After the 1956 election, many commentators began to speculate about
the possibility of JFK making a run for the White House. He did
nothing to dampen this buzz, and began laying the groundwork for
a presidential bid by accepting frequent speaking engagements around
the country. Nor did it hurt that his book, Profiles in
Courage, was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for
biography in 1957. That JFK's well-written, but hardly spectacular,
work captured the Pulitzer was a surprise, and many have attributed
his receipt of the award to the behind-the-scenes machinations
of his father's associates. Regardless, winning the Pulitzer gave
the handsome, popular senator yet another upward boost, and no
one outside the Kennedy inner circle knew that JFK had not actually written
it.
In the Senate, meanwhile, JFK walked a tightrope between
the Democratic Party's competing interest groups–the liberal wing,
which loved Adlai Stevenson but mistrusted the less ideological JFK,
and the southern wing, which was conservative and bitterly opposed
to the ongoing Civil
Rights Movement. In 1957, JFK was given membership
on the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. There,
he muted the strident anti-Communism he had displayed during the
McCarthy era, in favor of an emphasis on economic aid to the Third
World. Additionally, he denounced France's ongoing effort to
hold onto its colony in Algeria, a stance that endeared him to
liberals. On civil rights issues, meanwhile, JFK tried to placate
Southern Democrats by hewing to a middle ground, supporting some
civil rights measures while opposing others. This was a pragmatic
plan of action, perhaps, since JFK needed to broaden his base of
support beyond Catholics and northeasterners. Many blacks, however,
came to regard him with suspicion, as a result of this unwillingness
to commit to a full civil rights agenda.
After a tragic miscarriage following the 1956 convention,
meanwhile, Jackie Kennedy gave birth to her first child, Caroline
Bouvier Kennedy, on November 27, 1957. The Kennedy marriage was
difficult–JFK was frequently away from home for long stretches
(he was vacationing in Europe while Jackie endured her miscarriage), and
his penchant for womanizing had continued even after their wedding.
It was an era in which the press kept matters of sexual indiscretion
tightly under wraps, and the public never knew about JFK's multiple
affairs, which only increased as his fame and prestige grew.
But Jackie almost certainly knew, and it placed a strain on her
union with her husband.
In November 1958, JFK won reelection to the Senate by
a huge margin, capturing seventy percent of the vote. Buoyed by
this victory and by his increasing visibility, he became a clear
front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1960. Still, the
issue of his Catholicism stirred controversy in late 1950s America,
and JFK made a number of speeches in which he asserted that his
faith would have no impact on his handling of the presidency–that
he would make sure that church and state remained safely separate.
His promises, and the growing tolerance of religion in America,
had their effect, and he swept through the Democratic primaries
in 1960, handily defeating his principle adversary, Minnesota Senator
Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. In that era, however, a victory in the
primaries did not guarantee a candidate the nomination, and JFK needed
every ounce of political muscle to defeat the still-popular Stevenson
and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson at the Democratic
Convention. Having won the nomination, JFK made an unlikely but
crucial alliance–he tapped the conservative southerner Johnson
as his running mate. America was on the edge of a "New Frontier,"
JFK told the convention, a phrase that was to resonate throughout
the campaign.
The Cold War was a dominant issue during the campaign
for the presidency. JFK accused the Republicans of having allowed
a "missile gap" to grow between the United States and the U.S.S.R.,
warning that the Soviets had pulled ahead in the nuclear arms race.
Feeding his argument was the fact that with their launch of Sputnik in
1957, the Russians had sent a satellite into orbit long before
the Americans managed to do so (the U.S. launched its first satellite, Explorer-I, in
1958). The launch of Sputnik had instilled in
many people a fear that the United States was losing the struggle
against Communism, and JFK played on those fears. Still, the
election was remarkably tight–one of the closest in U.S. history–and
little details helped decide the matter. During the presidential
debate–the first ever televised– JFK appeared virile and commanding,
whereas Nixon looked haggard and unshaven. Also critical was
JFK's sympathetic phone call to the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights leader,
while King was in jail for civil disobedience. The symbolism
of the phone call was crucial in helping improve JFK's image in
the black community.
In the end, JFK and Johnson won by fewer than a hundred
thousand votes. They captured 303 electoral votes to 219 for Nixon, with
the difference coming in the populous states of Illinois and Texas
(Johnson's home state), where there were widespread allegations
of voter fraud on behalf of the Democratic team. But the results
were ultimately ratified, and John F. Kennedy officially became
the President-elect of the United States. A few weeks after the
election, more good news came with the birth of his son, John F. Kennedy,
Jr.
