http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=74320

[accessed November 29, 2010]; "Sound Fiscal Policy Pledged by Kennedy," Richmond Times Dispatch, November 5, 1960; "Elsie Carper, "Virginians Wildly Hail Kennedy Raising Party's Hopes for State," Washington Post, November 5, 1960; David Bowers, conversation with Alvin Hudson, September 24, 2010. This interview was graciously submitted to the author by Bowers, who is the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia. Virginians voted for Nixon anyway. Virginia's Democratic National Committeeman, G. Fred Switzer, told reporters in January of 1960 that JFK would have a tough time in the Old Dominion: "[Virginians] side with the most conservative candidate, and I believe, generally speaking, Nixon is more conservative than Kennedy. Kennedy's too liberal, he's too pro-labor." See "Switzer Sees Nixon Over Kennedy in Va.," Washington Post, January 5, 1960.

38. Willard Edwards, "Ike Asks Election of Nixon," Chicago Daily Tribune, November 3, 1960; Gary A. Donaldson, The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 13940; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 293.

39. "Sen. Kennedy Stumped in 237 Cities, Vice President Nixon, 168," Washington Post and Times Herald, November 5, 1960; "ADA Joins Kennedy, Asks U.S. Accept World Court Rule," Boston Globe, March 27, 1960; "Excerpts from Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy (Dem. Mass.), Liberal Party Dinner, New York-September 14, 1960," John Bartlow Martin Papers, Box 75, Folder 2, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

40. Emmett P. Malloy to Kay Folger, September 1, 1960, R. Sargent Shriver Papers, Box 4, Series 1, "Washington Correspondence AugustSeptember 1960," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Lithuanian American Pamphlet, R. Sargent Shriver Papers, Box 3, Series 1, "Lithuanian American Committee for John F. Kennedy, 1960," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; "Demo Aspirant Hailed by King," New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 11, 1960.

41. "Speech of Senator John F. Kennedy Prepared for a Dinner Held by the Democratic National and State Committees, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, NY, October 12, 1960," John Bartlow Martin Papers, Box 75, Folder 3, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC; Donaldson, Modern Campaign, 120; "Matsu Complex," Stanley Karnow Papers, Box 59, "Taiwan, 195567," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Kennedy lined up the support of a number of prominent liberals before the convention began. In June 1960, "an open letter to American liberals ... in support of Senator John F. Kennedy" arrived in mailboxes across the country. Signatories included James Burns (political scientist), Henry Steele Commager (historian), J. Kenneth Galbraith (economist), Arthur Goldberg (attorney), Gilbert Harrison (publisher), Allan Nevins (historian), John Saltonstall (attorney), and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (historian). Some of these men later joined the Kennedy administration.

42. In all likelihood, the IBM report came out before the returns from Philadelphia and Connecticut were known. "At 7:15 ... the large television set in the corner of the room carried the news that CBS's IBM 7090 computer had projected a victory for Richard Nixon." Herbert S. Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 5758; Aide Kenny O'Donnell remembered that "The senator made his first appearance in Bobby's house, where all of us were gathered around the television screens and the telephones, around seven-thirty in the evening, when the early returns from the East were full of good news" (Kenneth P. O'Donnell, David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye": Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 251).

43. "Schedule, Senator John F. Kennedy, Monday, Nov. 7, and Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1960," Gerald Bruno Papers, Box 1, "1960 Campaign Election Day Arrangements 11/8/60," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Sorensen, Kennedy, 21112; O'Donnell, Powers, and McCarthy, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye," 25051; Parmet, JFK, 5758; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 294.

44. Sorensen, Kennedy, 212.

45. Legitimate, conflicting arguments can be made about whether Kennedy or Nixon won 1960's popular vote. Some analysts point to anomalies in the Deep South, where voters chose so-called free electors who were not obligated to vote for their party's candidates. Many of these electors eventually cast ballots for Virginia U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., a committed segregationist, instead of JFK. If we subtract the number of voters represented by each free elector, then Richard Nixon appears to have won the popular vote. See Brian J. Gaines, "Popular Myths About Popular Vote-Electoral College Splits," Political Science and Politics 34 (March 2001): 7075; Sean Trende, "Did JFK Lose the Popular Vote?" Real Clear Politics, October 19, 2012,

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/19/did_jfk_lose_the_popular_vote_115833.html

[accessed October 24, 2012]; and Gordon Tullock, "Nixon, Like Gore, Also Won Popular Vote, But Lost Election," Political Science and Politics 37 (January 2004): 12.

46. The Slate journalist David Greenberg believes that the vice president's refusal to contest the election was nothing more than a clever ruse: "[W]hile Nixon publicly pooh-poohed a challenge, his allies did dispute the results-aggressively." See David Greenberg, "Was Nixon Robbed?" Slate, October 16, 2000,

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2000/10/was_nixon_robbed.single.html

[accessed November 9, 2012].

47. Larry J. Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics (New York: Random House, 1996), 277; Guide to U.S. Elections, 789.

48. Peter Carlson, "Another Race to the Finish," Washington Post, November 17, 2000; David Greenberg, "Was Nixon Robbed?" Slate, October 16, 2000,

http://www.slate.com/id/91350/

[accessed September 7, 2011].

49. Edmund F. Kallina, "Was the 1960 Presidential Election Stolen? The Case of Illinois," Presidential Studies Quarterly 15 (Winter 1985): 11318.

50. Guide to U.S. Elections, 789; Larry J. Sabato, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country (New York: Walker, 2007), 146; Sabato and Simpson, Dirty Little Secrets, 277; Joseph Alsop to Ted Sorensen, November 10, 1960, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Box 17, "Nov.Dec. 1960," Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

4. THE TORCH IS PASSED.

1. "Walkin' Down to Washington," Gerald Bruno Papers, Box 1, "1960 Campaign Democratic Convention," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

2. "Inaugural Gala in Honor of the Inauguration of the Honorable John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Honorable Lyndon Baines Johnson, Thursday, January 19, 1961," Gerald Bruno Papers, Box 3, "1961 Inauguration Gala," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 243.

3. According to some scholars, the famous phrase may date back to JFK's days as a high school student at Choate, a posh Connecticut prep school, where the headmaster would periodically remind his students about what mattered most: "Not what Choate does for you, but what you can do for Choate." In 2011 a document surfaced at Choate that supports this notion. A notebook kept by the school's headmaster for his sermons included the following quotation, attributable to a Harvard dean: "The youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not 'What can she do for me?' but 'What can I do for her?' " Ted Sorensen indicated that Kennedy's inaugural statement was repeated from a televised speech JFK delivered on September 20, 1960: "We do not campaign stressing what our country is going to do for us as a people. We stress what we can do for the country, all of us." See Edward Wyatt, "Two Authors Ask About 'Ask Not,' " New York Times, May 10, 2005; Michael Melia, "Document May Shed Light on Origins of JFK Speech," Associated Press, November 3, 2011,

http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-03/news/30356106_1_sermons-choate-officials-thurston-clarke

[accessed November 8, 2011]; Sorensen, Kennedy, 241. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, "Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961)," Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia,

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3365

[accessed January 9, 2011].

4. Nathan Rott, " 'Ask Not ...': JFK's Words Still Inspire 50 Years Later," January 19, 2011, National Public Radio website,

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/133018777/jfks-inaugural-speech-still-inspires-50-years-later

[accessed February 11, 2011].

5. Telephone interview with Nancy Pelosi, May 26, 2011.

6. Matt Viser, "JFK's Words Echo Once More in Washington," Boston Globe, January 21, 2011.

7. Adam Frankel, "Author, Author," New Yorker, February 28, 2011,

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/02/28/110228ta_talk_frankel

[accessed March 9, 2011]; E. J. Dionne, "Kennedy's Inaugural Address Presents a Challenge Still," Washington Post, January 20, 2011.

8. James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 28; E. H. Foley, "Inaugural Committee, 1961, Final Report of the Chairman," Gerald Bruno Papers, Box 3, "1961 Inauguration Committee Report," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Frances Wilson, review of Mistresses: A History of the Other Woman, by Elizabeth Abbott, London Daily Telegraph, December 12, 2010,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8188789/Mistresses-A-History-of-the-Other-Woman-by-Elizabeth-Abbott-review.html

[accessed December 24, 2010]; "Oral History Interview with Joseph W. Alsop, June 18, 1964," Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Box 183, Folder 7, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC; Thomas C. Reeves, A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy (New York: Free Press, 1991), 236.

9. During his first dinner at the executive mansion, Joseph Alsop learned from Mrs. Kennedy that there were "twenty 'calligraphers' working away in the White House basement, to produce place cards, menus and everything else in the White House in [a] copper plate style." In addition, Mrs. Kennedy asked Alsop to find out if the White House could buy the "noncommercial crus" that California wine growers produced for their own consumption. According to Alsop, these were the "best" California wines-unpasteurized, mature, and bursting with "the true taste of the soil." Joseph Alsop, "Dear Ann," January 23, 1961, and Alsop to Betty Flood, January 31, 1961, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Box 17, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC. In later years, Alsop recalled that the Kennedys "always gave you too much to drink. They had the best wine I'd ever had in any house in Washington, including the French embassy ... We'd start off with this perfectly wonderful white burgundy ... And then along comes superb claret and then that champagne that he was so fond of that I always thought was overrated." Alsop added that the Kennedys themselves never drank much. Joseph Alsop Oral History Interview, June 26, 1964, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Box 183, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

10. Some organizations still sponsor Confederate commemorations that do not acknowledge the sickness of slavery. In December 2010, the Sons of Confederate Veterans sponsored a "Secession Ball" in Charleston, South Carolina, that promised participants a "joyous night of music, dancing, food, and drink." In 2011, the same group celebrated Jefferson Davis's inauguration in Montgomery, Alabama. See Rick Hampson, "Across the South, the Civil War Is an Enduring Conflict," USA Today, February 17, 2011.

11. "JanuaryFebruary 1961 Democratic Digest, Special Inaugural Issue, Vol. 8, No. 1," Gilbert A. Harrison Papers, Box 8, "Inauguration 1961 (Nancy Blaine Harrison 196062)," Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

12. The civil rights movement was more than just a by-product of Brown v. Board of Education. Twentieth-century urbanization also played a key role. In 1870, 90 percent of the nation's blacks lived in the South and worked on farms. By 1940, only 77 percent still lived in the South. "By 1960 only half the black population lived in rural areas; less than one in ten still worked on a farm." Thomas C. Holt, African-American History in The New American History Series: A Publication of the American Historical Association (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 15.