One Brief Shining Moment

William Manchester's friendship with John F. Kennedy began in Boston immediately after World War Two, when both were young veterans crippled by wounds. Their relationship continued during Kennedy's White House years, when Manchester was the President's trusted confidant. Early in 1964, Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy asked the author to write ''The Death of a President,'' his definitive account of the Dallas tragedy. This fall, Manchester published his 15th book, ''One Brief Shining Moment: Remembering Kennedy.'' Here, he recalls the heady days of the 1960 Presidential campaign, the days of Camelot in the making, when the future was bright and everything seemed possible.

In The high summer of 1959, Jack Kennedy was changing, deepening, given to longer silences, less eager for verbal fencing. As always, he was reading a lot; among the books scattered around were The Organization Man, The Last Hurrah,(continued on page 276)One brief shining moment(continued from page 154) the new Barth, the latest Camus, an Angus Wilson play, Nevil Shute's On the Beach, Parkinson's Law, The Ugly American and, looking out of place, two Ian Fleming thrillers, Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia, with Love. But these were diversions. It was politics that pre-empted his thoughts in these months.

A President was about to move out of the White House, and while Vice-President Richard Nixon was certain to be his party's nominee, the line of prospective tenants on the Democratic side was lengthy. Most men with Potomac fever juggle the idea for a while, contemplate it, feel its pull growing or diminishing until time and events force their hands. Kennedy's case was different. Two years earlier, he and his father, Joe, ''the Ambassador,'' a former American envoy to Britain, had gone over the latest nationwide election statistics provided by analysts the Ambassador had hired for that one job, and had concluded that the time to lunge for the supreme prize of American politics was upon them. Not the announcement; that would be delayed until the first week of 1960. But from this point forward, the junior Senator from Massachusetts would have to step up his speaking activities, organize his campaign and travel ceaselessly, talking with local party leaders and entertaining the men and women who would be delegates.

In those days, only 16 states held open primaries. The majority of delegates to the convention were lined up elsewhere, by barter, patronage, back-scratching or, now and then, plain bribery. But those 16 offered the only route to power for outsiders like Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. If neither could establish popular strength there, the party would turn away. If, on the other hand, one of them built up a head of steam, knocking off all challengers, denying him the nomination would not only be difficult; it would brand the convention's nominee as boss-picked. Kennedy saw that. It was the key to his strategy. He knew the country would refuse the Presidency to a man who seemed to have swindled another candidate out of the office.

That, in sum, is how the young Massachusetts Senator outwitted the party's three most formidable contenders--Lyndon Johnson, Stuart Symington and Adlai Stevenson. Outschemed, they forfeited the race. Because Kennedy and Humphrey were the only two Democrats in the field, and they confronted each other in only two states--Wisconsin and West Virginia--the issue would be decided there.

In the summer of 1959, all that lay over the horizon. Nevertheless, thoughts of it were never far away. If you were a friend of Kennedy's, sitting with him on the porch of his Hyannis Port cottage, surrounded by his summer reading, you remember asking him the big question then, the one you had been shaping in your mind for a very long time: ''Why do you think you can be President?''

He stared for a moment, then gave a little lopsided grin and looked out to sea. ''Don't you suppose I've asked myself that a thousand times? The thought is intimidating. But then, you know, I look around me at the others in the race, and I say to myself, 'Well, if they think they can do it, why not me? Why not me?' That's the answer, and I think it's enough.''

•

On April 5, 1960, in Wisconsin, Kennedy won more popular votes than any candidate in the history of the state's primaries, carrying six Congressional districts and two thirds of the delegate votes. Those around him were elated. He wasn't. He had been watching the television commentators in silence, sipping a bowl of chicken-noodle soup, ignoring the whoops around him. Eunice, the sister closest to him, sensed his mood. ''What does it mean, Jack?'' she asked.

In a bitter voice, he replied, ''It means that we have to do it all over again. We have to go through every one and win every one of them, all the way to the convention.''

Jack understood how the results would be interpreted by the East Coast bosses who could deliver the delegates he needed. He had won 56 percent of the popular vote, but he had lost all four Protestant districts, had carried one of mixed religions by a hair and had rolled up all of his popular majority from heavily Catholic areas. It had been his great hope to stifle the religious issue--what one Massachusetts politician had delicately called ''the canonical impediment''--in Wisconsin. He had failed, and now he had to tackle it on a far more ominous battleground--West Virginia, deeply religious and 95 percent Protestant.

By now, it was obvious that Johnson's, Symington's and Stevenson's supporters wanted to use Humphrey as a pawn, hoping he could stop Kennedy on the first ballot and give them room to maneuver. But Jack's men were still confident--indeed, overconfident--as Bobby Kennedy and an advance party flew to Charleston, West Virginia, where Bob McDonough, a seasoned pol, had been organizing the state for more than a year. According to a Harris Poll taken four months before the Wisconsin primary, Kennedy could destroy Humphrey in West Virginia, 70 to 30 percent. As the newcomers entered the room in the Kanawha Hotel, where McDonough's key workers were meeting, they were surprised to see that everyone there was silent and glowering.

''Well,'' Bobby said cordially. ''What are our problems?''

A man jumped up and yelled, ''He's a Catholic! That's our goddamned problem!'' Suddenly, the entire room erupted. Men were shouting that West Virginians would never vote for a Catholic, whatever the race, for President or dogcatcher. Bobby stared at them. These people had been working for Kennedy for months, and no one had told them that their candidate was a Catholic. He checked the Harris Poll, which had been the source of so much optimism. Harris had made the same omission. Here in West Virginia, he now realized, religion was more than a key issue; it was the issue. The new Harris figures were Humphrey 60, Kennedy 40.

So new tactics were devised. Because West Virginians admired heroes, radio and TV spots were prepared showing a shot of a PT boat and Jack, the decorated war hero. And he would begin to call Humphrey a ''front man'' for politicians who wouldn't face him now, here, on West Virginia soil.

He asked crowds, ''If Johnson and the other candidates want your vote in November, why don't they have enough respect for you to come here and ask for your support in the primary?'' In a state that had long felt slighted, the response was impressive. He visited their villages in the mountain hollows, went into the impoverished mining areas and had himself lowered into a mine. The desolation, the bleakness and the hunger touched him more than anything else in the entire campaign. Still blackened with soot, he stepped up to a microphone and said, vibrantly, ''President Eisenhower should take Vice-President Nixon by the hand and lead him into these homes in McDowell County and Mingo County and Logan County so he can see how the families of West Virginia are trying to live.'' He was making a total effort now, shaking every hand stretched toward him and speaking until, having lost his voice, he signaled Teddy to substitute for him. Teddy made a rousing, impassioned speech, and the cheering was so prolonged that Jack stepped to the mike to croak that his brother was not old enough to meet the constitutional minimum-age requirement for the Presidency.

Usually, Kennedy's most conspicuous supporters were young. In Logan and Mingo and McDowell and Slab Fork, however, his ''touchers''--feminine supporters actually wanted to feel him--were not shrill high school kids. They were old women, older than he would ever live to be, deformed by years of cruel labor, and they reached out with trembling fingers to brush his sleeve or jacket. He had a special way with them. He would lean over, smiling tenderly, and let his cheek glide against theirs. In that intimate moment, he would say softly, so softly that you had to be right there to hear it, ''Thank you, dear. Thank you.''

But the Harris Polls continued to report that the key to the election was the religious question. Kennedy's advisors, searching for ways to cope with it, were split. Ken O'Donnell and other members of the Washington staff urged him not to raise the matter in public; it was too explosive. Kennedy's West Virginians disagreed completely. Their neighbors and friends didn't hate Catholics; they feared them. Silence would only feed and strengthen that fear. Louis Harris, shuffling a sheaf of poll reports, said he was in complete agreement.

After a major speech in Washington in mid-April, just two weeks before the polling day, Kennedy reassembled his staff to tell them he would attack, breaking the silence about his faith and encouraging discussion of it. He was prepared to answer all charges, questions, accusations and insinuations without consulting clerical authorities. ''Let's face it,'' he said. ''It's the most important and the biggest issue in this campaign. Hubert can't talk about it, though it hasn't escaped my notice that he uses Give Us That Old-Time Religion as his theme song. So when I talk about it, I'll be the only candidate talking about the most important issue that all the voters are thinking about.''

Speaking at a rally on Main Street in Morgantown, Kennedy told a small, in different crowd that the need for change in the Federal Government was urgent--then he paused. His voice changed, picking up a cutting edge, and you suddenly realized he was ringing changes on a talk he had given in Boston 14 years earlier. In that Congressional race, his first campaign, he had been defending himself against charges that he was a carpetbagger. Here in Morgantown, he put the stratagem to different use: ''Nobody asked me if I was a Catholic when I joined the United States Navy!'' The crowd stared at him. In those days, there were many social taboos, and one of them was that you never discussed your religion with anyone except your priest or preacher or members of your family. So the people of Morgantown's Main Street gaped. Politicians didn't say things like that. But Jack was saying them, and he was picking up momentum.

''Did 40,000,000 Americans lose their right to run for the Presidency on the day they were baptized as Catholics?'' he asked. ''Nobody asked my brother if he was a Catholic or a Protestant before he climbed into an American bomber plane to fly his last mission!''

A few feet to your right, one man murmured, ''Pretty good talker, I'd say.''

As the crowd drifted away and he slid into the car, he said, ''How did it go?''

Still shaken, all you could manage was, ''Very good. Keep it up.'' But you could see he was proud. It had been on his mind a long time, and he'd taken the plunge and found that the water felt fine.

Thus far, though, he was still on the stump. Newspapers rarely carry the remarks candidates make on street corners, and while his new line was undoubtedly passed along by word of mouth, only a minority had actually heard and seen him. That changed on May eighth, two days before the Tuesday election. Kennedy appeared on a half-hour paid telecast with Frank Roosevelt, son of F.D.R., the President most West Virginians remembered as having given them the best deal--new or old--they ever got. There was no script. Roosevelt asked questions and Kennedy replied extemporaneously. The religious question, the whole point of the program, was raised by Roosevelt after they had been on the air three or four minutes and could be sure the families out there had poured their coffee and settled down. Jack's answer occupied nearly half of the broadcast. He reviewed the long struggle between church and state and the monumental decision to separate the two. Then, looking directly into the camera, he said:

''So when any man stands on the steps of the Capitol and takes the oath of office of President, he is swearing to support the separation of church and state; he puts one hand on the Bible and raises the other hand to God and he takes the oath. And if he breaks his oath, he is not only committing a crime against the Constitution, for which Congress can impeach him--and should impeach him--but he is committing a sin against God.''

At that point, Kennedy raised his hand from an imaginary Bible and, repeating himself softly, said, ''A sin against God, for he has sworn on the Bible.''

Theodore H. White described this as ''the finest TV broadcast I have ever heard any political candidate make.'' It turned the tide of voter opinion, and that tide was now running strong. Harris' pollsters, stationed all over the state, were checking and rechecking certain streets in certain communities at certain intervals on a day-to-day basis. ''You could see them switch,'' Harris said.

On Monday, the day after the statement--the day before the election--Harris found, for the first time, a narrow Kennedy lead.

It was an ironic turn of events for Humphrey, who, in these final days of the campaign, was the most thwarted, provoked and aggravated politician in the United States. His entire life had been a testament to tolerance and charity. But a West Virginian determined to demonstrate his tolerance, if only to himself, almost had to vote for Kennedy.

Tuesday dawned bleak and drizzly, and Jack awoke with an overwhelming premonition of defeat. Harris was wrong, he thought; he could feel it. He told Bobby that he was going home, he didn't want to see the others, and it was still early when his plane, the Caroline, the Convair Jack had bought for the campaign (''It'll save money''), set him down in Washington. He asked Jackie to invite their friends Ben and Tony Bradlee to dinner. Later, the four of them could take in a movie. The Bradlees arrived with a bottle of champagne. ''One way or another, we'll crack it open this evening,'' Jack said. Before leaving for the film, he called Bobby at Charleston's Kanawha Hotel. The polls had closed at eight P.M., but no returns were in, ''OK,'' Jack said to the others. ''Let's go to the pictures.''

In the Kanawha, Bob waited for the first figures. When the results started coming in, early precincts reporting from the Eastern Panhandle, where people lived their whole lives without laying eyes on a Catholic, were voting heavily for Kennedy. By 9:20, Kennedy was taking Humphrey 60 to 40. Suburbs, factory towns, hill slopes, pocket villages; there were no exceptions. A half hour later, another deluge of returns arrived. The same pattern was emerging in the cities.

Well before midnight, Humphrey decided to concede. Prolonging the agony was pointless. From his room in the Ruffner Hotel, he sent out the appropriate telegrams and phoned generous supporters. His graceful telegram of congratulations did not reach Kennedy headquarters until one A.M. Bobby muttered, ''God, poor Hubert. Wisconsin and now this. He works and works and spends and spends and loses and loses.''

Since Jack was in Washington, Bob, as always, saw to it that what his brother ought to do was done. He walked through Charleston's rainy streets--bareheaded, as always--to express his personal appreciation for Hubert's telegram. Humphrey said he wanted to greet Jack on his return. He intended to be a good loser; it was important to him. Bob sensed that and wanted to help him. On Capitol Street, they stepped into Humphrey headquarters. Jimmy Wofford, a folk singer who had accompanied him throughout the campaign, was strumming his guitar--old Depression songs, songs of the New Deal, of Humphrey's youth, of a poorer but infinitely more generous America. Humphrey's eyes were bright with tears as he started to read his statement. He didn't finish; Jimmy started sobbing. Hubert patted his shoulder. Bobby went over and put his arm around Humphrey. He led them up to the Kanawha, and he, too, was crying. That was Bobby Kennedy, the man everybody called ruthless.

In Washington, Jack and his party had piled into his car and headed for the Trans-Lux to see Suddenly, Last Summer. Unfortunately, they were late and couldn't get in. They walked across New York Avenue to the Plaza, which showed blue movies. Pornography was less outrageous then than it later became, but Private Property was nasty enough, starring one Katie Manx as a horny housewife who spread-eagled for every milkman, newsboy and iceman who wandered near her grasp. Halfway through the movie, someone wondered if this sordid little Valentine were on the Catholic index of forbidden films. It was. The man who would presently become the first Catholic President, whose scholarly bent had enchanted West Virginians the previous Sunday, was watching a dirty movie.

He was not, however, enjoying it. Ordinarily, he found sex fascinating--gossip about film stars and Congressmen who liked whips and almost any fetching girl who happened to roll by and catch his eye. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed Katie Manx's romps in various improbable positions. Tonight, his thoughts were in Charleston. He began to suspect that he had written himself off too quickly. Every 20 minutes, he would slip out to the lobby, call Bobby, return to whisper, ''Nothing definite yet'' and slump in his seat, flicking a fingernail against his teeth. Eventually, the last handy man pleasured Miss Manx for the last time, and it was time to head home.

As he opened the door of his N Street house, the phone was ringing. It was Bobby. Jack had won; had, in fact, rolled up a stunning majority. After war whoops and a call to the Ambassador, the Bradlees fetched their bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. A phone call alerted the crew of the Caroline for immediate departure. The Bradlees were invited; so were family members Steve and Jean Smith. At the airport, the press wanted a statement Jack said, ''I think we have now buried the religious issue once and for all.''

•

After Wisconsin and West Virginia, one would think Kennedy had earned a long rest. But in politics, it is the losers who rest. The next seven weeks again tested his stamina. He visited, and often revisited, 16 states, appearing before state conventions and state committee meetings, talking late into the night with governors and state leaders and bargaining with professional politicians, who, in the arithmetic of conventions, counted more heavily than the delegates chosen in expensive, lengthy, wearing, enervating primaries.

Almost a week before the national convention, Bobby arrived in Los Angeles with the Kennedy team's vanguard and established a base in the Biltmore Hotel's room 8315--actually a four-room suite. As the days passed and the excitement mounted, the feeling of confidence in 8315 became a kind of intoxicant. It was under those circumstances that Jack's team saw Lyndon Johnson hold a special press conference on July fifth, six days before the convention's opening gavel. Kennedy men disliked Johnson; they thought him a hypocritical, unprincipled opportunist of illiberal views. He announced with his inimitable solemnity that he had searched his soul, found himself capable of serving his country as President and was, from that moment, available. Kennedy headquarters rocked with laughter.

More mirth followed. Johnson was claiming 502 and a half votes. The majority, 385 delegates, came from the South and the Border States. He also said he had scattered backers in the Northeast, but--and this was new--he claimed 80 solid votes in the West and the Mountain States. In suite 8315, there were files on each of the convention's 4509 delegates and alternates. After a few minutes of checking, chuckles were heard, and as notes were compared, they grew. As best Kennedy's supporters could tell, the delegates Johnson thought he had recruited were all hidden Kennedy votes--Jack's second-ballot reserve.

Kennedy's family, friends and staff were scattered all over Los Angeles. The Biltmore suite was the nerve center. The key figures, veterans of Wisconsin and West Virginia, had all arrived. Bobby, Larry O'Brien, Ken O'Donnell and Pierre Salinger--Salinger was now handling Kennedy's press relations--were based in the suite. The candidate, however, needed seclusion. Suite 9333 was reserved for him, but Jack didn't even want to be in the hotel. A week before the convention, he had sent Dave Powers to L.A. to find a hideaway. Its location would be known only to Bobby, Jack's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, and a few close friends. Dave found an apartment building at 522 North Rossmore Boulevard owned by Jack Haley, the actor, who agreed to rent Kennedy the penthouse. Beneath him would be the apartment of William Gargan, another actor. Haley and Gargan were sworn to secrecy. Here, Jack would be only a ten-minute drive from the convention site, the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Four telephone lines were installed, including one for nightly talks between Jack and Jackie. It was a sound plan, and it worked until Wednesday, the third day of the convention. Kennedy was briefly at the Biltmore. Pierre was begging Dave to give him the hideaway address, arguing that once Jack had been nominated, photographers and cameramen would need pictures of it. Dave refused; Jack wanted to return to North Rossmore and pick up his swimming trunks. His parents had moved into Marion Davies' Beverly Hills villa. Kennedy planned to watch the nominating speeches on a television set beside the pool there; after dining with his mother and father, he would return to his hideaway. Once he had joined his parents, the hideaway could be disclosed. The argument went back and forth. Finally, Jack intervened: ''Oh, for God's sake, give him the address.''

Dave did, and Pierre rushed off happily. At that moment, Frank Roosevelt arrived and dragged Jack off to a party of delegates, delaying his departure for 15 minutes. By the time he and Dave reached the hideaway, the street was cluttered with television equipment, and a crowd of spectators had gathered. Jack glared at Dave, who had done everything in his power to prevent precisely this, only to be overruled by Kennedy. ''Well,'' Jack said, ''this is one hell of a hideaway, isn't it?'' Leaving unseen was a real problem. Carrying their swimming trunks, the next President of the United States and his closest aide stealthily descended a fire escape on the back of the building, climbed over a back fence into a neighbor's garden and made their way to the Davies villa. There they swam and then watched Orville Freeman nominate Kennedy.

Unfortunately, some of the older party leaders seemed more interested in savaging Kennedy than in beating Nixon. Harry Truman had opened the attack in a televised press conference, asking Kennedy, ''Are you certain you're quite ready for the country and the country is ready for you?'' He clearly preferred more mature Democrats, naming Johnson (whom Kennedy suspected of stage-managing Truman's performance), Missouri's Symington, Governor Robert Meyner of New Jersey and Connecticut's Chester Bowles. Stevenson was unmentioned. Truman raised other arguments, but age was the real issue. The transfer of power from one generation to another cannot be painless. The four chieftains in suite 8315 were Bob Kennedy, 34; O'Donnell, 36; Salinger, 35; and O'Brien, the old man on the Kennedy team, 43. Worse, Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's chief advisor in Washington, was only 32. When Johnson had growled that he wouldn't ''be pushed around by a 43-year-old boy,'' he meant Jack. Eisenhower felt the same; he always referred to Kennedy as ''that boy.'' This convention, Scotty Reston wrote in The New York Times, would be remembered as ''the assembly that witnessed the Changing of the Guard.''

Charges by a former President of Kennedy's own party could not be ignored. Truman's idea of an open convention, Jack said in his sharp rebuttal, seemed to be one ''that studies all the candidates, reviews their records and then takes his advice.'' To call him inexperienced was, he said, downright absurd. His 14 years on Capitol Hill meant he was more seasoned in national public life than any 20th Century President when elected to office, and that included Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt--and Harry Truman. The White House, Kennedy said, needed precisely what he offered: ''strength and health and vigor.''

Monday evening, there was a respite from factional bloodletting. At the Democratic Convention dinner, the speaker was the junior Senator from Massachusetts. He reviewed the recent record of the Republican President, and it was a highly successful speech, largely because in the two months between the West Virginia primary and that night's gathering, Eisenhower had been lurching from one disaster to another. It was a good year to be united against a Republican nominee.

But despite Kennedy's commanding lead, the day before the balloting, Johnson toured state delegations with a naked plea to ''stop Kennedy.'' He cited his record, told them he was entitled to and expected their support. That was L.B.J. the Majority Leader; if you didn't vote his way, he'd stick it in you and break it off. But these were not Senators. They were delegates, most of whom were already committed one way or another. Johnson attacked Kennedy's liberal credentials. Then, reaching back to Exodus 20:5, visited the sins of the father upon his child--and painted the sins blacker than they had been, implying that Joe Kennedy had been not only an appeaser but also an admirer of the Nazis and had ''thought Hitler was right.'' Finally, and desperately, rumors were spread that Jack was ''diseased''--some even said the disease was ''social.''

Kennedy's physicians testified to his fitness. Johnson threw up his hands. Of course he believed the medical testimony, and he couldn't imagine who was responsible for such despicable tales.

At Convention Hall, Sam Rayburn nominated Lyndon, but when Gene McCarthy, the freshman Senator from Minnesota, rose to nominate Governor Adlai Ewing Stevenson of Illinois, the convention erupted in excitement. All day, events had been building toward this moment. Stevenson was not merely admired, he was cherished and deeply beloved. The galleries and the bays outside the hall were packed with Stevenson enthusiasts, and they went rocketing down the aisles. Yelling, wriggling, chanting, snake dancing, they congested the floor as balloons drifted overhead and popped, paper banners streaming in every direction read we want Stevenson. The chanters picked it up as standards bobbed up and down.

The Ambassador, watching Marion Davies' poolside TV, was briefly alarmed. Jack phoned Bobby for the latest vote rundown. Bob said that the demonstration, though well organized, had influenced no votes. Indeed, in California, Stevenson's delegates had dropped sharply. Hanging up, Jack said, ''Don't worry, Dad; Stevenson has everything but delegates.''

Kennedy reached his apartment just in time for the first ballot. As the states were called, he kept score on a tally board. By the time the roll reached Wyoming, his total was 748--only 13 more would put him over the top. As Jack peered at the screen, he saw his youngest brother crouching, the Wyoming delegation gathered around him. Teddy's grin had never been broader. Jack said quietly, ''This may be it.'' And it was. The state's delegation went for him in one block, and that made him the Democratic Presidential nominee of 1960.

After a brief talk with his wife, he hurried to the Sports Arena, where he would make a short appearance before the convention. A band played Toora-Loora-Loora and then, as he entered the hall and mounted the platform, Happy Days Are Here Again. The delegates cheered while he stood there smiling, flanked by his mother and his sisters. He spoke briefly, expressing his gratitude, and then returned to North Rossmore.

Back in the apartment, Kennedy told Dave he was too tired for a celebration, but he was hungry. Dave fried him two eggs while Jack prepared for bed. Meanwhile, his staff, with Bobby as chairman, was discussing the Vice-Presidency. Everyone there was under the impression that Jack was considering only two Senators: Symington of Missouri and Henry Jackson of Washington. Johnson's name had not been raised. Only a few weeks before, Kennedy had said that if he could not be President, Johnson was the best-qualified alternative. But hard words had been spoken this week, and the big Texan was anathema to the men who had worked so hard for the Kennedy triumph, not to mention to the liberal bosses who had delivered their delegations and, perhaps, to a majority of those who had backed Kennedy in the primaries. Moreover, Johnson had said that under no circumstances would he swap his position as Senate Majority Leader for the empty office of the Vice-Presidency. Reading congratulatory telegrams, Jack had therefore been startled to find that the warmest and the most graceful had come from the candidate who had run second in the balloting.

Before going to sleep, he tried to phone Johnson, but L.B.J. had left instructions that he was not to be disturbed. Jack then sent a message to him asking for a ten a.m. meeting. Powers thought, My God, he's going to offer it to Johnson. His dismay was matched by Lady Bird's at 8:30, when Jack phoned to confirm the meeting with her husband. Hanging up, she blurted out, ''Honey, I know he's going to offer you the Vice-Presidency, and I hope you won't take it.'' Lyndon phoned Sam Rayburn, who said much the same thing.

Then the Texans started thinking. Whoever became President, the post of Senate Majority Leader would have only a shadow of its greatness under Eisenhower. The Vice-Presidency would free Lyndon of his sectarian role and his Texas constituency. Finally--and for Rayburn, this was conclusive--they had to consider Nixon, whom the Republicans were about to nominate. Rayburn couldn't even bring himself to speak his name. ''Lyndon,'' he said, ''you've got to go on that ticket.''

What, L.B.J. asked, had changed his mind? Mr. Sam said he was wiser now. ''Besides, that other fellow called me a traitor, and I don't want a man who calls me a traitor to be President.''

Kennedy's men took it much, much harder. After Jack had phoned Johnson, he called the Biltmore suite and told Bobby his decision. Bob was shocked. Salinger and O'Donnell were outraged. Bobby recovered quickly, however, and said they needed Texas to win in November. When he left, Powers told O'Donnell, ''If Jack wanted to give it to Eleanor Roosevelt, Bobby probably would have said, 'All right.''' O'Donnell's rage mounted as he thought of the anti-Johnson pledges they'd given to labor and civil rights leaders.

Jack entered, took one look at him and said, ''We'd better talk alone in the bathroom.'' He was in his toughest mood, but O'Donnell was entitled to an explanation. In the first place, Kennedy said, Johnson hadn't accepted his offer, and there was an excellent chance he wouldn't. But he hoped he would take it. ''I'm 43 years old and the healthiest candidate. I'm not going to die in office. So the Vice-Presidency doesn't mean anything.'' What it did mean, he said, was that after a slim Democratic victory in November--he had no illusions about a landslide--''I won't be able to live with Lyndon Johnson as the leader of a small majority in the Senate. Did it ever occur to you that if Lyndon becomes Vice-President, I'll have Mike Mansfield in the Senate, somebody I can trust and depend on?''

O'Donnell began to cool down. Nevertheless, the mood in the suite remained ugly. Walter Reuther, Arthur Goldberg and George Meany, according to those who had seen them, were apoplectic. Jack decided to offer Lyndon a way out. He sent word to him that when his name was put in nomination, the convention might erupt in a floor fight. Back came the reply: There was nothing Johnson loved more than an old-fashioned floor fight.

About the same time, the tide began turning in the Kennedy suite. The bosses--Mike DiSalle of Ohio, John Bailey and Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut and David Lawrence of Pennsylvania were milling around Jack, congratulating him for strengthening the ticket. The liberals were still muttering about the ''sellout'' until Alex Rose of New York's Liberal Party called David Dubinsky, labor's elder statesman. After speaking with Dubinsky, he turned to Reuther and said, ''He said Kennedy is making a smart move! He said picking Johnson is a political master stroke!'' Johnson's nomination went through smoothly, and on Friday night, Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech to 80,000 spectators in the Los Angeles Coliseum, with another 35,000,000 Americans watching on television. He told his countrymen that they were ''on the edge of a New Frontier.''

•

Great experiences are thought to change people, and those who know them look for evidence of it. Kennedy's whole life had been a process of change--indeed, one of his most remarkable traits was his capacity for growth--but as far as you could tell, he emerged from the convention (and remained, in the White House) the same man, with one interesting difference. He had always been generous toward his political opponents. He sympathized with the men he defeated at the polls. In his Senate office, he warned his staff that he wanted to hear no ugly remarks about politicians who differed with him. But after Los Angeles, it became increasingly clear that he held Richard Nixon in contempt.

Kennedy's strategy was to appeal to the young, to the blue-collar workers and to the liberals. His two great bases were the Democratic South--holding it would be Johnson's task--and the industrial regions. While the theme of Kennedy's drive was that American prestige was slipping and Americans must march forward--''Let's get this country moving again'' was the slogan, coined by Walt Rostow--the bearer of the Republican standard preached the virtues of free enterprise, individual responsibility, inflexible anti-communism and a continuance of the peace and prosperity that had marked the Eisenhower years. Nixon's advantages were support from big business, greater experience, his strong middle-class roots and Eisenhower's incumbency. But Ike dealt Nixon the worst blow of the campaign. During a press conference, he was asked, ''What major decisions of your campaign has the Vice-President participated in?''

The President's almost unbelievable reply was, ''If you give me a week, I might think of one.''

After Nixon's nomination, the Republican candidate had taken a slight lead in Gallup's reports, but by late August, the two nominees were running neck and neck, and there was never a time during the campaign when either could feel secure. Two events in the race were grievous to Nixon: Kennedy's confrontation with religious bigotry and the television debates. West Virginia had demonstrated that while Kennedy's faith could cost him votes if the issue were undiscussed, once the silence was broken, he would gain. Nixon had therefore instructed his staff to refrain from discussing Kennedy's religion. Unhappily for him, he could not restrain Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, perhaps the most famous Protestant clergyman in the country and a Nixon friend. Dr. Peale led a group of Protestants in issuing a statement that expressed doubt that any Roman Catholic President could free himself from the influence of the Vatican. Nixon was helpless. He couldn't attack Peale. Kennedy, meanwhile, had been offered an incomparable opportunity. The Greater Houston Ministerial Association had invited him to defend the right of a Catholic to become President. Nixon had also been invited but had declined. Kennedy accepted.

The issue had been inflamed by Dr. Daniel Poling, a Philadelphia clergyman who had also run for office on the Republican ticket. Dr. Poling charged that Kennedy, as a young Congressman, had refused to attend a fund-raising dinner honoring four chaplains who had gone down with the U.S.S. Dorchester in World War Two. Kennedy had, indeed, declined, but his reason was that he had been asked to attend as a ''spokesman'' for the Roman Catholic Church. He could appear as a Congressman, a Navy veteran or a private citizen, he said, but he had no authority to represent his Church. Johnson and Rayburn thought he ought to give Houston a miss, but Jack was adamant. He would go. Those running the meeting told him that he could make an opening statement, that questions would follow and that the event would be televised.

Assembled in the ballroom that evening were 300 ministers, 300 spectators and television camera crews. Kennedy was tense and nervous, but, as usual, it showed only in his trembling, hidden hands. On the screen, he was sharp, forceful, precise and in complete command. The serious matters in this race, he told them, were not religion, Nixon's or anyone else's. They were hungry children, elderly people who couldn't afford doctors' bills, slums, inadequate schools and inept U.S. foreign policies.

''These,'' he said, ''are the real issues. But because I am a Catholic, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in--for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.''

He restated the position he had taken in West Virginia. Next come questions. They were obvious and vaguely stated; Kennedy handled them concisely and with complete ease. Poling's grievance was served up to him, and he knocked it out of the ball park--how could he possibly have agreed to assume the role of ''spokesman for the Catholic faith''?

In an upstairs hotel room, Powers was watching it all with Rayburn. In Los Angeles, Rayburn's support of Kennedy had been tepid. Now he was shouting, ''By God, look at him--and listen to him! He's eating 'em blood raw!'' On Tuesday, in Austin and then in Dallas, Rayburn told crowds that Kennedy was ''the greatest Northern Democrat since Roosevelt.''

As the calls came in and the telegrams piled up, Jack became euphoric. Houston was exactly the tonic he needed for the first debate against Nixon, now two weeks away. In the past decade, the number of American families owning television sets had increased eightfold. Awaiting the event, in living rooms all over the nation, were some 70,000,000 people. There were to be four debates, but the first was by far the most important. It drew the largest audience and it was a Kennedy triumph. The result was dismaying for Nixon, and it startled him. He was an assured, skillful debater. Watching Kennedy's televised acceptance speech at the end of the Democratic Convention and unaware of Jack's exhaustion, he thought the Democratic nominee had spoken too rapidly, in a voice pitched too high and presented concepts too complicated for the average American. That was why Nixon accepted the challenge of the debates. It was the biggest blunder in his political career--until, of course, he became President.

Until then, he had been the more famous of the two, holding, as he did, the higher office. But in the debate, they stood toe to toe, and Kennedy held his own. More important--this shouldn't have mattered, but its significance was immense--he looked better. People who heard them on radio that evening thought both did well, but the larger television audience saw the Senator as tanned and fit, while the Vice-President, who had suffered a knee injury, had lost five pounds. He was haggard and he wore a shirt collar a half size too large for him. He slouched, his expression was dour and his complexion was pasty, a consequence of coating his face with make-up designed to hide afternoon beard growth. Another factor may have been Jack's declining respect for his adversary. It seemed devastating and unmistakable to any viewer. Nixon would be making an important point and the camera would switch to Kennedy, whose amused, faintly disdainful expression would break the thread of the Republican's argument. At the end of that debate, Nixon drew Jack aside for several minutes of earnest conversation. Afterward, you asked Jack what that had been all about.

''Nothing,'' he said crisply. ''Absolutely nothing. The weather, for a while, and then how hard it was to sleep during a campaign. But all the time, he was keeping an eye on the photographers. If he saw one about to snap the shutter, he would look firm and jab his finger on my chest, as though setting me straight on some big foreign-policy issue. Nice fellow.'' Later, he asked, ''Do you think the people realize I'm the only man standing between Nixon and the White House?''

•

In retrospect, what you remember best about Jack's Presidential campaign is its high good humor. In one speech, he said, ''Campaign contributions will not be regarded as a substitute for training and experience for diplomatic positions.'' A few days later, he added, ''Ever since I made that statement, I have not received a single cent from my father.'' At times, Jack played with his humorless opponent, using him as his straight man. Nixon called him ''another Truman.'' Kennedy shot back, ''I have no hesitation in returning the compliment. I consider him another Dewey.'' Republicans said (not for the first time) that Joe Kennedy was going to bribe voters. ''My father,'' Jack said, ''told me not to buy one more vote than is necessary. He said he's damned if he's going to pay for a landslide.'' Kennedy seemed almost to welcome hecklers. At New York University, he dedicated his closing remarks to a group of Young Republican jeerers: ''All you young Nixonites--all eight of you.'' One of them shouted something about their candidate's standing up to Khrushchev in their Moscow ''kitchen debate.'' Jack said, ''Mr. Nixon may be very experienced in kitchen debates, but so are many other married men I know.''

Eisenhower made his move on Halloween, eight days before the election, and a massive surge toward the Republican nominee came within a hairbreadth of carrying the popular vote.

Theodore H. White wrote that Eisenhower had ''a magic in American politics that is peculiarly his: He makes people happy.'' Ike was positive that the few problems still unsolved would vanish tomorrow, and his audiences believed him. Jack had been taking a very different line. Typically, he began, ''I don't run for the office of the Presidency to tell you what you want to hear. I run for the office of President because in a dangerous time we need to be told what we must do if we are going to maintain our freedom.'' Now Kennedy felt his confidence shaken; he had intended to arouse the people, but perhaps he had merely frightened them. In San Francisco, he sat soaking his back in a steaming tub, and there he told you of his own fears: ''Last week, Dick Nixon hit the panic button and started Ike speaking. With every word he utters, I can feel the votes leaving me. If the election was tomorrow, I'd win easily, but six days from now, it's up for grabs.''

So anxiety arrived, an uninvited guest. Yet fear eludes memory; the feeling simply cannot be recaptured. Other recollections flood back, a montage of sights and sounds: Kennedy's mounting disgust for Nixon's way of flinging his arms high in the air ... Jack's own gestures, the chopping right hand used to stress points ... Nixon's denunciation of Truman's profanity, his vow never to sully the Presidency by using blasphemy in the White House ... the enthusiasm on college campuses when Kennedy spoke of the years ahead, ''the challenging, revolutionary Sixties'' ... Nixon's favoring a resumption of atom-bomb tests and charging that his opponents' criticisms were ''running America down and giving us an inferiority complex.''

Abruptly, the end approached and Kennedy was going home. The Caroline landed at Bridgeport, Connecticut, at midnight and you joined the motorcade at Waterbury, where, on both sides of the road, for nearly 30 miles, cheering New Englanders, wearing coats over their pajamas, waved torches and flashlights and red lights, and fire engines were lined up outside every firehouse, sirens screaming, bells ringing, and Kennedy, after reaching his hotel room at three a.m., appeared on the balcony, urging people to go to bed, but the 40,000 people stayed outside, cheering until dawn. Sunday night, you arrived at Lewiston at 1:30 a.m.; it was cold; the streets were silent, empty. Suddenly, the motorcade entered a park, and more than 20,000 people switched on their flashlights. When they recognized Jack, the roaring began, a roar of joy, and here you were in a freezing Maine factory town in the middle of the night, feeling a warmth and exultation to enshrine in memory through all the years before you.

The last day began in Providence and swung through Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, ending in the North End of Boston, where he had first campaigned 14 years earlier. He had to address a mass meeting in the Boston Garden, but the streets were so jammed that he was late; then he had to struggle again to reach Faneuil Hall. There, where the Sons of Liberty had gathered 190 years earlier to plot the Boston Tea Party, he made his farewell television talk to the nation. On the 14th floor of the Statler Hilton, he chatted with a couple of old friends while putting away a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk. In the past week, he had never had as much as four hours of sleep in one night. Tomorrow, you thought, he can sleep late. But no; he wanted to be called at 7:30. Jackie would be arriving to vote with him.

On that bright day, when you were young and the future promising, 68,832,818 Americans went to the polls, among them Mr. and Mrs. John F. Kennedy of 122 Bowdoin Street, Boston, who cast their ballots in the Third Precinct of the Sixth Ward at 8:43 a.m. and then boarded the Caroline for Hyannis Port.

The whole clan had gathered at Bobby's house to await the first returns. Bob's brother carried Connecticut by 100,000 votes. Their sisters were yelping with joy, assuming that that meant much more than it did. The Ambassador's friend Morton Downey, the tenor, was passing sandwiches and crooning Did Your Mother Come from Ireland?; and upstairs, Lou Harris sat with a slide rule and reams of paper, checking his calculations against those of the networks' computers. ''It's Lou against the machine,'' Jack said with a chuckle, lighting up a Havana Royal.

Presently, he, Jackie and a friend left to dine at Jack's house, and when they rejoined the others, no one was cheering. He was losing in Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee and the farm belt west of the Mississippi and was running behind expectations in Michigan and Illinois. Everyone was visibly distressed--except the nominee. He retained his poise, detachment, sense of humor. Johnson called from Texas, and Kennedy grinned as he hung up. He reported L.B.J.'s comment: ''I see we won in Pennsylvania, but what happened to you in Ohio?''

Ahead of them lay what Jackie later called ''the longest night in history.'' Slowly, a pattern emerged. Nixon had lost, but Kennedy, though ahead in electoral votes, had not won. The outcome seemed to hinge on four states: California, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan. Any two of them would give Kennedy the Presidency; if he failed to take two, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives. Jack yawned, rose and prepared to leave. A friend asked where he was going. He said, ''To bed. The votes are all in. I can't change any of them now.''

As he slept, the battles seesawed. Jack lost California but won Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico. He awoke to find that he had 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. He was President-elect. The Secret Service had moved in at 5:45 a.m., and your most vivid memory of that day is the horror on the Secret Service agents' faces as they watched the fiercest touch-football game in the ferocious history of Kennedy sports, with the man they were sworn to protect being assailed on all sides by members of his own family.

•

Many months later, one evening in the White House, he invited you to join him in a stroll around the Ellipse, and while passing the Washington Monument, he asked whether, as a young Marine on Guadalcanal, you had studied the sky over the Solomons. All you could remember was the Southern Cross. But as a skipper of PT boats, he had been skilled in celestial navigation; he could still reel off the constellations and how they moved through the night down under.

You remembered that talk on November 22, 1963. If you were sitting up with Jim Swindal, the pilot of Air Force One, hurtling homeward from Texas, you became aware that night was approaching rapidly. Less than 45 minutes after you had left Dallas, shadows began to thicken over eastern Arkansas. Outside, twilight turned to gloaming and became dusk.

You looked out upon the overarching sky and saw that the firmament was brilliant. Jupiter lay over the Carolinas, the Big Dipper beyond Chicago; Arcturus was setting redly over Arkansas. But the brightest light in the deep-blue canopy was Capella. Always a star of the first magnitude, it seemed especially vivid that night, and as Air Force One rocketed toward West Virginia, it rose majestically 1000 miles to the northeast, over Boston. Ever since, you have thought of Capella as Kennedy's star. It is brilliant, it is swift, it soars. Of course, to see it, you must lift your eyes. But he showed us how to do that.

'''Why do you think you can be President?' He stared for a moment, then gave a little lopsided grin.''