Report of the County Chairman by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online

avowed position on the eve of the West Virginia primary.
    Even though our meeting was held during the days when American newspapers were reporting the likelihood of a 60-40 vote in favor of Humphrey, I argued that Kennedy would win the West Virginia primary by not less than 54 percent of the total vote. My contention was so surprising that two members of the group forced me to bet money on my belief, and after I had done so they asked, “How can you possibly believe that Kennedy will win?”
    I remember stopping and trying to reconstruct the reasons why I was so sure that the Massachusetts senator would win, and I recall saying, “I think so because to think any other way would be to admit defeat. And Jack Kennedy is not going to lose either the nomination or the election.”
    “You call that logical thinking?” Captain Heimark pressed.
    “I’m not even sure it should be called thinking, logical or not,” I replied. Then gradually the basis for my irrational position became clear to me and I said, “What I mean is this. I’m perfectly willing to agree that the people of West Virginia are bigoted, but I’ve worked in that state and I know they are not damned fools. In this primary they have no real option. It’s Kennedy against MisterNobody, and Kennedy has got to win because the people of West Virginia will not throw away their votes on a man like Senator Humphrey, who has no real chance.”
    “But if Kennedy were running against Lyndon Johnson in this primary, who would win?” Captain Heimark probed.
    For the first time in the primaries I said something that was slowly penetrating my consciousness: “Captain, if either Lyndon Johnson or Adlai Stevenson were contesting the West Virginia primary, they would probably win, and Jack Kennedy would have no chance for the 1960 nomination. But neither of these men had the guts to contest it, so Kennedy’s going to win, and he’ll go on to win the nomination, too.”
    Captain Heimark asked, “And you really think your man will win by 54 percent of the votes cast tomorrow?”
    “I suspect he’ll win by much more,” I said. “But I’m positive he’ll win by at least 54 percent.” When the votes were counted he had won by 60 percent, and any substantial chance of stopping him in Los Angeles had vanished, although as you will see shortly, I didn’t recognize this latter fact at the time.
    My next two guesses that night in Guatemala were not so good. As to the Republican nomination, I was forced by the debaters into betting that Nelson Rockefeller would be the choice. When pressed for my reasons I said, “It’s perfectly obvious to me that President Eisenhower doesn’t want Richard Nixon. You know that, so I must suspect that the general electorate knows it, too. I know that the professionals in the party turned Rockefeller down last Christmas, and I know they don’t want him now.But they’re not going to commit suicide and turn down a sure winner. Watch! At Chicago they’ll swallow their pride and nominate Rocky.”
    Lieutenant Meisenheimer would have none of this. He argued, “I think it was Boise Penrose of Pennsylvania who said, ‘If a real politician ever faces a choice between losing control of his party or losing a specific election, he never hesitates a moment. He’ll throw away the election and keep the party.’ The professionals will never accept Rockefeller, because he smells too much like Wendell Willkie. I’ve known some real Republicans who truly hated Roosevelt, but they hated Willkie a lot more, because all Roosevelt did was win elections, whereas Willkie won control of the party.”
    I countered by pointing out that friends had told me the same thing about the professionals in 1952: “They’ll never turn down Taft and take Eisenhower.” I pointed out that in the end they had been forced to do just that.
    Lieutenant Meisenheimer replied, “But General Eisenhower was in every respect a special case. Besides, Taft couldn’t have won.