The Irish Brotherhood by Helen O'Donnell

Author:Helen O'Donnell [O’Donnell, Helen; O’Donnell, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619025080
Publisher: Counterpoint

CHAPTER 13

Going Nationwide

WHEN STEVE SMITH, in late April of 1959, moved down from his beloved New York City and opened the Kennedy campaign offices at the historic Esso Building in downtown Washington, DC, there was no fancy signage indicating the site of Kennedy headquarters. There was only a simple sign on the door that read STEPHEN E. SMITH. For Kenny, the move was welcome news. It was the first official step in the launch of this important phase of Jack Kennedy’s political journey and, by extension, his own.

Kenny would come to consider Pierre Salinger, who would the handle press, almost as a younger brother. Salinger had been working at the McClellan Committee and had made himself memorable from his first meeting with Bobby. Bobby and Ethel invited Pierre to dinner one evening at their home in Hickory Hill. At that time, neither Ethel nor Bobby drank. “No problem,” Pierre assured them good-naturedly. Then he opened his briefcase to reveal stowed away, in case of such emergencies, a lovely bottle of red wine. When Kenny heard the story he roared with laughter. Pierre was his kind of fellow.

While Pierre’s loyalty would prove to be absolute, he was not without his issues. Kenny recalled, “The problem with Pierre was twofold: Like all of us, he was quite young and inexperienced on a national level. He also completely lacked national press contacts. Right from the beginning he made a good many crucial mistakes that were fortunately caught by Senator Kennedy in time. It was a difficult period for Pierre.”

Often, Kenny feared that Pierre would not make the grade in these early days, so he did what he could with his own contacts to help. While Pierre’s start was rocky, he managed to find his sea legs as the organization took shape.

The next step was to bring in the office staff, led by Justine O’Donnell, a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty with a sharp wit, a keen intelligence, and a work ethic that made her invaluable to the Kennedy operation. The remaining women included a brilliant political operator from Massachusetts by the name of Helen Keyes, whose father had been a dentist for the Kennedy family. Beyond Helen, there was also Helen Lempart, Kenny’s pal from Haverhill; Pauline Fluet, who would later work for Kenny at the White House, then go on to work for Steve Smith running the Kennedy family office in New York; and Jean Lewis, who came over from Jack’s Senate office.

These “girls,” as Kenny and Jack called them, were in many ways the Kennedy organization’s backbone. Kenny said, “They were fearless, savvy, tough, smart as hell, very, very sharp, and could outwork anyone. So they were brought in to begin working on the infrastructure of the campaign. They were our secret weapon. Our first step was to put these girls to work on the card system, the same system first implemented so successfully in the ’52 campaign, used again, updated in ’58, and now would be used for the primary on a state-by-state basis.

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