junior member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1950, at the age of thirty-five, Nixon was a “national figure,” and again experienced victory in his race for senator.4 After only a year and a half as Senator, he was selected by the Republican National Convention as vice presidential running mate to Eisenhower, and.served two terms as Vice President. In the election of 1960, many Democratic leaders entered the race for their party, because of increased majorities in the Senate (64 Democratic seats to 32 Republican seats) and House (283 Democratic seats to 153 Republican seats). However, “John F. Kennedy’s impressive performance and reelection as Senator of Massachusetts in 1958, made him the Democratic front-runner.” 5 Other Democratic candidates were Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Senator Stewart Symington of Missouri, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, and Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy had faced obstacles in challenging his opponents, all of who were more powerful than he, and had “longer, more distinguished political careers.”6 Another factor against Kennedy was his Roman Catholic background, but his “primary victory in overwhelmingly Protestant West Virginia helped to rebut the claim that a Catholic could not win.” 7 Only once had a Catholic ever been nominated, Governor Al Smith of New York, in 1928, but Smith was easily defeated. Kennedy’s response to questions about his religion was, “Nobody asked if I was Catholic when I joined the United States Navy…Nobody asked my brother if he was Catholic or Protestant before he climbed into an American bomber to fly his last mission.” Although proud of his religion, he would not be influenced by Catholic doctrine in his decisions as president. 8 “On the Republican ballot was Richard Milhouse Nixon, vice president to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nelson Rockefelle...
