The Making of the President 1960. Theodore H. White.

The Making of the President 1960
Theodore H. White
New York: Pocket Books, Inc. 1961/62

Why read it? Gives insights into the personalities and strategies of the Presidential candidates in 1960. Also reveals the strains of undergoing the primaries. The first television debates. JFK's understanding of history as his context for moving forward. JFK's understanding of the nature of the Presidency. The problems with JFK's Catholicism and how he overcame those problems. The chronology of a Presidential campaign.

Quality of leadership under the pressure of great forces.

Great candidacies gather many people's ambitions.

Rockefeller felt that Eisenhower's administration moved from crisis to crisis. Rockefeller: never knew what kind of question was coming or the motives behind the question. Liked people and being relaxed.

The primaries drain candidates. Can't go all out in primary because the candidate may have to work with the opponent. Week after savage week without stop until the choice of an American President seemed to rest more on pure glands and physical vitality than on qualities of statesmanship, reason or eloquence.... Lunches, breakfasts, dinners, travel, speeches with no moment of privacy or thought.

Politics of exclusion vs. inclusion: give as many people as possible the opportunity to participate. People must sense a direction to what is being done.

Symingon: In the U.S., government is a partner. Kennedy's campaign used "shepherds" for each delegation: knew everything about each delegate. LBJ's response to question about becoming vice-president: power is where power goes. Rockefeller: people want clear, candid purpose. Nixon: At times, must tell people what they don't want to hear. The voters' past and experiences affect their motivation for voting for a candidate. RFK: you must strive to win and give no quarter.

Preparing for the TV debates--Kennedy: when they had finished, they had prepared fifteen pages of copy, boiling down to twelve or thirteen subject areas the relevant facts and possible questions and the issues they thought the correspondents on the panel, or Mr. Nixon, might raise. JFK: Necessary to fix in his mind, not the issues or understanding, but only the latest data.

TV debate: Nixon addressed Kennedy; Kennedy addressed the audience and the nation. Neither man could pause to indulge in the slow reflection and rumination, the slow questioning of alternative before decisions, that is the inner quality of leadership. TV debates gave people who watched a view of the candidates under stress. Nixon used "Incidentally" when he was going to jab JFK. Nixon did not seem to have a sense of history about his proposals. Consciously or unconsciously, therefore, in all his elegant quotations from Franklin and Jefferson, from Lincoln and Roosevelt, from Thoreau and Emerson, Kennedy sought to identify himself with this past...and out of this past he attempted to urge all Americans to move forward with him to a common future.

Democrats: government an instrument of action. Republicans: individual responsibility of every citizen.

JFK: "Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and other forces or moves them--this is the essence of leadership."

JFK: "In the world of the Presidency, giving an order does not end the matter.... Nothing gets done except by endless follow-up...coaxing, endless threatening and compelling." "But a President governing the United States can move events only if he can first persuade."

Nixon talked down to people.

JFK: "So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in." "I am not the Catholic candidate for President; I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens to be a Catholic."

A memorable review of a memorable moment in the history of the United States.