"... esteemed historians remain in its thrall and in Kennedy’s camp. Taylor Branch, Robert Dallek, David Greenberg, Jill Lepore, Fredrik Logevall — apologists and idolaters all, in the author’s view.... Nixon has always had his defenders (including, not least, Nixon himself) and Kennedy his detractors.... Gellman adds nothing here but fresh outrage.... But the white whale here is proof of a stolen election. This book does not provide it. The case it puts forward is circumstantial —
and nothing new. Much is made of 'suspicions' in Texas and 'irregularities' in Illinois as if such charges are, in themselves, dispositive. In the wake of 2020, we should know better than that. And so should a political historian of the mid-20th century: If fraud was a feature of elections in that era, so were accusations of fraud, wielded as a political cudgel. In 1948, for example, a top Republican official charged three Democratic candidates for Senate with 'serious' campaign fraud — more than a week before Election Day. Four years later, pre-emptively again, the Republican National Committee chairman called on federal prosecutors to keep tabs on big-city Democrats — who, he said, would 'stop at nothing' to 'steal' the election. None of this is to deny that Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago had a history of ballot manipulation or that votes were likely stolen in Texas. But in recent decades, rigorous studies have underscored what judges and review boards concluded in 1960: To the extent that fraud occurred, it was not enough to change the result — least of all in Texas, where Kennedy’s margin exceeded 46,000 votes."From "Did John F. Kennedy and the Democrats Steal the 1960 Election?" (NYT), a review of Irwin F. Gellman's book "CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY/Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960."
White is Theodore White, who wrote the incredibly influential book "The Making of the President 1960." They made a movie of it, which you can watch on YouTube in its entirety.
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42 comments:
It would have been nice to have some way to look into the possibility of election shenanigans, but that would be voter suppression. Having safeguards axiomatically makes it harder to vote, the same way that having a password makes it harder to login to your bank account, and yet, for their own bank accounts, people accept that there must be some level of security.
In an election there are trillions of dollars at stake, some election security is called for.
In 1968 when nixon was the republican nominee
Never once mentioned stolen election. Addressed the issues the american people were concerned about .
Though he was prepared for daley. Made sure lower
illinois results were withheld until daley reported.
4 or 5 In the morning when we new.
White left out this scene from his from his 1960 book
Where daley was confident and did manufacture enough votes. white reported that decades later. Nixon was future oriented. Trump is not.
I went to school in Chicago at the end of the first Mayor Daley's administrations. Every liberal/reformer Democrat (including me) knew as an article of faith that he stole votes. So it's funny to see that being downplayed by one of our political descendents.
I've read both of Gellman's previous Nixon books. From newly available archives, he has pulled out things that weren't known before. Since most historians really don't like Nixon and that's how they've written their histories, most of the new stuff puts him in a more positive light. He has been deliberately revisionist. The books seem honest and one sided, like a well-written lawyers brief.
To the extent that fraud occurred, it was not enough to change the result
So the results in Chicago in 1960 were “honest enough”? Bullshit.
These second derivative think pieces achieve an objective opposite of their intent- they provoke suspicion rather than provide conclusive evidence people have little reason to be suspicious.
The asymmetry of the accusations is also revealing. No mention of Al Gore or thousands of hours of Hillary supporters unsubstantiated claims, only a dismissal of genuine Republican accusations.
Meanwhile, while the inquiries into 2020 election irregularities in AZ, GA and WI have provided ample amounts of custody issues, multiple votes from single voters, the counting of ineligible votes, photo reproduced ballots, ineligible voters being counted, and in the case of Wisconsin criminal charges of election officials...yet the headlines consistently conclude 'without evidence' and no 'proof' of 'widespread' fraud.
Weasel words all...
As first stated, these stories serve to arouse suspicions rather than end them.
Don Carducci (Lazlo Toth, The Lazlo Letters, volume 1) wrote slightly needling letters from the stupid masses to various celebrities and printed them and the replies. The only two celebrities who came off well, treating Lazlo as an equal, were Nixon and Nguyen Cao Ky.
I don't know to what extent the author goes into the 1960 primary season. The Kennedy brothers foreign aid trip to West Virginia brought untold if temporary prosperity to that poor region (although Papa Joe Kennedy exerted some fiscal control by stating he didn't want to have to pay for a landslide).
The payback for all those bought West Virginia votes eventually manifested itself in Arizona, where a Kennedy promise of new technology into a moribund coal mining industry resulted in a horrendously water-wasteful coal slurry pipeline "demonstration" project. Fortunately,it ended up as the only one of it's kind.
I read Richard Nixon's book Six Crises. There, Nixon wrote that he did not contest the election, because he thought that John Kennedy did win the election.
Nixon pointed out that the Democrats won massively in the 1958 mid-term elections. The Republicans had governed for eight years, and the political pendulum was swinging back in the Democrats' favor.
Nixon expected to lose the 1960 Presidential election, and he was gratified that he came so close to an upset victory.
If you doubt me, then read the book for yourself.
This book does not provide it. The case it puts forward is circumstantial
Seems to me that Caro, in his LBJ biography, proved that Johnson stole Texas for Kennedy in 1960.
Seems to me that Caro, in his LBJ biography, proved that Johnson stole Texas for Kennedy in 1960.
I have not read Caro's book. Does anyone know if that is a fair reading? Caro is a good liberal Democrat who hates LBJ. It would be ironic if he provides evidence for a "pro-Nixon" case.
Seems to me that Caro, in his LBJ biography, proved that Johnson stole Texas for Kennedy in 1960.
LBJ seemed rather proud of it, too…
"Seems to me that Caro, in his LBJ biography, proved that Johnson stole Texas for Kennedy in 1960."
Here's the relevant text:
"No investigation was ever made of the 1960 results. The Republican petition, alleging “numerous and widespread frauds,” was brought before the three-man state canvassing board, whose members were Governor Price Daniel, Attorney General Will Wilson and the board’s chairman, Secretary of State Zollie Steakly—three of Johnson’s most active supporters in the campaign (Daniel and Wilson had been on the same ballot with him). Steakly said Texas law gave the Board no authority to investigate the returns, and hearings were simply delayed until after December 19, when the national Electoral College, using the totals furnished to them by the various states, the Texas total by the canvassing board, certified the overall vote. The truth of the Republican allegations was never examined in the depth necessary to ascertain their validity (as was also the case in Dick Daley’s Illinois, where the results were even closer and where widespread fraud was also alleged). The attention focused on fraud in the 1960 presidential campaign has during the intervening half century centered on Illinois, not Texas. The Republican allegations, not only about voting in the Valley but about the invalidating of ballots under the new state law, have never been examined in the depth necessary to ascertain their validity, much less to determine how many votes were affected if indeed the allegations were true. Nor have the many other factors—from demographic shifts in the state’s population to the scene in the Adolphus Hotel—ever been examined in the necessary depth. Today, the passage of time has made it difficult—impossible, really—to ascertain, in trying to assess the election results in Texas, the weight that should be assigned, in an equation that contains so many factors, to the vote from the “ethnic bloc.” Paul Kilday wrote of the 31,000-vote “reversal” in San Antonio, which of course included the 14,000-vote plurality the Kilday machine produced in that city’s West Side. It would be misleading to speak of a “reversal” in the Valley, since George Parr and his allies could simply produce whatever result they wanted there. But Parr had demonstrated before that when he became angry at what he construed to be an inadequate lack of allegiance by some public official, he would retaliate in the next election by throwing the Valley’s bloc vote to the official’s opponent. How he might have reacted had Lyndon Johnson not assisted with his court case can be today, long after his death, a matter only for speculation, since, so far as the author can determine, no historian or journalist raised the matter with him before his death. But the point is moot in any event: Johnson produced the legal help, and Parr produced the votes—the 21,000 plurality. Thirty-one thousand and 21,000—in an election that was decided by 46,000 votes, the weight of those votes could hardly have been a minor factor. Whatever the explanation for the results from the “ethnic bloc” in Texas, John Kennedy had selected Lyndon Johnson in part to take back Texas for the Democratic presidential ticket, and Johnson had done it."
Caro, Robert A.. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
But the white whale here is proof
There! Case CLOSED! The democrats controlled the governments in Illinois and Texas, and therefore were able to destroy any evidence... Therefore It Did NOT Happen
LONG LIVE BIG BROTHER!! LONG LIVE THE DEEP STATE!!!
I cannot access the article, but I'm guess the only thing missing in the NYT article was the overuse of the word 'debunked'. Just a guess. You can be sure they wanted to use it.
I can only say that the joke about Daley fixing the votes in Cook County, IL has been repeated so many times for so many years, that one has to realize it was a very real part of Chicago politics. And though Daley is long gone, the machine he built that spread to Springfield and back, grew and became so entwined in Illinois politics that it has virtually strangled the state today. Hence, knowing there's no correction available, and watching the Dem machine do as they please with other peoples money, the population of Illinois is fleeing. The state is hemorrhaging companies and productive people.
And those experts on elections can continue to harumph at the mention of Kennedy having an election stolen for him. They claim there's no proof. No. But there could have been had anyone actually tried to pull it apart at that time (much like 2020). I mean, it's not like Joe Kennedy ever arranged anything that wasn't crooked. He built his entire empire on being corrupt, crooked, and influential.
Let me just pull this out from Althouse's excerpt
Steakly said Texas law gave the Board no authority to investigate the returns, and hearings were simply delayed until after December 19, when the national Electoral College, using the totals furnished to them by the various states, the Texas total by the canvassing board, certified the overall vote. The truth of the Republican allegations was never examined in the depth necessary to ascertain their validity
When a play works, you stick with it until the other guy proves he can stop it.
A lot of liberals are experimenting with the red pill.
We all had delusions in our head
We all had our minds made up for us
We had to belive in something
So we did
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles. - Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morrisette
What a wise song for somebody so young to have written.
It's often instructive to discard what the pundits and politicians say about something and more instructive to watch carefully what they actually do or don't do. Elections are not hard, even in big countries - there's plenty of evidence for this, worldwide. Free and fair elections, that is. The more complicated, the more prone to exploitation, outside the lines. There's quite a bit of evidence for those types of countries too - looking at you, Venezuela. Over 40 years later, we are still arguing US Presidential election results. Isn't it interesting that so many other developed countries manage to elect their leaders with little fanfare and no rampant suspicions of fraud? Doesn't that suggest that our political leaders are uninterested in making the requisite changes? What are they doing and not doing?
What a gal…
You buy the album you learn…
Nixon lost and we got Spamalot…
Yeah, the same ol' left wing crap. Whenever the Left asserts something any sort of proof is adequate. When the Right asserts it, we must have documents or a videotape or its not true.
In both Chicago and Texas, the D's kept their polls open till they had the final vote tally in the rest of the state. Once they had a target to shoot at, they went to work in the Rio Grande valley and Chicago.
However, if you look back there wasn't much difference between Nixon and JFK. Nixon probably would've been better on foreign policy - he would've had Ike to advise him.
I didn't see the Caro post. I thought he showed LBJ stole the '48 Senate election too. Of course, LBJ was a scumbag, who'd go to one part of Texas and say he was in favor of XYZ, and then go to another part of Texas and say the opposite. He could get away with it, in the days before the internet.
"You buy the album you learn…"
I loved that album. "You Oughta Know". is kind of an interesting take by a victim of the show business pedophilia machine of how it looked from her point of view. Since her mind was not fully developed, she thought her victimizer viewed her as an actual peer lover.
Shorter NYT: "Dems cheated, but you can't prove it to a jury. Nyah, nyah, nyah."
Nixon lost and we got Spamalot…
No, Iman, we got Vietnam and a strategy (war of attrition) that guaranteed the war would go on for years with no chance for actually winning it.
Isn't it odd to think that Old Mayor Daley would have gone to the trouble of manufacturing bogus votes, but not enough of them to change the result? What a strange man!
In 1968 when nixon was the republican nominee Never once mentioned stolen election.
In 1960, Rogers who was Eisenhower's AG told Nixon that he had enough evidence to challenge the election result. Nixon declined because, in the midst of the Cold War, he thought the divisions would hurt the country. Nixon, mistakenly, thought that because he had not challenged to 1960 election, the Democrats would leave him alone in the Watergate thing, which was minor after all. He did not count on Mark Felt.
I didn't see the Caro post. I thought he showed LBJ stole the '48 Senate election too.
He also showed how the 1941 special senatorial election was was stolen from LBJ by "Pappy" O'Daniel, who I thought, before reading Caro's book, was a fictional character in a Coen Brothers' movie. LBJ also cheated in that election, but not by enough. He made the mistake of having "his" precincts report their results before his opponents. This enabled his opponent to know how many votes to manufacture. LBJ didn't repeat that mistake.
Nixon was another moderate Republican who kept thinking that if did favors for the Establishment, and "reached accross the aisle" they would like him. He wanted to be the Establishment, he wasn't a populist or a "rebel". He kept thinking the SCOTUS would save him during watergate, or that some of the "grand old men" of the US Senate would step in. Buchanan kept telling him to burn all the tapes that were NOT supoened, and Nixon wouldn't do it. I think it was Garment who advised him not to, and IRC it was Garment who recommended John Dean as his White house Consuel.
Just once I would like to see someone talk about election integrity (and stolen elections) as if it's not a fanciful thing that could happen.
Elections have been stolen throughout the world (otherwise why is the UN and former politicians like Jimmy Carter, called in to be "election monitors).
Are American elections stolen? There has been demonstrated evidence of it, but only in small elections and not national elections.
Is there a benefit to stealing an election? This is an obvious yes. There is untold power in our federal government, beyond simple financial motives.
Could national elections be altered under our election procedures (then and now)? Of course it could. A national election on its face would seem hard to change, but in reality our national elections are a series of local elections. All it takes is to swing the results in enough of them. The closer an election is, the easier it is.
Is there a penalty to stealing the election? It may seem contradictory, but the penalty for stealing a national election is even less than stealing a local election. There is more plausible deniability.
So you have the situation where there is no penalty, untold benefit, and possible avenues of cheating. We should be shocked there ISN'T cheating.
Note I don't reference any political party above. If cheating benefits only one party it would soon be used by both parties.
The "big lie" metaphor though for current and past elections is annoying. It's possible, it's probably even likely that it happened before, and could happen again.
The Alabama results were said to be ambiguous. It wasn't clear if the Democrat electors were pledged to Kennedy or uncommitted and playing a segregationist game. So whatever happened in Texas and Illinois, there were questions about whether more voters did want Kennedy.
Dirty tricks against Nixon were considered to be pranks and all in fun, because Gloomy Gus Nixon with his hangdog attitude was the perfect victim. You could have asked Dick Tuck about this if he were still alive. When Nixon tried dirty tricks of his own it got serious all of a sudden.
Here's something that still "rocks my world," as the saying goes (and trust me, I'm no lover of Nixon, though not a hater, either):
It was in a history class, from one of my least bright students, of all people. We had gone over Eisenhower's Vietnam policy, with an interesting detour to the Philippines' not dissimilar Communist insurgency challenge and how the US had successfully handled that, then gone on to Kennedy's more aggressive Vietnam strategy.
My student raised his hand and asked if Nixon would have stuck with Eisenhower's strategy in Vietnam. Unknowable (of course), but certainly most likely. Then he asked,
"So if Nixon had won, there wouldn't have been any Vietnam war?"
There was a silence of several seconds. I replied that was also unknowable,though there certainly would have been some sort of military conflict. (I was thinking, "and no Berlin crisis, and no Cuban missile crisis, but who knows?")
I can't help but think that the kid was right. I can't see Nixon supporting -- or at least allowing -- the coup against Diem the way Kennedy did or getting sucked into the Vietnam War the way Johnson did, but again, who knows?
Whenever someone mentions Kennedy-Nixon, it haunts me a bit.
thats an interesting question, it is said nixon wanted to intervene in dien bien phu on behalf of the French forces, but he likely would not have been fooled by the Buddhists sham kerfluffle,
The problem Nixon would have faced is that, pulling out would have meant he was "the first American president to lose a war", since Ho Chi Minh/Vo Nguyen Giap would have defeated the Diem government, or any government that had succeeded them (cf. Mao defeating Chiang in China). And defeat in Vietnam would have almost certainly meant a communist government in Laos and Cambodia.
Perhaps Nixon would have been willing to allow that to happen to avoid "a land war in Asia"--especially if U.S. involvement had been small enough that most Americans would not think of it as one of our wars, just someone else's that we were smart enough to avoid.
it was a minor brushfire then, and we only had a few advisors, it was the buddhist show that triggered the panic, Johnson had tried to stay out of the conflict for about 10 years,
Jagged Little Pill is one the 5 best albums made in the 1990s, and better than any album made since it was released. I still listen to my 25 year old CD of it in the truck whenever I am on a long drive.
I can't help but think that the kid was right. I can't see Nixon supporting -- or at least allowing -- the coup against Diem the way Kennedy did or getting sucked into the Vietnam War the way Johnson did, but again, who knows?
I agree that Nixon would likely not have made the mistake Kennedy made about Diem. Some of that was McNamara who kept Lansdale away from Diem. Maybe lansdale's strategy in the Philippines would have failed but Nixon was too experienced agree to that coup. Kennedy was lured into trouble by Maxwell Taylor who despised Eisenhower as weak.
Much is made of 'suspicions' in Texas and 'irregularities' in Illinois as if such charges are, in themselves, dispositive. In the wake of 2020, we should know better than that.
Should we really?
Why? Because we aren't allowed to ask questions anymore?
Thanks for the much needed laugh.
Caro reminds me of fictional Chief of Staff Leo McGary of the West Wing television serials.
I read The Making 60 as a schoolboy and was fascinated. Then The Selling for 68 and Boys on the Bus for 72. AFter that got the vote and followed things as they happened. Tried What It Takes for 88 but got bogged down. Tried one of the 00 books and same thing.
Chicago was fixed. And that was enough. And after Daley and the Mob delivered the win, Kennedy reneged. Which is why he ended up being assassinated. Kennedy is one of the three that we know about that were rigged. Hayes and Biden being the other two. Hayes they got away with by agreeing to end reconstruction and let the Southern states disenfranchise the ex-slaves. Kennedy got by with being charismatic and not rocking the boat, moving himself quite firmly to the center. Biden? They media thought they could bury that, but it looks like it is going to cost them the support of most of the country.
In my last three attempts to vote for president in Chicago, in the first I was told I was not on the right voting list even though I was registered and my name was in the signature book. The next time the vote scanning machine was jammed with paper and the guys said I needed to give them my ballot and they would scan it after it was unjammed. Of course the paper ballot shows who I voted for. I waited for an hour and no one unjammed it so I left. A lot of people there were pissed. Last time I really got to vote.
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