Chicanery, 1960
America Lurches Forward Into a Weird and Wild Decade
Democratic nominee for President in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy
It was just before midnight on November 8th, 1960 when The New York Times went to press, declaring the 42-year-old Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had been elected the 35th president of the United States. Around 7 a.m. NBC News made the same call. All throughout that autumn, Gallup polls were suggesting it would be a tight race. We know now that it was, indisputably, the closest of the 20th century.
Kennedy’s opponent, Republican nominee and the incumbent vice president Richard Nixon, monitored the results as they came in from his campaign’s headquarters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Despite his meager roots, he had, up until this point, managed to eke out quite an impressive career in politics thanks to his exceptional intellect and impressive work ethic. Unfortunately, what he lacked was luck and charisma, two essential attributes of any successful candidate for the nation’s top job. He was always formal, dressed in a dark suit and tie even when he was home by himself- with a bulbous nose and deep-set eyes. He slouched, perspired heavily and often appeared uncomfortable when interacting with the public, especially when compared to the young, affluent and strikingly personable JFK. All that said, it would not be too far off the mark to claim that Nixon’s worst attributes were exaggerated to humorous proportions by the media, with whom he maintained a seemingly perpetually strained relationship. On that day, he was, as anybody in his position would be, very tired. Perhaps, as the possibility of his loss inched closer to reality, Nixon may have even felt slightly relieved. At the very least, he’d have more time to spend with his most unshakable supporters- his wife, Pat, and their grade school aged daughters, Tricia and Julie.
Since he’d announced his intention to run back in January, Nixon’s campaign had quickly devolved into an embarrassing and chaotic comedy of errors. Early on, he’d promised to visit all fifty states, an ambitious pledge appropriately called “the fifty state strategy”. He succeeded, but the effort had left him feverish and weak, made worse when he developed an infection in his knee after accidentally slamming it in a car door. Advised to do so by a doctor, Nixon took some time off to recover, only to injure it again in the exact same way right before participating in the first televised presidential debate in history. His performance in said debate- shifting his eyes back and forth and dripping with sweat- was so notoriously horrific that it’s still discussed in classrooms today. To his credit, those who listened to it via radio at the time thought Nixon had actually performed well, and he came off better in the three later debates.
Citing his position within President Eisenhower’s administration as proof, Nixon hoped to promote himself as the more experienced candidate. He had spent the last eight years energetically standing behind the President at every turn, attending and occasionally chairing Cabinet and National Security meetings. He’d held down the fort when a heart attack in 1952 left Eisenhower bedridden and again in 1957 when he suffered a stroke. This was the same year that Nixon assisted in getting a Civil Rights Act through congress. If that wasn’t enough, just two years prior Nixon and his wife had embarked on a goodwill tour of South America on the President’s behalf and were nearly killed by an angry mob in the process. But when “Ike” was asked at a press conference to give a single example of a major contribution Nixon had made, he playfully responded “If you give me a week, I might think of one.” On Election Day, just as the polls began to open across the country, reporters swarmed the commander and chief and asked him who he’d voted for, expecting him to promote his former running mate. Instead, Eisenhower pointed at his watch and the picture of his grandchildren set in its face. “That’s who I voted for.”
Eisenhower and Nixon
Worst of all, despite earning the support of both Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. in private, he managed to fumble it, and their public support, just a month shy of the moment of truth. Arrested on October 19th, 1960 for participating in a mass sit-in, MLK had been sentenced to four months of hard labor over a traffic violation. Fearing he would be killed in prison, Robinson personally paid Nixon a visit to ask for his help in freeing the civil rights leader. Nixon refused, believing it would be improper to do so. JFK however, jumped on the opportunity and was thus endorsed by MLK’s father. That same month, Nixon’s running mate Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. pledged in Harlem, NY without his consent, that if they won Nixon would appoint at least one African American to a Cabinet post. Furious, Nixon refused to commit to this, further failing to impress black voters. Lodge had been chosen partially because he came from the same state as Kennedy, and it was believed that this would force the senator to spend time campaigning in his home state. Kennedy would win Massachusetts easily and because of his stunt in Harlem, it’s been suggested that Lodge actually cost Nixon votes in the South.
Around 8 a.m. on Election Day, Nixon finished voting at a private home in the quiet neighborhood of Whittier, California where he’d spent his formative years. Instead of going straight to campaign headquarters like he was scheduled to do, he unexpectedly ordered the limousine that he’d been riding in to stop, and got behind the wheel of a white convertible that had been following behind. Accompanied by the LAPD officer that had been driving the car, a military aide and a Secret Service agent, Nixon drove over six miles southeast to La Habra. There, he visited his mother before getting back in the car and heading south along the Pacific Coast Highway. At a gas station in Oceanside he told a startled attendant- “I’m just out for a little ride.” By the time he and his impromptu entourage got to San Diego, Nixon had finally decided where he wanted to go: Tijuana, Mexico.
A patrolman at the border recommended they visit a German owned restaurant called “Old Heidelberg”. They did, ordering enchiladas which they enjoyed with Tijuana’s mayor, Xicotencati Leyva Aleman, who heard Nixon was in town and came to join them. Back in Los Angeles, Press Secretary Herb Klein was busy fending off reporters who were asking about Nixon’s whereabouts. He’d excused the situation by telling them that the Vice President often took private time during hectic days. As the hours went by, eventually he had to concede that the man was “driving around with a destination.”
Nixon allowed the LAPD officer to drive on the way back to the U.S. The four men arrived at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano soon after. The location was apparently one of the candidate’s “favorite Catholic places”. He took his companions on a tour that concluded with a few minutes of quiet while they sat in the empty pews.
As the votes started to roll in, Nixon finally arrived at the Ambassador Hotel. Early on, JFK seemed to be ahead, and although his lead shrank considerably during the night, Nixon did not overlap him. At 3:15 a.m., in front of the large chalk board where his team had been tallying the results, he said the following: “As I look at the board here, while there are still some results still to come in, if the present trend continues, Mr. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, will be the next president of the United States. I want all of you to know, that certainly if this trend does continue, and he does become our next president, that he will have my wholehearted support and yours too.”
Less than an hour later in Hyannis, Massachusetts at the Hyannis Armory- an armory built in 1958 to house anti-aircraft weapons for the Massachusetts Army National Guard- the President-elect delivered his victory speech. “The election may have been a close one. But I think there is general agreement by all of our citizens that a supreme national effort will be needed in the years ahead to move this country safely through the 1960s.” He was joined by his wife Jacqueline, his father and former Ambassador to the United Kingdom Joesph P. Kennedy Sr., his brother and advisor Robert Kennedy, as well as the rest of his immediate family, all of whom had participated any way they could to facilitate his success. “So now uh… my wife and I prepare for a new administration,” he said in closing, “and a new baby.”
Nixon’s “official” concession came in a telegram sent around 9 a.m. on November 9th, a couple hours after NBC News’s declaration and within minutes of the announcement that Kennedy had definitively won Minnesota and thus the election.
“I want to repeat through this wire congratulations and best wishes I extend to you on television Tuesday night. I know you will have the united support of all Americans as you lead the nation in the cause of peace and freedom in the next four years.”
Nixon’s Supporters, 1960
Despite the cool and collected veneer of the Nixon campaign’s apparent acceptance of their defeat, the Republican National Committee (the governing body of the GOP) was less inclined to do so. All night they’d been receiving reports that votes had been bought or faked or stolen across a wide swath of states. There was a lot of buzz around Illinois, where Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley and his Democratic machine possessed a tremendous amount of power and influence. Texas, the home state of Kennedy’s running mate Lyndon Johnson, was also heavily scrutinized. Nixon’s staff pushed him almost immediately to contest election. Eisenhower, according to Nixon himself, was said to have also been encouraging him to do so, though if he was he quickly changed his mind and stood publicly against anything of the sort. Nixon, fearing that a prolonged skirmish would lead to him being branded as a “sore loser” and thus eliminate any possibility of a career in politics going forward, aligned himself with this sentiment. Publicly, he cited a belief that accusations of voter fraud would harm the reputation of the United States as a democratic trailblazer.
Regardless, battle lines were drawn three days later on November 11th when RNC Chairman Sen. Thruston B. Morton, a former Assistant Secretary of State under Eisenhower who’d voted in favor of that 1957 Civil Rights bill I mentioned in the last section, launched bids for recounts and investigations in eleven states. Those states were Delaware, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and of course, Illinois and Texas. Morton claimed that 35,000 letters had been sent to the RNC alleging fraud. Eight days after that, Bob Finch (Nixon’s campaign manager) and former NY Rep. Len Hall (RNC chairman 1953 to 1957) sent agents to conduct “field checks” in eight of those states.
By then, JFK had managed to secure 300 electoral votes (carrying 21 states) to Nixon’s 222 votes. California was originally considered a win for the former, but several weeks later when the absentee ballots were tallied the “Golden State” was revealed to have actually gone for Nixon. The popular vote was won by Kennedy, but with a razor thin margin of .02 %. In five of the states won by him, he’d done so by less than 1%. If Nixon was determined to have been the real winner of those states- New Jersey, Missouri, New Mexico and Illinois- he’d have won the election (I’ll explain the fifth state on this list, Hawaii, later). Essentially, a shift of just 18,000 votes would have forced a contingent vote in the House of Representatives.
Works Cited
Allswang, J.M. (2019) Bosses, machines, and urban voters. Baltimore, MD, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, Project Muse.
Binder, J.J. (2020) ‘DID THE CHICAGO OUTFIT ELECT JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENT?’, themobmuseum.org, 22 October. Available at: https://themobmuseum.org/blog/did-the-chicago-outfit-elect-john-f-kennedy-president/.
Bomboy, S. (2017) ‘The drama behind President Kennedy’s 1960 election win’, constitutioncenter.org, 7 November. Available at: https://constitutioncenter.org/amp/blog/the-drama-behind-president-kennedys-1960-election-win (Accessed: 01 October 2024).
Carlson, P. (2000) ‘Another Race To the Finish’, The Washington Post, 17 November.
Cheney, K. (2022) ‘See the 1960 Electoral College certificates that the false Trump electors say justify their gambit’, POLITICO, 7 February.
Royko, M. (1988) Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Plume.
Shesol, J. (2022) ‘Did John F. Kennedy and the Democrats Steal the 1960 Election?’, New York Times, 18 January.