent in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries. I feel, Humphrey complains, like an independent merchant competing against a chain store.