Jack Kennedy: The Illustrated Life of a President by Chuck Wills

Author:Chuck Wills
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Kennedy, Presidents, Presidents & Heads of State, Presidents - United States, General, United States, Pictorial works, Historical, John F, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780811868983
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Published: 2009-10-15T18:12:37+00:00

Jack chats with his sister Pat and brother-in-law Peter Lawford, a rising movie star, at a 1959 Los Angeles Press Club dinner. The senator’s ties to Hollywood boosted his national profile.

There were several other strong contenders for the Democratic VP spot, and ultimately Stevenson sought to solve his running-mate conundrum by throwing the choice to the delegates at the convention. There were several rounds of balloting. Kennedy was in the lead at one point. In the end, the vice-presidential nomination went to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kennedy was sanguine, telling his father “We did our best. I’ve had some fun, and I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

In November, Eisenhower and Nixon cruised easily into a second term, defeating Stevenson and Kefauver by more than 15 percent in the popular vote. It seemed Joe was justified in his belief that if Jack had been on the ticket, his record would be forever tarnished by a major defeat in a national contest.

Still, Kennedy’s run yielded some important dividends. He appeared before forty million TV viewers, and he did well, especially in his warm, off-the-cuff concession speech when he failed to clinch the VP nomination. He also won plaudits from convention delegates and viewers at home for his narration of The Pursuit of Happiness, a short movie about the history of the Democratic Party screened at the convention.

The Pursuit of Happiness was a slick Hollywood production, and Jack—always fascinated by Hollywood—now had a family connection to show business. In 1954, his sister Patricia married British-born actor Peter Lawford. Lawford was a key member of the hard-partying “Rat Pack,” which included Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and “the Chairman of the Board,” Frank Sinatra. It was Lawford who approached Jack about narrating the film—maybe as a quid pro quo for Joe Sr.’s rumored financial contribution to the production. Over the next few years, Jack’s association with this crew, combined with his youth, would give him an aura of hipness no other senator could match.

Shortly after the convention, Jack departed for a yacht cruise around the Mediterranean in the company of Torby Macdonald, his brother Teddy, and a bevy of European beauties. This escapade went on despite the fact that Jackie was eight months’ pregnant. On August 23, 1956, Jackie gave birth to a stillborn daughter who would have been named Arabella had she lived. Having already suffered a miscarriage in 1955, Jackie was profoundly distraught—so distraught that Bobby, who feared that Jack’s presence might only worsen matters, wired Jack that Jackie was merely “ill.” Even when he learned the truth, Jack seemed in no hurry to return home. It took a stern phone call from Jack’s friend and fellow senator George Smathers to get him back to the States and to Jackie’s bedside.

The episode precipitated a crisis in the couple’s relationship. For a time they separated, and each may have contemplated divorce. But a divorce would have doomed Jack’s presidential hopes completely. Slowly, the couple rebuilt their marriage. Jackie did much of the work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.