October Surprises: Kennedy vs. Nixon (1960)
In 1960, John F. Kennedy overcame what was then the political obstacle of his Catholicism when he won the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. His opponent was incumbent Vice-President Richard Nixon, who won his party's nomination with much less opposition.
Besides his religion, Kennedy also had youth and inexperience against him, though Nixon was less than five years older, so this negated this issue somewhat. To counter his lack of governing experience, Kennedy went on the attack. He charged that under incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower, the nation had fallen behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War, both militarily and economically. He said that there was a "missile gap" between the two nations, and that as president he would "get America moving again." The missile gap assertion was not true, but at the time the public did not know this, and the Eisenhower administration was keeping quiet after being caught spying on the Russians when U-2 pilot Gary Powers was captured after his plane was shot down over Russian soil.
Nixon promised voters that he would continue the "peace and prosperity" that Eisenhower had brought to the nation. He also argued that with the Cold War with the Soviets heating up, Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be trusted with the presidency.
Kennedy and Nixon both drew large and enthusiastic crowds throughout the campaign. In August 1960, most polls gave Nixon a slim lead over Kennedy, and many political pundits saw him as the favorite to win. But Nixon then ran into a streak of bad luck during the fall. First, in August, President Eisenhower held a televised press conference in which a reporter, Charles Mohr of Time, asked the President about Nixon's claims that he had been a valuable administration insider and adviser. Mohr asked Eisenhower if he could give an example of a major idea of Nixon's that he had heeded. Eisenhower flippantly responded, "If you give me a week, I might think of one." Both Eisenhower and Nixon later claimed that Ike was joking with the reporter, but the remark hurt Nixon. It undermined his claims of having greater decision-making experience than Kennedy. Democrats used Eisenhower's statement in a very effective television commercial.
At the Republican Convention, Nixon had pledged to campaign in all 50 states. But in August, Nixon injured his knee on a car door while campaigning in North Carolina. The knee became infected and Nixon had to cease campaigning for two weeks while the infection was injected with antibiotics. When he left Walter Reed Hospital, Nixon refused to abandon his pledge to visit every state. He wound up wasting valuable time visiting states that he had no chance to win, states with few electoral votes, or states that he was sure to win. He spent the vital weekend before the election campaigning in Alaska, which had only three electoral votes, while Kennedy campaigned in large states, such as New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Kennedy's running mate, Lyndon Johnson, vigorously campaigned for Kennedy and was instrumental in helping the Democrats to carry several Southern states, especially Johnson's home state of Texas. Nixon's running mate, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, was more of a liability to the ticket. He proved to be a lazy campaigner and made several mistakes that hurt Nixon. Among them was a pledge, not approved by Nixon, that Nixon would appoint and African-American to his cabinet. The remark was seen as pandering to African-Americans, and it also alienated many in the southern states.
The real October surprise came with the four Kennedy-Nixon debates, the first debates ever held between the two leading candidates and also the first held on television. They attracted enormous publicity. Nixon insisted on campaigning until just a few hours before the first debate started, even though he had not fully recovered from his hospital stay. On the television screen Nixon looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired. At times sweat was visible on his face. He refused to wear makeup for the first debate, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on the era's black-and-white TV screens. Nixon's appearance on television in the first debate was so bad that his mother called him immediately following the debate to ask if he was sick.
Conversely, Kennedy was rested and he paid a great deal of attention to how he looked on television. He prepared extensively for the debate beforehand. On the TV screen he appeared tanned, confident, and relaxed.
An estimated 70 million viewers watched the first debate. Some sources claim that people who watched the debate on television overwhelmingly believed Kennedy had won, while radio listeners (a smaller audience) thought Nixon was the winner. While this is not universally accepted, it is clear that after the first debate, opinion polls showed Kennedy pulled into a slight lead over Nixon. For the remaining three debates, Nixon learned from his mistake. He wore television makeup, and appeared more forceful than in his initial appearance. But viewership for the remaining debates dropped. Political observers at the time felt that Kennedy won the first debate, Nixon won the second and third, while the fourth debate was a draw.
Kennedy faced criticism from Protestants during the campaign about his belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. Some Protestants, especially Southern Baptists and Lutherans, said that having a Catholic in the White House would give undue influence to the Pope in the nation's affairs. The issue had not been put to bed during the primaries. It was so significant that Kennedy gave a speech to the nation's newspaper editors in which he criticized the prominence they gave to the issue over other topics ahead of other subjects such as foreign policy.He told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters - and the Church does not speak for me." He promised to respect the separation of church and state and not to allow Catholic officials to dictate public policy to him. He said that it was unfair for one-quarter of Americans to be relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Roman Catholic.
The candidates encountered an "October Surprise" when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march. Though King had previously been friendly with Nixon, the Republican candidate refused to become involved in the incident. Kennedy saw an opening to win African-American votes from the Republicans. He placed calls to local political authorities to get King released from jail, and he also called King's father and wife. King was released the following day, on October 27, 1963. As a result, King's father endorsed Kennedy, and Kennedy gained favorable publicity and support from the African-American community. On election day, Kennedy won the vote from the African-American demographic in most areas by wide margins.
Kennedy also took advantage of fears that Americans had about war with the Soviet Union. In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro had become an ally of the Soviet Union in 1960, heightening fears of communist aggression against the United States. Kennedy continued to criticize the Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower for the perceived "missile gap" between the United States and Soviet Union and played up voters' fears that the Soviets had developed a major advantage in the numbers of nuclear missiles. In an October 18 speech he told his audience that several senior military officers were critical of the Eisenhower Administration's defense spending policies.
As the campaign moved into the final two weeks, the race remained very close, though Kennedy had momentum on his side. President Eisenhower, who had sat out the campaign to that point, made a vigorous campaign tour for Nixon over the last 10 days before the election. Eisenhower's support gave Nixon a boost.
Just as in this year, the election of 1960 took place on November 8th. It was one of the most suspenseful elections in American history. As the early returns poured in, Kennedy opened a large lead in the popular and electoral votes, and appeared headed for victory. But as later returns came in from rural and suburban areas in the Midwest, the Rocky Mountain states and the Pacific Coast states, Nixon began to steadily close the gap. It was not until the afternoon of the next day that Nixon finally conceded the election, and Kennedy claimed his victory.
After the fact, many people believed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud, especially in Texas and in Illinois. If Nixon had carried both states, he would have won 270 electoral votes, one more than the 269 needed to win the election. Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results in both states, fearing that Lyndon Johnson in Texas and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in Illinois had been involved in rigging the election for Kennedy. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory in several states, especially in Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election stating that he would not contest the election. Republican National Chairman, Senator Thruston Ballard Morton of Kentucky, visited Nixon, who was on vacation in Key Biscayne, Florida, and urged him to reconsider. Morton did challenge the results in 11 states, keeping challenges in the courts into the summer of 1961. The only result of these challenges was the loss of Hawaii to Kennedy on a recount.
Kennedy won Illinois by less than 9,000 votes out of 4.75 million cast, or a margin of 0.2%. Nixon carried 92 of the state's 101 counties, and Kennedy's victory in Illinois came from the city of Chicago, where Mayor Richard J. Daley held back much of Chicago's vote until the late morning hours of November 9. Kennedy carried Cook County by the incredible margin of 450,000 votes, over 10% of Chicago's 1960 population of 3.55 million.
In Texas, Kennedy defeated Nixon by 46,000 votes. Republicans accused Johnson of voter fraud in counties along the Mexican border to give Kennedy the victory. Kennedy's defenders say that Kennedy's margin of 46,000 votes was too large for vote fraud to have been a factor. Some cases of voter fraud were proven in Texas. For example, Fannin County had only 4,895 registered voters, yet 6,138 votes were cast in that county, 75% of which were votes for Kennedy. In an Angelina County precinct, Kennedy received 187 votes to Nixon's 24, though there were only a total of 86 registered voters in the precinct. When Republicans demanded a statewide recount, they learned that the state Board of Elections, whose members were all Democrats, had already "certified" Kennedy as the official winner in Texas.
In Illinois, circuit judge, Thomas Kluczynski, a Daley supporter, (who would later be appointed a federal judge by Kennedy, at Daley's recommendation), threw out a federal lawsuit to contest the results. A special prosecutor assigned to the case brought charges against 650 people, but this did not result in any convictions. The Chicago Tribune (which routinely endorsed GOP presidential candidates, including Nixon in 1960, 1968 and 1972) wrote that "the election of November 8 was characterized by such gross and palpable fraud as to justify the conclusion that [Nixon] was deprived of victory." Whether or not this was the case will remain one of history's mysteries.