This Week in Texas History
by BARTEE HAILE
In an Oct. 20, 1960 letter marked “personal and confidential,” a worried Lyndon Johnson wrote to John Connally, “We must not win the nation and lose Texas.”
The worst kept Washington secret in the winter of 1960 was LBJ’s covert candidacy. While senators John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Stuart Symington beat the bushes for delegates, the majority leader sought to sew up the Democratic nomination by lobbying trusted colleagues.
Contemptuous of the primary process, Johnson put his faith in party bosses deeply in his debt. Their promise to present him with gift-wrapped state delegations at the summer convention was all the Texan thought he needed to nail down the top spot on the ticket.
Lyndon was also blinded by his low opinion of the front-runner. He dismissed 42-year-old Jack Kennedy as a political lightweight, a spoiled rich kid who never took his senate responsibilities seriously. And history had shown that a Roman Catholic did not have a snowball’s chance in a countrywide contest.
In March, Johnson approached Massachusetts congressman Tip O’Neill. “You and I both know Jack can’t win. Will you be with me on the second ballot?” The future speaker’s forecast of a first-round victory by his home-state cohort confounded the Texan.
Later that month, LBJ’s chief strategist disowned his premature prediction that Kennedy could not capture the nomination in the primaries. In a secret memo he advocated an all-out attack that targeted the alleged attempt by wealthy Joseph Kennedy to buy the presidency for his son. “Americans would bitterly resent the concept that the White House is a plaything to be handed out as a Christmas present.”
Lyndon shelved the suggestion in the belief that Humphrey would clean the upstart’s clock in Wisconsin on Apr. 5 and again five weeks later in West Virginia, where nine out of ten Democrats were Protestant. But JFK beat the Minnesotan in his own backyard and knocked him out of the race with a decisive drubbing in the Mountain State.
After Humphrey’s humiliation, Johnson went on the offensive minimizing the importance of his rival’s impressive primary performance and skillfully playing the religion card. “None of the big city leaders in New York, New Jersey or Illinois want Kennedy,” he told columnist Drew Pearson. “Most of them are Catholics, and they don’t want a Catholic heading the ticket.”
The Scripps-Howard newspaper chain endorsed the undeclared candidate in June. That announcement was followed by a confident claim from Speaker Sam Rayburn that 500 delegates were committed to his fellow Texan. Soon after full-page ads appeared in major newspapers begging LBJ to run, a reporter asked what had brought him to Iowa. “I certainly didn’t travel out here just to look for botanical specimens” was the sly reply.
John Connally questioned Kennedy’s physical fitness at a Fourth of July press conference revealing for the first time that he suffered from Addison’s disease. Bobby Kennedy lied through his teeth, when he flatly denied his brother had the life-threatening ailment.
Johnson belatedly threw his hat in the ring the next day but entertained no illusions about his chances. He candidly confessed to a staff member, “It is going to be Kennedy by a landslide” but refused to concede defeat.
Kennedy took the presidential prize on the initial roll call at the Los Angeles convention with 806 delegates to 409 for Lyndon. The loser turned off the TV and drawled, “Well, that’s that. Tomorrow we can do something we really want to do. Go to Disneyland maybe.”
That night the parting piece of advice from Mister Sam was to turn down any invitation to play second fiddle. “Don’t get caught in that trap,” Rayburn warned.
The phone rang in Johnson’s suite at eight o’clock sharp the next morning. Jack Kennedy wanted to drop by for a private talk.
As Lyndon nervously paced the floor, Rayburn stuck his bald head in the door and barked, “You’d better take it.”
Taken aback by the abrupt about-face, Johnson reminded him of his earlier admonition.
“I’m a wiser man this morning,” Rayburn responded.
Arriving half an hour late, the nominee got straight to the point. Would Lyndon be his running mate? To Kennedy’s reported surprise, the former adversary promptly agreed.
Johnson threw himself body and soul into the fall campaign. On a five-day whistle-stop tour of Dixie in mid-October, he gave 60 speeches and convinced countless southerners to cast their ballots for a Catholic from New England.
As the agonizingly close count dragged into the wee hours on Election Day, Lyndon Johnson could not resist reminding the eventual victor of his personal success. “I see you are losing Ohio,” he noted in a long-distance conversation with Kennedy. “I am carrying Texas.”
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