Johnson Chosen as Kennedy’s Running Mate

July 15, 1960: What seems obvious, if not inescapable, today was a shock at the convention. A Times editorial said: "Who would have dreamed before Thursday afternoon that Lyndon Johnson would be asked to be vice presidential candidate and would accept?" Times Political Editor Kyle Palmer called Johnson’s selection “unexpected but expedient.” James Reston of the New York Times said: "The story in Los Angeles -- this fabulous symbol of the new American empire beyond the Rockies -- is not really the rise of Sen. Kennedy. It is the story of the movement of history. It is the changing of the guard."

Adlai Stevenson’s Last Hurrah

Photograph by Otto / Los Angeles Times July 9, 1960: Agnes Meyer chats with Adlai Stevenson at a cocktail party in Pasadena.

It has always been difficult for me to consider Adlai Stevenson a serious candidate for president, and evidently American voters felt the same way. He half-heartedly sought the 1960 nomination after being defeated in 1952 and 1956, and clearly he was no match for marshaled forces of John F. Kennedy. Photograph by Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times  One of the key moments of the 1960 Democratic National Convention was a rousing speech for Stevenson by Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) urging delegates “Do not reject this man who made us all proud to be called Democrats, do not leave the prophet without honor in his own party.” Norman Mailer wrote in his Esquire magazine article: “One had not heard a speech like this since 1948 when Vito Marcantonio's voice, his harsh, shrill, bitter, street urchin's voice screeched through the loud-speakers at Yankee Stadium and lashed seventy thousand people into an uproar.”

The Protests

Photograph by R.L. Oliver / Los Angeles Times

Photographer R.L. Oliver wrote: “The Rev. Maurice A. Dawkins, minister of the People's Independent Church of Christ, started at midnight Sunday in a 24-hour vigil of prayer and fasting, advocating a liberal civil rights platform. In the rear are Freedom Marchers.” Interestingly enough, the photo evidently appeared in the earlier editions of The Times but wasn't published in the final, microfilmed version. On July 10, 1960, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a civil rights demonstration called the March on the Convention Movement for Freedom Now.  Activists marched from Shrine Auditorium to the Sports Arena and back to the auditorium, where Democratic officials addressed them. Many of the speakers were booed by the crowd despite pleas from Clarence Mitchell, an official of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People: "This is not the NAACP way. We do not boo our invited guests."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Photograph by Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times July 10, 1960: Eleanor Roosevelt refuses to ride in a limousine to a reception, preferring to walk half a mile with reporters.

The absence of former President Harry Truman underscored the Democrats’ break with the past and cast a warm light on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who attended the convention to support the faltering and ultimately doomed campaign of Adlai Stevenson. In speaking for Stevenson, Roosevelt questioned whether Kennedy’s Catholic faith might cost him votes and said he didn’t have the support of African Americans. Instead, she backed a Stevenson-Kennedy ticket.  In his Esquire magazine article, Norman Mailer said: There was Eleanor Roosevelt, fine, precise, hand-worked like ivory. Her voice was almost attractive as she explained in the firm, sad tones of the first lady in this small town why she could not admit Mr. Kennedy, who was no doubt a gentleman, into her political house. One had the impression of a lady who was finally becoming a woman, which is to say that she was just a little bitchy about it all; nice bitchy, charming, it had a touch of art to it, but it made one wonder if she were not now satisfying the last passion of them all, which was to become physically attractive, for she was better-looking than she had ever been as she spurned the possibilities of a young suitor.”

The Bosses

Los Angeles Times file photo July 13, 1960: Robert F. Kennedy puts the arm on New York Democratic leader Carmen DeSapio as New York Mayor Robert Wagner and Rep. Michael Prendergast (D-N.Y.) listen.

This is one of my favorite photos from the convention because it strips away all the smiling for the camera and shows the raw muscle of politics.  Look at Bobby Kennedy’s hand. He means business. Much was written during the convention and afterward about the new generation replacing the old in American politics. Here’s a sample:  Theodore White  in “The Making of the President 1960,” (Page 155): ”Even such currently active politicians as Carmine DeSapio and Mike Prendergast, leaders of New York’s huge but impotent delegation, seemed of an ineffectual age, dazed and somewhat bemused. They strolled through the lobby of the Biltmore on their first day almost hand in hand, as if afraid to be alone in this sunny city and alien mingling of strangers, then retired to lounge by the swimming pool of the Ambassador Hotel.” Norman Mailer in his 1960 Esquire magazine article: “Bobby Kennedy, the archetype Bobby Kennedy, looked like a West Point cadet, or, better, one of those reconstructed Irishmen from Kirkland House one always used to have to face in the line in Harvard house football games. "Hello," you would say to the ones who looked like him as you lined up for the scrimmage after the kickoff, and his type would nod and look away, one rock glint of recognition your due for living across the hall from one another all through Freshman year, and then bang, as the ball was passed back, you’d get a bony king-hell knee in the crotch. He was the kind of man never to put on the gloves with if you wanted to do some social boxing, because after two minutes it would be a war, and ego-bastards last long in a war. “Carmine DeSapio and Kenneth Galbraith on the same part of the convention floor. DeSapio is bigger than one expects, keen and florid, great big smoked glasses, a suntan like Man-tan -- he is the kind of heavyweight Italian who could get by with a name like Romeo -- and Galbraith is tall-tall, as actors say, six foot six it could be, terribly thin, enormously attentive, exquisitely polite, birdlike, he is sensitive to the stirring of reeds in a wind over the next hill. "Our grey eminence," whispered the intelligent observer next to me. “Bob Wagner, the mayor of New York, a little man, plump, groomed, blank. He had the blank, pomaded, slightly worried look of the first barber in a good barbershop, the kind who would go to the track on his day off and wear a green transparent stone in a gold ring.” More photos of the bosses on the jump.

Democrats Add Civil Rights to 1960 Platform

Photograph by Ray Graham / Los Angeles Times Alaska delegate Helen Fischer gives Hedda Hopper a “King Crab” hat. In case anybody wondered, Hopper made sure folks knew she was a Republican!

July 13, 1960: The Democrats announce their platform: Civil Rights -- "The time has come to assure equal access for all Americans to all areas of community life, including voting booths, schoolrooms, jobs, housing and public facilities." On the jump, Kyle Palmer says: "As viewed by representatives from 10 protesting Southern states, including most of those that supported Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956, the civil rights plank was a virtual repudiation of what to them is a far more important and basic issue -- state's rights.” And James Reston of the New York Times takes a satiric look at the Democrats’ keynote speech.

The Candidates

Los Angeles Times file photo

July 10, 1960: Sens. Stuart Symington, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy and former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson join hands at a Beverly Hills reception. This is one of only two group photos that I could find of the Democratic candidates in The Times archives and Sen. Hubert Humphrey is missing. In the second picture, taken on the last day of the convention, Stevenson is missing.  On the jump, more photos of the candidates.

At the Opening Gavel, Assurance and Doubt

"Kennedy Claims 761” means Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) says he has enough delegates to take the nomination on the first ballot, a crucial point in jockeying among the candidates.

July 12, 1960: Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) hammers on the themes of the economy, Communism and the Eisenhower administration in opening the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Ever the GOP stalwart, Times Political Editor Kyle Palmer used his column to rebuke the Democrats, saying: "There was nothing the young man said which could not with equal force be answered by defenders of the Republican record." Unfortunately, there’s a small gap on the microfilmed edition, so part of Palmer’s column is missing. At one point, he said:  “many newspapermen present, not easily stirred, wondered cynically if Republican keynoter, Rep. [Walter H.] Judd [R-Minn.], would do better or as well at Chicago a few days” [from now -- actually July 25 -- lrh].  In a noteworthy counterpoint, The Times also published an appraisal by James Reston of the New York Times, who said: "... despite all the booze that fortifies courage and the loudspeakers that magnify a false appearance of confidence, this convention is dealing with issues that compel doubt in every honest man from the lowliest delegate with his half-vote to Kennedy himself. Reston also says: "The most popular joke of the convention among Democrats is one of those glowering pictures of Nixon, with a caption reading: 'Would you buy a used car from this man?' "

Movieland Mystery Photo – Democratic National Convention Edition

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times Update: Paul Ziffren, Adlai Stevenson and Judy Garland at the Beverly Hilton, July 10, 1960. Photograph by Wayne F. Kelly / Los Angeles Times Update: Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington and Stella Stevens, July 12, 1960

Here’s a special Democratic National Convention edition of the mystery photos! You’re asking “Where’s Frank Sinatra? Where’s Marilyn Monroe? Where are Janet Leigh and Edward G. Robinson?” Good questions. This is what I found in the archives. The answer to this week’s mystery guest is Hampton Fancher III and Sue Lyon! Thanks to Dewey Webb for being this week’s mystery photo host!

The Young Politicos

Photograph by Ray Graham / Los Angeles Times  Kennedy girls, from left, Eleanor Dudley, Susan Reeves, Jeanne Lytle and Marilyn Raran with Democratic Party official John M. Bailey of Connecticut.

One thing that struck me in going through the photos of the 1960 Democratic National Convention is the emphasis on youth. It’s difficult, for example, to find any reference to the Young Democrats at the 1956 convention in Chicago. In a 1960 Esquire article on the convention, Norman Mailer said: “One of the private amusements of the convention was to divine some of the qualities of the candidates by the style of the young women who put on hats and clothing and politicked in the colors of one presidential gent or another. Of course, half of them must have been hired models, but someone did the hiring and so it was fair to look for a common denominator. “The Johnson girls tended to be plump, pie-faced, dumb sexy Southern; the Symingteeners seemed a touch mulish, stubborn, good-looking pluggers; the Kennedy ladies were the handsomest; healthy, attractive, tough, a little spoiled -- they looked like the kind of girls who had gotten all the dances in high school and/or worked for a year as an airline hostess before marrying well. But the Stevenson girls looked to be doing it for no money; they were good sorts, slightly horsy-faced, one had the impression they had played field hockey in college.” On the jump, photos from nearly all the candidates’ campaign workers. Curiously enough, there’s no photo of Sen. Hubert Humphrey’s supporters.

JFK Says 'No Pictures, Please'

July 11, 1960: In the photo above, Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) tells photographer Joe Kennedy “No pictures, please” while sitting with Vel Phillips on July 10, 1960. The photo was taken during a rally at Shrine Auditorium led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. urging a civil rights plank in the Democratic platform. This is probably the most interesting photo in the entire Times folder on the convention because it captures Kennedy when he assumed he was out of the political spotlight. I’ve been going through The Times photos of the Democratic National Convention and wondering why there weren’t more pictures of John F. Kennedy. Then, just for fun -- at least my idea of fun -- I counted them and realized he led all the other candidates, even though he only appears in about 21% of the pictures. To be more scientific, of the 98 photos and drawings in the folder for the 1960 convention, 21 show Kennedy; 9 show Sen. Stuart Symington; 7 show Adlai Stevenson; 6 show Sen. Lyndon Johnson and 5 show Sen. Hubert Humphrey. Naturally, some men appear together in a single photo, which must therefore be counted twice. One group photo, published July 11,  shows Symington, Johnson, Kennedy and Stevenson. Another, published July 16, shows Johnson, Kennedy, Symington and Humphrey, plus House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Rep. James Roosevelt.  There are no photos showing all five candidates. Many photos in the folder show the candidates' campaign headquarters; the Sports Arena; other dignitaries like Eleanor Roosevelt, California Gov. Pat Brown and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley; and random shots from the convention floor.  What does this mean? Well, according to a July 11, 1960, story, Kennedy preferred TV and radio interviews over print media. In fact, Theodore White touches on the issue of television coverage in "The Making of the President 1960."  "TV displays events, action, motion, arrival, departure; it cannot show thought, silence, mood or decision. And so the TV camera caught the carnival at the outer husk of the convention in all its pageantry and motion...." (Page 151-2) Fortunately, there are several video clips from the convention on YouTube. Part 1 (July 11-12, 1960) shows what appears to be one of the banquet rooms at the Biltmore Hotel, including some energetic campaign rhetoric by Johnson and what became Stevenson’s farewell to his presidential ambitions.  Part 2 (July 13-15, 1960) shows the Sports Arena and includes a segment of Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s nominating speech for Stevenson, which is often described as the high point of the entire convention. Here is audio of Kennedy’s acceptance speech, July 15, 1960, at the Memorial Coliseum, from the JFK library. Here are search results for material at the JFK library on the 1960 convention.

James Reston and the Changing of the Guard

A self-portrait of Times cartoonist Bruce Russell.

July 10, 1960: The 1960 Democratic National Convention marks an end to the era of political bosses, New York Times columnist James Reston says: "The lobby of the Biltmore Hotel is jammed at this moment with a mob of notorious political peacocks smoking cigars as big as ball bats, and pretending they are going to 'put Kennedy over' or stop him on Wednesday. "But most of these gentlemen are dead and don't know it. Kennedy did not come here yesterday to negotiate the nomination with them but merely to pick up the loving cup he won and negotiated by rushing all over the country weeks and even years ago." Author Theodore White will underscores this theme in "The Making of the President 1960," Page 154:  "In a matter of days another dominant note was struck by the mysterious process of common press observation. From the sounds and sights, from the hundreds of lost and milling faces in the Biltmore, the press distilled a swift truth that was a remarkably accurate historic assessment: that this was the convention where the young faced the old, this was -- in James Reston's felicitous phrase -- the assembly that witnessed the Changing of the Guard."