Theodore Sorensen in his book Kennedy describes JFK's response to Harry Truman's July 2, 1960 blast at JFK as unready for the Presidency. Truman had said "Senator, are you certain that you are quite ready for the country, or that the country is quite ready for you in the role of President?...[We need] a man with the greatest possible maturity and experience...May I urge you to be patient?" (Sorensen sees "or that the country is quite ready for you" as implicitly raising the matter of JFK's religion as well as his experience, though Truman always claimed his opposition to JFK's candidacy was rooted in suspicion of Kennedy's father, not his religion: "It's not the Pope I'm afraid of, it's the pop.") Anyway, according to Sorensen (Kennedy, Bantam Books edition [1966], p. 172):
"We flew on July 4 to New York for his own televised news conference. After dismissing Truman's other contentions ['Mr. Truman regards an open convention as one which studies all the candidates, reviews their records and then takes his advice.'] he demolishded the age argument with such force that his supporters were grateful to Truman for providing such a highly publicized occasion. He mentioned his eighteen years of service and expressed his willingness 'to let our party and nation be the judge of my experience and ability.' But, if 'fourteen years in major elective office is insufficient experience,' he said, 'that rules out all but three of the ten names put forward by Truman, all but a handful of American Presidents, and every President of the twentieth century--including Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman.' And if age, not experience, is the standard, he went on, then a maturity test excluding 'from positions of trust and command all those below the age of forty-four would have kept Jefferson from writing the Declaration of Independence, Washington from commanding the Continental Army, Madison from fathering the Constitution...and Christopher Columbus from even discovering America.' (He wisely struck out the one other name I had on this list, Jesus of Nazareth.)"
OK, it's hard for me to imagine any politician--let alone one as shrewd as JFK--not immediately seeing a red flag and cutting out the reference to Jesus. But let's say JFK is tired and leaves it in. At this time, his victory at the convention was likely, but not quite assured. (See
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/1f78cee90165d362 for a scenario by which he still could have been stopped at the convention.) Could the "Jesus" reference derail him, especially given that hostile newspapers would have headlines like JFK COMPARES SELF TO JESUS or KENNEDY SAYS HE'S MORE MATURE THAN JESUS?...
(As someone pointed out when I raised this question in soc.history.what-if some years ago, if the reference had been left in, the resulting controversy might at least have deterred John Lennon from making a somewhat comparable statement in 1966... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus)
"We flew on July 4 to New York for his own televised news conference. After dismissing Truman's other contentions ['Mr. Truman regards an open convention as one which studies all the candidates, reviews their records and then takes his advice.'] he demolishded the age argument with such force that his supporters were grateful to Truman for providing such a highly publicized occasion. He mentioned his eighteen years of service and expressed his willingness 'to let our party and nation be the judge of my experience and ability.' But, if 'fourteen years in major elective office is insufficient experience,' he said, 'that rules out all but three of the ten names put forward by Truman, all but a handful of American Presidents, and every President of the twentieth century--including Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman.' And if age, not experience, is the standard, he went on, then a maturity test excluding 'from positions of trust and command all those below the age of forty-four would have kept Jefferson from writing the Declaration of Independence, Washington from commanding the Continental Army, Madison from fathering the Constitution...and Christopher Columbus from even discovering America.' (He wisely struck out the one other name I had on this list, Jesus of Nazareth.)"
OK, it's hard for me to imagine any politician--let alone one as shrewd as JFK--not immediately seeing a red flag and cutting out the reference to Jesus. But let's say JFK is tired and leaves it in. At this time, his victory at the convention was likely, but not quite assured. (See
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/1f78cee90165d362 for a scenario by which he still could have been stopped at the convention.) Could the "Jesus" reference derail him, especially given that hostile newspapers would have headlines like JFK COMPARES SELF TO JESUS or KENNEDY SAYS HE'S MORE MATURE THAN JESUS?...
(As someone pointed out when I raised this question in soc.history.what-if some years ago, if the reference had been left in, the resulting controversy might at least have deterred John Lennon from making a somewhat comparable statement in 1966... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus)
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