Description:

Kennedy Edward


Ted Kennedy Corresponds with Family Friend Richard R. Flood & Sends Him a Medal Blessed by the Pope

 

EDWARD M. “TED” KENNEDY, Typed Letters Signed, to Richard R. Flood, April 21-June 24, 1961. Four letters, three signed by Kennedy and one by his secretary. Two of the letters have envelopes with typed addresses and postmarked 4-cent stamps. Also includes a clipping from U.S. News & World Report, July 10, 1961, regarding Ted Kennedy’s antics at a party at Robert Kennedy’s home. 4 pp., 7.25" x 10.5".  One envelope opened at top edge, and the other opened with some damage to the verso; letters very good. A medal blessed by the Pope accompanies this fantastic archive.

 

Excerpts


“It is a pleasure for me to accept this invitation and I will plan on joining with you and our mutual friends immediately following the Immaculate Conception Communion Breakfast sponsored by the Clover Club at the Oakland Junior High School in Lowell.” (April 21, 1961)

 

“During my recent visit to Rome, I had the pleasure of meeting His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, and the privilege of receiving His blessing. I expressed my wish to share this honor with my friends and asked Him to bless the enclosed medal for you.” (June 10, 1961)

 

“I appreciate your kindness in arranging the luncheon at your home last Sunday and affording me the pleasure of getting together with this very fine group.”

[Postscript:] “Many thanks Dick. Apologies for tardy note.” (June 24, 1961)

 

Historical Background


Dick Flood was a close friend of the Kennedy family, having been Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.’s friend as a Harvard undergraduate and one of his roommates at Harvard Law School. He also worked actively on John F. Kennedy’s first Congressional campaign in 1946.

 

In 1958, Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy (1932-2009) had “managed” in name only his brother John’s reelection campaign for the U.S. Senate, which Kennedy won handily over Republican attorney Vincent J. Celeste, polling more than 73 percent of the vote. However, the younger Kennedy was beginning to learn some political lessons. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1959 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar that same year. In 1960, he managed his brother John’s presidential campaign in the western states.

 

When he was elected President, John F. Kennedy resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate but asked Massachusetts governor Foster Furcolo to appoint Kennedy family friend Benjamin A. Smith to the position to fill out Kennedy’s unexpired term. Doing so kept the seat “in the family” until Ted Kennedy reached the constitutionally required age of thirty for service in the U.S. Senate. In February 1961, Ted Kennedy began work as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, with a nominal $1 salary to build his credentials. He also took several overseas trips, characterized as fact-finding tours, to enhance his foreign policy credentials.

 

In these letters, Ted Kennedy and his secretary write to Flood on a variety of personal and political matters. He accepts an invitation from Flood to meet with friends after a Catholic communion breakfast, sends Flood a medal blessed by the Pope, and thanks Flood for a Sunday luncheon he organized. On June 1, Kennedy’s secretary, Mary Jane Duris, sends Flood a “biographical sketch and newspaper mat” he “asked for over the phone today,” perhaps in preparation for the luncheon later that month.

 

In September 1962, Ted Kennedy faced Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack Jr. in the Democratic primary and defeated him overwhelmingly with nearly 70 percent of the vote. In the general election in November, Kennedy defeated George Cabot Lodge with 55 percent of the vote. Lodge was the son of Henry Cabot Lodge, the incumbent whom John F. Kennedy had defeated for this Senate seat in 1952. Ted Kennedy went on to serve in the U.S. Senate until his death in 2009.

 

Richard R. Flood (1914-1969) was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College in 1939 and from its law school in 1946 as of 1942. Flood served as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II. He received a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School cum laude in 1947. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1948, he established a practice in Lowell, Massachusetts, and was a partner in the firm of Flood, Valentine, and Foisy until his death.

 

 


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