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Kennedy Versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race

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While there have been many books written about presidential campaigns, relatively few books have been written about important congressional campaigns. Thomas Whalen's "Kennedy versus Lodge" attempts to correct this bias by offering the reader a well-written, well-researched account of a truly historic US Senate race in Massachusetts between two of the most important political families in American history. Until 1952 the dominant political family in Massachusetts and New England was the Republican Lodge family, and they were far better-known and more distinguished than the Kennedys. The Lodges were descended from the original English, Puritan colonists who had settled Massachusetts in the 1600's, and they had made their millions in the nineteenth century while the Kennedys and other Irish Catholic immigrants to Boston were fighting just to survive. From the 1880's to the 1920's the family's most famous figure was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. A close friend of Theodore Roosevelt and one of the most powerful men in Congress, Lodge led the fight to keep the USA out of the League of Nations and became President Woodrow Wilson's most hated enemy. Lodge also looked down his nose at the "grubby" Irish Catholic immigrants who were beginning to outnumber the older Protestant English families (called "Yankees" or "Brahmins") who had dominated Massachusetts politics since the United States became an independent nation. In 1916 Lodge faced a stiff challenge for his Senate seat by John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the popular Irish Catholic Mayor of Boston, and who was John F. Kennedy's grandfather. Lodge narrowly defeated Fitzgerald, thus beginning a great rivalry between the two families. Fitzgerald's daughter, Rose, desperately wanted to avenge her father's defeat by the Lodges, and in 1952 she got her chance when her handsome and charming son, Congressman John F. Kennedy, ran against Lodge's grandson and namesake, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., for a Senate seat. Lodge was the dominant politician in New England and a national leader of Liberal Republicans (and there used to be lots of Liberal Republicans). Kennedy was originally seen as the underdog in the race, and Lodge had beaten some tough Irish Catholic politicians before. Lodge even advised JFK's tough father, Joe, to "save his money" and avoid the race. Of course, that only made the Kennedys even more determined to "get even" and defeat the Lodges once and for all. They poured a huge amount of money into the race, ran a slick advertising campaign, and John F. Kennedy himself repeatedly visited every town and village in Massachusetts. Lodge, however, was so confident of victory that he ignored his own race and spent most of 1952 helping to lead the fight to get the Republican presidential nomination for Dwight Eisenhower and defeat the conservative Republican candidate, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Eisenhower won the nomination, but Taft's angry supporters in Massachusetts vowed revenge against Lodge and defected to Kennedy's campaign. Lodge didn't get his own Senate campaign started until August 1952, and by then the Kennedy's campaign "machine" was running at full steam. In the end John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Lodge and "evened the score" for the Kennedys. As Whalen points out, this Senate campaign truly made history. If Kennedy hadn't beaten Lodge, he almost certainly would never have become President. And if Lodge had won, then he would have become one of the most powerful Republicans in America, and could have been the Republican presidential nominee in 1960 instead of Richard Nixon. And, of course, Kennedy's victory allowed his family to replace the Lodges as New England's most powerful and famous political dynasty. After their 1952 defeat, the Lodges never again elected a member of their family to political office, and today the family has "retired" from political life. Overall, this is a fine book about an important Senate race between two wealthy and prominent politicians whose careers would change American history, for better and for worse.

Here is an engaging account of a seminal election campaign, the results of which would reverberate through Massachusetts and national politics for decades to come.

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was the grandson of an early 20th Century political titan and Teddy Roosevelt confidant, and in 1952, an accomplished, three-term Senate incumbent in his own right. John F. Kennedy was the upstart Congressman with star power: the charismatic war hero with a natural electoral base in the Bay State's sizable Irish Catholic community and plenty of Daddy's money to bolster his campaign.

Thomas Whalen tells the story of the election that would catapult Kennedy into national prominence and put him on the road to the White House eight short years later. Whalen explores many reasons for Kennedy's victory, including his assiduous courting of the women's vote, adroit use of the new television medium, and the electorate's strong affinity for an "Irish Brahmin."

Another major factor, according to Whalen, was Lodge's role in helping to engineer the Republican nomination for Dwight Eisenhower at the Republican convention. Lodge, who served as Ike's campaign chairman, earned the eternal enmity of the Taft loyalists, who meted out their retribution by openly siding with his Democratic opponent in the 1952 Senate campaign. Kennedy's position as an avowed Cold Warrior helped to facilitate the flight of Republican conservatives such as the influential newspaper publisher Basil Brewster into the Kennedy camp. Even Ike's superb showing at the top of the ticket -- he won Massachusetts handily -- could not carry the day for Lodge, who would never again hold elective office.

Lodge's defeat would signal the beginning of the end of Yankee Republican primacy, and cement Democratic hegemony in the Bay State. After Ike, no Republican Presidential candidate would carry the state again until Reagan in 1984.

For the Kennedy clan, the victory was sweet revenge. JFK's maternal grandfather, the irrepressible "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, had failed in a bid for the elder Lodge's Senate seat in 1916.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in U.S. politics.

As historian Robert Dallek explains in his forward, this is Thomas Whalen's debut and this work reflects that fact. The writing is sometimes wooden and some quotes are added more to impress the reader, or other historians, that Mr. Whalen went to the effort to interview some of the remaining survivors from that election half a century ago. However, Mr. Whalen's analysis is thoughtful. JFK's 51.5 %-48.5 % victory over Henry Cabot Lodge was historic in many ways. If he had lost, Jack Kennedy's presidential ambitions would most likely been crushed and he may have decided on another line of work. A Lodge victory may well have propelled him to a showdown with Richard Nixon for the 1960 Republican presidential nomination (and this would be dependent on Lodge being re-elected for Senate in 1958, one of the greatest Democratic years in election history). A Lodge Republican presidential nomination in 1960 would certainly have delayed the GOP's rightward turn that was to follow and may have altered the GOP for a generation or more. Ironically, by losing to Kennedy, Lodge would become Vice-President Nixon's running mate in 1960. The author is pretty clear about the reasons for JFK's narrow victory. Joseph Kennedy's money was of great use in this era of comparatively cheaply run elections. The Kennedy campaign charmed women voters with tea parties held by the Kennedy women and door-to-door campaigning. Eunice and Ethel were especially energetic. Lodge did not begin his own campaign until September, spending most of the summer working for the nomination of Dwight Eisenhower as the Republican presidential standard-bearer. Interestingly, Lodge's efforts for Ike angered the conservative Republican Massachusetts newspaperman Basil Brewer, who supported Robert Taft for the GOP presidential nomination. Brewer owned the New Bedford Evening Standard and the Cape Cod Standard Times and he threw his support to JFK rather than Lodge in an act of political revenge. Kennedy mauled Lodge in Irish-Catholic areas where Lodge had performed well in the past. Lodge had won 40 % + in most Irish wards in his election victory in 1946 over David Walsh. JFK reduced Lodge's totals to around 20 % in those same Irish-American neighborhoods. Kennedy cut into Lodge's advantages in traditionally Yankee/Brahmin neighborhoods like Beacon Hill, Back Bay and Cape Cod due to his non-ethnic outlook. As JFK advisor and future Democratic National Committee chairman Lawrence O'Brien explained, "Kennedy represented a new generation, a new kind of Irish politician, one who was rich and respectable and could do battle with the Lodges and other Yankee politicians on their own terms." Kennedy also improved upon the Democratic vote amongst other ethnic groups and in economically stressed manufacturing towns like Lynn. Interestingly, neither JFK nor Ted Kennedy was able to save Massachusetts manufacturing from decline in the years to come. One weak point of the book is a lack of understanding of Massachusetts's changing demographics in the 20th Century. By the time of JFK's victory over Lodge, the Massachusetts Irish were growing in numbers and power and were confident that the future was theirs politically. On the other hand, with much smaller families than the Irish, the Yankees could see the handwriting on the wall by 1952 that they were doomed to lose their control over a land they had dominated since 1620. Emphasizing this point was the landslide defeat of George Cabot Lodge, Henry's son, to the lightly regarded (at least then) Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy in the 1962 Senate race. After the defeat of the last political Lodge in 1962, Yankees largely surrendered the political arena to the Irish and other Massachusetts ethnic groups. Many, and probably most, Yankees would change their political allegience to Democratic within a generation or two as the modern day Republican party moved to the right. Fifty years after the Kennedy-Lodge Senate race, the Massachusetts Yankees are a small bulwark in the Democratic predominance of the essentially one-party state of Massachusetts.

Whalen has written an excellent and well-researched book on the little-examined 1952 Senate race between Kennedy and Lodge. Kennedy's victory that year against a popular incumbent bucked the trend of Republican resurgence, when the GOP re-took the White House for the first time in 20 years and captured both houses of Congress. Whalen shows in depth how the victory was crafted - which demographic groups were targeted by the Kennedys and provided the margin of victory, how Lodge was hurt by the fact that he got a late start campaigning due to coordinating Eisenhower's presidential effort nationally, how a major part of Kennedy's support came from his appeal to women voters, boosted by the famous Kennedy "teas." Lodge's backing of Eisenhower also cost him the support of influential conservative Republicans, some of whom actively went over to the Kennedy camp. Ironically Eisenhower carried Massachussetts by a large margin while his campaign manager, Lodge, went down to defeat.

It all added up to a narrow victory for Kennedy but one which had enormous historical significance. Had Kennedy lost, his political career might have ended (it certainly would have been sidetracked) and history as we have lived it would have been a whole lot different.

"Kennedy versus Lodge" examines perhaps the most consequential Senate race in America in the past century, in which John F. Kennedy unseated incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge.

The book takes a look at the rivalry between the two political families, which extended back for decades, and tracks the paths that Kennedy and Lodge took to their 1952 clash. The courting of various voter blocs by the two candidates is recounted. In the fall campaign, JFK used the same strategies, such as effective use of television and making sure that his opponent did not get to his right on foreign policy, that he used to defeat Richard Nixon nationally in 1960.

This Senate race was a turning point in Massachusetts politics--an Irish Catholic Democrat defeated a Boston Brahmin Republican, portending Democratic dominance that continues to this day in the Bay State. The stakes involved in this contest could not have been higher; some believed that had Lodge beaten Kennedy, he would have been the one to succeed Eisenhower as president. Anyone interested in post-WWII American politics will enjoy this story of a Senate race that changed the course of mid-20th century American history.

Whalen's book is excellent. He did very good primary research into what was, indeed, one of the biggest might-have-been Senate elections of the 20th century involving two poltical superstars of presidential caliber. The book also provides very keen insight into the young JFK and his ties to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The McCarthy connection and JFK's strong Cold War anti-communism will be most "new" to current readers. In 1952 Massachusetts voted Republican for President and for Governor yet voted for a Democrat (Kennedy) by a wafer-thin margin. Whalen identifies that winning margin as the by-product of Kennedy's perception by voters as the more stridently hawkish and anti-communist of the two candidates.

His, and his family's, friendship with Senator Joseph McCarthy, back to McCarthy's rides on JFK's PT boat in the South Pacific, was a positive factor in delivering McCarthy supporters to JFK. In particular, this included Irish Catholics, the core of McCarthy's support, as well as the uncompromisingly conservative Republicans of the day. Kennedy was endorsed by the New Bedford Evening Standard and the Cape Cod Standard Times, owned by right-wing newspaperman Basil Brewer. While generally supportive of McCarthy's investigation into communist espionage in the Truman administration, the more liberal Lodge found fault with some of McCarthy's statements and behavior, angering many die-hard McCarthy supporters.

Whalen quotes some, though not all, of JFK's late 1940's and early '50s record on national security and communism ("a slave society of the worst sort") including his support for the Nixon-Mundt and McCarran acts and his statements faulting the Truman administration for "losing China". The Kennedys made extensive efforts to hide their past support for Joseph McCarthy and his intimate connections with their family to re-invent themselves for the 1960's as liberal heroes. Yet Whalen uncovers many of this ties as well as the similarity of attitudes about foreign policy, security, and the need to fight communism. This book shows how close Kennedy and McCarthy were in the early 1950's.

Another interesting feature of the 1952 Senate race, not uncommon in the past, was the general civility, lack of polarization, and even trust between the opposing candidates. Kennedy respected Henry Cabot Lodge, who would become prominent as U.S. ambasssador to the U.N. under Eisenhower. So much so that JFK appointed him ambasssador to South Vietnam, making him a key figure in the Kennedy policy on Southeast Asia. Lodge therefore became unique in being given a high-ranking job by both Kennedy and Nixon (as 1960 vice-presidential candidate).

Now forgotten because he was never president, Lodge remains one of the most interesting presidential might-have-beens. Lodge himself made a strong effort prior to the 1952 election to radically alter presidential elections by his proposed constitutional amendment that would have allocated presidential electors based on the proportion of the popular vote within each state, a proposal similar to one Colorado voters turned down a few years ago. This "proportional representation" plan was in response to the 1948 election in which no candidate secured a popular majority and the entire slate of electors of a state went to whom ever won the highest vote, even if not much over 40%. Had his amendment become law, Kennedy may not have won in 1960.

As historian Robert Dallek explains in his forward, this is Thomas Whalen's debut and this work reflects that fact. The writing is sometimes wooden and some quotes are added more to impress the reader, or other historians, that Mr. Whalen went to the effort to interview some of the remaining survivors from that election half a century ago. However, Mr. Whalen's analysis is thoughtful. JFK's 51.5 %-48.5 % victory over Henry Cabot Lodge was historic in many ways. If he had lost, Jack Kennedy's presidential ambitions would most likely been crushed and he may have decided on another line of work. A Lodge victory may well have propelled him to a showdown with Richard Nixon for the 1960 Republican presidential nomination (and this would be dependent on Lodge being re-elected for Senate in 1958, one of the greatest Democratic years in election history). A Lodge Republican presidential nomination in 1960 would certainly have delayed the GOP's rightward turn that was to follow and may have altered the GOP for a generation or more. Ironically, by losing to Kennedy, Lodge would become Vice-President Nixon's running mate in 1960. The author is pretty clear about the reasons for JFK's narrow victory. Joseph Kennedy's money was of great use in this era of comparatively cheaply run elections. The Kennedy campaign charmed women voters with tea parties held by the Kennedy women and door-to-door campaigning. Eunice and Ethel were especially energetic. Lodge did not begin his own campaign until September, spending most of the summer working for the nomination of Dwight Eisenhower as the Republican presidential standard-bearer. Interestingly, Lodge's efforts for Ike angered the conservative Republican Massachusetts newspaperman Basil Brewer, who supported Robert Taft for the GOP presidential nomination. Brewer owned the New Bedford Evening Standard and the Cape Cod Standard Times and he threw his support to JFK rather than Lodge in an act of political revenge. Kennedy mauled Lodge in Irish-Catholic areas where Lodge had performed well in the past. Lodge had won 40 % + in most Irish wards in his election victory in 1946 over David Walsh. JFK reduced Lodge's totals to around 20 % in those same Irish-American neighborhoods. Kennedy cut into Lodge's advantages in traditionally Yankee/Brahmin neighborhoods like Beacon Hill, Back Bay and Cape Cod due to his non-ethnic outlook. As JFK advisor and future Democratic National Committee chairman Lawrence O'Brien explained, "Kennedy represented a new generation, a new kind of Irish politician, one who was rich and respectable and could do battle with the Lodges and other Yankee politicians on their own terms." Kennedy also improved upon the Democratic vote amongst other ethnic groups and in economically stressed manufacturing towns like Lynn. Interestingly, neither JFK nor Ted Kennedy was able to save Massachusetts manufacturing from decline in the years to come. One weak point of the book is a lack of understanding of Massachusetts's changing demographics in the 20th Century. By the time of JFK's victory over Lodge, the Massachusetts Irish were growing in numbers and power and were confident that the future was theirs politically. On the other hand, with much smaller families than the Irish, the Yankees could see the handwriting on the wall by 1952 that they were doomed to lose their control over a land they had dominated since 1620. Emphasizing this point was the landslide defeat of George Cabot Lodge, Henry's son, to the lightly regarded (at least then) Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy in the 1962 Senate race. After the defeat of the last political Lodge in 1962, Yankees largely surrendered the political arena to the Irish and other Massachusetts ethnic groups. Many, and probably most, Yankees would change their political allegience to Democratic within a generation or two as the modern day Republican party moved to the right. Fifty years after the Kennedy-Lodge Senate race, the Massachusetts Yankees are a small bulwark in the Democratic predominance of the essentially one-party state of Massachusetts.

Thomas Whalen breaks new ground with his in depth analysis of the 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race. Whalen shows how Kennedy's defeat of Lodge was a precursor to the death of Modern Republicanism and the rise of the Goldwater Right. Lodge was the last eastern establishment politican who could have risen to the Presidency. In fact, as Mr. Whalen points out Ambassador Lodge later defeats Goldwater in the 1964 New Hampshire primary but was unable to complete the race due to his involvement in Viet Nam.

Mr. Whalen's writing is very narrative. It is the way history should be written; like a story. He weaves facts in with interesting perspectives of people who were there like Dave Powers or Charles Rabb.

This book shows that John Kennedy understood the power of television and women in the future of American politics. This campaign was the testing ground for the larger primary and national campaigns that he ran in 1960.

As a person who has read a considerable amount about the Kennedys' over the years, Mr. Whalen breaks new ground with a well researched and documented analysis.

This book is a must have for the Kennedy enthuasist or if you are like me, a Lodge enthuasist, it is time someone wrote a book about one of the most important figures in American history.