if the nuclear threat did not deter the Pathet Lao
or the Vietminh, while supplies continued to reach
them from China and the Soviet Union? What if,
despite US aid, the anti-communist groups were
too weak to resist effectively? That dilemma
Eisenhower bequeathed to his successors.
In November 1960 the Democratic senator from
Massachusetts won the US presidential election,
defeating the Republican contender Vice-
President Richard Nixon by the narrowest of
margins. Despite fourteen years in Congress,
John F. Kennedy had no detailed grasp of the
international situation, only general attitudes to
world problems: the futility of European colo-
nialism, the need to stand up to communism and
to the Soviet Union, the attractions of issuing a
call to the American people to inspire them for
the noble mission of leading the free world.
Kennedy’s electoral theme, that if elected he
would get America moving again, was clothed in
stirring rhetoric reminiscent of Roosevelt’s early
New Deal days. His own theme was the ‘New
Frontier’. But detail and concrete undertakings
on the serious issues facing the US, especially at
home, were lacking. That such vagueness over-
took the presidential campaign was hardly surpris-
ing if Kennedy was to have any chance of beating
Nixon. Issues of civil rights and social reform did
not divide Republicans from Democrats, but cut
across party lines. Those Republicans who sup-
ported civil rights voted in significant numbers
for the Democratic ticket; the majority of the
white Democrats in the Southern states, on
the other hand, would not all support Kennedy.
But many Southern Democrats regarded the
vice-presidential candidate, the Texan Lyndon
Johnson, as a conservative, and this helped
Kennedy to retain the Southern Democratic vote
in eight crucial states, including Texas. The
margins were narrow; indeed, without Texas and
Illinois, where the legendary political boss Mayor
Richard Daley of Chicago was able to marshal the
multi-ethnic vote – black, Polish and German –
Kennedy would have lost.
The Democrats had to court the votes of
minorities: African Americans, Jews and the dis-
advantaged of all ethnic origins. Kennedy also had
to overcome the widespread prejudice against a
Catholic president. So there was not one con-
stituency of Democratic voters, but many separ-
ate groups. Apart from seeking to awaken in the
country an appetite for progress after the mild
recession and the Eisenhower years of slow
reform, Kennedy turned to the political safety and
easy appeal of outdoing Eisenhower and Nixon as
guardian of the free world. He attacked their
record over Cuba; he would be tougher. And he
discovered an issue that threw the Republicans on
to the defensive, the supposed ‘missile gap’
between the Russians and the Americans. That
the notion of such a gap, greatly boosted by
Khrushchev’s boasts, turned out to be a myth, in
no way lessened its potency in 1960. In the
famous television debates watched by some 70
million Americans, Nixon and Kennedy con-
fronted each other. Kennedy looked fresh and
youthful, Nixon sardonic, cynical, even shifty, his
dark jowl insufficiently concealed by make-up.
Nixon attempted to contrast his own long exper-
ience in government with Kennedy’s inexperi-
ence, but his defence of the Eisenhower record
did not sound very inspiring and Kennedy edged
ahead to victory.
Kennedy personified in looks and vigour the
youthful drive of a new generation, and he and his
wife Jacqueline brought a new eloquence and
easy-going manners to Washington. The handi-
caps arising out of the injury to his back sustained
when the torpedo boat he commanded was sunk
in the Second World War were played down. He
needed constant painkilling injections and daily
doses of cortisone to restore him to something
approaching normal health, although he contin-
ued to suffer from the progressive anaemia of
Addison’s disease. He pursued pleasure (especially
in the form of attractive young women) but also
applied himself to the demands of the presidency;
with his unquestionable charm and glamour win-
ning the loyalty of his close advisers in the White
House. The Washington press was also largely on
his side. This was just as well, because Kennedy
wanted his infidelities hushed up.
Middle America before the permissiveness
endemic later in the 1960s, would have been
shocked by Kennedy’s insatiable appetite for new