21-05-2014, 08:26 PM
Yes, working as a volunteer for JFK and meeting him twice
in that 1960 Wisconsin presidential campaign (in which my
mother, Marian McBride, vice chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party,
also worked) was a great experience for a kid and played a major role in establishing
my lifelong interest in politics (and in his assassination). I had a chance to talk with him briefly
on both occasions, once to answer a question he asked
about PROFILES IN COURAGE. My small part in that campaign
was to go door-to-door passing out reprints of John Hersey's glowing
New Yorker article about the PT-109 incident; I was helping build the
Kennedy legend with that article, which I later found out had
been commissioned by Joe Kennedy Sr. and was (as we know) rather romanticized.
I met Kennedy again in May 1962 when he
came to Milwaukee as president for a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. My father, Raymond E. McBride of the Milwaukee Journal, had a chance
to ask him a one-on-one question at the smaller reception beforehand. He
asked, "Do you ever worry about being assassinated?" Kennedy
did not seem fazed by the question. He replied that he couldn't
think about being assassinated, because it would be hard for him
to do his job if he did. The last time I saw JFK, I pulled back
a curtain behind the podium after the dinner was over and found myself
looking right at him as he passed. He smiled as I said
hello and turned to walk down a ramp and enter the limousine in
which he later was killed.
in that 1960 Wisconsin presidential campaign (in which my
mother, Marian McBride, vice chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party,
also worked) was a great experience for a kid and played a major role in establishing
my lifelong interest in politics (and in his assassination). I had a chance to talk with him briefly
on both occasions, once to answer a question he asked
about PROFILES IN COURAGE. My small part in that campaign
was to go door-to-door passing out reprints of John Hersey's glowing
New Yorker article about the PT-109 incident; I was helping build the
Kennedy legend with that article, which I later found out had
been commissioned by Joe Kennedy Sr. and was (as we know) rather romanticized.
I met Kennedy again in May 1962 when he
came to Milwaukee as president for a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. My father, Raymond E. McBride of the Milwaukee Journal, had a chance
to ask him a one-on-one question at the smaller reception beforehand. He
asked, "Do you ever worry about being assassinated?" Kennedy
did not seem fazed by the question. He replied that he couldn't
think about being assassinated, because it would be hard for him
to do his job if he did. The last time I saw JFK, I pulled back
a curtain behind the podium after the dinner was over and found myself
looking right at him as he passed. He smiled as I said
hello and turned to walk down a ramp and enter the limousine in
which he later was killed.