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Kennedy Joseph 1888 - 1969 McCarthyism and the Kennedys. JFK's father, after reading a "Kennedy Profile" editorial in a Massachusetts newspaper, wants to know from the editor "just what does he consider the 'McCarthy issue' ... " and "what 'the senator's performance' was ‰Û_"
Typed Letter Signed "Joseph P. Kennedy," 1 page, 7.25" x 10.5". North Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida, March 28, 1958. To John G.W. Mahanna, County Editor, The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His personal stationery. Fine condition.


Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was running for reelection in 1958 and was considered a potential 1960 presidential candidate. His father writes, in full, "Thank you for the letter and I was interested in reading the 'Kennedy Profile'; however, I would like very much to have the editor who wrote the editorial tell me just what was 'the senator's performance on the McCarthy issue' and just what does he consider the 'McCarthy issue'. I have read and listened to a lot of loose talk about it; but let's find out what his conception of the 'McCarthy issue' is and what 'the senator's performance' was." Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had died just ten months earlier, on May 2, 1957.

From 1953-1956, Kennedy was a member of the Senate's Government Operations Committee which was chaired by Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin from 1953-1955. McCarthy used his position as chairman of the Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to launch investigations designed to document charges of Communists in government. He was censured by the Senate on December 2, 1954, for behavior that was "contrary to senatorial traditions." Joseph P. Kennedy supported McCarthy, a fellow Irish Catholic, through thick and thin. Recovering from his October 1954 spinal operation, Senator John F. Kennedy's position on censure was recorded as "not voting and not announced" for or against.

In the PBS American Experience episode, "The Kennedys," after the Narrator, referring to Congressman John F. Kennedy's 1952 race against Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, says "McCarthy was Irish and Catholic and had a big following in Boston, but he also had close ties to the Kennedys, so when the Republicans begged him to campaign for Lodge, he hesitated." Author William F. Buckley Jr., then comments, "Joe McCarthy said to me, 'If I were to do that, Cabot Lodge would definitely beat Jack Kennedy,' he said, 'but I would find it extremely difficult to do, because it would offend Jack, who's a very good friend of mine, and it would offend the old man [Joseph P. Kennedy] and the old man gave $5,000 to my own campaign."

On March 31, 1958, just three days after Joseph P. Kennedy wrote this letter, his son the Senator publically commented on a recent magazine article in which Eleanor Roosevelt had said that she had refused to support Sen. Kennedy in his quest for the 1956 Vice Presidential nomination because what she said had been his failure to come out against Senator McCarthy. According to a United Press article datelined Washington, March 31, JFK "disputed today the contention of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt that he had refused to take a stand on 'McCarthyism.' Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat, said that he repeatedly had said that the Senate censure of the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, had been 'reasonable and proper.'"

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