Back in January, I observed the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's announcement of his candidacy for president, and I called it "The Birth of Camelot."
But that wasn't really accurate.
It probably would have been more accurate to say that, in early January of 1960, Camelot was conceived — although experts on Kennedy's life and presidency probably would tell you that the idea of that Kennedy — or any Kennedy — seeking the presidency was conceived many years earlier.
But the idea didn't bear fruit until 50 years ago today.
Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say 50 years ago tomorrow because it wasn't until Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1960, that Kennedy was declared the winner of the closest presidential election in more than a century.
But it was 50 years ago today that the voters went to the polls.
"It was invisible, as always," wrote historian Theodore H. White of the process of democracy. "[I]t is the essence of the act that as it happens it is a mystery in which millions of people each fit one fragment of a total secret together, none of them knowing the shape of the whole."
In the end, it was closer than anyone could have expected — out of approximately 69 million votes, about 100,000 separated the two men.
It was excruciating, for the winners as well as the losers. In his book "The Making of the President 1960," White wrote of observing Kennedy as Nixon addressed his supporters late in the evening, steadfastly refusing to concede. Kennedy, he wrote, bore an "expression showing faint distaste" at the spectacle of the "twisted, barely controlled sorrow" of Nixon's wife at his side.
That was the kind of thing the sophisticated, elegant Kennedy would never allow, White wrote.
In an election that close, it should surprise no one that there were accusations of irregularities.
I guess there will always be those who will dispute the results in some of the states — at least until the time comes when no one still living is old enough to remember that night.
My grandfather, for example, a Texas Republican at a time when that was still something of a rarity, always insisted that Kennedy "stole" the 1960 election — or, more accurately, his daddy "stole" it for him, pulling some strings in some key places.
Well, Grandpa was biased. He never cared for Kennedy's running mate, Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson. He called him "Landslide Lyndon" — a derisive nickname hung on Johnson after an extremely narrow victory in the 1948 runoff for the Democratic Senate nomination.
There have always been rumors about that election, too.
But Johnson's victory was certified, in keeping with state law, and history tells us he served in the Senate for the next 12 years — until Kennedy chose him as his running mate, in large part, so they say, because it was believed Johnson could deliver Texas to the Democrats.
And, if that was the reason why Kennedy chose Johnson as his running mate, LBJ held up his end of the deal. The Democrats won Texas (and its 24 electoral votes) by 45,000 popular votes out of 2.3 million cast.
In his book, White protested that he didn't know the truth, that it appeared that even those closest to Kennedy did not know the truth, about Johnson's selection. At the 1960 convention, White wrote, Kennedy's advisers were under the impression, when Kennedy went to bed the night before giving his acceptance speech, that the two men at the top of his list were Stuart Symington of Missouri and Henry Jackson of Washington, senators from two other states that were expected to be evenly divided, as indeed they were.
But emphasis on electoral considerations ignored — as White did not — the fact that, weeks before the convention, Kennedy had told an interviewer that, other than himself, he thought Johnson was the man most qualified to be president.
It cannot be dismissed that Kennedy made his choice based not on what his running mate could do for him but on what his running mate could do for the country if he became president.
Many things (most of them unpleasant) have been said about the vice presidency over the years, and most of them have been true.
John Garner, Franklin Roosevelt's first vice president, famously said the vice presidency was "not worth a bucket of warm ****." Garner, who served as speaker of the House before accepting the second spot on the Democratic ticket in 1932, also said, "I gave up the second most important job in government for eight long years as Roosevelt's spare tire."
But, for Johnson, it was not an eight–year detour to the trivia books. It was a stepping stone to the presidency. He succeeded Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
And, ironically, exactly five years later, on this day in 1965, journalist Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead in her apartment. To this day, it is rumored that she was murdered to prevent her from revealing what she knew about the assassination of President Kennedy.
It is one of the many enduring mysteries of the 1960s.
