User:Kaisershatner/sandbox
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Kennedy used his wealth and connections to build a national network of supporters that became the base for his sons' political careers. He especially concentrated on the Irish American community in large cities, particularly Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and several New Jersey cities.[1]
[edit] Alliance with Joe McCarthy
"Joseph Kennedy had befriended McCarthy because he found him to be a likable fellow Irish-Catholic who had all the right ideas on the domestic communist menace. These warm feelings were quickly transferred to the entire Kennedy family. JFK liked the fact that McCarthy went after the "elites" in the State Department whom JFK regarded with contempt. [2]
Even before McCarthy became famous in 1950, Joseph Kennedy had forged close ties with the Republican Senator from Wisconsin. Kennedy often brought him to Hyannis Port as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated Patricia Kennedy. When McCarthy became a dominant voice of anti-Communism starting in 1950, Kennedy contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. "There were also other deep personal bonds between JFK and McCarthy by the time McCarthy reached the peak of his power in 1952 and 1953. Not only had McCarthy been a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, but McCarthy had also dated two Kenendy sisters, first Eunice (the mother of Maria Shriver) and then Pat (who later married actor Peter Lawford). McCarthy was invited to the wedding reception for Eunice and Sargent Shriver, and even presented Eunice with a silver cigarette case inscribed "To Eunice and Bob from one who lost." [3]
In the Senate race of 1952, Joseph apparently worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the GOP ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Congressman John F. Kennedy, running for the Senate seat, would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear:
"The Kennedy family, old Joe Kennedy, the patriarch, was very close to Joe McCarthy. He was anti-communist, he'd do anything he could, he raised money for McCarthy, he saw the communist conspiracy as a great threat to America. He took Joe McCarthy with him to Hyannisport, playing with the children, and down to Florida. McCarthy dated one of the girls, Pat. Jack had been in the Pacific, and everything in old Joe's life was to make Jack the President of the United States. Jack was then, at that point, embarking on running for the Senate. That was the springboard, from the House of Representatives to the Senate. He was running against a scion of Massachusetts, highly favorite, Henry Cabot Lodge, who was then Eisenhower's national campaign manager. McCarthy could have tipped the balance, and old Joe did not want McCarthy, a fellow Irish Catholic, war veteran of World War II, to campaign against Jack Kennedy, Irish Catholic war hero in a state with a large Irish Catholic population. And even though McCarthy campaigned all over the country for other Republican candidates, he never entered Massachusetts.[4]
"McCarthy, likewise considered JFK a supporter. So much so that in 1952, as JFK took on Henry Cabot Lodge for the Senate, McCarthy privately supported JFK. McCarthy already had an intense dislike of Lodge, and had such a good rapport with the Kennedys that the decision was easy for him. Lodge would be the *only* Republican Senate candidate that McCarthy made no active campaign for, and William F. Buckley, Jr. was present when McCarthy received from a phone call from the RNC asking McCarthy to make an appearance for Lodge. But when McCarthy hung up, he told Buckley that his preference was for Kennedy." [5]
Kennedy acknowledged later to Arthur Schlesinger that McCarthy -- Schlesinger asked him, "Why didn't you take on McCarthy when you two were in the Senate?" He said, "Hell, half of my constituents think he's a hero." And so, he stayed back. There was no profile in courage. In fact, John Kennedy was the only senator not to be recorded when McCarthy eventually was censured by his colleagues."[6]
In 1953 at Joe's urging McCarthy hired Robert Kennedy (age 27) as a senior staff member of the Senate's investigations subcommittee, which McCarthy chaired. In 1954, when the Senate was threatening to condemn McCarthy, Senator John Kennedy faced a dilemma. "How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother was on his staff?" asked JFK. By 1954, however, Robert Kennedy and McCarthy's chief aide, Roy Cohn, had had a falling out and Robert no longer worked for McCarthy. John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy but he never delivered it. When the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in the hospital and never indicated then or later how he would vote. Joe strongly supported McCarthy to the end.[7]
[edit] McCarthy, McCarthyism
I am inviting all recent editors of Joseph McCarthy to comment on a current dispute. User:KarlBunker, in his stated view out of concern for WP:NPOV#Undue weight, has reverted, deleted, and selectively reinstated factually accurate sourced information that I have added. I contend he is in error. Please see the discussion at Talk:Joseph McCarthy. Thank you. Kaisershatner 17:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
How Kennedy dealt with "several potentially crippling obstacles...the prospect of a Joe McCarthy intervention on behalf of Lodge."[4]
[5] Mass, swept up in the Red Scare.
[edit] references
- ^ Leamer pp 313, 434; Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (2001) p. 250; Timothy J. Meagher. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (2005) p.150.
- ^ Christopher Matthews, Kennedy and Nixon (New York, 1996) 74-75.
- ^ Thomas Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (New York, 1982), 203, cited at [1]
- ^ Interview with Haynes Johnson, author of The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism., cited at [2]
- ^ WFB column cited at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk2.htWilliam F. Buckley Jr., column. September 30, 1962.(18)"
- ^ Interview with Haynes Johnson, author of The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism., cited at [3]
- ^ Michael O'Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (2005), 250-54, 274-79, 396-400; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (1982), 442-3; Maier, The Kennedys 270-80.
